The Bloomsday Dead (35 page)

The two men nod and I grin. Aye, that’s my Scotchy, no doubt about it.

His hair has been ripped out in chunks. There’s a massive scar across his throat and obviously his voice box has been badly damaged. His face has been pummeled, his nose repeatedly broken, and it looks like he’s lost an eye. I’ve seen a dozen better-looking corpses, and that’s just today.

But he’s alive.

He hadn’t been decapitated and he hadn’t died from blood loss and the Third World doctors had saved his fucking life. And then what?

What happened to you, Scotchy?

Ten years in some hellhole in Mexico. All the tortures of the world. But if nothing else, Scotchy is a wee ratfaced survivor. I know how he’d get through. Sell out his mates, his pals; he’d turn informer, dealer, pimp. He’d shank someone, kill his way out, lie his way out. And now this. Back to Ireland, rebuilding a life. Where would he go? Belfast? Dublin? South Armagh? He’d work his way up. Maybe he’d stay in Mexico until he had the dough and clout to come home.

Well, he’s got at least partway up the ladder. Those boys called him boss, didn’t they?

All this time hungering for revenge. I don’t have a monopoly on that. There’s enough out there for both of us. Hate has a big reservoir. He finds out that Bridget and Siobhan are in town and he grabs her wean. Where did he see her? Was he watching the hotel? How did he do it? How many men?

Certainly a good scheme.

A way to make his fortune and take revenge on Bridget at the same time. Kill two birds.

Literally.

Jesus, maybe he planned the whole thing from the start, years ago, back in Mexico, in the dog years of a jail cell, although maybe not. Scotchy’s an opportunist, not a planner. I like that about him. There’s a lot I like about him.

Scotchy . . .

One of the men lit a hurricane lamp. It was powerful and cast a good glow over the walls. I hugged the floor of the cave and slunk as far backward as I could.

Scotchy cocked his Pecheneg and stood. His mates tensed. They were both in their early twenties, kids. The type that Scotchy always liked to surround himself with, easily influenced, easily impressed.

“Marty, you go, meet her at the path. Check one final time she’s not being followed. I’m sure we would have fucking seen somebody by now, but you never know. Search her, search her fucking well, bring her in to see me. We’ll do this fast, but I want to have my fucking word,” Scotchy talking as fast as he could with his condition. You could tell that every time he spoke he was biting back pain. No, you could tell that he was in continuous pain, speaking just made it worse. Twelve years of that.

“Ok, boss,” Marty said and went outside.

“Cassidy, you stand way back there in the cave, like I say, any sudden move fucking shoot her, and don’t shoot me by mistake, you’ll regret it, I’m a hard fucking man to kill, easy man to piss off,” Scotchy said.

“Sure, boss.”

Cassidy made his way back toward me. If he turned around and had a good look, he was bound to see me hiding here against the wall. But Scotchy hadn’t ordered them to check out the cave first. I would have. I would have had a man here all fucking day. But Scotchy was Scotchy. Brilliant at some things, half-assed at others.

We waited. Not long.

Marty appeared with Bridget. He had stripped her of her coat. She was standing there in a white turtleneck and jeans. Her red hair matted, soaked, plastered against her face and neck.

“Siobhan,” she gasped as she saw her baby hooded and tied.

Siobhan didn’t say anything. She was breathing shallowly and they’d clearly doped her. Bridget dropped the briefcase and made a dash for the girl.

“Don’t fucking move, Bridget,” Scotchy said, pointing the big Russian machine gun at her.

“What have you done to her?” Bridget demanded.

“A wee bit of Valium, she’s fine. For now,” Scotchy said.

“You’ve got your money. Now let us go,” Bridget said.

Scotchy laughed. Bridget’s eyes narrowed. She looked at him in fury, but she was trying to conceal her fear. Her hands were trembling. She hid them behind her back.

“You don’t recognize me, do you?” Scotchy said.

Bridget shook her head.

“Take a seat, Bridget. Something I have to tell you. Something we have to discuss,” Scotchy said.

“I want to see my daughter,” Bridget insisted.

Scotchy fired the Pecheneg into the ground, a short two-second burst, but the noise and ricochets were terrifying. Any of us could have caught a bullet in an enclosed space like this. Miracle that we didn’t. Bloody maniac.

“Take a fucking seat, bitch,” Scotchy screamed. Cassidy and Marty looked as shocked and as shit-scared as I felt.

Bridget sat down on a rock as close as she could to Siobhan.

“I don’t see what your problems have to do with me or my daughter. I’ve given you your money, count it and let us go and you can have all the surgeries you need,” Bridget said.

“Did I ask you to speak? Your job is to fucking listen, bitch. That’s all. You just fucking listen and you’ll understand. I want you to understand before I kill you. I want you to know what it’s been like. Darkey White, your beloved, sent us to Mexico, he left us there, the fucking deal went sour, and he left us there to fucking die. Only two of us didn’t die. Fucking young Michael Forsythe, he managed to get out. Aye, you remember him, don’t ya. I heard what he did. He killed Darkey and Sunshine and Big Bob. Proud of him for that. Fucking disappeared into the WPP after that. Some say he was a fucking quisling, ratting out the whole organization to save his hide. But I don’t blame him. He did right. Only thing, though, he didn’t finish the job.”

Bridget was stunned with recognition. Her hand went to her mouth. Her eyes widened, first in amazement and then horror.

“Scotchy, is it you? Is it really you?” she whispered.

Scotchy smiled.

“Everybody said you were dead. Even Michael said you were dead,” Bridget said, horrified.

Scotchy shook his head.

