All the Things You Are

by Declan Hughes

  ‘You knew the truth?’

  ‘Claire had an envelope with her details in it, adoption forms and so on. The Taylors had given it to her, so any time she felt ready, she could find out who her parents were. She kept it among her things. And one night when she had gone out with Dee St Clair, I found it, didn’t even have to steam it open, there was a ribbon like on a notarized document, but no wax seal or anything. So I opened it, and there it was, a copy of her birth certificate, Claire Mary Bradberry, born January eighteenth, 1973, to William and Agnes Bradberry, Schofield Street, Madison, Wisconsin.’

  ‘Oh, man.’

  ‘And it was, like, one thing on top of another, you know: I couldn’t let Claire know I’d had a hand in the fire that killed her family, I couldn’t let Claire find out who her real family was from this malicious asshole, and I couldn’t let the cops know about my involvement in the Bradberry fire. Over the years, I thought of hiring, like, a private investigator to look into it, only, I don’t know, if I were a PI and I located the guy who started the Bradberry fire, I’d consider that a higher value scalp, I’d turn me in. I didn’t trust anyone not to spill the beans.’

  ‘And what about the guys? Surely you figured it must have been one of them?’

  ‘Logically, that’s how it looked. But here’s the thing: it wasn’t Dave Ricks, no way, Dave and me were the tightest. And Ralph is just such a solid guy, not an ounce of bad in him. And Gene, well, Gene, up until the Jonathan Glatt thing, I’d’ve thought it impossible, the very idea of anonymous letters, of blackmail, if Gene Peterson was going to do anything, he’d come round your house and shout through your window, you know, straight as an arrow, Gene. Or so I would have said. I mentioned it to each of them, obliquely, mind you, not the blackmail, just, if they thought anyone else knew about it. Each of them swore he’d never told a soul. And I didn’t want them to know the truth about Claire, so I didn’t take it further.’

  ‘And the bank have foreclosed on the house? Jesus, Danny, the family home? Didn’t your grandfather build it?’

  Tears brim in Danny’s eyes, booze the forcing agent but the emotion no less heartfelt for that.

  ‘It’s terrible. And hiding it has been worse: it’s three months now since the court ordered it. Technically there’s one month to go before the auction, one month to turn it around. But maybe … maybe I don’t want to … maybe living there all this time hasn’t been a good idea either. Maybe not everything in the garden is what it should be. But it’s not as if I had a lot of time to make up my mind, it seemed to happen so fast. The return from the investment with Glatt was servicing the mortgage, and then the money from Glatt was gone, and suddenly I had a mortgage I couldn’t pay because I was hemorrhaging five grand a month to this blackmailing motherfucker who was trying to destroy my life and succeeding. And … and I both did it, intentionally, and let it happen, unconsciously, because … because my wife is not … because not everything in the garden is …’

  ‘Rosy. Something about Chicago, and faithless wives, and Facebook, and an ex-boyfriend were all parts of your highway rant. And the clearing out of the house and the bolting with the kids is part of that? Along with all the financial shenanigans? To punish Claire? Or to protect her? Or some fucked-up combination of both?’

  Danny grimaces, then laughs, a dark, self-loathing laugh.

  ‘Some fucked-up combination of both is about right. But also, to find out who’s behind this. When it comes down to it, it can only be Ralph, or Dave, or Gene. And here’s the thing. Last Sunday, the night of the barbecue—’

  Danny stops talking because Jeff has held up his hand and pointed to the TV screen to their right, one of several dotted around the restaurant. Danny looks up at the screen. The sound is down, but the images tell their own story: helicopter and angle shots of his own backyard on Arboretum Avenue, secured as a crime scene with police tape and a white paper tent and figures in protective clothing pacing about. There are uniformed officers and police cruisers and a shot of the Madison Police Department Western District station house on McKenna Boulevard. There are shots of a body being wheeled past on a gurney and loaded into a Dane County Medical Examiner’s vehicle.

