The Dead Yard

by Adrian McKinty

  Samantha looked at me with contempt.

  “If that’s true, then it’s your duty to help bring—”

  “Duty nothing. I had a way out tonight. You know it, I know it, and there’s bugger-all you could have done about it. I could have turned myself in to the peelers and blown my cover. But I didn’t. I had to kill a man tonight. Let’s not forget I saved that soldier boy’s life and topped a pal of mine.”

  “Seamus wasn’t your—”

  “It doesn’t matter if he was or he wasn’t. It’s still not easy. Ok? So as I see it, I’ve made plenty of sacrifices for you already and if this operation is to continue I want the fucking money. What’s a million to the civil service? To MI6? I don’t know, what would it be, less than a tenth of one percent of your annual budget? It’s nothing. And this will be a major coup. Kudos from the Yanks, muy prestige, promotions all round.”

  Samantha thought for a moment.

  “I suppose I could ask. It really wouldn’t do any harm to ask.”

  “Damn right you’ll ask and you’ll get it.”

  “I can’t guarantee anything. But certainly, darling, I’ll see what I can do,” she said.

  I shook my head.

  “No, that’s not good enough. You won’t see what you can bloody do. You’ll make an oral agreement with me right now, and you’ll have it drawn up by tomorrow. I want a pardon from Mexico and from Spain and I want my record wiped and I want a million bucks for information leading to the convictions of Touched and Gerry.”

  She puffed on her fag, stubbed it into the ashtray. Opened the box, took out another.

  “Well?” I persisted.

  She nodded, looked at me.

  “Ok, Michael,” she said softly.

  “You’ll get it done?”

  “I’ll get it done.”

  “Good. Now, you got any water? I am dying of thirst.”

  She reached behind her seat and handed me a bottle of water. I drank the entire thing in one big gulp.

  “You want to take a shower at my place?” she asked.

  “No, I can’t.”

  “What are you going to do now?” she asked, concern drifting back into her voice.

  “I’m going to go back to PI and square it with Touched. I’ll say I got separated from Seamus and the soldier and I don’t know what happened next.”

  She thought for a moment.

  “I’ll get the ATF to take over the investigation tonight. And we’ll do a press release tomorrow. We’ll say that it was a burglary gone wrong and the burglars took the soldier hostage and he escaped.”

  “Seamus worked for Gerry, so when you find his body you’ll have to send a couple of FBI agents round to the construction firm. It’ll be too suspicious if you don’t,” I said.

  “Of course. And we’ll bring Gerry in for questioning, too.

  It’s the least he’ll be expecting. And this might be enough to get a judge to order a tap on his phones, although I believe they’re awfully strict in this country,” she said.

  “Tap all you want, but I’m not wearing anything,” I said.

  “I wouldn’t ask you to, you’re doing enough as it is, darling,” she said sweetly, her smile coming back again.

  “Damn right.”

  She blinked, hesitated. I wound down the window to get rid of the smoke smell.

  “Michael, I have to ask this. Was there any other way with Seamus?”

  “Talk to the soldier. He’ll tell you. It was him or us.”

  “Ok,” she said quietly.

  “I can’t bloody dillydally. Drive me close to the Plum Island turnpike and I’ll make my own way to Gerry’s.”

  She nodded, stubbed out her cigarette, started the car, drove in silence to Plum Island, and dropped me at the deserted entrance to the wildlife refuge, where there would be no witnesses to see me get out of the vehicle.

  “So you’ll have my contract and my pardons by tomorrow?”

  I asked again.

  “Yes, Michael,” she said, biting her lip.

  “Good.”

  I clicked my seat belt off and went to get out of the car.

  Samantha stopped me.

  “Wait.”

  “What?”

  “Uh . . . I don’t know if it’ll be useful, but I found out about Kit’s real mother and father, they’re from New York. Hector and Lilly Orlandez, so she’s really a Latina, surprising with her complexion, you wouldn’t have thought—”

  I cut her off with a shake of my head.

