Slaughter's hound

19

It’s the heartbreak of many a retired and visiting New York cop that the sun does not, in fact, go down on Galway Bay. What actually happens is that the sun declines to a point roughly west of the Cliffs of Moher before disappearing behind the bank of ominous cloud permanently massed above the Aran Islands. You could’ve fried an egg on the stones when we were leaving Sligo, if you’d had an egg. Galway, on the other hand, and as always, was shrouded in a pea-soup drizzle.

We hit Supermacs on Eyre Square. Ben was ravenous, but the aroma of frying meat put me in mind of burnt pork.

‘Gift,’ he said, swooping down on my plate.

It was the first time he’d looked lively since leaving Sligo. He’d slumped in the front seat the whole way, the Gameboy silent in his lap, answering any question with grunts and mumbles. Nodded off not long after passing Knock, when I’d asked if he wanted to divert and see if we couldn’t rustle him up a miracle, only waking when I shook his shoulder in the underground car park off Eyre Square.

Shock, I guessed. It’s one thing, when you’re a kid, to throw snowballs at cop cars, hope they’ll give you a chase. Another thing entirely to be party to a getaway, especially when your old man is the wheelman.

Now he was throwing what he thought were surreptitious glances at a trio of young girls two booths away. ‘Forget about it,’ I said. ‘They only talk Irish in Galway.’

A quick grin. ‘Monty was at the Gaeltacht last summer,’ he said. ‘Said they were all gael-goers.’

‘Oh yeah? What’s a gael-goer?’

‘Y’know.’

‘I’ve heard.’

The familiar pang squeezed my heart as I realised how quickly he was growing, how much I’d missed while I was inside. Even now I was still getting it wrong, buying him gifts more appropriate for an eight-year-old, starting conversations he’d outgrown by years. He was tall for his age and yet to fill out, the shoulders and chest thin and unformed. His complexion was pale and riddled with acne, the face gaunt and shadowed from sitting too close to flickering screens. He had long lashes over round brown eyes, his mother’s eyes, and he might even have looked effeminate if it weren’t for the strong chin, the abrupt nose.

‘So what about this girlfriend I’m hearing about?’ I said. ‘She a gael-goer too?’

A faint reddening joined up the acne dots one by one. ‘What girlfriend?’

‘There’s more than one?’

He shook his head. ‘There’s no girlfriend, dad.’

A doleful note in among all the defiance that made me ache for him. ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘kidding aside, we need to talk.’

He made a point of sucking hard on the dregs of his Pepsi. ‘’Bout what?’

‘About school, what d’you think? Your mother and I-’

He rolled his eyes. I paused. We stared.

‘Okay,’ I said, ‘no bullshit. So here’s the question. You want to turn out like me, some fuckwit drives a cab?’

He was genuinely flummoxed, albeit intrigued by the foul language. ‘What’s wrong with driving a taxi?’

‘There’s nothing wrong with it. But you work long hours for fuck-all money. Sometimes you have to deal with drunken assholes. And some of them can be dangerous.’

‘Mum says they should be more worried about you.’

‘Is that a fact? What else does she say?’

‘About you? Not much.’

‘Believe it or not, that’s actually a good sign. You’ll learn all this yourself the hard way.’

Ben scratched at a stain on the knee of his tracksuit. ‘Dad?’

‘What?’

‘Are you ever coming back to live with us again?’

‘That mostly depends on your mother. Although,’ I said, wincing as I heard it out loud, ‘if I don’t it’ll be my fault, not hers.’

‘Who cares whose fault it is?’

‘It’s complicated, Ben.’

‘It’s complicated,’ he mimicked. ‘Everything’s complicated when you’re old,’ he groused.

‘Older.’

‘Old.’

I grinned. ‘Look, we need to have this talk.’ He crossed his eyes. ‘So what do you want to do with your life?’

He shrugged. ‘I dunno.’

‘I mean, what do you want to be when you grow up?’

‘Oh.’ His chin came up. ‘Play football.’

‘You mean professionally.’

He nodded.

‘Nice one. But on the remote off-chance you don’t become a footballer, what would you like to be?’

