The Going Rate

by John Brady

  “Have they told you that?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes. One told me that.”

  “Here in Dublin?”

  Cully turned on the ignition and he read the gauges and the clock.

  “At least Murphy should have told you to pick your questions. Did he tell you how not to get people’s backs up?”

  Fanning said nothing. Again he wondered how this confidence had come to him, how he could calmly carry on here in the car with this man. One part of him knew he was sitting beside a man who inspired fear in the likes of Murphy, but some other part of his mind was given over to some kind of calm audacity.

  Cully switched off the ignition.

  “Okay then,” he said. “I’m going to make a quick call.”

  Fanning noticed that he dialled from memory. He wasn’t waiting long.

  “Yep,” he said. “We’re here.”

  He listened for a few moments.

  “The shop?” he said then. “What kind again?”

  Fanning made a smoking gesture. Cully nodded.

  “Okay,” he said and hung up.

  “Some kind of French cigarettes?” he said to Fanning. “He’ll be in the shop and he’ll hear you asking for the smokes. If they have them, go ahead and buy them. If not, go back outside anyway. He’ll follow you. That’s it.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The bloke, the goods,” said Cully and turned the ignition. “That’s how it’s done.”

  “You said I was going to do it? Me?”

  “What are we doing here? I don’t want the package, do I? It’s not me doing research, is it?”

  “Who said anything about me doing stuff like this?”

  Cully returned his stare calmy. Fanning caught himself then.

  “It’s an exercise,” said Cully. “That’s all. So you know what you’re going to do in your story.”

  “You’re not joking are you.”

  “No I’m not. Look. I have stuff here for you will make it easier. A minute on, a minute off we call it.”

  “I can’t go renting a gun, for Christ’s sake. End up in jail for ten years?”

  Cully drew a plastic bag from under the seat.

  “This is the real thing,” he said. “Film stuff, professional stuff. Moustache, the comb-in grey – look I even bought fake pimples.”

  He dropped it in Fanning’s lap.

  “Glasses in the glove compartment here,” he said. “Put on a scarf there from the back seat. Jean jacket there too.”

  “What are you doing?” Fanning was able to say.

  “Details,” said Cully briskly. “That’s all they are. People are stupid, what they remember. They don’t get height properly, or even a voice, but they end up holding on to stuff that’s useless. ‘He wears glasses.’ ‘He had bad skin.’ ‘He had a moustache.’ ‘He had a Chelsea scarf.’”

  “You really think I’m going in there, and doing this?”

  Cully turned his head to look at the dashboard, then back to Fanning. He spoke in a quiet voice.

  “You’re not up to it.”

  “Up to what? Up to insane?”

  Cully shrugged.

  “How are you going to get it right if you haven’t been there?”

  “This has nothing to do with it.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Yes I’m sure.”

  “I don’t know,” said Cully. “I don’t know about that. I see a bloke who’s always on the lookout, who notices things. A bloke with a notebook. Someone who has an eye for detail. I mean look at you, taking notes all the time.”

  “Maybe I’ve gone about this all the wrong way,” said Fanning. “Have you as a consultant when I want to get it right on the set. But not to get me involved, actually committing crimes here.”

  “Interesting,” Cully said. He took his hand off the gearstick and slowly rubbed his chin. “Very interesting.”

  “You’re surprised?”

  “Well I’d have thought, I’d have assumed like, that because you got started with Murphy and his, quote, research, that you’d be the fella for this. Not having a hairy, like. That you’d have a bit of bottle. Like you’d have a go at things.”

  “This is a different thing, totally different.”

  “Too real maybe?”

  “That’s not it.”

  “How can you make up stuff, believable stuff, if you’ve never stepped across that line?”

  “Oh come on. There’s a whole ton of stuff wrapped up in that remark.”

  “Like what? And why?”

  “It’d take forever, no. Like what’s experience, or authentic. Appropriation of voice – tons of stuff. A mess. I don’t want to get into it.”

