by John Brady
“So, you like motoring about in a hot car,” Cully said.
Fanning looked over for a moment.
“I’m not sure.”
“That means you do,” said Cully. He braked for the turn by the Rotunda Hospital, and turned onto Parnell Square.
“I’ll tell you how I know that,” he said pausing to avoid a taxi, “how I know you like it. You would have said so if you didn’t like it. ‘Not sure’ means you do, but you don’t want to admit it. It’s a middle-class thing.”
“Ah, psychology,” said Fanning.
“Call it what you like. It’s true.”
“A weakness, you think, no doubt.”
Cully shrugged
“I don’t care,” he said, “if it is or isn’t.”
Parnell Square was almost deserted.
“Where are we going?”
“We’re getting rid of this thing. You can study that. Write about it. Anyway, it’s not too far. Then, who knows.”
“Why did you tell West Ham to go his own way?”
“Don’t need him for this. Do I. Gets in the way sometimes.”
Fanning felt for the pencil through the fabric of his jacket pocket.
“Is it the way he talks?”
“What about the way he talks?” Cully asked.
“Well he says things.”
“He says what things.”
“What he said when you told him you’d be dropping him off in town here.”
“He likes to bitch. Sometimes it’s a laugh. Not tonight. But I’m used to it.”
“No,” said Fanning. “About the job, the work you do. How it was finished and couldn’t you just go out for a few pints and that.”
“Yeah well he likes to take it a bit too easy sometimes,” Cully said. “Tough to keep an edge with that kind of attitude.”
“I mean something else he said. Something like ‘op’s over.’”
Cully watched the traffic lights and pushed the gearshift from side to side.
“Who knows what he’d say. It’s just talk.”
“Military-style talk.”
“Really.”
“It sure sounds like that to me,” said Fanning.
Cully stopped pushing the gearshift to and fro and looked over.
“And what would you know about that?”
“I’m just saying. I know what ‘fall out’ means too. Even if he was being sarcastic.”
“Well good for you,” said Cully. He spun the tires in first gear before easing off the pedal. He came around the north side of the square and found his way through the heavier traffic car by car, turning abruptly back onto Parnell Street.
“What about the gun?” Fanning said.
“The pistol you mean. I’ll take care of it.”
“Are you going tell them?”
“Tell them…?”
“That it’s a rip-off?”
“Maybe I will.”
“You don’t care.”
“Not much. No.”
Fanning gave up on his effort to draw Cully out for now. Cully took the turn down Gardiner Street. With the new three-level apartments drifting by to either side of the car, Fanning thought back to his days as a student. Coming up here for pints was considered daring. It was still Corporation flats, tenements, and vacant lots, with pubs full of people who started drinking at half-ten in the morning and were still there at closing time. Bohemian, he had thought, proletarian: real.
Through the wipers and the bleary glass he saw the Custom House just above the railway bridge and Beresford Place.
“Leave me off here at the Custom House,” he said to Cully.
“Don’t you want to see how to dump a hot car? It’s only a five-minute walk from the bridge.”
“So close to the city centre?”
“What did you think? We’re going to go to some cliff somewhere?”
“I don’t know.”
“How would we get back if we did that?”
“Well maybe West Ham will appear with another car.”
“That’s funny,” said Cully. “But not too funny. He’s in no shape to do that now. That’s what I’m saying to you. You can’t count on him a hundred percent.”
“I don’t want to be too late getting home.”
“The missus waiting up for you?”
“No. But she’s a worrier.”
“Can’t relax these days, can you. Trying to keep things going right? The breadwinner thing. Is that what they call it?”
Fanning wasn’t sure if it was a dig or not. He pretended to study the pattern on the shutters of a shop. Cully braked gently and curbed the car. He shut off the ignition and watched a couple walk by under an umbrella.
“Okay,” said Fanning.
Cully took something from a pocket inside his jacket. An envelope that had been folded twice. He unfolded it, held it level, and began rummaging for something else.
“Hold that a sec,” he said.
The envelope was light but there was something other than paper in it.
“Is that what I think it is?”
Cully took out a phone card from his jacket pocket.
“What do you think it is?”
Fanning felt suddenly vulnerable again. The city outside had been washed away by the rain running down the windows. Cully sighed as he leaned to his right and lifted the corner of the floor mat.
“I’m out of here,” said Fanning. “I don’t want anything to do with this,”
“Open the glove compartment there. There’s a lid of a plastic box, give it to me.”
Fanning pulled on the door release.
“Don’t,” snapped Cully. “You’ll blow it all over the place.”
“Look, I’ve got to go.”
“Bail out you mean. Reality too much for you?”
“It’s not that.”
“You have no clue, do you.”
Fanning watched Cully put the envelope on his knee just above where he had placed the plastic lid for the sandwich container. Cully continued to unfold the paper with one hand.
“It’s research I’m doing, not getting involved in crime.”
“You don’t say. Ever done this? Coke?”
“A few times. It was ages ago.”
He watched as Cully angled the paper up. Small grains of powder fell out. And then clumps. Cully tipped the paper back up, folded it, and put it back in its envelope.
