Adrian McKinty - The Dead Yard

Condensation blocked the window and the view of the woman next door, but I saw her husband in an overcoat climbing down from his observatory. No stars last night, so he probably kept his porn collection up there. He nodded to me and I nodded back. Secret sharers, the pair of us. I sipped the coffee and bit into the croissant that had been placed outside my door on a silver tray.

The cops had not come yet.

The news on the local radio said that a body part had been found at the scene of the robbery. The all-news station wouldn’t say what part had been found. But I knew. Half a bloody head.

Still, it had been an ebb tide and the current was the Gulf Stream, so maybe they’d never find Seamus.

The radio also said that a soldier had initially been taken hostage by the burglars but had escaped. There were three burglars. White males, twenty to forty. The reporter said the whole scene was still one of confusion. Some people were speculating that it could only have been an inside job, others that the whole thing was a practical joke gone wrong.

Confusion was good; the FBI would help muddy those waters.

I finished my coffee, showered, changed into a sweater and blue jeans, went to the big house.

The servants had been given the day off. Sonia was making breakfast. Touched saw me and shook me firmly by the hand.

“What news?” I asked.

“Nothing definite. But I’ve talked to a couple of sources in the cops. There were no arrests but they found an ugly mess that they think was bits of somebody’s head.”

“Seamus?”

“I don’t know, Sean. They haven’t found a body, so no one knows.”

“The radio said a cop fired his gun. Could he have hit Seamus?”

“I don’t know, Sean. Seamus hasn’t been arrested and he hasn’t showed up here, so either he’s scarpered or he’s dead.”

“Christ. What a fuckup,” I said.

Touched nodded.

“I take full responsibility,” he said. “I should have run the show. Seamus was hit pretty hard by what happened in Revere; I thought showing him that I believed in him would help snap him out of the funk he’d fallen into. Clearly a big mistake. I’ve told Gerry. My fault. I apologized to him, and I apologize to you, too, Sean. You’re only new, shouldn’t have let you go there under Seamus’s command. I should have known better and I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok, Touched. We’re out in one piece and the descriptions they’ve put out are pretty vague.”

“Aye, well, we’ll see about that. If Seamus was hit and managed to crawl a couple of hundred yards, they’ll eventually find the body and they will ID him. And of course they’ll come to Gerry and ask him questions. Gerry was his employer and he lived next door. They might bring that soldier boy to do a lineup on all of us. We are not out of the woods by a long way.”

“And if Seamus is wounded? But on the run?”

“He better keep running,” Touched said sourly.

We sat in silence while Sonia brought a plate of pancakes and more coffee.

“Are you hurt at all?” she asked me.

“No, I’m fine. Everything aches, but I’m fine.”

“Kit took Jackie to the hospital this morning. He needs to get stitches on his leg. I looked at it myself, nasty cut on his thigh. While he’s there, he’s also getting an MRI on his ankle, he was in pain all night,” Touched said sadly.

“He’s going to a local hospital?” I asked, surprised.

“No, we haven’t fallen that far from the straight and narrow. Kit drove him all the way to Mass General in Boston.”

He put his head in his hands.

“I can’t fucking believe this. And things were starting to come around,” he muttered to himself.

I said nothing and scanned the sports section of the Times.Gerry appeared and put his big paws on my shoulders.

“Are you ok, Sean? Did you hear about Jackie?”

“I heard. I’m fine,” I said.

Gerry looked at his comrade-in-arms and his face contorted as he dredged up a just-memorized quote from Virgil or somebody.

“Cheer up, Touched. Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit. This is not the end of the world,” Gerry said, terribly pleased with himself.

“It’s bloody close, Gerry. Even if the cops don’t get us, the FBI will have to take an interest now. An even bigger interest.And as for our plans to get the Real IRA to sponsor us, we can forget that, we’re a fucking laughingstock. Can’t even do a bloody burglary. Jesus Christ, Gerry, what a bloody joke. I don’t know. Maybe we’re getting too old for this. Maybe we should pack it in,” Touched said.

Gerry shook his head and sat down.

“Come on, lads. You can’t pack it in after one stupid setback,” I said, thinking of my pardon and my million.

Gerry nodded at me.

“Yes, listen to the youngster. And he went through it, Touched, the new generation sparks the old, remember that.What was it Jefferson said about the tree of liberty and the blood of the young or something…” Gerry said.

Touched tapped the table, forced a smile onto his depressed face, and ran his fingers through his long, graying black hair.

“No, I suppose you’re right, Sean,” he said after a while.

“I know I am,” I said. “You have to bounce right back up. Start organizing, be one step ahead of the peelers.”

Aye, start organizing right now, boys, a nice big conspiracy that’ll net the pair of you and lead to bloody easy street for me.

Touched grinned at Gerry, that big charming grin that gave me the willies.

“There’s always Portsmouth. Our little plan B,” Touched said.

“I don’t know,” Gerry muttered.

“It’s your call. It’s a target of opportunity and the window is slipping away. Although pull that one off and it’s instant respect from across the water,” Touched said knowingly.

Gerry nodded.

“I’ll think about it,” he said.

“Though I’ll need to do a lot of work on that still, Gerry,”

Touched said.

“Well, what are you waiting around for?” Gerry asked.

“I’m waiting for the cops to show up and ask about Seamus,” Touched said angrily.

“What exactly is the point of that? If you make yourself busy, things will seem a lot better. Come on, Touched. I have houses to build, people to hire, people to fire. Stop your fucking moping. If the police come, we’ll deal with it. If they don’t, we’ll deal with that, too.”

“And what about the FBI?” Touched asked, his mood darkening and his mysterious little Portsmouth op getting pushed to the back of his mind again.

“Are you afeard of the FBI, Touched McGuigan? Show some initiative, man; where is the bold wild colonial that I met twenty years ago, full of fire? Come on. Seize the day. Get out of here. Go and do something. I’ve got a spade and a shovel waiting for you, if you cannot think of anything else.”

Touched stood, laughed.

“You’re right, Gerry. As always.”

Gerry hugged him.

“Now get out of here.”

Touched nodded to me and went outside. Gerry punched me on the shoulder.

“You too, Sean. Outside.”

“It’s raining.”

“So what? Have you forgotten rain in your fortnight in America? Get my daughter and the pair of you go for a walk. That young lady has been mooching around ever since she left Jackie at the hospital. You’d think he was going to have open-heart surgery, not a couple of stitches and an MRI. Come on, out of my house.”

I got to my feet.

“Kit, get down here,” Gerry bellowed up the stairs.

“What is it?” Kit screamed from her bedroom.

“You’re taking Sean for a walk,” Gerry said.

“It’s pouring,” Kit protested.

“Get down here,” Gerry yelled again and gave me yet another conspiratorial wink. I might be wrong but it seemed that Gerry had taken a bit of a shine to me, and that Jackie rubbed him the wrong way. I got the feeling that he wouldn’t have minded if I replaced Jackie in his daughter’s affections. I wouldn’t have minded that myself.