The Going Rate

by John Brady

  Was this what they called the terrible twos? Bríd wondered if it was some separation anxiety thing and she felt guilty, especially at the babysitter’s. But even during their worst arguments she had never come out straight and told him that she wanted him to take over the breadwinning thing and let her stay at home with Aisling.

  He pushed the edges of the hardening yolks as they began to flap. He’d lost count of the number of times Bríd had fallen asleep with Aisling at bedtime only to wake up with a start herself and start marking student stuff until well after eleven. All the while he’d had his notebooks out pretending to work, or revising, or editing.

  “I was having a dream,” she murmured. A small wistful smile appeared, and she opened her eyes.

  “You’ll never guess,” she said, and yawned. “This guy knocks at the door. He wants to buy your script off you. ‘Any price,’ he says and he wants to make it. And we have to go with him to Hollywood so we can coach him getting the Irish accent right…”

  She opened her eyes wide and stared at him.

  “Brad Pitt auditioned” she whispered, “I’m ashamed to say.”

  A surge of irritation swept through Fanning. He felt he was losing control of the muscles in his face and neck. He tried to hold a smile, but he had to turn away.

  “It must be a good omen,” she murmured. He knew she was still smiling.

  “Well,” he began to say, his throat almost too tight to let the words through. He stopped when the phone went.

  Chapter 14

  HUGHES LED THE TWO WOMEN DOWN TO THE FOYER. Minogue followed. In the lift, Hughes was at pains to repeat something he had spent considerable time on earlier.

  “I hope that Mrs. Klos leaves here certain that…”

  Mrs. Klos nodded with the translation.

  “Certain that we’ll do our best. We’ll treat this as we treat any murder.”

  Hughes glanced at Minogue as Danute Juraksaitis translated this.

  Mrs. Klos made a bleak, momentary smile and resumed her stare at the worn symbol on the Door Close button. There was awkwardness at the door out of the building.

  “Mrs. Klos has a place to stay, I suppose,” Hughes said. “May I ask?”

  “In Fairview,” Danute Juraksaitis said. “Bed-and-breakfast.”

  “She has people here?” Minogue asked.

  Danute Juraksaitis asked Mrs. Klos something.

  “Yes. There is a priest. He is Polish. And she knows the Polish newspaper and shops.”

  “And to contact Mrs. Klos it’s best I should…?”

  “It is better you phone me first.”

  Hughes took out her card and turned it over.

  “Mobile. It is on always.”

  No-one knew what to say or do then.

  “Sure we can’t give you a lift?” Hughes asked.

  “My car is parked a hundred metres down this street.”

  There were no handshakes. The two women prepared to head out into Harcourt Street. Hughes said “God bless,” something Minogue could not remember hearing for many a year. He heard what sounded like the word “Christ” in the translation. A ruined smile came to Mrs. Klos’ face.

  “Thank you, thank you. Yes, thank you.”

  Both he and Hughes watched the women gain the footpath and soon disappear from view. It was nearly one o’clock.

  “Jeeee——sus,” Hughes whispered then and let out a big breath. “Glad that’s over with.”

  He turned to Minogue.

  “So how do you think it went?”

  “As good as it could, I suppose.”

  “The language thing though – that’s a killer. Like, I don’t want her coming back at us, you know, ‘they didn’t explain this, they didn’t explain that.’ You know?”

  “I daresay we’ll be okay on that one.”

  Hughes cocked an eye at him.

  “Not the mother. I mean the other one. Ms. Juraksaitis.”

  Hughes’ tartly precise enunciation caused Minogue to turn from his covert survey of three detectives waiting on the lift.

  “Well she didn’t exactly give off the best vibes,” Hughes said. “Did she.”

  Minogue remembered her glasses, how she turned her hands when she translated.

  “Well it was great you were there,” Hughes said then. “So thanks.”

  Minogue tried to remember if Danute Juraksaitis had a Polish accent or not. It puzzled him that he had not noticed.

  “Mind me asking a question?” Hughes asked. “Now, I’m sure you’ve been asked a thousand times.”

