The Feathery (19 page)

LONDON

M
alachy Gallagher approached the ticket window at Houston Station in London. A young woman ticket-seller peered out from behind her cage at the short man with scars over his eyebrows and both ears distorted into a strange shape. He held a duffel bag in one fist. It looked like the same bag her boyfriend took to the gym when he worked out. Malachy asked for a first class ticket on the night train to Glasgow. His deep voice carried an accent the ticket agent readily recognized as Irish. She tried to guess the man’s profession as she handed him a ticket and his change and chanced a two-word inquiry to validate her speculation. "Prize Fighter?" she asked.

His answer amounted to a scowl in her direction. He spun around and hurried away from the ticket window as the clerk’s middle finger popped up under her cage. Her, "up yours, mate," didn’t reach the Irishman as he quickly walked away toward the train platform.

The late train to Scotland had few passengers. He’d chosen train travel instead of air to avoid the airport search and X-ray. Malachy was the only passenger occupying a six-person compartment, and he hoped it would stay that way.

The train moved slowly over the rails as it started out of the station. He stood up to draw the shade on his compartment’s sliding door and reached for the duffel bag on the luggage rack above. He opened it, took out a bottle of Jameson Irish Whiskey and placed it on the shelf by the window. The other items tucked into the same bag were a 38 special pistol, some rope and a roll of duct tape. He checked the contents of a small box. Inside it lying on white cotton was a scalpel.

He zipped up the duffel bag and settled back in his seat. Malachy stared at the Jameson and looked out the compartment window at the night. As the train’s speed increased, the click-clack of the car’s wheels as they passed over cross-ties soon became one continuous tone. Raindrops streaked as they hit the window glass making the buildings along side the track a dark, wet blur.

Those sounds and the view out of the window bought him back to another rainy night when he was nineteen years old on a train heading toward London from Belfast. He was on a mission then even more deadly than this one. Northern Ireland was split between Catholic and Protestant factions and Belfast was the center of that combat. After the Orange
killed his father, it was rock-throwing and street fights at first…then at seventeen he joined the IRA for a more organized fight for the cause. He was ordered to retaliate against the English, and his assignment was to
place bombs in London pubs.

The bottle of whiskey was still unopened as the Glasgow express continued on through the dank English countryside. He remembered how he’d carried out the orders of IRA leaders and was chilled by the ruthlessness of those acts. The whiskey made it easier then, but he’d quit the drink two years ago hoping abstinence would offer absolution for his past terrorism. It didn’t help, and the same violent acts continued in different ways.

His isolation in the darkened compartment accommodated a reflection on the situation he was now in:
The reason Barkley has given me a safe house and employment is because he knows of my IRA history. And the bastard continues to use this threat of exposure to benefit his gambling empire by
forcing me to be part of a team fixing the results of sporting events. I wish I could walk away from all this, but Barkley’s arm is long.

"When will it stop?" It was as if he was asking those empty seats for an answer and forgiveness. His eyes focused on the Jameson again, and he came close to breaking his vow to quit the drink. His thoughts went to the purpose of this trip to Scotland and he spoke out loud again.
"Barkley never wants to lose."

He pulled a newspaper clipping out of his leather jacket pocket. It was cut out from the
London Evening News,
sports section, and the
headline read: YANK LONG SHOT HAS OPEN LEAD. There was a large photo of Scott Beckman with his caddie, Matt Kemp. Malachy was
more interested in Kemp’s features than Beckman’s.He stared at the photo for a moment before putting it back in his pocket. His next muse was an attempt to offer rationalization for what he’d been ordered to do.
For fuck sake, did this spoiled American country club golfer and his caddie with their wealthy, doting fathers have to go through what I did as a lad after my old man gave his life for the IRA cause?

M
att sat at the bar of the Kilt and Jeans pub savoring his first beer. His eyes were focused on the television screen above. Play was concluding and it was apparent none of the other players were going to bump Scott from the lead. When the BBC confirmed the second day leader was Beckman, Matt’s happy screech rung throughout the pub. It signaled his fellow caddies to approach him with high fives, fist-to-fist punches and handshakes. It was party time, and Matt’s party. But first, he’d phone Scott who was paged by a member of the Turnberry Hotel staff.

"Matt, buddy, we’ve come a long way from doing loops at El Camino." Scott said. "We’re leading the British Open. Can you believe it? Come on over to the hotel."

"Naw, why break tradition? It might be bad luck. I’ll hang out here with the rest of the Sherpas and groupies. I’ll meet you in the morning in the locker room. We need to be ready for the rain and wind that’s on its way over from Ireland."

"Okay, See you then."

Matt put the phone on the cradle and left the booth. He noticed an attractive girl leaning against the wall."Sorry I was so long in there," Matt spoke to her, assuming she was waiting to use the phone.
"Oh, that’s quite all right," she said. "I’m not in a hurry. Are you here for the Open golf?"
Her voice sounded deep and sexy with its Irish lilt. Matt was taken in by it and he said, "yes, I’m a caddie and my player leads it."
"Congratulations. May I come by later to help you celebrate…ah?" She hesitated waiting for his name.
"Name’s Matt Kemp, and I’ll be sitting at the bar."
She put her hand in his. "I’m Sandra. I’ll look you up there after I make my call."
Her ample breasts brushed his shoulder as she entered the phone booth. The booth’s dome light came on, activated by the switch as its
glass door closed behind her. When Matt saw the silhouette of Sandra’s body, a stronger urge to have her join him came in a hormonal rush.

Five minutes later Sandra slipped into the stool nest to him. She
ordered a beer and said, "tell me about the Open, Matt."

