The Bloomsday Dead (23 page)

I sat on my hunkers in an uncomfortable squat.

“You’re saying you haven’t been trying to kill me since this morning?” I said.

He shook his head.

“Believe me, Michael, I just did what I had to do to keep my boys in line. It was nothing personal, it was nothing to do with you being a rat, er, I mean . . .”

“It’s all right. . . . So it wasn’t you.”

“It wasn’t me.”

“So who was it?”

“Maybe you have old Belfast enemies.”

“I don’t. I was small-time. Nobody that would want to kill me that bad.”

“Maybe somebody who knew that there was a bounty on your head.”

I sat on the pavement beside O’Neill. The cops were starting that line thing they do, where they pace very close to one another, looking for evidence. Be over here sharpish.

“You’re telling me that it wasn’t you?” I muttered to myself. It was a rhetorical question, but O’Neill wanted to reassure me.

“It wasn’t me, Michael. I authorized just the one attack on you. That’s all. I don’t know about these others you’re talking about. Just the one attack.”

“The RPG hit at the boat,” I said.

“Aye, the apparently fucked-up RPG attack on the boat.”

I looked into his tired eyes. I believed him; there was no reason for him to lie. It was just that one op. Which unfortunately reopened the question, what the hell was going on? Two attacks in Dublin, not by Bridget, not by the IRA. Someone as yet unknown. I put the .38 back in my pocket. I offered him my bloody palm.

“Listen, Body, I want to talk truce.”

He shook my hand.

“Talk away.”

“Ok. I messed with your boy Seamus and you’re pissed off about that. But I have other things on my plate. Bridget Callaghan’s right-hand man, David Moran, wants to see me dead. He’s vowed to kill me when they get Siobhan back at midnight. If they don’t get her back, he’s going to kill me anyway. Now, as I see it, it would be bloody redundant of you to waste your time trying to kill me. You’ve more than paid me off for Seamus, ok?”

He nodded.

“So what do you want?” he asked.

“I want you to leave me alone. You don’t want me around. Ok. Give me twenty-four hours to leave Ulster. One way or another, I’ll either be out of here or I’ll be dead. Keep off the goddamn hounds until then.”

He straightened himself, thought about it.

“Michael, if you’re sparing me right now, and it sounds like you are, you’re a bigger man than I thought. I wouldn’t have hesitated to kill you; if the peelers hadn’t rammed the van, you’d be dead. It’s rare to see that these days. I know what they say about you, you’re a rascal and all that. But I give you my word that no one from the IRA or any other group that I have influence over will bother you in the time you’re in Belfast.”

“Including Seamus?” I asked.

“Including Seamus,” he confirmed.

“Do you have the clout to do it?”

He seemed offended.

“I do.”

“You’ll keep Seamus Deasey off my back?”

He nodded.

“And there’s something else. I need Seamus to do me a favor,” I said with a little smile.

“From Seamus? Of all people in the world, you need a favor from Seamus? That’s not happening, mate,” O’Neill said doubtfully.

“Seamus is mixed up in the disappearance of Bridget Callaghan’s daughter?” O’Neill asked. The old man’s face looked even more ashen. His lip was trembling. He was clearly upset.

“I don’t know about that. But he knows something about Barry’s death. Maybe the gunman needed Seamus’s permission to kill one of his dealers.”

O’Neill scoffed. “Seamus couldn’t give permission to get a dog’s hair cut. I’m in charge round here and nobody asked me about it.”

“Well, he heard something. I need to know about it. Time’s running out. When Seamus told me where Barry lived, he told me specifically that the information wouldn’t do me any good. He knew Barry was topped. The cops hadn’t found him and the neighbors didn’t know.”

O’Neill looked thoughtful.

“You really think the person who killed this Barry is involved in Siobhan Callaghan’s kidnapping?”

“He has to be.”

“And Seamus knows who did it?”

“I went to the boat before it sank, nothing had been touched. The lock was all done up with wire. The last person there was the killer.”

“Maybe somebody blabbed,” he said, coming to the conclusion that had also occurred to me.

“Belfast’s a pretty closemouthed town,” I added with a touch of skepticism.

“Aye, but it’s not like in your day, Michael. We can’t go around murdering witnesses anymore, not with the cease-fires.”

“Will you help me?” I asked.

“Michael, we’re both intelligent men. You and I know that it’s in our own best interests that Bridget Callaghan gets her daughter back in one piece. If finding who killed that boy can bring you closer to Siobhan, I’m sure Miss Callaghan will look more favorably upon us rather than her other potential business partners.”

“I’m sure she would.”

He nodded.

“Give me a minute,” he said. He pulled a cell phone out of his inside pocket and dialed the number. He turned the volume loud so I could hear the conversation too.

