Bombproof (7 page)

A week later, dressed in uniform, Dessie walked into a notorious IRA bar in the Newry and ordered a beer. Waited. Not for long. He left three people near death, tore the place up and the COs needed teargas to get him out. Dessie was dishonourably discharged. Prematurely ejected. Returned to civilian life even less civilised than before he signed up.

Clearly he doesn’t bear a grudge against Paddies, thinks Sami, glancing at Murphy.

‘Don’t believe everything you’ve heard about me, Mr Murphy. If I was so talented, I wouldn’t have got caught.’

‘You were unlucky,’ says Murphy.

Tell me about it, thinks Sami.

‘Modest, too, I like that in a young man, Mr Macbeth. You’re not some cocky little gobshite who thinks he’s seen it all. And you’re not a flash prick like Toby Streak, who buys himself a sports car and rubs the law’s nose in his success. You’re old school. A skilled technician. An artist. I like surrounding myself with talented people; people who use their god-given skills. You know what I’m saying, son?’

The answer is no, but Sami doesn’t utter it out loud.

‘You’re a quiet achiever. That’s why none of us had ever heard of you until the Hampstead job. You kept a low profile. Used your discretion.’

What the fuck is he talking about, thinks Sami.

‘I could use someone gifted like you,’ says Murphy. ‘Someone who thinks on his feet, someone flexible, someone who can open things.’

‘You got the wrong guy,’ says Sami, feeling the conversation has taken a wrong turn. ‘I just want to find my sister and get my shit together in one pile.’

Murphy slathers butter on one half of a torn bread roll.

‘You work alone, I understand that, but I could open up whole new horizons.’

‘It’s not that,’ says Sami. ‘I’m going to concentrate on my music.’

‘Come again?’

‘I play guitar. I’m a musician.’

Murphy has stopped chewing. ‘You taking the piss, son?’

Sami realises his mistake. ‘No, no, I’m just thinking, given what’s happened, that it might be best to change my career. I thought I might concentrate on my music, you know.’

Murphy gives him the pointy finger. ‘You’re planning something, aren’t you? The big score.’

‘No, sir.’

‘Nobody fucking retires in this business unless they’re planning a see-you-later job.’

‘It’s not about money.’

‘It’s always about fucking money. You want to contemplate retirement - you do it while you’re tossing champagne bottles off the back of your yacht or sipping sangria in a Spanish villa.’

‘I’m not planning anything,’ says Sami.

Murphy looks at him dubiously, wondering if he’s lost his bottle, or worse, gone over to the other side.

‘How old are you, son?’

‘Twenty-seven.’

‘How much have you got in your pocket?’

Sami shrugs.

‘You’re potless, aren’t you?’ Murphy pushes back his chair. ‘Poverty isn’t freedom. Look at the poor fuckers out there.’ He points to a bus queue over the road. People are shivering in the rain. ‘Most of ’em ain’t got a pot to piss in. They’re shell-shocked, exhausted, they’re tired of scraping away week after week, year after year, making the giro stretch till next pension day, living on overdrafts and plastic. Meanwhile, the politicians keep telling them they’ve never had it so good and they’re too stupid to know they’re being lied to. Only scraps ever fall from the top table, son. Toast crumbs and bacon rind. So when you hear a politician start talking about trickle down economics and how everyone benefits from the good times, that’s because they’re pissing on you from a great height.’

Dessie chuckles.

‘Do you ever think about the future, Sami?’ Murphy asks.

All the time, thinks Sami.

‘What are you gonna do?’

‘Start a band. Get some gigs. Look after Nadia.’

‘Work with me, son. And I’ll make sure you’ve got a tidy little stack before you walk away. I’ll even throw you a farewell party.’

‘What about Nadia?’

‘I’ll see what I can do to find her. I got contacts. I’ll lean a little on Toby Streak. Get the real story.’

This is crazy, thinks Sami. He’s two days out of prison - innocent as the day he was born - and Tony Murphy wants him to join the firm. His guts are churning.

‘I just want to find Nadia,’ he says.

‘Like I said, I’ll help you find her.’

‘Do you know where she is?’

‘Not without asking.’

Sami looks hard at Murphy’s face, searching for a clue that he knows more. Out of the corner of his eyes he sees Dessie’s right eyebrow go up a quarter of an inch. He doesn’t understand what it means but he knows enough to sense trouble.

