Dark Times in the City (10 page)

Or maybe it was nothing at all – just two blue Ford vans with white writing along the side. A coincidence, and not all that big a one.

Find out
.

Kill the fear
.

All around him drivers radiated intensity from within their speed-pods, every one an isolated unit in a regimented herd, aggression sustained by anonymity. Behind and to Callaghan’s left a four-year-old 1 Series BMW, the cheapest in the range, was playing silly buggers. In the mirror, he’d watched it jigging from lane to lane, the driver pushing the nose of the car into lane gaps,
laying down the challenge –
Hit me or fuck off
– and always getting what he wanted, surging across the line, into the new lane, immediately searching for the next gap. Callaghan glanced across at the BMW, now passing on his left. The driver was in his thirties, shirt-sleeved, leaning forward, his lips tight. Whatever the rest of his life was like, out here in his speedy bubble on the M50 he knew himself to be a Spartan engaged against terrible odds in a fight for all that mattered. As the BMW surged forward again, Callaghan eased back. The best place to be when that type was around was anywhere else.

His life was like that now – quiet, limited, safe. His irregular work kept him well within the borders of his small ambitions. In his earlier life such limitations would have chafed. When he’d met Hannah, a dozen years back, he was exuberantly open to whatever life brought along, whether business or personal.

‘You don’t recognise me, right?’

When Hannah asked the question, Callaghan was in her kitchen, measuring an oven housing that turned out to be an eighth of an inch too narrow for the oven it was supposed to house. A nuisance, but not a problem.

‘No,’ he lied, and the way Hannah smiled told him she knew he was lying.

‘The face is familiar,’ he conceded.

‘I was a year ahead of you – UCD,’ she said. And he said, ‘Really?’

What he remembered was a woman with swaying dark hair, the centre of a crowd of loud types, mostly male, always boisterous at social or sporting occasions. Collectively they made the kind of noise that told the world to stand back and pay attention. A woman he’d watched from a distance, acknowledging to himself a mixture of interest and desire, but disinclined to do anything about it. Her smile, her bursts of enthusiastic chatter, the intensity she exuded, usually seen from across a bar or a canteen, at a debate or passing in a corridor.

Callaghan was wrestling with a decision at the time, having long decided that university was a mistake. He knew what he wanted to do and he wanted to do it now. And that meant he needed to smother the assumption his father had drummed into him – that to get anywhere you needed a passport in the shape of a degree. At that time, his pull towards a woman he didn’t know was a distraction he couldn’t handle.

‘You disappeared.’

Callaghan was surprised that she’d noticed.

‘I dropped out. Got into this game.’

He hadn’t seen her again until that day in her new apartment. By then, his small custom cabinet-making business was motoring merrily along. Hannah was recently graduated, working part-time with a PR firm set up by a friend. Callaghan had installed a kitchen for a colleague of hers, who’d passed on his number.

‘I knew you as soon as I saw you,’ Hannah said. It was a couple of weeks later and they were lying in bed. Callaghan grinned. ‘Obviously I made a big impression.’

It was dark now, so when Callaghan glanced at the mirror all he saw behind was the array of headlights on the motorway. No detail. Still, looking for a glimpse of a blue van was now a habit.

Do something
.

He fished a Bluetooth headset from his pocket, adjusted it on his ear and hit Novak’s number.

‘Yeah?’

‘You doing anything tonight?’

‘What’s the problem?’

‘No problem. Just, you know, you busy?’

Novak laughed. ‘You want to take me bowling, right?’

‘I need you to do something, set something up. I want to talk to you about it.’

‘Okay.’

‘There’s something – there may be something happening, whatever, I need to check something out.’

‘This about what happened with Walter?’

‘Maybe, maybe not.’

‘Drop by later.’

Right mess, this is
.

Pamela took two handfuls of shredded cheese, scattered them across the pizza base, checked the order and reached for a handful of pepperoni. She worked at her usual snappy pace, but tonight there wasn’t much point.

The trouble with this place – no coordination
.

Tonight, for instance, there were plenty of staff to put the pizzas together, not enough delivery people. Two guys had quit yesterday, another was out sick, everything was backed up. The orders came in, the pizzas got made, everyone was waiting for the two delivery guys who’d turned up tonight to get back, but they were each working two vectors instead of one, so it was twice as long before they returned to collect for the next run.

The shop was called Anthony’s Pizza Place and the guy who owned it, Anthony Mohan, was spending half his time tonight on the phone, having no luck rustling up some more delivery guys. He considered shifting some of the pizza makers into delivering, but most of them were too young to have driving licences – the one who had a licence couldn’t find his arse with both hands and a mirror.

The shop looked like a cartoon version of old Chicago, the pizzas had gangster names, and the delivery staff wore silly gangster uniforms. ‘Nice guy, Anthony,’ Pamela told her boyfriend. ‘Pays more than the minimum wage – never pushes anyone around. Just hopeless at organising.’

‘Hey, Walter!’

Pamela looked up and saw that Anthony had a big smile on his face, his voice with an edge of pleading. ‘An answer to prayer, that’s what you are.’

Rubbing his hands from the cold outside, Walter Bennett shook his head. ‘Sorry, Anthony, the reason I’m in—’

Pamela liked Walter. Little old guy, a gloomy look about him, but he called her ‘dear’ and he never leered at her tits, not like some his age.

‘Come on, man, it’s an emergency.’

‘No,’ Walter said.

And, from the other side of the open kitchen, sprinkling cheese across the twenty-third pizza she’d handled since her shift started, Pamela could tell he meant it.

Okay, so Anthony Mohan was a nice guy, but Walter was buggered if he was going to waste one of his last evenings in Dublin delivering pizzas for loose change.

‘Where’ve you been the past few weeks?’

