by Denis Byrne
Baldy glanced in that direction. Sure enough, the sap had returned to the scene of his earlier scalping, propped against the cinder block wall Baldy had never quite got around to sweeping the cobwebs from. ‘Sorry, Harry,’ he said. ‘But it’s no deal. These doddery old legs of mine just about get me around as it is. I don’t think I’d be able to manage after a couple of cues had played baseball with my kneecaps.’
Harry could hardly prevent tears of frustration from welling up in his eyes. But he knew exactly what Baldy was talking about. Jumping the queue at any time wasn’t a great idea, but trying it on when half the lowlifes in town were patiently waiting their turn to hit a few balls was positively dangerous. But Harry was desperate, and desperate people are sometimes prepared to take risks they wouldn’t take under more normal circumstances.
‘Who’s at the head of the list?’ Harry hissed, squinting over Baldy’s shoulder trying to make out the squiggly scrawl sitting in prime position.
Baldy glanced over his shoulder. ‘Razorblade Riordan,’ Baldy informed him softly, ‘or as both of us know what he likes to be called, One Slash Rodney.’ Baldy couldn’t contain a mocking little smile. ‘You could always ask him nicely to let you have his spot. That’s if you don’t mind being separated from your earlobes.’
‘You’ve got to do something, Baldy!’ Harry pleaded, anxiously looking over at where Harrington was still propped against the wall, glad to see he hadn’t taken off after seeing how crowded the hall was. ‘Slip in my name right underneath Razorblade’s I’ll split fifty/fifty with you, cross my heart.’
‘No can do, Harry. The Rhino might twig what I was doing. He’s next in line after Razorblade. You know yourself what happens when anyone tries to pull a fast one on him.’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ Harry replied despondently, racking his brains for a way out of his dilemma. ‘What would you say it I offered you a sixty/forty split?’
‘Not a thing. You could promise me the sun, moon and stars, Harry, but that board stays exactly the way it is. I don’t want this place reduced to a heap of rubble, if that’s all right with you.’ He opened his magazine, sliding the twenty back in Harry’s direction. ‘See, you’re twenty ahead already.’
‘Funny,’ Harry said, giving him a look which would have refrigerated a buffalo, snapping the note into his pocket and heading over in Harrington’s direction. ‘Hey, I thought it was you, Brendan,’ he said, smiling. ‘But I didn’t think I’d be seeing you until tomorrow. Looking for some more action already?’
‘You could say that,’ Harrington replied, scowling to convey he wasn’t very happy about something. ‘I thought I might find you here. I let myself down badly earlier. All day it’s been bugging me the way I played. So I said to myself I’d come tonight instead of tomorrow to win my money back.’
‘You know something,’ Harry said, nodding his head in agreement. ‘I said something like that to Baldy when I came back after our snack earlier today. I told him it was sheer luck I came out on top in the end. I knew you had something more. “That Brendan guy can play a lot better, Baldy,” I said, “Looks to me like he was having an off day.” Those were my exact words.’ He shuffled his feet and flicked a spider off the arm of his jacket. ‘Tell you the truth, Brendan, I was hoping you wouldn’t come back at all. I reckon I’d have no chance against you if you were cueing your best.’
‘And you’re right too,’ Harrington said, adding a touch of indignation into his act. ‘My granny could have beaten me earlier.’
Harry nodded sympathetically. ‘That’s the way it goes sometimes,’ he said sadly. He was weeping inside at the thought that there were no tables available, and that the prospect of getting one tonight appeared to be out of the question. ‘Lucky for me all the tables are booked right up to closing time,’ he forced himself to say. ‘Look, I know how you feel. I’ve been there myself hundreds of times. Why don’t you come back tomorrow like we arranged and I’ll give you another shot, even if I’ve got the feeling I’ll be the one who’s gonna be cleaned out then.’
‘But I feel hot now,’ Harrington retorted, rubbing his hands together in a show of agitation, ‘and I’ve got five hundred burning a hole in my pocket I’m either going to drop or double.’
