by Brady, John
Kelly’s face felt like it was ready to burst with the heat. His ankle was warm and numb now. He was almost sure he’d blacked out for a while after the son kicked him getting him into the back of the car.
There was smooth pavement now. The father put it into top gear and the car seemed to be just cruising indefinitely now. Kelly felt the panic rise again: they were taking him out of the city. He tried to plot where they were and quickly settled on the Phoenix Park. They had gone down the Liffey quays, and now had miles and miles of clear road ahead, roadway that had hundreds of acres of woods and broad fields to both sides. The park was a place for couples in cars, and carry-on at night, Kelly knew soon after starting here in Dublin. He remembered being amazed that there could be such a huge, wild-looking place so close to the centre of the city.
For several moments he imagined himself looking down on this car, with the night sky overhead and the car’s headlights carving through the darkness. How easy to just keep driving, he thought, just to keep going no matter what speed, until dawn and into the morning, just to see light. Then they’d see his face, they’d see how ordinary he was, how hurt he was. How could they not see then in the daylight how big a mistake this was, how they had to let him go?
“Are you a detective or what then?” from the father.
“No, I’m not, no.”
“Liar,” said the son. “You tailed the girls. Waiting for them, you bastard.”
“No, I swear.”
“You wanted to get her, to get them. So’s you could use it on us.”
“Jimmy,” the father said, before a phlegmy cough scattered his voice.
“You knew you could use her,” the son went on. “You knew you could get that dirty little scut with her.”
“Jimmy, give over a minute.”
“For Jesus’ sake Da, will you just stop the car and get this done? What are we doing driving around like this?”
“We wouldn’t be driving around like iijits in this situation – not if you’d of stopped for one bloody moment and consulted me–”
“Consult? What the hell are you saying, ‘consult’?”
“Don’t you dare talk to me like that, you pup, you.”
“You knew all about Breen, for ages, nosing around her. And you did nothing!”
“Listen to you making a show of us in front of a Guard. Making a show of your family! You haven’t paid attention to a damned thing I’ve tried to tell you!”
“I swear to God Da, you know nothing. Nothing! And you don’t want to know, do you? Yvonne would have been doing the business there on the canal if I’d let this go on any further, if you’d kept turning a blind eye! Something had to be done, don’t you see?”
The voices turned to hoarse shouts, and Kelly’s mind flooded with fear again.
The shouting stopped when the father had another fit of coughing. When he spoke again it was in a reedy voice.
“You and I need to talk,” he said.
“Talk to Kevin Breen, why don’t you.”
“I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Do you think we’re going to just walk away and go home and go back to bed, get up in the morning, and everything’s back to normal?”
“If you let me finish this, your worries are over.”
“My worries? Mine . . . ? You’ve said every name this fella can remember now. And here we are, driving around in the middle of the night on some kind of mad I-don’t-know-what, a crazy tour or something, and here you are, Mr. Genius, spilling out names and everything to a Guard. What do you think is going to come out of that?”
“At least I know what I’m doing.”
“What about your pal driving the car, with Yvonne in it. Have you thought of that?”
“Yvonne would never rat on her own family, as mad as she does be.”
“Wait a minute, what’s this family thing? Do you think this is The Godfather or something here? Is that what’s going on in that head of yours?”
“Yvonne would be shooting up if I hadn’t woken you up with this.”
“Don’t! Don’t say another word about my daughter! Just don’t. Your own sister. You’ll never know, never. Not until you’re a parent. And actually, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Your mother . . . ahh, what’s the use of talking.”
He slapped the wheel.
Kelly closed his eyes tight and held them for several seconds. He had to try, he told himself. Whatever happened, he had to try. The father knew it, that this son of his had painted them into a corner. Now he wanted to cry, but he held back.
He felt the car speed up, then turn as though it had found a purpose, that a decision had been made.
Kelly lost track of time. Several times he had tried to get his head up even a little. It had been the butt of the gun that had hit him on the spine the last time, he was sure of it. There had been stops, and more rough roadway, and quick turns. The car slowed, and then stopped, and the ignition was switched off.
There were stars in front of his eyes when they let him lift his head. Kelly saw that he had parked the car in the shadow of a tallish building. It looked like a warehouse. He felt pukey now, but breathed in deeply. His ankle was going from numb to a feeling that someone had fastened a clamp on it, with hot points that bit in tighter each minute.
He pretended he was stuck when Junior began to pull at his lapel, and he let himself fall over on his elbow across the back seat.
“It’s my ankle,” he said, “it’s gone numb, it’s broken.”
Jimmy pulled harder, but lost his grip and had to step to steady himself. Then he began to shout, and raised the gun.
Kelly watched the father come around the back of the car, his shoes sliding on gravel.
“Wait, Jimmy,” he called out. “Easy, now.”
“They put him there,” said the son. “The Drug Squad, somebody, whoever.”
The father looked down at Kelly while he cupped his hands around a fresh cigarette and lit it.
