On the Edge of the Loch: A Psychological Novel set in Ireland (35 page)

Then there he was, black-uniformed, leering, in all his big flesh, tobacco-brown mouth, club thumping against his thigh.

Tony held out both books, books he’d been ordered to deliver. Right from the start it had felt wrong. Now he knew it was, this big sick shit reading books.

A hand gesture ordered him in.

‘Have to get back,’ he said, as blank as he could, offering the books again. Yablonski’s eyebrows tightened. Tony was certain now, something was going on. The voice in his brain screamed stop, don’t go through the door, not with a pervert armed and deadly, cut off by steel. But here no one said no; there was no way to say no, no rights, no recourse, no justice, no escape. After midnight, the only power that reigned was towering over him, rapacious eyes sizing its prey.

‘Inside!’ Yablonski commanded, the club hot-dogged in his hands. Tony remained still. Yablonski approached, blood in his cheeks. No rights, no choices here, the facts scorched Tony’s mind. No opportunity to fight, or escape. He edged forward, crossed the steel track.

* * *

The sound of his own outburst shot him upright in the seat, to be met by a busload of staring passengers. Then another gust set them all back to bracing, to navigating the road that was taking them to their destinies.

He tried to slow his pounding heart, settle his shaking. Seven years had passed since that night, since King Kong Yablonski. He was twenty-one then, but it was branded to his soul in all its detail.

Minutes later, he refolded his jacket, lay back across both seats. He’d rest, stay awake, hold Lenny in his thoughts and senses: her
Opium
scent, dancing hair, her smooth warmth wrapping around him, just Lenny and him, their nights together at Greyfriars and Rock Cottage, light at last in the misery he had lived, let it fill his mind.

But hard as he clung to her, his recent experiences in Dublin flooded back: deserted streets, the strangest dark he’d ever known, if his mind was not fooling him; and that voice inside him that had taken over, that he could not stifle, and the endless walking, foreign streets, if it was real, wasn’t imagined. And Aidan Harper. And what Tony MacNeill now had to do, his next move, one that seemed unthinkable, but would be done. For he still had hope, hope for the life and love he’d just begun to know.

Each time his eyes closed he forced them open, kept the dark at bay. But now they stung like thorns. Then Yablonski’s face reappeared. Soon he’d bury that too, he thought, for ever, in the grave of vampires and tyrants, put a stake through his heart, never to rise again. Yablonski, Yablonski, big battered bastard, Yablonski rot forever. Yablonski. He was fading, falling, back into Yablonski’s lair.

* * *

Inside the steel door, he froze, mind racing. Can’t run or call out, he thought. Nobody near, no guards in the wing. No escape hatch.

‘You hearing me, boy?!’ Yablonski snarled.

He moved one step forward. The Shift Commander’s arm powered past him, fingers stabbing at the code pad.

‘I have to get the paper done. It’s just me in the shop. Billy Headington got out yesterday.’

The door stopped sliding, clacked shut.

Yablonski glared. ‘Don’t know no cons read the paper this late. Except pretty little foreign boys, could be.’

‘Paper’s running late. The front page isn’t done.’ Tony’s voice exposed none of the fear rampaging through him. ‘That’s why I need – ’

‘I know all about you. Who’d you think fixed your shift, boy?’ Yablonski thumped the club against his own massive chest. ‘Because right off I knew I could like you. Cute way you talk. Top of that you’re a smart boy; ain’t like them dumb fucks you and me gotta live with. Good shape you got there too, real tight; appreciate that in a man.’

The club pointed to the inner office.

Tony glanced to where he was being directed then back at Yablonski. He’d go along for now, had to, but he’d kill the fucker, he swore, if he put his paws near him; take his eyes out first, ram them into his head, do things he never let himself do on the street, then he’d snap the fucker’s jugular, rupture his solar plexus, crush his balls.

At the inner office door it was the man’s white flesh that jarred him first. A slight man about his own age, long fair hair, wearing only white briefs, perched on the arm of a leather sofa, shaking, trying to cover himself, clearly not a con.

Yablonski locked the inner door, made a show of dropping the key into his chest pocket and buttoned it closed. Tony needed no explanations. His muscles and fists ached. Strike hard, strike now, he felt, he could do that, had to, couldn’t let this happen, no fucking way could he let this happen. His eyes scanned for a weapon, anything he could use. Burst the fucker now, he decided, right now, smash his skull.

‘Mr Stapf. Come over from Germany,’ Yablosnki said, puckering his lips in a mock kiss. ‘Town lock-up’s full. Station boys loaned us Wolfgang for the night. Obliging of them.’

