Of Blood and Honey (Fey and the Fallen) (22 page)

In spite of everything, a confident joy blanketed Liam. He loved driving. In particular, he loved driving fast. The only thing better was making love to Mary Kate. He felt uninhibited—even more so than when he ran. At the same time, his heightened awareness kept every obstacle in perfect focus. Some part of him took over—a creature that calculated by instinct in a foreign math of exact distance, speed and the potential reactions of the other drivers. The speedometer read sixty when colored lights fluttered in the rearview mirror.

“Make this fucking thing go faster!”

“I said let the man to his work!”

“No! Fucking stop! Jesus, Mary and—”

Under Liam’s direction, the car danced and dodged around three cars and a taxi then rocketed through a red light at eighty-five. A second RUC prowl car just missed the rear of the speeding Escort and plowed into the side of the breaking taxi. Níal let out a girlish wail. The crash was huge, the sound cutting off both Níal and T-Rex. The song reemerged at the verse comparing a woman to a car. An image of Mary Kate dressed in black stockings popped into Liam’s head, making him grin. He was whole. Absolute. The car responded to his eager joy with grateful precision. He decided this was better than the rallies. Far better. Next to him, Éamon’s lips moved in a silent whisper.

The first RUC vehicle vanished from the rearview mirror. Liam assumed they’d been unable to get around the wreck at the intersection and had had to take a second route. He slowed, granting himself a moment to think. There was a checkpoint ahead and there would be no getting through that with constables on his tail. The RUC would’ve radioed the Army. Traveling further west into the Catholic area was predictable. Too risky. He had to come up with another plan. Something unexpected.
Now
.

Once, all he would’ve had to do was head for one of Belfast’s “No Go” areas. As in Derry, the Catholics—angry and frightened after years of persecution and murder—had thrown up barricades and declared their neighborhoods off limits for the British Army and the RUC whose numbers swelled the ranks of the UVF and UDA when off duty. IRA patrols backed up the Catholic community’s declarations with force. In Belfast, the “No Go” zones had persisted until last year. Now, there wasn’t anywhere safe from the RUC, the British Army or the Loyalists.

Liam made a decision. He slowed to forty-five and executed a series of turns, heading north. By now the RUC would have guessed, and guessed rightly, that he had intended to hide in mid-Falls or Clonard or even Beechmont. They wouldn’t look for him in Shankill or Crumlin, but the north had its own hazards. The Peace Line separated Shankill from the Upper Falls Road which meant he’d have to risk going further west. In addition, he didn’t know the streets north of the Falls Road. Couldn’t. No Catholic in their right mind drove a Black Hack through a Loyalist area—at least no one with intentions of a long life—but speeding through Belfast with the RUC, and soon enough, the Army, tailing was currently the greater danger.

Slamming on the accelerator, Liam ran the next light. Soon he was three blocks from his destination. He could just make out the twenty-five-foot high wall made of brick and steel mesh built to keep the Loyalist Protestants separate from the Republican Catholics—the Peace Line. In the rearview mirror Liam glimpsed two RUC cars shooting through an intersection a block away—still heading west. Éamon’s sharp intake of breath drew Liam’s attention to the road ahead. It was then he saw he was about to rear-end a stopped car. The white car’s bumper loomed huge, and his vision became a series of shuddering stills, each an ever-larger version of the doomed bumper. He switched from accelerator to brake and gave the steering wheel a calculated wrench to the left. The tires slipped but held at the last, and the passenger side mirror disintegrated with a sound like a gunshot. Someone screamed. He navigated the car down the sidewalk. Pedestrians leapt out of the way. Éamon’s whispering gained volume, and Liam recognized the ‘Our Father’ with a shock. Éamon stammered it over and over at a pace that would have put any penance recited by a school boy to shame. He kept getting the last line wrong, and Liam had to resist an urge to correct him.

The car leapt back onto the street with a crunching jolt. Liam slalomed around four more cars with ease and then navigated west to avoid being spotted by BAs patrolling the top of the Peace Line. He’d driven to Highfield by the time he’d found a place to cross. Once there, he slowed even further. He couldn’t venture far. If he did, he’d get lost and that’d be the end. A few blocks into Loyalist territory he found a suitable alley. Backing in and then stopping, Liam shut off the engine. The distant wail of sirens told him that the RUC were still on the hunt. There wasn’t much time.

