Islandbridge (11 page)

It had worked, he had to admit. He felt calm, and almost friendly. It certainly wasn't the anemic-looking Christmas decorations pinned on the edges of the shelves, or the “Welcome to 1984” card that only looked ridiculous and even almost pathetic here. He remembered that
1984
was a famous book, but not if he had read it back in school.

His stomach had been in rag order all week. A wormy, gaping ache working its way around his guts had kept him away from proper meals. The quick bang from the whiskey had taken the edge off things, and soon banished the aches entirely. The beer he now drank felt like it was falling from a tap straight into a stomach that wanted something to eat. It could wait. He'd stick with the package of peanuts.

He could have hit O'Keefe earlier on today. The same O'Keefe had been niggling away as they patrolled, thinking he was funny. Of course, you work with a fella, he's going to notice you're off your fodder. “A bit peaky today, Dec?” from O Keefe, and the sly look to him. “Finally sinking in is it, Dec?” Sure didn't he have the same thing himself, O'Keefe, the proud father of three, all the way to labour pains, bejases, can you believe that? And O'Keefe laughing in that rolling chuckle he had.

Eimear had noticed he wasn't up to par a few days ago. She was sort of charmed about it. She had said she'd heard that some husbands went through this, these sympathy symptoms, they were called. But he should talk it out, she'd said. Declan Kelly wasn't inclined to do that. Too often he imagined himself bursting out, shouting about the mess he was in, they were in, how he had to keep it to himself, how he couldn't sleep, how he nearly fell asleep at the wheel on patrol. How he was ready to give O'Keefe a clout if he started up again tomorrow.

He fished in the corner of the bag for any fragment of peanut, or for salt even, and licked his fingers. Then he took a small sip of the whiskey, and let it lie in a pool under his tongue. After a few moments he let it trickle and scorch its way down his throat. He felt his shoulders loosen even more now, their weight draw him down. He could almost sleep right here.

The barman continued to fill shelves and half-whistle a tune he was making up as he went along. He looked up to the mirror behind the counter when the door opened. Kelly didn't know the man entering. Still, he had the look about him, Kelly decided, that aggressive wariness and deliberately loose-limbed way of walking. But didn't every second man he saw in Dublin have that?

The man shook change in his pocket and took his time heading to the bar. Kelly took in the scuffed elbows on the leather bomber jacket, the forehead that seemed to end in a line over small eyes, the wispy red-blond hair, the neck settled tight into the collar.

Kelly saw the door move again and Rynn's face appear. The man in the leather jacket was standing in the middle of the floor now, and he was staring at Kelly.

“Gentlemen?” from the barman.

“Remy Martin for me,” said Rynn. “And another whatever for this man.”

“I'm okay,” said Kelly, his voice catching. He cleared his throat. The blood now pounding in his head seemed to deafen him. Rynn's minder had perched on a stool now, and he was watching him in the mirror.

“What's that,” said Rynn. “A small one? Give him a small one.”

“No.”

“No nothing. Give him a small one.”

Rynn leaned one elbow on the bar and turned to face Kelly.

“You look like you need it, believe me.”

Kelly had rehearsed this so many times so often in the past few days: the tone, the way he had to be sure to look Rynn right in the eye, the expression he'd put on his face.

“Ever see anything like it,” Rynn said to the barman. “Poxiest week of rain I ever seen.”

“You're right there. Absolutely right about that, Mr. Rynn.”

The name was like a blow to Kelly. Barmen knew everybody. This one would be able to say he'd seen Garda Kelly and Rynn having a little chat.

Rynn skated his glass around in a slow arc, over and back on the counter, and then lifted it.

“Well now,” he said.

Kelly shook his head. Rynn nodded back his first gulp of whiskey.

“What,” he said then. “What are you shaking your head at me for?”

“Can't do it. I just can't.”

Kelly looked away from the mirror.

“I can't,” he said. He was surprised at how easily it came out.

“You can't,” said Rynn. “One name? One address? What, you can't find it?”