  “That’s not what you wanted to tell me,” I said.

  “No,” she agreed.

  “What then?”

  She hesitated.

  “Just this,” she said.

  She leaned across the car and she kissed me. She’d been drinking and her lips and tongue tasted of red wine. I kissed her and I ran my dirty hand up her thigh and I felt between her legs. She moaned and pulled me close.

  “Michael, you will be careful, won’t you?” she asked.

  “Are you kidding? I’m one step ahead of everyone,” I said. I pushed back her seat and took off her panties. I pulled down my filthy trousers and we had frantic, fugitive gunman sex.

  Twenty minutes later, I was walking alongside the black ocean towards the big house on the dunes, where every light was on, and inside, no doubt, chaos reigned.

  I scooped some seawater and washed off any residual dregs of Seamus’s blood and brains.

  I went to the kitchen’s patio doors and knocked on the glass.

  Touched appeared with a revolver tucked down the front of his pants. A grin on his face. He, at least, was pleased to see me. He pulled me in and hugged me.

  “Jesus, Sean, thank God you made it,” he said.

  Everyone was up. Everyone but Seamus, who had not yet returned. Sonia in a man’s shirt and white sweatpants. Touched and Gerry in their street clothes. Jackie showered and in a robe, trembling from head to toe, holding a hot whiskey. Kit, in her tight Body Glove T-shirt, stroking his hair.

  I would have had Jackie packed off to Boston or Timbuktu on an alibi or in case the peelers showed, but not these guys. Loyal to their crew, looking after him like mother hens.

  “What happened, Sean?” Touched asked.

  “It was terrible, Touched, it all went wrong. Terrible,” I began, but Sonia interrupted me.

  “Unless it’s life and death, I insist you get out of those wet clothes and go and take a shower first,” she said. Gerry shook his head and that was enough to assert his authority.

  “Where’s Seamus?” I asked. “Nabbed?”

  “We were hoping you could tell us,” Gerry said, his eyes bleary with worry.

  I sat down at the kitchen table. Kit was holding Jackie’s arm and stroking his back. Jackie looked as if he was well medicated. Touched pulled up a chair and sat beside me.

  “Better spill it from the beginning,” he said. “Don’t worry about repeating what Jackie said, I want to hear your version.”

  I told it like it was, except for the very end. Jackie got separated from Seamus and the soldier and then I got cut off from them when I swam across the river. I made it to the woods. I thought I heard a gunshot but I wasn’t sure. I followed the coast and waded over the Plum Island River to the wildlife refuge, to here. But the whole thing was a disaster, a debacle of the first order.

  Gerry nodded and patted me on the shoulder. Touched leaned in close and rubbed the stubble on his chin. His eyes were wary and cold. It made me nervous. His breath stank of cigarettes.

  “This is very important, Sean. Were we set up? Was it a police setup?” Touched asked.

  I shook my head.

  “No, I don’t think so. Just a fuckup. The soldier was as surprised as we were. The cops came because of the alarm.”

  Touched looked at Gerry. His face was a mask. It either confirmed or shot down what they were thinking.

  “What was the last you saw of Seamus?” Gerry asked.

  “I don’t know, he was pretty slow,
he looked beat, he told me to keep going. I ran ahead of him and when I looked back he and the soldier were way behind me. Then I waded over the river and I thought they were behind me but they were gone.”

  “And did the police see where you went?”

  “Nah, I lost the pigs. I hope Seamus did as well, but he seemed a bit . . .” My voice trailed off.

  “He’d been drinking?” Touched asked, his eyes narrowing.

  I hesitated. I wanted to appear loyal and as if what I could say would be telling tales out of school. I looked at Jackie and then at Touched.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  Touched nodded grimly.

  “How bad was he? I want the truth,” Touched said.

  “I don’t know, Touched. He was ok,” I said, appearing to be in the throes of an internal struggle.