  “Fire away.”

  “Do you miss it, the Squad?

  Minogue had had plenty of practice in prevaricating.

  “Oh I don’t know,” he said, easily. “All the high tech and training nowadays? It was time to decentralize, I suppose.”

  Hughes raised an eyebrow. Minogue felt the return of the hunger he had been ignoring during the interview.

  “Does Mrs. Klos know what’s coming up?” he asked Hughes. “The arrangements, the release of the body?”

  “I told the embassy one, Miss Juraksaitis. The body could be released within a few days if the toxicology’s done and clear. Then I suppose she’d bring him back home – the mother, I mean. And that’s another thing.”

  “What is, Kevin?”

  “Ah, that one, Juraksaitis. I asked her if the mother’d get help, making the arrangements. ‘Arrangements will be made,’ says she. Just like that. And changes the subject right away. Like it’s not my place to be asking.”

  “It could be a language thing.”

  “Hah. She speaks better English than I do. No, I have a feeling about that one. I say that she’s not that thrilled to be involved. I mean this Klos man is, uh, was not top shelf, strictly speaking. And she knew he had been done for petty crime, sure. Maybe diplomats turn up their noses at this type of work.”

  Hughes made a fluttering motion with his fingers. Minogue thought of the missing pages from the file fluttering higher up the more desolate slopes.

  “Or just doesn’t like having to deal with coppers,” Hughes added.

  Hughes stretched, and spoke in a faux-Polish accent.

  “‘Arrangements will be made.’”

  Minogue tapped his file folder, and silently cursed the slow lift here.

  “I wonder,” Hughes said then, shaking off a yawn at the same time. “What it costs anyway. You know, ‘the arrangements’?”

  “No idea.”

  “‘Cargo’ and so forth,” Hughes murmured. “Cost a fair whack, I’m sure. Whatever the going rate is for–”

  Minogue looked over at Hughes’ abrupt pause. Hughes grimaced and said something under his breath. Great, Minogue thought: he’d be taking Hughes’ flu, or whatever he had, soon enough himself now.

  “Funny phrase,” Hughes said, letting his breath slowly out his nose. “That ‘going rate.’” I suppose things stick in your head, like that.”

  “‘Young people of Ireland…’” said Minogue.

  Hughes smiled. “The Pope,” he said, quickly. “The old pope, I mean. John Paul. The Polish pope.”

  “I thought it might be a bit far back for you,” Minogue said.

  “No way. My family went to that big mass, above in the Phoenix Park. And me dragged along with them.”

  “You and the rest of the million people.”

  “You too?”

  “Ah no,” said Minogue. “I was out of the country. Unfortunately.”

  “But you’re right,” said Hughes. “How a phrase sticks in your mind. You see, I was on to a certain party yesterday, beating the bushes for any info on street crime there around where the poor man was beat up. Murdered I should say. Something in the drugs and street crime line, I was angling for, pointers, like. This fella I was talking to is the man to go to, I hear. Drugs Central, but runs his own thing.”

  “Ah.”

  “So, I’m talking to him, you know, see if he or any of the other cowboys – sorry, Drug Squad – will put out
feelers about Klos. ‘Up to our necks,’ he says. Tells me about the shootings, you know, the gang stuff and all.”

  “It’s always that way in Drugs, I hear.”

  “I know that,” said Hughes. “But it would mean a lot to us, I says to him, you know. ‘Okay,’ says he, and I think I’m getting somewhere. ‘How much would it mean,’ says he. ‘I don’t get it,’ says I. ‘What’s the going rate?’ says he.”

  “Quid pro quo,” said Minogue.

  The lift bell rang at last. Three detectives went in first.

  “Well what have I got, I could give him? More like a ‘get lost’ to me.”

  “Tommy is sound,” Minogue tried. “Lot of pressure on the job there.”

  “You know who I’m talking about?”

  For a moment, Minogue believed that he was well and truly had, that Hughes was setting him up.

  “Tommy Malone. Yes, I do.”

  “Well small world,” said Hughes, following Minogue into the lift. His tone seemed genuine to Minogue now. They stood next to the doors.