‘It’s nothing personal, Tony. I’m not interested.’

There’s a moment. A heartbeat. Murphy’s face has turned to stone. ‘Don’t fucking call me Tony, you little prick.’

‘I apologise. No offence meant, Mr Murphy.’

‘Listen, you dainty little poof, you come in here, interrupt my meal, make outrageous allegations and then piss on my offer to help like I’m some up-his-own-arse charity worker.’

‘No, sir.’

‘You consider what I have to say, son. And don’t leave it too long.’

Somehow Sami finds his feet, makes it through the restaurant, down the stairs, outside. He walks along the river past a group of Japanese tourists who are following a yellow umbrella like it’s a religious artefact.

10

Tony Murphy belches quietly, getting a second taste of his rabbit poached in red wine with mashed potato and truffle oil. His gout is acting up - his right toe swollen - but the pain is preferable to the controlled diet his doctor recommended. No pâté. No port. Fuck that!

Murphy sighs and lets out a stream of urine into the porcelain. Sami Macbeth is exercising his mind. The kid didn’t come round.

That’s the problem with the new breed, Murphy thinks. Most of them are soft pricks and idiots, who grow up thinking they’re entitled. Gimme a freebie; gimme a discount; gimme a spot of unsecured credit - they’re a gimme fucking army who don’t know the meaning of good honest criminal graft.

Life would be a lot simpler without families. Sami Macbeth wouldn’t have to worry about his sister and Ray Garza wouldn’t have to worry about his idiot offspring.

Ray Jnr started all this. The kid took liberties. Took something that didn’t belong to him.

Murphy should have known better than to help the boy out but he thought it might be useful having the Chairman’s son in his debt. Big mistake. Huge fucking mistake. Next thing the kid is riding round town like some outlaw baddie, dealing cocaine and drag-racing rozzers.

He was always a fuck-up. That’s why Ray Snr packed him off to boarding school at twelve. Thought it might improve his prospects mixing with a lot of chinless trout in straw boaters and blazers.

Education is never wasted on the young they say and Ray Jnr didn’t waste his. By his second year he was running an SP operation out of the junior common room and selling contraband - cigarettes, dope, girlie magazines, you name it. In the tenth grade he smuggled two hookers into the senior dorm as part of a ‘use it or lose it’ weekend for spotty virgins.

The Eton version of a court martial followed. It wasn’t the last time. Ray Jnr went to three more posh schools in the next two years and was asked to leave each of them. His old man paid the damages, apologised to the parents and made donations to the building funds.

At one point he employed a brace of security specialists, ex-Paras, to keep an eye on Ray Jnr and make sure he didn’t dig a tunnel under the fence. Made no difference. The kid was a chip off the old block, an entrepreneur, a mover and a shaker without the brains or the guile of his father.

Eventually, Garza’s missus suggested he let Ray Jnr leave school and bring him into the business where Daddy could keep an eye on him. They gave him a junior management position. Put him on a salary. Began showing him the ropes.

Unfortunately, the only ropes Ray Jnr was interested in were wrapped around a young lovely’s wrist and knotted to the bedpost while he snorted cocaine off her gym-sculptured stomach.

Ray Jnr didn’t have an A-level to his name but he wasn’t a complete moron. He knew Daddy was worth millions and the trust fund kicked in when he turned twenty-five. All he had to do was wait.

Consequently, he stopped showing up for work and hung out with his hooray buddies, partying hard. He liked the ladies. He liked the clothes. He liked the flash sports car Daddy bought him for his eighteenth.

The Chairman must have been tearing his hair out, so he tried something different. Tough love. He cut the kid’s allowance. Figured he’d bring Ray Jnr to heel. It didn’t quite work out that way.

Ray Jnr went into business for himself, dealing coke and Gary Abblets to his trust fund buddies and posh mates. He had all the right connections and enough chutzpah to think he was a class act, when in reality he had about as much sophistication as a coat-hanger abortion.

Ray Jnr was dealing to the top end of the market, the quality street gang, the crème de la crème and didn’t notice he was treading on some big hairy fucking toes. The Albanians and the Turks didn’t give a shit if he was Ray Garza’s boy. To them he was simply a young punk muscling in on their primo uno turf.

That’s when Ray Jnr came to Murphy. Couldn’t go to his old man. There was too much yuppie Mafioso shit going down and he wanted protection. Security.

Murphy offered him advice. Said he’d make some calls.