“So what did you use then?”
“It was ages ago, I forget.”
“A straw? Smoke it? In your arm?”
“Not in my arm, Christ, no. I was drunk. I don’t remember.”
“You have an answer for everything.”
Cully had already began separating the powder into four separate clumps, and then into lines.
“I didn’t say I was proud of it,” said Fanning.
Cully tipped the phone card and handed the plastic lid to Fanning.
“Careful, okay? And close the door properly. It takes a minute. Can you spare the time?”
Fanning said nothing. The car rocked on its springs as Cully reached in to his trouser pocket. Some coins spilled between the door and the seat and he drew out a roll of bills. He peeled one off and dropped it into his lap, and replaced the roll. He rolled the banknote, tugged it tight at both ends, and then rolled it again.
“Okay,” said Cully. “Are you ready?”
“No thanks. I’ll stick with the self-preservation bit.”
Cully looked sideways at him. His face seemed to crawl with the shadows from the rain-strewn windows.
“There you go again,” he said. “Philosophy or whatever. Let me tell you something. Self-preservation takes brains. And for a bloke with a big brain, you’re doing pretty crap.”
A chill descended on Fanning. He fought to keep his arm from wavering.
“Yeah, well you should be nervous,” Cully went on. “I don’t think you realize it. You are lucky you went to that fight with Murphy. That’s what I’m saying. It was luck, n
ot brains.”
Cully went back to tightening the rolled-up bill.
“Murphy was doing you no favours. He was playing you.”
Fanning didn’t care now if his anger showed.
“No he wasn’t.”
“Sure he was. You just didn’t know it.”
“Look, whatever it is about you and Murph–”
Cully made a sudden, short laugh.
“Me and Murph? What are you talking about?”
“All I’m hearing is ‘you haven’t a clue,’ or ‘this is reality,’ or… ‘you don’t get it.’ Like you guys are geniuses, and I’m a moron.”
“That’s you thinking,” said Cully, suddenly serious.
“And for another thing, I didn’t expect favours anyways. I pay Murph– I employ him!”
“Really? Well then. Tell me why you were paying a bloke who has fifty ways to skin you out of your money?”
“But that’s just you saying that, isn’t it.”
Alarm alternated with pride in Fanning’s mind in the quiet that followed. Light flickered off Cully’s eyes as he glanced down at the lid.
“I know what you’re saying,” said Cully thoughtfully. He looked over the lines of powder. “But…”
“I know: ‘But you don’t get it.’ I know.”
“Shut up a minute and listen to me.”
Said in the same calm tone, Cully’s words had no sting to them now.
“Murph, your bosom pal there,” Cully went on. “Now he’s nothing but trouble, isn’t he.”
“You must have said that a dozen times the past day or two.”
“That’s how long it’s taking to persuade you then, isn’t it. Struts about, cock of the walk. But what’s he got? Nuffink.”
“Nuffink. That’s more like it.”
“Thought that’d get your attention. Look, he owes all over. Can’t even cover his habit, can he.
The only way he got in was his uncle, kind of adopted him I heard. You don’t know this. His uncle was big, even inside. Inside, like…?”
“Jail?”
“Prison, you can call it. Right. Fifteen years they gave him — not here, over in England. Just another Paddy on the game there. He was greedy, to be honest. And lazy. Thought he knew everything. Didn’t do his homework on silent alarms.”
“What is his name, the uncle?”
“I’m not telling you, am I. But what I am saying is, everybody knows everybody. Here, there. People aren’t stupid, are they. But his uncle isn’t around anymore. He got the big C there last year, in the lungs. So last year, he goes to meet his maker. R.I.P.”
“I think I read something about it, wasn’t he–”
“–it doesn’t matter, I said.”
Cully placed the fat end of the rolled-up bill in his nostril.
“I’d like to hear Murph’s version of this sometime.”
“Oi,” said Cully. “Can’t you see I’m busy here?”
Chapter 39
FANNING TRIED TO SEE THROUGH the teeming windows. With his index finger over the other nostril, Cully snorted one line, and then a second. He sat back and shook his head, and he began to slowly squeeze his nostrils between his thumb and his forefinger.
“Once in a blue moon,” he said then. “I only accept donations.”
He drew in his breath, closed his eyes and let it out again. His eyes popped open.
“Go ahead,” he said,” it’s proper order, it is, yes.”
He held out the rolled-up note.
“Now we’re talking,” he said. “Cock-a-doodle-doo.”
Before he knew it, Fanning was taking the lid from Cully.
“Just a sampler,” Cully said.
Fanning’s arm rested on the door again, his hand already anticipating the feel of the door release. Cully licked his lips and smiled. Fanning realized it was the first time he’d ever seen him smile.
“See,” he said. “Puts you back in the game.”
“You’re used to it.”
Cully’s eyes opened wide and then almost shut.
“Oh, I get it. I get it now. You’re sure you’re going to be a junkie now. Poof! One go and you’re doomed, right?”
“I don’t want to get into it.”
