Adrian McKinty - I Hear the Sirens in the Street

I decided that I would drive to the VFW Post, give them the five hundred dollars and perhaps try to talk to some of O’Rourke’s buddies. What if he wasn’t a retired IRS agent? What if post-retirement he’d taken on a new career? A PI or something? Maybe someone would know.

I got in the Buick and drove out of Newburyport along the 1A. I’d gotten about a mile out of town when I saw flashing lights behind me.

It was an unmarked police car.

Had I been speeding?

Who knew what the limit was around here.

I pulled the Buick to the side of the road.

Thick woods on either side of the car. An odd patch of snow in the deeper parts of the forest. I wound the window down. There was a smell of salt water and marsh gas.

A man wearing sunglasses and a suit and tie got out of the unmarked prowler behind me. He had a gun drawn. Didn’t traffic cops always have to wear uniforms?

“Get out of the vehicle and put your hands on the hood.”

I sighed, got of the car and put my hands on the roof of the Buick.

“Spread them!” the man yelled.

I spread my hands far apart.

I heard him come up behind me.

“Was I speeding, Officer?” I asked.

“Give me your right wrist and do it real slow,” he said.

I put my right hand behind my back. He slapped the cuff on. He asked for my left hand and cuffed that, too.

“How can I get my driver’s licence out now?” I said.

“We won’t be needing that, Duffy,” he said.

I just had the time to experience a little rush of panic before he hit me in the neck and I crumpled to the ground.

I wasn’t unconscious, but I was dazed.

Two men were dragging me into the trees. There was a third man keeping an eye on the road.

When I was well off the road one of the men kicked me in the head. Another kicked me in the gut. The wind was knocked out of me and I winced in agony. Somehow, I scrambled to my feet, but I was hit twice in the ribs in quick succession by a really big guy with a long reach who was a fighter and fast and strong.

My heart was pounding and there were white spots in front of my eyes.

I threw up in my mouth and I felt myself being tossed down a small embankment.

A momentary respite and then more kicks.

Blood in my eyes.

Scrapes all down my back.

Pain everywhere.

Red out …

Black out …

Faces.

“Shut the fuck up, he’s coming to!”

Tape over my eyes, and then they were holding my mouth open, pouring in bourbon.

I choked, spat, and they poured in more.

It was a goddamn classic.

I almost laughed.

Someone held my head in his greasy paws and they made sure I got the bottle down.

I was scared now. Drunk and scared. They could kill me and make it look like an accident.

“Motherfuckers! What is this all about? I’m a cop.”

A punch in my kidneys.

“You’re not a fucking cop. You’re a fucking Brit, you’re a fucking black and tan bastard.”

“Stop talking to him,” another man said.

They slapped my face. Gut punched me. Sucker punched me.

Hands squeezing my throat.

More booze.

I was well gone now.

Beyond the pain. Across the border. Into the dark.

I watched as the world erased itself.

I was being carried.

I was in the car.

“This is a good one, lads. This is an old-school fix up,” I said.

The engine kicked into life. The car was moving. Fast.

Death stamped her iron hooves. She was coming. With Finn’s spear and Ossian’s bow. At the speed of understanding.

The car hit.

Exquisite silence.

Fire.

I was on the car’s ceiling. I was upside down.

I wanted to lie there.

I couldn’t breathe. The seat was burning. The seatbelt had trapped me in.

“Help!” I said weakly.

“Help!”

“Help!”

Smoke.

Vomit.

No breath.

Smoke.

An ellipsis.

Breaking glass.

An arm around my neck.

Air.

Sweet, beautiful air.

“Christ, son. Are you all right?”

I breathed.

“My God, you’re lucky I was passing!” the voice said.

“Lucky,” I said.

29: DRIVING UNDER THE INFLUENCE

I wasn’t here. I was at the Langham Hotel on Regent Street watching a man clutching his chest, falling, his right hand flapping like a dove in a magician’s act. I was eleven years old with my aunt Beryl. The man was yelling without sound and we sat there under the palms, taking in the wonder of it as if we were at the starblown circle of the Giant’s Ring. Everything frozen save for the man’s right hand which was scrabbling for a finger hold on the air which he thought would save him and pull him vertical once again.

It did not …

No.

My mistake.

Not his finger in the air.

Mine.

My finger connected to a pulse monitor. A drip in my arm. Nurses and morphine.

Two days of this and everyone, how shall I put it, a little bit aloof.

A doctor told me I had two minor first-degree burns and three cracked ribs. It could have been worse.

A British consular official came on the third day. He was called Nigel Higgs. He was a tall good-looking spud with a slight stammer. He seemed to be just out of his teens, although presumably he was much older, having gotten a plum like America.

“Nothing broken at least. You’re jolly lucky to be alive,” he said.

“What happened?” I asked.

I knew full well what had happened but I wanted to hear the official story.

“Well, I’m afraid you had a little too much to drink, old boy. You pranged your car. Total right-off … You could well have been killed. You certainly would have been burned alive had not a passing motorist pulled you out.”

“What motorist?”

“He was an EMT.”

“What’s that?”

“A fireman.”

He talked for a while and I listened.

“The Yanks are being awfully nice about the whole thing …The local police say that they’ll only charge you with a misdemeanour DUI.”

The upshot was that if I left the country immediately, everything could be swept under the rug. No one needed to spell it out for me. I got it, even if this fucking Nigel didn’t. However, if I kicked up a stink I’d be charged with dangerous driving, drunken driving and so on. They’d make sure they threw the book at me. They’d probably plant narcotics in the car. I’d be looking at jail …

Oh, yeah. That’s how it would play.

If I forgot the photographs and everything I’d seen and quietly left the country with my tail between my legs then all this would go away. I don’t know what the average bloke would do, but let me stress the fact that I am no fucking hero.

“Tell them I’ll take their offer but I want talk to a goon first. I want to talk to an FBI man. Off the record. That’s my condition.”

“FBI? What are you talking about? You were drunk driving. You’re being prosecuted by the Massachusetts State Police.”

“You heard me, Nigel. That’s my condition. I want to talk to the FBI, off the record. They’ll speak to me. They’ll know what this is about. They already know this whole thing is a crock of shite. Someone tried to get rid of me and someone royally fucked it up.”

He left in a state of confusion.

He didn’t come back. Special Agent Ian Howell did.

He was tall, tanned, pock-marked. Handsome. North of forty. Serious. He looked like he could happily listen to you yakity yak or he could coolly inject an overdose of morphine into your drip – whatever the situation demanded. He was wearing a brown wool suit with very wide lapels. He had a tape recorder running in one of his jacket pockets, that I wasn’t supposed to see.

He introduced himself.

I was sitting up now. I was a lot more comfortable. I was keeping down the solid food. I was ready for him.