The Death of an Irish Tinker (11 page)

“Wha’ have we here, luv?” Tag asked. He was now standing beside her.

Biddy pulled off the rag, which she placed back on the shelf, then carried the large, shiny object out to the kitchen table.

“Make me fookin’ day—if it isn’t Smith and fookin’ Wesson. The two murderous Yanks. Where’d you get it, Bid?”

From an IRA gunman in Camden Town with the first paycheck Biddy had received all those years ago in England. It was what she wanted and needed. “Have you a target in mind?” the man had asked her. She had nodded. “I thought as much, so I filed off the serial numbers. Wear gloves. Then drop it. There’s no tag.”

Tag. His hand was now out. “Give us a look. That’s the biggest, ugliest gat I ever fookin’ seen.”

Which was the reason that Biddy had chosen it—an immense, silver Dan Wesson .44 V with an eight-inch barrel that weighed nearly four pounds loaded and that at first Biddy could barely lift with her arms extended, much less shoot. But she had learned to, once a week with a shooting club in Reigate until she could hit a target at thirty paces with most shots, which was all she wanted from the thing. It was too bloody hard on her hands, arms, ears, and nerves. But it was nothing if not intimidating.

“What’s the fookin’ caliber?”

“Forty-four Mag.”

“Janie, you could blow a hole in a Saracen with that thing.”

Tag took another step closer to her. “I wish to Jesus yeh’d shown it to me earlier. Can yeh give us the feel of it?” His hand was still out.

Biddy flipped open the cylinder and slipped in a cartridge, and then another and another, six in all, until the weapon was fully loaded. Locking the cylinder back in place, she turned the barrel of it on him and paused a moment, until their eyes met. “I hope to God your seeing this convinces you how serious this is.”

But plainly it didn’t; he only wanted to get it in his hands.

Which she would not allow. Fitting it down inside her bag, which was large, she wondered if she should take the rest of the bullets. No. She’d need it only if he got close, where one would do. After placing them back on the shelf, she closed the door.

“For the final time: I’d leave were I you.” And when you do, see that it’s not with the silver, was her second thought, which, if said, might only give him a resentment and cause. Closing the bag, she fitted the strap over her shoulder and looked up at him. “Remember, now: I warned you.”

“Biddy, you right bitch—wait!” Cheri was shouting from the stairs.

“But if I did, who’ll look after yehr lover?” Tag winked, then showed her his tongue. “Or was it the other way round?” He raised a fresh bottle to his mouth and drank.

And his laughter—punctuated by Cheri’s screams—followed Biddy out into the back garden to the gate in the wall.

THE TODDLER HAD watched them pile out of the house on Raglan Road. He could tell from the way they moved—quickly, looking this way and that—they had been warned.

First came the old one, the Tinker woman from the camping site in Tallaght all those years ago. She had aged, but she was one of a kind and would never be able to disguise herself, no matter how she tried. Here with a stylish costume, layers of trendy rags. But her face was still the same old dried prune, her eyes big, round, and fearful. In her ears were thick gold Tinker rings.

After her came her husband, the Toddler judged by his age, his porter-colored face, and rumpled suit. Then the Tinker bitch’s get: Beth Waters’s or Biddy Nevins’s daughter, who was—what?—sixteen or seventeen. That had to be her. Apart from the hair, which was longer, the girl looked just the way Mickalou Maugham had, right down to the loose-hipped way she walked. The Toddler wondered if she was on the gear yet, which was only a matter of time. Like father and mother, like daughter. He knew whole families that shot smack. She would have to try it only once.

Watching them climb into the Merc—not the stripped-down model but the big one with tinted windows and a V-12 under the hood—the Toddler reached for the cell phone on the console of his Land Rover. Punching in the main number of Garda Siochana headquarters in Phoenix Park, he waited until a prerecorded voice came on, advising him to toggle an extension or wait for an operator. He then added three more numbers, and the phone answered on the second ring.

“It’s your mother’s uncle Bill. I’m in a phone booth on a Callcard. Could you ring me back?”

“By all means, Uncle Bill. Good to hear your voice.”

“Do I give you the number?”

“No need, Bill b’y. Don’t I have it right here on me display?”

The Toddler rang off. Incoming calls to the police were automatically recorded; outgoing were not.

For the twelve years since the nearly disastrous night at the top of Grafton Street, the Toddler had handled all vital problems alone in ways that produced no witnesses like Biddy Nevins. But that did not mean he was unassisted. With wealth on the order that he now possessed, he had hired on retainer more than a few civil servants of one stripe or another who kept him informed, and warned and who—sometimes, as now—could act in his stead.

As the Mercedes pulled away, the cell phone bleated, and the Toddler held it to his ear. “I’ve got two favors to ask of you. The first is a car that I’d like followed discreetly.” He then described the car and its occupants and read off the number plate. “Turning left now onto the Pembroke Road. Can we handle that?”

“I think so, once we locate it.”

