The Death of an Irish Tinker

by Bartholomew Gill

  “Drugs?” McKeon asked.

  “Who? The Bookends? For personal use, I’d say so. Anything they want. It’s how he keeps ’em loyal. But no trade. Nobody around the Toddler is allowed that. If they do—and some have—they end up in the Liffey.”

  Or under a bus or up in a tree, thought McGarr. He made mental note to ask Bresnahan to compare the names of murder victims in open cases against known associates of this Toddler. The Drug Squad would have a list. Or maybe it wouldn’t.

  “He ever been lifted?”

  “The Toddler? Not that I know of. Not in this country.”

  “Why not?” McKeon asked.

  Lyons shook his head. “Maybe he’s been careful.” But his eyes said he didn’t think it was his place to say.

  McGarr made a mental note to find out why.

  “Who’s the monkey?” Ward asked.

  He meant the small young man who was dressed in a tight black—was it?—chauffeur’s uniform. With a dark galways and gaunt body, he looked like a stick figure wearing a paste-on beard. Or an organ grinder’s monkey, cap and all.

  Lyons lowered his glasses. “Know him?”

  Ward shook his head.

  “The Monkey is what he’s called. And not just for the costume and the beard. He’s a heavy hitter, a great one for the gear.” With two fingers and thumb, Lyons pantomimed pushing the plunger of a syringe into his other arm. “He’s your man’s driver. Some say he even provided the car that the Toddler took title to in payment of his heroin debt. Archie Carruthers is his name. He’s been driving for the Toddler for—lemme think—maybe two years.”

  “Carruthers?” McKeon asked.

  Lyons nodded. “Comes from an old family down the country.”

  “Wicklow?”

  “Could be.”

  “Glencree?”

  “Dunno. But he’s nothing special. Just your common, garden-variety gearman, thinner than most. Do anything to score.”

  And probably had in the “Cliquot” tree on his—mother’s? aunt’s?—property with the help of the Bookends or some of the others McGarr could see through the binos.

  “Let’s lift him,” McKeon muttered to McGarr. “Take him back to the Castle,” where McKeon and McGarr would grill him. They were good at it.

  But what if Carruthers didn’t come across and they had to let him go? How long would he last back here in Coolock? Where he would come. Inevitably. Being a monkey man in the worst sense and not being able to help himself. Then again, Archie Carruthers—Monkey Man—had chosen who he was and how he would live at least two years earlier, when the robbery had occurred at the Glencree estate.

  “I’ll break him without even asking a question.”

  McGarr glanced at McKeon, suspecting he could, but he had to be certain since the mere act of taking him into custody would be like signing his death sentence. “Give me a moment.”

  Down in the car McGarr radioed his office, and Bresnahan patched through a phone call to Miss Eithne Carruthers, who came on the line after a short wait. “Tell me about Archie.”

  “My nephew?” There was a pause, then a sigh. “It occurred to me I should have said something about him last spring. But only after you were gone. Archie’s my sister’s only child, you understand.”

  And you his enabler, McGarr imagined. “How long have you known about his drug problem?”

  “Years, of course. We’ve done everything we can: doctors, hospitals, clinics, even a rehabilitation center over in the States. Two years at enormous expense! Now it’s up to him. He’s got to want to stop himself.”

  And be able to. McGarr knew of addicts who’d been helped simply by being put in a place where using was impossible. Like jail. It made wanting to quit easier. “And after your break-in, did you tell the police about your nephew?”

  There was another pause. “No, I couldn’t bring myself to do that either.”

  “What about the car, the Mercedes? When did Archie steal that?”

  “During his last slip. Two years ago. No, three.”

  “And you reported it?”

  Her sigh was audible. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because—because I didn’t want it to be Archie. Because it was Archie—I told myself—why, sure, wouldn’t it be his car someday anyhow?”

  “Since you have no children.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And there’s only you and your sister.” Left in the family, he meant.

  “Yes. And she a widow.”

  Little wonder the Toddler had kept Archie Carruthers close. The Monkey Man had brought him a marque automobile and whatever was boosted from the estate during the theft, and finally he had even helped him commit murder.