  Minogue could almost sense Hughes thoughts turning over.

  “I wonder,” Hughes began, hesitating over his words. “If it’d be out of order asking you, if you could maybe, you know…?”

  Minogue thought of Mrs. Klos, her hands that wouldn’t stop shaking. Bed-and-breakfast, Fairview. A stranger in a strange land.

  Chapter 15

  MALONE WAS IN A CAR SOMEWHERE WHEN MINOGUE CALLED. He was more than a bit surly.

  “Hughes is being taken care of,” he told Minogue. “Tell him to get his hearing checked.”

  “He believes that I have an in with you,” Minogue said.

  “Really. Well I believe Posh Spice is my half-sister.”

  “It’s working its way through, I’ll tell him then?”

  “Tell him what you like.”

  “Did I tell you it’s murder, that the man is dead?”

  “Twice already. Is it your case?”

  “I sat in, that’s all. He’s a Foreign National. But the man’s mother is here. An only son. The father is a ne’er-do-well, not involved at all. The mother’s on her own here, well except for someone from the consulate.”

  “Sounds to me like Hughes is after guilting you. So now he can jump the queue here and get the glory.”

  “He doesn’t want the glory, Tommy.”

  “Wait a minute, will you, hold on, I think I see Santa Claus here, oh look, it’s the Tooth Fairy as well.”

  “Did you hit the sack at all over the past few days?”

  “Oh, I know where this is going. ‘You sound contrary.’”

  Minogue had to smile at Malone’s effort at a country accent. A pang of nostalgia arced in his chest when he thought of the sessions back in the Squad, with Kilmartin and Malone going at it. There was no going back.

  “Look. Hughes is not being bollicky. He knows how busy you are.”

  “Busy? Nice of him. Tell him we’re in the middle of a war here. Mulhall, the other day? I was working him, trying to work him, you know. Wouldn’t listen to me. I told him he wouldn’t last. I told him…”

  “All hands on deck then, is it.”

  “You’re telling me. It’s like last year’s big thing never happened. Oak and Anvil…? Might as well be ancient history.”

  Minogue recalled the haul displayed on the television and in the papers. Over five hundred kilos of cocaine was on show, close to a million Euro, an assortment of pistols, submachine guns, and two assault rifles. He never found out who had called it Operation Oak and Anvil in the first place.

  “Okay,” he said to Malone. “I’ll relay that. Sin sin.”

  “What shin?”

  “Sin sin. ‘That’s that.’ You should have taken Irish lessons.”

  “There’s a thick idea. A dead language, for culchies.”

  “How’s the Cantonese then?”

  There was a pause.

  “I’m jealous,” said Minogue. “That’s all.”

  “I’ll bet. Tell you what. Stick to your fecking French lesson things. French is a joke compared to what Cantonese is doing to my head.”

  “You’ll have a lifetime of peace from the in-laws. Respect too, of course.”

  “My arse, I will. Her ma’s grand, but that oul lad of hers will never change. Sweet and sour I call them now. I leave it up to you to figure out which is which. You’re the Detective Inspector, after all.”

  Someone asked Malone a question then. Minogue waited for the hand to be taken off the mouthpiece. He couldn’t make out the words but he was reasonably sure that Malone swore twice.

  Whoever was in the car with Malone was using the radio. Malone’s hand came off his mobile.

  “Leave it for now,” the Guard said. “Wait ’til he comes out.”

  “Look,” said Malone then. “I’m on the job here, I have to go. I’ll see you Monday. The usual.”

  He meant the get-togethers, Minogue knew. The Club Mad had moved location to Clancy’s on the North Strand. It was the only pub that remained locked in the 1970s, reliably dreary and down-at-heel, and all due to a long-running dispute between two brothers over a will. The mixture of heavy daytime drinkers from the corporation flats nearby, the few greying Bohemians, and a changing set of petty criminals half-pleased Minogue. Neither Plate Glass Sheehy nor Jesus Farrell – not even the tee-totaller Shea Hoey – had complained about the place. Kilmartin had nevertheless pronounced Clancy’s a dump, but still attended.

