Slaughter's hound

32

I asked Jimmy if he’d mind wearing his peaked cap while he drove me back to Herb’s, and he asked me if I wanted to lose my other eye, and after that we motored along in a companionable silence until Jimmy got us off the country roads and headed back to town.

‘So where’d you pick us up?’ I said.

‘Finn’s place.’

‘You were there?’

He jabbed a thumb at his eye. ‘A patch,’ he said, ‘can fuck with what you can see. You think you’re scoping everything but, y’know …’

He was being generous. ‘How’d you know I’d be at Finn’s?’

‘Gillick reckoned you’d turn up there sooner or later.’

‘He knew about the laptop.’

‘Sounds like it.’

‘So why didn’t you brace me there?’

He tapped ash out the window. ‘Because I rang Gillick when you came out, told him the score.’

‘That Maria was with me.’ He inclined his head. ‘And he told you not to jump in, just see how it played.’

‘Something like that, yeah.’

‘Just so we’re clear,’ I said. ‘I was at Finn’s picking up the laptop for Saoirse Hamilton. Gillick knows this, right?’

‘He knows.’

‘Does he know she’s paying twenty grand for it?’

He nodded. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Get him on the blower.’

‘What for?’

‘I want to be sure, if he wants the laptop, he has twenty grand cash lying around.’

‘Don’t worry about that.’

‘I’m a worrier, Jimmy. Get him on the phone.’

‘Don’t sweat it. He’s Saoirse Hamilton’s bagman. You think she has twenty gees stashed under the mattress?’

‘Wouldn’t surprise me in the least.’

A flash of white teeth. ‘I wouldn’t mind a tumble in that mattress,’ he said, ‘just to find out.’

We came over the hill at Cartron and down onto Hughes Bridge. The traffic a trickle, but steady. Across the bridge and up the bypass, cutting right at the train station and out along Strandhill Road. Jimmy cleared his throat. ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘that’s hard lines about your kid. How’s he doing?’

‘Alright, yeah. Stable.’

‘Is he a fighter?’

‘He’ll be grand, Jimmy. He takes after his mother.’

A sympathetic grimace. ‘I’ll light him a candle,’ he said, ‘first chance I get.’

‘Appreciate the thought.’

The traffic was slower on Strandhill Road for some reason, the cars dawdling along like a fat kid early for school, but I was still trying to picture Jimmy hulking over a bank of flickering candles in the back of a church when he pulled in at Herb’s gate. I took his phone, rang Herb, told him I was outside. The gates swung open and in we went.

Herb cracked open the front door, had a quick scan left and right, ushered us in and through to the living room. Maria, still bedraggled, still luminous, was slumped in an armchair facing the TV. Grainne was perched in the corner of the couch, her eyes vacant orbs, as far from Maria as it was possible to get without actually hanging herself out the window. The green cotton bag tucked between her and a cushion. The mood was tense, possibly because Herb was holding a gun, and maybe because they’d been wondering, having dived out of the Mini Cooper, if I’d ever resurface. And maybe it was because the TV was tuned to a Coronation Street repeat, mousey Sally having yet another affair. It really is the quiet ones you have to watch.

As for Herb’s gun, I presumed that was because he was half-expecting a frontal assault from the McConnells. It looked square and blocky, like a cut-down SIG.

‘Where’d you get that?’ I said.

‘Toto,’ he shrugged. ‘Where else?’

‘Toto gave you a rod?’

‘He sold me a rod, back when we hooked up.’

Jimmy was more intrigued than put out. ‘Toto McConnell?’ he said.

‘That’s right,’ Herb said. ‘You know him?’

‘You could say that, yeah.’ He sounded cautiously impressed, as if Herb had announced he kept a tiger in his kitchen, was thinking about letting it out for its afternoon romp. He made a point of glancing at his watch. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I’d love to stay and shoot the shit, but, y’know …’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Maria? Hey, Maria?’

It took her a few moments to tear her gaze away from the TV. She’d been crying, and had reapplied the mascara with what must have been a shaky hand, leaving her looking a lot like a sultry Sioux racoon. Whether the look was intended as camouflage or war paint was hard to say. ‘You want to take Grainne through to the kitchen?’ I said.

Her eyes seemed to swim a backstroke as she focused on me.

‘What?’ she said.

‘We’ve had a wee, ah, chillum,’ Herb said. ‘Just to take things down a notch.’

‘Ah.’ That would explain Grainne’s dislocated stare. She was out to lunch, in Rio. ‘Alright, let’s take it next door.’

We trooped through to the kitchen, Herb gesturing for Jimmy to go first, me bringing up the rear. Jimmy perched a butt-cheek on the kitchen table, said, ‘So where’s this laptop?’

I jerked a thumb over my shoulder. ‘Grainne has it, it’s in that green bag on the couch. But let’s be cool, alright? We try to take it away from her, she’s liable to start-’

Herb’s phone went off, a tinny ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ pealing through the kitchen. He held up hand, apologising, as he slipped it from his pocket, answering as he went out into the hallway, closing the door.

Jimmy tapped his watch. ‘Time’s money, Rigby.’

‘Fucking everything’s money lately, Jimmy. I just want to be sure-’

‘And that’s twice now,’ he nodded at the closed door, ‘I’ve had rods pulled on me in the last hour.’

‘He didn’t pull any fucking rod, for fuck’s sake. He had it out when you came in.’

‘I’m just saying, I get nervous around guns when it’s other people have them.’

‘You want mine?’ I hauled the.38 out of my belt, held it up. ‘Will that make you feel any-’

The door opened. Herb stood there, SIG in one hand, phone in the other. He seemed to have lost weight in the few seconds he’d been gone, most of it around the shoulders and chest. His eyes bright and dead as they found mine.

‘Fuck, Harry …’ he croaked.

And I knew.