  Touched shook his head but he seemed satisfied. It was neither my nor Jackie’s fault and we’d done ok by getting away.

  Sonia came downstairs.

  “I’m running the bath in the guesthouse. I absolutely insist that he use it,” she said.

  Gerry nodded.

  “I’m done, what about you, Touched?”

  “Me, too.”

  “Ok then,” Gerry muttered. “Come with me, Touched.”

  Touched and Gerry went to the upstairs den to confer and probably have a blazing argument. Jackie sat next to me at the kitchen table.

  “Are you ok, mate?” he asked, trying to be conciliatory.

  “Thanks for asking, Jackie; to tell you the truth, I’m bloody wrecked. Wrecked but basically in one piece. What about you?”

  “I did something to my ankle, and there’s a cut on my thigh from the barbed wire, but I’ll be fine in a day or two,” he said.

  “You see, Jackie boy, that’s the advantage of having the old bionic ankle,” I said and lifted up my prosthesis.

  Jackie smiled, patted me on the back.

  “You did well, Sean, as well as could be expected under the fucking circumstances.”

  “How did you get away?” I asked.

  “I just ran; I got to the river and kept going. I hope you don’t think I left you in the lurch or—”

  “No, Jack, you did your best,” I interrupted.

  Kit smiled and held my hand. Jackie, God bless him, didn’t seem to mind.

  Gerry and Touched came back into the room.

  “Listen, folks, we may as well go to bed. Seamus either made it or he didn’t. We’ll know in the morning,” Gerry said.

  I didn’t need to be told twice. I said my good nights, walked across to the guesthouse, had a quick bath, found my room, and lay down on the big bed.

  “We’ll know in the morning,” I whispered to myself. Then I closed my eyes and slept.

  * * *

  A tangle rain. A thick sea mizzle that came from the east, cold and sleekit, with a hint of knife that might freshen into gale. The kind of damp that penetrated everything. I shivered in my robe and bare feet. Up here on the balcony with its enormous field of view you were really aware of the weather. Normally, September in America still has a summer feel but September in Ireland is definitely the autumn. This felt like an Irish day.

  Condensation blocked the window and the view of the woman next door, but I saw her husband in an overcoat climbing down from his observatory. No stars last night, so he probably kept his porn collection up there. He nodded to me and I nodded back. Secret sharers, the pair of us. I sipped the coffee and bit into the croissant that had been placed outside my door on a silver tray.

  The cops had not come yet.

  The news on the local radio said that a body part had been found at the scene of the robbery. The all-news station wouldn’t say what part had been found. But I knew. Half a bloody head.

  Still, it had been an ebb tide and the current was the Gulf Stream, so maybe they’d never find Seamus.

  The radio also said that a soldier had initially been taken hostage by the burglars but had escaped. There were three burglars. White males, twenty to forty. The reporter said the whole scene was still one of confusion. Some people were speculating that it could only have been an inside job, others that the whole thing was a practical joke gone wrong.

  Confusion was good; the FBI would help muddy those waters.

  I finished my coffee, showered, changed into a sweater and blue jeans, went to the big house.

  The servants had been given the day off. Sonia was making breakfast. Touched saw me and shook me firmly by the hand.

  “What news?” I asked.

  “Nothing definite. But I’ve talked to a couple of sources in the cops. There were no arrests but they found an ugly mess that they think was bits of somebody’s head.”

  “Seamus?”

  “I don’t know, Sean. They haven’t found a body, so no one knows.”

  “The radio said a cop fired his gun. Could he have hit Seamus?”

  “I don’t know, Sean. Seamus hasn’t been arrested and he hasn’t showed up here, so either he’s scarpered or he’s dead.”

  “Christ. What a fuckup,” I said.

  Touched nodded.

