The Bloomsday Dead (36 page)

Scotchy sagged, his body almost tumbling into mine with the memory of it.

“It must have been terrible,” I said.

“Bruce, I’ll never tell you, we’ll chat about old times, but I’ll never talk about that with you because it’ll break your heart,” he said sadly.

I believed him. He wouldn’t tell me and wouldn’t blame me. He’d protect me from what I couldn’t know. He’d look after me.

Scotchy clipped me around the top of the head.

“I heard about you in Mexico, killed Darkey White,” he said, grinning.

“I finished it,” I said.

Scotchy shook his head. He wasn’t having that. He wanted his piece and he wasn’t going to be denied. It would be pointless trying to talk him out of it. But I had to try.

“You survived, Scotchy, you’re a tough son of a bitch, and now you’ve got some dough, a wee crew. It’s great,” I said.

He nodded, stretched, held his gun tight, turned around to look at Bridget.

“Bruce, wee bit of business to take care of, then we’ll talk,” he said.

“Aye, boss, we should head,” Marty said.

“Wait a minute. You said you were looking for me?” I asked.

“Aye,” Scotchy said.

“You didn’t send a couple of guys to Dublin to pick me up, by any chance?” I asked him.

“Fuck aye, Bruce, I’ve been desperate, you are my right-hand man missing these twelve fucking years. Tell ya, half the reason I snatched the bairn in Belfast was the fucking hope that Bridget would send for you. Who did she know that knew Belfast? I knew she could get a message to you through the FBI. Maybe she’d promise you immunity or a couple of million. Christ, it couldn’t have worked out better. Bridget and Siobhan, the money, and now you, Michael. It’s like fucking Christmas,” Scotchy said, laughing.

He leaned against an outcrop of rock.

“I think this is even better than the day I got out,” he whispered to me with an affectionate smile.

I looked at Bridget and she began slowly moving next to Siobhan.

“So you sent a couple of clowns to get me in Dublin?” I asked.

Scotchy laughed.

“Aye, I had a couple of blokes try and pick you up in Dub. Put a local crew on it. Said just keep an eye out at the airport, pass the word around. Had a wee crew at Belfast airport too. Told them both: bring him to me. Don’t hurt him, but make sure he bloody comes,” Scotchy said.

“They were too heavy, Scotchy,” I said.

“Aye, well, I allowed them a wee bit of leniency; I had to get you, Bruce, if you were coming, I couldn’t allow you to see Bridget, knowing your weakness and all,” he said, laughing.

“Aye, Scotch,” I said.

“’Course, forgot who I was dealing with, not bloody Bruce at all, Michael fucking Forsythe, the man who killed Darkey White,” he said with a laugh that became a cough. A whole series of long speeches for Scotchy. He was done in. His finger slipped off the safety on the Pecheneg and he leaned on me.

A big new shiny gun, the Pecheneg. The successor to the most successful rifle ever made—the AK-47. Anybody could fire an AK. We all knew its strengths and weaknesses. The AK was not a weapon of finesse. No sniper ever used an AK. You only have to look at that video of Osama bin Laden sighting his AK like it’s a .303 Lee Enfield to know that he’s a clueless rich boy. A good gun, though, reliable and easy to handle. The Pecheneg was the new Russian heavy machine gun. The Russians were touting it as an even better weapon. But there was a difference between the two guns. In an emergency you could shoot an AK from the hip. But the Pecheneg was much more powerful. You had to lift it up and aim it. And it would take a second for the lads to get the guns to their shoulders.

That one-second window was enough to give me the hint of a plan.

I’d pull out my pistol, I’d shoot Scotchy in the head. As he fell, I’d shoot Cassidy and after that—if all this has only taken that one second— I’d have at least a fifty-fifty chance of killing Marty before he managed to throw any fire near me.

“Scotchy, I am so happy to see you. I can’t believe you’re alive, ya big fucking girl, ya. I can’t believe it,” I said, and got ready.

“Here in the flesh,” Scotchy said.

“You’re right, it all worked out perfect. I’m just sorry about those players in Dublin, that’s the only fuckup,” I said.

