Little Criminals (2 page)

She held the money out towards Frankie. When he got within reach he knocked the money out of her hand and grabbed the front of her blouse. She closed her eyes as he screamed in her face.
‘Open the fucking safe!’

The young woman with the baby made soothing sounds and cradled her bundle in front of her. Its head tilted sideways, the baby stared with frank interest at the angry man and his colourful hat.

Over at the door, Martin Paxton said, ‘Ah shit,’ then he leaned back against the door, opening it slightly. ‘Come on,’ he said. He waited, and when Frankie ignored him he pushed the door open and walked out.

Crowe shouted,
‘Bitch!’
and let go of the woman’s blouse. She was close to passing out, sweat rising on her forehead and along her quivering upper lip.

The tall elderly man who hadn’t raised his hands had a loud voice. ‘Leave her alone, you. Leave her alone.’

Crowe turned and saw an old fool, a hillbilly with big, gnarled hands, untidy hair and a face pitted with time.

The old guy stood up. ‘Coming down here, waving a gun. Why don’t you work for your money, the same as the rest of us?’

Crowe looked at him like the old man was a peculiar species he hadn’t yet come across. He walked slowly towards the booth, until he was no more than two or three feet from the old man. ‘Who the fuck’re you, grandad? Sir Galahad?’ He pointed the gun at the old man’s crotch. The hillbilly tried desperately not to flinch. Crowe grinned.

‘You have balls, grandad. You want to keep them?’

The old man stared. Beside him, still sitting, raised hands trembling, his small friend kept his gaze fixed on the surface of the table in front of him. Frankie made a dismissive sound and turned back to the pub owner. ‘It’s make your mind up time.’ He pointed the gun at her head and his voice was casual. ‘One, two—’

The shooting came at the end of a period – more than a year – in which a lot of things didn’t quite work out. By now, Frankie Crowe and Martin Paxton were supposed to be on their way somewhere. Instead, they were here in a small town in County Meath, still scrounging for the rent.

The town’s kids were at school, the farmers and their labourers were off in the countryside doing whatever farmers do. It was mostly women shopping, and mostly elderly women, that were to be seen on the streets that morning. There was a drinks lorry delivering a palletload to Harte’s Cross’s only hotel. A couple of old lads squinting at yesterday’s results in the window of a bookie’s. A limping man pushing a Calor gas cylinder in a child’s buggy. Two dogs being walked by a white-haired old woman in a scarlet tracksuit.

And one cop.

The garda was standing alongside a car about twenty yards down the street from Sweeney’s Pub, chatting up a young woman.

He hadn’t been there when they arrived. Now, Martin Paxton got into the Primera in Sweeney’s car park and kept an eye on him.

The cop had a Boy Scout face. Uniform a little on the loose side. He was watching the woman’s backside as she leaned into the car to drape a collection of dry-cleaned clothes across the back seat. Paxton smiled. Naughty boy. The woman, it seemed to Paxton, was too pretty and too sure of herself for a chinless wonder of a culchie cop fresh out of Templemore. She sat halfway into the driver’s seat, smiling, nodding, idly touching the ends of her loose blonde hair as the garda leaned on the car and rabbited away at her.

Across the street, in the window of a clothes shop, a shop assistant was fitting a flowery summer dress to a mannequin. The shop, like the MegaMarket and the petrol station halfway down the street, belonged to the pub owner’s family.

A mud-spattered tractor chugged past, towing a trailer from which dripped a steady trail of something dark, green and smelly.

Two elderly women, all headscarves, knowing eyes and fluttering lips, stood outside Tubridy’s newsagent’s, dispensing more gossip than any combination of the trashy magazines on the shelves inside.

Most people within hearing range paid little attention to the first shot. It was a flat smack of sound that could have been several things. Martin Paxton looked to the mirror and saw the garda push himself away from the woman’s car and glance around, unsure of himself.

Not even the boy copper could mistake the second shot for something else.

Somewhere in the distance, there was the sound of someone screaming.