  No. The Toddler had been nowhere near the murder. He’d been back in his pub or some other public place where people could see him.

  “Do you think Archie is involved in…was it murder, Superintendent?”

  Procedure dictated that McGarr remain noncommittal since her sister and she might hire a solicitor who would only make the investigation more difficult. But maybe not in this case. Maybe what the Monkey would now need was somebody who could talk some sense to him. “It was murder.”

  “Where’s Archie now?”

  “About to be taken in.”

  “And charged?”

  “Perhaps. It all depends on how cooperative he is. Maybe it wasn’t his idea at all. Maybe it was the drugs.”

  “Of course. Without a doubt. It was the drugs. Archie may be many unfortunate things, but I know in my heart he’s no murderer.”

  McGarr wished he had a pound for every time he’d heard that.

  “Where will you be taking him?”

  “My office.” He thanked her and rang off.

  A few minutes later he pulled the unmarked blue Ford Granada into the curb by the pub where the Toddler and his minions were still lined up. Climbing out, he removed his Garda ID from a pocket and flashed it at the other guards, saying, “Peter McGarr, Murder Squad.” Loud, so the Toddler and his solicitor would hear.

  With the laminated ID still out, he made directly for the Monkey Man. “You must be Archie Carruthers.”

  The young man’s eyes shied toward the Toddler, as though seeking permission to acknowledge his own name. Carruthers had narrow shoulders and a thin chest. On him the galways ring of dark and curly facial hair looked almost comic, truly like some monkey or leprechaun or pooka. But not like a real human being, which was fitting since he was not a person. He was an addict, a true Monkey Man.

  “I asked you. Are you Archie Carruthers?” Out of the corner of an eye McGarr saw the Toddler nudge the solicitor, who stepped forward.

  “What’s this about? I represent this man.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since this moment.”

  “And do you represent the rest of these people?”

  “I do. Aye.” The solicitor was a tall gray-haired man in a splendid tailored overcoat.

  “Without even knowing their names. Tell me—what’s the name of that undoubted felon over there, the one with murder in his eyes?” McGarr pointed to one of the Bookends, who was glaring at him. “Or the young woman beside him. A renter, I hear. Fancy her yourself?”

  McGarr waited, studying the man, trying to remember who he was. But there was no reply.

  “Ah, then, you’re a rare, generous man for someone in your line of larceny. Fee free to unlimited, anonymous clients. Be honest, you take it out in trade.”

  Still nothing, which was strange. McGarr had seen the solicitor before, but he could not give the fleshy but handsome face a name. The man’s color was high, his nose streaked with veins.

  McGarr turned to the Monkey. “Archie Carruthers, you’re to come with me.” He took hold of the young man’s gaunt arm. Under the chauffeur’s jacket it felt like a thin branch.

  “On what charge?” Finally the solicitor had found his voice.

  “Oh, the very worst. Monkey business one, as premed
itated as it comes.” McGarr turned back to the man, aware that the Toddler was hanging on every word said. “Square with me now, solicitor. Be uncharacteristically honest, and I won’t run you in. D’you fancy the odd glass of bubbly?”

  The solicitor’s head went back, aware of the ruin of his nose. “Bubbly?”

  “Champagne. From the look of you, I’d hazard you do. Veuve Cliquot—know the brand? They say it’s wonderful, the very best. Gets you up there. High. Makes you feel like a body in a tall tree, all chained and shackled. Had that effect on Mickalou Maugham. Sent him straight to heaven on the eleventh of November last.” Hand still on Carruthers’s arm, McGarr spun him around. “Or was it the tenth, Mr. Monkey Man?”

  Again Carruthers’s eyes appealed to the Toddler.

  Whom McGarr now took one long step toward, dragging Carruthers with him. “No, that’s wrong.” They were nearly nose to nose, the Toddler and he. “The murder of Gavin O’Reilly was the tenth. He was the man you put under the bus. Maugham was the eleventh. He couldn’t have lasted more than a day chained naked in that tree.

  “Tell me something: Did you find the chains and shackles up there? Or had you thought of it earlier? You know, being just the sort of gear you’d need to send a message when the next offender presented himself.”