“Seamus, it’s me,” O’Neill said.

“Are you ok? Been hearing lots of things,” Seamus said with a tiny trace of disappointment in his voice that both O’Neill and I picked up on.

“Seamus, you listen to me and you listen good. I have heard that you have been fucking playing me. I have heard that you have been trying to make a fucking monkey out of me,” O’Neill began.

“What are you talking about?” Seamus complained.

“You better start packing your bags, Seamus, because I’m putting a contract out on you right now. You only wanted Michael Forsythe killed because he was close to finding out that you were involved in Siobhan Callaghan’s disappearance. That whole fucking operation at the boat was to cover your white Irish arse.”

“It’s a lie. I had nothing to do with that wee girl’s disappearance,” Seamus protested.

“Did you not? Well, I have information to the contrary. You wanted that boat sunk, you wanted Forsythe dead because one of your dealers lifted her. You wanted Forsythe out of the picture because he knew the fucking truth.”

Body’s eyes twinkled with merriment. He was enjoying this.

“That’s bullshit, I didn’t know the boat was going to sink. I swear to God, Mr. O’Neill, I knew nothing about any kidnapping,” Seamus said in a panic.

“How did you know Barry was already dead on the boat? How did you know he was fucking dead?”

“Gusty McKeown did it. Him and some fella from out of town. Gusty got the guns from me. Wanted a whole lot of guns. I had to ask him what it was about and he told me they had to top some wee fuck for reasons that he wasn’t allowed to divulge. So I said what wee fuck is that and he tells me and I say that’s my wee fuck and I ask for extra as compensation, you know. But I says ok cos they wanted Russian machine guns and Glock pistols and the whole works and were paying top dollar. With the guns and the compensation, it was fifteen large. I swear to God I was going to give you your cut, but I just hadn’t got round to it.”

O’Neill put his hand over the receiver and looked at me.

“Is that what you need?”

“Where would I find Gusty?” I said.

O’Neill spoke into the phone again.

“Where would I find Gusty?” he asked Seamus.

“Shit, I have no idea, Mr. O’Neill, he lives in the . . . oh, wait a minute, I think Andy knows something. Hold on. . . . Mr. O’Neill, Andy says he’ll be at the fights at the Dove Tavern on Brazil Street.”

I nodded at O’Neill. That’s what I wanted.

“Talk to you later, Seamus,” O’Neill said and hung up his phone.

He looked grim. He had discovered a lot about Seamus. The poor wee blabbermouth would be lucky if he saw out the night.

“You going over to the Dove?” he asked me.

“Aye.”

“You’ll need a password to get into the fights. It’s always a historical figure. This week I think it’s Henry Joy McCracken.”

“I just say ‘Henry Joy McCracken’?”

“Aye, that’s it.”

O’Neill put out his hand. I shook it and helped him to his feet.

“I like you, Michael, I’m glad things worked out the way they did,” he said. “You are not lacking in honor.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I better get cracking. You, too, if you don’t want those peelers down your neck.”

“Good luck. And remember, Forsythe, this is my town. I hope you don’t keep leaving a trail of bloody destruction in your wake.”

“Well,” I said, reflecting upon his words, “the night is young.”

Dusk is when Belfast really clicks. Fights. Murders. Burglary. A thousand calls about someone we’re doing over. Someone we’re lifting. Sober men rubbing their hands and performing with clear consciences wee jobs and the breaking of bones.

Not that it bothers me. I’m impervious. My story is that of the escape artist, the killer. It’s taken me a while but now I have momentum.

Children in front of me throwing footballs at one another across the street. Not much younger than Bridget’s child. That poor lost girl.

“My turn, mine.”

“Is not.”

“Is too.”

I give the ball to the nearest kid, a redhead whose face is one big freckle.

“It’s her turn,” I insist.

The girls look up from their game and their dirty summer clothes. Glad that an adult has restored order.

“And can somebody please tell me where Brazil Street is?”

“Down there on the left. Are you looking for the Dove?” Red says.

“Aye.”

“It’s right in the middle of the street, the steps that go down,” her friend explains.

I thank the kids and reach the corner. I’m ready. I see a board above a small entryway with an arrow pointing to the basement. A neon sign that says “The Dove.”

I cross the street, walk down the steps, and knock the door. A big metal job that can sustain a petrol bomb attack or a police battering ram.

A man opens it a crack. A sleekit character with a reconstructed nose, no hair, paramilitary tattoos. Bouncer type.

“What do you want?”

“Here for the fight,” I say.

“What fight?”

“Henry Joy McCracken.”

“Why didn’t you say so, come on in.”

I hear a heavy chain being unhooked and the door swings open.

“Two-pound cover,” the bouncer says.

