The Color of Blood

Twenty-six

I WAS STILL STANDING BY THE DOOR WITH THE MARBLE clock in my hand when Tommy Owens clumped through it with a Steyr machine pistol in his hand. He reared back like a bucking horse when he saw the bodies, swinging around so that the SMG was aimed at me.

“You can put that down, for a start,” I said.

I’d never been more relieved to see anyone in my life.

“Come on Ed, the cops are on the way,” Tommy said.

“Where’s Moon?”

“Where do we go when we die man? We can talk about that later. Right now, your chariot awaits.”

“There was a security man knocking around here-”

“He legged it when he saw this. Come on.”

I followed Tommy down two flights of stairs to street level. He ducked into the violet and blue front room we had been in earlier and looked out at the street.

“Okay Ed, there’s a maroon Beemer parked across the road. You go, I’ll get your back.”

The submachine gun was taking Tommy over; he had started to talk like someone in an action movie. I shook my head.

“Tommy, is that the gun that killed the Reillys?”

He nodded.

“Then wipe it down and leave it here, all nice and neat and case closed for the Guards. Come on, we don’t need that class of weapon anymore.”

Tommy conceded with a grimace, gave the Steyr a quick clean with a hand towel from a downstairs loo and tossed it at the bottom of the stairs. We left the door open behind us and ran across to the BMW. I could hear the sirens approaching as we drove away.

I didn’t see Maria and Anita until we were on Strand Road, the sea stretching dark and mysterious to our left, the candy-stripe chimneys of Poolbeg towering above the bay. Then the Kravchenko girls raised themselves from the backseat where they’d been huddled. Neither of them said anything; they were whispering words of what sounded like comfort to each other; each cried occasionally. When I heard what they’d been through, I was surprised they had managed to stop crying at all.

I thanked Tommy for tracking me down, and silently asked forgiveness from whoever runs that department for thinking he had set me up. Looking ever more incongruous with his new face, new hair and his new seat behind the wheel of a luxury German car, and a stark, level expression on his face, Tommy Owens brought me up to speed.

“’Course we might have been able to stop them in their tracks if you hadn’t barged in like a stiff prick, not a thought to where the danger might lie-behind the fuckin’ hedge, you gobshite. I was across the road in the Beemer-I got it from Brock’s lockup in Woodpark-watching and waiting. I’d gone there after I gave you the GHB. Just had a notion Moon wasn’t finished with the ladies yet. I took the Steyr, and I was ready to step out and use it when Moon jumped you. But it didn’t look to me like they were going to take you out there and then; otherwise, why didn’t they, know what I mean?”

“So Brock and Moon had been in the house, they just done the locks with a crowbar, not exactly high security there in Quarry Fields, I warned you about that one, and out come the ladies, in a bad way, too frightened to scream. Moon has another submachine gun, Brock has one too, but he looks very nervous, like he doesn’t want to be there.”

“They argue,” Anita said. “Brock, he doesn’t want to do it, he is saying leave the girls, it’s too much trouble, we have no papers. Moon says girls are loose ends, we know too much, we must be dealt with. I think we are going to die.”

Anita’s voice rose to a cry as she said “die,” and Maria hushed her, and then said, “We don’t die. Fat fucks die.”

“So Brock is in the SUV with Anita and Maria, and there’s a driver, some big shaven-headed heap. After Moon’s kicked the shite out of you, he bundles you into the SUV and they take off, heading north. I follow, fairly close eye, ’cause there’s no way Brock will recognize the motor, and it’s not exactly an exotic route they’re taking, Rock Road, Merrion Road, up Pembroke Road and around onto Fitzwilliam Square. They help you out and get you into Brock’s gaff, then they’re all back into the vehicle and down through Ballsbridge, down toward the railway and a quick turn into this little private cul-de-sac, about a dozen town houses. They head to a house at the far end, and I drive past and park the Beemer outside a big Audi dealership. There’s a laneway by the showroom that leads down to the river, couple of fences and some brambles no bother, then I’m doubling back between the wall that drops to the river and the town house gardens, little river-view patios with paving and newly planted hawthorn and laurel. No lights anywhere except where Brock’s crew have gone. I keep my distance, don’t want to set off any lights, there’s mud and rotting leaves and river rats underfoot but I get there, close enough to see through the big patio doors.”

“Moon is a pimp,” said Maria. “Rape you until you do as he says. The fat pig driver is going to run us both from the house. Brock can’t refuse. He is a weakling, he keeps whining, ‘I am so sorry.’ Moon has power over Brock.”

“The driver is called Bomber,” added Anita. “Moon says, each of them will fuck us, and then we will behave, or they will fuck us again until we do.”

“Fat fucking pigs,” Maria said, she now on the verge of tears.

“Then we will work in the house, and if we do well, they might let us go. But they never will.”