  “Me neither. But isn’t that what makes a story good? Like people reading it, or watching it will know it’s the real thing?”

  “There’s real, and there’s real stupid.”

  Cully tapped on the gearshift slowly.

  “I thought you were just trying to show me a few things,” Fanning continued. “A few examples. Places. Stories.”

  “Oh I don’t do that,” said Cully. “Just facts. That’s it.”

  “If I knew more about how you get to where you are, and what you do, that’d be really helpful.”

  “There’s nothing worth talking about.”

  “How can that be? You just take it for granted, that’s all. Not to me, though.”

  “It’s the past. Who cares about the past, I say.”

  “But you know the big people here. The families? I saw you at that thing, that fight, the dogs. They seem to know you. Murphy sure does. Loans you his car, yes sir, no sir.”

  “Let me say something to you now,” said Cully.

  Fanning focused on keeping his breath steady and quiet. He had already felt out the door release.

  “This is no big deal,” Cully began. “This business here. Think about it. What could be easier? This bloke in the shop doesn’t know or care who you are. He’s got his guarantees, his insurance. And you won’t even be yourself for this. Slap on the stuff I brought, and go to the shop, follow him out and that’s it. He hands you some skin magazines in a plastic bag, and that’s that.”

  Fanning watched an older couple come out of the shop and light up cigarettes, then they began a slow amble down the footpath toward the pub.

  “If I don’t do it,” Fanning said, “then that’s it for the research? I have to find someone else I suppose, start all over again?”

  Cully stopped tapping on the gearstick.

  “Not necessarily,” he said.

  “You mean I can say forget it, this thing here, and we just carry on?”

  “Not that,” said Cully. “My advice to you would be to leave the entire matter and go find other things to do. Other stories or something.”

  The quiet tone jarred with the message.

  “You know something,” Fanning said. “I just realized earlier on. I never made any arrangement here, like what kind of fee you expect for this.”

  Cully nodded.

  “Right,” he said.

  “Like what’s your role in this.”

  “Role? Like my part?”

  “No. I mean why you took over from Murph. We never talked about that.”

  “We can get to that later.”

  “I don’t know anything about you. A name? Cully, Cullen?”

  Cigarette smoke billowed and hung in the damp air.

  “Where else could we go?” Fanning said after a moment.

  “Back the way we came,” said Cully and reached for the ignition.

  “That’s it then?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Can’t we skip this thing and just go on whatever?”

  “That’s not on,” said Cully. “Now if you’d rather walk home from here, just tell me.”

  Cully backed the car into the forecourt of a small garage, and turned the BMW back toward Churchtown. Fanning couldn’t detect any anger in him at all.
r />   “Better all around,” Cully murmured. “You do your thing. Nice setup you seem to have there. The whole family thing. Education, all that. Stick with that. That would be my inclination. A lot of people would like to have what you have. You’ve no bother coming up with ideas now.”

  “This one I’m working on is pretty good. It’s worth sticking with.”

  “It’s a free country, but people need to realize that people don’t like getting their toes stepped on.”

  “Have I done that?”

  Cully made a noncommittal gesture.

  “Look,” he said. “Someone must have told you at some point in your life that it’s not good to piss off people?”

  “Tell me who I’m pissing off.”

  “There’s stories, and then there’s the real world. They don’t mix.”

  “But fiction shows reality better than facts, so-called.”

  “You really believe that?”

  “As a matter of fact I do. It informs everything I do.”

  “And others too,” said Cully. The quickness took Fanning aback a little. Deceptive, he’d have to add in his notes.

  “I mean, everyone likes a good story,” Cully went on. “But if I’m hearing you right, this thing of yours be leaving a trail for other people.”

  “Others, like…?”

  “You’ve got it figured out, I’d say. Bloke like you, your talents?”

