Death in Dublin - Peter McGarr 16 (31 page)

“I’d give you the line, ‘I can tell you’re happy to see me’ ”—she tightened her hold on him, pressing herself against the Glock—“but I imagine that hard thing I’m feeling is another animal altogether.”

McGarr moved to break away from her, but she held on. “Ah, now—it’s only a moment or two I’m asking. At the moment.” Her thigh now slipped between his legs. “But he’s up there, I can tell you. He got here looking like death warmed over only shortly after me. Which will tell you how long Sheard interviewed the bugger.

“Anyhow, Brother Loquacious”—drawing herself back, she looked up at him—“I’ve a plan. To get you in.” She smiled, her jet eyes surveying him. “Here.” She canted her head toward the darkened building.

“How did you know he’d come here?”

“Credit me sixth sense that with a man like that, one day, I’d need to know everything I could about him.”

“He’s alone in there?”

“Which is—you’ve nailed it—his problem. Socia
l
ization. If only Chazz Sweeney could love or trust somebody besides himself, perhaps there might be a remediation of our conditions, yours and mine. A
l
though I have the feeling you’re interested in a more immediate and fi?nal solution.”

The drill was, Bannon explained, that Sweeney would come to the door for her.

“Why?”

“Trust me, he just will.”

“Because of your threat at the news conference?”

“Did you see it?” Her smile was full now. “How did I look? More’s the point, how did I do?”

When McGarr said nothing, she continued: “It’s not just that he’ll come to the door—when he does and it opens, his security system won’t detect a certain party breaking in the back. That’s you. Me, he’ll invite me in, and then you’ll be the witness to my little chat with the Chazz man.”

“How do you know his security system switches off?”

Yet again she fl?ashed her pixieish smile. “It’s me stock-in-trade—to know.”

“At the back there’s a door?”

“Pickable by you.”

“You don’t know that.”

“If not by you, then by nobody.”

A smile nearly formed at the corners of McGarr’s mouth. “You’re shameless.”

“And don’t you forget it. It’ll take you two minutes to get back there, but let’s make it fi?ve.” She released
him and glanced at her watch. “In fi?ve minutes I’ll ring. Say, it takes him another couple to get down and open up. I’ll stand in the doorway and refuse his offers for a peek at his etchings for another fi?ve. I think he actually likes me. Too much.

“That’ll give you a whopping time cushion of ten whole minutes to scope the lock out and let yourself in. The entire house is his, but where he lives—his digs— are on the top fl?oor. Grand view of the harbor. If he bolts, it might be to the boat he’s got tied up to the wall. Wouldn’t you know it’s called the
Boru
.
”

“You should know what I’m here for, and it’s not a wee chat.”

“Wouldn’t I love to be a witness to history? Yours and his, his and mine, yours and mine.”

McGarr turned on his heel, thinking what he had in mind was best done while there were car doors sla
m
ming, other ambient urban noise, and the occasional shout. Or curse.

A ship’s horn now sounded and echoed around the harbor that was here nearly circular.

The back of the building was hard by the water with a narrow laneway—the width of a horse and cart alone—between the door and the harbor wall.

Standing there digging a smoke from his jacket, Mc-Garr pretended to survey the rather sizable forest of masts and superstructures that made up the Kinsale pleasure-boat fl?eet, before turning and cupping his hands to light a cigarette.

The lock was complex, case-hardened of the sort that was not easily picked, and he would not try. Stepping back into the shadows of the building, he leaned against the door and drew on the cigarette in a leisurely manner, noting the stile in the harbor wall and the
raised decks of the
Boru,
he assumed, on the other side.

Scanning the laneway before grinding out the butt, McGarr drew the Glock from under his belt, took one long stride away from the door, turned, and fi?red three quick slugs into the lock. Raising a foot, he kicked out at the door. It held. But not for his shoulder. With a pop, it broke open, and he stumbled into a dark room.