Níal shouted, “We’re in the fucking Shankill! Are you trying to murder us?”

Staring straight ahead, Éamon said, “Keep it down, Níal. You’ll stir the BAs and God knows who else.” His voice was dead calm even if his face wasn’t.

The shuddering purr of army helicopters fluttered in the distant sky.

Oran said, “Here are the plates and the screwdriver.”

“Thanks.” Liam took the items Oran handed over the back of the seat and checked the alley one last time before stepping out. Then he walked to the front of the car.

The ring. The man was married. Had a family,
Liam thought.
No. Can’t think about that. Not now. No time.
He concentrated on not dropping the screws. The sense of elation was gone, leaving him empty. Cold. He removed the front plate with hands that were strangely steady. Finished, he retrieved the old one and tucked it under his arm as he headed to the rear of the car.

It started to mist.

That was bad. The pavement would be slick. Icy. He’d have to make adjustments.

Mick. He called me Mick. Definitely Mick. Or was it “a mhic” meaning “sonny”? Shite. Was it the Irish or not? Did I just kill a Catholic man with a family?
One or two Catholics were known to have found their way onto the force—a misguided attempt to curb the RUC’s general inclinations.

The hand holding the screwdriver began to tremble.

Took the back of his head off.

A car door swung open, and Oran appeared.

Painted the wall with the insides of his head. Just like… just like that soldier did to Annette MacGavigan.

“Are you well, Liam?”

With the last turn of the screw Liam’s stomach did a lazy flip. Old nightmares flooded into his mind in vivid detail, lending a garish crimson to the face of the constable he’d just shot. The old plates slipped from his numbed fingers and clattered onto the ground. His face and hands went cold and the back of his throat grew slick. Standing, he staggered three steps and then threw up into a rubbish pile. Blackness swirled at the edge of his vision. The ground tilted. He stopped himself from smacking his head into the brick wall with an outstretched hand.

“Pull yourself together,” Oran said. “We need you, man. Éamon can’t drive. Níal is fucking useless if it isn’t a lock or a safe. I’d take over, but we both know I can’t.”

Liam noted a touch of panic in Oran’s voice. Wiping vomit from his chin, Liam nodded and spat.

“Here,” Oran said.

A white handkerchief contrasted against the black splotches in Liam’s peripheral vision. He wiped his face. His mouth was coated with muck, and he spat again to clear it. He almost lost control of his stomach a second time when he felt a lump of vomit shift from the back of his nose to his throat. He didn’t want to swallow but didn’t have another choice.

Oran whispered, “You only did what you had to.”

Spitting one last time before straightening, Liam’s whole body trembled with the effort.
I’ve done worse,
he thought. It didn’t help. No matter what else he’d done in the Kesh he hadn’t murdered anyone. Sanders may have killed himself but that wasn’t Liam’s doing—not directly. The constable’s surprised face stubbornly haunted the surface of his mind. Liam breathed through his mouth, unwilling to risk the stench of his own vomit. “Do we have any black tape? I think I put some in the boot.”

“What for?” Oran asked.

“Bullet hole.” Liam pointed above the bumper.

“Ah, well. It’s not like that’s all that unusual around here, is it?”

Liam opened his mouth to explain, but Oran held up a hand.

“I’ll look. Get yourself together.”

Oran opened the boot of the car and rooted around.

“Left side,” Liam said, wishing Oran would hurry. If Loyalists spotted them their families would be lucky to have pieces to bury. “In the box with the petrol can.”
It’s good the bullet didn’t hit that.

Letting out a grunt, Oran said, “And here I thought you’d gone daft with all the preparations.” He pushed the boot shut and tossed the tape to him.

Liam caught it one-handed. Feeling better, he unrolled the tape with a violent jerk and measured it against the hole. Too narrow, the tape wouldn’t quite cover the damage with one application. A couple layers later, Liam checked his work. Judging it might pass in the dark, he stuck the last of the tape in place. He reached for the “Safe as Milk” sticker on the back window and paused. The front seat sported a ragged round hole just to the right of where he’d been sitting. He swallowed back a fresh bout of nausea and peeled the bumper-sticker from the rear window. Oran gave him a raised eyebrow.

