Jessie Keane: Ruthless

Pardew’s car wasn’t flashy but it was – according to Don – armour-plated and bullet-proof. None of which was going to save Pardew’s fat cheating arse on this occasion.

‘You won’t get him once he’s in the car,’ said Don. ‘Don’t attempt it.’

Pardew looked portly, balding and faintly yellow in the sodium glare of the street lights.

Rufus nudged Pikey hard.

It was their signal.

Pikey, hands trembling, flicked the lighter. Then he dropped it.

‘Shit! ’ snarled Rufus under his breath.

He glanced at Pardew, who had stopped walking. He’d seen the lighter’s flare. Rufus looked back at Pikey and saw that his hand was on fire.

Pikey let out a shriek.

The fire snaked rapidly up Pikey’s arm and enveloped his head.

His screams were ripping through the evening air now, his skin melting like cheese on a hot griddle.

Shit, shit, shit.

Even in the midst of his panic over Pikey – Christ! Don’s nephew! His fucking nephew! – Rufus kept a clear head.

He snatched up the lighter, lit the fuse, lobbed the bottle.

All an instant too late.

Pardew was holding a hand gun, and he was shooting towards the flaming remnants of Pikey. Rufus felt a shot whistle past his ear, then an impact, hard as a hammer, took him in the shoulder, whirling him away, throwing him off his feet. He lay there on the tarmac, hearing the blood thundering in his ears, thinking: Mustn’t pass out.

Christ, he’d been shot.

Through tears of agony he heard the roar of the Molotov cocktail as it went up. Pardew erupted in flames, a human torch. Rufus heard the screams, smelled the barbeque scent of cooked flesh. Pardew was sorted, done. Rufus crawled to his feet and staggered away from Pardew’s car, which had been half-concealing him and Pikey.

He looked at Pikey.

Or what was left of him, anyway.

Like Pardew, he was well alight, and he wasn’t going to live to tell the tale. He wasn’t screaming any more: he couldn’t. His face was gone, the flames had seared his features into one smeared covering of cooked skin.

That’s Don’s fucking nephew. Boy am I in the shit now, thought Rufus.

There was only one thing to do.

Run.

Stumbling, bleeding, he turned and did so.

Rory’s old lady Megan took one look at Rufus bleeding and swaying in the doorway, and flipped. Five months gone in her pregnancy, she wanted no intruders in her nest. She started on about doctors, ambulances.

‘You crazy?’ snarled her husband as Rufus sat sheet-white at their kitchen table. ‘That’s a bullet wound – you want the Garda in on this? Fetch some towels, don’t be a daft cow.’

Rufus knew he had done right in coming here. If there was one person he could always trust in this world, it was Rory.

His strength ebbing away with the blood pouring out of him, he let himself be half-dragged, half-carried up the stairs to the back bedroom. Agonized, he lay helpless on the bed as Rory stripped off his jacket and shirt.

‘It went straight through,’ said Rory, eyeing the wound, going a bit green around the gills. ‘Shit, I think you’ll be OK if the loss of blood don’t kill you. How’d it happen?’

Rufus was half-fainting with the pain. Megan came haring in with a face like a hatchet to press towels to the wound. Rufus looked at her, then at Rory.

‘I’ll see to him,’ said Rory, taking the hint, and she retreated.

Rory closed the door behind her.

Rufus lay back and tiredly recounted the evening’s events to his pal.

‘Holy shit. That twat Pikey, he was never going to shape up.’

‘He won’t get the chance to now.’

‘Don’s nephew! Holy shit .’

‘I just fecking ran. Didn’t know what else to do.’

‘What else could you do? He’s not going to come over all understanding, not him.’

Rory was dabbing the wound. The bleeding was slowing up, thank God.

‘Thirsty,’ said Rufus faintly.

‘I’ll fetch water,’ said Rory, and opened the door. Megan started away from it, going red in the face.

‘You been listening in?’ demanded Rory.

‘No, I…’

‘Well don’t. Go and get some water, he needs a drink.’

Megan went off downstairs, muttering. Rory watched her go. He stood there a moment, staring at the landing carpet, thinking that Big Don was going to want blood for this. He could understand why Rufus had come here, of course he could, but in doing so he’d brought trouble to Rory’s door. Still, who could turn their oldest friend away?

Not him.

He went to the landing cupboard and fetched more towels. Right now, there was only one thing on his mind: keeping Rufus alive.

When at last the bleeding stopped and Rory had cleaned and bandaged his friend’s wound, Rufus lapsed into troubled sleep. Rory collected all the blood-soaked towels and went off downstairs. He loaded the dirty washing into the twin tub and made a mental note to fill it up and start it going later. Then he went through to the lounge.

‘It’s on the news,’ Megan said, barely glancing up at him. She hugged her fat stomach, rocked in the armchair, listening intently to the radio.

And so it was. Businessman Jonathon Pardew had perished in a fire, thought to have been deliberately set by one of the rival gangs in his area. A second corpse, later identified as Peter Pike from Moyross, was also found at the scene. IRA involvement was suspected. When the newscaster went on to national news, talking about Nixon, Watergate, and the French detonating an H-bomb at Mururoa Atoll, Megan switched the radio off.

She looked up at her husband. ‘What are we going to do?’ she asked.

‘Get the boy better,’ said Rory. ‘What else can we do?’

Rufus was feverish for days, and Rory was worried sick about him. It was lucky the wound hadn’t needed stitching and that the bullet had passed through his bulk unhampered. It must have been a small-bore gun, maybe a lady’s weapon, easy to conceal, and it had spared Rufus too much damage.

It took a couple of weeks before he was able to sit up a little and take some soup instead of water. After that, he healed quickly. He was strong, he’d always been fit. It helped.

Megan kept her distance from him. His presence threatened her composure, made her fearful for her own safety and that of the child she carried. Before Rufus arrived, her only concern had been whether Rory would keep on the straight and narrow with a baby on the way. Now Rufus had pitched up, she knew there’d be trouble and Rory would get dragged into it.

‘Will we go for Diarmuid if it’s a boy, what do you think?’ she asked, trying to get Rory’s mind back to where it should be.

‘Huh?’

He wasn’t even listening to her. His whole concern was for his friend.

‘Diarmuid for a boy. Or Siobhan for a girl. Do you like those?’

‘Ah, whatever makes you happy.’

If Rufus Malone dropped dead, that would make her happy.

She went down the shops, and Mrs Simmonds asked her if she had people staying.

‘You what?’ asked Megan, heart galloping in her chest.

‘You got visitors? I’ve seen the light on in your box room, every evening. Is it your ma, come to stay to help with the baby on the way? I haven’t seen her down in the shop, so. She taken up smoking, has she? She never used to smoke.’

‘What?’

‘I’ve seen smoke coming over the fence in the garden.’

‘Oh! No, that’ll be Rory, having a fag.’

‘Is he doing the box room out for a nursery?’

‘Yes, that’s it, we’re decorating. I have to go, I’ve been having twinges…’ she said, picking up her shopping and rushing out of the shop.