  There’s a photograph of Ralph Cowley taken in high school, or it could be Dave Ricks, those guys had always looked alike, but it’s got to be Ralph, since it was Ralph who came to the house. Ralph, the Angel of Death, with his novel, his book of revelations. There’s a photograph of Mr Smith, and a photograph of Danny, the one where he was in a tuxedo dancing with Claire in The Way of the World. Before Danny can process it all, the question flashes through his mind: why is a murderer on the run nine times out of ten photographed in a tuxedo? Do murderers on the run take care never to be photographed after their prom night?

  ‘Time to go, Dan,’ Jeff says.

  Jeff throws a couple of fifties on the restaurant table and nods his head in the direction of the parking lot.

  ‘I think we need to hit the road, round up what’s left of your old friends and ask them a few questions.’

  Marry the Man Today

  ‘There’s no way you can just leave the kids behind,’ Angelique says, wiping her lips and cheeks with a tissue and reaching for the flask of iced camomile tea she has brought and letting it sluice around inside her mouth before she swallows it. She perches on the car seat beside Charlie T and gives him the perky Angelique smile that brooks no argument and retrieves her gum from the clasp of her purse and, with the aid of a hand mirror, starts to repair the make-up she’s smeared.

  ‘I mean, you have to think this through. It stands to you that you won’t kill children, or physically harm them. But what about the psychological consequences of leaving them with the body of their dead aunt in the house? Know what I mean?’

  Charlie T closes his eyes so she can’t see him roll them in despair. How had this happened? They had always had an understanding that his work was not up for discussion. She knew she was the only woman he had ever told about it, and had respected a) the necessary secrecy, and b) the facts of what he actually did. Or so he thought. But as soon as she got wind of the fact that there were kids involved in this job, she was like a dog with a bone. He reaches for his Miraculous Medal – O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee – then remembers he has lost it. Hopes that’s not a bad omen, he’s never killed anyone without it.

  The Angelique thing was his own fault. First of all, he had brought her along on yet another job. Not that he thought there was going to be any work done today, just a reconnaissance trip to Cambridge, Wisconsin, but then the call had come through and he had to stop off for this job. And he’d tried to get her to go on home, insisted, but to no avail. He didn’t know what it was, this girl, she could always get her way. And fair play, she had dealt with the dog beyond in Madison, so it was hard to argue her down.

  In any case, he had talked himself up, the big man who wouldn’t take any shit from the boss, the hardened killer with principles, how a man should know where to draw the line and how he drew the line at harming kids.

  He should have known better. ‘Kids’ was like a trigger word for Angelique. Professionally, she may have dealt with geriatrics, and not always in a way that was medically approved, but on her own time, kids were the answer. In whatever context it came up, on TV or whatever, trafficked kids, kids in daycare, gifted kids, kids kids kids: Angelique knew all there was to know. Her hunger for a child was fierce and unabashed, and it sometimes seems as if she believed the more expertise she amassed on the topic the greater the likelihood of her acquiring one of her own would be.

  The car was parked in the woods on the Rockford side of the Clock Tower Square Resort, concealed from the scrub road by a stand of shabby old pines by a deserted caravan park. It was the perfect vantage point: he could see all the cars, including the target’s red Mustang, and the exits from the Best Western, Ruby Tuesday’s and the water resort, although he doubted very much if the mark had popped in for a swim or a ride on the w
ater chute. Charlie T had his Barrett M82A1 along, as he always did. When Mr Wilson had asked him, starting out, what kind of SASR (semi-automatic scoped rifle) he’d feel comfortable with, he didn’t have to give it too much thought. He’d never shot anyone in Ireland with the M82, but he’d practiced with it many’s the time: it was the IRA sniper’s rifle of choice, and as such, it would do Charlie T nicely. He’d assembled it and chambered the .50 mm Browning MG cartridge, and was watching and waiting and wishing a) he hadn’t brought Angelique along, and b) that, at least occasionally, she would stop talking, or rather, telling him what to do.

  When b) finally occurred, he nearly wished it hadn’t, because he needed to keep his wits about him, but fuck it, he’d be a long time dead, and last time he’d checked, there was nothing said about blow-jobs in heaven, although you’d have to wonder about the meaning of the word ‘heaven’ if the best things in life weren’t available. Quite aside from the fact that, as the entrance requirements were currently constituted, Charlie T wasn’t headed heavenwards any time soon, so get it here, and get it now.