Tony shifted his weight onto his toes, eyed the club, then saw it was strapped to Yablonski’s wrist. Go at him low, with everything, go hard, bring him down, three hundred pounds against hard tile; he could do it, he decided, he could take him down. Pick the moment, set a back-up plan, do what he was better than most at, fight. But not yet, when the distance between them lessened.

‘Asleep in an automobile. Believe that? Inside city limits. Violation.’ The Shift Commander grabbed the man’s blond hair, yanked him to his feet. ‘Figure that,’ he said, glancing toward Tony. ‘No sir, Mr hippie! Bad, bad, bad mistake.’ He pushed his face into the young man’s face and spoke with cheerfulness. ‘For your crime, you get to entertain us right up to 7am.’

‘I have to get back,’ Tony said assertively. ‘Inspection will be checking for me.’

Yablonski released the trembling man, drifted to the side, circled about. From behind, the club snapped like a branch into Tony’s ribs. He recoiled. The room blurred, he knew he was going down, banging against the desk, kneecaps thudding, head smacking the floor, no feeling. Then his senses were returning, pain surging. He hadn’t seen it, didn’t anticipate it, a loser’s mistake he never made in Newark. Now the street code kicked in. Get up, he commanded his body. Get up! MacNeills didn’t stay down. Get Up! His legs pushed up, but gave way.

* * *

‘Uuuppppp! Get up!’

Something squeezed his shoulder, shook him, shook him again, a voice talking to him, small hands on his forehead, in his hair, tugging at his busted side. His eyes burst open, he tried to make sense of what was happening. A girl. In his face. What was she doing? Huge purple-blue eyes very, like lanterns shining, so close. Who? Why?

‘It’s alright, you’re alright, only a nightmare you were having,’ the bright face said. ‘Don’t be worrying. I’ve been in far horribler storms than this; believe me, I have, far horribler.’

He wanted to reject her, dismiss her concern, be left alone, but he was in a stall, still muddled. Then all her unpainted naturalness came into focus: beautiful face, perfectly made, thin, kind, warm.

‘You okay, are you? You awake? I’m Cáitlín. Hi, you okay?’

‘Crazy dream,’ he said, pushing his hands through his hair. ‘I’m fine, I’m fine now, thanks.’

‘You’re from Dublin. What part?’

‘North side.’

‘I’m a Dub, too, Dundrum. I noticed you getting on with your pack. I bet that fella’s been all over the world, I said to myself. Then when I heard someone shout out, I couldn’t see who it was, but I guessed it was you; don’t know why but I did. I’m off to see the granny, in Carna; she’s ninety-one, still galloping around the place. Sure you’re alright? Truth is I hate storms; the wind especially, I hate the wind. If you want me to, I’ll sit beside you; help keep the nightmares away. Do me good, too.’

He shook his head. ‘I’ll be fine. I can stretch out here. No sleep in days.’

‘No bother. Bound to be over soon.’ A mix of pleasantness and disappointment radiated from her. ‘Try to get your rest. I’ll wake you up if we stop, in case you feel like a cup of tea.’

Once again he pillowed his jacket on the armrest and settled himself. Despite the howling and battering, before long he was capitulating. Back he slipped, further back, deep into sleep.

* * *

Down, the voice in his head kept repeating, he was on the ground still; can’t stay down, can’t stay down. His head was a jangle of noise, body damaged, pain burning in his side. Beneath his face the blood moved slowly, dark purple on terra-cotta tiles. The metal club, he’d been caught by it, sucker blow. The young undressed man was trying to sit him up. Yablonski, legs astride, weapon swinging, was standing over them.

He cursed his disobedient brain. Stay down and you’re dead, his street voice kept warning. He made it to his hands and knees, pulled his body up, felt around his side and shoulder. The club was pointing at him now. He straightened into the pain, looked into the Shift Commander’s bloodshot eyes, eyes his avenging hands would rip out given one half chance. And he heeded his own code, learned a long time ago: show no pain, dig quietly for strength, be harder than the enemy, be like steel, that was how to stay alive.

‘Wipe that look off you, boy!’ Yablonski said, unhooking steel handcuffs from his belt. ‘Never ever do that, never ever smart-talk me. Y’hear? Said I like you, and I do. You obey me, be my buddy, and no one in here’ll trouble you less they answer to me. See, you and me, we can have us a whole lot of fun with our little hippie here. You get me? Huh? You follow me?’

Tony glared at him but didn’t answer.

‘Putting these cuffs on you because y’aint big but you got yourself a real strong shape, and something I can’t figure about you, could be a real wildman for all I know.’

