Seventy Times Seven (23 page)

‘Hold on, sir, and I’ll put you through,’ said the operator eventually.

‘Hello?’

‘Mrs Fitzpatrick, it’s Danny here, I need to speak to Angela.’

‘She’s not here. She hasn’t come back from work and I haven’t heard from her. It’s not like her at all. I was hoping that was her on the phone.’

Danny felt a familiar feeling in the pit of his stomach.

‘I’m sure she’ll be in touch,’ he lied. ‘If you just let her know I called.’

‘If you talk to her first will you tell her to phone and let me know she’s safe?’

‘Sure enough.’

Danny hung up.

Someone was rounding up members of his family as an insurance policy. That could only mean one thing: they knew he hadn’t killed Finn O’Hanlon. There was even the possibility they knew the reason why. But who could have told them?

And who would want Quig McGuigan dead?

It wasn’t just the names that appeared on the list that were being targeted, but anyone who had handled the list. Danny stared blankly at the wall for a few moments then dialled another number.

‘My name’s Danny McGuire. Can you put me through to Mr De Garza?’

Sinner Joe watched the young man slam the receiver back on the wall and walk out of the café into the morning sunshine. The long slatted blind rattled noisily as the thin glass door closed with a bang behind him.

For a moment everything in ‘Must-go-Jean’s’ was still.

Sinner Joe glanced sideways at the old guy serving behind the counter.

‘You ever seen a grenade with the pin pulled out?’ he asked.

The old guy shook his head. ‘Can’t rightly say I have.’

 ‘Looks much the same on the outside as one with the pin still in,’ continued Sinner Joe. ‘Only difference being one of them is gonna make you cry out for your mommy.’

The rest area of ‘Must-go-Jean’s’ was situated off Interstate 20/59 about fifteen miles east of Cottondale. A large area of trees had been cleared to accommodate the low-rise Fifties building with space enough for about thirty trucks, but the building company had run out of money to tarmac the parking lot and left it unfinished. Over the years the weight of the trucks and their trailers had compacted the earth into a light-brown, potholed dustbowl.

Danny crossed the uneven ground to where he had parked the Cadillac and opened the boot. Inside, Sean and Marie were lying side by side in a foetal position on the floor.

Sean sat up gasping for air.

‘Jesus, Danny, what the hell was that all about? You were supposed to let us out when we reached the edge of town,’ said Sean, looking around as he clambered out, ‘not the edge of the eastern-bloody-seaboard. We were suffocating in there. Did you not hear us shouting?’

Marie climbed over the sill of the trunk and lowered herself stiffly onto the dusty expanse.

‘Is Bush still the president?’ she said without smiling.

Danny suddenly struck out and caught Sean full on the side of the face with his clenched fist. The blow knocked him to the ground where he lay with his eyes closed.

Marie stood frozen with a look of shock on her face. It appeared as if Sean had been knocked unconscious, but just as she was about to go over to him he raised himself up on his elbows and spoke.

‘Nice one, Wub. Not exactly how I’d imagined our reunion, but you never were blessed with the gift of the gab. I thought you’d have more to say than that, though.’

‘I’ve got plenty more to say, don’t you worry,’ replied Danny.

‘You been driving along getting yourself all wound up? That wee paranoid brain of yours running through everything that’s happened to you in the last eight years and blaming it all on me?’ Sean looked up at Marie and continued. ‘Here’s the extent of your typical Irishman’s conversation. We do most of our talking with our fists. I’m going to stand up now, Wub, but I warn you, if you try that again I’ll kick the shite out of you. And don’t think cause you’re my wee brother I’ll take it handy.’

Danny had the Walther PPK in his hand, pointing it at Sean.

‘And don’t you think just cause you’re my brother I won’t blow your fucking head off,’ he said. ‘You’re already dead so it won’t make any difference as far as I can see. I don’t care if you’re the Thevshi or not. I don’t care what you’ve done to me. That’s not why I feel like putting a bullet in your brain right now. It’s what you’ve done to your family, and what you’ve done to our ma.’

