The Going Rate (5 page)

A few cars passed faster now as the city traffic fell away. Minogue again pretended to check his far mirror. He saw that Kilmartin had fallen asleep.

Chapter 5

C
OLM
B
REEN DID A LOT
of his trademark slow nodding while Fanning talked. He kept his spoon going, carefully turning it on the tablecloth in a series of quarter rotations clockwise, stopping every now and then to rotate it back. Fanning refused to be distracted, or irritated, by it.

Fanning was aware that he was nearing the end of his time.

“It's so intense,” he said. “Dublin, the real Dublin. No U2 concerts, no trendy apartments by the Liffey stuff. Life in the raw.”

“Gritty, Dermot. That's the key.”

“Gritty doesn't go near it. Think of it as a medieval city all over again.”

Breen nodded again.

“What I'm trying to get across,” Fanning went on, “is something beyond any genre, you know. That's the thing about it being a medieval city.”

“Right,” said Breen. “Not a lot of people would see that.”

“Dublin itself is the story – now I know that sounds corny.”

“No way. You're not one of those fellas trying to rewrite Ulysses. Thank God.”

“There's the nobility, if you want to call them that, behind their railings and burglar alarms. Then there's the ones with nothing, nothing to lose, I mean.”

“‘Two Irelands,'” said Breen. “‘Two Dublins'?”

“Exactly. It's its own world, unto itself. But universal, like a city is a city.”

“Well, they say it's worse than we think it is. Worse than the Guards let on.”

Fanning had expected this. He had his sombre tone ready.

“That it definitely is, without a doubt. A senior Guard has told me exactly that.”

He felt sure that this quiet affirmation had had an effect on Breen.

“The underworld,” Breen murmured thoughtfully. He looked out the window.

“Tell you something else,” said Fanning. “Going around with the guy I'm with, it's pretty scary. It's like a completely foreign city. And I know Dublin.”

“Your guide to the underworld,” said Breen, another wry smile creeping into his fleshy face. “This Orpheus, let's call him. Is he a big thing, what they say, ‘connected'?”

“Well he talks a lot. Watches too many gangster flicks probably.”

“Scarface? Tony Soprano?”

“Pretty much.”

“Living the dream, is he.”

“We could talk about the semiotics of it.”

Breen actually smiled.

“Jesus, Dermot. Spare me. Remember all that crap?”

It was another test, but Fanning had a lot of ground to give. He smiled, and he shrugged. Breen uncrossed his legs and sat up.

“So what's the going rate for this, em, tour of the underworld?”

“The usual thirty pieces of silver.”

Breen seemed to enjoy that.

“But he gets me places,” Fanning went on. “Even if he is a name-dropper.”

“Names?”

“Not any big scandal, well not yet. ‘You'd be amazed who buys heroin in this city,' he says. Things like that. And he talks about his sources in the Guards.”

“Bent ones?”

“Hasn't said outright. He has a contact in the Drug Squad, the Central one.”

Breen's face became fixed in an expression of kind interest.

“‘The Wire' you're talking about, maybe?” Fanning knew he had to be careful.

“Possibly, sure. Why not. Let's say it's a starting point, but better.”

“Take the bad guys' side then? The O'Sopranos, maybe?”

He almost forgot to acknowledge Breen's quip.

“It could go that way,” he said. “I mean it could be done. But the real star of the story? The real star is Dublin. Local. Vernacular. Right in your face.”

Immediately, Fanning wished he hadn't uttered those words.

“I'm not saying it right, Colm – but you know what I mean. The Dublin we know, or at least we think we know. But in fact we don't?”

Breen's brow creased.

“But Dublin's a destination now,” Fanning said. “We're on the map, right? Boomtown, the Celtic Tiger, all that. I know it's jaded by now – for us, like. But the U.S. viewers? No, they're behind, obviously.”

“No more colleens and shamrock, thank you very much. The Quiet Man done gone.”

“Listen. Have you ever stopped on any street here and just listened?”

“Listened?”

“I mean the languages. Arabic, I heard the other day. Polish, lots obviously – but I mean, it's kind of like we missed out on some stage. Like we went straight from the past, and we woke up in the future, and found the place is full of foreign – immigrants, I mean. New faces, is what I mean, I suppose.”

“Well you can certainly hear them when you buy a cup of coffee, or a pint.”

“Absolutely,” said Fanning. “You're right there.” He wondered when Colm Breen had last walked into an ordinary pub and bought an ordinary pint to drink with ordinary people. Decades.

“Let me just fire a few images your way,” he said to Breen. “Then I'll be off. You know me, I've been around. But this place today – no-one, I mean no-one has this. Ready?”

Breen smiled, and nodded.

“Everyone who can get their hands on one carries a gun.”

“Really,” said Breen.

“Broad daylight, I swear. People I'm seeing are not just thieves, or B and E go-boys. These are serious people. You can feel the voltage off them. It's nothing for them to go to Amsterdam and do deals, or Bangkok – anywhere.”

“I heard that.”

“The cops don't want people to know the situation. Oh sure, they make statements and they talk about the new seizure laws and all the rest of it. What they don't say, is that they're not on top of this at all.”

“Scary.”

“You're telling me. The hair stands up on the back of my neck. It's life or death stuff. There are no laws for these people, no rules. Psychopaths.”

“Russians, I heard? Eastern Europe stuff?”