The garda moved into the middle of the street, looking up and down, trying to decide what to do, knowing that civilians nearby were looking in his direction. The woman he’d been talking to swivelled round in her seat and pulled the door of the car shut.

Martin Paxton started the engine of the Primera and waited.

Inside Sweeney’s Pub, one of the owner’s hands was clasped across her mouth, the other was holding on to her hair. Her eyes were closed, her lips tight, her breathing fast. There was a bullet hole in the Guinness mirror behind the counter. A second bullet had shattered the display screen of the cash register.

The barman was bent forward, hands on the counter, head to one side, as though he was determined not to see whatever happened next. There was a burning smell in the air.

The woman with the baby had turned her back and was cowering, putting the slender width of her body between the gun and her child. The small pinch-faced old man with his hands up had pissed himself, leaving a big dark patch all down his white trousers. The ballsy old hillbilly had raised his hands.

Frankie Crowe fired three more shots – one into the wide-screen television set high up on the end wall of the pub, two more into a second screen in an alcove. Another two bullets hit an electronic quiz machine. The eighth shattered a bottle of vodka a foot from the pub owner’s head.

Crowe made a noise of disgust. She was out of it, so far into fear that she was beyond threats. Besides, what was the fucking point? She had to be telling the truth.

Crowe picked up the banknotes from where the old bitch had dropped them on the counter. As he reached the pub door, he put the money and his gun into his anorak pockets, made sure Homer Simpson was firmly in place, then he opened the door and stepped outside.

After the second shot, the two gossips shuffled into the newsagent’s, glancing back as they went, already shaping the anecdotes they would harvest from the drama.

The garda had decided he knew where the shots had come from. He began running towards Sweeney’s Pub. He was into the car park when he heard the second flurry of shots. He stopped ten feet from the stolen Primera. Martin Paxton tugged his baseball hat so the peak was shading his face, opened the door and got out of the car. He held the gun casually down by his side.

The garda looked from the pub to Martin Paxton. The gunman just shook his head.

The door of the pub opened and Frankie Crowe came out.

He stopped just outside the door and used the index finger of one hand to rub his nose, the hand partly obscuring his face.

The garda was a riot of uncertainty. No obvious course of action was acceptable. Do something – that was stupid. Do nothing, Jesus –

End up with the lads at the station calling him a fucking eejit for having a go, or a no-balls coward for being sensible? He knew that right now heroics were dangerous and pointless. He knew too that if he backed down, no matter how long he lived there would never be a day when a part of him didn’t squirm at the memory.

Frankie Crowe walked as though he was setting out on a stroll to see the town sights. He stopped a yard away from the garda.

The thing to do, Garda Joe Hanlon knew, was to play it cool. Do nothing to give the thug a reason to use the gun. Take everything in – the face, the build, distinguishing marks, the other one standing by the car. Get the number as they drive off. Take it all in, survive, watch them run, then deal with them. Branches all over, he used to joke – outfit I work for, we’ve got branches all over.

Garda Joe Hanlon held his chin up.

Across the street, in the window of the clothes shop, the shop assistant stood as still and as pale as the mannequin she was dressing.

The thug was smiling. ‘Morning, garda. Soft day, thank God.’

The thug held the gun up, moved a finger and the magazine dropped from the handle into his other hand. He held the garda’s gaze as he put the empty magazine into a pocket and took out a new one. Garda Hanlon heard it click into place.

‘You from around these parts?’ the thug said. He had a Dublin accent. He was holding the gun down by his side now, as though to put the garda at ease.

‘You know there’s nothing I can do.’ Garda Hanlon was surprised that his voice carried no tremor of the dread he felt. ‘Just take whatever you got and fuck off out of here.’

He didn’t see the thug squeeze the trigger.

For a moment, there was nothing inside his head except the sound of the gun going off. It was like the biggest door in the universe slammed shut an inch from his ear. Then his mind was flooded with panic.