‘Dunno.’

‘You’re good at art, right?’ He nodded. ‘I mean, you like it.’ He nodded again. ‘And computers, you’re good at them too. And you’re always on the Playstation or Gameboy.’

‘So?’ he said defensively.

‘So how would you like to design computer games when you grow up?’

His eyebrows met in a downy tangle. ‘Design games?’

‘Someone has to. They don’t just appear by magic. And people get paid good money to come up with new games. If you want, I can introduce you to this guy I know, he’s a whizz at computers. He’ll show you how to get started.’

He glanced up warily. ‘Yeah, okay.’

‘I’ll clear it with your mother first, but I don’t think she’ll have any objections.’

‘You think?’

‘Hey — if your mother has a problem with anything you do, it’s for your own good. Hear me?’

‘Yeah, right.’

‘Okay.’

I rang Herb.

‘You get it?’

‘Not yet. Just heading over there now.’

‘How come?’

‘Mice and men, Herb. Listen, quick question.’

‘Shoot.’

‘Say you wanted to set someone up with a suite for designing computer games.’ The twitch to my left was Ben cocking an ear. ‘What’re we talking?’

‘All depends on what you need.’

‘Top of the range. No expense spared.’

‘What’re you building?’

‘Shoot-’em-ups. Football. The usual.’

‘Couple of grand’ll get you the beginner’s basics.’

‘Two grand, okay. Cheers.’

Ben looked up, the brown eyes wide and probing. ‘Is that two thousand euro?’

I nodded.

‘Fucking hell,’ he breathed.

‘Watch your language.’

‘You watch yours.’

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I’ll make you a deal. We can swear all we want, so long as we do it in Irish.’

He groaned and threw me an up-from-under eye that would have put the Gorgon off her feed for a week. ‘You’re funny when you try to be funny, dad. Not funny ha-ha …’

‘Funny peculiar,’ we chimed. It was Dee’s line, but the pronunciation of dad was all his own. Slightly drawn out, as if he was being sardonic. Or maybe he just didn’t get to use the word enough to be entirely comfortable with it.

‘Start thinking,’ I said.

‘’Bout what?’

‘Some game you’d like to play that hasn’t been invented yet.’

He frowned, lips pursing. Then it hit him. His jaw dropped, and the round eyes grew rounder. I laughed and reached and ruffled his hair and he was so shocked he didn’t even flinch.

I gave Ben five euro and pointed him at the amusement arcade beside Supermacs, told him I’d be back in half an hour. Then I cut down Shop Street, into Quay Street, making for the Crescent.

The phone rang when I was crossing the bridge. No caller ID.

‘Hello?’

‘Mr Rigby?’

‘Who’s this?’

‘Saoirse Hamilton, Mr Rigby.’

I gave the hold-all a little swing. Tucked inside, along with the ten grand in cash, was a cling-filmed envelope. ‘Yes?’ I said.

‘I have not changed my mind. I am hoping that you have changed yours.’

‘About finding Finn’s suicide note.’

‘Correct. I wish to retain your services.’

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Hamilton, but I really can’t afford to take time off work to go chasing something that probably doesn’t exist.’

‘You will be well rewarded for your time.’

‘I appreciate that. But it isn’t just a matter of time, is it?’

‘No,’ she said, ‘I don’t suppose it is.’

‘If I get in the cops’ way on this,’ I said, ‘they won’t be happy. I’ve already had one guy threaten to revoke my cab driver’s licence. And if things get really skewy I could be considered in breach of release conditions.’

‘I understand,’ she said. ‘How much?’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘it’s not really a case of-’

‘How much, Mr Rigby?’

‘Ten grand. Cash. Non-sequential notes.’

‘Ten thousand euro?’

‘It’s what they call danger money, Mrs Hamilton. I didn’t ask to get involved in this, but now I am, and you’re asking me to dig myself deeper. I think I’m entitled to get paid for my trouble.’

It was hard to tell with the breeze swirling around the river, but I got the impression she’d covered the receiver to confer.

‘Ten thousand euro is a substantial amount of money,’ she said.

