The Going Rate

by John Brady

  “He gave you his phone?”

  “He loaned it to me. Mine fell and broke.”

  “Look, he and I have an arrangement.”

  “Right. That’s why I’m here. Now I don’t want to spread rumours now, do I. But you must know by now. Like I was saying to you back in that pub. I mean you can figure things out.”

  “What things?”

  “Come on. You’ve got to admit, he’s not the most reliable bloke.”

  “Well I wouldn’t be discussing that here–”

  “You know he’s got a habit. I told you that, right?”

  “I doubt Murph is too busy, especially for me.”

  “You mean his business. He was getting burned out, did he tell you?”

  “No, he didn’t tell me he was getting burned out.”

  “Sad to say, but there’s problems in his family, mental things. He didn’t tell you? It’s a manic thing. He goes off the deep end every once in a while. Very rough I hear.”

  Fanning’s thumb was getting a cramp.

  “I’ll meet you, and explain it all. Then you’ll see.”

  “No, that’s not going to work.”

  Fanning heard a “when” just as he hung up.

  He placed the mobile on the table next to his saucer. His coffee was finished. It had found its way to someplace in his stomach where it now ate away, acidly. The two men at the next table were speaking Spanish. Georges Street looked grey, and traffic had come to a standstill. He looked down at the yellow stickies and the notes he had started. There’d be no way any director would put in a real dog fight.

  He started when the phone vibrated. It was Murph’s number. A hollow, airy feeling returned to his chest. He pushed the Power Off button, and held it. He thought about more coffee, and then the guilt of spending three Euro that were really Bríd’s earnings wrung out of the brats that she taught.

  He turned to the notes he had written about the sound of gunshot that had killed the dog:

  – took/punched the air out of the room

  – screaming silence in its wake

  – shockwaves hammering the air

  Not bad. He switched the phone on again, and watched it search for a signal. The tink of a notification came within seconds. There had been a mistake, according to Murph, but it had all been settled now. Phone him back.

  Fanning picked up his pencil and drew an exclamation mark on the paper. Murph, scammer and schemer extraordinaire. So he had a habit, so he was a liar. Big surprise there. This carry-on was part of the package.

  He didn’t much care if Murph took him for a gobshite. After all, he had gone into this with his eyes open, and he had paid four hundred something Euro to Murph so far – then a hundred fifty for yesterday. That was what he had to do. Price comparisons hardly applied in this business. Whatever Murph charged was the going rate.

  He made a quick inventory of what he could recall that Murph’s “tours” had brought him so far. Characters he had met, sure – that family in Walkinstown who fenced anything, with the sister in on it too, as tough or tougher than the three brothers who made the deals. Less colourful, and much more malevolent was One-or-Two Tony, also Tony Bony, a slight and unassuming man whom Murph had pointed out in a pub. Tony was an enforcer who kept a selection of pieces of old plumbing pipe for breaking arms and legs. According to Murph, he gave some victims a cruel choice, usually their pick of which two limbs he’d break.

  Yes, he now knew, and had documented expressions these lowlifes used. Their taste in clothes, and what their choices meant. Cars they had, or liked to rob, or aspired to. Sexual tastes, if that’s what you could call them: more like a mixture of porn and animal husbandry. Murph had even given him a description of how you should walk, if you wanted to signal you were serious.

  He now knew where some criminals Murph said he knew liked to go on holidays, and how they made their connections there. He had notes on Murph’s stories and gossip about their petty fights and their drinking. Their troubles with wives and girlfriends, and kids. Epic family fights, at least two he remembered involved brawls, knives, hospital and prison time.

  Murph had relished relating incidents of biblical cruelty by criminals who wanted revenge for stupid, childish things. Embellished or not, Murph’s stories of cordless Black and Deckers into kneecaps, floor crucifixions, and rape of a rival’s kid were now lodged in Fanning’s mind, probably forever. His script would make damned good use of the shrewdness and native intelligence that some of them had, faculties so often sabotaged by their greed or their addictions, by bad genes, by mental illness.