Pushing the door to, he listened to the sounds of the building, expecting to hear at least muffl?ed voices from the upper stories. Instead, only a few dull thuds came to him.

But now that he was inside, speed was of the essence. He began moving upstairs, meeting with only one other lock on the door to the fi?rst fl?oor, which he opened with a thin supple blade.

The hallway was darkened, with all other doors closed; a second was the same. Catching sight of a glow at the top of the stairs, he climbed toward it, kee
p
ing his feet near the wall and the Glock before him.

“McGarr!” he heard when he was two steps from the fi?nal landing. “Come in, come in. Two uninvited guests in one night—my, my, I’m such a lucky fella.”

Cautiously, McGarr approached the open door from which light was spilling onto the carpet.

“Come in, lad. Don’t be bashful. I won’t object to your Garda-issue Glock. Haven’t I got one of me own, although it’s in use at the moment?”

In a mirror hanging on the wall of the room, he could see a desk on which sat a clear plastic bag co
n
taining the head of Gillian Reston, eyes splayed, a blue swollen tongue lolling out.

Near it was a photograph of Sweeney with Dan
Stewart, their arms looped over each other’s shoulders, smiling into the camera.

Taking another step, he caught sight of Sweeney si
t
ting in a wing chair with somebody lying on the carpet before him.

It was Orla Bannon, hands duct-taped behind her; more tape was wrapped around her head and an aut
o
matic. The barrel was in her mouth. A length of what looked like fi?shing line ran from the trigger to Swee
n
ey, who, with jacket off and legs crossed, now reached for a drink on a small table by his side.

“Like my effi?gy? It was sent me by a caring co
l
league who will soon enjoy that condition himself, if Jack Sheard has anything to do with it.

“And actually”—Sweeney tried to smile, but it was more a baring of dim, uneven teeth—“I had intended all of this for you. But it stops her bloody gob well enough, I’d say. Which will allow us a tête-à-tête, if I can just have that object in your hand.” Sweeney pointed at McGarr’s handgun. “Now, if you don’t mind.”

McGarr did not move. Should he pull the trigger, he asked himself, and risk her life, as he had Noreen’s, Fitz’s, and Kara Kennedy’s? Should he make Orla number four in his litany of collateral damage?

The cord binding Sweeney to the weapon was taut and was being held both by his hand and a wrap, which had been wound around his wrist. A bullet would make Sweeney spasm and perhaps fall over, and Orla would die.

Her eyes were wide with fright and imploring.

“I’ll have that,” Sweeney repeated.

“Or what?”

“You see it.”

McGarr hunched his shoulders. “You plan to kill her anyway. Do it, I’ll kill you.”

Sweeney began a phlegmy laugh that juddered the taut chain. With his other hand he reached for the go
b
let, which was fi?lled with an amber liquid. “On one level, which is balls, I must say I love you. Who’da thunk you’da copped—literally—onto my wee device to enrich meself beyond my wildest dreams. And to bring you down in a way that you’d feel daily for the rest of a squalid life.”

If McGarr could keep him talking and drinking, he might chance a shot when the chain slackened. Swee
n
ey’s meaty features were slick with sweat. There was a large, greasy stain on his red tie.

“And your device was?”

“Ach—don’t play dumb, man. I know you’re not stupid. Rash, yes. Predictable and therefore contro
l
lable, ditto. But all the truly good lads are, don’t you know. Nothing new there.”

“Delia Manahan—she one of your devices?” An Opus Dei zealot, she could well have been the woman who had spiked Noreen’s shotgun, causing her and her father’s death two years before.

“Nah, Jaysus. I’ll take the ‘not stupid’ back, since you’re a dolt altogether. It was I meself who slipped the smaller shell in the barrel. Hadn’t I the access and all the time in the world, with Fitz and Nuala leaving the bloody doors open? The bloody stupid fools.”

Glancing down at Orla, who had closed her eyes, McGarr removed his fi?nger from the trigger. “Why?” Her breathing was labored, and her brow was damp with sweat.