“Well, you get him out, then. We have to do this, I’m telling you. He’ll take us all down, you, me, Yvonne, me, everyone. Take him out or I’ll do him right there in the car.”
“We’ll do what we have to do, don’t worry. Just listen.”
“Get him out of there. Or get out of the way and I’ll do it, I’m not afraid to do it.”
“I know you’re not, I know. But I want to hear what he has to say first. Okay?”
Kelly felt a tiny glow of hope as he watched the smoke issue slowly from the man’s mouth and nose. This man must know his son is wired. It can’t have been the first time he’d seen something like this.
“Come out of the car there,” said the father. “Out.”
“I can’t.”
“Jimmy will take you out so. Do you want that? No. So get out.”
Kelly looked at him, but he didn’t move. He waited for the man to finish drawing on his cigarette to look over.
“Only if you–” Kelly started.
“No deals. This is serious. There’s only so much we can do.
Get out.”
The weary tone that had come into the voice paralyzed Kelly. It was telling him that he’d been wrong about the father, that the time had run out.
Numbly he watched the father lift his cigarette to his mouth again and turn away.
“I’m trying here,” he said, and he began to ease himself over the seat.
His palm dug into the top of the door as he grasped for balance. He hopped once, but kept his eye on Jimmy. He couldn’t stray from the car, he was sure, or it was over. He held the door from swaying, and spread out his other hand on the coolness of the door panel. He needed the father to turn around, to protect him just by looking at him.
“I can’t get anywhere with this ankle,” he said, and the son rushed at him almost immediately. He flinched and braced himself.
The blow down on his arm didn’t work the first time. He clung on to the door, but his foot had come down and he was blinded by the bolt of pain that ran up. He felt a glan
cing fist on his ear over his own cry and he fell, still hopping but trying to turn, he hoped, to fall on his good side.
“Look,” he heard above him. He recognized the father’s voice.
“You’ve got to listen to me here.”
The grit under his forearms and biting into his elbow was sharp.
“What am I going to do with you?” the father went on. “You’re Guard. You’ve got ears. You heard things. You saw things, whatever you saw earlier on. Didn’t you?”
“I didn’t see what happened.”
It was his own voice, back again, speaking calmly from a place somewhere near him.
“What happened, then?” from the son.
“I don’t know. I was just concerned, I was worried about the girls.”
The mocking groan came from the son.
“I’m getting married,” he blurted out.
“What?”
“I’m getting married; I was only working there to save up for the house.”
Nobody said anything. Kelly heard the phlegmy rasp of the father’s breath.
“It’s the last time I’ll go there to that club,” he added. “I hated it, in actual fact.”
“If you’d a knew this was going to happen you’d have stayed home. Is that what you’re going to tell me next?”
It was the father’s voice. Kelly didn’t know if he should say anything.
“Turn over this way,” went the father now. “Yeah, so’s you can see me. Is that glass under you? It’s car glass, don’t worry. Yeah, here. Can you see me? Good. Now listen.”
Kelly tried to see eyes in the silhouette of the man with the gun.
“Do you know who I am?”
“I do, I think.”
“There’s an honest answer for now. For a Guard.”
“He’s a plant,” said the son. “They keep tags on Yvonne. It’s to get at you, Da. Don’t you see that yet?”
“Are you Drug Squad, any of them?”
“No. I’m not, I’m just uniform.”
“Well, where are you? Your station, like.”
“Ballymun. All I’ve ever done is patrol, since I started.”
“Okay. Who am I then? Who’s he?”
“Well he’s your son, I think.”
“‘I think.’ Is he or isn’t he?”
“He must be.”
“Oh right,” said the father. “He’s cursing at me and annoying the heart and soul out of me, so he must be my son. Right?”
“Da, will you shut up and let’s get this fixed? What are we doing here, only walking into more trouble.”
“You hear that,” said the father, and flicked his cigarette again. He took a long drag on it and then threw it away. He watched it arc into the shadows and spark where it fell, and then it disappeared in the darkness.
“He’s a good lad, you know. Behind it all. When he doesn’t get his rag out over something and go mad entirely. Aren’t you, Jimmy?”
“I’m giving this one more minute,” said the son. “One. I swear. And then I’m doing what I should of done ten minutes ago. This is out of hand.”
The father’s head snapped around.
“You wait over there. You and your ‘out of hand.’ I can’t even think with you jabbering on there.”
“There’s nothing to think about! It’s time for doing something. Action.”
In the quiet after the shout Kelly heard dull metal thumps from far off. Trains, he wondered, shunting.
“Well, we seen you in action tonight, didn’t we,” said the father slowly.
“It was time someone stepped in.”
The father said nothing. He seemed to be searching the darkness where he had thrown the cigarette.
“It’s him or it’s us,” said the son, his voice rising again. “He walks from here and he takes everything. I’d be getting life, and so would you.”
“Wait in the car.”
The voice had been low. The son didn’t move.
“Please?”
Kelly heard a whispered curse, a mutter, but the son stayed. The father had a packet of cigarettes out again.
“You love this,” he said to Kelly, behind the flare of a match. He drew hard on the new cigarette.