‘Yeah, well, the cops’ll do it for free if you ask nice. But then, you get what you pay for these days. So maybe you’ll want to shop around, get the best price out there.’

‘I fail to see the-’

‘And listen, just to show there’s no hard feelings if you do decide to run with someone else, I’ll tell you now that if it was me I’d try the PA first. Pretend like you’re there to feed the dog, then run upstairs to Finn’s office, check the cistern in the bathroom. There’s a false bottom in there, perfect for hiding things under.’

Silence now. Nothing but the breeze and the phone’s hiss.

‘What did you find, Mr Rigby?’

‘I’ll put it this way. If the cops find out I have it and didn’t turn it over, it’ll cost me a hell of a lot more than ten grand.’

‘I understand. Be so good as to come and see me, Mr Rigby. I may have more work for you.’

‘I’ll do that.’

‘When shall I expect you?’

‘I’m in Galway right now, so it’ll be a few hours. Why don’t I call you when I get back to town?’

‘Very well. My number is-’

‘That’s okay, it’s in my phone now.’

She hung up. Not a woman to waste words, Saoirse Hamilton.

Not a woman to waste money either, I’d have thought. Ten grand mightn’t sound a lot in the grand scheme of things, but it’d have made a pretty good price for one of Finn’s canvases, say, and Saoirse Hamilton was forking it over sight unseen, unframed.

Maybe I should have asked for fifteen. Hell, it was all NAMA money anyway, courtesy of the endlessly generous Irish taxpayer.

The Crescent is a short curving street of three-storey Georgian relics halfway to Salthill. Quiet, respectable, affluent. Galway’s Harley Street, doctors and nothing but. Franny Moore, aka Dr Robert, had a place that backed onto the narrow alley behind the Crescent and running parallel. He also rented the lock-up directly across from his back yard. With the garden’s high walls and the alleyway’s curve, you’d need to be hovering overhead in chopper to see what was happening. X-ray vision might have helped. I laid out the ten grand and Franny placed its equivalent in primo coke in the hold-all. Up at the top end, ten grand doesn’t buy you much by way of quantity.

It all took about ten minutes. By the time I made it back to Eyre Square, Ben was waiting, damp and huddled under an awning, his eyes dark hollows.

‘What happened?’ I said.

‘Mum rang.’

‘Shit. What’d you say?’

‘What you told me to say.’

‘So we’re in Knock, right? Waiting for a delayed flight to get in.’

He nodded. Sullen, withdrawn.

‘Good lad,’ I said, feeling a lot like something he’d scraped off his shoe.

‘She said to say she’s owed twenty euro for her taxi home.’

‘Christ, what’d she get, a stretch limo?’

No reaction bar a sudden shivering. I hustled him back to the car, got back on the road, the heater on full blast. Ticking things off my mental to-do list once we were back in Sligo: drop Ben off, swing by Herb’s, take a squint inside the cling-filmed envelope before heading out to The Grange, just to be sure I wasn’t selling myself short with the ten large.

We were halfway home, the sun a golden glare in the rear-view mirrors, when Ben finally roused himself, jolted from his torpor when we crossed the disused railway tracks outside Ballindine. He blinked, rubbed his eyes, and said, ‘I’m starving.’

‘How could you be starving? You just ate two cheeseburgers.’

‘That was three hours ago.’

‘Seriously?’

I pulled in at the petrol station. Sent Ben on ahead with a fifty to pay for the petrol and rustle up some munchies from the change, watching him while I filled up, insouciant among the milling adults. It was hard to resist the sudden rush of ridiculous pride.

Okay, so Ben was Gonzo’s kid, and I favour Darwin, and what genes know about second chances you could stick in Gregor Mendel’s ear and still have room for a ball of wax. And Gonz died diving for that gun.

But if Ben’s resentment of his mother was any kind of guide, Dee was doing a fair job of raising a young boy on her own. Ben was smart and creatively inclined, sensitive to a fault. Sociable too, if his welcome at the school was anything to go by. His apathy towards his grades didn’t fit the pattern, but I was guessing the clipboard crew would find a parallel or two between his slipping grades and the sudden appearance of a father figure who’d been away for a long time, and who was still missing a lot more than he was around.