Harry grabbed his arm and put a finger to his lips in a warning gesture, glancing around meaningfully at the dodgy looking characters who were hopefully out of earshot. Then he leaned closer, whispering in Harrington’s ear, ‘For the love of Pete, Brendan, keep your voice down! There are guys in here would slit their Mother’s gizzard for half that!’ He blew through his lips in relief on seeing that none of the nearby lowlifes had apparently heard of Harrington’s foolishness. ‘Everyone’s not like me, you know.’
‘Why can’t we go somewhere else?’ Harrington demanded, ‘What’s so special about here? A pool table’s the same no matter where it is.’
‘I’d love to, Brendan,’ Harry said. ‘But that just isn’t on the cards, I’m afraid.’
‘Why not? You’re not running scared, are you?’
Harry would have laughed only he was feeling so put out about not immediately being able to get his hands on Harrington’s stake money. He was almost tempted to approach Rhino and put the same deal to him as he had to Baldy. But with Rhino, you never knew. He could be a mite touchy by times. Catch him in the wrong humour, and you were liable to wind up looking like a contortionist before you realised it. Rhino was a collection agent for one of the leading illegal moneylenders in town. Some people called him an enforcer. Clients who were behind in their payments called him everything under the sun after they’d recovered from one of his weekly visits. Rhino liked to twist people into complex knots just for the fun of it. Harry decided against approaching him in case he was in one of his moods. His smooth cue action might never be the same again if Rhino took it into his head to keep his hand in practice as he waited for his table.
‘You don’t understand, Brendan. It’s not that I’m all that scared, though I’ve got to admit the thought of playing you again gives me a few butterflies when I think about it. It’s just that I’m barred from every other hall in town. A couple of complications here and there from way back. Nothing to get excited about. So it looks like it’s gonna have to be tomorrow before we get down to it again.’
‘I’m not waiting that long,’ Harrington retorted, making as though to leave. ‘I’ll hit one of the other halls by myself and see if I can square my account that way.’
Harry almost fainted at the thought. He couldn’t let something like that happen. Not to a nice guy like Brendan. The sharks in the other halls would eat him alive. He clung to Brendan’s sleeve like a limpet. Harrington allowed himself to be detained. He could quite easily have shaken off Harry and headed for the door, but stayed where he was to see what he would come up with next.
Harry’s mind was revolving like a roulette wheel. He knew he couldn’t keep the sucker here for much longer. The guy was only chomping at the bit for more action, and if Harry couldn’t provide it, those barracudas in the other halls would be only too glad to accommodate him. Harry felt like throwing up at the idea of them getting their filthy paws on what was rightfully his. Six Cushion Pete or Side Pocket Sid would see the poor innocent slob coming a mile off if he strayed into either of the halls they plied their trades in. They were small time hustlers, not in the same league as Harry, but neither of them were pushovers, either.
‘Tell you what, Brendan,’ Harry finally said, ‘let’s you and me see if we can work something out. What do you say? Fair’s fair, and seeing as you’re so anxious to square things, I’ve got an idea.’
‘What did you have in mind?’
Harry placed his hand in his pocket and extracted a couple of dice. ‘Maybe these babies will get your juices flowing,’ he said, thinking that there was more than one way to peel a grape. ‘You come back to my place, we can get the action going there. I tell you, Brendan, rolling dice for the right kind of readies can get your heart pumping like a trip-hamme
r. But I guess you know all about that already.’
‘I’ve never played before,’ Harrington told him, pretending not to notice Harry’s eyes light up as though there were a couple of thousand watt bulbs screwed into his sockets. ‘Though if it’s as exciting as you say, I’m willing to give it a go. But you’re going to have to teach me the rules first.’
It was all Harry could do not to kiss Harrington’s hand. He wondered what he’d ever done in his past life to deserve what was being shoved his way right now. He supposed that time a couple of years ago he’d helped a blind man cross a busy road might have something to do with it. The first time he’d resisted temptation in his entire life. He could have easily dipped the guy’s pocket as he was shuffling him across, but he’d told himself not to be a jerk. Anyway, there were a few too many people around at the time. He might have found himself hanging from the nearest lamppost if one of them twigged what he was up to. Just goes to show, he told himself, what goes around comes around sooner or later when you’ve done your good deed for the day.
