Gun Street Girl (3 page)

“Good for you,” I replied.

“And I immediately called Carrickfergus RUC. I'll have no nonsense like this in my establishment,” the woman in the red wig said. Obviously the lady of the house. A Mrs. Dunwoody if I recalled correctly.

“Where is this rocket fuel?” I asked.

Chief Inspector McArthur handed me a large bag of white powder. Enough to power an army. I tasted it. High-quality coke cut with nothing. Probably pharma cocaine manufactured in Germany, worth a bloody fortune. I sealed up the bag and put it in my jacket pocket.

“Have you weighed the cocaine?” I asked the Chief Inspector.

“No.”

Excellent
. “I'll do it at the station and enter it into evidence.”

“Is it cocaine?”

“Oh yes. Very high-quality gear too. And there's a lot of it. We could get him on intent to deal if we wanted. Not that we'll need to. Possession alone of this much is at least six months.”

Chief Inspector McArthur shook his head. “I'm not sure you're seeing the big picture, here, Duffy . . . Do you recognize who this is?”

“No.”

“He's an actor. Famous. American.”

I looked at the half-naked guy. He seemed vaguely familiar. Strong jawed, bright eyed. I might have seen him in something. Now his tears took on another dimension. Fake. The Chief Inspector gave me the do-you-catch-my-drift nod.
Aye, I do
. Celebrity was the coin of the realm even in far-flung places like Northern Ireland. We wouldn't be prosecuting this character. We won't be bringing the wrath of the higher-ups and the long beaks of the media into our little parish. But on the other hand, Mrs. Dunwoody, or her employer, was clearly protected, and she wanted justice . . .

“Actor? Were you in
The Swarm
?” Mrs. Dunwoody asked.

“No,” he said.

“Are you sure? You look awful familiar.”

“I wasn't in
The Swarm
!”

“What is your name?” I asked the actor.

“David Dwyer,” he said. And yeah, I recognized it. He'd been in the tabs for assaulting a photographer and beating up an ex-wife, but in Tinsel Town that counted for nothing next to his million-dollar acting chops.

“What are you doing in Ireland, Mr. Dwyer?”

“I was researching a movie,” he said, slurring his words slightly. But I could see that he wasn't
that
drunk. I wondered for a moment whether he ever stopped performing. When he was alone in his room, perhaps, with no audience but himself.

“Well, Mr. Dwyer, I suppose you realize that you're going to be charged with possession of cocaine and with common assault.”

“I never saw those drugs in my life!”

“Now, now, Mr. Dwyer, we know that's not true, don't we?” I told him, the policeman's
we
throwing me fully into
my
character.

“And what about that bitch? She attacked me first!” he squealed, looking at me and then the Chief Inspector in a relentless shot/counter-shot scheme.

“She attacked you and someone planted that cocaine, is that your tragic tale, sir? It's a good job my sergeant isn't here; he's a weeper. That one would have him bawling his eyes out.”

“It's true!” he insisted.

“The young lady was acting in self-defense, sir, and take it from me, any Irish jury you care to find is going to see it that way.”

The bald man in the bathrobe got to his feet and addressed the Chief Inspector. “I'm done here, OK? No internals, the bleeding's stopped and he'll need a couple of stitches. Be right as rain in the morning.”

“Thank you, Doctor . . .?” McArthur asked.

“I'd rather my name didn't come into this, if you don't mind.”

“You probably should get back to your friend, Doctor. They charge by the hour,” I said.

“No! This one's on the house; be sure and tell Samantha,” the madam insisted.

The doctor smiled meekly and exited the scene . . .

“I don't know what kind of an operation you guys are running here, but you do not want to piss me off, believe me. I could buy and sell you people ten times over!” Dwyer snarled, getting to his feet. He was quite short but there was a tremendous physicality to him. I didn't know whether he'd ever done stage work, but if he had he must have commanded the room. He poked a finger into my jacket. “When Ireland is finally free you fuckers will be first up against the wall. You know that, don't you?”

I took the finger and bent it backward. He winced and his knees buckled. I forced him back down onto the ground more aggressively than I needed to just to make transparent the true power dynamic in the room.