Whose big idea of a father-son day out was a coke-run to Galway in a stolen car.

Ben came back across the forecourt clutching a brown paper sack and stifling a smile. Slid into the passenger seat.

‘Change,’ I said, knowing what was coming.

He handed me seven cents, snickering, then opened the sack. Flakes, Mars Bars, Twix, Choc-Ices, Jammy Dodgers, cans of Pringles and Sprite. My throat was parched, so I guzzled half a can of Sprite and lucky-dipped a Mars Bar.

Got back on the road again, the low sun dazzling in the rear-view. I adjusted the mirror so it angled out over my left shoulder, dipped the driver’s side mirror, had Ben do the same. In a hurry now to get back home, run the necessary errands, draw a line under the day. Ben munching steadily through the can of Pringles.

‘How about some tunes?’ I said.

‘Uh-oh.’

‘Uh-oh what?’

‘Your music is rubbish, dad.’

I pointed at the stereo, a five-disc CD player. ‘This car,’ I said, ‘belongs to a guy who runs a pirate radio station.’ I didn’t want to get into the past tense, spoil the buzz. ‘I guarantee you you’ll find some good stuff in there. Press any button you like.’

He left a chocolatey smear pressing the third button. A hum and a whirring, then a hiss. ‘Swingboat Yawning’ kicked in, the scratchy guitars, the sing-song vocals, digging trenches in the stars again. My guts constricted, but at least it hadn’t come in on ‘Bell Jars Away’. Ben wobbled his head a little, considering.

‘That CD’s broken,’ he said.

‘No, it’s Rollerskate Skinny.’

He gave it about ten seconds. ‘That’s pants,’ he declared.

‘Give it a chance. Any Sprite left?’

‘It’s gone.’

‘Greedy shite. What’s left to eat?’

He snorted back a giggle. ‘Nothing.’

‘It’s all gone? The whole sack?’

He nodded, on the verge of more giggles.

‘Christ,’ I said, ‘you must have hollow legs.’

Which was when it all finally clicked into place. Haunted by Finn, maybe, a flashback to bombing along in his Audi, Horsedrawn Wishes up full blast. Finn with his window down and a fat spliff drifting sparks in the breeze.

I glanced across at Ben and saw Finn grinning up at me, a fun-loving kid with gaunted eyes and a life sucked dryer every time he drew on a jay. Saw greyish globs spitting, frying, on the cab’s skeletal frame.

Saw what I should already have seen. Or might have seen, had I been around to see.

Maybe. I’m not really the noticing type.

Right there I decided it was time to swing in behind Dee. Until now I’d been feeding her the line that it was best for Ben if I stayed at arm’s length, so he wouldn’t get teased and maybe bullied and one day tainted for being the son of an ex-con. But that was horseshit. The truth being that I was really trying to achieve some kind of retrospective exoneration if Ben lucked out and became a fuck-up too.

Besides, Ben already knew I’d been away doing time. Some day, it was inevitable, he’d find out why, and for who. When he did he’d make his own decisions about what and who was right and wrong, and maybe then he’d come to the same conclusion I had. That dad by default was better than no dad at all, for both of us.

If he didn’t, he didn’t. But until then I’d do whatever it took.

I switched off the stereo. ‘Ben?’

‘Uh-huh?’

‘How long have you been smoking dope?’

He denied it, naturally. I’d have been disappointed if he hadn’t. But he blushed to the bone and wouldn’t meet my eye. We shouted for a bit, Ben shrill and defensive, but as a mismatch we were up there with Kong and Fay Wray.

‘You’re half the time zonked,’ I said. ‘Grades sliding off the map. Eating your own weight in munchies and giggling like a girl on a wonky swing.’

A sullen snort.

‘Ben, man — you’re twelve.’

‘So?’

‘So get that fucking look off your face or I’ll smack it off.’

He rearranged his features into something pale and hollowed, stared straight ahead.

‘How long?’ I said.