“Aye, you killed one of them, Bruce, sent the other to the fucking hospital,” Scotchy said.

“You sure they weren’t there to kill me?” I asked.

“What for, Bruce? I owe you. I wouldn’t kill you. Listen, I would have been more explicit, but I couldn’t have my name bandied about, not with Bridget’s people everywhere. I’d thought they’d lift you easy, bring you to me. I swear, Bruce, I wasn’t trying to top you. Jesus, why would I?”

“You might have thought I’d abandoned you in Mexico, Scotchy,” I said with genuine guilt.

“Fuck no. You did good getting out and killing that fucker Darkey White and his fucking evil apprentices. I wouldn’t hurt you, Bruce. I was proud of you. I am proud of you. You’re my kid brother,” Scotchy said.

That was all I needed to hear.

The blessing. I was redeemed. The debt paid. I could end it now.

“I did it for you, Scotchy. I did it all for you.”

He smiled.

“I know,” he replied.

For you, Scotchy.

Forgive me.

I took the revolver out of my pocket.

“Bruce, we have to hurry on. Just glad you’re here to see this, can’t have all the revenge to your fucking self. The line has to end. Top the wean, top the lass. It’s rough, Bruce, but I have to do it. Getting off light, really.”

“Bridget didn’t have anything to do with it, Scotch. Believe me, I know.”

Scotchy snarled.

“She’s the inheritor, Bruce. She’s the fucking boss. And she was fucking engaged to that evil son of a bitch. I’m sure you’re not saying nobody was responsible for all my fucking years of pain.”

I nodded.

“Both of them, Scotchy? The wean, too?” I asked just to make sure.

“Aye, both of them.”

“But I know you told your boys not to touch the wee girl,” I said, giving him a last chance to recant.

“Aye, only me that does it. Only me. I have to kill them both, Bruce. Justice demands it,” he said regretfully.

“That’s what I thought, Scotchy,” I said, raised the revolver to his temple, pulled the trigger.

It clicked. I pulled the trigger again. The chamber rotated, the hammer came down. No bullet came out. Goddamn misfire. What do you expect with half the Atlantic in your pocket? I smacked the pistol butt into the side of Scotchy’s head and screamed at Bridget: “Hit the fucking deck.”

She dived on top of Siobhan. I smacked Scotchy again as hard as I could and ripped the Pecheneg out of his grip. He fell to the ground. Bullets tore up the inside of the cave. Marty fired at me and Scotchy. I shot the Pecheneg for a count of two full seconds at Marty’s chest. It tore a hole the size of a volleyball in his abdomen and as he fell backward, his intestines were flung into the air like silly spray from a joke can. Aghast, he scrambled to put his bloody guts back inside and died doing it.

Cassidy was too afraid of hitting Scotchy to shoot at me. Standing there paralyzed.

I aimed the Pecheneg high and gave him a burst that ripped his head apart.

Scotchy was on his feet. He had a handgun. He was pointing it at me. He was pulling the trigger.

Bridget leaped on top of him.

Fire in the barrel of the revolver. Scotchy pulling the trigger, rage contorting his face into even more hideous postures.

I dived for cover but thumped immediately into the cave wall. I couldn’t hear. Lights. Blood. Silence. Blackness coming down like the fucking guillotine.

One second, two seconds, three seconds. Trade seconds for years, I wouldn’t have known.

Bridget shaking me. Her face bruised, her lip bleeding.

“What the fuck?” I moaned.

I sat up. Two dead bodies in the cave. Marty and Cassidy.

“Scotchy?” I asked.

“Gone, grabbed Siobhan, I shot him in the back. Come on.”

She pulled me up.

“What happened?”

“I jumped him, he punched me, I grabbed the gun and he grabbed Siobhan, I shot him, he ran, come on.”

I sat up. The briefcase was gone too. He’d taken the time to lift that, too. And so, despite his words, this was a little bit about the money.

Bridget hauled me to my feet. I lifted one of the Pechenegs from the floor.

