Claire Kilroy - The Devil I Know

‘Is that so?’

A firm ‘Yes.’

I looked at Hickey. He was leaning against the truck. Arms folded, head cocked; ever the hard man. Glowering at me as he had glowered across the schoolyard while raising the smoke held pincered between thumb and index finger to his lips, aged what… eight? Daring me to rat him out, positively willing me to, so that he could kick my head in after school, the pinched yellow bloodthirsty face of him. And although I did not open my mouth to the teacher, he kicked my head in anyway.

‘With all due respect,’ I said to M. Deauville, pronouncing my words slowly and with care, seeking to communicate that the subject of our discussion was standing within earshot, ‘I don’t think Castle Holdings should be interested in investments of this nature.’

The tocka tocka on the keyboard ceased. ‘With all due respect, Tristram,’ M. Deauville countered, ‘this is business.’

‘What kind of business?’ I had to ask. ‘What exactly is Castle Holdings?’

‘Castle Holdings is a specialist lender. We finance exciting business ventures from the ground up. Desmond Hickey has an established track record. How much does he wish to borrow?’

I lowered the phone and met Hickey’s eye. ‘How much do you need?’

‘Ten million,’ the clown answered.

‘That’s eight figures, Dessie. A minute ago, you said you needed seven.’ It was the three semi-Ds all over again.

He displayed his palms. ‘Prices are rocketing. There’s a boom on.’

I raised the phone to my ear. ‘He says he needs ten million.’

‘And what percentage of that is for the site.’

I lowered the phone again. ‘How much of that is for the site?’

‘All of it.’

I raised the phone. ‘He says the ten million is for the site alone.’

Tocka tocka . M. Deauville had a subscription to every credit-rating agency and private financial database going, his own personal copy of the big black ledger of sins. ‘Mr Hickey would need to put at least 390 units on it to return a satisfactory profit. And a hotel or multi-storey car park to secure valuable tax subsidies. Get him to submit a detailed proposal to you by Monday. But yes, Castle Holdings is interested.’

‘This is the purest form of speculation,’ I objected, relocating to evade Hickey only to find him relocating to tail me like some sort of cosmic detritus entangled in my train. Karma, I suppose you could call it. ‘He’s talking about purchasing land which hasn’t the zoning for the use to which he intends putting it. If he doesn’t get a high-rise rezoning — and frankly he hasn’t a hope in an area of outstanding natural beauty like this — well, the land is worth a fraction of the ten million he proposes to borrow to pay for it. You won’t get your money back.’

Tocka tocka on the other end of the line, followed by silence as M. Deauville considered the results on the screen. It is a regrettable fact that many of us recovering alcoholics become workaholics, replacing one addiction with another. Tocka tocka, tocka tocka , and then a wry snort of approval. ‘Don’t worry,’ M. Deauville advised me. ‘In light of his recent track record with the various Dublin planning authorities, I think it’s safe to say that Mr Hickey knows the very man.’

‘What did he say?’ Hickey wanted to know after M. Deauville and I had finished up with a quick recitation of the Serenity Prayer.

‘He says you know the very man. Submit a detailed proposal to me by Monday.’

Hickey lit up. I thought he was coming over to shake my hand but he walked right past me, gauging his location in relation to the perimeter wall, the road, the railway line. He looked up at the sun and down at his shadow, consulted his site plan and counted out paces, searching for the buried chest of gold with his pirate’s treasure map. X marks the spot.

Finally he found it. He lowered the plan and looked about himself, filled his lungs with sea air. ‘I’m building me hotel right here,’ he proclaimed, throwing his arms wide, a man unlocking the energies of the earth’s molten core and channelling them into the universe. Pandora’s Box was open for business. ‘An it’s going to be eleven storeys high!’

‘Mr St Lawrence, on the matter of the rezoning of the Claremont site from industrial use to high-density residential, would you elaborate on your statement that Mr Hickey claimed he “knew the very man”.’

Knew him? He had his number on speed dial. He took out his phone and got an appointment there and then, and hung up and winked at me. ‘I know the very man,’ he reasserted with swagger in a country where knowing the very man meant everything, and it turned out not to be an empty boast.

The meeting was scheduled for the 24th of June at one o’clock in a pub on the busy main street of Blanchardstown, the heartland of the Minister’s constituency. I remember that the man was late. The Minister was a full three pints late by the metronomic stroke of Hickey’s drinking arm, which lifted and lowered his glass to beat out time.

I can also tell you that it was hot. It was a hot sunny day and for this reason we were the only two customers sitting indoors. That suited me perfectly well. I dislike crowds. At the end of a mahogany-panelled corridor to the rear of the bar the beer garden glowed achingly bright. It was peopled with carefree office staff on their lunch breaks. Hickey and I, pale against the varnished murk of the foreground, were seated like penitents on a wooden pew, our backs turned on the sun as if to God’s love itself. I see us so clearly that I could be gazing at us on a gallery wall, a painting commissioned by the Church for the purpose of moral instruction. The Folly of Greed , or was it Hubris ? Or just an all-purpose Folly of Folly ?

We were facing the door. Tick tock went Hickey’s drinking arm, with fresh pints appearing to mark the quarter hour. I got lumped with the usual sparkling mineral water, which I order out of pressure to order something. I don’t even like sparkling mineral water. I’d rather just sit there with nothing. I gazed at the glass for the duration, turning it this way and that on the beer mat as if it were a diamond of ingenious cut, though I wanted to smash it against the wall for being just water. Water could never slake my thirst.

Hickey drank in silence as there was nothing left to say. The mood had turned sour on the journey over in the truck. I was attending the meeting on M. Deauville’s wishes and against my better judgement, and I was adamant that Hickey should know it. I tackled the matter from various angles to drive home my point. ‘Get down off the cross,’ he said after five miles of this. We hadn’t exchanged a word since.

As I’ve said, the Minister was late. You would think that it was him giving us all the money. Tick tock went Hickey’s pint. I folded my arms and crossed my legs. I was nervous, but then I am always nervous. Look at me. My hands are shaking. Each time the pub door opened to admit a figure silhouetted against the blazing sun, my heart accelerated only to subsequently slump when that figure proved not to be the man in question, whatever he may have looked like, because I did not know him. Hickey knew him, but I did not know the very man from Adam then. Let the record state that I had no dealings with Minister Ray Lawless prior to that day in June.

On the pew was a large crumpled Jiffy pack, propped between Hickey’s thighs and mine like a ladies handbag. If witnesses come in here banging on about brown envelopes, I’ll tell you right now that they are lying. They are downplaying the sums involved. A large Jiffy pack was required to contain the amount involved in this transaction, a transaction which I am given to understand was fairly typical of the times that were in it, and the amount involved fairly typical too. The fee specified by the Minister would simply not have fitted into one of these infamous brown envelopes. Pardon me? Yes, fee is the word Minister Lawless used. He was hardly going to call it a bribe.