They were only a few streets away from the pool hall, when Harrington decided to give Harry a bit of a surprise. He stopped abruptly, took his arm and pulled him into the darkness of a dimly lit alleyway.
Harry strained against him, but to no avail. ‘What the - -’ he started to say, but got no further. Harrington released him after backing him against a wall, leaning both his hands against either side of Harry’s shoulders to ensure he stayed exactly where he was. Harrington glanced anxiously towards the entrance to the alleyway, shaking his head in warning to Harry to remain quiet, while he cocked his ear and pretended to listen for something or other. Then he stepped back and emitted a long drawn out sigh of relief, as thought to indicate he thought the danger had passed.
‘What’s going on, Brendan?’ Harry asked softly, aware that something had spooked his meal ticket, having often found the need himself to duck into some dark laneway to avoid somebody he wasn’t particularly keen on bumping into due to one thing and another. ‘Are we being tailed?’
‘We were, but I think I’ve given them the slip.’ Harrington bit his lip, then gazed at Harry for a few seconds, looking like he was turning over something in his mind. ‘Look, Harry, I’m going to be honest with you here. I’m not who I’ve been pretending to be all along.’
Harry gulped. He didn’t like the sound of that one little bit. It reminded him too much of the old days when he constantly had to watch his back all the time. ‘You mean you’ve been stringing me along?’ he asked, hoping this Brendan guy, or whoever he was, wasn’t some high-octane fruitcake. If he wasn’t so darned big and broad shouldered, Harry would have clipped him in the jaw and made a run for it. ‘Who the hell are you, and what’s going on here?’
‘I’m a private-eye, Harry. My name’s Shamus O’ Shaughnessy and I’m on a special assignment. I’ve been led to believe you can help me.’
Harry wasn’t happy. His pride had been severely dented at the thought of being taken for a mug like this. At least the guy wasn’t the Long Arm. Not, of course, Harry told himself, that he had anything to hide from them any more. Well, nothing that was going to get them running round in circles or bring out the heavy artillery to track him down. They didn’t really care about him at this stage. They weren’t going to lose any sleep over a couple of loaded dice and a bit of honest hustling. But still--. Harry couldn’t help feeling like a prize chump that anyone had pulled a stunt like this on him. ‘And who told you that?’ he asked, still miffed, but at the same time having a feeling if he could come up with the right answers, the five hundred might still be destined to wind up in his lap.
‘Sorry, but I’m not at liberty to reveal my sources,’ Harrington replied gravely. ‘That’s strictly confidential’
‘So, what do you want to know?’ Harry asked, feeling out the lay of the land.
‘Any pointers you can give me about who’s behind the kidnapping of the Governor of the Central Bank and his granddaughter.’
Harry knew all about that story. It was making headlines every day, blaring from the telly every time he turned it on. ‘Are you crazy or something? That’s big league stuff. How am I supposed to - .’
‘I’m not asking you to lead me to their door. All I’m asking you is to try to remember if you’ve heard even a whisper in that direction. There’s five hundred in it for you. You won’t even have to go through all that malarkey with those doctored dice of yours. It’ll buy you an awful lot of beer, Harry. Come on, think! But don’t hand me any old guff just to get your hands on the cash. Remember, I know where to find you whenever I want to.’
Harry looked at him curiously. There was something funny about this Shamus/Brendan guy, or whoever he really was. Harry couldn’t put his finger on it. But there was five hundred going abegging, and that seemed a good enough reason to tell him what he knew had come over the grapevine. ‘I don’t know much,’ Harry told him, conscious of the threat of being tracked down later if he handed the guy a heap of fairy stories. ‘But I’ll tell you what it is if you promise to hand over the five hundred.’
‘And what would that be, Harry?’
‘There’s no guarantee it’ll be any use to you either.’ Harry warned.
‘Try me.’
‘I didn’t hear the magic words yet,’ Harry reminded him.
