This was the chink in his armor. He paled and sweat appeared on his forehead. He looked at me with the cold hate that comes from the mingling of shame and fear.
“Seamus Deasey. It’s his turf. If it’s a drug place, they’re paying off to him.”
“Where would I find him?”
“He’s in the fucking book.”
“I need to find him right now.”
“He might be in the Rat’s Nest.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a pub on Valencia Street.”
“Where?”
“Off the Falls Road.”
“Bad area?”
“Bad fucking area.”
“Ok. Take it easy, Garrett.” I threw the lit cigar onto his carpet, stamped it out.
“Aye, don’t hurry back, Forsythe, and remember, not everyone you’ll meet is as mellow and well adjusted as me.”
I left the office. Nodded to Doreen. Not the happiest of reunions. But at least I had a name. It was something to go on. Chopper hadn’t been lying. He was tough as old boots, but he couldn’t be tough for everyone. Shouldn’t have put up that Klimt of the ma and bairn, not that with the old family photo too. That was overdoing it. Wouldn’t have thought to get you from that direction, Chopper. Did you forget, it was you, mate, who told me long ago to hide your weakness, your vulnerabilities. You don’t display them for all the world to see.
Nah.
I exited the advice center.
Out into the street.
Checked for tails.
It was a brisk fifteen-minute walk to the Falls Road. I’d do it in ten.
The Falls Road.
You know why I don’t like it?
Because there is still evil in this town.
I can sense it.
In the pavement, in the fold of tenebrous color, in the eclipse of shapes.
I can sense it because I helped make it.
I feel its presence, its power.
From Saint Patrick to the Vikings, Ireland had five centuries of peace. Never before nor after. That time ripped apart literally in a Norse blood eagle of ribs and axecleaved hearts. And ever since we’ve had the creature with us. Our shadow, our watcher, our tormentor, our instigator. It sleeps. It dreams. But it’s still here. Coiled. Hungry. A stalking monster of revenge and memory. It moves and weaves. Slipping sideways, backwards, but always moving, driven by malcontent. Its greatest reign, the Troubles. And I suppose some might say that it’s not sleeping, it’s dying. It’s possible, but it’s too soon to tell. Certainly, on the surface, we are in the time of no more war. Terrorism doesn’t happen in Ireland nowadays. America, the Middle East, Russia, across the water, those are the hot spots. No radical Muslim sleeper agents here, and Ulster has an uneasy peace.
But the evil waits. Biding its time. It moves the clouds, it stirs the breeze.
Whispering with a voice so delicate that it will throw a switch on a circuit board. Click—and a breath of a wire shifts into a new and more significant alignment. A minuscule voltage disappears from a battery and jolts into a doughnut ring of industrial detonator. Viper quick, the Semtex expands a millionfold into a couple of bags of fertilizer or roughly two hundred pounds of ammonium nitrate, home-made, stomach-churning, disemboweling explosive. A chain reaction and the fertilizer rips through a police station, or the floor of someone’s car, or into a bag of sharpened roofing nails.
Ulster had a thousand of these bombings in twenty years.
And the force behind them is still here. Unknown, undefinable. Waiting, watching, under the death murals of the Hunger Strikers, Mother Ireland, and the IRA. Tourists come and take photographs of these giant wall paintings, but I know that those are armed men on the street corners. Excons with walkie-talkie phones. Bookies’ runners wearing sneakers. Drug dealers in shell suits. Weans in the ubiquitous Yankees hats.
All along the Falls Road. This dingy terrace of redbricked houses. This heartland of the IRA.
Aye.
I turn down Valencia Street.
The Rat’s Nest.
A pokey corner pub, with grilles on the window and homemade speed bumps on the road outside to stop terrorists from the other side driving past and hurling petrol bombs.
I pause outside.
Take a breath.
Sniff the air.
Heavy thoughts, Michael.
Heavy and a little prescient.
But don’t worry, you needn’t fear the random Semtex bomb, the mobile phone ignition system, those roofing nails.
You just look out for bullets and the odd grenade.
You just look out.