“To bring you back to reality, man. To keep you
from making further blunders in regard to the holiest and most noble order ever created. God’s order, which you had the audacity and bad sense to think you could thwart.”

Keeping the chain taut with one hand, Sweeney again reached for the drink with the other. “I don’t fo
r
get or forgive. You.”

He fi?nished the drink, which made his eyes water. A single tear tracked onto the pocked surface of his cheek. “You want the truth? Do you?”

McGarr only regarded him.

“The Trinity security guards, Ray-Boy’s hapless f
a
ther and the other one, something Greene? I had them killed just to get you involved in the case.” A smug smile now exposed Sweeney’s uneven teeth. “For it was you I wanted as much as the money. Oh, yes. I’ve got that too, and all of it.

“Kara very-much-effi?n’ Kennedy, my son Dan’s darlin’ wife? I had her seduce you, just to keep you close.”

“Why would she do that?”

“Hah, if I had known you were this stupid, I’d have had a bullet put in you years ago and not bothered with the fraggin’. Why the fuck do you think, man? For the fuckin’ money, what else?

“Dan and me told her we’d split the pot. Equal shares. It would be like alimony, only big-time. No more academia for her, no more piss-poor pay check But, you know, Kara wasn’t blood, and how could we possibly trust a woman like her, who would bed the likes of you for money?”

He began a low chuckle. “There’s a name for women like her. And her.” With the tip of his shoe, he kicked out at Bannon’s head. “Wake up, you bitch.

Wake up!” Raising the chain to keep the lead to the trigger tight, Sweeney moved up in the chair. “Nobody threatens me, especially not in public.”

“But Dan, your Dan Stewart—he was blood.”

Canting his head, Sweeney looked away, and M
c
Garr’s fi?nger moved back onto the trigger. “After a fashion. I can’t remember, but I think I was actually paying his mother before he was conceived, and the blood tests were inconclusive. He could have been anybody’s bastard, I’d say. She was a right sorry little Scots cunt. We could never have had a future, but Dan, I must say, was pleasant company and useful for a while.

“But enough of this. That one”—Sweeney pointed at Bannon—“she’s check. And this one”—plunging his hand into the gap between the cushion and the chair, he came up with another handgun—“is mate, matie.” Slowly, haltingly, careful of the tether he had to Orla and the gun he had pointed at McGarr, Sweeney rose to his feet.

“I’m not much of a shot, you’ll see.” The handgun exploded and the bullet thwacked into the wall only inches from McGarr’s head. “But you’d best go out b
e
fore us.” Sweeney placed another shot almost exactly at the same point on the other side of McGarr’s head.

“Out!” Sweeney roared. “Get out! I won’t have you dying in me house. I’m going to me boat, if your wish is to accompany us.” And he began a laugh that ended in a wet hack. Turning his head, Sweeney spat into a mirror on the wall.

With his Glock now raised and pointed at Sweeney’s heart, McGarr stepped to the door.

“Go ahead, pull it, you spineless fuck. Pull it, and we’ll all die.”

McGarr quickly moved down the stairs, trying to gauge where he might position himself for a clean shot at Sweeney. But the doors that he tried were locked, and lights suddenly switched on.

“McGarr? You still with us?”

Outside, McGarr thought, he’d conceal himself b
e
hind a car or on the other side of the wall where, when Sweeney climbed over, he could grab his arm and fi?re with the other hand.

No cars. The narrow laneway was empty; crouched on the other side of the harbor wall, McGarr scanned the several decks of the large yacht, which was u
n
lighted. Water was lapping against its hull.

He heard: “Jaysus—wouldn’t you know it, bitch? The motherless fucker’s run out on you. Unless he’s crouched on the other side of the wall. That’s where I’d be, were I brave and true, like Peter McGarr.”

Orla appeared fi?rst at the top of the high wall, but she did not hesitate when she saw McGarr. There— having to wait for Sweeney—they locked eyes.