“Anita was crying on Maria’s shoulder, and Moon was waving his hands at them, making faces, all smiles, like he was full of jokes, you know, getting them to see the funny side?” Tommy said. “And then he just pulls Maria away from Anita, and Bomber starts pawing her, you know, pulling at her clothes, and she slaps him, and he hits her a dig in the stomach, and she falls to the ground. Now Maria starts screaming and struggling with Moon, and he just starts backhanding her across the face, and he’s shouting at her, he’s got the finger pointed and he’s shaking her, and Bomber’s on top of Anita, ripping her clothes off like he’s going to do her there and then, and Brock’s in the middle suddenly, waving his hands around like some fucking vicar or something, like he’s trying to keep the peace. He looked like a total fool, and Moon holds Maria to one side and points his finger in Brock’s face, and suddenly Brock just opens the patio doors and comes out in the garden and slams them shut and walks down toward me. For some reason there’s no security light working, maybe if you’re running a knocking shop with a lot of late-night coming and going that’s a good idea to keep the neighbors sweet, I don’t fucking know, funny what crowds your brain when you’re supposed to be on action stations, anyway, next thing I see is Bomber’s trousers down and his fat arse through the window, so I don’t have any more time to waste, I pull the slide on the Steyr back halfway, to semiautomatic fire-if I have to use it I don’t want the fucking thing cracking around like a submachine gun, I couldn’t handle that man-and I jump up and level the gun at Brock. I don’t have time to frisk him, but I haven’t seen a weapon, so I’ll take the chance.

“‘Turn around,’ I said.

“He turns, and I push him forward toward the patio doors, using him like a shield. As I get closer, I can see…ah fuck it, disgusting so it was.”

“Fat pigs are raping us,” said Maria, her voice low and wavering, like an old man’s. “We live in hell.”

“I get Taylor to open the door, and then I push him in,” said Tommy, breathing heavily now. “And I’m just standing there, like a statue, you know, because I don’t want to shoot anyone. I’m not supposed to be shooting people. I’m a mechanic, for fuck’s sake. And Moon says something like, ‘Good man, Brock, you can have the next go.’

“And I shoot over him, into the wall. And he’s up in an instant, his trousers around his ankles, and he’s going in his coat on the chair, and he has a submachine gun in his hands, a Steyr just like mine, and it’s him or me, and I shoot him twice, three times, center on, hit him twice, and he gets a burst out before he goes down, he’s on automatic fire, and he clips Brock in the side, and I see Bomber fumbling in his clothes and I warn him, drop it, hands where I can see them, and he comes up with a handgun, don’t know what it is, I shout again, and then I shoot him twice, and that’s it. He had a chance, they both had a fucking chance, now they’re both dead, or they look dead, they’re not fucking moving anyway, I’m not going any closer to them to check.”

Tommy was shaking now, and tears were in his eyes. We had passed Seafield Harbour, and I told him to pull in at a stopping place by the Promenade.

“I didn’t want to do it, Ed, I didn’t want to do it. I mean, they’re fucking scumbags, but…”

I couldn’t think of anything to say. Maria could though.

“They would kill you, send us to hell. Savage cunts. Better off dead.”

I looked in the rearview. Both Anita and Maria had bruises on their faces; the misery and fear in their eyes would take longer to heal.

I put my hand on Tommy’s shoulder. Sobs wracked through his body like a rolling tide. Then he sniffed and caught his breath, and took up the story.

“The girls are huddled together, weeping, I tell them to get dressed, we need to get out: the fucking noise of all the gunfire, Saturday night in Beirut, I can hear doors opening down the street. Brock is trying to lam out the front door, and I hit him on the side of the head with the butt of the Steyr. I go through Moon’s coat, get your phones, and the Sig Sauer you took from the Reillys. By the time we’re out the patio doors, Brock’s back up and vanished. There’s three of us now, and we take the route I took, back between the river and the backyards, then round the corner, through the brambles, over the fences-a bit trickier when there’s three-and made it down the lane to the car. When I passed the cul-de-sac, the Guards were already there.”

Tommy stared out at the black expanse of sea. The fog looked to be lifting, and you could see a trickle of moonlight slating the rippled surface of the water.

“You killed two men, Tommy, and I can’t tell you how to feel about that,” I said. “But I can tell you this-you did well tonight, better than I did. You saved these girls, and you probably saved my life. I think you’ve more than made up for everything you did, and then some.”

Tommy nodded silently.

“So you can have your key back. Now let’s get going, we’re not done yet.”

Tommy drove the short distance to Quarry Fields, and we took Anita and Maria inside. They were frightened about staying there, and I persuaded Tommy, whom they now, rightly, considered their protector, to stay with them. That settled, they set about washing away at least some physical traces of what had happened to them.

The answerphone light was flashing. I listened to the message and immediately wished I hadn’t. It was from my ex-wife. It was hard to make out what she was saying, as she seemed to be crying, or laughing, or both. But the gist was that she had given birth to a baby boy that morning, that she knew he could never take the place of Lily, our daughter, but that she felt happy today for the first time since Lily died, and she hoped I could share that happiness too. I couldn’t. I listened to the message again, then a third time. When Tommy Owens came out I was huddled in a ball on the stairs with my head in my hands. He wiped the message, and got me up, and talked me down, and made me wash my face, and fed me coffee and Nurofen, and put the Sig Sauer in my pocket, and told me to go back to work.