“Don’t you? To hear us falling out.”
“No,” said Kelly.
“You know who I am?”
“Da! Are you a broken record or something?”
“Will you give over Da-ing me? Jesus, he knows who you are by now, if he has ears on him.”
Kelly nodded. “Mr. Rynn.”
“Come on now, you can do better. What do your crowd call me?”
“Jumbo Rynn, I think.”
“You think. Come on. What is it, Guards don’t use curse words anymore?”
“Well,” was all Kelly could think to say.
“Where do you think it got started?” Rynn went on. “Except from one of yours. That sergeant giving the interview to that newspaper there years ago. Here, tell me, did he get a dressing down for that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Bet you he got a bonus, so he did. Anyway: what’s the name, the full, official Garda name? Come on now. It’s important. Didn’t your ma tell you to tell the truth?”
“Jimmy . . . I don’t want to say it.”
“Say it.”
“Jimmy . . . Bloody . . . Rynn”
“Right. Top of the class. Okay: to finish the test here. Ready? Who’s going to win?”
“Jimmy Bloody Rynn.”
“Yes! I’m famous. Sour grapes by the ton. The State, with all their wigs and gowns lined up. You know how much I paid barristers to walk from that one, with their European Court of Human Rights and all that due process stuff, and your search and seizure that?”
“Da, this is useless,” the son called out.
Rynn spoke without taking his eyes off Kelly’s. “You wait over there,” he said. “And don’t interrupt me again.”
When the son didn’t move this time, Rynn stood.
“Whatever I do, I do,” he said to him. “Now go to the car.”
Kelly did not try to turn to watch as the footfalls went away.
“How do you know me anyway?”
“It’s just talk. Like, members talk.”
“‘Members’– oh, Guards, you mean. Only talk is it?”
“There’s pictures. In the station.”
“Junior too?”
The son, he meant, Kelly realized, Jimmy Junior.
“I never saw his there, no.”
Rynn looked back into the deeper shadows that lay beyond the reach of the street lights.
“You keep tabs as to who goes in and out of that club, don’t you?”
“Look,” said Kelly. “It was my last shift, I was sick of it–”
“Answer the question.”
“Only if I think there’s something to it. If they look like they’d be trouble later.”
“Who do you give that info to?”
“I don’t. It’s just a mental note, for myself. Nothing else, honestly.”
“Why did you let those headers in, the ones with my daughter?” Kelly let a few seconds go by trying to think what Rynn was getting at.
“Come on now. You’re well able to talk.”
“I thought the fella inside could handle that. On a weekday night, I mean.”
“Who? His name.”
“Mick. Weekends there’s two on the door, there has to be.”
Rynn let out a long, smoky breath from his nose. Then he turned aside and rubbed slowly at his face.
“Look,” he said. “Don’t try to cod me. You know what happened back there.”
At these words, and the quiet, almost regretful way that Rynn had said them Kelly’s mind rebelled. This was all an act. They had decided.
He felt that he weighed nothing now, that he could almost rise, and drift up into the night sky. He wondered if he was here at all, if maybe his mind hadn’t caught up to what had happened to the rest of him, and had escaped
on its own, after refusing to let this go on.
For a moment he saw himself floating over the city, seeing everything and everyone in it. He kept his eye on the dark form he took to be the son, just beyond the car. If the son was to sneak around behind to use the gun, he wanted to hear him, to be able to yell, at least.
“Right?”
Kelly felt his jaw beginning to go, his throat close with the urge to cry.
“You did your hero bit worrying about the two women. Brilliant move.”
“Look, I can,” and Kelly’s voice broke. The sobs wrenched his chest. The father waited. Kelly almost heard the seconds tick.
“You can . . . ? You can what? Are you making me an offer? What have you got?”
Kelly could stare back through the tears into the Dubliner’s face now. He wiped his nose with his sleeve, and tried again to stop the shivers running through his body.
“I’ll tell you something new, mister,” said Rynn. “If you live to see tomorrow’s newspaper, you’d read this: two low-life drug pushers, dealers, whatever they call themselves, I don’t know. Two low-lifes found de– what’s the word? Deceased, yes, suddenly deceased. Can you hear it on the news? ‘Deceased.’ So maybe your mates will hear it, you know, in the cop shop. Do they do a roll-call thing like on Hill Street Blues?”
Kelly nodded.
“Good. Well maybe there’ll be a little cheer will go up, do you think? Maybe your pals won’t hear it though, because they’ll be complaining about pay or Dublin or something. They’re worse than the bloody farmers, or the teachers.”
Kelly heard distant, slow thumps again, those same metallic clanks as before. There had to be a train station, or yards, near.
“They’ll cheer because their job was done for them. I mean to say, would you want your kid to be a heroin addict? Would you?”
The startled, sneering expression on that girl’s face flashed through Kelly’s mind.
“So don’t you be thinking you’re the family men, and we’re the bad guys on this.”
Kelly saw the dark form that was the son begin to move. Without taking his eyes from Kelly the father called out.