After some talk and some close dancing, Matt decided to accept her invitation to leave the Kilt and Jeans for another bar in the village of
Maidens, nearby. A late-arriving caddie friend approached them to offer his congratulations. Matt introduced the caddie to Sandra and then turned
aside to give his friend a run-down on Scott’s round. He missed the quick transfer of two pills from Sandra’s hand into the white foam of Matt’s beer.
The pills sank down through the froth, and before they reached the bottom of the pint, the dosage had melded with the golden brew.

Matt finished talking to his friend, and the caddie left the bar to join some others at a table. After twenty minutes and a few more swallows to finish the pint, he was ready to leave with Sandra. When he got up from his stool, a spell of queasiness hit him and he thought,
How can I feel this way after only a couple of beers
?

Sandra answered that thought. "You’re probably tired after today’s excitement and need some fresh air," she urged, "Come, let’s go."
When they reached the parking lot, Matt started to lose feeling in his legs. His last semiconscious thought was,
is this woman strong enough
to hold me up?
Two pairs of stronger arms relieved Sandra of her burden. Behind them lurked a shorter man with cauliflower ears and scars above both his eyebrows. The big ones threw Matt into the back seat and joined him on each side. Malachy took the wheel of the Renault with Sandra seated beside him. The car squealed rubber leaving the parking lot as Matt slipped down into a dark void of nothingness.

LARNE, NORTHERN ISLAND

W
hen Matt awoke, he heard the sound and motion of a boat charging through rough waters. He was blindfolded with duct tape. Above the noise made by the boat’s engines he could hear more than one muffled male voice. His first mottled thoughts came with an attempt to rationalize the carelessness that’d got him here.
My caution was clouded by the excitement of Scott having the lead.

The boat continued to smack the waves, and the smell of diesel oil combined with its motion to make him nauseous. When his body numbness started to wear off he felt a tingling sensation in his left ear. He couldn’t reach up to check out the bothersome sensation because his hands were tied to the bunk. He wondered,
Is my pierced earlobe infected?
Then he thought it silly to worry about such a small irritation when he’d been drugged and kidnapped…and most likely facing other harm.

After what seemed like hours, the boat started to slow. The engine quieted to idle, and he could hear voices with Irish accents shouting commands during the docking. Matt’s heartbeat raced and the place where his left earlobe should be was throbbing at the same fast rate. He sensed a strong grip on each arm pulling him off the bunk and leading him down a ramp into a car.

Malachy Gallagher quietly left the boat, unnoticed, while the others finished the docking and the off-loading of their abducted passenger. In his right fist he carried the duffel bag containing the 38-pistol, duct tape, bottle of Jameson whiskey and the box with a blood stained scalpel inside. When he reached the end of the dock, out of sight from those on the boat, Malachy tossed the duffel bag far out into the water of the harbor with a strong over-hand throw. After he heard it splash, he said in a whisper, "I’m done with Barkley and this business. For fuck sake, I haven’t even visited or called my mum in four years." He quickly walked two blocks, entered a phone booth, called his mother and, after talking to her, hailed the taxi that would take him to Belfast.

 
The ride for Matt was only about ten minutes until the same arm constraints walked him up some stairs. With his blindfold still in place, he knew he was entering a building when he heard a door open and close.

They took off his blindfold in one quick motion that brought a few eyebrow hairs with the duct tape. The strong-armed men on each side of him were wearing ski masks. They sat him down on the wide boards of a wooden floor whose red paint was chipped and faded. Matt looked around a room void of any furnishings. His back rested against a black wall that had chunks of white where the plaster was missing. A shade was pulled down to cover the only window, and one bare bulb hung by its electrical cord from the ceiling to serve as the only dim lighting in the room. He looked up at his ski-masked captors. They were both large, and the larger of the two spoke first.

"Just relax, caddie. We’re going to hold you here for a couple of days until the Open is over. Don’t try to get away. It won’t be looked on kindly." He waved an automatic weapon…
maybe an AK-47
, Matt thought.

The smaller, but still big, guy spoke, "I’m going to free your hands now." With that announcement he slipped a knife out from the leather sheath hanging on his belt. He made two swift cuts on the material that bound Matt’s wrists together. "There now…you may want to rub those wrists to get the circulation back." His brogue was just as Irish as the bigger one’s.

Instead of rubbing his wrists, Matt’s left hand went quickly up to his left ear. He felt a bandage there, but couldn’t detect an ear lobe or a gold ring. "What the hell have you guys done to my ear?"

The biggest answered, "Minor surgery, lad."
"Was that fucking necessary?" Matt asked.
The guy who’d used his knife to cut Matt’s wrist constraints growled an answer. "Orders from headquarters."
"Jeez, did you use that knife?" Matt pointed to the sheath on not-so-big’s belt and glared up at him. "How about infection?" he asked in
a pissed-off tone. "Don’t worry," the knife wielder said. "It was done with a clean scalpel and disinfected after. I’ll change the bandage and clean it up a
bit later."
The biggest one left the room first, and the other, who’d declared the minor surgery sanitary, reached the doorway and stopped there. He said, "hang in, Matt; It’ll be over soon. I’ll be back with some food and drink."

Matt dozed off, and when he woke up he looked around the room for a few seconds trying to recall where he was and what had happened. After
he established it was not all a bad dream, but a real horror, he touched the spot where his earlobe used to be. It was sore and still throbbing. He could hear talk with music playing in the background, and those sounds were coming from the next room. Matt recognized an old song by The Clancy Brothers
.