Slaughter's hound

30

Afterwards she rolled away from me and got off the bed and went into the bathroom. When she came back she wouldn’t look at me, just knelt on the ground and resumed packing the suitcase.

‘If you forget anything,’ I lied, ‘I’ll come back for it later.’

‘Fuck you.’ She gathered two handfuls of pants and bras, dumped them into the suitcase, then half-zipped it closed. When she straightened up to face me, flushed but somehow drained, her expression was a lot like a rusty tuba might sound. ‘Do you think he knew?’ she said.

‘Knew what?’

‘About you.’

I got up and went to the doorway, retrieved the bag. ‘I wouldn’t think so, no. But even if he did, it wouldn’t have been the me part that bothered him.’

‘You’re saying, it’d be the me part.’

‘Let it go, Maria. Finn wasn’t the type to die of a broken heart.’

‘Something made him jump.’

‘It generally takes more than just one thing.’

‘Maybe so,’ she said. She hoisted the suitcase, shouldered past me in the doorway. ‘But maybe we were the one thing that pushed him over the edge.’

There was much weeping and falling upon necks when the sisterhood reunited, the Mini Cooper’s interior dripping humid with professions of undying solidarity. Most of them, as it happened, Grainne’s.

‘Okay,’ I said, getting in. ‘Miles to go before I sleep and so forth.’

Grainne extricated herself from the grapple-hold, knuckling tears up her nose. ‘Where to now?’ she said.

‘There’s a gun in there,’ I toed the green cotton bag, ‘and I don’t want to be around it any longer than I have to.’

‘You’re still doing it?’

‘I am.’

She twisted around to look back at Maria. ‘Did he tell you about Finn’s email?’

‘Now isn’t the time, Grainne,’ Maria said. She sounded like a bank’s answering machine. Metallic, disembodied, heedless.

‘But if we give Saoirse the laptop, she’ll know everything.’

‘She’s already guessed he was up to something hinky,’ I said. ‘The laptop’ll just confirm the details.’

‘I know that. But if we can keep it away from her long enough to-’

‘Who’s this “we”?’ I said. I glanced back at Maria. ‘Do you want to tell her, or will I?’

‘Tell me what?’

There was a very long moment when it could have gone either way, but then Maria blinked and looked away to Grainne. ‘Harry says Saoirse is making threats,’ she said.

‘Threats?’

‘So he says.’

‘What kind of threats?’

‘Your mother,’ I said, ‘isn’t in a good place right now. She blames Maria for Finn’s suicide and she’s looking for proof. So I’m suggesting we get the laptop to her straight away, let her burn out searching for some reason to blame Maria. While she’s busy, we get Maria somewhere safe until we can put her on a flight out of here.’

‘And in the meantime,’ Grainne sneered, ‘you get paid for bringing her the laptop.’

‘There’s that.’

‘Where’s this somewhere safe?’ Maria said.

‘Friend of mine. He’ll put you up for now.’ I nudged Grainne’s elbow. ‘Let’s go. Drive.’

‘But-’

‘I’ll put you out and make you walk.’

‘It’s best this way,’ Maria said from the rear. Dull, resigned.

Grainne’s jaw tightened, but she started the car. ‘What about the cops?’ she said.

‘The cops want me for a hold-all of coke. I’m guessing they’ll keep the road-blocks to a minimum.’

Grainne nosed out of the car park, turned right along Kennedy Parade.

‘This coke the cops want you for,’ Maria said. ‘Is that what Finn ordered?’

‘Different score.’

‘But the cops know you were there when he jumped.’

‘Yep.’

‘But they don’t think you pushed him.’

‘Some of them do.’

‘Are they right?’

‘Nope.’

The way Grainne had her ear cocked, she might well have been trying to tune in to a satellite orbiting Io.

‘You’re sure,’ Maria said.

‘I’m positive,’ I said. ‘I was there. If I was the one pushed him I’d have remembered by now. Especially when everyone keeps asking the same fucking question.’