  “Monday’s a long way away, Tommy. Can’t you do better?”

  Malone didn’t answer.

  “Hughes has done fantastic work here,” Minogue said. “More in two days than we’d have done in a week, I have to say.”

  “Good for him.”

  “But he’s run ragged, Tommy, spinning his wheels.”

  “Happens to the best of us.”

  “The mother, come on – you can imagine, hardly a word of English. An only child.”

  “Everyone has a mother,” Malone was saying. “You never knew that?”

  “You’re a hard man, Tommy. A real desperado, these days, I tell you.”

  “Ah don’t start that crap.”

  “Just give Hughes a start.”

  “What do I have?”

  “One of your touts.”

  “I don’t believe you actually said that. I don’t.”

  “Just someone who’s not in this big war thing you’re in the middle of.”

  “I can’t believe you’d ask me for the loan of a source. Jesus.”

  “Anybody. This Klos man is showing up with cocaine in his system.”

  “Who doesn’t, these days? Any club now, you see people snorting.”

  “Be that as it may. Give the mother something to hope for, and she taking him home.”

  “You are frigging piling it on, so you are.”

  “You know I’ll be above board with whoever you give me.”

  “What do I tell him? What’s in it for him?”

  Minogue thought about it for a moment.

  “‘Assisting the Guards.’”

  “Don’t be an iijit.”

  “Is he coming to trial, sentencing maybe? Paste it into a plea for him?”

  “Uh-uh. Anyone worth anything isn’t going to be in any position.”

  “What, then?”

  “M-O-N-E-Y. That works nicely.”

  “You pay them?”

  “Damned right we do. It gets results.”

  “Really. Okay then. What’s the going rate?”

  Chapter 16

  MINOGUE ATE AT HIS DESK. He was glad of the Pepsi to push the taste of the so-called brioche with its cargo of dry ham and chalky cheese, and its too-sharp crust that gouged his gums. There was nothing left worth reading in the newspaper. Still he searched. Someone had spray-painted the wall of the Muslim school in Clonskeagh. A road rage thing that led to fines of over a thousand Euro. An Aran islander who spoke no English had just died at the age of 105. The forecast said changeable,
but to be on the lookout for showers coming in from the West. He almost missed the ping from his mobile. Don’t screw up, Malone had texted. The name he offered was for someone Murph. He was to wait until Malone had gotten in touch with this Murph character. No address of course. In caps then the following: NOPRESSUREONHIM.

  The low-hanging slabs of clouds that had formed the sky over the funeral this morning had now given way to masses of torn and running clouds. They lost their shapes quickly, but they occasionally revealed patches of blue. Minogue composed a rare text reply of six letters and one space: TA ASAP.

  Eilís was trying to get a printer to work.

  “What’s up?”

  “It looks like the damned thing is broken. Do you know anything about…?”

  “I’d do more harm than good, Eilís.”

  “Well, horseman, pass by, so.”

  He heard her cursing quietly in his wake. He wondered if every Irish speaker knew so many curse words.

  On his way back from the bathroom, there were two messages in his box, proof of the mysterious dispensation of fate that timed phone calls for when he entered a bathroom.

  Eilís was shoving the paper tray hard into the bottom of the printer. She spoke without looking up.

  “Peter Igoe,” she said. “Wants to talk to you.”

  Odd, Minogue thought, and unwelcome. His head of section loathed meetings, preferring to network at a distance.

  “A matter of some urgency,” she murmured.

  “Concerning?”

  Eilís grunted as she pushed the tray home yet again.

  “Didn’t say.”

  Igoe asked Minogue to wait a moment so he could step out of the meeting to take the call. Minogue heard a door closing.

  “Thanks, Matt. You got to that meeting there, the Polish matter.”

  “I did.”

  “Fair play to you. A good send-off for Mrs. Tynan this morning?”

  “It’s how she wanted it, I believe.”

  “Sad. Now listen, before I pass on the news to you, remind me what you’re at. Current casework, I mean.”