  Every traffic light was red, it seemed. Cully was humming a tune very low while he waited. In the deserted bus shelter across from where they sat, the ad for gum rolled up to reveal one for Top Ten Talent, the lame new reality show.

  His thoughts cleared.

  “Pull in here.”

  “Crap night for a walk. And a long walk too.”

  “No. Turn around, I mean.”

  “Come on. It’s a bit late for that one.”

  “Really,” said Fanning. “I’m not joking. Really.”

  Chapter 31

  GARDA MOSSIE DUGGAN’S ACCENT seemed ideal for his technique. That Monaghan drone reminded Minogue of bogs and lakes, and the long roads that always seemed to end in some secret place amongst the low hills or the drumlins of Duggan’s native county.

  Minogue had left Garda Wall with Matthews, and he was now sitting in on the Twomey interview. Yes, Detective Garda Duggan from Ballybay, County Monaghan, was a plotter. It was all under the radar, slyly effective, with a momentum that kept the talk going. Minogue began to conclude it was all about pacing, and that some kind of mild hypnosis was going on. Duggan would occasionally pounce on something Twomey had said, and he’d go into fast-forward, peppering Twomey with questions in a kindly, interested voice as though bubbling with a shared enthusiasm.

  The effect was to make Twomey blurt out answers. It often ended with Twomey sitting back, arms crossed, refusing to say more. At those times Duggan backed off completely. Bashfully – almost apologetically – he gave off an air of regret, or embarrassment, at having apparently derailed things. But almost always it was Twomey who would put an end to the brittle quiet by trying to qualify, to explicate what he’d said in that rapid-fire flurry and back. Like boxing, Minogue reflected, if he’d understood Malone’s explanation.

  Minogue gave it a few more minutes, and then he gave Duggan the nod for a break. While he waited for them, he put the kettle on and he phoned Malone. Waiting for the call to connect, he heard the raised voices from the public office downstairs. Though he couldn’t make out the words, he recognized the indignant tones and ragged voice of someone drunk. The evening’s grim entertainment for this Garda station was started, then.

  Had Malone been having a snooze?

  “Tommy, am I phoning you at a bad time?”

  “No. You’re all right.”

  He had been asleep, Minogue decided.

  “Just checking,” he said.

  “Checking what?”

  “Well I don’t want to be annoying you.” “Well you are annoying me, what – oh, now I remember. But I told you I’d phone you when I got hold of the bastard.”

  “Starts with an M? We’re talking about the same fella?”

  “Look,” said Malone, an irritable tone coming to his voice now. “When I have something, you’ll be the first to know.”

  “Thank you. I do appreciate your efforts in the matter, Thomas.”

  “Oh my jases, will you listen to that. I’ll keep trying – but remember, he’s not top of my list right now. You know?”

  “Fair enough. Whatever you can do. Any break in the weather there?”

  Malone didn’t get it for a few moments, Minogue decided.

  “Ah, hard to say. It’s mad really. There’s double the response teams out now, so…”

  Minogue imagined the dozen and more unmarked cars, each with two detectives armed to the teeth.

  “But you wouldn’t believe the things we’re hearing. For your ears only now.”

  “To be sure.”

  “I’m only telling you, so you’ll get an idea of what the hell it’s like these days here with us, and because it’s a fella you know.”

  “Who?”

  “Igoe, your boss.”

  “What about him?”

  “Well listen to this, and I’ll tell you. But it’s only me and you, remember? This bit is top level here.”

  Secrecy, he meant, Minogue realized. Malone’s expressions that he used at work hadn’t all stayed in his head.

  “Your fella has this meeting here with two of ours, yeah, the top two. Igoe brings it personally to talk to our fellas. That’s how important. Got to do with a call from London, and I hear it came through HQ too. Not even the Met, but some other outfit that got the Met to pass it on to us. One of the shady boys’ outfits they have now.”

