John Brady - A Carra ring

“Here, look,” said Malone then. “Here’s our fella.”

“With the hair?” said Murtagh. Minogue opened the door first.

Paddy Mac stopped and pulled his jacket tighter. Minogue almost smiled. Horsey people ended up looking like their horses. Why not racing pigeons? It must be the haircut.

“.. Teddy boy, for Jases’ sake…” Minogue heard before slamming the door. He nodded at Paddy Mac and walked over.

“Well,” said Paddy Mac. Minogue studied the white spots by his nostrils. The wind had picked up.

“We have a warrant here, Paddy,” Minogue began. “But I don’t want to just march in there and start in on it.”

Paddy Mac eyed the three policemen in the Corolla.

“What,” he said, “more of yous? That should be enough to overpower any resistors. ”

Rezizz-tarz. The gleeful scorn. How could he ever leave this damned city, Minogue thought. It was the whole bit. the stance, the jaw lowered, Paddy Mac’s slow-moving eyes that took in an imagined future which could only be comical.

“So what are yous waiting for?”

“It has to be done on the QT, Paddy. I need you.”

Paddy Mac eyed the Corolla again and sighed. He began to sing between his teeth.

“ I ne-heedyou so-o…”

“The Commodores?”

“ I-hi wa-hantyou so-hoo. No.”

“The Bachelors?”

“No. No Commodores, no Bachelors.”

“Will you come over to the car for a chat?”

“What? Into that car with three, four cops? Are you mad?”

“No. I have that Opel there.”

“Why on the quiet, if you have the warrant?”

“We need it tight so’s no one knows we’ve been through.”

“Do I look like James Bond? Yous’ll have to do your own thing here — ”

“Will you sit in the car and I’ll tell you?”

Paddy Mac looked from the Corolla to the Opel.

“All right. Where’s your butty, the musical know-it-all. The Dubb-al-in man.”

“He’s hiding in the car there.”

Minogue waved at the Corolla. Malone sat up.

“Yous have a plan, I hear,” Paddy Mac said.

Malone said nothing. Minogue led Paddy Mac to the passenger seat.

“We need to keep it clean,” Minogue said. “It’s not the time to waltz in and grab people yet.”

“What people?”

“If what we’re thinking is not there, then they’ll never bring it if they know we’re onto it.”

“Who, though? Are you trying to tell me there’s bent staff here?”

“I don’t know who,” said Minogue. “But if there’s cargo going out — ”

“Freight. Cargo’s for boats.”

“Freight. If there’s something going out with a certain shipment — is shipment the right word?”

“I like payload: but shipment’s okay for runners-in.”

“Well then, it might not have been brought out here yet.”

“What thing are yous talking about?”

“A rock.”

“A rock? A rock band?”

“A stone,” said Minogue. “It’d be like a kind of a statue.”

“What, an antique, like?”

“Something like that, yes. Can I tell you what we’d need?”

“You can try, but I have to kick this upstairs. Someone has to know about it.”

“No, Paddy. Sorry. No. That can’t be done.”

“Says who?”

“Let me explain it, then.”

Paddy Mac listened, watching Malone fiddle with the keys, then the wipers, then the keys again.

“Okay,” said Paddy Mac. “But maybe you weren’t listening to a whole lot of things I told you earlier on. Number one, anything to do with the likes of the Works would be clean as a whistle. They wouldn’t be stupid enough to smuggle anything.”

“Intentionally, you mean.”

“Any shagging way, that’s what I mean. That’s why they have managers and everything. Their stuff is under lockup here so’s it doesn’t get interfered with.”

“It’s not checked going out is it though?”

“What, that mountain of gear? No. How big a thing are yous looking for?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well I can tell we’re going to have a grand time of it, so.”

“But I do know it could arrive here as long as no one thinks we’re onto them.”

Paddy Mac took a step back. Minogue glanced down at the feet. Tiny, ninety degrees, like birds. The barrel chest.

“Well how do you propose to keep it all quiet here?”

“Number one is that you undertake not to say a word to anyone.”

“What, including me boss?”

“Including your boss, your wife and kids, anybody. Then you get us in there, as employees maybe. A set of uniforms maybe? Overalls?”

“Four of yous?”

“Two of us, say.”

Paddy Mac looked from face to face. Minogue wondered if the humor would win out.

“Let me have a gander at this warrant then.”

Minogue handed it over. Malone met his eyes in the mirror.

“Never seen one before, tell you the truth,” said Paddy Mac. “Except on the telly. Ha, ha. Looks real enough, but.”

He folded the papers and handed them back.

“So,” said Malone. “What’s it going to be, Love Me Tender?”

The Dublinman’s glazed and faraway stare gave way to a smirk.

“Well it won’t be Heartbreak Hotel,” he said. “This time, like.”

Minogue’s overalls were too short in the crotch. He pulled at them, shoved his hands down hard in the pockets, but they still caught him. Malone looked a model. He leaned against the wall and watched Minogue try to stretch the overalls again. Paddy Mac arrived in from the hall.

“Jases, you look like you’re choking in that.”

“Have you nothing else?”

“No. Here’s the list for that load of stuff.”

Minogue gave up on tailoring and joined Malone looking over the printout.

“What’s FEI?” Malone asked.

“Freight Express Ireland. They’re just the delivery agent. The number there is the day. The month comes first. It’s American software.”

Minogue looked down the dates. He tried to put dates to Shaughnessy. His brain wouldn’t work. He searched for a Biro.

“The dates,” he muttered.

“Dates for what?” Paddy Mac asked.

“Ah, I’m trying to match events to this stuff, this storage.”

Minogue opened his notebook and tore out a sheet. He began with the last day of Shaughnessy’s stay in Jury’s Hotel. He half-listened to Paddy Mac quizzing Malone about murders.

“The American fella,” said Paddy Mac. “You’re not telling me anything about that end.”

“Call out the dates to me, Tommy, like a good man.”

Malone stopped when Minogue raised his hand. The inspector looked back in his notebook

“What?” asked Paddy Mac.

Malone stepped over to Minogue. The inspector tapped on dates he’d put down after the PM.

“The last two there,” Malone whispered. “That’d be after he was killed, right?”

Minogue looked at the boxes again.

“Is this all there is for them?” he asked Paddy Mac.

“You mean is there more? I don’t know.”

“What’s the count there again?”

“Twenty… seven.”

“And the latest stuff in?”

“Four days back.”

Minogue stepped around Paddy Mac and pulled at the catch on one of the boxes. Bose — he’d heard of that. There were five pop-up latches. The third one wouldn’t budge. Paddy Mac took out a tool from his belt and held it out to Minogue. The inspector didn’t know which way to hold it. He looked at the screwdriver head, the jemmy edge next to it, the small hammer head.

“Here,” said Paddy Mac. “Let me do it. You’d only break it.”

Minogue helped him lift the lid. Coiled electrical wires as thick as his finger, knobs, a grille, sockets to plug in leads.