Adrian McKinty - The Dead Yard

Think Winona Ryder in Heathers, Phoebe Cates in Gremlins, Sean Young in Blade Runner. That kind of vibe. The dark eyes, the tubercular pallor, the thing on her head that had once been a Louise Brooks bob but now was teased and hair-sprayed in all directions.

She leaned into the bar, picked up the order, and waltzed off with a tray full of black and tans.

Had she even noticed me? I wouldn’t blame her if she hadn’t. When we’d arrived that morning, Samantha and Jeremy had driven me to a safe house in Cambridge. A barber had shown up at four a.m. Obviously as annoyed about the hour as I was, he had savagely cut my hair to a number two and then dyed what was left a dark black. Previously, I’d had longish sandy-colored hair, and everyone in New York had certainly known me that way. Now I appeared quite different. Not a bad look for me. Little rougher, little tougher. But the jet-lagged eyes and nasty sunburn couldn’t help.

“Get ya another?” the kid from Cork asked.

“Nah, still working at this one,” I said.

“It’s all right, is it?” the kid asked.

“Aye, it’s fine,” I said.

“One of this country’s great patriots.”

“Who is?” I asked.

“Sam Adams. He rode from New York to Boston to warn the people the British were coming. And he was the third president of the United States.”

“And he made beer, too?”

“He certainly did now,” the keep said and walked back to the bottles.

I looked at my watch, three minutes to six. I couldn’t help but be a bit nervous. Quick time-out. I went to the bathroom and splashed some water on my face. Ok, take it easy, Forsythe, this is bloody nothing. Piece of piss, I told my reflection.

Nothing for you, buddy, remember you were in a riot a couple of days ago, my reflection said.

I splashed some more water and went back to the bar stool.

The assassin had ordered another Schlitz Lite. The blond kid in the corner hadn’t touched his drink at all. And neither had a bunch of clean-cut men wearing board shorts and Gap T-shirts, sitting together, at two tables by the door.

Ah, the federales, I thought.

“So what you do for a living?” the assassin asked me out of the blue.

“Me, oh, um, I was a postman back in Ireland,” I answered-the first thing that popped into my head.

“Fucking posties, bastards so they are, on the whole. Always bills, always fucking bills,” the assassin said bitterly. The kid from Cork came over.

“Pushkin said that postmen were monsters of the human race, a bit extreme perhaps but you could see his point of view,” he intoned, obviously attempting levity.

Both the assassin and myself turned the evil eye on him and he pissed off. We didn’t need some know-it-all student showing us up.

“The Commie with the dogs?” the assassin asked me when the kid had gone. For a sec I had no idea what he was talking about.

“No, no, you’re thinking of Pavlov, mate,” I said and was about to explain but got interrupted by the assassin, who turned his full pale face and intimidating eyes on me.

“Look, maybe you should make yourself scarce, mister Carrickfergus postman,” he whispered slowly, measuring out every word.

“I’m heading just as soon as I finish my beer,” I said.

“No, no, maybe you should split right now, if you know what’s good for ya,” the assassin said.

I was touched. Fair play of him to spare me the coming unpleasantness, but I couldn’t go.

“I’ll be heading soon,” I said.

The assassin opened his mouth to insist that maybe I should leave right now, but before he could the outside door opened.

In walked the bodyguards. The first one I noticed was “Big”

Mike McClennahan. Of course, Big Mike was about five foot five. Bald, skinny, wearing a black polo shirt and blue jeans. He was from Boston, ex-cop, gunrunner, bookie. Next, Seamus Hughes-fifty-two, five nine, sallow-faced, wearing a tan jacket and a 5-0 shirt. Another Bostonian, another ex-cop in fact, twenty-five years, full pension, tough nut.

A heartbeat behind them, Gerry McCaghan.

Fifty-five years old. Six foot, a good three hundred pounds, pale, ursine, red hair, a really nasty smear of scar tissue under his left eye where he’d gotten hit by a rubber bullet at a riot in Derry. He was wearing sunglasses, blue corduroys, a Hawaiian shirt like Seamus’s, black loafers, and rather surprisingly he had a gun showing in a holster on his left hip. The gun visible only for a moment as the draft from the door wafted up his shirttail.

“Mr. McCaghan, the usual?” the kid behind the bar shouted.

Kit looked over, smiled at her dad, and waved.

The feds tensed.

The assassin put down his pint. Too late now to warn his compatriot about the upcoming slaughter.

I got off the bar stool, began walking toward Kit.

Here goes, I thought. She was hovering over a table, clearing away the drinks. The table was between the exit and a toilet, so I could always say I’d been heading for the toilet if she ever asked why I had suddenly started walking toward her when all hell had broken loose.

About fifteen paces from me to her. How long did I have? A few seconds?

Three paces, four, five, six, seven.

I knew it was the wrong thing to do but I couldn’t help but half-turn and look at the assassin. His pint was on the bar now, his cigarette in the ashtray, both his hands free. He slid off the bar stool, stood, legs apart, steady.

Nine, ten, eleven…

Gerry, slightly behind Hughes and McClennahan, nodded at someone in the far corner of the room.

Kit picked up an empty glass, put it on her tray.

Twelve, thirteen, fourteen…

The assassin reached in his coat, pulled out a sawed-down AK-47 assault rifle. He hooked in that big curved magazine, lifted the gun, and aimed it. I leapt at Kit just as someone yelled:

“He’s got a gun.”

My hands reached Kit’s shoulders.

Seamus went for his revolver. McCaghan reached for his pistol.

The assassin leveled the AK at McCaghan, pulled the trigger.

Nothing.

A blank look on the assassin’s face.

I hauled Kit to the floor. Her body warm, slender, slight. A pint glass fell out of her hand and I pushed it away in midair before it smashed on top of her.

“What the fuck-” she began saying to me while her father ducked and the assassin, looking baffled, pulled the

AK’s trigger again.

Then a dozen people stood and yelled “Drop your weapon” and “Put the gun down” and “This is the FBI.”

And at the same time, the blond-haired kid in the corner took out a 9mm pistol, leveled his arm, took aim, and fired two quick rounds at Gerry McCaghan. Put off by all the noise, confusion, and yelling, he missed Gerry by ten feet and the bullets sailed through the upper windows and out into the back bay.

Panicking, one of the FBI agents fired his weapon, hitting the effectively unarmed assassin at the bar, nailing him in the left shoulder.

The blond-haired kid fired again, almost getting McCaghan this time, missing him by a few inches, hitting a bell hanging from the ceiling just above his head. Seamus spun round and shot twice at the kid in the corner. Bullets ripping up a Boston Celtics wall hanging above his booth. The kid shot back at Seamus and, seeing that the situation was untenable, began making a break for a side door. Underneath me, Kit writhed and called out, “Daddy, Daddy, oh Daddy”

while the FBI men were screaming: “Everyone drop your weapons, cease fire, this is the FBI.”

The kid shot a round that thumped into a Guinness mirror just to the left of us, shattering it. Three seconds of everything happening at once: Kit howling, the FBI yelling, Seamus shooting at the kid, the kid shoot-ing at Seamus, Gerry completely safe, crouching behind Seamus and McClennahan. The other patrons lying on the floor, absolutely terrified.