I shake the cobwebs from my head, compose myself, and walk into the bar. . . .
Seen one paramilitary pub, seen ’em all.
Low ceilings, blackedout windows, pool table, dartboard. All male, all hoods, waiting around for something to do. Imagine an old-fashioned western. The piano player stops and everybody turns around, the villain looks up from the card table, and the doc says it’s probably best that you leave. No piano player, no poker, no friendly doc but an identical vibe. I strode to the counter.
“Are you lost?” the barman asked.
“No. I’m looking for Seamus Deasey.”
The young barman said nothing.
A pause.
A cold, elongated silence. I knew Deasey was looking at me.
I turned.
Six men walking over from a booth next to the pool table. All of them in jeans, T-shirts, and shitkicking boots.
“I’m Deasey,” Seamus said. He was the shortest of the six. Shaved head, pug face, long arms, boxer’s nose. In fact, he looked like a middleweight who could have been good but just wasn’t tall enough. Two of his mates were bringing over their pool cues. I stepped away from the bar in case the keep cold-clocked me from behind with a hurling stick.
“What the fuck do you want?” Deasey asked.
I let him get four paces away and as fast as a cat on vetvisit day I pulled out the .38-caliber revolver, extended my arm completely, and pointed the gun at Deasey’s broken nose. This was the third time I’d threatened someone with a bullet in the brain since arriving in Belfast, but this time I decided I was not fucking backing down.
Deasey didn’t react but his mates produced assorted hand cannons, shiny pimp pistols, and other flashy pieces of shite that would kill me just as good as a proper gun.
“You know who I am?” I said.
Deasey smiled, unafraid.
“Should I?”
“I’m Michael Forsythe. You might have heard of me, I killed Darkey White in America.”
Deasey nodded.
“Aye, I heard of you. You’re the rat Bridget Callaghan’s been looking for.”
“Aye, well, times have changed. Bridget Callaghan needs my help to find her missing wean. She’s called me to look for Siobhan. The last place she was seen was the Malt Shop with a ginger-haired kid. It’s one of your places and that’s why I’ve come to see you.”
“Great fucking story. You’re a regular raconteur,” Deasey said and winked at his mates, who dutifully chuckled.
“I want to know the name of the kid that met her in the Malt Shop,” I said, and nodded the gun at him.
Some of his buds made a move but Deasey stopped them. He didn’t want them screwing up and getting him killed. But even so, he didn’t look in the least freaked by the revolver.
“I suppose you believe your own hype, Forsythe,” he said.
“I have hype? I didn’t even know I had hype.”
“They say you’re unfucking-killable,” Deasey said.
“Is that what they say?”
“Aye, they do. They say you need a fucking army to take the man who topped Darkey White. Well, I’ve got news for you, Forsythe. Take a gander about ye. This is a fucking army. Every person in this place works for me.”
I looked around the bar at the assorted ne’er-do-wells, killers, probationed terrorists, and murderers released under the Good Friday Agre
ement.
“I’m not here for trouble,” I said slowly.
Deasey laughed.
“Funny way of showing it.”
“I just need your help. I need the name of that kid,” I said.
“First of all, Forsythe, how in the name of fuck would I know the name of any kid that goes to the fucking Malt Shop on Bradbury Place. That’s not exactly my kind of joint.”
“Listen, Deasey, I don’t have the time. I know you didn’t want to tell the police, but if you don’t tell me I’ll bloody shoot you.”
“I don’t know who told you to come here, but you’ve put yourself in big-time shit.”
“The Malt Shop is your place. Chopper Clonfert told me that. The kid’s one of your dealers. Now, I know he wasn’t acting under your orders when he went after the girl. You would never have been allowed to kidnap Bridget Callaghan’s daughter in Belfast. The IRA do not want a war with her and the whole of the fucking Irish mob in America. But the kid was working for you and I wouldn’t want it to get back to Bridget that you were implicated.”
“Is that supposed to be a threat?”
“No, this fucking .38 pointed at your head is supposed to be a threat.”