Sean shook his head. ‘Jesus, put the gun away, Wub. If I stand up and get it off you I’ll crack it over your bloody head. This is the second time tonight you’ve pointed that thing at me and it’s beginning to piss me off. Use it or stick it up yer arse.’

They were staring each other out: Sean daring Danny to shoot.

‘Go on then, you little fucker, either pull the trigger or put the bloody thing away.’

Marie felt helpless to intervene. The situation looked like it was about to explode and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

Danny held Sean’s stare as he spoke.

‘Delores?’

Marie looked at Danny blankly, then realised that although he was looking at Sean he was actually talking to her.

‘It is Delores, isn’t it?’ he continued.

‘No‚ Marie: Marie Bain,’ she replied.

‘Fair enough, Marie.’ Danny held his hand out to shake hers. ‘Danny McGuire.’

‘I knew it wasn’t Mr Leonard!’ said Marie, almost triumphantly. ‘That was the only bit you lied about.’

Marie was relieved that his attention seemed to be on her now and not shooting his brother. ‘Your lying zone is to the right, did you know that? His I’m still not sure about,’ she said‚ referring to Sean.

‘It doesn’t matter which way he’s looking. Everything he says is a lie,’ said Danny.

Sean had also raised his hand towards Marie. ‘Sean McGuire. How you doing?’ Marie took a step forward and shook his hand as well.

‘Ah‚ the McGuire brothers, that explains a lot . . . I thought you looked familiar when I first saw you in the apartment,’ she said, addressing Danny. ‘So who the hell is Finn O’Hanlon?’

‘Me,’ replied Sean, ‘but only for the last eight years. Mostly I was – and always have been – Sean McGuire.’ Sean had a question too. ‘Who the hell’s Delores?’

‘No one,’ replied Marie. ‘I’m not good under pressure, it was the first name that popped into my head.’

‘Marie, would you do me a favour?’ asked Danny. ‘Would you go into the café and ask Sinner Joe if he’s got room in his cabin for a few passengers?’

‘Sinner Joe! Are you kidding?’ replied Marie. ‘There’s a guy in there called Sinner Joe? He’ll be the one wearing the sackcloth and ashes and beating himself with a switch?’

‘You’ll know who he is when you see him,’ said Danny.

‘Why would he want to give us a lift?’ asked Marie.

‘Five thousand dollars,’ replied Danny. ‘If he wants more, turn round and walk out.’

Marie didn’t look too sure. ‘Does Sinner Joe have a donkey and cart big enough to take us all?’

‘Don’t worry; I think you’ll find him receptive. The guy’s got some previous. Has a few interesting jail tats on his face. I’m pretty sure he knows the score.’

‘Why don’t you go and ask?’

‘Sean and I have got some
talking
to do.’

‘I’ll go, but only if you’ll let me take the gun. Don’t want you boys shooting each other just for the fun of it . . . you know what brothers are like.’

Danny flipped the safety catch on and handed her the gun.

‘You sure Sinner Joe is his real name?’ she continued. ‘Seems to me everybody round here’s got a goddamn nom-de-guerre.’ Marie tucked the gun behind her back and walked across the car park towards the entrance of ‘Must-go-Jean’s’ café. She heard a faint scuffling noise behind her and the smack of flesh on flesh, but didn’t turn round to see who had landed the first punch.

‘If I’d known we were going to be this busy I’d have hired in some help. What can I get for you, young lady?’ asked the old guy behind the counter as Marie entered the café.

Marie was standing looking at ten or so empty booths and a guy sitting on his own at the end of the counter finishing off a huge plate of fried food. The guy was in his late forties and had three teardrops tattooed on his right cheek that were surrounded by a face full of craters. His nose had been broken so many times it looked like it was no longer fit for purpose. He chewed everything with his mouth open and sounded like a pig with a bad cold. His hands were covered in crude tattoos that had faded and blurred over time until they were barely distinguishable as anything other than dirty marks. She figured this must be him, but thought she’d better ask. ‘Any of you gentlemen go by the name of Sinner Joe?’