“Second, I have an address.” The Toddler glanced up at the house. “Number twelve Raglan Road. I want it raided and tossed.”

“On what grounds?”

“The usual.” Once inside, the man on the other end would salt the house with drugs that the Toddler had already provided him. Everybody in the house would be charged, including the owner, and the dwelling closed up until a court determined it was no longer a hazard to the community. Which took years.

The law was new and a boon to somebody like the Toddler, who no longer sold narcotics at street level but from time to time had to punish those who did. Or who dared challenge him. It was all so much easier and less risky than the last recourse, which was still his Remington 700.

“How soon can it be done?”

There was a pause. “Sure, if the place is a pesthouse, as you say, then right away, Bill. This very instant Sean! Dermot!” he barked. “Get in here on the double!”

“Good man, Paul,” said the Toddler. “I won’t forget.”

“And the best of health to you, Uncle Bill!”

Ringing off, the Toddler slipped the phone into its yoke and started the large, powerful van, which was new and which he had ordered with special features at much expense. Wheeling out from the curb, he turned at the corner and sped toward Raglan Lane.

An alley at the back of a house was how Biddy Nevins had escaped twelve years before. Would she try it twice? Why not? Talent in art did not necessarily mean brains; witness her hanging the photograph of the painted footpath flags shaped in a vortex to represent what? Her past? Or his? What could she have been thinking? The Toddler would have picked the thing off had he seen it in a newspaper.

Slowing nearly to a stop, he nosed the large vehicle into the narrow alley and began counting the number of houses to hers. Eight.

That was when he caught sight of—could it be?—the bitch herself. Yes, he couldn’t believe his luck. She was just stepping out into the laneway and reaching a key up to lock the back gate door again. She then turned and began walking straight at him. Tall, angular, but quick nonetheless. Wear
ing the very same metallic weave dress she’d had on at the gallery. From her shoulder swung a large purse.

It took the Toddler only a second to decide. Hit and run, it couldn’t be better! He’d grind her right into the wall, then stash the Rover in a building that he owned in Ringsend only a mile or two away. There he parked a large articulated lorry that he sometimes used for big deliveries. Empty now, it would accommodate the Rover easily. For years, if need be.

Down came his wide, flat foot, slamming the accelerator to the floor. Tires shrieking, the Rover juddered and swerved, then bolted down the alley.

Biddy hardly had the chance to look up, but she knew who it had to be, roaring down at her, all blazing bright metal and glass in the late-afternoon sun.

Snapping her head back, she saw that her own gate was too far to make. But maybe ten yards in front of her was the next back garden entrance, which, like all of them, was recessed a foot or so within the wall. Perhaps she could squeeze herself into the gap.

But her legs felt as if they were made of lead. Or—the thought flashed through her mind—her number was up. She was done, and it was the end of a life that had been brilliant in moments but filled mainly with fear and pain. So be it. At least now it would be over.

But she stumbled. In fact, she fell flat on her face, her bag spilling out in front of her. And the car, lurching down the laneway, kissed the wall about twenty feet from her, bounced off, and she could see the Toddler, throwing his weight against the wheel, trying to turn it back at her.

And did. The left front tire, skidding over her dress, pulled her into the path of the back tire that skinned the side of her face, her ear, the tip of her shoulder, before the car slammed into the wall again. The side mirror snapped off, and the sheet metal shrieked, as it slid down the rough rock wall.

The Toddler looked back. Had he missed her? Or just not hit her direct? She seemed to be moving still. He pumped the brakes once and then stood on them, and the Rover fishtailed to a stop.

Yes, he’d missed the bitch. She was crawling toward a gate in the wall. He reached for the Beretta in his jacket pocket. If he missed her with the Rover again, he’d jump out and do her with that. It was only a .25 caliber, but the bullets were hollow-tipped, and he’d pump all seven shots into her brain. The car then he’d take to the warehouse, as planned. And he’d be done with the only person who could still link him to a murder.

Jamming the stick into reverse, he tromped the gas pedal, and the Rover, skidding, leaped wildly back down the alley, rocking from side to side.

Biddy thought she’d been blinded. Her face was covered with dirt and blood. But catching sight of the bright stainless steel body of the revolver, where it had fallen out of her bag in front of her, she threw herself forward and snatched it up. Turning, she sat up, arms extended, the heavy gun locked in both hands. If he would kill her, she’d not go alone.

The Toddler did not know what happened. The rear window, which, like the others, was bulletproof glass, crazed suddenly into an opaque pattern of like crystals. He could not see a thing through it, and with the left external mirror now gone as well, he could not see her.

Twisting the wheel to the left, so he could, he lost control of the careering van, which slammed into the farther wall and nearly spun around. Like that he was straddling the alley. Where at least he caught sight of her again, just sitting there with something in her hands.

A bolt of flame spit from the thing and crazed the window of the passenger seat, sending a shower of glass slivers over the Toddler. And the next window on that side and the next, before he realized what it was and reacted. Christ, it must
be a cannon, he thought. A second shot at any one of the frazzled windows would carry right through.