“They’ll be searching for a black RS1600 with the previous license number and the sticker,” Liam said. “It’s why I put it on in the first place. Conspicuous, it is. Now we’ll be harder to spot.”

“Ah, didn’t think you were a Captain Beefheart fan, but I wasn’t going to ask,” Oran said. “Is that everything?”

“Finished,” Liam said, crumpling the sticker and then tossing it onto the rubbish pile. He stuffed the old plates under some rags and straightened.

“And you’re good?”

“I am,” Liam said, hoping the lie would prove truth. “Mary Kate has an early political meeting in the morning. And she’ll be worrying.” He hopped into the car and cranked up the engine. Then he proceeded to trace his way back to the Falls at a more sedate pace. He got them to the Upper Falls Road without incident.

They weren’t far from where he needed to drop Éamon and Níal when a prowl car pulled up behind them and shined a flashlight through the rear window.

Only going home after a few, mate,
Liam thought.
Just like everyone else.
The thought was almost a prayer. Liam’s fingers tingled on the steering wheel. After a long pause, the constable swerved around them and went on his way. Not long after, Liam stopped where Éamon directed him, and Níal and Éamon got out. Níal approached a rusted ’72 model Escort parked on the street, unlocked the boot of the car and proceeded to transfer the bags. Oran helped.

Éamon leaned inside. “There’ll be a report.”

Liam nodded.

Reaching in, Éamon placed something on the seat. Three crisp twenty pound notes rested on black vinyl. Liam blinked.

“Am I allowed to take that?” He’d heard what happened to those that decided to help themselves to funds earmarked for the IRA. Sixty pounds wasn’t much compared to what had been stolen from the bank, but no amount was worth a bullet in each knee or the head—certainly not an amount as small as sixty pounds.

“It’s your share and will be noted in the record.”

“Yes, sir.”

There was a long pause, and Éamon stared as if he were seeing Liam for the first time. “Where did you learn to drive like that?”

“Bobby is into the racing. Rallies. Lets me drive sometimes.”

“Good. Good,” Éamon said. “You keep with that.”

“Yes, sir.”

Éamon straightened, settling into his standard military bearing and proceeded to walk away. If he did so a little more stiffly than usual, Liam couldn’t blame the man. Instead, he snatched the sixty pounds off the seat and stuffed it into the pocket of his anorak. It was more money than he’d seen all at once in his life. Mary Kate was going to go ape. And maybe, just maybe if he wasn’t too late getting home she might not have one of her headaches.

Oran and Níal finished unloading the bags and relocked the boot. Then Níal headed home with a wave.

“Where to, Mr. Knievel?” Oran said, climbing into the front seat.

“You got it wrong. He rides a motorbike.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

“We’re to a nice abandoned car park,” Liam said. “We’ll change the wheels and then have a bit of a bonfire.”

“Looks like a late night.”

“Are you telling me you can’t change a tire all that fast, old man?”

Oran gave him an obscene gesture. “The cheek on the young these days. Set your barbs if you like. You’ll change your tune soon enough. I’m the one with the whiskey.”

At the car park, they loaded the stolen racing wheels into the back of Liam’s black cab. Then Liam got out his wrenches and approached the RS1600.

“What are you doing?” Oran asked.

“The plugs are new,” Liam said. “No sense in torching them.”

“Leave them.”

“They cost me, they did. Special performance ones for the racing, they are. And the Quartermaster won’t reimburse for them.”

Oran put a hand on his shoulder. “And what will the RUC think when they go to searching the burned out mess? ‘Oh, look someone took the time to remove the plugs before they abandoned the car? Now, who would do such a thing?’ The RUC are known to be a bit dim but even I should think they’d be looking into the garages after a thing like that. Leave them.”

A great deal of whiskey and several hours later, Liam staggered up the apartment building stairs with Oran’s help. It was about four o’clock in the morning, and Liam attempted to be as quiet as he could. Even so, Mary Kate opened the door before he’d gotten out his key. Dressed in a short white nightgown, she didn’t look pleased. All hopes of a proper welcome home evaporated when she sniffed and scrunched up her face in disgust.

“Evening, love.” Liam gave her what he hoped was his most charming smile. It didn’t have the desired effect, however, particularly after he tripped over the doorstep. Oran just about yanked his arm out of its socket pulling him back to his feet.