‘Why,’ Grainne said, her voice strained, ‘would Harry want to push Finn?’

‘No reason,’ Maria said. ‘I’m just asking. No one’s telling me anything, so I’m asking.’

‘Fine by me,’ I said. ‘Only next time, before you open your mouth? Remember you’re drunk.’

‘Bite me.’

‘Fucking ingrate.’

‘Asshole.’

We kept it up all the way to Herb’s. My strategy was to distract Grainne from asking dangerous questions about why I might want Finn out of the picture. Maria’s ambition appeared to be to maximise her insults using the minimum of vowels.

Inside, I pointed Grainne at the downstairs bathroom and Maria towards the kitchen, the kettle and as much black coffee as her kidneys would bear. Some buttery toast for yours truly wouldn’t go amiss either.

Herb watched it all, appalled. Then he took me out to the kitchen.

‘The fuck’re you doing, Harry?’

‘She needs somewhere to stay for a few hours. Once we get a flight sorted, I’ll drop her down to Knock, put her on the plane.’

‘Now? Are you fucking mental?’

‘Getting that way.’ I dug out the makings I’d liberated from the coffee table at Finn’s, started rolling a smoke. ‘You wanted to see me,’ I said. ‘I’m here.’

‘What I wanted,’ Herb grated, ‘was for you to turn up with Toto’s coke, late being a hell of a lot better than never when it comes to Toto fucking McConnell. What I got was Finn’s tart pissed to the gills and some underage minge looks like Marilyn Manson with a hangover. And you,’ he gestured at the eye-patch, ‘looking like Jolly fucking Roger.’

‘Actually, the Jolly Roger was-’

‘I’ll fucking Jolly Roger you. Where’s the coke?’

‘The cops have it.’

‘The fucking cops? How the fuck?’

‘Well, I’m guessing here, but I’d say it happened when I was spark out after been run off the road, the car being swarmed by cops and firemen.’

‘Run off the road?’

‘Rammed, yeah.’

‘But who the fuck’d-’

‘Dunno. This guy in Galway, Moore. How well do you know him?’

‘I don’t, he’s Toto’s guy.’ He thought about that. ‘What’re you saying, the guy’s ripping off Toto?’

‘Could be. Only this way it looks like the rip-off’s coming at your end.’

He squinted at me. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘It means our boy in Galway handed over the coke, that’s all he knows. And all Toto knows is there’s no product. So that puts you and me in the middle, the cops holding the coke and needing names to join the dots.’

He took a half-step back, as if only now realising I was dangerously insane. ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘you’re not thinking of giving up Toto McConnell.’

I closed my eyes, the sun streaming warm into the kitchen, and for a split-second allowed myself to see it all laid out in a perfect daisy-chain. How I’d give up Herb for the coke, and he’d give up the McConnells, and we’d all live happily ever after in a pink palace in the clouds. A tidy little fantasy, sure, even as the iron weight in my gut reminded me I was only indulging it so I wouldn’t have to dwell on Ben lying still as a statue amid the crisp white sheets, a tangerine-size lump bleeding into his brain.

I tuned back in to Herb’s rant. ‘… how it looks on me, Toto’s thinking you’re playing both ends, laying side bets with the fucking cops.’

I let my eyes go dead. ‘Say that again?’

This time, when he took a full step back, he was under no illusions as to how dangerously insane I was feeling. He took a deep breath, let it out slow. ‘I’m just talking through the options here,’ he said.

‘Keep talking. Maybe you’ll end up in a bed beside Ben.’

‘What’s that, a threat? Jesus, Harry. You lose ten grand in product and you’re the one threatening me?’

‘Wise up, Herb. I’m not the one put Ben in that bed. And

you’re wasting your time talking to me. I was you,’ I said, ‘I’d get on the blower to Toto, feel him out. Because if it wasn’t Toto’s boys ran me off the road, then it’s someone else fucking around on his patch. And radio silence from your end might get him to thinking it’s you.’