“I had nothing to do with the disappearance of Bridget Callaghan’s wean. And I don’t fucking know anybody who has.”
“Deasey, just tell me the lad’s name and I’ll get out of here.”
“I’m telling you nothing, Forsythe,” he said, cool as mustard.
“Deasey, you must have been born stupid. When I tell Bridget you’re working with the kidnappers—”
Deasey interrupted as much to reassure his own men as me.
“You’re not listening, Forsythe. I don’t know anything about any fucking kidnapping. You said yourself no fucking hood in Belfast would kidnap Bridget Callaghan’s wean. And you’re right. There’s too much spread coming in from the States. There’s no percentage in it, see? It wouldn’t be good for business. You are barking up the wrong tree. Now get the fuck out of here and count your lucky stars you caught me in a good mood today.”
I sighed with impatience.
“Deasey, I’m not leaving until you tell me that kid’s name. Redheaded wee lad, dealer in your bar. You know who I’m talking about. I know you know. You better fucking tell me.”
“Or you’ll what?”
“I’ll fucking top you.”
“You’ll be dead before I hit the fucking floor,” Deasey observed.
“Aye. More than likely. We’ll both die because of some piece-of-shit pot dealer who helped lift Siobhan Callaghan,” I said.
One of the boys could take it no more and swung his pool cue at me. I shot him in the stomach. Someone else shot at me, missed, and almost killed the barman behind me. I rushed Deasey, shoved the .38 against his throat, and cocked the hammer.
“Tell your boys to be cool,” I screamed.
Silence, except for the gangster on the floor crawling about in agony.
“Cool it, lads, fucking cool it,” Deasey demanded.
I could feel his garlicky beer breath on my face. Nervous doglike pants.
Belly shot began weeping, retching. A .38-slug stomach wound from this range could easily kill someone.
“Aaah, help me, aaah,” he groaned, the smell of blood and guts permeating the room like frying onions.
“Better get him to the Royal,” I suggested.
“Do it,” Deasey said. “He’s dying.”
Two of the hoods picked up their fallen comrade and carried him outside.
“How did it come to this?” I asked.
Deasey was tense: shallows breaths, sweat, touch of the trembles.
“I didn’t have anything to do with taking that girl,” he said in a hoarse whisper, the fight gone from him now. The blood having brought home the very real danger that I posed.
“I know, Deasey, I’m not saying you did. But one of your boys did. Pot dealer in the Malt Shop. Skinny. All I want is his fucking name. You owe him fucking nothing anyway, and he’s implicated you in a piece of serious fucking shit.”
“Aye,” Deasey said.
“You know who I’m talking about, don’t ya?” I said, and dragged the revolver up along his face and rested it on his temple. It moved easily through his sweat.
“I know who you’re talking about,” Deasey admitted finally.
“That’s right. You’re going to give me his name and address, and he better be there when I call because if he gets tipped off between now and then—”
“Enough threats. Bridget Callaghan doesn’t scare me.”
“You shouldn’t be worried about her. You should be worried about me. You know how much damage your skull will do to my gun if I pull this trigger at point-blank range?”
“No.”
“None at all.”
It was a tough spot for Deasey. If he told me the name and address he would lose face in front of his men. But if he didn’t tell me, perhaps I was the sort of person who might just be mental enough to blow his fucking head off. I’d just shot one of his pals a minute ago. He might be next.
“I don’t know his address. I really don’t. I could find out but it would take some hours. If you give me a number I’ll call you up with—”
“Now, now, Deasey, up until now we’ve been honest with each other. I wanted to know the kid’s name, you didn’t want to tell me. Let’s keep it on the level.”
The revolver’s barrel was turning his skin blue.
“Barry, he lives on a boat on the Lagan path, called the Ginger Bap, that’s all I know. I don’t keep track of every fucking shithead pot dealer in my employ.”
“Barry?”
“Barry,” Deasey confirmed.
I turned to Deasey’s crew.
“Ok now, lads, Deasey and me are going to walk outside. The first character I see pop his noggin out gets it between the fucking eyes and the next bullet’s for Deasey himself. So I’d stay in here if I were you. Now everybody drop your guns and go behind the bar.”