Spinning the wheel, he turned the Rover and aimed it directly at her. Fuck it, he’d just run her down and chuck her corpse in back, then proceed as planned.

But the gun was still up, and the Toddler threw himself across the credenza and onto the shattered glass on the passenger seat, just as the windscreen exploded and the Rover crashed into the wall on the other side of the alley.

There was a pause of maybe four or five seconds—the Toddler would later think—as he tried to collect his wits, and he realized he could still hear the engine ticking over. Before the floor of the car—the only part of the Rover that wasn’t armored—exploded right under him, smashing the credenza and sending a bolt of searing pain through his left thigh. Bits of frayed headliner sifted down on him.

Christ, he’d been shot. He’d even dropped the Beretta, which he now picked up again. She must be right under the car. He had either to kill her now or to get out of there. Or both. He pulled himself up, wondering if he could still walk. There was a chunk out of the fleshy part of his thigh the size of a tanner. It was bubbling blood.

Enraged now that she had actually managed to injure him, he jerked up the handle and threw the door open. He’d blow the bitch away, then get the fuck out of there and get himself some help. How could he have been so careless! He might even bleed to death from a wound like that.

But the door was wrenched out of his hand, and there she was standing above him all blood and dirt, some huge handgun pointed right at his head. She pulled the trigger. Nothing. And again. Only a click.

As the Beretta in his left hand came up, she smashed the butt of the gun into his face, again and again. Then she spun and fled.

The Toddler roared. He bawled and spit shards of his shattered front teeth across the dashboard. His nose was broken, he could tell; there was a bright orange ball of pain
right in the center of his vision; and his front teeth were ruined where the butt of the gun—some huge revolver—had punched into his mouth. It was filled with blood.

He spit again and tried to fight through the pain just as he had in Nam. He swung his good right leg out of the car and pulled himself to a stand beside the open door, which he would use as a firing brace.

But he’d only sighted the bitch in when she twisted her key in the gate latch and let herself into the back garden. And the three small-caliber slugs that he managed to squeeze off thwacked harmlessly in the wood of the closing door. Tasting his own blood, he fell back into the car.

He had to get rid of the gun, get himself to hospital, and get himself some other help before all this got out of hand. He’d call in favors, every one he could, he decided, finding it nearly impossible to drive with his left foot alone.

He’d put out a fucking dragnet for the fucking cunt—Beth Waters/Biddy Nevins. It wouldn’t matter if it was known he wanted her, as long as he popped her himself. Discreetly. No witnesses.

The Rover jerked and bucked, as he pulled out into the Pembroke Road and headed toward the Royal Dublin Hospital.

Back in the house Biddy locked the cubby door, then rushed through the kitchen to the cellar door, which she wrenched open.

“What—back so soon?” Tag asked from the kitchen table until he realized what he was seeing. “Christ, Bid, what happened to you?”

Cheri Cooke was sitting with him, beer in hand. “Didn’t I tell you you needed me?”

Biddy pulled open the door and reached up for one of the boxes of cartridges. She’d been foolish to think only six shots would do. Now she might need an entire fifty. She’d leave the second there in case she had to return to the house, and then bullets were heavy. She could travel better light.

Snapping open the cylinder, she shook out the spent shells and quickly reloaded. That done, she poured the rest of the box into a pocket of her dress, dropping the empty carton by her feet.

The two at the table seemed dumbstruck until Cheri managed to ask, “And where do you think you’re going looking like that?”

Said Tag, “Was that boomin’ we heard yeh? Were you shootin’ yehr six-gun out in the alley?” He shook his head in wonder. “Yeh should see yehr face. Yeh look like you just committed murder.”

With any luck, she thought, tugging open the door and rushing out into the back garden. If he wasn’t there, she’d find him somehow. Which should have been her plan from the start, way back years ago after he’d murdered Mickalou.

Opening the door cautiously, she stood where the wall would protect her, sticking only her head out into the alley. Once, quick.

But all that was left of him was the side mirror of his Rover, bits of shattered plastic and glass, and streaks of blue enamel down the walls on both sides of the alley.

“Are you all right, Miss Waters?” Her neighbor from across the alley asked, standing in her own back garden doorway.

Biddy concealed the gun behind her back. “Yes,” she said.

“What was that anyway? I heard a fierce bit o’ roaring and banging. It sounded like war.” The woman stepped out into the alley to take a closer look. She picked up the side mirror. “Could it have been a car crash? And, look, here’s a bag, a woman’s bag.”

Biddy glanced over her shoulder at her own house, where Tag and Cheri were now standing in the kitchen window, looking out. She couldn’t go back there where the Toddler could find her; she had to be the one to dictate where and when and be ready for him. For the next time, which was inevitable.

Stepping out into the alley, Biddy closed the gate and advanced upon the woman.

“Oh, sweet Jesus, miss, you’ve been injured.”