Lisa McInerney - The Glorious Heresies

He flopped onto the passenger seat and said, ‘JimBob, you started without me.’

‘I was feeling old and fat, Timothy. I thought it was time I got busy again.’

‘And how was it?’

‘Overrated. We should bring the boat out soon. Rain later. The water’ll be choppy.’

Dougan said, ‘You were down here a lot earlier than you said you’d be, boy.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Always your plan to do it yourself, was it?’

‘Yeah. I suppose I was being a bit snakey about it.’

There was a pause. Dougan considered the tarpaulin. Jimmy watched the clouds.

‘Has it happened to you yet,’ Jimmy said, ‘that you thought going into a job that you might feel a bit too old for this carry-on after, that you thought, Well, this’ll be the one to herald my retirement , and yet when it came down to it you felt the same old familiar nothing?’

‘Being honest, boy, I never expect to feel anything, and I remain unsurprised.’

‘Twenty years ago this shit used to rise bile. You get used to it, then you wait for a time you’ll lose the knack for it. I hadn’t pulled a trigger in years up to today. And look at that; I’m still a killer.’

Such blunt language was exceptional, even between old friends. Dougan frowned, but raised his eyebrows nearly as quick, thought about the infraction, let it slide.

‘Were you expecting ascension?’

‘I was expecting to be older than I am.’

This is how it was usually done. A man would commit an unforgiveable transgression. Maybe he’d screw the wrong fella over, maybe he’d be found in a position where ratting out his betters might seem the only option, maybe his jaw was gaping and clumsy, as General Franko’s had become. A decision would be made. Most of the time there was a good run-up to the action. A call would be made, a favour called in or loaned out to a contact in the UK. Someone would fly over, find the problem and snuff it out. It was all very neat. Everyone had an alibi. The assassin wouldn’t be in Ireland long enough to shit and wipe his arse.

General Franko’s demise might have been arranged this way, if Jimmy hadn’t found himself with an extra thorn to pluck from his paw.

He doubted that there’d be harm done in having Franko sorted the traditional way. In fact, he was banking on it being constructive. He was still capable of rash decisions if his temper was so stoked; beware of the dog. And if this Robbie O’Donovan thing came to light — the whore had to be found and he didn’t think Cusack capable of the task — he wanted there to be no illusion as to the boss’s mental faculties. When he needed to be ruthless he was.

‘Let’s go fishing,’ he said.

Cusack phoned him up two days after.

‘She’s home,’ he said.

‘Since when?’

‘I dunno. The last half hour or so. I didn’t see her come back but I can hear her moving around in there.’

Like a rat in the walls. Jimmy went straight over. He parked at the bottom of Cusack’s driveway, blocking him in for the divilment of it, and hopped the wall to Duane’s front door, where he knocked with polite restraint and waited, one hand resting on the sidelight.

Her bottom lip started quivering as soon as she opened. Her hair was arranged in two childish plaits hanging over her shoulders; he reached out and tugged one, and said, ‘What’s wrong, Tara; aren’t you pleased to see me?’

‘I’m only just home,’ she said. ‘What, I don’t even get an hour’s peace?’

He stepped in and she stepped back.

‘How was your holiday, Tara?’

‘I was only in Dublin,’ she said. ‘Visiting my sister. She’s not well.’

‘Is she not? Ah, Jesus, that’s awful.’

He closed the door behind him and she said, ‘I don’t even have milk in the house or anything.’

‘It’s OK. I’m not after tea.’

‘Well what do you want, then?’

‘Oh, just to follow up on the last time I saw you. Remember? I asked whether you knew of a fella called Robbie O’Donovan.’

She held on to the banister and pursed her lips. ‘Yeah. You said he was a buddy of Tony Cusack’s.’

‘Did I?’

‘Yeah. And like I told you, he’s on the missing list, so I—’

‘You told his girlfriend and now the whore’s been up here nosing around. Did I fucking ask you to befriend his fucking next-of-kin, did I? Tara, will you ever go and tell Robbie O’Donovan’s ould doll that Tony Cusack knows where he is . Did I say that at any stage, did I? Did you hear me do it?’

‘You didn’t tell me I wasn’t to say anything about it!’

‘Well fuck me, I didn’t think I’d have to spell out to you that you weren’t to give the floozie the idea O’Donovan was dead!’

‘He’s dead?’

‘The only person who seems to know for sure is the fucking call girl, and you’re the only one who’s been talking to her.’

‘I didn’t tell her he was dead!’

‘Well, how’d she get the idea then?’

‘Maybe because he looks the sort?’

‘He looks the sort to die?’

‘He looks like a junkie! Junkies die! Junkies die all the fucking time! I didn’t make him overdose; it’s not my fault!’

He reached for her, but she ducked and dashed into her kitchen, where she avoided his second grasp by swinging a chair between them and then diving under the table, to which he could only stand and laugh.

‘Come out from under the table, Tara.’

She was bawling. ‘Leave me alone! Leave me alone!’

‘Do you really think I can’t get in there after you?’

‘I tried to help you! It’s not my fault you didn’t make clear it was a huge big secret!’

‘It is your fault, Tara. You’re a fucking cretin.’

‘I have a daughter!’ she shrieked.

‘What is it with assholes trying to hide behind their offspring when they think they’re getting a clatter?’

He sank to his haunches and made a grab for her, and she batted his hand away and cried out.

‘Jesus Christ, it really is like trying to catch rats in the walls.’

He grabbed again and managed to catch one of her plaits, and he pulled her across the floor as she kicked out behind her. She ended up faceplanting in front of her fridge; he stood over her and pulled her upright, and she whined and spat like a small child throwing down in the biscuit aisle.

‘Why is it so far past your grasp, Tara, that you shouldn’t be sticking your nose where it isn’t wanted?’ he growled. ‘Why are you so fucking dense that in asking you a simple question I run the risk of you summoning apocalyptic shit-storms?’

‘How was I to know?’ she gasped.

‘Well you can forget you knew, or I’ll have more than words to batter you with next time. But before you scrub your broken brain clean, tell me where I can find this whore who’s so desperate to tell the city her boyfriend’s dead.’

‘I don’t know where Georgie is! She’s not around anymore. I was shocked to run into her.’

‘If anyone can track the drifting bitch, it’s you. You like to suckle the lifeless, don’t you?’

He let her go.

‘Find the whore,’ he told her. ‘Get an address and deliver it straight to me. Don’t talk to the whore and don’t talk to Cusack. Don’t even talk to your fucking self if you can manage it. Does that make sense?’

‘I was only trying to help,’ she cried. The lasso plait had come loose into a soft kink. Her face burned red with the exertion of playing wounded.

‘Sure that’s you all over, Tara. Only trying to help when you stir up shit that didn’t need stirring. Only trying to help when you herd the whores. Only trying to help, I bet, when you stuck your rickety claws down the front of Tony Cusack’s young fella’s jocks. Is he the one in prison? I assume so.’