‘Busy,’ Walter said. ‘Anyone asking for me tonight? I’m expecting—’

‘Two hours,’ Anthony said. ‘That’s all, just to get us out of a hole.’

‘Sorry, Anthony, no can do.’

Anthony’s Pizza Place meant handy pocket money on a slow week, but Walter reckoned it was demeaning, a man of his age. Work like that was for students or Chinks. He did it when he was especially short of the readies, but just about anything else was preferable. Which was how he’d got into that thing with Dessie Blue.

It’d been a month, now, waiting for Dessie to come through. Dessie ran a small rental business on the fringe of the music industry – amps, mikes, that sort of thing.

Mean bastard
.

Could have come up with the money straight off. It wasn’t like that kind of money was a lot to Dessie. It was like he enjoyed being a mean bastard.

A month back – Walter’s phone rang. Dessie Blue said he knew that Walter knew people who could get him what he needed. That time Dessie paid upfront and gave Walter two hundred just for making the connection and bringing the stuff round. Two hundred on top of the grand the stuff cost from the wholesaler.

Walter wasn’t personally into nose candy, had never even tried it. And he’d never got into moving it in a serious way – but he knew people and this thing with Dessie Blue was just about making a connection.

Two days after that, Dessie Blue rang again.

‘Something similar.’

‘Come on, Dessie – you got enough marching powder to keep a regiment going for a month.’

‘Some people I know. How about it?’

Dessie was a consumer, now he wanted to distribute, that way he could subsidise his own use.

Walter said, ‘Same deal?’

‘Half – five hundred’s worth. And a hundred for you.’

‘Two hundred, same as before.’

‘One-fifty, and they want it tonight.’

‘Bring the money around.’

Which was when Dessie Blue had said it’d be quicker if Walter financed the deal himself. ‘You can put the five together – for a start, you’ve got the two hundred I gave you for the last deal. Bring the stuff here, I pay you the five, plus your one-fifty.’

Walter thought for just a second, then he said, ‘For that service, two-fifty’s my price.’

Dessie Blue said, ‘That’s fair enough.’

And the fucker said, when Walter brought the stuff around,
expecting his two-fifty fee and the five hundred for the product, ‘This is embarrassing, Walter. The people I’m talking to – they came to me, it was their idea. Now the bastards say it’s okay, someone’s made them a gift of a goodie bag, they don’t need any more right now.’

‘That’s not my problem,’ Walter said.

‘Don’t worry, Walter, I can shift the stuff – these days, no problem finding buyers. What I’m saying is, I can’t pay you tonight, it’ll take a day or two.’

‘Fuck that.’

Which was when Dessie Blue had said that was okay – if Walter wanted to hold on to the stuff, retail it himself, that was fine with Dessie. But if he wanted to offload it right away and he was willing to wait a day or two for payment – certainly by the weekend – Dessie would have no problem finding a market.

‘I’ll round it up, your fee, from two-fifty up to three, to make it up to you. Wait a day or two, I give you an even eight hundred.’

That had been a month, and a lot of futile phone calls, ago. If Dessiel was still using, if he was selling on to his friends, he’d cut out Walter Bennett and he was sourcing the stuff through someone else.

‘
Be there. Nine-ish
.’

Walter looked at his watch.

Eighty-thirty give or take.

Come ten o’clock, the latest, and Dessie Blue or no Dessie Blue, he’d be out of here.

‘A straight fifty, Walter – whether it’s two deliveries or twenty.’

‘I’m busy, Anthony.’

‘A guaranteed fifty – this isn’t about money.’ Which was true. What Anthony didn’t want was to piss off regular customers. You delivered late, you screwed up people’s evenings, they remembered, and next time they ordered from someone else. So, instead of paying Walter the delivery charge, he offered a guaranteed fifty.

‘I’d love to help out, but—’

‘Just two hours, a guaranteed fifty. With tips you maybe double that.’

‘I’m expecting someone, Dessie – I’ve got an appointment.’

‘Do a run while you’re waiting. And if someone comes in looking for you, and you’re out on a run, I’ll keep them here until you get back.’

‘Look—’

‘Okay, sixty, Walter – two hours, easy money.’

With tips, maybe double it
.

Not to be sneezed at. There was more than a chance that Dessie Blue was fucking around again. No guarantee he’d show at all. This way, Walter for certain would get something out of the evening.

‘Sixty?’

‘Jesus, Walter, thanks.’

‘One thing,’ Walter said.

‘Sixty, I can’t go more than that.’

Walter shook his head. ‘I don’t have to wear the shitty gangster uniform, right?’

From inside, Pamela watched Walter stash the pizzas in the van and drive away. She was taking a break, getting a can of Coke from the machine. She popped it open and took a slug. She took out her mobile and made a call. It went straight to voicemail. Karl must have had his phone switched off.

Karl Prowse took a bottle of formula from the fridge. His wife had made up four of them that afternoon. The baby was making the little twitchy movements that meant he was about to wake and begin testing his lungs.

Tonight could go either way. They had a few hours to get hold of
Walter, and if that didn’t happen there was no telling in which direction Lar Mackendrick would explode. Karl hadn’t seen that happen, but he knew Lar’s reputation, and he didn’t want to satisfy his curiosity. This afternoon he’d spent over an hour on the phone, asking around about Walter Bennett. So far, the best lead he’d had was an address for Walter’s sister. Maybe later tonight he’d drop around there.

Just sixty seconds in the microwave, then Karl put the nipple on the bottle, shook some of the liquid onto his forearm to check the temperature.
Fine
. Twenty minutes later he switched on his mobile and saw he’d got a voicemail message, to call Pamela.

‘Yeah?’ Pamela said.

Sitting by the window of Anthony’s Pizza Place, her mobile to her ear, she watched Walter’s delivery van arrive back.