  Wall came in the door, followed by the yawning Duggan. Minogue turned away and held his hand cupped over the receiver.

  “There’s a bunch of freelancers that do jobs all over the place,” Malone said. “Work for anyone. Do anything. And here’s the thing – it was the Brits that gave them the training and all.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Okay, look I can’t be talking here. But here’s the gist of it, and it’s pretty wild, I’m telling you. If it’s true, like. The Met said that some of these fellas seem to be gone abroad, and they think to – guess where?”

  “Here?”

  “D-U-B-L-I-N-O, Signor. Yeah. The cops there like to keep tabs on them. They’re a security firm, but not your basic gobshite at the door of the shop. They worked all over – in Iraq, for jases sake, even. They used to be soldiers. Isn’t that something? Ever hear the like?”

  “Never did,” said Minogue.

  “Remember that tough-guy speech some soldier boy gave over there a few years back? Actually an Irish fella, Collins or somebody. About what to do in Iraq when they went in? Royal Irish regiment, I found out. And half of them are Irish, did you know that? Google it and see. But remember there was trouble, some fellas got done for shooting and things? Court martials and that?”

  “Can’t say I remember that, no.”

  “All hushed up, but there was fellas turfed over the matter. All on the QT. But some of them made up their own security thing. And they went back into Iraq or someplace there a few times, made piles of money – a damn sight more than any soldier does. Might have even gotten themselves turfed on purpose, so’s they could go back as private fellas. But they messed up, and got the heave-ho. Never to return, etc. So guess what they might be up to now?”

  “Well what do you think of that,” was all Minogue could think to say.

  “I don’t,” said Malone. “It’s too mad. Look, I’m off – don’t be phoning me.”

  Minogue made sure he had killed the call. He shook his head.

  “Everything all right there, er?”

  “Matt. It is, thanks. I just have to digest some things I hear very slowly.”

  “Ah, the married man’s lot,” said Duggan.

  Garda Wall was concluding a p
hone call to his wife. Things would run late and she was not to wait up. He called her “pet,” something Minogue almost sniggered over. He had heard it used sincerely many years ago, but it had been mockery for decades now.

  After Wall hung up he gazed at the phone for a few moments. Minogue imagined that he was saying a prayer.

  “A chinwag,” said Duggan. “Compare notes?”

  Wall sat on the table. Minogue kicked off the conversation.

  “All right,” he said, “what’s the word. Mossie?”

  “For starters then, Twomey’s a pain. He’s got the mindset. Not one ounce would he give a Guard. I put it to him, I says, this is the only time in the history of crime in the whole universe that someone else assaulted and killed a person, and then left the spoils for you? Pull the other one, says he to me. A bollocks of the first order.”

  “He’s not alone,” said Minogue. “Do you want to swap then?”

  “I dunno,” said Duggan. “I dunno. He’ll budge, I think.”

  “Well they had plenty of time to rehearse,” said Wall.

  “You think they’re just reciting? Either of you now?”

  “No,” said Wall, “I’d have to say. There’s not a drop of pity in Twomey. I gave him a picture of the man’s mother, you know. In bits. Having to bring her lad home from a foreign country, only to bury him. How would your mother like that, I ask him, etc.”

  “And?”

  “Says he, I’m not in a foreign country, am I. And I don’t want to go to a foreign country. And then he says to me, maybe he should have stayed in his own country, shouldn’t he?”

  Minogue heard the kettle beginning to get up to steam now.

  “Matthews is cut from the same cloth so,” said Wall.

  “Or they could be telling the truth,” said Minogue, “much as it pains me to mention it. Well at least we have admissions they were there, at the scene. Are we not getting e’re a bit of traction out of the sexual interference with a minor? Or trafficking?”

  “Ah they’re still laughing about trafficking,” said Wall.

  “Twomey’s not impressed,” said Mossie. “Or he’s a great actor entirely. He wants me to charge him or let him go.”