  But in the final analysis, Fanning had to admit that what he had learned on their excursions was often not because of Murph, but in spite of him. Like Cully had said – he talks, and he talks. His chatter ruined Fanning’s observations, drawing people’s attention, when all Fanning wanted to do was blend in. And the crowning irony: Murph continually telling him to say nothing, and to follow his lead always, while he, Murph, revved up the bluster and the bullshit himself.

  That was not to say their time together had been wasted. Not at all. Parsing Murph’s ramblings and boasts, and his self-staged dramatics had given Fanning a clear character for the script. Would Murph recognize himself in the film as that blundering, not-so-bright, petty criminal, with a grandiosity and a stupidity that would be his – and others’ – undoing?

  Fanning let his pencil run along the page and he watched the circles and the lines that his hand was drawing intersect, and then continue. His own private Ouija Board he called it, when people asked him what he was doing. It was to help him think, or rather to still whatever part of him was stopping him thinking clearly.

  Soon he put down the pencil, and he examined the lines and shapes he had made. There were no shapes or patterns he could discern. His thoughts went back to the phone call, to Murph. Loyalty…? Hardly: Murph would screw him as quick as he’d screw anyone.

  But to be fair, Murph had peeled the lid back enough to give Dermot Fanning some inkling of what it meant to be born into crime, to live it. Never to have had a job – to scorn any job, actually – to go from day to day, taking what you could, or what you liked, what you could get away with. No waiting, and all guilt-free. No lost sleep over global warming, or the direction of the Euro or house prices, or the meaning of life. To see the world as something to prey on, to resent not having what others seemed to have and to feel entitled to grab it, to steal it just to show you could, to use it and to break it if it disappointed you, to discard it. Murph and the rest of them would never need the services of a shrink to help them unravel their neuroses, would they.

  His pencil suddenly stopped doing its tricks between his fingers. He looked at it, as though it had a life of its own, and then he felt the creeping presence of doubt. The question was never far off, and here it was back, sitting right in front of him yet again: where was the story in all this?

  It pained him to consider that Breen might have been right the other day. Had he missed Breen’s thoughtful way of offering him a soft landing, with the mention of a documentary? For all she scorned Breen, Bríd had always maintained that he basically meant well. You just had to find his wavelength, she maintained, his buzzwords. Then he should use some of them – discreetly, of course – in conversation. And, she had told him, with much enthusiasm, he should even learn to mirror little gestures that Breen made. Let the subconscious do the work.

  Fanning could hear her now: Why was he so cynical about Colm Breen? And when had that started? Hadn’t they been friends? When had Colm Breen ever done him a bad turn? If Bríd picked up signs of his aversion during these exchanges, she could put an edge to her suggestions: Why was he so allergic to advice anyway? What exactly was wrong with networking? Then the buzzwords from the staffroom would surface, and he’d let a few go by before calling her on them – collaborate, share, build relationships. Well at least it didn’t happen often, he thought then.

  A familiar weariness was dulling his thoughts now, and
he was adult enough to admit he knew why. It was because the things that Bríd said were – for the most part anyway – probably true. If anyone would know about getting funding for a documentary, especially with social issues, and crime and what-have-you in the headlines every day, it would be the same Breen. A decent documentary might lead to more gigs, commissions even. It’d add to his portfolio at the very least, keep him in the game.

  Game? His mind raced back to the dog fight, and again he saw the shouting mob, their faces twisted in contempt, and excitement, and blood lust. How was that not medieval? How was that not a thousand times more real than any documentary? Shouldn’t it be Breen, or even Bríd, who should have to defend why they thought that fiction, real fiction now, couldn’t match a documentary? Yes, he thought, he should use the old caveman example about the power of story– He started when his mobile went off again.

  He held it in his palm and between rings he listened to the sudden thumping of blood in his ears. It was Murph’s phone again.