‘How long what?’

‘How long have you been smoking?’

He shrugged. ‘Couple of months.’

‘How much?’

‘Dunno.’

‘One a day? Five? How much?’

‘Depends.’

‘No. It used to depend. Now it doesn’t depend so much because you’ve smoked your last joint.’

No answer. ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ I said. ‘How am I going to stop you?’ He shifted in his seat, hunching a shoulder to hide the sly grin twitching in the corner of his mouth. ‘Easy,’ I said. ‘I go to the cops, tell them some fucker’s selling my kid drugs at school.’

‘Dad-’

‘That way, everyone’ll know it was you who squealed. Yeah? Who’ll sell you dope after that? And unless things’ve changed since I was in school, you’ll be due a kicking or three as well. Am I right?’

His shoulders quivered. ‘It’s not like I’m smoking it every day,’ he said. A quavering note in his voice.

‘I don’t give a shit about what it’s not like. From now on, it’s out. Jesus, Ben, it’s a gateway drug.’

‘Chill, Dad. I know what-’

‘You haven’t a fucking clue, Ben. And tell me to chill again, and I’ll chill you. You hear me?’

‘Jesus,’ he muttered, ‘it’s only a few smokes. It’s not like I killed anyone.’

For a split-second I froze. ‘What’d you say?’

‘Nothing.’

‘You said something,’ I said, ‘about not killing anyone.’

He shrugged, edged away from me. His Adam’s apple bobbing hard. ‘It’s only dope, dad.’

A throwaway remark? Or did he know?

Either way, he was right. I softened my tone. ‘I know what I’m talking about, Ben. You think you’re the first kid who ever smoked some weed?’

An up-and-under glance from behind the fringe, quizzical. Honesty being the most shocking policy, I went the whole hog. ‘Yeah, I smoked it too.’ This time I ladled on the past tense. ‘And I’m telling you it’s a gateway drug. I started off smoking hash and wound up smoking sixty cigarettes a day.’ I left out the speed, E, acid, poppers, coke, shrooms and PCP. I had a feeling I’d need another shock or two up my sleeve in the years to come.

‘Cigarettes aren’t real drugs,’ he said.

‘They’ll kill you all the same.’

‘Yeah, but I mean-’

‘They’re not illegal, sure. But just in case there’s any confusion, here’s the way it is. If I catch you smoking hash again, I’ll break your fucking fingers to stop you rolling up. Are we clear?’

Over the top, maybe, but it had the desired effect. He slumped back in his seat, shocked at the ferocity of the threat. His skin so pale it seemed to glow in the gathering dusk. Once in a while he’d sniffle, then wipe his nose with a defiant slash, sleeve tugged down across his wrist. After a while, in a small voice, he said, ‘Are you going to tell mum?’

‘Tell her? I’m going to have to move back in with her.’

A half-choked giggle. He looked across at me, eyes huge and watering, hopeful.

‘Tell you what I’m going to do,’ I said. ‘This once, this one time only, I’m giving you an amnesty. You know what an amnesty is?’ He nodded, which was something of a thunder-stealer. ‘Okay, so the amnesty is that I don’t tell your mother, I don’t go to your school, I don’t blow the whistle to the cops. Now you tell me, what’re you going to do?’

He gulped it out. ‘Not smoke hash.’

‘Correct. I mean, Ben, if you keep smoking that crap, football’s out. Forget about it. Your lungs haven’t even formed properly yet. Sucking that shit down, you’ll cripple yourself. You know hash is ten times more cancerous than cigarettes, right?’

He shook his head. ‘No,’ I said, ‘they never tell you the downside. Then there’s the mental problems.’

‘I never even had a bad dream,’ he said.

‘Not yet, maybe. But they’ve done studies into the long-term effects of smoking dope. Know what they found?’

‘No.’

‘Neither do they. And I don’t know about you, but that scares the shit out of me.’

‘Maybe it doesn’t have any effect.’

I admired his guts, the way he wasn’t taking it lying down. But he had to learn. ‘I knew this guy,’ I said, ‘he was chilled, like you’d say. Nice guy, friendly. Liked a smoke. Guy was rich, had a good-looking girlfriend, no problems.’

