Eightball Boogie (12 page)

“
No.”

Everyone wanted to give me advice. All I wanted was peace and quiet, maybe an Audi with go-fast stripes.

“
Drop Conway. He’s bad news.”

“
That’s what sells, Dutch. Why?”

“
His motors? The second-hand ones?”

“
They’re ringers?”

“
More than likely. Anyway, you know Tommy Armstrong?”

“
Stretch Armstrong? Gangly fucker, talks like he’s chewing hot spuds?”

Dutchie nodded, sipped some coffee.

“
He drives for Conway. Picks up the cars in Belfast, takes them across the border.”

“
Nice work if you can get it.”

“
Stretch picks them up at the port, coming off the ferry.”

“
They’re coming through Belfast? From where?”

“
Amsterdam, via Liverpool.”

“
Makes sense. There’s good E in Amsterdam.”

Dutchie sniffed.

“
Fuckers around here wouldn’t know a good E from a blue Smartie. That Belfast shite is muck. Cheap speed, a dab of trips, that’s your bag.”

“
Belfast shite?”

“
That’s where all the trade’s coming in from. Churning it out like Polo mints, they are. Two cheers for the peace process.”

“
East or west?” I asked.

“
Does it matter?”

“
It might, if my client’s trying to fuck them over.”

“
East.”

“
Nasty.”

“
No nastier than West. Want a laugh?”

“
Did it this morning, got it over with.”

“
Just as well. According to Stretch, Conway’s planning something big.”

“
A new town hall?”

“
Bigger. Stretch didn’t say, but at a guess I’d say Conway’s bypassing East Belfast, not paying his dues. Branching out on his tod.”

“
Christ on a landmine. How smart is that?”

“
You tell me. Those fuckers aren’t happy since Blair cut them off at the knees. They’re itching so bad they don’t need an excuse to scratch.”

I thought it through. Conway trafficking E explained Galway and Brady, but it didn’t explain why Conway might think his wife was screwing around. Or why he might want me to think she was. But there had to be a connection. It was too much of a coincidence otherwise.

“
This is kosher?” I asked.

“
Like a plague of frogs. Stretch doesn’t have the imagination to make it up.”

“
True enough. Then there’s this.”

I handed him Katie’s newspaper clipping. He scanned through it.

“
Sheridan? What’s he to do with anything?”

“
That girl Katie, who was in last night? She gave me that, yesterday. When Abbott and Costello were in this morning they found it in my desk. It got their attention.”

“
So?”

“
So they were asking about Frank Conway, auctioneer. The real-estate slimebag who happens to be up to his arse in illicit loot. Tony Sheridan’s a politician.”

Dutchie nodded.

“
So we just drop the real-estate bit.”

“
Correct.” I pointed out Frank Conway, top corner of the photograph. “That apartment complex he’s building on the river, where the shoeboxes are going for one-sixty a throw. Remind me about the environmental bullshit that went with that.”

“
You’re talking brown envelopes.” He shook his head. “So what? They need somewhere to put all the punters they’re decentralising from Dublin. Re-zoning scam or no re-zoning scam, those apartments were always going to be built.”

“
Maybe, maybe not. But that photograph puts Conway and Sheridan together in the same picture.”

“
That’s a big picture, Harry. There’s a lot of people in it.”

He was right in a way, but he was wrong too. It was a big picture, the kind with a real big frame.

I was wrong too, but I was right in a way. The one time I got it right, I didn’t even know it.

I finished the drink and we went through to the bar. Dutchie plunged the glass and plate into the soapy water in the sink, nodded at the sticking plaster above my eye.

“
What did you tell Dee about the hammering?”

“
That I fell in the alleyway. By the way.”

“
What?”

“
Gonzo rang.”

He stopped plunging. His eyebrows nearly disappeared into his crew cut, which is no mean feat.

“
Gonzo?”

“
The one and only, thank fuck.”

“
Jesus. Fuck.” He beamed. “Fucking hell, Harry! What’d he say?”

“
He left a message, said he’d be home for Christmas. He’ll be in here tonight.”

He laughed out loud. It sounded forced, too much, not Dutch. I let it slide. I wasn’t feeling much like myself either.

“
Tonight? Typical fucking Gonz. How long’s it been?”

“
Four years, near enough.”

“
Too long.”

“
Not nearly long enough, Dutch. See you later.”

“
Yeah. And Harry? We already know you’re a miserable bastard. You’ve nothing left to prove.”

“
Fuck you.”

“
I’ll have to clear it with Michelle first.”

“
No hurry. What time tonight?”

“
Here for eight?”

“
Sound.”

I went back across the road to the office. There was a message on the machine, Herbie with news, call. I called.

“
Alright Harry?” Herbie sounded fresh and vital again, he’d obviously gone for snow for his Christmas treat. “I got that Helen Conway stuff for you. Got a pen handy?”

“
Shoot.”

He reeled off a list of figures. Taking dictation from a coke-fuelled stoner can take a while when you don’t have shorthand but in the end I knew more about Helen Conway’s bank accounts than she needed to know herself. There was also information on insurance policies, health plans and membership of various clubs and organisations. Political donations, a trust fund, two company directorships, one of which was a subsidiary of her husband’s real estate company. When Herbie got himself motivated, he was rapacious.

“
Busy girl,” I commented. The bank accounts alone were impressive, nearly three hundred grand spread across five different banks at home. There were also the kind of accounts where you get a tan making a deposit, one in the Seychelles, another in Barbados, and she also had the obligatory Swiss deposit box, although that was probably for show. “Nice work, Herb. Give me the same on Frank Conway, yeah?”