The Chief Inspector looked at me with alarm. I shook my head so that he didn't open that gob of his. “You're quite the dangerous hombre, Mr. Dwyer, but me and the Chief Inspector are your only friends here. We're the only obstacles between you and several years in a Northern Irish jail,” I explained before letting his finger go. He gasped and fell into the fetal position.

The man in the sweatshirt helped Dwyer to a more comfortable sitting posture and then stood and smiled apologetically.

“I'm Thomas, Mr. Dwyer's assistant, and I can assure you we didn't mean to cause any offense. Please tell us what we should do to facilitate this inquiry and help resolve this situation as quickly and as amicably as possible,” he said.

I looked at the Chief Inspector, who shrugged. The ball was in my court.

I lit a Marlboro.

“The young lady has received quite a shock and will no doubt want to take a vacation to get over her distress. I would say that a personal check to her for, say, two thousand—”

“Five thousand!” she interrupted.

“Five thousand pounds will cover her expenses. And the lady of the house will have to replace the damaged—”

“Antique,” she said.

“Antique lamp and I expect that two thousand pounds would cover the cost of that?”

Mrs. Dunwoody nodded. Two grand would be quite sufficient.

“We will expect you to leave the jurisdiction immediately and we must stress that it is in your best interests that you do not return.”

Thomas was smiling deferentially, pleased that his boss had got off so lightly. “Thank you very much, Officers, Mr. Dwyer is very appreciative of all your trouble,” he said.

“I want
him
to thank us for our trouble. And I want him to apologize to the young lady for scaring her.”

“Like hell I will!” Dwyer muttered.

I pulled the little shit to his feet by the scruff of the neck.

“You'll do it, sunshine! The last wee bastard that gave me your attitude pisses blood through a catheter to this very day. Do you get me?”

“I get you. I get you. Relax, buddy. I get you.”

Dwyer apologized.

Thomas wrote checks.

The lady of the house and the girl thanked me.

The Chief Inspector walked me back to the lobby and wondered whether perhaps I went a bit overboard with the celeb. I ignored him. He asked me if the thing with the catheter was true. I said it wasn't. He seemed relieved so I didn't tell him that in fact the last guy who gave me attitude like that I ended up shooting and leaving for dead in a village north of Brighton, just before I got blown up with half the Tory Cabinet in the bombing of the Grand Hotel . . .

“Any time you're feeling lonely and you want a friend, you know where to come. It'll be on the house. We've got girls to suit every taste,” Mrs. Dunwoody said.

“That's OK, I—”

“Or maybe in your case, Inspector, you'd prefer boys, young men I mean, attractive young men.”

I looked her in the eye. How did she know about that weird, out-of-character, one-time experience all those years ago? How did madams always know your innermost secrets?

“Uh, no thanks,” I said.

She put her arm in mine and walked me outside.

“All sorts in here,” she mused.

“I'll bet.”

“Had one gentleman last week wanted Veronica to throw darts at his bare arse.”

“Really?”

“But I wouldn't let her. She's left handed. They'd go all over the place, wouldn't they? Into me nice pictures.”

I opened the BMW's door and got inside.

“Have you heard this one, Inspector? A man goes to a taxi driver in North Belfast and he says, ‘Ladas Drive,' and the taxi driver says, ‘No way! You'll have to sit in the back like everybody else.'”

I'd heard it before but I laughed dutifully.

Mrs. Dunwoody smiled. “Come back if you're lonely; even if you just want to chat, we've got some very good listeners,” she insisted.

I nodded, closed the door, and drove home along the water into Carrickfergus.

The big Norman castle spoke of English power as it had been doing very effectively for the last eight hundred years. I angled the Beemer into the castle car park. No prying eyes. A coal boat from Latvia at one pier and the pilot boat tied up on the other. I took out an evidence bag, removed the bag of pharma coke from my pocket and poured out about half of it, sealed it, and put it in the glove compartment.

I drove the half-mile from the castle to the police station.

Empty but for Sergeant Dalglish, huddled by the electric fire and reading a book.

“Who's there?” he asked.

“Well it's not the Ghost of Christmas Future if that's what you're worried about.”