“You're reading my mind! That's in the story too. When the old guard, the Dubs let's call them, decide to settle with all these fellas coming into the country and starting their own gigs.”

Breen leaned in over the table.

“Is that what's going on at the moment, these shootings the past while?”

“‘Spring cleaning,' Murph calls it.”

“Murph.”

“My contact, takes me around and about. My tour guide. Told me that the guy killed the other night was a friend of his. The name of Mulhall, I think.”

“Really,” said Breen. “Isn't that kind of, well, too close for comfort? Pardon the cliché and all that.”

“Well Murph doesn't seem to think so. ‘It's only messers and two-timers need to worry,' says he.”

“And this character was a friend of his,” said Breen. “What does he say about his enemies, I wonder.”

Fanning couldn't be sure if Breen was ahead of him here in the irony stakes. He thought again of their early days together as students, when Breen was an awkward gobshite that he had taken under his wing in the Film Society.

“Murph's not the fastest bunny in the forest, I have to say,” he said.

“You trust him?”

“As much as I trust any skanger, I suppose.”

Breen smiled.

“Plus he keeps telling me how well-in he is. Mr. Untouchable.”

Breen‘s smile faded into a dreamy look.

“‘Spring cleaning,'” he said. “‘The Rites of Spring.' Plenty grotesque.”

He rearranged himself in his chair. His eyes slipped out of focus for several moments, and then snapped back to Fanning's.

“Tell you what, Dermot Fanning: you've got the makings of a damn good documentary here. A damned good one.”

The anger detonated into Fanning's chest. He tried to match Breen's grin.

“We need the whole ball of wax,” he said. “Inside out. The full emotional whack: characters, levels, conflict. Family, feuds. Revenge. The voices, the faces. You won't be able to take your eyes off them.”

“It sounds huge.”

“There's a series in this, for sure. I'm telling you, I started out with the usual, you know: a knockout pilot, and eight episodes ready. But that won't be enough, it just won't. There's so much.”

Breen smiled again.

“You are the real McCoy, Dermot. By Jesus. You've got the fire in you.”

“I hope that's a good thing?”

“Of course it is, don't be silly. Of course it is.”

“‘Stories tell the higher truth.'”

“I was waiting for that one,” said Breen.

Fanning didn't want to notice that a tail of Breen's shirt had become dislodged, and now hung over his belt.

“We're talking The One,” he said. “Look, I know I'm just rabbiting on here. But have a look over the summary, the first chapter. I know you're a busy man.”

“No sweat, Dermot. Never a problem. It's the story, the writing, in the final analysis – always. And by God I know you have it in you.”

Fanning watched Breen's hand resting on the folder, as though to guard it. He knew he should leave it at that, but he couldn't resist.

“Ask me where I'm going right after,” he said. “Ask me.”

“Okay. Where are you off to?”

“A dog fight.”

Breen sat up.

“You mean dogs fighting?”

“Exactly. Murph has an in, and he's bringing me.”

“Where are you going to see this?”

“About two miles from where we're sitting.”

Fanning waited a few moments. He was pleased with Breen's reaction.

“I don't know the address,” he went on, “But it's the real thing. And a lot of the big shots show up.”

“The bad guys.”

“Yep. It's a kind of neutral place, where they might bump into one another but no-one starts throwing shapes. Business gets discussed, and all that. But it's for betting. Been going on for years.”

Fanning finally felt he was getting through to Breen. He stared at him.

“Oh. And they go for blood-lust, I'd have to say. That medieval thing, it keeps on coming back, you see.”

Breen's blank expression gave way a little. He gave Fanning a rueful look.

“Savage,” he said. “Incredible. But are you going to be able to handle it?”

“I'll have to, won't I.”

“Christ, I hope, you know…”

“I'll be okay. But you can see where this could go.”

Breen nodded. Then something slid into his thoughts and his face changed.

“Absolutely, yes. Okay. Let me know. Okay?”

Fanning had chosen his words carefully for this moment.

“I wanted you to know first,” he said.

Breen's schmoozing smile appeared He leaned on toward Fanning.

“Thanks, Dermot. That means a lot to me to hear you say that. A lot.”

“This is the one. I'm sure of it.”

“If anyone can get this – I mean really get it – it's you, Dermot. We'll talk?”

Chapter 6

T
HE MOTORWAY BEGAN ITS LONG
, banked inland, and Sugar Loaf mountain slid into view over the trees. Minogue eyed the low clouds shrouding its peak. The rain would surely have started up on Calary Bog and its Protestant church where they were headed.

“What?” Kilmartin asked, with the urgency of the suddenly awoken.

“You were asleep.”

“I am not. What did you say before that?”

“I didn't say anything.”

“Well you cursed. Under your breath. That I know.”

“I must have been thinking of someone else.”

A heavily loaded lorry overtook them, swaying a little as it returned to its lane. There were left-hand drive cars coming toward Dublin from the Rosslare ferry now. Many towed caravans, French a lot of them.

Kilmartin sat up, and turned in his seat.

“Oh oh,” he said. “Thought I heard something. Action stations.”

The blue lights of the Garda car came up fast in Minogue's mirror. He checked the speed, and felt for his wallet. The squad car went by at ninety. He got a quick look at the two Guards inside. They were in traffic gear. The passenger with a mobile to his ear looked to be about twenty.