  “I take full responsibility,” he said. “I should have run the show. Seamus was hit pretty hard by what happened in Revere; I thought showing him that I believed in him would help snap him out of the funk he’d fallen into. Clearly a big mistake. I’ve told Gerry. My fault. I apologized to him, and I apologize to you, too, Sean. You’re only new, shouldn’t have let you go there under Seamus’s command. I should have known better and I’m sorry.”

  “It’s ok, Touched. We’re out in one piece and the descriptions they’ve put out are pretty vague.”

  “Aye, well, we’ll see about that. If Seamus was hit and managed to crawl a couple of hundred yards, they’ll eventually find the body and they will ID him. And of course they’ll come to Gerry and ask him questions. Gerry was his employer and he lived next door. They might bring that soldier boy to do a lineup on all of us. We are not out of the woods by a long way.”

  “And if Seamus is wounded? But on the run?”

  “He better keep running,” Touched said sourly.

  We sat in silence while Sonia brought a plate of pancakes and more coffee.

  “Are you hurt at all?” she asked me.

  “No, I’m fine. Everything aches, but I’m fine.”

  “Kit took Jackie to the hospital this morning. He needs to get stitches on his leg. I looked at it myself, nasty cut on his thigh. While he’s there, he’s also getting an MRI on his ankle, he was in pain all night,” Touched said sadly.

  “He’s going to a local hospital?” I asked, surprised.

  “No, we haven’t fallen that far from the straight and narrow. Kit drove him all the way to Mass General in Boston.”

  He put his head in his hands.

  “I can’t fucking believe this. And things were starting to come around,” he muttered to himself.

  I said nothing and scanned the sports section of the Times.Gerry appeared and put his big paws on my shoulders.

  “Are you ok, Sean? Did you hear about Jackie?”

  “I heard. I’m fine,” I said.

  Gerry looked at his comrade-in-arms and his face contorted as he dredged up a just-memorized quote from Virgil or somebody.

  “Cheer up, Touched. Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit. This is not the end of the world,” Gerry said, terribly pleased with himself.

  “It’s bloody close, Gerry. Even if the cops don’t get us, the FBI will have to take an interest now. An even bigger interest.And as for our plans to get the Real IRA to sponsor us, we can forget that, we’re a fucking laughingstock. Can’t even do a bloody burglary. Jesus Christ, Gerry, what a bloody joke. I don’t know. Maybe we’re getting too old for this. Maybe we should pack it in,” Touched said.

  Gerry shook his head and sat down.

  “Come on, lads. You can’t pack it in after one stupid setback,” I said, thinking of my pardon and my million.

  Gerry nodded a
t me.

  “Yes, listen to the youngster. And he went through it, Touched, the new generation sparks the old, remember that.What was it Jefferson said about the tree of liberty and the blood of the young or something . . .” Gerry said.

  Touched tapped the table, forced a smile onto his depressed face, and ran his fingers through his long, graying black hair.

  “No, I suppose you’re right, Sean,” he said after a while.

  “I know I am,” I said. “You have to bounce right back up. Start organizing, be one step ahead of the peelers.”

  Aye, start organizing right now, boys, a nice big conspiracy that’ll net the pair of you and lead to bloody easy street for me.

  Touched grinned at Gerry, that big charming grin that gave me the willies.

  “There’s always Portsmouth. Our little plan B,” Touched said.

  “I don’t know,” Gerry muttered.

  “It’s your call. It’s a target of opportunity and the window is slipping away. Although pull that one off and it’s instant respect from across the water,” Touched said knowingly.

  Gerry nodded.

  “I’ll think about it,” he said.

  “Though I’ll need to do a lot of work on that still, Gerry,”

  Touched said.

  “Well, what are you waiting around for?” Gerry asked.

  “I’m waiting for the cops to show up and ask about Seamus,” Touched said angrily.

  “What exactly is the point of that? If you make yourself busy, things will seem a lot better. Come on, Touched. I have houses to build, people to hire, people to fire. Stop your fucking moping. If the police come, we’ll deal with it. If they don’t, we’ll deal with that, too.”