“I can't do it.”

“You can,” said Rynn. “And you will, because you're not stupid.”

Rynn's minder was no longer pretending not to listen. Kelly glanced his way and locked eyes for a moment.

“I'm a Guard,” Kelly said. “That's why I can't do it.”

Rynn looked into his glass, and then flicked it slowly from side to side.

“You're serious, I think,” he said.

Kelly wondered if it was the whiskey had held the panic back, had given him his voice, the quiet exhilaration rising up in him. Again he saw himself phoning Eimear before the morning was out, telling her that he'd decided, and that they'd have to change everything. When she'd hear what he'd been going through, all her dismissals and her warnings would fall away. It'd be Canada he'd ask for, if they gave him a choice.

Rynn stopped rolling the brandy and stared at it.

“Have you gone and done something very stupid?” he murmured. Kelly didn't answer.

“Who've you told?” Rynn asked, his voice even lower.

Kelly shook his head.

“How do I know that?”

Kelly glanced at him.

“You know,” he said. “You know.”

“Do I? How do you figure that?”

“If I didn't tell people that same night, then every day after that, every hour that I didn't make that call, looks bad. And you know that too.”

There was a hint of thoughtful amusement in Rynn's gaze now.

“You don't hear me arguing, do you? But who knows you're here now, is what I'd like to know. I mean, you're a married man now.”

“No-one. I would never involve my wife.”

“Are you certain? 'Cause you better remember what I told you. This is bigger than you or me. It doesn't matter where you go, or even where I go. Things will be taken care of. Are you hearing me?”

Kelly studied the cigarette burns at the side of the counter.

“What's with this change of attitude then? Are you hinting at something?”

“It'll never let up,” Kelly said. “If I do this. It'll just go on and on.”

“Nobody's telling,” said Rynn. “So what's the big problem? I get what I want, you get what you want. So?”

Kelly felt Rynn's eyes on him now.

“Oh, I get it,” said Rynn then, and sat back. “You want something better, is it? How much?”

“No, it's not that.”

“What do you want, then?”

“I want to, I want out.”

“You want out? What does that mean, ‘out'?”

“Just out. It's too much, the pressure. I can't function. It just gets worse and worse.”

“You can't function, is it? Well, well.”

“You could easily get it yourself,” Kelly said. “You don't need me.”

Rynn did not react.

“It'd be something else the next day. And the next. There'd be no end to it. So, I decided I can't start that.”

“Have you been drinking all day?” Rynn said. “You look like it. And now you sound like it. That's the only explanation.”

Then he sighed and stared into the mirror.

“Frankie,” he said. “Meet you out in the car.”

The red-haired man got up and threw a last glance at Kelly. Kelly looked to see if he was carrying anything, but his jacket stayed zipped.

“You put me in a spot,” said Rynn. “I don't think you realize that.”

Ree – ah – luy – is
, Kelly heard, that guttural accent that was as bad as raking your nails down glass. His words were coming easy; this was going to work.

“I didn't ask for this,” he said to Rynn. “I don't want any more of it.”

“What, you don't want an envelope full of twenties, for a lousy address? You want to go back to your night-job at that dump where all this trouble started?”

Kelly shook his head.

Rynn waited while the barman fixed something under the counter nearby and then moved off.

“This isn't a bus,” said Rynn. “You can't just ring the bell and get off, bye bye. You know?”

When Kelly said nothing, Rynn looked over sideways.

“You're a stubborn, stupid, thick bogman, Kelly. The Guards don't give a damn about you. I know what you get paid. I know that's the way it's going to be for years. Sergeants'? Hah, that's ten years.”

“I didn't want that money.”

“Yeah, but you kept it, didn't you?”

“It's yours, I'll give it back.”

“What, you think money's dirty? Or you're too good for it? Or Eimear's too good for it?”

“Don't bring her into it.”

“Oh now. I haven't seen this side of you. Are you going to rear up on me now, are you? Tell me something; does wearing a wire make you itchy? They use Elastoplast to hold it on, don't they?”