“Of course you don’t. You’re Mister Respectable. You’re going to do what you’re told. Follow the rules and all that. No wonder you want to make up stuff about criminals and all that.”
When Cully held out the lid, Fanning’s hands moved reflexively. Cully said something about holding it this way. The anger roiled in him. The end of the roll felt like a roach. Raising it with his left hand, he poked his nose with it, twice. Then it was pushing against his nostril, inside. His hands worked on. The lid was close enough to his nose for a strong scent from the plastic. He couldn’t remember having decided anything.
He let his head back. He felt the urge to sneeze, but it passed quickly. It was followed immediately by a dull burn that reminded him of a head cold. The warmth spread under his eyes.
“Nothing,” he said to Cully. “It did nothing.”
Cully hawked, rolled down the window and spat out. He rolled the window back up slowly, as though listening for something. Fanning’s heart began to speed up.
“All I hear is ‘you don’t know this’ and ‘you’re clued out.’”
“You said that already.”
“You were actually listening to me? You know how hard writing is?”
“Pencil and paper. It can’t be that hard.”
“It’s damned hard. It’s the hardest thing. Nobody knows that.”
“Nobody…?”
“And I’m sick to death of people who…”
Fanning stopped. He glanced at Cully and saw that he seemed to be concentrating on something.
“I’m talking a lot, aren’t I.”
Cully nodded. Whatever he was interested in seemed to be in front of the speedometer.
“You do understand that, right? What I said about writing, being a writer?”
“What did you say about it?”
“I’m saying it’s tougher than anything. It takes it out of you like you wouldn’t believe. No-one gets it. No-one.”
Cully looked over.
“Yeah they do.”
“No they don’t,” Fanning said. “No way. No how.”
“Shut up,” said Cully.
“Oh, it’s a one-way street, is it? You say whatever you want – nothing most of the time, for Christ’s sake and I get told to shut up?”
“You’re yelling,” said Cully. “And I don’t like it. The yelling. So I’m telling you again, shut it.”
“‘Shut it.’ Who says ‘shut it’ here in Dublin, in Ireland? You’re English, you’re Irish. You’re this, you’re that. But you tell me nothing. What the hell use is that?”
Cully was staring at him.
“You’re losing it,” he said. “Calm down.”
“How often do you do this, snorting–”
“None of your business. And shut up.”
“You’re undercover,” Fanning said. “That’s it. Now I get it. You’re trying to entrap me. That’s what’s going on.”
“Listen to yourself,” said Cully. “Do you know how paranoid you sound?”
“Admit it, come on.”
Cully shook his head. He began feeling around in his pocket for something.
“See,” said Fanning. “Don’t think I’m blind, right? Or stupid. Treating me like some kind of child, like an iijit. You don’t know me – nobody knows me, what I do. What I can do.”
“Really.”
“There you go again!”
“What?”
“Discounting, that’s what.”
“Discount?”
“Fobbing me off. Like…”
“Who?”
“A guy called Breen.”
“I don’t know any Breen.”
Fanning realized that he was beginning to sweat. Things were getting stranger, like when he’d had the flu or a feve
r. He felt almost painfully alert to everything now. He could feel the blood going around in his body. He could hear the sound of Cully rubbing his eyelids.
He stared at the islands of light in the deserted street ahead. Flashes of images came to him, a satellite image zooming down to nighttime Dublin, hovering over the black Liffey waters nearby, over the flat where his wife and child were turning over in their sleep.
“You’re off your trolley,” Cully said. “Look at you, listen to you.”
Fanning felt his chest was rising up through his throat. He had to go, had to. He imagined himself sprinting away along the wet pavements all the way to Hope or some place and then back.
Cully was turning a lighter over in his hand. He lifted a joint to his lips then and lighted it. The end of the paper sparked as he drew hard once, paused, and drew again.
“You smoke dope too?”
Cully ignored him, taking two more long pulls. Then he held his breath and passed the joint over.
“This will calm you down, Superman.”
“I am calm.”
Cully coughed but kept scanning the mirrors.
“So what’s next?” Fanning asked.
“What’s next?”
“Yeah, what’s next?”
“We’re ditching this car is what.”
“But what then?”
“So far as I know you’re going home to your missus,” Cully murmured. “And I’m off about my business.”
“That’s it?”
“Was that you a minute ago, saying you had to go home right now?”
“I know. But I’ve got my second wind.”
He passed the joint back to Cully and watched the eddies of smoke that he released every few moments rising and then sliding toward the window.
“How long does it last?”
“What last?”
“The coke.”
Fanning reached out, his sleeve held by his fingers, to wipe condensation from the windscreen. The rain had stopped, for now, at least.
“You get your fifteen minutes of being God,” said Cully. “That enough for you?”
Fanning saw a moving shadow down the street. Somebody walking.
“And you crash afterwards. Right?”
“Not right away.”
The person walking was a man. He was carrying a packsack on his shoulder. Fanning looked over at Cully. There was something disappointing in seeing Cully trying to get the last toke, taking short stabs at it.