“Ok,” I say, and give him a two-pound coin.

Murk. A stink. A creaky set of wooden stairs.

“Down these steps?” I ask.

“Aye, watch you don’t break your neck,” he says without looking up.

Carefully I walk down the steep staircase.

A lot of noise coming from behind a metal door. I push on it, go in.

A wall of cigarette smoke. Screaming, shouting, yelping. The aroma of defecation, blood, spilled beer, and sweat. A gloomy room with an arc light swaying from a concrete beam. From the noise, the fight must have already begun. A ring of about thirty men. I walk closer. A barrier of sandbags, sawdust on the floor, and two pit bull terriers tearing the hell out of each other. A brown one and a black one. Both dogs are caked with gore, the brown one’s ear has been ripped off, the other’s eyes are filled with blood. They’re tired and snapping at each other with desperate weary lunges. But it’s clear that no one is going to stop it. This is a fight to the death. I watch for a moment and then head farther into the crowd. Don’t want to stand out. Maybe all these men know one another.

A bookie comes over to me. Skinny character in a suit, tie, and chestnut wig. You can tell he’s a bookie even without the chits he’s carrying, because he has that wiry bookie energy and a hungry look.

“Wager?” he asks.

“It’s all over by the looks of it,” I say.

He gazes back at the fight.

“Give you two to one on Danielle,” he says.

“Which one is Danielle?”

“The bay,” he says.

There’s no point on getting on the wrong side of him, and bookies love marks more than anything in the world. I give him a tenner and he gives me a paper chit.

“Listen, it’s my first time here. Supposed to meet a mate of mine, Gusty McKeown, you know Gusty? Bit of a joker. Where-abouts is he?”

“Gusty’s right over there,” he says, pointing to a tall, spiderlike man with a black bowl haircut and hollow eyes.

Just then the black dog falls on the brown one, sinks its teeth into its throat, and begins biting through its windpipe. It’s something I’ve seen lions attempt on TV but never witnessed a dog do. It’s awful. The brown dog’s howls are silenced and it slowly suffocates.

“You can’t win them all, sorry,” the bookie says.

“Should have offered me ten to one,” I tell him, to keep him sweet.

He smiles.

I edge around the ring of perspiring, heaving low-lifes and find Gusty yelling as the brown dog expires in a blood-curdling spasm. When the cheering dies, a man comes in with a snow shovel and scoops up the dead dog. Another man muzzles the winner and leads it off. A third man throws more sawdust on the floor. The crowd is buzzing with cathartic release and expectation about the next bout on the card. Mixed crowd of Prod and Catholic paramilitaries together— you can tell because of the tattoos. Maybe underground dog fighting is one of those cross-community schemes everyone is always trying to encourage.

The bookie, who seems also to be master of ceremonies, walks into the center of the ring and begins a spiel about the next two unfortunates.

“Gentlemen, I hope you enjoyed our pedigree tussle. Quite a performance. Now it’s a mongrel battle. Sparky is a wee fighter from Doagh, this is his first time in a formal competition, but let me tell you, I have seen this dog go on mutts twice his size. . . .”

“Gusty . . . Gusty,” I whisper in the big lad’s ear.

He turns and looks at me.

“Who the fuck are—”

I get real close, lift his T-shirt, and put the snub of the .38 against his belly fat. I grin at him for show and pat him on the back like we’re old mates. But I’m angry now. Those kids outside, all this, what’s happening to Siobhan, it’s finally getting to me.

“Gusty, listen to me, me old china plate, this is a fucking .38-caliber revolver and I’m going to blow your guts apart if you don’t tell me what happened to Siobhan Callaghan,” I say quietly.

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

I push the revolver tight into his stomach so hard that it’s bound to be hurting.

“Gusty, I’m serious here,” I say.

The arc light swaying on the crossbeam swings above our heads and the bookie ringmaster catches my eye. The bottom halves of our bodies are blocked from him by the people in front, so he can’t see the gun, but Gusty has turned several degrees paler and it doesn’t look so good.

“Another wager, stranger?” he shouts over. A few men turn to give me the once-over. Have to reply fast.

“Aye, twenty quid on that thing on your head against any dogs you got back there,” I shout back and keep the revolver tight on Gusty’s belly button so he won’t try anything heroic. The crowd hoots with laughter and the bookie gives me a black look and goes back to his spiel.

I pull Gusty’s hand behind his back and twist it hard. Gusty winces. The bookie gives me another suspicious glance. That son of a bitch doesn’t like the look of me one bit, but he’s immediately caught up in a dozen wagers; while he writes them down, two unfortunate terrier mixes are led out on ropes.