“Ah, Duffy. The Chief Inspector was looking for you.”

“He found me.”

“Wee bit lonely here, Duffy, do you want to stay and chat? I'm working my way through Paul's second letter to the Corinthians; it's fascinating stuff. Pull up a chair.”

“Uh, no thanks, pal. I think I'd rather fucking shoot myself. I'm away. And do please remember that DS McCrabban is duty detective tonight, not me, OK?”

“OK.”

“After I type this report up, I don't expect to be bothered again until tomorrow.”

“Relax, Duffy, no one'll bother you. Go on home and get your beauty sleep; looks like you need it.”

I typed up a quick incident report for the Chief Inspector to sign. Under “Officer Action” I wrote that Mr. Dwyer had been let off with a caution. I went to the evidence room, weighed the coke, marked 3.1 ounces on the bag, and put it in the night locker.

Back outside. Beemer. Ninety mph on the two-minute journey to Coronation Road. Parked the car, grabbed my half of the coke, got out. Timex said 3:55 a.m. Light drizzle. No cars. No pedestrians.

Inside 113 Coronation Road. I grabbed a torch, went out to the shed, and hid the coke in a nail box next to a slab of engine grease so ancient and rancid that even the best sniffer dogs wouldn't go near it.

Inside again. I undressed quickly in the hall and walked naked up the stairs.

I lit the paraffin heater. Lights off.

I tossed and turned for an hour and finally gave up.

Downstairs again. Vodka gimlet. Sam Cooke on the stereo. Sam The Man Cooke whose raw masculine power was so intense that he seemed to bring to a climax half the audience during the medley of “It's All Right/For Sentimental Reasons.”

When the record was done I let the silence wash over me. I put the chilled pint glass against my forehead. I lay there on the sofa in the pallid starlight, in that
light of other days
 . . .

And the house was quiet.

And the street was quiet.

And my eyelids were heavy.

And the rain was falling.

And the phone was ringing.

3: MURDER WAS THE CASE THAT THEY GAVE ME

I picked up the phone. “This better be good.”

“Sean, is that you?” Detective Sergeant McCrabban asked.

“Anyone else would have told you to fuck off by now. Course it's me. Do you know what time it is, Crabbie?”

“Uhm, about six o'clock?”

“Aye, six o'clock, and I haven't even been to bed yet.”

“I'm really sorry, Sean, but we've got a situation.”

“What sort of situation?”

“It's a double murder in Whitehead.”

“
Ecoutez
, my esteemed colleague. Isn't that why they promoted you from humble flatfoot to detective sergeant? So that you could handle double murders in Whitehead without involving me on my so-called night off.”

“The murder isn't the problem, Sean.”

“OK, I'll play along, what
is
the problem?”

“It's a jurisdictional dispute.”

“That's a new one. Go on.”

“Larne RUC are saying that this is their case because the road the house is on is technically in their patch. But the house itself is over the line in Carrick RUC's turf. It's our case, Sean.”

“Jesus, Crabbie, if they want it so badly let them have it!”

“Husband and wife shot in the head. The husband is a bloke called Ray Kelly; he's got a lot of money.”

I sighed. “So you don't want Larne to have it because it's a dead rich guy?”

“Well, Sean, first of all, it is
our
case. Larne have no right to be here at all. Secondly, it's an interesting one: a dead millionaire and his wife in a whopping big mansion in Whitehead, you know?”

“And what has all this got to do with me?”

“I need you, Sean. I'm a detective sergeant; you're an inspector. I can't hold Larne RUC off by myself. I'll owe you one, mate.”

I groaned into the receiver. “All right, Crabbie, I'll come down. I wasn't sleeping anyway.”

“You might want to wear something respectable. There's a full-of-himself Chief Inspector Kennedy from Larne RUC here.”

“What's the address?”

“64 New Island Road, Whitehead, just beyond the lighthouse. Do you want me to send a constable for you?”

“I'll find it.”

“May I ask how your trip to Derry went last night?”

“The gunrunners?”

“Aye.”

“As fine an example of RUC-Gardai-Interpol cooperation as I've ever seen.”