  Chapter 22

  MINOGUE WAITED IN THE HALLWAY, content to pace slowly and let his thoughts ramble a bit. He made way for several arrivals, uniforms and detectives both, returning any greeting that was offered. He paused by the door again in passing. There was barely a sound. In the interview room with the wire-haired Detective Duggan was one Maureen O’Brien, a Garda from the station who had a good rep for interviewing kids. The girl had been crying a lot, Minogue knew. Apparently the mother was beginning to balk.

  Someone descended the stairs at the end of the hall, whistling. Minogue turned and resumed his stroll. The door opened. Duggan closed it quietly behind him.

  “The mother’s had it,” he murmured. “She’s taking her young one home.”

  “Maureen can’t persuade…?”

  “Nope. The young one put on quite the performance. You should hear her. She’s bawling her eyes out. Hyperventilating, pretty well. The mother has her back up now, big-time.”

  “Well,” said Minogue, “we don’t want wigs on the green, do we.”

  Duggan tugged at his frizzy hair behind his ear.

  “We don’t want to arrest the girl,” said Minogue. “But if Maureen’s getting nowhere?”

  “Well do you want to give it a try?”

  Messy, Minogue thought with some foreboding, so very messy, with kids. He said it several times in his head while he eyed the door, visualizing an angry mother and her distraught daughter barging out, knocking him and Duggan sideways en route. The seconds hung in the air.

  But in he went. The room was warm, and the air was filled with a mix of sweat and worn-out, pseudoherbal perfume that Minogue loathed. He pushed back mentally at the claustrophobia that fell on him by glancing from face to face. The mother’s face was red, almost purple under the fluorescent light. She blinked angrily and uncertainly at the new arrival. Minogue had already put on his most avuncular expression. He introduced himself, sat down, and proceeded to say nothing for as long as the atmosphere would allow.

  The girl was overweight, with those arms that reminded him of uncooked sausages. Her clothes did her no favours at all. Of course, everything was too small these days. With her wet, swollen face darkened by mascara or makeup gone astray, the girl looked like the usual mini-tornado of hormones, provocation, defiance.

  O’Brien seemed resigned to the interview going south too.

  Minogue tried again to make eye contact with the girl. She pushed her hair away long enough for Minogue to see she had some, but then she dropped her head again. She slid further down the chair, heaving every few moments to draw in breaths.

  “I was hoping we could continue this chat, Mrs. Lynch,” he said.

  She pointed at Duggan who was closing the door behind him.

  “He said, that one said, that he was going to see about Legal Aid.”

  “Why do you think you need Legal Aid?”

  “Oh listen to you! I know what a leading question is. No more run-around. Come on Tara, we stayed long enough in this place.”

  She reached out and grabbed her daughter’s upper arm as she rose.

  “Here we are, trying to do what’s right,” she muttered hoarsely. “And this is what happens. I know my rights, and my daughter does too. She’s only a child, so she is.”

  Minogue decided to maintain his oblique line.

  “My expertise is in murder investigations,” he said.

  She turned to him and frowned.

  “This is a disgrace, you saying that. By Jesus I’m going to report you, the lot of yous. Disgraceful!”

  “Disgrace,” Minogue said. “Why so?”

  “Oh listen, I didn’t come up to Dublin on the last bus! That’s tactics, is what it is– ‘I’m an expert in murder.’ Intimidation, that’s what you’re trying to do.”

  “The Murder Squad, have you heard of it?”

  She let go of her daughter and slowly stood upright.

  “This has nothing to do with Tara, or me, or why we’re here. If you think for one minute that we’re going to stay here.”

  “I’ve been called in to work on it. This is a murder case, Mrs. Lynch.”

  Minogue glanced at the daughter again. Her breathing had become less panicked and though her head remained resolutely down, she was now very still.

  “Detective Duggan and I think that your daughter has vital information in this murder case.”

  The mother’s eyes narrowed.

  “Those are reasonable grounds. Have you heard that expression?”

  She shook her head.

  “I’m saying ‘reasonable grounds’ because that’s what comes up. It comes up when a Guard has to arrest someone.”

  “You can’t arrest a little girl, a juvenile, I mean.”