‘So?’

‘He jumped off nine stories for no reason anyone can see. Last night. You’re sitting in his car right now.’

That got him. ‘Remember the crime scene earlier?’ I said. ‘I was there when it happened. The guy hit so hard he looked like a dwarf after. Smashed every bone in his body. It’ll be in the paper tomorrow, look out for it. His name was Finn Hamilton.’

‘He jumped because he was on hash?’

‘This is what I’m saying. No one knows why he jumped. But yeah, he smoked a lot of grass, for years. And I don’t care what it is you’re taking, acid or fucking bran flakes, you do something for years, it’s going to have an effect. You want to turn out a mentaller?’

‘No.’

‘Well then.’

He didn’t speak for half an hour. I let him stew, cranked up the stereo, let Rollerskate Skinny take us home. We came off the Tubbercurry bypass and I’d just dug out the makings to roll a smoke when my phone rang, caller ID flashing Dee-Dee-Dee.

I handed the half-rolled cigarette to Ben, picked up.

‘Dee?’

‘Where are you, Harry?’

‘Right now I’m on a bad stretch for talking on the phone. I’ll buzz you back in ten.’

‘Are you far away?’

‘Twenty minutes, depending on traffic.’

I hung up. Ben, sucking in his cheeks to suppress the smile, handed me the cigarette already rolled and roached. I shook my head, then grinned and sparked it up. Rollerskate Skinny adding a touch of melancholy with ‘Bell Jars Away’, Ken Griffin plaintive, this motionless ease, measure me by …

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘How this amnesty works is this. You’ll know by the time you’re eighteen if you have what it takes to make it. I mean as a footballer. If you haven’t been scouted by then, you never will. Plus, with your grades back up, you’ll probably be heading off to college, where it’s practically the law you have to smoke dope.’

‘Really?’

‘No. Look, Ben — what I’m saying is that from now on, and until you’re old enough to get your shit together, I’m on your case. Hear me? I’ll be dropping by regular, checking you out. And you can’t kid a kidder. I’ll know. Trust me. I’ll be checking for hot-spots, smelling your clothes, making it so fucking hard it won’t be worth your while smoking. And if I get the faintest whiff that you might even be thinking about having a toke, I’ll be off to the cops, dobbing your mates in. How’s that?’

He wasn’t happy, but if he hit eighteen still hating me I’d figure I’d done a half-decent job.

‘Mum doesn’t have to find out?’

‘It’s a clean slate, Ben, but it’s a one-time offer. Screw up again and you’re fucked. She’ll send you away to military school. In Gdansk. Christ!’

The phone ringing again. Dee-Dee-Dee. The road had straightened up, the long run down towards the Collooney roundabout that was there but already invisible in the gloom. I picked up.

‘I’ll be there in ten fucking minutes, okay? Chill.’

Ben sniggered. I cocked an eyebrow at him, and that was all it took.

Hard to say looking back, but if I hadn’t been juggling Dee, the phone, steering wheel and a cigarette, then maybe I’d have seen it coming. Maybe if I had readjusted the rear-view mirror when the sun finally went down I’d have caught more than a blur in my peripheral vision. Maybe if I hadn’t let myself be distracted by Ben’s snigger.

Maybe, maybe, maybe …

The world shunted ten feet to the right, the Audi shivering like a harpooned whale as it veered onto the hard shoulder. I dropped phone and cigarette, yanked hard on the wheel. Swerved back on line, clipping the white reflector poles marking the grass verge. Then a pole flickered up over the bonnet to smash the windscreen, glaze it milky.

The wheels on the left skidding out, sliding away on the grass verge. A steep slope beyond, a narrow gully.

I think Ben might have been screaming. My last lucid thought was, O Christ, it’s going to kill him too.

Then someone buried an axe in the equator. The car flipped over, seemed to hang upside down, poised in mid-air.

We hit with a crunch, the screech of metal rending, the harsh splintering of glass. The someone buried the axe in my skull. The world split in two.