Dead I Well May Be (39 page)

Don’t, I said.

He stopped what he was doing and put his hands up. He was still lying on the ground with his mate splayed out over his legs.

Car keys, I said.

H-his pocket, Boris said in a sad old man’s voice. Boris, I supposed, might even be in his seventies. Why had they sent him on a job like this? His accent had a trace of the Old Country, but it was tempered by years of living here, mostly in Boston, it sounded like. I reached into the Thin Man’s trousers and found the car keys and a wallet that I didn’t look at. I sat cross-legged beside him, still keeping the gun on his face.

Why didn’t you kill me in my apartment? I asked.

We-we didn’t know where you lived. We were looking for you. We saw you go up onto the bridge.

You just got lucky?

Yes.

Did you call it in?

We d-don’t have a radio or a c-car phone or anything like that.

Sunshine sent you?

He nodded.

Where does he live? Do you have his address?

Boris smiled for some reason and it disconcerted me. He leaned over and said in a whisper (as if there was anybody around to hear):

He always met us at the Four Provinces, always, but I know where he lives. Jackie Mac tailed him one day to see if he was whoring after the weans.

I smiled too. I wonder why I’d never thought of that. I knew he wasn’t a pervert, but it might have been good to know where he lived. Could have done the same to Darkey, too. Laziness, I suppose, had been at the bottom of it.

Ok, mate, what’s the address?

He told me, but I couldn’t find a pencil anywhere in my coat so I had to memorize it. I searched Boris and, finding nothing, I took his Glock
17 semiautomatic pistol, a truly beautiful weapon that became my handgun of choice from then on. I ordered him up and together we lifted his partner off the road, Boris at the feet and me at the shoulders. We dragged him into the woods and I got Boris to cover him with leaves.

When he was done, I shot Boris in the head. I did it quick and without any fuss and covered him as best I could. I checked to see if there were any spatter marks on me, but I was fine.

The car was parked half a mile up the road. It was a blue Ford with a manual transmission, and it took me quite a while before I got it up and running. I’m no driver, and with my injury it was a bloody nightmare trying to get over the bridge and back into the city and state of New York. Everything’s relative. A little pain for me, but at least I wasn’t in Sunshine’s shoes—a man who, with any luck, would not now live to see this day’s end.

It took me only about ten minutes to realize that the blue Ford was being followed. I noticed the old black Lincoln when I had just about negotiated the hazards of the George Washington Bridge and was making my way through Upper Manhattan towards Queens. There was an Irish neighborhood in Queens, but it wasn’t our turf and I’d never been out there. I knew only two bits of Queens: the airport and Rockaway Beach.

The Lincoln was tailing me about five cars back. Two men, both in dark suits and raincoats. I figured they’d been tailing the car and not me, and it was just conceivable that they thought I was one of the two original guys. I wasn’t sure where they’d picked me up, but if they’d seen me top Boris and his mate then the game would be up. Of course, they were cops, everything about them said that they were cops. They drove peeler fashion and they gave off that peeler vibe.

Why they were tailing people in Darkey’s organization was hardly a mystery either. Darkey had no charmed life and, despite Sunshine’s obvious talent, they couldn’t avoid the law’s attentions forever. Bob’s death out on Long Island wouldn’t help either. An organized crime unit of the NYPD was finally having to pay a wee bit of attention to Darkey’s shenanigans.

How to ditch them was the tricky part. I never drove in Manhattan and I wasn’t clear which streets were one-way or where the back alleys were. The one street I knew really well was 125th, and I racked my brain trying to think of where I could ditch a car along there and make a run for it.

Obviously, the first thing was not to let on that I knew a tail was on, so I drove normally and kept cool. I wasn’t heading at all for Queens now, just keeping her downtown in heavy morning traffic. I was hitting Broadway and the 130s when a plan occurred to me. The Kentucky Fried Chicken on 125th and Broadway had two entrances, one on 125th and one on Broadway. If I parked the car at the McDonald’s on the south side of 125th and then walked over to the 125th Street entrance of KFC (which had no parking lot), it would be the most natural thing in the world for the cops to park near me and wait for me to come out of KFC and go back to my car. They were cops, so they wouldn’t think that they’d been spotted and they wouldn’t be expecting me to ditch the vehicle.

I drove calmly and slowed down to the McDonald’s opposite the KFC and parked the car. I locked her up and waited patiently for the light to change to cross over 125th, which is wide and dangerous at that time of day. With an air of calm I went in the 125th Street entrance of KFC. A homeless guy let me in, expecting change on the way out. I was hungry and I had a few bucks, so I ordered a chicken sandwich and a coffee. I ate the sandwich, but the coffee was too hot and I didn’t have the time to wait for it to cool. The windows were so clogged full of posters advertising the latest specials that it was impossible to see through them, and so I couldn’t tell if the cops were over there or not, but I guessed they would be.

I went out the Broadway door and looked for the black Lincoln, but of course it was still back in the McDonald’s lot. I ran a block up to the subway escalator. At the top of the stairs, I waited for a minute to see if the cops were after me but they weren’t at all, they were still waiting for me to finish my breakfast at KFC and come out on 125th. Peelers, always the bloody same.

I checked the subway map and figured the best way to Woodside from there. It would mean a couple of changes at the ugliest part of the morning, but it would be ok.

I bought tokens for the return. I rode the train and lifted a
Daily News
off the seat and, sure enough, the election had been won by the Democrat, Bill Clinton, who was from Arkansas. It was only in that moment that I realized that the state of Arkansas is actually pronounced “Arkansaw,” not “Ar-kansas.” I’d been hearing
Arkansas
but had no idea where it was. I was quietly delighted with my discovery and wanted to share it with my fellow passengers, but only madmen talk on the subways and I had to keep a low profile.