“
Who he?”

I counted to five.

“
He’ll be Helen Conway’s husband, Herb.”

“
Oh, yeah – right.”

“
Get a chance to download those pictures yet?”

“
What pictures?”

“
From the camera. I dropped it around this morning.”

There was a brief pause. I could imagine him panicking, trying to recall what he’d been doing earlier. Herbie, who was hard put to remember his real name most of the time. When he spoke again he sounded cautious.

“
You were here this morning?”

“
Not there there.” It would have been too easy to wind him up. “I slipped the camera through your letterbox. In a padded envelope.”

The sigh of relief was audible.

“
I haven’t been downstairs yet. Hold on.” I heard him pounding down the stairs. Moments later he was back. “Alright, I have it. Give me an hour and I’ll see what I can do.”

“
Sound. I’ll be in the office until five.”

“
Hey, Harry?”

“
What?”

I knew what was coming.

“
Anything moving on Imelda Sheridan?”

“
Nothing, no. Hear anything more from Regan?”

“
He’s not taking my calls. You didn’t get anyone to talk?”

“
No go, Herb.”

“
Fucking seen it on TV last night, Harry. They were all over it.”

I realised I hadn’t heard the news, or seen a newspaper, in nearly two days.

“
They talk to anyone?”

“
No. It was a short report, long-range shots of the house, the usual shite.”

“
So what are you complaining about?”

“
It’ll be dead in the water if we don’t do something, that’s what. Yesterday’s fucking news, Harry.”

“
I know, Herb. But I can’t sell the story unless there’s an angle, something to hang it on. They’ll laugh me off the phone otherwise.”

“
What are you talking about, angle? Sell them the facts. Just type it up, fuck the poetry. Tell it like it happened.”

“
We don’t know what happened. Besides, the Sundays pay better, and they love the kinky stuff. I say we stick it out, stay awake, hit one of the Sundays for a spread. Do the shots some justice.”

It was a curve ball, appealing to his vanity. He didn’t even swing.

“
Something you’re not telling me, Harry?”

I didn’t answer. He’d have thought I was insane if I told him that I didn’t want to dig too deep around Imelda Sheridan because, no matter how ludicrous it sounded, gut instinct told me Gonzo was involved. But then Herbie was one of the lucky ones, Herbie had never met Gonzo.

Plus, I didn’t know how Frank Conway and Tony Sheridan fitted together, or how close, or what kind of cesspit might turn up if I dug in the wrong place.

Plus, I was stiff, sore and tired, in no mood to answer to anyone, least of all Herbie.

“
Harry?”

“
I got laid last night, Herb. Which makes two nights in a row, first time in about five years. That’s what I wasn’t telling you. Happy now?”

“
Harry –”

“
I’ll buzz you later, Herb. Sit tight.”

I smoked a couple of cigarettes, sifted through the events of the last twenty-four hours. Brady and Galway, Conway and Sheridan, the Three Stooges – they loomed large, shadows up a wall. I closed my eyes, bumped them around, trying to get them to fit. It didn’t work, mainly because Helen Conway kept distracting me, svelte for her age in something black and silk with a suicidal neckline. The dodgems kept on bumping until Brady took offence at Conway digging him the elbow and a bare-knuckle brawl broke out.

I left them to it, wondered how much Helen Conway knew about her husband’s sideline in narcotics. The bank accounts suggested she was up to speed, but that kind of evidence is circumstantial at best and slander at worst. Besides, Helen Conway didn’t come across as the kind of woman who had recently discovered the high life. Helen Conway had been born in the stratosphere, six miles clear and rising.

There was a knock on the door some time around three. Katie poked her head in. When she saw I was alone she came all the way. She was holding two Styrofoam cups.

“
Coffee? My treat?”

“
Sure. Pull up a pew.”

She sat down, lit a cigarette. Fiddled with her lighter while I rolled a twist.

“
What happened your face?”

“
I fell leaving the pub. Sobered me up enough to get Dutchie to drive.”

“
Tell me about it,” she said, a rueful tone. I got the impression she had something to say, that she was embarrassed about having to say it. I also got the impression that Katie wasn’t used to being embarrassed. Hence the fidgeting, the faint puce tinge at her cheekbones. She spoke quickly.

“
What I said last night…” The puce deepened to a rosy pink. “I was drunk. That’s not my style.”

I shrugged, magnanimous as all hell.

“
Don’t beat yourself up. Women find me irresistible. Desperate ones, mainly.”

“
Thanks a lot. Now I’m desperate?”

“
Desperate enough to give me your phone number.”

“
That’s desperate.”

“
Thanks yourself.”

She smiled, and the embarrassment seeped away. The storm struck again, fast enough to leave us becalmed in its eye.

“
So how is… Bren?” she asked. Her stare was bold, slightly mocking.

“
Ben. He’s fine, no deterioration in the last twenty-four hours.”

She got into it.

“
Did you remember anything about Tony Sheridan you’d forgotten yesterday?”

“
Not a thing.”

“
Hear any more about Imelda?”

I shook my head. She bristled.

“
Is this the tough-guy routine again, Harry? Because if it is –”

“
No kidding, something else came up, something that’s more likely to pay the bills. The story’s all yours, knock yourself out. If you pull something out of the bag I’ll put you in touch with Herbie, with the shots. I won’t even charge consultancy.”

“
Can you give me some names? People I could talk to?”

“
I’ll give you the names of people I don’t mind pissing off. Some of them might even know what they’re talking about. You want to check anything they say, get back to me. Again, no fee.”