Adrian McKinty - Dead I Well May Be

Christ, Michael, am I glad to see you. Sunshine finally got you boys out, he said he would. But why the gun? Jesus, you don’t think I stooled you boys or anything? Ask Darkey. Jesus. Mike. I mean, come on. You know me.

He’d confirmed everything I suspected in one big slabber. The stupid fuck. I nodded.

Listen, Bob, it’s important that I know when Sunshine told you about the plan, I asked him quietly, calmly.

What plan?

Bob, just tell me, was it organized a long time, like weeks in advance or was it something that took place in that last couple of days?

No, man, you’ve got it all wrong. I didn’t fuck you guys over. It was a straightforward deal. It just went wrong. You know that. Just fucked up, Bob said, dripping with sweat.

Bob, listen to me. I know nearly everything. Look, have yourself a beer and throw me one. No, roll me one, I said, and we both laughed a little.

Bob picked up a beer and rolled it over, opening a fresh one for himself. I opened mine with my left hand, the right pointing the barrel of the.45 at Bob’s chest. The can was Budweiser, but it was so cold you couldn’t taste it, so it was ok. Bob was more relaxed now and leaned back in the chair.

Bob was just over six foot and about two hundred and fifty pounds. I’ve seen heavier men carry it better and I felt bad for him, for a moment.

Ok, Bob, now listen to me. Please don’t waste my time denying the fact that Sunshine had you set us up. It’s only going to irritate me, and it’s a really foolish move to irritate a man who’s pointing a.45 at you. Don’t you think?

Yes.

Ok, now all I have is a few questions. When did Sunshine tell you about Mexico?

Uhhh, uhh.

Come on, Bob. I’ll fucking shoot you right now.

Ok, I was against it. Totally against it. I said so. It was that week, I was as surprised as you guys. I didn’t know about it. It may have been in the pipe for longer, but it was sprung on me that week.

I nodded. It was that week. So maybe Bridget’s trip to me had been the final straw, or the missing piece of evidence. I wondered why Darkey hadn’t just had me shot and dumped me. It puzzled me and I thought for a moment. It was unnecessarily torturing Bob, but the big guy could handle it. The only thing I could come up with was that Darkey did it for the sake of Bridget’s feelings. I mean, she’s smart. She doesn’t look it, but she is. If I just disappeared she’d twig, she’d know he’d murdered me, and Darkey was probably right to think that that might sully the romantic atmosphere. Whereas all of us, all of us, remember, disappear in bloody Mexico, rot there, it seems like an accident. Bridget thinks, Well, gee, Darkey wouldn’t sacrifice his whole fucking crew just to kill Michael. No. He wouldn’t do that. That’s fucking insanity.

I smiled. Aye, sadly, that was it. Sunshine’s plan, no doubt. The whole crew would disappear, and she’d be distraught over me. But she’d forget me in time, and maybe she’d just have enough of a wee suspicion of ill will to be more careful with Darkey’s affections in the future. Yeah, that was it. I saw it all. The whole thing.

It had been a cascade of events. A horrible escalating fucking disaster. Andy gets the crap beaten out of him, possibly by Shovel. Scotchy thinks it is Shovel, so we get rounded up and I do a Belfast six-pack on him. I’m so shook up, I tell Bridget I need to see her the next day. She comes down and doesn’t check her fucking arse. Boris Karloff is on her tail. The evidence gets passed on, it’s all confirmed, it’s all fucking true, and Sunshine starts organizing things. In the meantime, unfortunately for Sunshine’s filthy conscience, I save his bacon at Dermot’s, but that doesn’t change Darkey’s mind. He’s cold like that. You make your bed, you lie in it.

The sequence was perfect. The events projected and fixed in reels, and I had no choice about the next act.

How much did you give the Mexicans? What did it cost to get rid of us?

Michael, listen, you’ve got it all wrong, I-

How much, Bob? I insisted.

He wiped his brow, looked at me.

There was a hundred thousand dollars. I was to take twenty-he began, but he couldn’t finish.

Christ, I was worth that much? I ought to be flattered.

Bob’s room was bright. He had ferns. I liked ferns. They followed the Fibonacci series, they were orderly. I got up and grabbed the cushion from underneath the wicker seat. I rolled the cushion as tight as I could with one hand. Bob was leaning forward in his seat, a curious but not frightened expression on his face, as if he was watching me attempt origami or something. Things are going a wee toty bit better now, he was probably thinking.

What did Sunshine say had happened to us? I asked him.

He took a sip of his beer.

He didn’t say anything, he said to forget about youse, Bob said.

Jesus, weren’t you curious? I mean, for fucksake, Bob.

Look, man, you don’t ask too many questions, you don’t want to know, you know?

I know, I said.

I pushed the cushion against the muzzle of the.45. Bob looked even more confused.

Hey, Michael, you’re not doing wha-

I shot him in the chest, and then I got up and moved close and shot him in the head. The first shot had killed him, but it was an old lesson. The noise had been awful, even with the cushion, but probably outside in the street they’d assume it was a car backfiring or a firecracker. Did they celebrate the Fifth of November in this country? Guy Fawkes Night. I wasn’t sure.

I went outside, bold as brass, and walked casually back to the Cadillac. The street was deserted, and as far as I could tell, there was no one staring at me from behind net curtains.

Heading out of town, I noticed that the fuel gauge was on empty, so I had to stop for petrol. I pulled in and got five bucks’ worth and headed in the direction of the highway.

On the way home I got lost on three separate occasions trying to get back into Manhattan, but finally sometime after four, I made it to the building on 181st. I drove the car ten blocks north and dumped it where I knew someone would take it. I walked to where I could get a clear shot at the water and threw the.45 into the Hudson. I’d ask Ramón to get me a new piece tomorrow.

The river conjuring me into existence, the sky, the water, the migrating volaries of ducks and geese. The tide heaving the flotsam upstream, against the current-it doesn’t look right. Nothing looks right.

I have now killed a man. Killed him as well as can be killed. I look at the swell and the water and try to see if something is pricked. I contain my feelings and dissolve from the world and think. Am I aware of what I did, how does this affect me? I think, cool my brain. Repose. No, on due reflection, it affects me not a whit. I believe not in hell or afterlives. I cannot see how lower forms, bacteria, insects, can be excluded-were we not as they once, long ago? How did we evolve a heaven? No, there is no eternal retribution and I will not haunt myself.

But can I leave? Can I mitch myself away? Yeah. I could. The Hudson is the escape route. I’ll go down to the marina at Riverside and steal a boat and head it north. North up into those ice kingdoms. I’m not sure how far I can go. I know there’s a canal at Albany, going west. I’ll just keep going up until I hit the Saint Lawrence and then I’ll make my break for the ocean. Winter, maybe where the Vikings wintered, and then by dead reckoning and short hops, Greenland, Iceland, the Faeroes, the Hebrides, and then on to Rathlin and down the Antrim coast to Belfast Lough. I’ll have the Northern Lights and the Pole Star and the sinking moon and I’ll make good time on the Gulf Stream. It’ll be old and familiar as I cruise up the gray waters of the lough. The great Stalinist power station at Kilroot, the harbor at Bangor, the castle at Carrickfergus. Belfast, brown and flat under the brooding hills. Harland and Wolff, whose cranes will welcome me. The Lagan, the Farset, the Blackwater. Agua negra . No.