Islandbridge (39 page)

“God damn it,” he said, but with little bile. “That Mayo tinker has his nose in everything.”

He was a little pleased to see Malone's mouth twitch a little at his utterance.

Chapter 23

September 11, 1993

S
HE WAITED IN THE CAR
until the panic ebbed. Then she hurriedly opened the door and stepped out onto the footpath, lest she changed her mind. A few doors down, beyond that young woman pushing the pram, oblivious to what was happening here, was the door into the lounge section of the pub.

She almost forgot to lock the car door. She was glad of the excuse to backtrack the few yards. That wasn't as bad as the near miss she'd had going through traffic lights that must have been red. She had pulled over not long afterwards, not even halfway from her office to the pub, and tried to decide for once and for all. Call it off, follow through? It wasn't about that place in Foxrock – that was gone. But whatever was raging away in her head had rushed unexpectedly out of her mouth in a shrill yell on her way here. It had first terrified her, but after a few moments it had felt right.

It was the time of day when the kids were out of school, the lull before the rush hour started. She stopped at the door of the pub and checked the time. She wanted to be here first, to give her time to settle a bit. She looked back at her faded red Fiat before she pulled open the door.

The lounge was empty. A man was moving around, laying beer mats on the tables. He glanced over, gave her the once-over, and a too-friendly hello. He was hiding his curiosity about a woman on her own coming in at this hour reasonably well, she thought. He said he'd be with her in a minute.

She chose a spot along the wall where she could see the door in. She had brought a newspaper and some work in her carry-all.

“An orange juice?” he repeated after she ordered.

“That's it,” she said, annoyed at how he repeated it. As if she had no business on her own in a pub in the afternoon, ordering an orange too.

She watched him pull a bottle up with a flourish and open it on the opener attached to the counter. He moved to the side, to reach a bin of ice. The swing door behind him flapped open and a younger barman came through with a crate of some drinks. With the door jammed open, she saw the face clearly. The hand came up with a cigarette and put it to his mouth, but the dull, faraway stare still stayed on her.

She was on her feet without realizing it, grabbing at the bag. The barman had noticed.

“I have to go,” she said. “I can't stay.”

She pulled on the door when she should have pushed. When she did get out on the footpath, a dark-haired man was there already. He was trying not to look like he had run out. The bar, that's where he was, went through her mind again. Hadn't she said lounge on the phone?

She didn't know why she stopped. Maybe it was curiosity, to see if Rynn would join the other one here. Fifty feet away, this man was. If she made a run for it, would he run after her?

The hand with the cigarette emerged first, and then Rynn. He said something out of the side of his mouth to the other and then began a slow stroll toward her. She looked from him back to the other man. A lorry passed slowly, straining and filling the air around her with the diesel rattle from a broken exhaust, but it didn't break this spell.

Then he was beside her, scrutinizing her.

“That was you made that phone call?”

She said nothing.

“You haven't changed,” he said.

She watched the lines of smoke coming out the corner of his mouth. Declan had said Rynn could find out anything. He even knew their bank balance back then. Why wouldn't he have had a picture of her, then.

“Are you Eimear, then?”

It wasn't a question, she knew. Her knees were gone to jelly.

“I was,” she said. It came out as a croak.

“Was? What are you talking ‘was'?”

“I am her.”

“And now you want something.”

“Not here,” she said.

His expression began to take on a sneering look. He turned on his heel and held his arms up, and came around again.

“What? Not for the cameras? Or do you have that in your bag?”

“Not here,” she said again. “I mean, no there's none of that.”

“Tape recorder? Wires . . . ?”

She shook her head. He looked her up and down, drew on his cigarette.

“What exactly do you want?”

She nodded toward the door of the lounge. He looked her up and down and then stared at her. She wondered if she'd be able to walk now. She looked away, waited.

“Okay,” said Rynn, in a voice that sounded like he was conceding something to a child. “Surprise me then.”

He held the door for her. She felt she would totter and fall with each step. His stare lacerated her as she got by him and into the dim, smelly and suddenly quieter confines of the lounge.

The barman's face changed when Rynn stepped in behind her. She made it to where she had sat before, and she put down her bag. She watched the barman approach, kept her eyes on him, and ignored his wheeze and squeaks as Rynn settled into a leatherette chair between her and the door.

“Nothing,” she heard Rynn say, and looked up from the glass of orange whose bursting carbonated bubbles she had been watching. The barman had become much busier now. He barely looked over at the door when the dark-haired man came in.

Rynn was speaking to her, saying something about the agency. She waited until the dark-haired man sat.

“I went on my own,” she said.

“That's not what I said. I said, who put you up to this?”

“Nobody. Nobody did.”

“Then you won't mind if we make bloody sure you weren't wired, will you?”

She stared at her drink again. She heard him exhale smoke.

“You're scared, aren't you?”

She fought to keep her head still, watched more bubbles surface and pop.

“That's good. You should be. When I meet someone I don't know, that's what I look for. 'Cause if they're not scared, they're on drugs, see. Or they're out to do me harm. How about you, Mrs. Kelly? Are you here to do me harm?”

She couldn't be sure how her words would come out.

“Well?” he said, not unkindly, after a few moments.

“I know some things,” she started out, but a catch in her throat interrupted her.

“Good. So did your husband, if I remember.”

It was a taunt, she knew, to see if she'd crack. She had expected it.

“Some things that will affect you,” she went on.

“Me?”

He sat back and rubbed at the tip of his nose with his thumb.

“Now why would you care about that?”

“You know they're always trying,” she said. “And that you think you're one step ahead all the time.”

“They?”

“The Guards.”

“Oh. And how would you know this?”