  Angelique starts in about the kids mere seconds afterwards. His heart rate has barely slowed, and here she goes again.

  ‘I don’t think we can inflict that on them, Charlie.’

  ‘Sorry, but where did this “we” come from, exactly? I agreed that you could come on the trip because it was your day off and you wanted to see the craft shops and galleries in Cambridge. I drop you off, I go to work, I pick you up: that was the deal.’

  ‘The deal. The deal has already changed, hasn’t it, now that we’re sitting in a car with a sub-machine gun—’

  ‘It’s not a sub-machine gun, it’s a semi-automatic—’

  ‘Yeah, whatever. Don’t talk to me like I’m the child. You brought up the ethical dimension. You told your boss where you draw the line. Don’t set yourself up and fail to deliver. That,’ she says, baring her teeth in a cheerfully lewd grin, ‘is not the Charlie T we know and love.’

  Charlie grins back in spite of himself, at her flashing green eyes and her red hair in an up-do and her white pancake face – like a real Irish girl, she is, only you never see Irish girls like that in Ireland. You only see them in America, the same way Charlie always feels Irish-Americans are actually more Irish than Irish people are, or at least a lot of the regulars at the Dark Rosaleen are, with their diddley-eye music and their ‘did you miss mass?’ Although maybe the clientele at an Irish pub in Chicago are a whatdoyoucallit, a self-selecting sample. Anyway, Angelique McCarthy is the one, isn’t she? He can’t seem to resist her. He’ll be up the aisle before he knows it, or on the steps of City Hall at any rate. He buttons his pants and reaches for the M82, just so he knows it’s there. Angelique, you’re a darling. If only you wouldn’t talk quite so much. Say something before she starts up again.

  ‘You know the trip to Cambridge is a recce as much as anything else, we don’t even have an address for the woman. And if it happens that we get it, there’s scoping out the location, the neighbors and so on, it’s extremely unlikely anything will happen today. So the whole thing is a bit hypothetical.’

  ‘But that’s exactly when you should be thinking about it, before reality lands in on top of you in the shape of two wailing kids. I mean, what—’

  ‘Jesus Christ Almighty, Angelique, do you think I’ve never done this before? Had to separate children from adults? Had to engineer a situation where the kids are confined somewhere, safe and secure, while the work is done? It’s not always easy, and it’s far from ideal, but it’s what you do, even if you have to tie them up. I’d rather not let it get to that, upsetting for everyone, but your timeframe is not infinite, and sometimes you’ve got to. And then, as soon as you’re clear, you alert the authorities, and they go in and release the kids.’

  Angelique lets a hiss of air out loudly through her teeth.

  ‘Oh, Charlie. That is neither acceptable nor appropriate.’

  ‘Neither what nor what?’

  ‘You need … you need me with.’

  ‘I have you with.’

  ‘I mean, to look after the kids.’

  Angelique reaches around and takes the photographs from a brown leather satchel Charlie’s left on the back seat. She looks at the shot of the girls beneath the apple trees.

  ‘Barbara and Irene. Aw. Aren’t they cute? I love those names, real old-style names, aren’t they? Barbara and Irene. I had an Aunt Irene. Drank like a fish. Even as a kid, her name seemed like something from another time. Old Bing Crosby movies. The Bells of St Mary’s. Barbara and Irene. I could look after them for you, Charlie.’

  ‘What do you mean, look after them?’

  ‘Well. This is an operation your boss is getting paid big money for, is that right?’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘Well, maybe there are angles he hasn’t considered. That you could.’

  Charlie T looks at Angelique, and wonders if he sees something else in her eyes apart from mischief, and liveliness, and lust, and concern for children, something he has seen before when she spoke about one of her elderly patients who was really annoying the other nurses and the orderlies, a patient who, days later, has ceased to be a live issue. Charlie has done something very Irish with the knowledge he has about Angelique, which is, to pretend he doesn’t know what he has maybe known all along.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I don’t know. Just …’

  ‘Just what? We could snatch them? Hold them for ransom? We could harm them? Fuck, Angelique …’

  ‘Not harm them, Charlie, I would never harm them, never harm a child. Just, don’t close yourself down to the possibilities. If there’s something to be gained … you could take advantage. Don’t miss out on that.