  McGarr’s eyes remained locked into the Toddler’s—small, dark, clear, and unworried—for the longest time. Nobody else spoke; not even the solicitor intervened.

  Finally McGarr said. “You a betting man, Mr. Bacon? I know you’re a chancer. Care to wager how long he’ll last?” McGarr pulled Carruthers toward him, then shot the Monkey at McKeon and Ward, who had just arrived.

  “That your car?” McGarr meant the long black Mercedes that the Monkey had stolen from his aunt, Eithne Carruthers. It was the model that was used by heads of state, bank directors, and here North Side drug kingpins.

  Still, the Toddler said nothing.

  “Then you don’t mind if I impound it.”

  “On what grounds?” It was the solicitor again.

  “That it’s twice stolen. Once by him”—McGarr pointed at Carruthers, whom Ward was placing in the back seat of one of the patrol cars—“and then by him.” He swung the finger at the Toddler’s face, but the man did not flinch.

  The solicitor’s brow furrowed, and he looked down at the footpath, as though sorry he’d got involved. McGarr now remembered who he was: Cornelius Duggan by name, who represented only the class of accomplished criminals who could afford him. Well-known politicians, corporate and bank directors, and here a drug mogul. But auto theft was clearly beneath him.

  “I hope Mr. Bacon is paying you cash, or could it be something more immediately rewarding?”

  Duggan only looked away.

  As they drove away, McGarr kept his eyes on the Toddler to see if he would motion Duggan to tag along. But he kept his vigil there on the footpath outside his pub, in his village, in his domain.

  Hands in trouser pockets, eyes watchful. The head moving twice to one side, once to the other. The Buddha Toddler. Who’d been in fray before, that much was plain.

  CHAPTER 6

  Hot Shots

  “SO, TELL ME,” McGarr asked Archie Carruthers the moment they got him into the dayroom and the monkey hat off his head, “how long you been on the gear?” McGarr leaned back in the chair, put his feet up on the table, twined his fingers behind his head, casual like. They had time to kill.

  But Carruthers did not answer. Instead he stared at McGarr with a look of haughty, modish disdain for a bald, old, bent-nose cop who had to work for a living and probably believed in all the verities of society that kept people in chains. All the stupid and timid toilers out there who were afraid to live on the edge.

  But it was also a look that McGarr had been studying and breaking now for many a year, all the easier in this case since Carruthers’s look was of the most fragile variety. It was the look of modish narcotic disdain, and the monkey in him would crack first. His junkie pride would crumble in hours and put him on the floor, groveling.

  “I won’t judge you,” McGarr went on. “I won’t even tell your aunt. Did I mention I have a niece who was on the gear? Clean now five year this May, please God.”

  Carruthers flinched at the mention of the deity and turned his eyes with their pinprick pupils to the dusty glass wall on the other side of the table. Like a mirror in a fun house, it distorted things, and he obviously appreciated what he saw. The thin, bearded person sitting at the table looked different. Shorter, wider, hip, strong.

  “She’s into the twelve steps and all,” McGarr went on. “Serious like. Carries this little book around with her, something like a missal. Reads it religiously. She gets a craving—you know, for the gear?—she pulls it out, reads it. Doesn’t matter where she is. Grafton Street, the DART. Soothes her, she says. Lets her know God’s with her wherever she might be. Gets her back on the proper path.

  “No pubs for her. Ever. She stays out of them on principle. Hangs, she calls it, only with people like her, recovering people.” McGarr waited for a moment, watching Carruthers’s eyes swirl in mock discomfort. “Strongest thing they drink is coffee, and plenty of it, I’m here to say. Wouldn’t she like to get her hands on you? She’d set you straight.

  “Look”—McGarr lowered his feet to the floor—“as long as we’re here, why don’t I go get some of the literature, she calls it? We’ll go through it together. Maybe I can do you a favor. You ever been to a rehab? Something tells me there’s one in your future. Or something like a rehab.” By which McGarr meant jail.

  “Maybe I could call you a priest.”

  Carruthers couldn’t help himself; he sighed and swirled his head.

  “Or a minister.”

