Adrian McKinty - The Dead Yard

“Bye,” I said.

Touched went in to get Jackie, leaving Gerry with the two women in the wide blue yonder, without a bodyguard, for nearly five full minutes. Not the sort of thing I would have done even if my boss hadn’t been the victim of an assassination attempt a few weeks before. Touched clearly had a soft spot for his young apprentice. This made him vulnerable and in my eyes weak. It was good. Gerry was careless, Jackie was unpredictable, Touched had mellowed. The Sons of Cuchu-lainn were on the skids. That suited me just fine. The more cracks, the more fault lines, the better. Easier for me to slip between them.

Even so, I was a little nervous for Kit until Touched came out again. Without a piece I couldn’t have done anything to stop a hit, but by God I would have tried.

When Touched did finally materialize, the protégé was cleaned up and appeared half-respectable. Still, a look of disgust passed across Gerry’s face. Hmmm, maybe the time was ripe to move someone else into the role of junior bodyguard.

“Bye,” Kit yelled across the room.

“Bye,” I said.

Jackie didn’t look at me but Kit did and with a final wave from her they left the bar. I finished the rest of my pint, well pleased with a very successful night’s work on every conceivable front.

Drizzle. Cold for summer. The amusements deserted. The sound of generators guttering off, stalls being closed, people leaving.

Someone pulled the master switch and the colored lights swayed on the cables for a moment and went out.

Her eyes were dark. Her skin alabaster.

She’d been waiting for me.

“Spare a couple of hundred?” a homeless man asked and I gave him a buck.

We crossed to the ocean side of the road. The town like a deserted film set. Oppressive reds and a frail green light bobbling on the concrete.

“This is how every episode of Scooby-Doo starts,” I said to lighten the mood. “An abandoned fairground, a dark and stormy night.”

She smiled and looked confused.

“A TV show,” I explained.

The rain ceased.

A few insects, a few seabirds. Quiet.

Her tousled hair falling beneath her hood. She was wet, younger now. Her legs a wee bit unsteady in heels and tight black jeans. I’d heard her murmur something to herself. She was a little tipsy and it was almost as if I were the older one.

Novice and initiate.

The field agent and his control.

“You made a successful contact?” she asked finally.

“Yes.”

“We’ll talk in my car.”

“Are you sure you should be driving?”

“Don’t make me cross, darling. I had to have a couple of G &Ts to keep up the act of the desperate woman on the prowl. But I’m fine.”

The big plum-colored Mark 2.

“You met them,” she said when we were inside.

“Yeah.”

“Did you make a good impression?”

“What do you think?”

“I think you did,” she said, grinning.

“Gerry offered me a job, I said I’d take it.”

She nodded, drove south. She opened the sunroof and wound the windows down. Not for mood, but to clear her head and help her drive. She was slightly more intoxicated than she was letting on.

I knew enough not to ask why we weren’t going to my apartment in Salisbury. She drove over the Merrimack bridge and into Newburyport.

She parked the car in the lot behind the All Things Brit store.

“What about Touched?” she asked as she turned off the ignition.

“What about him?”

“Did he frighten you?”

“No.”

“That’s what I was afraid of, dear. Well, we’ll talk about that.”

“I have to say, I’m not impressed. The Provos have put the fear of God into them. I met most of the whole crew. Can’t be more than five or six of them.”

“I saw that, too.”

“Six people. Come on. All this for six people?”

“That’s the definition of a cell, darling. Now save your breath just for the moment while I look for the keys to the…

I suppose I should have put them on the same ring as the car key, I hope I haven’t left them back in… no, there they are. Thank goodness. My ability to retain keys is not my best virtue.”

She walked me to her flat above the All Things Brit store.

She’d painted it Mediterranean blue and filled it with numbered Picasso prints and Andalusian pottery. There was a Moroccan throw rug and of course that skylight that let in half the galaxy.

The air-conditioning had cooled the apartment to fifty degrees.

She removed her coat. She’d been watching me all night. Watching me with Kit. I may not be an expert at intelligence but I can read a situation.

Of course she was beautiful. Seductive. Almost the polar opposite of the way Kit was beautiful. This was a woman, not a girl. A poppy bloom, not a daisy.

Her hair wild and wet. Soaked dark strands plastered inside her blouse between her breasts.

She unbuttoned the blouse, removed her watch and a pearl necklace. She sighed as she kicked off her shoes.

“What else do you want to know?” I asked.

She leaned over the bed.

“Help yourself to a drink, darling,” she said, her breath carrying the scent of juniper.

“Uh, where is the booze again, over in the-”

“In the little study. The drinks are in the bloody globe, if you can believe it. I know it’s terribly bourgeois but it came with the place. Have a drink, I need to freshen up.”

She went to the bathroom. I opened the globe. A twenty-five-year-old Glenfiddich, a thirty-year-old-Bowmore, and a venerable bottle of brandy that looked as if it had been laid down to celebrate one of Napoleon’s more famous victories. I helped myself to a full glass of the brandy but before I could sip it she came out of the bathroom in only the high heels. She marched across the room, took the glass out of my hand, knocked it back, and lay down on the bed.

“Fuck me,” she said in an imperative tense that was impossible to refuse.

I took off my T-shirt and jeans, dimmed the light.

Her body was ruddy and pale and her breasts were huge and perfect. I climbed on top of her. Her lips like a dollop of strawberry jam on a cream scone. I kissed her. She was hot, aching with desire, her body bending up to meet mine.

“Don’t think I’m always this unprofessional,” she said.

“Of course not,” I assured her.

“I don’t screw all my agents. Not even all the good-looking ones.”

“No.”

“Clouds the judgment.”

“Yes.”

And I laid her down, and eased my body on top of hers.

I was an amputee but it meant nothing. Not to her, not to me, and I could do wet work just as well with a prosthesis as your average bloke.

Her hands stroked my back and pulled me close. I kissed her breasts and her neck but she was impatient for sex. She pushed me off her and kissed my belly and stroked my penis and sucked it till it was hard.

She smelled good.

And we kissed and I thrust my way inside her and we made love, our bodies moving together like singers in a duet, a new song, but one, somehow, that we knew by heart.

And I forgot Kit.

And I thought only about her.

Her snowy English arms and thighs, hungry lips, and assassin’s eyes that were warmer now, burning and alive. The only sound, the harbor boats; the only light, the rotating galaxies and nebulae and stars. We made love until Orion set and the big bear rose. The heavens peaceful, silent, and fair; and, for once, here on Earth, we were in perfect symmetry with the world above.

Four days of this. Seagulls. Heat. Midges. Greenhead flies. Blackhead flies. Mosquitoes. The stink of marsh gas and a broken sewage pipe. Sand fleas, no fresh water, hundred percent humidity, a dozen men grumbling in Portuguese.