The guy with the teardrops stopped eating and looked up from his plate. The older guy tipped his ‘Birmingham Barons’ baseball cap a little further back on his forehead and pulled on his cigarette. ‘It ain’t obvious to you?’ he asked.

‘It is, but I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings by asking the wrong guy.’

The man behind the counter wheezed out three small clouds of smoke as he laughed to himself. ‘Well let’s just say I’m already hurt. Always considered myself to have an angelic face, but just goes to show. Come over here and sit down, I’ll get you a coffee. You want anything to eat?’

‘No thanks,’ replied Marie, ‘coffee’s fine.’

She walked over to the counter and pulled out a stool.

Sinner Joe’s narrow eyes stared at her with suspicion. ‘What d’you want, lady?’

Marie turned to face him. ‘My friends and I were wondering if you had any space in your cabin.’

Sinner Joe took his time to answer. ‘Where you heading?’

‘Where you going?’

‘Don’t seem to me like it’d matter much. How many of you are there?’

‘Three.’

The guy nodded to himself and repeated it like it was more than significant. ‘Three, huh? They all as pretty as you?’

Something in the tarry gravel of his voice and the way he stared straight at her when he asked the question made the hairs on the back of Marie’s neck stand on end.

‘The other two are out in the lot beating each other to death so I doubt they’ll be looking their best, but I guess it depends on what you call pretty.’

The old guy placed a chipped mug on the counter top in front of her and poured some coffee from a stainless-steel pot that he’d somehow managed to stain. ‘You in the same party as the hothead came in to use the phone?’

‘You could say.’

‘Coffee with cream?’

‘Milk‚ please, just a splash.’

‘Sugar?’

‘I’m fine, thanks.’

‘You want my opinion he’s running around with the safety off,’ said Sinner Joe, like he’d been giving the situation some thought prior to Marie coming in. ‘Presents himself as “Mr Ordinary”, but he got some cordite behind those eyes and acting like someone’s just lit the blue touch-paper. They fighting over you?’

‘No. From what I can gather it’s because they’re brothers and they’re Irish. Who knows? They were hugging each other half an hour ago.’

Sinner Joe pushed his plate aside and flicked a cigarette from a soft pack of Camels. ‘How’d you get here?’ he asked.

‘What d’you mean?’

‘Did you walk, fly, drive? How’d you get to “Must-go Jean’s”?’

‘Drove,’ replied Marie.

‘Your car busted? See, I’m wondering why you need a lift.’ Sinner Joe didn’t give her a chance to answer. ‘Don’t worry, I’m just riding you, lady. I don’t give a damn how you got here. I’m more interested in calculating how much it’s going to cost you to get away from here. What’s your name?’

Marie didn’t have to think this time. ‘Delores.’

‘And what are your friends called, “Delores”?’ He gave her name a little squeeze to let her know he didn’t believe her, but he was happy to play along.

‘Finn and Mr Leonard.’

‘How much you got?’

‘Three thousand.’

‘Each. I’d say that’s just about correct.’

‘Three thousand in total,’ said Marie.

Sinner Joe flicked his Zippo along his faded black jeans and lifted it to his mouth. He took one long draw on the cigarette and let the smoke slowly fill his lungs. When he spoke again, Marie was struck by how little of the smoke re-emerged.

‘Delores, you need to tell Finn and Mr Leonard they gonna have to get a tow-truck, cause nine thou is as low as I can go.’

Marie took a sip of coffee and stood up. ‘How much is the coffee?’

‘Afraid it’s a dollar,’ replied the old guy behind the counter, with a frown. ‘In case there’s a next time, it’s free if you order something to eat.’