“Who took Siobhan, Gusty? Where is she?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll kill you right now, Gusty. I don’t give a shit what happens to you or me; tell me where Siobhan is and you’ll live, don’t tell me and I swear to God I’ll fucking plug you in two seconds,” I say, looking him square in his dilating pupils—attempting in that look to convey what a badass motherfucker I am, how little Gusty’s life means to me, and how easy it would be to let him die.

Gusty gets some of it but not enough. He’s still more afeared of them than he is of me.

The dogs begin ripping each other to shreds.

The room. The sweat. The stink. The bookie yelling. Me pushing. Gusty trembling.

And then just like that, a tidal wave of exhaustion ripples through me. It’s hard to keep this up. Hard to go at it hour after hour, day after day. Tired of all of it. This sordid wee place. People like Gusty. This whole town, in fact. Belfast with its surface changes. But these generations of old blue-white fat men have to die first for real change. Gusty’d be a good start.

“Ok, mate, you’re done, I’ve had it,” I say and make the mental decision to kill him just to see what happens. I squeeze the trigger.

Luckily, in a piece of telepathy or empathy, he sees exactly what I’m thinking and starts begging for his life.

“Please don’t. I don’t know where you get your fucking information, but really I don’t know a thing about that wee missing girl,” he says rapidly.

Make the present terror more incipient with a countdown, I tell myself.

“Ok, Gusty, it’s an old saw, but I’ll give you five seconds and then I’m going to shoot you in the kidney. One—”

Gusty’s no Braveheart. No one who goes to a dogfight is a bloody Braveheart.

“Ok, ok, fucking Jesus. Don’t shoot me, I’ll tell you everything. Don’t shoot me for fucksake, my wife just had a bairn.”

“I don’t give a damn if she gave birth to the bloody Messiah, now talk.”

“Ok, ok, ok, I’ll tell you everything I know, which isn’t fucking much,” he says.

To show that there’s a bit of quid pro quo in the transaction, I remove the gun from his gut but I keep my hand as close to his belly as if it were J.Lo’s arse.

Time must have passed because two more dogs begin ripping each other to shreds and it occurs to me that we seem a wee bit suspicious standing here stock-still, whispering.

“Go on, my son,” I yell when one of the dogs bites the other on the bridge of the skull.

“Cheer the dog,” I tell Gusty.

“Kill the fucker,” he yells.

“Ok now, Gusty, you better talk; I’m like Doctor Kevorkian, no fucking patients left,” I say.

“Ok, yeah, I helped top the kids. It was ugly. I didn’t do the actual killing. A boy from County Down did it. Bangor, I think. I didn’t know him. He was working for an outfit from out of town. I swear I didn’t kill them boys.”

“I don’t give a shit; what was your partner’s name and who was he working for?”

“All I have is the name, that’s all I know, I wasn’t involved. I swear it.”

“Give it.”

“Slider McFerrin.”

“Address?”

Sweat on his forehead. His eyes darting from side to side.

“I don’t know. He’s from Bangor. I didn’t know he was a player. I had no idea it was to do with Bridget Callaghan’s daughter.”

“Fuck no, I would have told Seamus if I’d thought there was more to it than a wee hit.”

A fake smile of reassurance over his pallid face.

“What exactly did Slider say to you?” I ask him.

“First of all, Slider heard about me as a man who could get him guns. He needed guns. He said he was working for a serious hardmen outfit from over the water and he was coming into a big score on June sixteenth and I’d get a cut of it if I could get him all the weapons he needed.”

“And?”

“I said no problem, for the right dough I could get him anything.”

“Where did the kids come in?”

“Well, after I said I could get him the guns, he wanted to know if I’d be willing to help take care of one of his boss’s enemies. Kid called Barry, who was a drug dealer working for Seamus Deasey.”

“What did you say?”

“I told him it would be tough, you’d have to sweeten Seamus; and Slider says, there’s ten gees to kill Barry, ten gees for the guns, ten gees to sweeten Seamus, and ten gees for me to keep my mouth shut.”

“You couldn’t say no to that, could you?”

“No.”

“What next?”

He gulps, tilts his head to the side, takes a breath.

“I got the guns from Seamus; they wanted Pechenegs, big Russian jobs, handguns, silencers, the works. I paid Seamus off, had to tell him about Barry, but he knew to keep mum; it was a big score for him and he didn’t want to pass the cut on to Body O’Neill.”

“And then you killed Barry and his mate?”

“No, no, I didn’t touch them. I just showed Slider where the boat was and helped him out. He shot the Scottish lad, but he had to question Barry first to make sure he hadn’t blabbed.”

Another fake grin.

“Then what?” I ask.

“That was yesterday. He gave me half my score. The rest tomorrow by FedEx when he gets the big money. Haven’t seen him since then.”