Adrian McKinty - The Bloomsday Dead

I puffed on the cigar. An expensive Cuban. Way above a councilman’s salary.

“Garrett, I don’t want to threaten you-” I began again.

Garrett laughed.

“You. Threaten me? Whose town do you think this is? Aye, I know who she is and I seen her goons about, but let me tell you, this isn’t the fucking Big Apple. Don’t even try to go down that road. Don’t embarrass yourself. Would you walk into Palermo and start mouthing off about Bridget Callaghan? Well, don’t walk in here and try the same thing.”

“Garrett, it wouldn’t just be her. You wouldn’t want the IRA after you, would ya?”

“The IRA, Michael, is on cease-fire. Come on, enough of this talk, you’re spoiling what could be a nice reunion between old pals.”

“Hear me out, Garrett, all I want to know is the name of the gangster who owns the Malt Shop on Bradbury Place. That’s all, just a fucking name. Fucking manager was too afeared to tell me, but I know you know. You’d have to know.”

Garrett nodded. He did know. He knew all the underbosses in his territory.

“Why is that name so important to you?” he asked.

“The Malt Shop is where Siobhan Callaghan met the boy she disappeared with. The boy was reeking of pot. A drug dealer. He has to be connected. He’d have to get permission to deal there and whoever gave him that permission will know who he is and where he lives.”

Garrett rubbed his chin, slowly shook his head.

“I’m sorry, Michael, I can’t help you, I don’t want to rock the boat. If they ever found that I had told someone who-”

“I’ve got a.38 in my pocket,” I interrupted.

“I’ll pretend you didn’t say that, Michael. The intercom has been on the whole time you’ve been in here. I know you’re joking, but I wouldn’t want my boys rushing in and fucking shooting you by mistake. That would be an ugly thing to happen to the prospective MP for West Belfast. Even with the whole IRP behind me, it would hurt my campaign,” he said jovially.

I was angry now.

“‘Peace, Power, Prosperity,’ my arse.”

“Michael, all those things are important. We’re bringing people together. We are taking power from the old archetypes committed to a past full of hate. We’re building a new society here.”

“Chopper, don’t come the politician with me, don’t get ideas above your station. You are what you’ve always been, a small-time fucking hood. Ignorant hood, too,” I said.

He forced his laugh harder.

“Ignorant. How so? Oh, do enlighten me, rat exile from abroad,” he said, not at all nonplussed.

“I know where you come from, mate, even if your constituents have forgotten. I know you are in an ugly fucking business and if your boys rush in, well and good, let them do their worst, you’ll be dead before the door handle turns,” I said, pulling out the revolver and pointing it at his head.

“Put that away, you’re making a fool of yourself.”

“Aye, well, better a breathing fool than a dead fucker.”

“You’d never get out of here alive.”

“Shoot my way out.”

“You wouldn’t dare kill me. Your life wouldn’t be worth tuppence.”

“Who owns the Malt Shop on Bradbury Place?”

“Michael, forget it, what do you care about some missing wee tart.”

A knock at the door.

“Is there a problem, Councillor Clonfert?” a voice asked.

Chopper looked at me quizzically. He was right. If I laid a finger on him, his boys would top me. There was no angle in killing him and Chopper was certainly brave enough to see me blink first.

We regarded each other for a half minute, and then for the second time in an hour I put the gun away, my bluff called, my threat useless.

“There’s no problem, Peter. Mr. Forsythe here was just leaving,” Chopper said.

Aye, the son of a bitch knew I wouldn’t kill him. He knew I couldn’t kill him. But everyone has a weakness. I got to my feet.

“Well, Garrett, you can keep your cigars, I suppose I’ll he heading on.”

Garrett stood too.

“Michael, it’s always interesting being with you. So over the top. So old school. You should have gone into the theater,” he said, and offered me his hand again. I shook it and winked at him.

“You’re a brave man, Chopper, should have know better than to threaten you.”

“Aye,” Garrett said, pleased with himself.

I hesitated, thought for a moment, nodded at the photograph of him with his wife and child.

“Although if I were you, I’d put a couple of bodyguards on that wee girl of yours and keep them there for at least ten years, that’s how long Bridget waited till she hit me. She’s patient.”

“What did you say?”

“You heard me, Garrett,” I said, and began walking for the door.

“Bridget Callaghan wouldn’t dare come after my family,” he said, his face completely at odds with his words.

“Nah, not your family. Just your wee girl, she’s old school too, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, dead daughter for dead daughter.”

Garrett let me walk two more paces. He hit the intercom button on his desk, turning it off to give him privacy.

“Sit down,” he said in a whisper.

“I think I’ll stand.”

“What would you tell Bridget?”

“When her daughter turns up dead, I’ll tell her that you’re the one that stopped me from saving Siobhan and that you have a lovely wee girl yourself.”

This was the chink in his armor. He paled and sweat appeared on his forehead. He looked at me with the cold hate that comes from the mingling of shame and fear.

“Seamus Deasey. It’s his turf. If it’s a drug place, they’re paying off to him.”

“Where would I find him?”

“He’s in the fucking book.”

“I need to find him right now.”

“He might be in the Rat’s Nest.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a pub on Valencia Street.”

“Where?”

“Off the Falls Road.”

“Bad area?”

“Bad fucking area.”

“Ok. Take it easy, Garrett.” I threw the lit cigar onto his carpet, stamped it out.

“Aye, don’t hurry back, Forsythe, and remember, not everyone you’ll meet is as mellow and well adjusted as me.”

I left the office. Nodded to Doreen. Not the happiest of reunions. But at least I had a name. It was something to go on. Chopper hadn’t been lying. He was tough as old boots, but he couldn’t be tough for everyone. Shouldn’t have put up that Klimt of the ma and bairn, not that with the old family photo too. That was overdoing it. Wouldn’t have thought to get you from that direction, Chopper. Did you forget, it was you, mate, who told me long ago to hide your weakness, your vulnerabilities. You don’t display them for all the world to see.

Nah.

I exited the advice center.

Out into the street.

Checked for tails.

It was a brisk fifteen-minute walk to the Falls Road. I’d do it in ten.

The Falls Road.

You know why I don’t like it?

Because there is still evil in this town.

I can sense it.

In the pavement, in the fold of tenebrous color, in the eclipse of shapes.

I can sense it because I helped make it.

I feel its presence, its power.

From Saint Patrick to the Vikings, Ireland had five centuries of peace. Never before nor after. That time ripped apart literally in a Norse blood eagle of ribs and axecleaved hearts. And ever since we’ve had the creature with us. Our shadow, our watcher, our tormentor, our instigator. It sleeps. It dreams. But it’s still here. Coiled. Hungry. A stalking monster of revenge and memory. It moves and weaves. Slipping sideways, backwards, but always moving, driven by malcontent. Its greatest reign, the Troubles. And I suppose some might say that it’s not sleeping, it’s dying. It’s possible, but it’s too soon to tell. Certainly, on the surface, we are in the time of no more war. Terrorism doesn’t happen in Ireland nowadays. America, the Middle East, Russia, across the water, those are the hot spots. No radical Muslim sleeper agents here, and Ulster has an uneasy peace.