Adrian McKinty - The Bloomsday Dead

The piped music was the slow movement from Beethoven’s Seventh, which, although not Irish, certainly was depressing enough to create a Belfast ambience.

“Hi,” I said.

“Good morning, sir, welcome to the Europa Hotel, Belfast’s premier city-center hotel, featuring a full range of services and a new Atkins-friendly cuisine,” the receptionist said. A very young brown-haired kid with a gold earring and a slight West Belfast lisp.

“I have an appointment to see Bridget Callaghan,” I said.

“The presidential suite. I’ll announce you,” he said.

“Don’t announce me.”

“I have to.”

“No, no, I’m an old friend, I’ll just head on up there.”

“Mr. Moran doesn’t allow anyone up to the presidential suite without being announced first.”

I didn’t want to press the point, so I gave him my name and stood there while he made his call.

“Hello, this is reception, I’d like to speak to Mr. Moran… Yes, Mr. Moran, this is Sebastian at reception, there’s a, uh, gentleman to see Ms. Callaghan, a Michael Forsythe, shall I send him up?… Yes, he’s alone… Certainly.”

He hung up the phone and nodded at me.

“You can go up. It’s the top floor.”

“Thanks.”

I went to the bank of elevators, pressed the up button, and while I waited I admired the plate-glass windows I had helped put in twelve years ago.

The doors dinged.

Two long-haired goons in tailored suits were standing inside the lift. Definitely Yanks, since both looked like rejects from Arena Football or the World Wrestling Federation. One was an ugly-looking white guy, the other an angry thick-necked black man.

“Moran?” I asked the white guy.

“Forsythe?” he asked me.

“Aye,” I said, wondering yet again if there would ever be an occasion when I’d be happy to answer that question.

“Dave wants to see you. You better get in the elevator,” he said.

“I’m here to see Bridget.”

“Everyone who wants to see Ms. Callaghan sees Dave first.”

“Ok.”

“Can we pat you down?” he asked.

They did a fast, efficient search, found nothing. We all got inside the lift. The white guy pressed the button for the top floor. The black dude gave me the skunk eye.

“Are you eyeballing me?” he said in a completely aggressive manner. It took me aback. Jesus, who did Bridget have working for her these days? Hotheads? Eejits? Not wonder they couldn’t do something as simple as killing a traitor like me.

“Yeah, I am eyeballing you. You look like Barry Bonds on anger-management day. Have you ever noticed that your neck is actually bigger than your head?”

The black guy made a move, but the lift opened on the top floor. With the men on either side of me, I walked to a door just off the presidential suite. They knocked and waited.

“Enter,” another American voice said.

We went in. The blinds were pulled down in a huge room that stank of cigarette smoke. A fat little character wearing a wrinkled red shirt, sitting in a leather chair, poring over documents. He stood. He was about forty, looked about fifty, balding, a leathery expression, evil slits for eyes. I had the feeling that I had seen him before.

“We meet at last, Forsythe. Finally. You fucker,” he said in a Nassau County honk that was so contaminated with fury he was barely able to get the words out.

“You have the better of me, who are you?” I replied.

“You know how many times I’ve dreamed of this moment,” he said more to himself than me.

“Who the fuck are you?” I asked again.

“You bastard, Forsythe. A nod to these two guys and they’ll take you to the roof and throw you the fuck off,” he said, grinding his fist into his hand. An unconscious gesture, but it reminded me so much of other little nut jobs-Napoleon, Caesar, Hitler-I couldn’t help but suppress a laugh. I sat down in the leather chair opposite him. It was an empty threat. If he was going to top me he would have done it instead of blabbing about it. I smiled.

“You’re wasting my valuable time,” I said. “I’m here to see Bridget Callaghan.”

The man stared at me and gestured to the two goons.

“You can go,” he told them. I turned and waved.

“See ya. Have fun bench pressing each other,” I said. They left without responding.

I looked at the man.

“Ok, so who are you?” I asked.

“We’ve met before,” he said.

“Have we? I don’t remember. Just tell me your goddamn name.”

“David Moran. Bob Moran was my brother,” he said with grim satisfaction.

I nodded. Yeah. We had met before. And now I understood. I’d killed Big Bob Moran at his house in Oyster Bay, Long Island. Big Bob had been the henchman for Darkey White. He had set me up in Mexico, implicated me in a drugs buy, and gotten me thrown in a Mexican prison, where three of my crew had died. If any fucker on this Earth deserved to die it was Big Bob Moran. I had killed him and in twelve years I had shed not a tear or had one moment of remorse for what I’d done. If Bob’s brother worked for Bridget, so be it. I understood his point of view. You had to pay for blood, no matter if that blood was as vile a concoction as the one that you’d find in the late Big Bob.

“Bob had it coming,” I told Moran.

“We all have it coming,” Moran said.

“I don’t want to start anything with you, I’m here to help Bridget, what’s done is done as far as I’m concerned. It’s past. Over. Dead.”

“Somebody famous once said, ‘The past is never dead, it’s not even past,’” he added.

“Christ, you’re quite the little book of aphorisms, aren’t you,” I said, and gave him my best irritating cheeky grin.

His knuckles went white with fury. His eyes closed. I could see his skin turning the color of his tracksuit. Then after a quarter of a minute, his breathing mellowed and he calmed himself.

“Not only did you kill Bob, but you ratted out the whole operation. A murderer and a fucking rat.”

“Well, you seem to have done ok for yourself,” I said, looking around the room.

“You have no idea how hard it was. You left her with nothing. Just contacts and brains. We had to struggle every day for the first few years.”

“Cry me a river. Where is she?”

“What you did, Forsythe. You should be ten times dead by now,” he said.

“But as you can see, I’m as large as life. And, I’ll tell you, if it’s a choice between death or listening to you slabbering away all afternoon, I’ll take the former.”

He shook his head, rubbed his hands over his chin.

“You’re alive because of Siobhan. You’re alive because of her, although I for one will never forget that you robbed that girl of her father. Darkey White.”

“Darkey had it coming most of all,” I said deadpan.

“In the olden times they would cut out traitors’ hearts and burn them in front of them while they were still alive,” Moran said coldly.

“History expert, are you, too? As well as the Oxford book of quotations.”

“You listen to me, Forsythe. If I had my way, I guarantee you, you wouldn’t leave this room in one piece,” Moran said.

“You’re boring me and you’re wasting my time. I don’t quite know what you do for Bridget but I’m here to help find her daughter. If you killed me Bridget would fucking top you; you’re doing me no favors, so don’t threaten me again, pal, or I’m outta here and you can explain that to your boss,” I told the fat fuck.

He was going to say something else, but he bit his tongue. It gave me a chance to get in a question or two of my own.

“And I suppose it’s you then, in your ham-fisted way, that’s been trying to kill me since I got into Dublin,” I said coolly.