Adrian McKinty - The Dead Yard

“I wouldn’t ask you to, you’re doing enough as it is, darling,” she said sweetly, her smile coming back again.

“Damn right.”

She blinked, hesitated. I wound down the window to get rid of the smoke smell.

“Michael, I have to ask this. Was there any other way with Seamus?”

“Talk to the soldier. He’ll tell you. It was him or us.”

“Ok,” she said quietly.

“I can’t bloody dillydally. Drive me close to the Plum Island turnpike and I’ll make my own way to Gerry’s.”

She nodded, stubbed out her cigarette, started the car, drove in silence to Plum Island, and dropped me at the deserted entrance to the wildlife refuge, where there would be no witnesses to see me get out of the vehicle.

“So you’ll have my contract and my pardons by tomorrow?”

I asked again.

“Yes, Michael,” she said, biting her lip.

“Good.”

I clicked my seat belt off and went to get out of the car.

Samantha stopped me.

“Wait.”

“What?”

“Uh… I don’t know if it’ll be useful, but I found out about Kit’s real mother and father, they’re from New York. Hector and Lilly Orlandez, so she’s really a Latina, surprising with her complexion, you wouldn’t have thought-”

I cut her off with a shake of my head.

“That’s not what you wanted to tell me,” I said.

“No,” she agreed.

“What then?”

She hesitated.

“Just this,” she said.

She leaned across the car and she kissed me. She’d been drinking and her lips and tongue tasted of red wine. I kissed her and I ran my dirty hand up her thigh and I felt between her legs. She moaned and pulled me close.

“Michael, you will be careful, won’t you?” she asked.

“Are you kidding? I’m one step ahead of everyone,” I said. I pushed back her seat and took off her panties. I pulled down my filthy trousers and we had frantic, fugitive gunman sex.

Twenty minutes later, I was walking alongside the black ocean towards the big house on the dunes, where every light was on, and inside, no doubt, chaos reigned.

I scooped some seawater and washed off any residual dregs of Seamus’s blood and brains.

I went to the kitchen’s patio doors and knocked on the glass.

Touched appeared with a revolver tucked down the front of his pants. A grin on his face. He, at least, was pleased to see me. He pulled me in and hugged me.

“Jesus, Sean, thank God you made it,” he said.

Everyone was up. Everyone but Seamus, who had not yet returned. Sonia in a man’s shirt and white sweatpants. Touched and Gerry in their street clothes. Jackie showered and in a robe, trembling from head to toe, holding a hot whiskey. Kit, in her tight Body Glove T-shirt, stroking his hair.

I would have had Jackie packed off to Boston or Timbuktu on an alibi or in case the peelers showed, but not these guys. Loyal to their crew, looking after him like mother hens.

“What happened, Sean?” Touched asked.

“It was terrible, Touched, it all went wrong. Terrible,” I began, but Sonia interrupted me.

“Unless it’s life and death, I insist you get out of those wet clothes and go and take a shower first,” she said. Gerry shook his head and that was enough to assert his authority.

“Where’s Seamus?” I asked. “Nabbed?”

“We were hoping you could tell us,” Gerry said, his eyes bleary with worry.

I sat down at the kitchen table. Kit was holding Jackie’s arm and stroking his back. Jackie looked as if he was well medicated. Touched pulled up a chair and sat beside me.

“Better spill it from the beginning,” he said. “Don’t worry about repeating what Jackie said, I want to hear your version.”

I told it like it was, except for the very end. Jackie got separated from Seamus and the soldier and then I got cut off from them when I swam across the river. I made it to the woods. I thought I heard a gunshot but I wasn’t sure. I followed the coast and waded over the Plum Island River to the wildlife refuge, to here. But the whole thing was a disaster, a debacle of the first order.

Gerry nodded and patted me on the shoulder. Touched leaned in close and rubbed the stubble on his chin. His eyes were wary and cold. It made me nervous. His breath stank of cigarettes.

“This is very important, Sean. Were we set up? Was it a police setup?” Touched asked.

I shook my head.

“No, I don’t think so. Just a fuckup. The soldier was as surprised as we were. The cops came because of the alarm.”

Touched looked at Gerry. His face was a mask. It either confirmed or shot down what they were thinking.

“What was the last you saw of Seamus?” Gerry asked.

“I don’t know, he was pretty slow, he looked beat, he told me to keep going. I ran ahead of him and when I looked back he and the soldier were way behind me. Then I waded over the river and I thought they were behind me but they were gone.”

“And did the police see where you went?”

“Nah, I lost the pigs. I hope Seamus did as well, but he seemed a bit…” My voice trailed off.

“He’d been drinking?” Touched asked, his eyes narrowing.

I hesitated. I wanted to appear loyal and as if what I could say would be telling tales out of school. I looked at Jackie and then at Touched.

“I don’t know,” I said.

Touched nodded grimly.

“How bad was he? I want the truth,” Touched said.

“I don’t know, Touched. He was ok,” I said, appearing to be in the throes of an internal struggle.

Touched shook his head but he seemed satisfied. It was neither my nor Jackie’s fault and we’d done ok by getting away.

Sonia came downstairs.

“I’m running the bath in the guesthouse. I absolutely insist that he use it,” she said.

Gerry nodded.

“I’m done, what about you, Touched?”

“Me, too.”

“Ok then,” Gerry muttered. “Come with me, Touched.”

Touched and Gerry went to the upstairs den to confer and probably have a blazing argument. Jackie sat next to me at the kitchen table.

“Are you ok, mate?” he asked, trying to be conciliatory.

“Thanks for asking, Jackie; to tell you the truth, I’m bloody wrecked. Wrecked but basically in one piece. What about you?”

“I did something to my ankle, and there’s a cut on my thigh from the barbed wire, but I’ll be fine in a day or two,” he said.

“You see, Jackie boy, that’s the advantage of having the old bionic ankle,” I said and lifted up my prosthesis.

Jackie smiled, patted me on the back.

“You did well, Sean, as well as could be expected under the fucking circumstances.”

“How did you get away?” I asked.

“I just ran; I got to the river and kept going. I hope you don’t think I left you in the lurch or-”

“No, Jack, you did your best,” I interrupted.

Kit smiled and held my hand. Jackie, God bless him, didn’t seem to mind.

Gerry and Touched came back into the room.

“Listen, folks, we may as well go to bed. Seamus either made it or he didn’t. We’ll know in the morning,” Gerry said.

I didn’t need to be told twice. I said my good nights, walked across to the guesthouse, had a quick bath, found my room, and lay down on the big bed.

“We’ll know in the morning,” I whispered to myself. Then I closed my eyes and slept.

A tangle rain. A thick sea mizzle that came from the east, cold and sleekit, with a hint of knife that might freshen into gale. The kind of damp that penetrated everything. I shivered in my robe and bare feet. Up here on the balcony with its enormous field of view you were really aware of the weather. Normally, September in America still has a summer feel but September in Ireland is definitely the autumn. This felt like an Irish day.