Adrian McKinty - The Bloomsday Dead

“Who’s Sammy?”

“My partner.”

“On the Jimpy?”

“Aye, is he-”

“The woman cop killed him. When did you get the order to hit me? Last night?”

“Are you joking? Like forty-five minutes ago,” he said, surprised.

“What did they tell you?”

“They said you were going to be at this boat called the Ginger Bap, one of the Lagan boats. Said we had to do it right now.”

“And Sammy and you had access to an RPG?”

“Yeah, Sammy and me learned how to fire one years back in Libya. We set it up when we saw you on the boat, but we nearly called it off because of the cops.”

“Aye. Cops’ll think you tried to hit them, won’t they? You may have jeopardized the entire fucking cease-fire. Well done.”

“We weren’t breaking the cease-fire, we were just trying to top you, you bastard,” he said defensively.

I sighed, shook my head. I would have liked to have killed him but as a public service I was going to have to let him live. If I shot the fucker then the peelers and the army and the British government might think this attack on four police officers represented a serious breach of the Republican cease-fire. It might mean a redeployment of the army on the streets and a rearrest of remand prisoners. That in turn might lead to a spiral of retaliatory violence. The Loyalists would probably respond with their own assault on a Catholic bar or something, a retaliation for that would be forthcoming, and who the hell knows, it might mean the start of a summer of slaughter.

So, as a good deed for my fellowmen I couldn’t kill this character. I had to let him live and tell the cops that no, he wasn’t aiming an RPG at them, but in fact was after a man called Michael Forsythe.

“One last time, you have no idea why me?” I asked.

“I told you, I don’t know.”

“They didn’t give you a fucking reason?”

“We didn’t have the time for that. They said that this was a time-imperative op and we had to get cracking. They knew you were going to the boat, but didn’t know where you’d go after. Had to hit you there.”

“Ok. I suppose I’ll have to talk to your boss. Where’s he?”

“I’m not going to tell you that.”

“No?”

“No.”

I stood, reloaded the.38, put my Stanley boot on his left hand, took very careful aim, and shot his thumb off.

He screamed, rolled on the ground, and tried to crawl away from me. I kicked him in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him. I picked up the bloody thumb and knelt beside him.

“Now listen here, mate. Give you a choice. I’ll put this here thumb in your pocket and maybe the surgeons at the Royal can sew it back on. Maybe not, but at least you’ll have a chance. Otherwise I’m going to shoot your other thumb off and I’ll take both with me. How does that sound?”

“You fucker, you fucking fucker,” he managed between gasps of pain.

“Hey, maybe I’ll shoot your balls off too, what do you think?” I said breezily.

“What do you want?”

“Well, let’s take it slow. Sure O’Neill ordered the hit?”

“Yes.”

“And where would I find him right now?”

“Right now, he’ll be in the Linen Hall Library,” he said.

“You’re kidding me?”

“Linen Hall, I swear it’s true. He goes there from two to five every single weekday like clockwork. Upstairs in the reading room. He’s writing a book. I think it’s his reflections or something.”

“Better not be yanking me, Jimmy.”

“I’m not, I swear to God,” Jimmy said.

It was an unlikely place to find a commander of the Belfast Brigade of the IRA, but it was an unlikely place to make up out of the blue. I believed him.

I threw the thumb down beside him and as a further public service- to prevent him running away before the cops showed up-I clobbered him on the head.

I ran between the buildings until I came to the main road.

I wasn’t entirely sure of my bearings, but then I saw the gleaming dome of the city hall. The Linen Hall Library wasn’t too far from that, I seemed to remember.

“Onward and upward,” I said and jogged toward the center of town.

I didn’t know what I’d done to annoy Body O’Neill, to make him send assassins to Dublin to get me, to make him risk the cease-fire, but I was going to find out. I had a job to do and I didn’t have time for subplots.

He had finally gotten my attention. Having failed to kill me three times in half a day, each time a little more spectacularly, I knew I had to sort him out before I did anything else. Body O’Neill, whom I’d never even heard of before. Belfast Commander of the IRA.

Probably Darkey White’s long-lost brother. Or Bridget Callaghan’s tragic lover. Or a kid I used to bully in primary school. It would be something stupid. And if I had to murder the son of a bitch so he’d leave me alone, then so be it.

I wasn’t exactly sure where the Linen Hall Library was, but every-body else in Belfast was, so I was there pretty sharpish.

An attractive, dark, squarish building near the city hall with a bunch of people outside standing around a stall that was selling books, bootleg videos, and “comedic” singing fish.

“Get your copy of Star Wars: Episode III, the final film in the series, release date May of next year,” a hawker called out.

“Is this the entrance to the Linen Hall Library?” I asked him pointing at a pokey wee door.

“Aye, up the stairs. You want to see the new Star Wars? It’s got wookies in it.”

I ignored him and entered the building. An old concierge sitting at a desk. Behind him a glass door that led up the stairs to the library.

“Evening,” I said, walked past the desk, and tried the handle on the glass door.

“See your card,” the concierge said.

“I don’t have a card.”

“No card, no admittance.”

He was one of those sons of bitches who had spent their entire lives thwarting the interests of people like me. Sleekit wee bureaucrat. It had made him shriveled, small and boney. He looked half dead under a peaked security guard’s hat.

“Listen, I need in to the library,” I said.

“Well, you can’t get in without a card. You’ll have to get a card.”

“I don’t want a card, I just want to see somebody up in the reading room. I don’t need to join or anything.”

“I cannot let you in without a card,” he insisted.

“This is ridiculous, I just need to see somebody in the bloody reading room.”

“Well, you’ll have to go through me,” he said, eerily echoing the extremely violent thoughts that I was having that very moment. Let’s see, shoot the bastard, break through the door, run upstairs…

But that was a crazy idea. This was the center of Belfast, the cops would be here in two minutes. And besides, a gunshot down here would send everyone upstairs into a panic. Give O’Neill a chance to run for cover.

“Can I send a message up to someone in the reading room? It’s quite urgent.”

The concierge thought about it for a moment.

“Shall I send Miss Plum down to see ya?” he asked.

“Miss Plum from the library?”

“Yes.”

“Aye, and get Colonel Mustard with the lead pipe as well,” I said.

“What?”

“Please get her, it’s quite urgent, it’s a matter of life and death,” I said solemnly.

He raised an eyebrow and picked up the phone.

“Miss Plum, yes, it’s Cochrane. I’ve got a young man here who wants to get in to the library. He says it’s very urgent. Could you see your way to coming down here with a temporary card at all?”

Apparently Miss Plum said yes.

“She’s coming right down,” Cochrane told me.