  When he glanced at McGarr, it was with a look of pity. Sure he’d been to rehabs, the best. Talked to priests, cops, counselors, ministers, shrinks, and other assorted sky pilots and witch doctors. But the Monkey Man knew what was best for Archie Carruthers, and he’d won out every time. Got them right back on the needle the moment they hit the street. Victorious and wired.

  But Carruthers’s sigh was enough for McGarr, who knew he was on the right track. He would not ask Carruthers a single question about Glencree and the death of Mickalou Maugham. Rather, he’d let the Monkey—the little fearful, crazed animal inside Carruthers who did not like God or any talk of Him—do the work for him. Or higher powers. The Monkey knew what his higher power was called: HEROIN.

  And if the Monkey couldn’t or wouldn’t or didn’t cooperate, McGarr would just toss the both of them—Archie and the Monkey—out on the street, where the Toddler would do the work needed. And maybe put himself away, McGarr could only hope.

  “Right enough,” he said at the door. “You just relax. I’ll go see if I can dig up the brochures, the Big Book and all. Can I tell you I like this work? Ever since my niece recovered through the charity and grace of God, I think it’s my”—he gripped his chest with his fingers—“duty to bring some measure of relief to…poor, little, murdering, stupid, dead fucks like you.”

  He waited until Carruthers’s odd-looking head with its curly hair and chin whiskers swung to him.

  “You mean, you don’t know you’re dead? You should. Ask yourself this: Where’s your mouthpiece, your solicitor? Or, rather, the Tod’s solicitor? Ah, the Tod, he’s such a stand-up guy. Takes care of his own, he does. You can bank on that.

  “Make you a bet?” Now McGarr had Carruthers’s attention. “We won’t see Corny Duggan’s great coat and shiny tasseled shoes within a good mile of this place. Like you, the Tod is just waiting. In forty-eight hours, hey, you’re out of here for a reunion. D’yeh have any idea what Tod means in German? Course you don’t. Chemistry is more your thing.”

  McGarr opened the door and stepped out. “If there’s anything you want—the definition even—give us a shout. We’ll consider anything but what you’ll soon need.” And “be begging for” went unsaid.

  It’s only two days. I can
do it, Archie Carruthers told himself confidently. Hadn’t he only just popped three cc’s of coke to get him up, then leveled off with a bag of the T’s best smack, one of twenty he did in a day. Or would have.

  And it was still with him. Enough that as he sat here in the shit being questioned for murder, only one thing was bothering him: that he might make it through the two days, only to find himself back before the Toddler jonesing.

  Because the one thing Archie Carruthers knew was his habit. In fact, after his present world-class, nearly four-year run—no breaks—it was about all he knew. Or wanted to know. He ran through how it would go, to be prepared. To steel himself and be strong, the way he looked there in the glass.

  Six hours, maybe less, it would come on him: the notion that things weren’t quite right and he wasn’t where he should be. He’d feel a bit jumpy, anxious, out of sorts, then suddenly, horribly, he’d realize that there was something far wrong with him altogether.

  He’d begin to sweat. His nose would run; his eyes would start watering. He’d yawn, again and again, suddenly tired but wide-awake, trembling, his body aching as if he’d been caned or something. All over. Or sneezing uncontrollably. Once in Scotland, where he’d told his mother he’d gone hiking and spent every penny she gave him on dope, he had sneezed so long and hard he’d shattered capillaries in his eyeballs.

  Then cramps. His muscles would knot up brutally, and he’d have to try to keep on his feet, rubbing himself, stumbling, falling. He’d upchuck until reverse peristalsis came on and/or he shit himself until he could shit no more. Then maybe a convulsion and hospital. Once at the Beaumont he’d been pronounced dead and given the last rites, and him a bleeding Methodist. Or from bleeding Methodists. Coming to, he gave the priest a right Protestant start.

  Carruthers smiled, thinking of it Still and all, the Monkey was a bit worried. With the run he’d been on—over fourteen hundred hooked-up days—anything was possible, thanks to the Toddler, whose gear for “friends” was free and primo. Carruthers had been good with numbers in his time. He could figure.