We ran to the cave mouth and I saw Scotchy running up the steps to the top of the cliff, dragging the girl after him. Not a bad feat for a skinny motherfucker like Scotchy.

“Are you sure you hit him?” I asked Bridget.

“I hit him.”

The rain was easing, but the steps carved into the cliff face were slick with water, seaweed, and spray.

Rifle fire from the lighthouse sparked across the rocks. The tracer helping the shooter to get a bead on us. Bullets ricocheting on the path dead ahead.

“Harry,” I said. Gang member number four.

And I saw that once Scotchy got to the top of the cliff, we were fucked. He could shoot us from a dozen high-angled positions around the lighthouse. And Jesus, if he couldn’t get Bridget he could still throw Bridget’s daughter off the cliff. Bridget’s daughter? Mine own precious darling girl.

Yes, I’ll move the Earth.

I ran the steps two at a time.

Pecheneg rounds smacking off the steps in front of and behind me.

I ran faster, slipped, got up.

But it was too late. Scotchy made it to the top. Harry passed him a revolver, they pushed the girl to the ground, and they both began to shoot. I stumbled and fell, dropped the machine gun. The only sensible policy now was to retreat back to the cave. But I kept fucking going. I sprinted the last of the bastard stairs.

Twenty feet from the top. Scotchy shooting a 9mm semi, Harry shooting the machine gun. I probably would have lasted a heroic two or three seconds more had not the briefcase in Scotchy’s left hand, at that exact moment, exploded in a huge ball of fire and white light.

A thunderflash, she’d fucking booby-trapped it with an army-issue thunderflash.

That’s my lass.

Scotchy screamed as his arm caught fire. Harry pushed him to the dirt and tried to roll him out. I made it to the top of the stairs just as Scotchy was getting to his feet.

“Bruce, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Scotchy yelled in a confusion of betrayal, rage, and disappointment. But there’s a time for talking and a time for not talking. Instead of giving him an answer, I jumped the fucker, threw him into Harry, rolled to the side, got to my feet.

Harry recovered, raised his Pecheneg. Bridget got to the top of the stairs and shot at him twice.

“Michael,” she screamed.

Harry turned to fire at her. I charged him, barreled him to the ground, knocked his rifle away, stabbed a finger in his eye, punched him in the throat, threw him over on his face, put my arm around his fat neck and my knee on his spine, and twisted his neck hard back-ward until it snapped and the life instantly went out of him.

Scotchy’s right hand was burned. But with his trembling left he found his gun, fired the rest of his clip at Bridget, every shot missing by miles. He slotted another clip, but I was on him. I head-butted him on the nose, breaking it. I grabbed his weapon hand and bit him on the thumb.

“Traitor, you traitor, Bruce,” he snarled, spitting the words out, kicking me.

“My name’s not Bruce,” I said and bit through his thumb, right to the bone. He screamed, dropped the weapon. I fell on him and we scrambled for the gun. I kicked it away from him and kneed him in the head. Somehow he rolled to one side and got to his feet. His skull cracked, his face covered with blood. He ran at me screaming with incandescent rage. I let him run, and I moved to the side like a fucking matador, grabbed him, threw him.

The poor bastard never had a chance.

His feet scrambled for purchase in the cold sea air and then he fell. Down, down, a hundred feet, into the sea, his body smashing to pieces on the razor-sharp rocks. There would be no resurrection this time, my old mate.

I sank to my knees.

I slumped forward, wavered for a moment, and cried. . . .

A minute passed.

Bridget stroking my face.

Holding me.

Siobhan, dazed, looking at her ma. The spit of her mother. Right down to the crimson hair and the eyes like a forest glade. Still under, drugged, baffled, wondering what was going on. She wouldn’t remember a lot of this.

“It’s going to be ok, it’s going to be ok,” Bridget was saying.

“Mommy,” Siobhan said.

Bridget crawled next to me and all three of us held one another on the clifftop in the wind and rain.

“Michael, there’s something I have to tell you,” she said. “I lied about Siobhan. I didn’t tell you the whole story. I didn’t want it to be true. Oh God, I didn’t want it to be true. But it is.”