Harrington took out the money and passed it over. Harry, to demonstrate his trust in human nature, stuffed it into his pocket without even counting it. ‘The word on the grapevine is it’s so big a caper, there’s only one outfit would be capable of pulling it off.’ Harry said, ‘They go by the name of Moran Enterprises.’
Harrington looked puzzled. He was a policeman, and he’d never even heard of them. But at least it was a start. ‘What do you know about them?’ he asked. ‘Not a lot,’ Harry replied. ‘Personally, I haven’t a clue, but that’s how the grapevine has it. This guy was shooting off his mouth after he’d had a few too many a couple of months ago in one of the regular drinking dens in town. Boasting about this once in a lifetime snatch that would be coming on stream soon. Bragging about how he was part of the set-up. He let slip the name of the outfit. Then realised what he was after doing and threatened everyone in sight he’d come back and blow their heads off if they opened their mouths about what he’d said about Moran Enterprises.’
‘Did anybody know who he was?’
‘Sure, everybody did. He’s a guy called Dapper Desmond. He used to be part of a gang of small-time heist merchants. He’s done time over and over. Then he disappeared from the scene altogether. Suddenly he’s back in one of his old haunts bragging about the snatch. Everyone thought he was just blowing hot air. Then, bingo, this big kidnapping comes along. And Dapper’s disappeared again. Seems like he was telling the truth after all.’
‘It does, doesn’t it,’ Harrington said thoughtfully. ‘And from what you’ve told me, that was the first time any of your - er - colleagues ever heard of Moran Enterprises?’
‘First and last, Shamus,’ Harry replied. ‘And if you do happen to stumble across them, you heard nothing about them from me. Deal?’
‘Deal, Harry,’ Harrington assured him.
As they reached the top of the alley and were about to head off on their separate directions, Harry touched Harrington’s arm and asked him who it was had been tailing him earlier. Harrington shrugged and told him it was probably only his imagination. Harry grinned and said maybe it was Brendan.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Charlie thought he’d have some fun at Danny’s expensive. He hadn’t forgotten Danny splitting his sides giggling that day he’d been an eagle and Danny had jammed on the brakes to make him flap his wings frantically to prevent himself being flung beak-first into a ditch. Two could play at that game. The compound should be coming into sight soon, and Charlie had ceased flapping his enormous wings in order to attain the correct altitude for a smooth landing.
But just as they were gliding in over the rooftops, Charlie suddenly set his
wings beating once more, pointed his huge reptilian head skywards and zoomed upwards like a rocket from its launching pad. Danny was taken by surprise to find himself in a horizontal position, the wind whipping into his face, making his eyes water, and his hair feel as though it was going to be torn from his scalp at any second. It was all he could do to cling on to Charlie’s big scaly neck with his knees.
Then Charlie flew over to a nearby green space surrounded by houses and started looping the loop, whizzing round and round like a gigantic Catherine wheel, making Danny’s feel as though he were in a washing machine. His stomach was churning, his head spinning, and he was in such a state of disorientation, he couldn’t even summon up the words to order Charlie to revert to acting like the well-behaved pterodactyl he’d been up to this point. Sky and earth whipped past so quickly, Danny had given up trying to figure which way up or down he was after a while. He was too busy hanging on as best he could.
Then Charlie pulled out of the loop and started imitating a rocket again. Danny felt himself sliding downwards along Charlie’s back, spiny scales digging into his behind as though he were being dragged backwards through thorn bushes. Charlie didn’t seem to notice he was losing his passenger. It was ages since he’d felt so exhilarated. He continued to spiral upwards, wondering how long it would take to reach the moon before he actually realised Danny was no longer on board. It must have been the screech of terror that alerted him to the situation. Charlie looked down, and was horrified at what he saw. Danny was plummeting towards the ground, arms flapping like a bird in an effort to fly like one, but he wasn’t making a very good job of it. Charlie nearly had a heart attack. Danny’s attempts at skydiving didn’t look very impressive.
Charlie sped downwards as though jet-propelled, his huge wings a black blur against the night sky. Danny was dropping like a stone now, with only six hundred feet between him and certain death. Charlie was frantic. Fast as he was propelling himself towards Danny, he knew he wasn’t going to get there on time.