“My husband is a Guard.”

“Your husband is dead, missus.”

She stared back at him. When she didn't look away, he almost smiled.

“But by Jesus he caused a lot of trouble before he went. Now tell me something. Are you out of your mind or what? Do you think you're dealing with an iijit here?”

“I remarried.”

He flicked his cigarette over the ashtray.

“Another Guard.”

“A habit, I see. Do I know him?”

“No.”

“I will in an hour,” he said quickly.

She returned his gaze.

“You'll be wishing you'd listened to me better.”

He straightened.

“I'm not the kind of man listens to talk like that,” he said in a slow, monotone. “Even from a woman.”

“I didn't come here to threaten you.”

“What's your thing, exactly? Are you on heroin or something? Drank everything away? What?”

“Nothing.”

“But what do you want?”

She took out the manila envelope with the notes for Victory.

“What's to stop me from going out the door and picking up the phone and telling someone the wife of a Guard is trying to put the heavy hand on me? How'd your hubbie like that?”

She placed the applications on the table.

“They'll send the fellas in the white coats for you,” he said. “Off to the funny farm.”

“I'm just meeting with a client,” she said, and sat back. Rynn lit another cigarette and looked over to the bar. Then he smiled.

“I get it,” he said. “You're going to tell me you found out this whole meat-packer business is bollocks. Is that your gig? Pardon my use of the English language and all.”

“No,” she said.

“Oh. It's even trickier, is it? Do I detect . . .?”

He narrowed his eyes until they were almost closed.

“Are you making a proposition to me here, is it?”

She shook her head.

He crossed his arms and rested his thumbnail on his lower lip, the cigarette inches from his nose, and he watched her.

“I know what you want. You want revenge. Don't you?”

She felt the weakness return to her arms and legs now.

“Don't you?”

“You can do all the thinking you want in jail,” she said.

She saw the anger flash across his eyes then. His voice was almost a whisper.

“Listen, you stupid bitch. Do you have a clue who you're dealing with here?”

She knew that the man at the bar was looking at her now.

The barman was pretending not to.

“Now I'm going to do you the biggest favour of your life,”

Rynn muttered. “You hear? I'm going to let you walk out the door and go home. You won't get a better offer than that. I don't deal with head cases.”

A thrill ran through her. Far from frightening her, something about his anger had made him weaken in her eyes.

“How much is a year of your life worth?” she asked.

“Go home,” he said. “Don't push your luck.”

“Say, fifteen years in jail.”

The man at the bar was on his feet as Rynn's hand came up from the backhanded sweep of his arm that had sent the papers flying. Rynn hadn't taken his eyes off her. He held up his hand, and the man at the bar sat down. She watched the last of the papers unroll and flatten itself on the carpet.

“Got the message?”

She looked back to him.

“You're not the man I thought you'd be.”

“Your husband tried to pull something like this on me. You are messing with the wrong man. Now get out of here before I change my mind.”

“This time next month,” she said. “Phone me. If they let you, of course. And I'll tell you what you could have had.”

It was a hateful glance, she recognized, but the dread she had felt was gone.

“You won't even know who did it until later,” she said. “By then they'll have all they want on you.”

He said nothing. She wondered if he'd lash out again.

“Say you behave yourself inside,” she added. “Maybe you'd be out in twelve years. If you didn't run into any trouble in there, I suppose.”

“You,” he said then, in a voice barely above a whisper. “You are suicidal. You need a shrink. As well as a few slaps. But it won't be me. No way. I see your plan, you know. You want me to give you the hiding you deserve, so they can charge me on it.”

“You're getting it cheap,” she said. “It's a once-in-a-lifetime chance for you.”

His face suddenly creased into a smile then.

“Once in a lifetime,” he said. “I like that.”

“Sixty thousand,” she said.

He sat back suddenly, mock horror on his face.

“To get me slappers in for the clubs? Me ‘general labourers' I'm looking for?”

“I don't want your business.”

His face set again.

“That was a joke,” he said. “Do you even know what a slapper is?”

She said nothing.

“You're from the country, I can tell. Well a slapper is a whore. But, thank God, that's only me trying to get a rise out of you. I'm just a businessman trying to get a factory up and running. Do me bit for Ireland, see? And if we need to go abroad to find people who'll do the job, well I can't be flying around East Germany or Czechoslovakia or whatever interviewing people, can I? That would be your line of work.”

“Twelve years,” she said. “Five thousand a year. That's nothing to you.”

He looked down at the ashtray. She braced herself.

“You've got some nerve,” he murmured. “I'll say that for you. Some bloody nerve.”

“Pay after you get proof,” she said then.

She could see confusion in his look now. He stared at her for what seemed a long, long time.

“You think I'd give you sixty thousand quid?”

She nodded.

“You'll be glad you did.”

“Okay then. Tell me what you want to tell me. Right now.”

She looked at the papers sprawled across the carpet.

“I think we're getting ready to finish up here then,” she said and reached for the pages that had fallen by the chair. She felt his hand on her arm.

“Leave them. You have something to tell me.”

“You have something to tell me first,” she said.

“You're scared,” he said. “And you're not scared. You are one peculiar bird, I'm telling you. Tell me, do you leave little stories lying around, like your husband did, maybe?”

“Give me your word,” she said.

“Jesus, my word? Should I be flattered or what? You mean . . .?”

She met the barman's eye for a moment.

“If it's true, what you're going to tell me?”

She nodded.

“Before we leave here, today?”

“Yes. I'll tell you.”

“And I don't have to pay until I find out, later on sometime?”

“Right.”

“Even if one millionth of this bullshit is true, you think I'm ever going to?”