“No more of that. Making me angry, Bridget, slipping back. But you’re right, everybody did think I was topped. Me and Bruce tried to break out, I didn’t make it. I was nearly killed dead, so I was. But somehow they fixed me up and after near a year in hospital they transferred me to a sweat-box jail in Baja. You know what it’s like there? Fucking desert. Hundred degrees on the chilly days. Hundred and thirty wasn’t so unusual. Nine years there until the amnesty under President Fox. I won’t even begin to describe the horrors I went through, love. Every day of my life. Dreaming of you and Darkey and Big Bob. Dreaming of the moment when I’d get to see you all again.”

Scotchy started to cough. Marty came over to help him. Scotchy waved him away.

Marty looked at the briefcase full of money.

Bridget looked at it too, in a different sort of way.

My heart skipped a beat.

Oh-ho, she had something up her sleeve.

Scotchy caught his breath, pulled a flask out of his jacket pocket, and drank from it. He continued with his diatribe.

“Aye, President Fox pardoned a couple of hundred of us foreigners. Fucking good man. And when I got out, I learned that Bruce had gone on a killing spree back in 1992. He had robbed me of some of it, but not all. Not my piece. Hadn’t done a thing to you, had he? Oh aye, and Darkey had a daughter, didn’t he? Well, well, well.”

“You better not have hurt her,” Bridget snarled.

“Not a pretty hair on her pretty head. Yet. Oh yeah. Coming to you, love. Fucking surprised when I heard Bridget was the boss now. Aye. Well, she inherits the empire as well as its fucking debts. And that’s why you’re here, love, to repay your debts.”

“Ten million will go a long way,” Bridget said, still not understanding what Scotchy meant to do. But I did. Bridget and the girl. The girl first to show Bridget the meaning of pain. Then her.

It was clever on Scotchy’s part, it would establish him as a bad lad, the one who topped Bridget and her wee girl. Nobody would fuck with him after that. And ten million quid. Nearly eighteen million dollars with the weak greenback. Scotchy could return to America and ride out any storm he wanted. Or stay here. Belfast was on the up and up. If there was prosperity he could move into drugs and protection. And if it went the other way . . . Maybe by the 2011 census, certainly in the five years after it, the Catholics would have a majority in Northern Ireland. And any fool could see what that would mean. A Catholic majority in Ulster would mean a vote for union with the south and a million Protestants, many of whom had served in the armed forces, would suddenly find themselves in a foreign country. Think Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo. Oh, for a player like Scotchy, the possibilities would be endless.

Kill Bridget, kill Siobhan, establish his kudos, rise, rise, rise.

He could go far, that boy, especially with a smart consigliere like me beside him. His old mate. He’d take me back. I know he would.

Reveal myself, hugs, tears, slaps on the back, and then ride with Scotchy into the good times. He’d provide protection from Moran, from the peelers, from everybody. He was destined for great things.

Aye, you could say that that was the right and only move. Just close your eyes, Michael. Stick your fingers in your ears. All be over in a moment. The smart play. Crouch down and let it happen.

But no.

Siobhan had changed everything. Even if she’d only been Darkey’s kid I wouldn’t have let him do it.

And certainly not after what I knew now.

“Well, it’s painful for me to talk. And it’s the end of my story, bitch. You’re going to pay without further fucking ado. Say goodbye to your wee girl,” Scotchy said and stood back from her. He pointed the machine gun at Siobhan.

“The money, you have to count the money,” Bridget said desperately.

“Fuck the money,” Scotchy said, raised the gun.

I stood.

“Scotchy,” I said.

Scotchy looked like he been electrocuted. He shook, froze, turned. His jaw opened. His good eye bulged in its socket. Cassidy almost shot me on the spot but reacted just in time.

“Bruce. You fucker,” Scotchy said and the delight on his face would have curdled milk from fifty paces.

He ran to the back of the cave and embraced me.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he screamed, literally jumping for joy.

“Scotchy, I—”

“Boys, boys, this is me old mate Bruce,” he said to the other two, who were looking at me with a mixture of suspicion, horror, and disbelief. This whole scene was tense enough already without some ghost from Scotchy’s past appearing like a magician at the back of cave. I mean, what the fuck else was back there? The Heavenly Choir, the FBI, the Irish Guards Pipe Band?

Cassidy kept one gun on me, Marty kept his on Bridget.

At least, it appeared that I was unarmed.

Scotchy grinned at me with false teeth, a pockmarked face, a reconstructed nose, a jaw that could never close properly, a white left eye.

Scotchy smiled.

“How did you find this place?” he asked.

“I found your boy McFerrin. I asked him. He told me,” I said.

Scotchy laughed.

“Bruce, Bruce, Bruce, you have no fucking idea. You have no idea how badly I’ve been trying to get you. Fucking hell, Bruce. I have moved heaven and earth. And I even sent a couple of guys to Australia. You were in Australia for a while, right?”

“No, Scotchy, I was never in Australia. But what about you, how the fuck are you still alive? When did you get out?” I asked, slapping him on the back.

“Two years, Bruce. Two years.”

I hugged Scotchy and looked at Bridget behind him. I looked at her to get her attention. She saw my glance and it helped. She was a tiny bit less afraid, a wee bit reassured. I gave her the slightest inclination of my head, a hint to get as near to Siobhan as she possibly could. If bullets were going to fly, I needed them together and out of my kill box. I let go the hug and held Scotchy at arms’ length. I punched him on the shoulder. He was fighting it, but the tears were welling up.

“Scotchy, I saw you fall on the razor wire, it nearly took your fucking head right off,” I said.

“Aye,” Scotchy said and his scarred and hideous face broke into a leer. “I was lucky. More lucky than I deserved to be, and the fucking wogs, they did me right considering everything, the fuckers. Those fucking bastards.”