“I don't have any wire.”

“You mean you haven't tried to rat me yet?”

Kelly stared back at him. Rynn's frown dissolved.

“You know what's weird?” he said. “I actually believe you. Don't ask me why or how, don't. But it's weird. All the things I learned, the hard way too, a lot of them, all the things that keep me on top of things, they should be telling me to take care of this . . . problem . . . a different way.”

Kelly felt a quiet and slow sag start in his stomach. He grabbed the glass and sipped a mouthful of the whiskey.

“So now you get it,” Rynn whispered. Kelly placed the glass carefully on the mat.

“Now let me see if I got this right,” Rynn went on. “You are turning Turk on me. You turn up at my son's funeral. Now why is that. To rub my face in it? Because you feel sorry for something or somebody. I can't decide. So I give you the benefit of the doubt. That's twice. Right? That's twice I says to myself ‘I must be around the twist. What in the name of Jaysus am I doing? Have I lost it, or what?'”

Kelly had felt the last belt of the whiskey. Maybe he had been just on the brink and that was enough to push him over. He felt for change in his pocket to phone Eimear, to tell her to get out of the house and meet him at the corner, inside that shop.

Rynn was talking again.

“You don't seem to see your situation here, copper. You better wake up here.”

Something had changed around Rynn's face, Kelly saw. His voice had grown quieter.

“I think you're missing the boat here,” said Rynn. “So let me tell you something. Right now, right here, I can give you two names and two addresses, and the days of the week you'll be able to nail these two people. What people, you say. Two middling big fences, is who. Two fellas who organize break-ins, move the stuff. They even rent out guns and boots for any jobs in the Dublin area. Red-handed, you get it? So, you pass that on, and you get to look good. People start thinking, that Kelly fella is not half as stupid as he looks. That's called promotion. That's called upholding the law. You know?”

Kelly studied Rynn's ear, the little hairs that stood out.

“There's your career. I give you that, and all I want is one lousy address. No dirty money. No comeback. Case closed. Okay? Are you taking this in at all?”

“I know why you want it,” Kelly said. “The address. You think I'm stupid, and that I'm going to listen to all this and believe every word you say. Well, I know.”

“What do you know?”

“I know.”

“You're talking fierce tough for a fella who's in a jam here.”

“It's her brother you want.”

Rynn's eyes widened.

“And I know what you want to do to him.”

“What's that?”

“You want to do for him.”

“What does ‘do for him' mean?”

Kelly met Rynn's eyes.

“You want to kill him.”

“Really. I didn't realize how drunk you were.”

“You do.”

“Why would I want something like that?”

“'Cause he's one of them who– ”

Rynn's hand shot out and his fingers pressed on Kelly's chest. It had been fast, a lot faster than Kelly had imagined he could move. He looked down the arm, back up into Rynn's face.

“You shut your hole now, pal,” Rynn said. “You're getting to me. So just shut it. You're way worse than drunk, with your, I don't know what kind of rubbish.”

Kelly found himself almost smiling.

“This is how you repay me?” Rynn whispered. “This is what you do, for me saving your skin?”

The barman's whistle had slowed. He seemed to become very intent on wiping something at the farthest end of the counter.

The tip of Rynn's tongue went along his lower lip once and back, and withdrew as he let his arm down. Then the arm was back up, a finger wavering in front of Kelly's face. But Kelly felt tall, expansive, strong now.

“You just screwed yourself,” Rynn whispered. “And you don't even know it.”

The finger began to wag.

“But by Jesus you'll find out. Oh yes you will.”

Kelly turned back toward the bar, and watched in the mirror as Rynn yanked open the door and strode out. He stared at the door for a few moments. Rynn had looked shorter than he remembered him. And for being a Dublin gangster boss, chief, or whatever he called himself, there was a worn look to him.

He finished the whiskey, felt it flood into his chest.

“Where's your phone?” he said to the barman.

“There's a phone box halfway down to Lenehan's.”

“Your phone, not Lenehan's.”