Ray Jnr was scared. He wanted a piece for his personal protection. Murphy promised to sort him out in a few days, but the kid took something from him. Something he shouldn’t have. Something nobody could know about.

Maybe things would have worked out if Ray Jnr had kept his head down and let things cool off with the Albanians and the Turks. Instead he got clocked doing over a ton on the M40. The rozzers gave chase. Ray Jnr burned them off. An hour later they found his Porsche parked up outside a pub in Hammersmith. They wanted to search inside. Ray Jnr told them to fuck off. Rozzers just love it when you talk dirty to them. Their eyes must have lit up when they found eight kilos of cocaine under the spare wheel.

Ray Jnr went off his head. Pulled the semi-automatic out of his belt. According to Ray the shooter went off accidentally. According to the charge sheet it was attempted murder.

The rest is history, as they say, except Ray Garza wants to rewrite the whole episode and get his boy off. Only this is a rap he can’t bribe or beg or blag his way out of. And history is going to get rewritten a dozen different ways when the boffins in the ballistics lab test the gun Ray Jnr was waving around. It’s all about scratch markings on the chamber of the gun. Telltale signs. Damning evidence.

The kid got bail yesterday. Daddy forked out two mill and Ray Jnr was probably straight down to his clubster mates, bragging about how he toughed out his first night in the Scrubs. How he ran the joint like King Rat.

The cack-handed moron has no idea of the chain of events he’s set in motion or how much shit is gathering on the fan. It’s a mess and Murphy has to clean it up before someone hits the switch.

He shakes. Shakes again. Zips his fly. Washes his hands.

Dessie is waiting outside the door, standing guard like a loyal Labrador with less intelligence.

Murphy has a plan, but he needs Macbeth.

‘What do you want me to do?’ asks Dessie.

‘Persuade him.’

‘And if he does the job?’

‘Get rid of him.’

Murphy goes back to the table and orders a crème caramel for dessert, which isn’t on the menu, but the chef will do it by special request. So he should, thinks Murphy. ‘I own the poncy arsehole.’

11

Sami has an appointment. It’s part of the deal with his early release - a once-a-month pow wow with a probation service supervisor.

He’s late. Missed his turn. He sits on a plastic chair in the waiting room, staring at a potted plant that seems to be surviving without light or leaves.

‘Hello, Mr Macbeth,’ she says. ‘Can I call you Sami?’ It’s a woman, Miranda Wallace. Well-preserved. Mid-forties. Dressed in a grey suit with a pink ribbon pinned to her lapel. She calls herself Ms, which makes Sami think she could be gay but she’s too hot for that.

They sit in her office with the door open. Paperwork comes first. Twenty questions. Notes. Finally, she leans back and pushes her fringe from over her left eye.

‘How do you feel about being out?’

‘Good.’

‘Have you had any trouble adjusting?’

‘No.’

‘What plans do you have?’

‘I want to be a rock god.’

‘That’s an ambition rather than a plan. Perhaps you should find a more realistic goal.’

‘I play guitar.’

‘That’s a good life skill.’

She makes it sound like needlework.

Sami starts telling her how he used to be in a band, playing gigs and occasionally supporting indie bands from the States who have one hit song and think they’re going to fill Wembley Arena.

‘What sort of music?’ she asks.

‘Rock infused with blues,’ says Sami. ‘Solid wall of sound stuff full of attitude.’

‘Live fast, die young.’

‘Leave a pretty corpse.’

‘Sounds great,’ she says.

Sami’s surprised. Maybe she’s an old rock chick. ‘When was the last time you went to see a band?’ he asks.

‘I saw REM at Wembley Stadium in the summer.’

He’s impressed.

They talk music a bit more and then she steers him on to his future plans. She wants to know about his accommodation arrangements and his employment prospects.

One of the conditions of Sami’s probation is that he looks for work.

‘That’s what I’m going to do,’ he explains. ‘Once I find Nadia, I’ll get my Fender, call up the old band, rustle up a gig or two and get some money in the jam jar.’

‘It’s not exactly steady work,’ says Ms Wallace. ‘Who’s Nadia?’

‘My sister.’

Sami starts telling her about going to Nadia’s gaff and finding someone else living there. She hasn’t been to work. Isn’t answering her mobile. He doesn’t know how much he should tell her about what happened last night with Toby Streak or about his meeting with Tony Murphy. He could be back inside before his feet touch the ground.