No, please wait—

The garda realised he hadn’t been shot. The thug was still holding the gun down by his side. He’d fired into the tarmac surface of the car park. The garda was already turning, and in seconds he was fifty feet away, his head still echoing with the gun’s explosion. When he stopped and looked back, the gunman was standing there, gun poised.

Garda Hanlon reached up and touched his bare head. He hadn’t noticed his cap fall off, but it was there on the pavement just outside Sweeney’s car park.

‘Frankie, for fuck sake!’

Martin Paxton lurched in behind the wheel of the Primera. Frankie was walking towards the garda now, big smile on his face. The garda backed away, turned and ran a little more, then looked round and stopped.

Martin watched Frankie pick up the garda’s cap. Frankie walked slowly back towards the car. He threw the garda’s cap into the back seat, climbed inside and took off the thick-rimmed glasses. It was like the anger had been diluted by the shooting. He smiled. ‘Whenever you’re ready.’

Paxton revved the car and drove across the car park, towards the exit. He saw the garda turning and running fast down the street.

Frankie Crowe was looking towards the pub. The old hillbilly who had challenged him was standing in the doorway. Crowe lifted the baseball hat in salute and smiled.

It was a gift, an ability to close his eyes and immediately drop off to sleep, and an instant clarity on waking. Justin Kennedy was sitting in his favourite chair, in his living room, it was late evening and his wife and two children were asleep upstairs. His briefcase and his jacket were on the sofa, carelessly thrown there when he had arrived home. The vodka and tonic he’d poured sat on the side table, untouched. He’d surrendered to the tiredness, collapsed into the chair, let the drowsiness take him for a few minutes. Now, his mind clear, he looked around the room. From where he was sitting, everything he could see spoke of quality. The furniture solid, the walls expensively embellished, there was an unmistakable balance to the room. It was mostly Angela’s doing, her and that fruit she’d hired.

Justin dipped a finger in the drink, put the cold tip of the finger to his tongue. He lifted the glass and took as much pleasure in the weight of the crystal as he did in the sip of vodka.

He enjoyed this. The late-night working, the tiredness, the knowledge that he was stretching himself to the limit at work and had a place of comfort to which he could return.

He watched a drop of moisture fall from the glass on to the dark cloth of his suit trousers. He smoothed the damp spot into the material. Justin’s business suits were mostly Ermenegildo Zegna, but he had recently ordered a suit from Brioni. It was his normal friend Daragh who put him on to Brioni. It cost maybe three times as much, but that wasn’t the point. ‘It’s not about fashion,’ he told Justin, ‘and it’s not about showing off. It’s about positioning yourself in the market.’

At forty-one, when the first millimetres of grey had recently appeared, Justin had his hair touched up to match his natural dark brown. Laser treatment allowed him to dispense with glasses, but that, he was convinced, made the puffiness under his eyes more noticeable. He had a pair of clear-glass spectacles made, but he felt foolish and wore them only once.

For a while, he regarded the unmistakably inflated belly that softly pushed out over his belt as a correctable failure of discipline. As time went by, he’d come to think of it as an acceptable indulgence of his prosperity. The secondary chin that had gradually accumulated over the previous few years was more of a worry. Mostly when he looked in the mirror he unconsciously edited out such blemishes and noticed only a slightly older version of the handsome striver he had seen in his youth. Over the past year, however, he had winced at occasional photographs in the business pages of the newspapers, and at social-page snaps of his appearances at a couple of charity events. He worked out a little at home, but lacked the necessary discipline. He signed up with a gym but after three weeks of early-morning sessions he decided he couldn’t spare the time. It was a problem that strayed into his thoughts with increasing frequency.

He let the ice touch his lips and took another sip of the vodka, then he put the glass down carefully and made a satisfied sound as he pulled himself to his feet. Upstairs, he looked in first on Luke, then on Saskia, both fast asleep, before entering his own bedroom. His wife had fallen asleep with the bedside lamp on. A hardback book, one of her reading-group novels, was open beside her on the pillow. In her sleep she had shrugged off the duvet and he stood there a moment, looking down at her with approval and pride.