Declan Hughes - The Color of Blood

“Shank the cunt, Wayne,” he spat. “He’s out of fuckin’ order man.”

Wayne may have been trying to do just that; he was swiping, slashing the air, jabbing at me; or maybe he was just trying to get to his brother; I should have just backed off and let him get away if that’s what he wanted to do, but it wasn’t what I wanted to do; I wiped the blood off my face with the palm of my right hand and I blocked Wayne’s path between two cars, and he lunged at me, and I sidestepped and grabbed his blade wrist with my bloody right hand and twisted it behind his back, up and up until he dropped the knife, and slapped his face down on the hood of the parked car, once, twice and again, until it was a bloody mess, and smashed his blade hand on the hood, once, twice and again, and smashed it some more so he couldn’t hold a blade in it any time soon, or ever, and flung him at his brother, who still hadn’t made it up, and the two went down in a heap and I picked up the knife and moved in, wiping another flush of blood off my face, a roar like the beating of wings in my ears, ready to keep going, to shank the Reillys myself, to atone for the shame of having been caught unawares; even if they hadn’t meant to kill me, they could have, and I wouldn’t have them thinking they could try it again; and then I heard a voice.

“Fuck sake Ed, you don’t want to kill the fucking Reillys . That’d only give them ideas above their station.”

TOMMY OWENS, IN AN OLIVE GREEN SNORKEL COAT AND a black fleece hat, with the Reilly brothers’ gun in his hand, looking like I hadn’t seen him in a long long while: grinning, head bobbing with adrenaline, or speed, probably both, all of a swagger, ready for the fray.

I walked over to Tommy and took the gun. It was the compact Sig, the P225, barely more than seven inches in length, grey-blue and slick with my blood. As I trained it on the Reillys, it weighed surprisingly light in my hand.

“Besides,” continued Tommy, “as a gun, it makes a good set of brass knucks.”

“What do you mean?” I said.

“Check the magazine,” he said.

The Sig was chambered for 9mm Parabellum, the magazine was eight-shot, and it was empty. The Reillys had come to throw a scare into me, not kill me. Now I was going to find out why.

Tommy looked at my face.

“You’re gonna need stitches for that, Ed,” he said.

“What are you doing here, Tommy?”

“I’ll tell you after. Sketch, sketch.”

I looked around. A few punters were watching from the pub door. It was only a matter of time before we’d have bouncers on the scene, and then cops. I took a clean handkerchief from my jacket and pressed it to my face to stanch the blood flow.

“I want to talk to the Reillys.”

“Talk to Darren, he’s a slimy little cunt, but he’s the brains. Such as they are. Anyway, Wayne’s fucked, isn’t he?”

Tommy took the knife from me and advanced on the Reillys as he said this, separating them with a few flashes of the blade. Darren Reilly looked dazed from the crack his head had taken, still winded from the blow to the chest; Wayne crouched against a car, his good hand cradling his wounded one, clutching both to his bloodied face, as if afraid it might fall off if he released them.

“Stay down, all right?” Tommy said to Wayne.

“You won’t have Loy with you next time,” Wayne Reilly honked through his fingers. Tommy aimed a kick at him, and Wayne cowered beneath the car. Tommy reached inside Darren Reilly’s grey hoodie, grabbed him by the hair and dragged him squealing toward me.

“Shut the fuck up,” he said, looking toward the pub door, where more people had begun to gather. “Car?” he said to me.

I pointed toward the old Volvo, and Tommy led Darren Reilly toward it. Tommy’s limp was still there-his ankle had been stomped to shreds back when we were kids-but his energy had changed; now it resembled the kind of go he’d had when we were in our teens, and every trip to shoplift or rob an orchard or a bike or hot-wire a car had been led by Tommy Owens, with me his willing accomplice. I’d thought disappointment and failure had sucked that kind of verve out of him long since, but here he was, bundling Darren Reilly into the backseat of a car and taking his phone away from him and tying a scarf around his eyes: alive and kicking.

“Down at the corner of Pearse Drive and Pearse Rise, Ed,” Tommy whispered in my ear. “There’s a place there that’s just the job.”

The place was a lockup garage on the outskirts of the Woodpark Estate; two metal up-and-over doors were chained and padlocked; graffiti said FUCK THE POLICE and HONEYPARK RULES and MARIA AND CHRISTY 4 EVER.

Tommy produced a bunch of maybe a hundred keys and passed it to me.

“Right-hand door should be good, Ed. One of them fits, can’t remember which. I’ll mind young Darren here.”

After trying a dozen or so keys, I found one to open the door. There was a space directly inside. I got back in the car and drove it in. Tommy got out and shut the door and flicked a switch and fluorescent lights came on. My face had started bleeding again, but slower this time; I refolded the handkerchief and used it as a pressure pad. There were three other cars in the garage, all covered with tarpaulins; the rear of the concrete building had aluminum doors that matched those we’d entered through. There was an office partition with fiberglass windows and dusty, empty shelves; the desk and chair within were tattered and filthy. I looked at Tommy for an explanation.

“Garage owner in town. Used to do a little work for him, fitting up hot cars. He has lockups all over, moves the motors between them, so if one is raided, there’s no connection made with the others. I made copies of the keys when I was doing a job for him. Checked this one the other day, it had a free space. Always come in handy.”

I nodded. Had Tommy gone back into the hot car business? Had he ever left? Catching Tommy in a lie was as difficult as it had ever been, particularly since he often wasn’t sure himself, trusting in the one true faith of Make It Up As You Go Along.

Tommy got Darren Reilly out of the car. The journey had restored his spirits. He lifted the tarpaulin and inspected the navy hood of a Mercedes saloon with no license plates.

“This is what I’m talking about, Tommy.”

“No way, Darren,” Tommy said.

“Nothing you can do about it, when fuckin’ Wayne gets after yiz-”

“Fuckin’ Wayne is gonna need a doctor for his face before he does anything else,” Tommy said. “And even if he does get after us, he doesn’t know where we are, does he?”

“I meant, after, when you’re out and about. When you’re on your own man.”

“I wouldn’t be thinkin’ about after if I was you, Darren. Who says there’s gonna be an after?”

Darren laughed, a clattering football rattle of a laugh.

“What are you, hard men all of a sudden? Sure your man Loy there’s in with the cops so he is.”

“He may be, but I’m not.”

Tommy suddenly hit Darren Reilly a backhander across the ear. Reilly squealed, but I could see Tommy wince; the blow had hurt his hand, and he was trying not to show it; I winced myself at the sight of Tommy hitting anyone: violence had never been part of his rogue’s repertoire.

“Tommy,” I said, as sharp as I could make it. Tommy looked up guiltily and almost blushed, and I had to turn to hide my face; I thought I might burst out laughing. I walked to the doors at the far end of the lockup. Tommy followed me, trailing one eye back toward Reilly, who was rubbing his ear and swearing.

“What the fuck is going on here, Tommy? In a lockup, slapping people around? What are we, going to torture the guy?”