The young man rose off the sofa arm, his body shiny with sweat. ‘Sir, I don’t know I break the rules to be sleeping in car. I know now, I don’t do it again. Never.’

‘You’re in Florida now, Mr hippie-man; quit your whining. We got ordinances down here for violators, bikers, draft dodgers, communists, long-haired hippies, all kinds low-life. We lock y’up!’

The Shift Commander busied himself about the room, all the time mimicking the man’s pleas. Then the sound of scraping metal riveted Tony’s attention, a long bayonet being drawn from inside the club. Yablonski held it aloft, sighed reverentially.

‘Yes sir, you young boys gotta learn how to show respect. Old momma here’s cut real men, cut real good, big men, small men.’ He slid the blade back into its shaft and flung it onto a low credenza, where it thudded against the wall and came to rest.

Tony’s eyes stayed with it, surreptitiously. He needed no education on what was coming. No sense in waiting, he told himself. Knock him out of the way, get the weapon; any weapon.

As though alerted, Yablonski retrieved the club and made for Tony, now supporting his weight against a heavy desk. Yablonski pushed him aside, threaded a plastic hand-restraint through a hole drilled through the desk’s metal overhang, looped a second restraint through the first and secured it around Tony’s wrists; only then did he unlock the steel cuffs.

Covert flexing had brought a degree of suppleness back to Tony’s hand. Beneath the overhang his fingers found a burr around the hole and started grinding the plastic restraint. He followed every move of Yablonski, watched shirt and shoes being removed, the unbuckling of the service belt. If he could make it to the club, he felt sure he could handle the bastard, best odds he’d get. And what then? Could he kill if he had to, if that’s what it took? He hoped he had what it took. Then what? Capital murder, death row? None of that mattered that much any more. He’d lost with life already. Just crack the pervert. Be proud.

Yablonski stepped out of his black uniform pants, draped them over the credenza. Tony dug into his reserves, questioned his body’s readiness for what he was prepared to do. He rehearsed strike options, tried to flex and release his muscles, but his lacerated fingers were making grinding more difficult. At times his efforts seemed in vain, but each time he willed himself through, in honour of Witchell Heights he told himself, when he was king on the street, unbeatable.

Yablonski, slapping about in Bermuda-style undershorts, had disappeared for minutes behind a narrow annex door. He returned concealing something within a folded towel, which he laid down. He grabbed the young man’s hair, forced him face-down over the sofa-back and held up the bayonet. ‘How about that, Mr hippie-man: number fifty,’ he said then looked toward Tony. ‘Bookworm’s fifty-one. Whole lot prettier. And he ain’t no pussy. Fact, red-boy could be a problem, shape like that. Come his turn, gotta lock him down good.’

The young man straightened up, tried to speak, but only convulsed.

‘Never had me no Nazi, far’s I can figure. And ain’t had no hippie since Christmas before last, must be.’

‘Sir, officer,’ the man cried. ‘Officer, please, sir – ’

Yablonski’s hand gripped the man’s throat. ‘Gimme any shit, your dick goes in my dick jar. Get me?’ He forced the man back over the sofa-back, held him down, then scraped the bayonet tip diagonally across his back, releasing a thin line of blood. The man screeched, wriggled violently, until a heavy fist thudded into the back of his skull, dropping him forward. Yablonski flung the unshafted blade onto the credenza.

‘Mein gott, mein gott, vater, mutti, nein, nein.’

In that instant it happened. The plastic cuff gave way; just the stringy outer shell was left. Tony hid his shock; his blood-matted hands were almost free. He assessed: eight feet to the credenza, three strides, blade pointing toward him. One chance, that’s all he’d get. If he could spring, he figured, get the weapon, he’d have power, adrenaline, new strength, time to breathe; once the blade was his he’d be safe. He’d die before giving it up. Might have to. Die a fighting MacNeill. Not so bad. Maybe this was the day of the end of everything. Though his whole body was shaking now, more than he could ever remember, he’d fight, no question, harder than he’d ever fought.

He pressed all his weight against the burr, bore the pain of metal tearing his flesh. A few more seconds, he told himself, until, unlike the first time, he’d face killing with intent, with someone to save if he succeeded, besides himself. He’d make certain the swine never raped again. This was his sacred oath, and it felt freeing. Then a wave of fear made him think of his parents and sisters, Kate’s loving kiss before they shifted him to Florida. But no, no, he had to wipe all that away, couldn’t help him now. Stay strong, focus, keep control, be hard, fast, brave, unmerciful, get the weapon!