His expression lacked the sickly green pallor of Munch’s Scream but it wasn’t a bad stab. ‘Something else you should know,’ I said.

‘This better be good fucking news, Harry.’

‘A cop told me Finn was onside.’

‘He was touting?’

‘Not about the grass. But he was cosy, yeah.’

He said nothing to that. He didn’t have to. Herb’d said all along that Finn was a flake, and the whole sorry mess had kicked off with a call from Finn ordering up three bags of grass Herb’d questioned from the start. And I’d vouched for Finn.

We stared awhile, neither us composing any odes about limpid pools. ‘There’s good news,’ I said then.

‘Yeah?’

I told him about Saoirse Hamilton and the laptop, skipping the bit about the gun in case he melted down right there. The twenty grand cash, ten of which was Toto’s for the impounded coke, ten going to the cost of replacing the torched cab.

‘Toto really wanted that coke for tonight,’ he said.

‘Yeah, well.’

‘Shit,’ he said. ‘Fuckity-fucking shit.’

There wasn’t much I could add to that. ‘Listen, about Maria. A couple of hours is all she needs, somewhere to kip down.’

‘Anyone looking for her?’

‘I wouldn’t think so. Anyway, they’ll never look for her here. While I’m gone,’ I said, ‘you could be booking her out of Knock on the first flight to London.’

‘I’m a travel agent now?’

‘The quicker it’s done, the sooner she’s gone. And it’ll look better with Toto, he comes looking for his coke, if we have his ten large ready to go.’

He accepted the logic. ‘When’ll you be back?’

‘Soon as I get the money and work out some way of seeing Ben.’

He nodded. ‘What’s the latest there?’

‘Last I heard he was holding on. Dee isn’t keen on hearing from me right now.’ Something wobbled up through my chest, a bubble that broke at the back of my throat. Herb stepped in, put a hand on my shoulder.

‘Want me to ring her?’ he said.

‘That’d be good, yeah.’

We went back into the house, through to the kitchen. There was no black coffee, no buttery toast. Grainne was at the table hunched over the laptop, smoking and sullen. I made the introductions, asked where Maria was. She jerked a thumb in the direction of the living room.

Maria was panned out on the couch, snoring gently.

‘Mi casa, su casa,’ Herb observed as he scrolled down through the contacts list on his mobile. He found Dee’s number, pressed call.

He didn’t get to say a lot. There was much by way of sympathetic grunting, and then he asked Dee if there was anything he could do.

‘If I see you,’ he said after he hung up, ‘I’m to kick your balls into your throat and then suck them out and spit them into a blender. Then bring her the blender.’

‘Is he okay?’

‘Better, she says. He squeezed her finger about an hour ago, although the doc says that could be just a reflex reaction, nothing to do with anything.’

‘Shit.’

‘Think positive,’ he urged. ‘If he was really bad, they’d have transferred him to Dublin by now. What’re you looking for?’

I was hunkered down beside the couch, rummaging through Maria’s suitcase. Came up with her passport. I flipped it open on the off-chance but it looked genuine, no five grand stashed inside. ‘You’ll need that to book her flight,’ I said. ‘Her purse must be around here somewhere, her credit card.’

‘How long will you be?’

‘Couple of hours, tops.’

‘So I should book her flight for …’

‘This evening. Late as you can. Give me a chance to get back here, drive her down.’

‘We could always stick her in a taxi,’ he said, and for the briefest of moments something glittered in his bleak eyes, a faint hint of humour.

Sometimes that’s enough. For the first time in I couldn’t remember how long I felt like everything might just work out okay.

I fetched Grainne from the kitchen, hit the road. It wasn’t until we were pulling out of Herb’s drive that it hit me. That maybe Ben hadn’t been transferred because he was too fragile to be moved at all.