When I got out in Woodside, the Irish part seemed to be just a few square blocks, surrounded by a much larger Polish neighborhood. It was small, and there were a lot of gossipy-looking witnesses hanging around cafés and Irish bread shops and pubs and the like, but at least I thought that its smallness would make finding Sunshine’s place relatively easy. I went in a store, bought a packet of Tayto Cheese & Onion, and munched as I explored.

I’d arrived around eleven o’clock, but in fact it took me until half past twelve to find his address.

Sunshine lived in a wooden house that was painted blue and was three stories high. It didn’t look to be a particularly nice house: no garden, the paint scuffed, it was right next to a busy street, the front yard had a few leaves collecting up against the metal fence. Aesthetically challenged, but I supposed that around here it cost a packet. It was close to the subway and the neighborhood was white and reasonably prosperous and safe. There was never a doubt in my mind that maybe Boris had stroked me—he was way too much of a good old boy for that. I had a pang of regret that I’d shot him, but I dismissed it; he would have said that he wouldn’t have talked, but he would have. And anyway, it was Boris who’d tailed Bridget that day, Boris who’d passed along the information, Boris who’d set this whole derailing train in motion. Would it have been so difficult to say that Bridget had gone shopping that morning? Give a guy a break.

The way into Sunshine’s would have to be the back door. There was no way I could dick around the front in the broad day with people walking by on the sidewalk.

I opened the fence gate and walked around the back. There was a bit of pathetic grass and a paddling pool clogged with leaves and rainwater.
A paddling pool. Did Sunshine have kids? No. Maybe he was an uncle? A good uncle, no doubt, smart, generous, creative.

No screen on the back and the door was locked. I’m no lock guy, so the only thing for it would be to break open a window. Sunshine would hear, of course, so I’d have to be ready for him if he was inside. I selected the rear kitchen window, punched a hole through with my elbow, turned the handle, climbed in, pulled out the Glock, and waited for him to show up with his gun. He didn’t, and after a quick search of the house, I saw he wasn’t home. I’d wait.

I searched the place out of boredom and curiosity, but found little of interest. In a bedroom with lilac bedsheets and matching drapes I discovered a wall safe, but I don’t do combinations, either, so who knows what was inside.

There were no books, but I did find an extensive collection of videos. Over a thousand, maybe. It seemed that Sunshine had seen every bloody commercial film that had come out over the last ten years. There was no porn, and most of the films were complete crap. I tried five in a row before getting one that was ok. I put the sound on low and sat close to the box. The flick was about androids, who really are the good guys, and a cop chasing them, who really is the bad guy, in the future Los Angeles. In Los Angeles, it was raining all the time and it reminded me a bit of Belfast in the seventies.

After the movie I just sat. The house gave me the creeps. There were no pictures up and no personal details at all. It occurred to me that this was only his city house and he might have a real place up in Westchester or New Jersey or Long Island. Maybe he never came here at all. Maybe he rented this place out. Maybe he’d bloody sold it. Maybe this was his girl’s place. I put in another film. This one was about Vietnam, where it also rained a lot.

I was only about halfway through that when I heard the front gate. I switched off the telly and sat composed in the big leather living-room chair, ready with Boris’s nifty wee Glock.

Sunshine came in with a brown bag full of shopping. He was heading for the kitchen, but he saw me from the hall and dropped the bag. I motioned for him to come in. He thought for a moment about making a run for it, but the door behind him was closed and I was pointing
the gun straight at him. He was wearing a leather jacket and blue jeans, something I’d never seen him wear before (previously he was always a suit-and-tie man). He was more or less the same, greasy comb-over longer, maybe, but he looked well, tanned, content. Scared shitless at the sight of me, though. He came towards me and started to speak, but I put my finger to my lips. I held the gun against his head while I frisked him. He was clean, and I told him to sit on the floor with his hands on his neck. He began to blubber and explain, but I told him not to speak.

I ripped a page from the notebook beside the phone and gave it to him with a pen.

Write down Darkey’s address there for me, I said.

Listen, Michael, please, you don’t understand.

One more word, Sunshine, and I’ll blow the top of your fucking head off, get me?

He nodded and picked up the paper and pen. He wrote an address. I picked up the paper and looked at it. It was in Peekskill, New York.

I take the commuter rail up there, right? I asked conversationally.

Yeah, Sunshine said, still dry-heaving, though he’d calmed down a bit now.

Look, Sunshine, I’m not going to draw this out longer than necessary. Just tell me, you had a couple of guys on me and—

No, no, I don’t know what you’re talk—

Sunshine, don’t start. Now, how many are there looking for me?

He swallowed and tried to compose himself. He knew I’d seen them. There was no point debating it.

Four.

Do they know where I live?

Roughly.

What do you mean?

We found you, Michael. I found you. Somewhere in the 190s. Jesus, we would have had you tonight or tomorrow or the next day. Soon. A couple of days, that’s all we needed. We wouldn’t have killed you, though, don’t think that. You gotta know I would have had them bring you to me. I like you, Michael. I’m glad you got out. I would have given you money to leave town. That was the plan. Pick you up. Bring you over. Darkey’s not here, he would never have to know. I bring you to
me and give you cash to leave forever. I like you, I owe you, Michael, I’d never hurt you.

What make were their cars?

What?

Was one of them a black Lincoln?

Er, no, no one I know has a black Lincoln.

What were their cars?

A Ford and a Chevy.

How did you find me, Sunshine?

I’d been hearing rumors, for about a week now.

How, what exactly?

When you killed Big Bob, you woke up a couple of local people. Some old geezer saw a Cadillac pull away. He knows everyone on the street, doesn’t know anyone that has a Cadillac. Cream-colored Cadillac. Young guy with a beard. Pretty distinctive.