No one moved.
“Do it,” Deasey said.
The gangsters put down their firearms and shuffled behind the tiny bar.
Still holding the gun to his temple, I walked Deasey to the door. To exit, I would have to turn my back on them. I turned, pushed open the doors. For a split second I was exposed. The hairs on my neck stood up. But no one was going to attempt to be a hero. We made it out into the street.
“Thanks for the information about Barry,” I said.
“Somehow I don’t think it’s going to do you any fucking good,” he said with a thin smile.
“We’ll see.”
I removed the gun from his temple and stepped away from him.
“I hope you’ve got life insurance, because after this little display your loved ones are going to need it. Not that a rat informer has any loved ones,” Deasey said.
“Turn round,” I said.
He turned.
I cracked the butt of the .38 into the back of his head and let him collapse on the sidewalk.
I legged it as fast as I could down the hill. Kept running down the Falls Road and didn’t stop until I was safe in the center of Belfast again.
“Where’s the Lagan path?” I asked a passerby.
He told me, I caught my breath, winced as the slash across my gut decided to become very painful, and headed east for my encounter with Barry and a possible rescue of Siobhan.
Walking.
Jogging.
Running . . .
I wasn’t worried about Deasey’s threat.
If he was big talk, then it was all just bullshit. And if he was going to try and do something, well, he could fucking take a number and join the queue. Me and the evil had it sussed. He was small fry. I was Michael Forsythe.
Let them add to the legend. Let them believe it. Let them tell it.
He survived twelve years on the run and at least three hits. He lost a foot, escaped from a Mexican prison, and destroyed the empire of Dark
ey White.
He isn’t someone to be fucked with. He’s a ghost, a bogeyman.
They say that when he was conceived the good fairy was on sabbatical. They say that when he was born vultures perched themselves on the houses of his enemies.
7: THE WANDERING ROCKS (BELFAST—JUNE 16, 4:00 P. M . )
The Lagan poised between tides. A break in the clouds. The sun at the very head of Belfast Lough. The daylight nearing its apogee. This is the only time of year and the only time of day that Belfast can take on a Mediterranean aspect, and then just for a moment. Waders on the muddy riverbank. Bees among the bankside flowers. Irises, wild roses, bluebells pushing up through dandelion and grass. Red dust from the Sahara falling on the apartment balconies. A turquoise cast to the sky—a deep blue that seems to make a noise like sighing. No one stirs. Birds. An egret preening itself on an ocher roof tile. Starlings on drooping telegraph wires. Seagulls following the customs boat. An entire duma of Arctic terns waiting in the glasslike trees for the tide to sink a little more.
And then a hazy disturbance over the water.
It’s ending now.
In a minute, gray clouds will rush in to fill the vacuum. The prevailing westerlies will banish that Saharan breeze and Belfast will become again the dour northern town of bricks, slate, and tarmacadam.
But let’s be Zen and appreciate the last few seconds of the golden light.
This is all new. There was no Lagan path when I lived here.
And it’s with some feeling of astonishment that I walk past the gleaming apartment buildings, condo complexes, and town houses.
Parapets, shutters, classical façades, in shades of coral and sunfaded white. Big windows that want to embrace the river and the city, rather than repel it. Someone made a fortune on the peace dividend around here. This used to be a scary towpath where street gangs would rule the day and the homeless would sleep at night. Filth, rusting shopping carts, and burned-out cars were the only ornaments for the choked water that was filled habitually with diesel and chemical pollutants.
But in the 1970s and ’80s terrorism and unemployment closed the shipyards and engineering works that ran along the river. The factories were gutted, the heavy machinery stripped and sent to Seoul. A decade of neglect and then the IRA cease-fire and the UDA cease-fire. The peace process. Millions from the United States and Europe for regeneration and suddenly this stretch of water must have seemed like a good investment. Clear out the factories, clean the river, make a nice Laganside path, build homes for yuppies.
The Bloomsday Dead Page 15