  ‘For the money?’

  ‘Well, that. And the control. I mean, do you know what’s going on?’

  ‘I don’t care what’s going on. I do my work and I get paid, the end.’

  ‘But how much are you into your boss for? Do you want to owe that the rest of your life? Maybe there’s a way out of that, you snatch the kids—’

  ‘Oh, you are talking about that? About kidnapping?’

  ‘And a woman living in a lakeside house in fucking Cambridge, Wisconsin. No recession up there, baby, those people are loaded, her brother is her only next of kin, he’s gonna inherit, that’s gotta be a lot of dough to get his darling daughters back, Charlie, nice for a couple who are just starting out. Clear some debt, maybe acquire some property. And you know me and kids, I’ll treat them in an appropriate, holistic, child-centered manner.’

  Charlie stares at her now in astonishment. One road trip and the sight of a gun, and his girlfriend the nurse has turned into Bonnie fucking Parker. And she’s supposed to be the normal one, the refuge, the antidote to the strippers and hostesses and crystal meth queens. She’s supposed to be his salvation.

  ‘And maybe then you won’t need this guy, Mr Wilson, maybe you can set up in business on your own. Call it a side deal, call it initiative, call it what you like.’

  And Angelique looks at the photo of the Brogan girls and smiles a little smile to herself. And before Charlie can say another word, or reflect that having a stable girlfriend is not now the bargain he had hoped it would be, seeing as the price he must pay is to acknowledge that she is completely fucking nuts, Ruby Tuesday’s door swings open and two men appear, one of average height, dark hair in a gray suit, one very tall with a black suede coat and long silver-flecked blond hair and a cowboy look about him, older than Charlie but he likes the style, fair play to him.

  Charlie is out of the car now and training the scope of the Barrett M82 on the men as they cross the Clock Tower parking lot, Jesus, they’re moving at some clip, he’ll only get one chance, can’t afford to slip up, steady boy, steady. The gray suit, that’s Brogan, he stumbles, and Cowboy catches his arm and keeps him upright. Drinking at lunchtime, that’s what Charlie T will be up for when this job is through. He hears a noise from the car, looks down
quickly, sees Angelique scooshing over, ready for a quick getaway. Nice work babe. Bonnie and Clyde, how are you! Eyes front, and the scope hovers over the Mustang now as the boys stand outside the drivers’ door, what the fuck … ah, brilliant, they’re having the old drunks’ quarrel about who’s driving, Brogan is waving the keys and trying to get in and Cowboy won’t let him, he holds him by the shoulders and talks at his face, and Brogan stares back, then nods, and grins, and surrenders the keys and goes round the passenger side, and Cowboy walks back around the red Mustang and looks over the Mustang’s roof at Brogan, and then lets his eyes drift up in Charlie T’s direction as if he can see him, which he can’t, too many trees, too far away, and Charlie trains the scope on the Cowboy’s face, full frontal, and squeezes gently but firmly, and puts a bullet through the Cowboy’s nose.

  Just Friends

  ‘I think there’s one thing I should probably make clear,’ says Paul Casey, waves of anxiety emanating from him like heat haze on a city street. As soon as Claire set eyes on him, in the tan polyester suit with the pens and propelling pencil set in the top pocket and the thick-soled shoes and the rayon tie, she thought there was probably going to be something he would want to make clear all right. That he had worn a cheap suit for a bet, say, because he got such good odds he would be able to front up for lunch. But the longer she looked at him, the more she realized that the suit was right; it was she who had been wrong. Where last week she had seen the sunken cheeks and dark haunted gaze she remembered from twenty years ago, today, in the crush of the Twin Anchors, she sees dry, pasty skin and tired, watery eyes, and that mouth she had thought delicate, but had come to know as weak by the end of their relationship first time round. What had she been thinking? Had last week been spent entirely in the dark? Counting the number of bars and restaurants, parties and clubs, the answer was probably yes. And the hotel room, Claire – don’t forget that, she was going to say, but that’s the problem, isn’t it, or one of them: she can’t remember exactly what happened in the hotel room.