Collusion

13

Gerry Fegan stood still and closed his eyes when the long Cadillac slowed alongside him. He’d been as careful as he could, getting off the F Train at Delancey Street station instead of East Broadway, and taking the most circuitous route he could find to his building on the corner of Hester and Ludlow Street. He would have fled when he had the chance, only he needed money and his fake passport. He had no choice but to go back to his shabby little room on the Lower East Side.

The brakes whined. ‘Doyles want to see you, Gerry Fegan,’ a heavily accented voice called.

Fegan opened his eyes and turned to Pyè Préval. He was the only black man the Doyle brothers would have about them. The small and wiry Haitian leaned out of the rear passenger side window. Fegan had met him a few times on the sites he’d worked on. In his strange mix of Haitian Creole and English, Pyè often told Fegan he wanted to visit Ireland. He asked Fegan about the weather and the landscape, the drink, and the ‘fi’ – the girls. Fegan liked him in a way, but knew a bad man when he met one. Pyè would be handy with a knife, Fegan was sure of it.

Pyè got out of the car and held the door open. ‘Zanmi mwen,’ he said, his smile as bright as the day. He pointed inside the limo. ‘My friend, get in machin nan.’

‘Jimmy Stone’s going to need surgery on that knee,’ Frankie Doyle said. He speared a meatball with his fork and squashed overcooked pasta into it with his knife.

The tourists on Mulberry Street paid no attention to Fegan or the Doyles as they talked at a table outside the restaurant. The brothers didn’t offer Fegan any food.

‘Tell him I’m sorry about that,’ Fegan said.

Packie Doyle snorted and mopped his mouth with a paper napkin. ‘Christ, I don’t think sorry’s going to do it, Gerry.’

Fegan didn’t protest at the name. ‘Will he be all right?’ he asked.

‘Eventually,’ Frankie said. ‘He’ll be on crutches for a month or two, and he’ll have a limp for a good long while. Some of the boys thought we should do you over for that, Gerry. Do both your knees, see how you like it.’

Fegan said nothing. An image flickered briefly in his mind: breaking a young man’s left knee behind McKenna’s bar on the Springfield Road. It had been more than two decades ago, and remembrance could do no good. He pushed the memory away.

Packie mopped up sauce with a fistful of bread. ‘We don’t want a fight with you, Gerry,’ he said.

‘No fight,’ Frankie said. ‘Jesus, if we wanted that, we wouldn’t be sitting here now. We could just as easy turn you in to the cops, or immigration even, as hand you over to this guy who’s looking for you.’

‘We could’ve done that,’ Packie said through a mouthful of bread, ‘but we didn’t.’

‘Look at things our way for a minute,’ Frankie said. ‘Good men are hard to find.’

‘You can’t get the help these days,’ Packie said.

‘So along comes a good man,’ Frankie said, ‘and we want to put some work his way.’

‘But he throws it back in our face,’ Packie said.

‘And we’re just trying to do him a good turn,’ Frankie said. ‘You see where we’re coming from, Gerry?’

Fegan clasped his hands together. ‘I just want to be left alone.’

‘We all want a quiet life,’ Packie said.

Frankie nodded. ‘What we want and what we get are two different things.’

You owe us, Gerry,’ Packie said. ‘And not just for keeping quiet about who and where you are.’

‘Jimmy’s surgery won’t be cheap,’ Frankie said.

‘Thousands, it’ll cost,’ Packie said.

‘There’s no getting round it, Gerry,’ Frankie said.

‘Everybody pays,’ Packie said.

‘Sooner or later,’ Frankie said.

Fegan eyed the bottle of red wine the brothers shared. He swallowed against the dryness in his throat. ‘What do you want me to do?’ he asked.