  “It wouldn’t sit right with a Guard to do it, but I can. And I will.”

  “Show me some identification,” she said. Minogue saw Garda O’Brien roll her eyes.

  Minogue took out his photo card.

  “Where does it say Murder Squad?”

  “It doesn’t.”

  “Well then…”

  Mrs. Lynch seemed to have discarded what she had planned to say.

  “Well go and get the other ones then,” she blurted. “They’re the ones you should be talking to. My Tara is, she’s just, you know, she’s a follower, that’s all.”

  “What, I mean who, are these people you’re talking about?”

  “The girl – that little bitch. God forgive me, but I don’t care anymore. That Rogers one. Alison, Ali, whatever she calls herself. I’m after telling this fella here, this other Guard, and the woman here, all we know. And I’m sorry now I ever had that Guard talk me in the bloody door of this place – I’m sorry I even lifted the bloody phone to talk to a Guard!”

  “‘Ones,’ you said,” Minogue said.

  “That one, Ali Rogers. She’s the one. She got my Tara in on her – what’s the word? She trapped – she enticed – my young one here, that’s it. And she got her smoking and carrying on all hours of the night. That one has no-one at home to put manners on her, her parents out on the town themselves and they never should have…”

  “Boyfriends? That’s what you mean, I take it.”

  Mrs. Lynch started a little, and almost spluttered. Then she looked from Minogue to Duggan and back again.

  “We can clear it up and have you on your way in short order, I’m thinking,” Minogue tried.

  Mrs. Lynch kept her eyes on him, as she sunk slowly back into the chair.

  “Tara is upset,” he said. “That goes without saying. It shows she has a conscience, I say. Well reared. And we’re very grateful for you stepping forward. For making that phone call. But we can’t let this be run by you, or your daughter. With all due respects.”

  He tried to form a sympathetic smile for her but found instead that he was concentrating on her changing expression. She seemed to be staring right back at him but her eyes remained out of focus. Minogue lowered his voice.

  “It would be a t
errible thing to be filling out an arrest for this young lady.”

  Mrs. Lynch’s eyes returned to focus. Her lips began to move but she said nothing. She turned to her daughter again, and she nudged her.

  “Tara.”

  The “no” was more of a moan.

  “You have to, Tara. Sit up.”

  The girl’s breathing became deeper again.

  “I just want to go home.”

  Her mother pushed hard.

  “Ow, Ma! Let me just go home! That’s all I’m asking.”

  “I wish you’d thought of that the night you went out with that f… with that Rogers girl, so I do. Now sit up!”

  “But I didn’t do anything.”

  “We’ll see what her and her cronies say to that! Haven’t I told you a thousand times, that crowd would leave you in the lurch! Haven’t I?”

  The girl drew her arms in even tighter. Minogue was aware of Duggan’s eyes on him, waiting to exchange a signal: “crowd.”

  “Tara?”

  “Listen to him, Tara,” said the mother.

  “Tara, do you know what accessory means? Have you heard that word before?”

  The mother glared at Minogue.

  “It’s not makeup, or earrings.”

  “Ha ha,” said the girl. “I’m not retarded, you know.”

  “So Tara, it doesn’t matter if you intended to commit a crime.”

  “But I didn’t do anything!”

  Minogue waited for her to collapse back into her slump.

  “Were you there, Tara?”

  When she didn’t answer, her mother nodded at Minogue.

  “We need to get this out in the open,” Minogue murmured. “It wasn’t just you and your friend there, was it?”

  “It was,” she said.

  “All the time? You and Ali?”

  She raised her head. Her swollen, running eyes reminded Minogue of someone who had been tear-gassed. He wondered if her eyelids could open at all now.

  “They already know,” her mother said, her jaw set hard. “I told them. I told them what I saw you writing there on the computer, didn’t I? I had to. What else could I do? Stupid Internet, I should never have gotten it! It was for school, Tara, for school, remember? So’s you could get good marks and go places and not… not be like me or your da! You stupid, stupid girl, what are you after doing to us all?”