Adrian McKinty - The Dead Yard

“Sean.”

“Your real name.”

“That is my bloody real name.”

“You told Kit your name was Michael.”

“I lied. I was trying to impress her. It was all a lie. I’m Sean McKenna.”

“Why would you say your name was Michael? I know you want to talk. You’re itching to. All those pent-up feelings, emotions. We want to know your real name, and your contacts and what you’ve told them about us. We do know one very important thing, though. You haven’t been out of our sight for two days, so obviously they don’t know about this place. No one is going to rescue you. You’re going to die here unless you cooperate.”

“You’ve got it all wrong, Gerry. I was just trying to impress her. I think Touched made a big mistake with that woman in Newburyport and I think you saw that too. This is a big mistake too, Gerry. I was bullshitting Kit. I was trying to scare her a little bit, that’s all, and I-”

“Enough.”

He pushes me back against the wall, a simple push, but there’s a sharp stab of pain from the ricochet wound in my shoulder and head. I suppose I’d been lucky that it hadn’t embedded itself in me, festering, breeding bacteria. Adding yet more pain. But as Touched said, probably in a while I’d be praying that it had killed me.

Gerry tugs my hair, looks at me, disappointed.

He must have told Touched that he could get more out of me with the gentle approach. Softly, softly, catchee monkey, and all that malarkey.

Well, perhaps it’s an opportunity.

If I can drive a wedge between Gerry and Touched, the rest will go with Gerry. Sonia and Kit must be appalled by what’s been happening and Jackie didn’t look too impressed with what Touched did to Samantha. It’s a thought. A possibility.

“Gerry, I want you to believe me. I made that all up for Kit, I’m not what you think I am. But it doesn’t matter, I know you’ll kill me no matter what; Touched killed that woman he thought was an agent. He’ll do the same to me. But I’m no agent. I’m a builder. A navvy. I’m on your side, Gerry. It’s the truth, I’m telling you the truth,” I say as convincingly as I can.

“So you’re not going to open up to me?”

“I am, I have been,” I insist.

“Sean, you don’t want me to let the boys play with you anymore. You already look like yesterday’s dog’s dinner. Tell me your name and we’ll go easy on you,” he says.

“It’s Sean.”

“Do you want a drink of something? Tell me and I’ll give you a drink. Help me here, Sean, work with me, come on,” he says, holding out the plastic cup.

“How can I help you when I keep telling you the truth and you won’t fucking believe me?”

Gerry leans forward with the cup, which seems to contain iced tea. I’d sell my soul for one sip.

“Come on, you want a drink.”

“Yeah.”

“Well then, tell me your name,” he says softly.

“I’ve told you, Gerry. I’ve told you the truth.”

His patience slips away. He puts the cup down, gets laboriously to his feet.

“Listen to me, you wee fuck. How stupid do you think we are? We know everything. We know you are called Michael, we know you were working for the FBI. We know that woman Touched killed was working with you. You are fucked, mate. What can you possibly hope to get out of this?”

He slaps me across the face. I recoil from the blow and the waves of pain. It throbs through me for a minute or more.

“To stay alive as long as possible,” I say in answer to his question.

“And you think the longer you hold out, the longer-”

“Yes,” I say, interrupting him.

“We’ll make you talk in the end.”

“Probably in the end I’ll say anything Touched wants me to say. I’ll confess to fucking anything to stop the torture.You know that, Gerry. I’ll say I’m a British agent. I’ll say I shot JFK. I’ll say I faked the moon landings. I’ll tell him anything.”

“So why not make it easier on yourself? Tell me, tell me the truth, let’s keep him out of it,” Gerry says.

“I’ve told you the goddamn truth.”

“We’re deadlocked then.”

“Yes.”

“You’re not convincing me.”

“Or you convincing me.”

“No,” he says and almost laughs.

Instead he sighs, looks around the smokehouse, shakes his head. He kicks away the chair and leans in. His breath bad, smelling of onions and some kind of spirit.

“Ok, goodbye now, Sean. I’ve given you a fair chance for a quick death. It’s all been me. I took you into my home, I gave you a job, and this is what you do to abuse my trust.”

“I didn’t abuse it-”

Gerry puts a meaty paw around my throat and squeezes hard to cut me off.

“Abused my trust, fucker. And a worse piece of shit I have never seen in my life. And when I do blow your fucking head off, Michael, I’m going to go back to Ireland and find your ma and cut her throat too. Your ma and da and brothers and sisters. I’m going to top them and burn their houses down and make them wish they’d never heard of you. Do you hear me?Do you fucking hear me?”

He releases the grip on my throat so I can answer him.

“You won’t be going back to Ireland, Gerry. You won’t be going anywhere but a fucking federal prison,” I say as smugly as I can.

“What does that mean? Open those eyes. Look at me, god-damnit.”

Thumbs grub into my eyes and open them in a violent tug.That fat face staring at me.

“I’m going to tell you something, traitor,” Gerry says and pauses to catch his breath.

“Anything but one of your Latin maxims,” I reply and even manage a little smirk.

He grins, but only for a second and then a hard punch in the mouth jerks my head backwards forty-five degrees, thumping it into the back of the wooden wall.

Blackness.

Awareness.

The pain dissipating so that it becomes localized and specific, rather than one huge seething mess.

An hour or more since he was here.

My lungs seething.

But he’s left the light on.

The kid in the corner, hooded, gagged. A dirt floor. Meat hooks in the ceiling for smoking venison and pig. A Coke bottle in the corner. A retro, old-fashioned bottle made of glass.

Big one. Liter bottle with a broken neck.

Little pockets of pain.

Check it.

The burning gunshot wound. And the lads worked me over pretty good. The pain is bad in the testicles, where I must have been kicked hard. A stabbing soreness that jags and dissolves into the more general numbness around my lower torso.

The ribs. Head. My drowning lungs.

Thirst.

Above all, thirst.

The door opens.

A brief glimpse of light and the woods and the house. It’s dusk. The deadline will be up in the morning. Peter and I have one more night. A shadow in the doorway. He comes in.

The bottle, focus on the bottle.

Because it’s him.

It’s Touched.

His big, menacing silhouette dominating the frame, overwhelming my field of vision.

The door closes.

He sits on the seat and lights a cigarette.

“Hi,” he says quietly.

The good ones know you don’t have to raise your voice to get things done. To make your presence felt. Let the weak yell and shout and waste time and emotion. The strong can devastate with a whisper.

“I’m going to have to kill ya to learn ya, is that right, Michael?” he says in an Irish purr.

Two can play at that game.

With him I will not speak at all.

That’s the rule that will control him and beat him.

“I said I’m going to have to learn you to talk, am I right?”

I gave him a smile.

“Oh-ho, you’re playing a game with me. A game with me? Dear oh dear. Big mistake, my friend,” he says, a twinkle in those cold eyes.