Adrian McKinty - Dead I Well May Be

I mean, although shooting was not uncommon after dark in this part of town, even if it was just guys firing off.9mm clips into the air, it would really be expecting too much for the average lazy, frightened copper to ignore this palaver. Although this was Washington Heights, it was midmorning and these were machine guns. The nonincarceration window of opportunity couldn’t be more than about five to ten minutes.

Scotchy was signaling at me from across the room. The shooters almost had a sight line onto him and Fergal, and he was making some kind of gesture for me to stand up behind the bar and let them have it to draw their fire, enabling the two of them to get in a better position, maybe scramble over to us.

I had a.22 revolver, and there was no way I was standing up anywhere and firing at anyone with that. The.22 was there to intimidate a little bit and wasn’t really a gun you’d shoot. Not that I’d have a semiautomatic anyway, because the only time you’d ever need it, the thing would be sure to jam on you. Your revolver, your serious Yankee revolver, a.38, will shoot clean, dirty, waterlogged, and arse-deep in a blanket. Sunshine had a.38, and I suppose it was conceivable that I could have carried out Scotchy’s dubious plan with Sunshine’s gun, but really the smarter play was to pretend not to understand what Scotchy was talking about and just to nod and do nothing.

I did this and Scotchy started miming again, more furiously. I looked at Sunshine, but he had his eyes closed and was muttering what I took to be the Rosary. It surprised me. He’d always seemed the scientific, agnostic type, but I suppose atheists, foxholes, all that.

I could see through the door that there were people outside now, the usual eejits who show up and get killed by a stray bullet, but I knew that at least none of them were calling the authorities. It was a mental couple of blocks, but it knew when to keep its mouth shut. Malcolm X had been assassinated just around the corner, and there had been a six-person homicide just last month, so we weren’t Halley’s comet or anything, but if things went on like this for much longer, you knew that an annoyed new mother trying to kip would call it in, and some wanker would eventually turn up to lecture us through loudspeakers and then teargas us out and lift us. It was all fucking inevitable-well, unless Dermot’s boys got their shit together and killed us first. Either prospect was less than pleasant, and I knew that perhaps I really would have to do something. What, exactly, I wasn’t sure, but something, a withdrawal by sections or a mad dash for the door or a truce, something. Sunshine’s mutterings got louder, and Dermot’s boys stopped shooting and shifted a wee bit and started getting an even better angle on Scotchy behind the overturned table, churning up the floor with huge slugs that sent burning splinters all the way over here. I thought for a moment or two, and cleared my throat.

Dermot, Dermot, you Fenian wee cultchie, motherfucker, parley, fucking parley, I shouted. There was no reply, so I shouted it all again with increased vehemence. But still nothing.

Dermot Finoukin was a new boy in town from Toome in County Antrim. He was something of a smoothie-NEXT suits, holidays in Ibiza, charm, a midnight blue MG midget-but he’d done the wrong boy’s daughter and upped and left for the New World under sentence from a top player. He’d opened a bar in the tiny Irish neighborhood around the 160s and Broadway. It was a disastrous and foolish scheme, because the Micks were leaving for better places in the Bronx or Jersey or Queens and Dermot didn’t encourage patronage from Dominicans or Puerto Ricans. The bar, when we went, was always empty. Sunshine had loaned Dermot a bucket of money at 50 percent a month on the collateral of Dermot’s knowledge of and access to a cache of weapons compiled for the Provos somewhere upstate in 1988 and then abandoned because of the arrests of the principals in the case. Sunshine was no fool and expected the bar to fail in about three months and then we’d get our hands on the guns and move them on to people who needed them most, people who, coincidentally, generally lived in Dermot’s neighborhood. But as it turned out, Dermot’s strategy wasn’t as stupid as it looked because he made his payments every month and even gave us a good bit of the capital back; in fact, sleekit wee Dermot didn’t give a shite about the bar, and the whole time he’d been manufacturing crack cocaine in the basement under license from a local boy known only as Magic Man. Magic Man, it turned out, was really a fellow called Ramón, and Ramón would, much later, be a helpful little bee to me, too.

Anyway, Dermot’s was a nice setup and perplexed young Sunshine for quite a while until somehow someone ratted and Sunshine had insisted on accompanying us on a visit to Dermot’s to investigate these claims for himself. What was even better was that the rat was probably Dermot himself and this wee operation was a move to bring us down there and wipe us out with a minimum of fuss and then move his crack factory to new premises in a whole building on St. Nicholas. It was supposed to go something like this: kill us, dispose of us, set fire to the bar, disappear, and then when Darkey investigated, there wouldn’t be a trace. Dermot would be debt-free, well established as a cool customer, and he could sit and make his fortune, giving the odd handsome donation to the Provos in the Bay State who would thereafter provide him additional insurance cover. It wasn’t a bad plan as harebrained, unworkable, ill-thought-out schemes go, and the killing-of-us bit was the most doable part of the operation and at this point, I’d say, had about a fifty-fifty chance of coming off, unless one of us could think of a way out.

Dermot, you cultchie cow-fucking bastard, parley, are you fucking deaf? Parley, I yelled again.

The shooting went on for another few seconds and then abruptly stopped.

There was a pause, and then Dermot yelled out from somewhere:

What?

Dermot, listen, it’s Michael, listen, bloody listen. Peelers are gonna be here in a minute. Your boys fucked up, fucked up big-time, can’t get us from where you are.

See about that, Dermot said, menacingly.

Wait, you fucking wanker, wait. You’re not getting us and we’re not getting you, and the peels are gonna show up sooner or later, and then what? Slammer, five years, and then deportation. Is that what you want?

One of Dermot’s boys yelled something in Spanish and the shooting started again. Sunshine grabbed my arm and was having some kind of asthma attack. I looked over at Scotchy sarcastically, asking him to get a load of this, but Scotchy’s face was contorted with rage, either at me or his predicament, you couldn’t tell. The shooting stopped.

What do you suggest? Dermot shouted.

Cease-fire and withdrawal. You let us go and we’ll give you twenty-four hours to get to pastures new, I said, and looked at Sunshine to see if that was ok with him. Sunshine seemed to understand and nodded.

Who says I want to go anywhere? Dermot yelled.

Listen, Dermot. What was the idea, were you going to kill all of Darkey’s boys? You must be heading somewhere. You can’t sit it out here, you’re not that powerful.

There was a long silence and in it we could hear sirens.

All right, Michael, your word. You’ll give me twenty-four hours if I let youse out? Dermot said.

My word and Sunshine’s too, I yelled.

I turned to Sunshine.

Tell him, I whispered, tell him.

My word too, Sunshine yelled, somewhat shrilly.

Ok, Dermot said.

Ok, I said.

What now? Dermot asked, uncertain.

Uhhh, we get up and you don’t shoot us, I said.

Scotchy was shaking his head at me and mouthing “Fuck no,” but he didn’t say anything. He had that much sense, at least.