Adrian McKinty - The Bloomsday Dead

“You wouldn’t kill me in cold blood,” he said with a half-drunken smile and closed his eyes.

I smacked him across the face with the barrel of the gun, opened his eyes with my fingers, and made sure he saw me standing over him pointing the gun at his head. I had to end this little chitchat right now. I mean, for Pete’s sake, I was only bluffing about the torture. There was no time to torture the information out of him. I didn’t have all bloody night.

“Slider, you’re taxing my patience, so I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Are you a reader? I’m a big reader. Have you ever read Zeno? He’s the Greek guy that says an arrow can’t move, because it has to cross an infinite number of slices in the air between the shooter and the destination. So let’s do an experiment. You keep your head there and I’ll keep the gun here and I’ll pull the goddamn trigger and we’ll see what happens with the bullet. Fingers crossed for Zeno, huh?”

I began squeezing the trigger.

“Wait, wait, wait, oh God, wait,” he screamed. He was shaking and the terror was locked in his eyes.

“You don’t want to do the experiment?”

“No.”

“Ok. Talk. Where’s the rendezvous?”

“The boss asked Jackie to ask the boys if they knew any out-of-the-way places, you know, discreet. Well, I came up with somewhere. I used to go fishing at-”

“Not the whole goddamn story, just the place.”

“On Islandmagee, there’s a path called Black Head Cliff Path; it splits, the top path goes to Black Head Lighthouse, the bottom path works its way round to the Witches’ Cave. They scouted it out yesterday. Boss really liked it. Single route in and out. Bump Bridget over Belfast and bring her down to Islandmagee. I think that’s what he’s going to do.”

“Islandmagee, Black Head Cliff Path, lower path to a cave,” I repeated.

“Exactly.”

“Whereabouts is Islandmagee?”

“About ten miles or so from here,” he said, his face more relaxed now.

“Quickest route?” I asked.

“Drive down to the lough, go through Carrickfergus and White-head.”

“How will I find this path?”

“Ask anybody in Whitehead, you can’t fucking miss it. Right under the lighthouse, you’ll see it,” he said.

“You better not be lying, Slider,” I said.

“I’m not fucking lying, it’s the honest truth, I swear it.”

I had a million more questions. What was the girl doped with? What were the goons carrying? Tell me everything about the boss. How many in the team? What was the backup plan? But there was no time. I stepped away from him.

What I was going to do next was going to hurt.

Cold blood was cold blood.

But time was the operative word. I didn’t have the time to be smart, to make the right call.

“Well, Slider, you’ve been very helpful and I’ll be honest with you, I thought about not killing you. It’s very good the way you look after your wee brother and everything but I don’t have the time to tie you up.”

“What are you saying?”

“Slider, I can’t have the possibility of you escaping on me and alerting your boss that I’m on my way to stop him,” I said.

I was trying to convince myself as well as him. What was the less wrong thing to do? Was it less wrong to leave him and risk it? Or was it better to shoot him and rule out any possibility of him screwing with me? My watch said five minutes to eleven. I didn’t have the luxury of thinking it through.

“Y-you’re going to kill me? But I helped you. You can’t kill me.”

“I have to kill you, I’m close now. Can’t afford interference. And after all, you did assault the wee lass.”

“You’re not serious. I’m a good guy. You know I have a kid brother, I look after him.”

“I am serious. Like I say, I was in two minds about it, but this is the only prudent course of action. I’ll do something for your wee brother, I promise.”

“You fucker, you fucker, you can’t. I’ll fucking see you in hell,” Slider sobbed.

“Nah, with all your good deeds, Slider, you’ll be going to the other place,” I said and shot him in the chest and then in his stunned, half-open auburn-colored eye.

On the tabletop there was a box of shotgun shells and assorted ammo for a handgun. I grabbed what I could, picked up the shotgun, and went outside.

Raining again.

I slipped in the mud, dropped all the weapons, picked them up, walked over to the body of old-knife-in-the-neck, removed the blade, and pocketed it.

I wanted to run to the car. I had to run to the car. Time was of the essence.

But I walked.

It’s never easy.

I don’t care what anybody says.

It’s never easy.

I avoided the puddles and the mud.

Alone now, save for the hawks.

And sparrowhawks.

Rain.

A breath of wind.

One foot followed another down the Knockagh lane to where the road curved and the woods came and the path wound its way back to the other millions of souls huddled in this green lifeboat of an island in the western sea.

The taxicab.

The key.

I threw the guns in the trunk.

I started the car.

Drove.

I’ll come on the halo. I’ll come on the white water. I’ll come from the cinder sky.

Yes.

Greenisland, Carrickfergus, the small town of Whitehead.

A lighthouse above the cliff.

A storm barreling in from the North Atlantic.

I ditched the Toyota in a seafront parking lot. I popped the trunk, quickly checked the mechanism on the shotgun. It was so filthy with mud I knew I couldn’t rely on it. My pistol, however, was clean.

Slider had said that the boss had several men with him. If there was going to be a shootout, I’d have to be ready to be outgunned.

Outgunned, outnumbered, outflanked.

Exhausted, wounded, done.

I smiled.

What else was new?

I loaded six more rounds in the.38 and went to get Siobhan.

Wild horizon. Black sea. Prisoner path to the trapdoor floor. A banshee wind. The storm throwing water up the cliff. Thick clouds concealing the full moon and innumerable stars. Arctic waves. Heavy weather. The cliffs the anvil, the waves the hammer.

It had been raining all day on the high bog. Slurry and muck had sluiced down from the lighthouse hill and seaweed and kelp had been cast up from the lough.

The way was treacherous, and it wasn’t helped by a murderous gale escaped from its holding cell near the pole.

It was midnight.

Somewhere it’s always midnight.

The now distilled to basics: Cold. Pain. Fear.

Darkness, except in the eastern sky, where those pinpricks of lights were the meteors of the June Lyrids.

I was poised at the very edge of Ulster, the dominating feature no longer earth or grass but rather the jet-colored vacuum that was the Irish Sea. And here, in the cauldron, at the meeting point of island and ocean, all land seemed impermanent, fragile, existing on a knife edge.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” I muttered as I slipped and nearly went down onto the rocks.

A big breaker could carry me out into Belfast Lough and the Atlantic. I’m no swimmer, but the cold would stop my heart in any case.

I took a second to steady myself. Thunder rumbling over from Scotland. Foghorns, bell buoys. A canopy of porter-colored clouds. The pistol sweetening in my sweat.

The front not even an orchestra tuning, but rather one loud, continuous, shrieking note.

Have to go carefully. Unlikely that they would be here already. But you never knew. I checked my watch, tapped it, something wrong. I examined it but it had stopped at eleven o’clock. I shook it, goaded it, but the rain had finally spoiled the action. I’d bought it for a half a sol in a market in Lima, so I couldn’t really complain.