Marie placed a ten-dollar bill on the counter and headed for the door without waiting for the change.

She got as far as twisting the handle before Sinner Joe spoke again.

‘I guess I could do it for three . . . but it’s got to be cash: I don’t accept cards or cheques. Gasoline is over and above.’

Danny was a slow burner. When he was younger he’d take a lot of pushing around before he’d react – then without warning, he’d explode. Every detail of every indiscretion, however minor, would be recalled and thrown back in a single angry outburst: he never forgot. If fists were flying, he would battle to the end even if it were obvious he wasn’t going to win. Danny had no ‘off’ button. When he did snap – in Sean’s experience – the best thing to do was get out of the way. Sean had no reason to believe that things were any different now – it was going to be a long and dirty scrap. He tried to stand up and was caught with a hard right hook that knocked him back to the ground.

‘Now listen to me, you little fucker,’ said Sean, trying his best to stay composed. ‘I don’t want to fight, all right? If you just calm yourself down then I’ll answer any questions you want to throw at me. But if all you’re after is a punch-up, then I’m not interested. That said, if you lay a hand on me again I’ll rip you to shreds . . . understood?’

Danny’s eyes were ablaze. There was so much he wanted to say. His mother’s breakdown, Órlaith’s grief, Lep’s death, the dozen or so lives Danny had taken in the mistaken belief that he was avenging his brother’s death and now Angela’s and Niamh’s disappearance: these were the grim consequences of Sean’s bogus ‘murder’. There were so many questions, but in the end they boiled down to just one.

‘What . . . the . . . hell . . . happened?’

Danny spat each word out like a bullet across the arid patch of earth.

Sean picked himself up slowly from the ground and slapped the dust from his trousers with the palm of his hands, not once losing eye contact with Danny.

‘Well, if you stop throwing your goddamn fists around for a second I’ll tell you.’

Every night for the past eight years Sean had rehearsed the words in his head; he had imagined this meeting so many times. But now that Danny was standing in front of him and he had to say them for real, it was suddenly much more difficult.

‘Obviously you got my message. I haven’t been able to get a hold of Lep so I wasn’t sure if he’d passed it on. After two eejits tried to whack me in a bar I figured he must have told someone.’

‘He did pass it on – but it cost him his life,’ replied Danny.

Finn was visibly shaken by this news. ‘Ah dear‚ God rest his soul.’

It was a while before he spoke again.

‘I was working secretly for the IRA as an intelligence officer, gathering information on suspected informers mostly, but my main target was the Thevshi – “The Ghost”. Every time it looked like I was getting close to discovering who the bastard was something would go wrong. My source would either disappear or get themselves murdered, or both. I was also doing a double-shuffle with the Special Branch at the time: low-impact shit. Feeding them just enough to make them think I was on their side. But all I was trying to do was find out who knew what, if anything‚ about “The Ghost”. Then one day I was taken up to Castlereagh by my handler – a guy called Frank Thompson. He was there with a couple of other officers, but they were all as edgy as hell. Something was obviously going on, but I had no idea what. Halfway through the interview someone comes in and whispers something in Thompson’s ear and the next thing they all disappear out the room, leaving me sitting there on my own: only they’ve left the door open. After about half an hour I’m still sitting there twiddling my thumbs, but I need to visit the gents’. So I wandered off down the corridor, did a piss and when I came out of the bog, there’s cops running up and down the corridors looking for me. They dragged me back to the room and there’s Thompson sitting waiting for me. Only now, the atmosphere is very different. “Where the fuck have you been?” he says. “For a pish,” says I. Then he starts in on me, asking me what I saw, did I overhear anything: coming on all aggressive now. I told him the only thing I’d seen was my dick and the only thing I’d heard was the toilet flushing. But something had him rattled. From that day onward it all changed. I could never get a hold of Frank and he wouldn’t return my calls. Then I started getting the phone-calls threatening to kill me . . . threatening to kill Órlaith . . . even threatening to kill you.’