Collusion jli-2

by Stuart Neville

  There it was, some sort of mastiff cross. A low wall surrounded the cottage. The dog stood just inside the open gate. It stopped its barking and watched the Traveller approach. There was enough light yet to see the glow of its eyes. He pulled back the Eagle’s slide to chamber a round and thumbed the safety off. The dog’s legs quivered and its chest rumbled.

  The Traveller raised the Eagle in a two-handed grip, his wrists firm so his shoulders would take the brunt of the recoil, and squeezed the trigger until he felt resistance. Sometimes he forgot which was his right hand, and which was his left. Something else that came out of his brain along with that piece of Kevlar. Not that it mattered much; he had trained one hand to be about as strong as the other.

  He lined the sights between the dog’s eyes. It lunged. He blew its skull apart.

  The boom rolled across the hills. The Traveller watched the house for movement. No surprises now, just get in and do it. He marched to the old wooden door and booted it below the handle. He kicked it again, and it swung inward. He went in gun first, ready to take down anything that moved.

  The tiny open-plan kitchen and living room was empty. Old bottles and beer cans crowded around the sink. The remains of a Chinese takeaway littered the dining table. The place reeked of stale cigarettes and alcohol, damp and rotten food. Only two doors led from this room. One of them stood open, revealing a dirty bathtub and toilet. He went to the other, the Eagle at shoulder level.

  The Traveller threw it open, and the door frame exploded around him. He fired blind into the room three times, the recoil throwing him backwards against the table. His wrist shrieked; splinters and plaster dust stung his face.

  ‘Bastard,’ he said. He wiped his sleeve across his eyes. Hot pain seared the right. He shook his head, tried to dislodge whatever burned there.

  ‘Jesus,’ he said. He rubbed the heel of his left hand against the eye. It came away wet and red. ‘Dirty fucker.’

  He calmed his breathing and listened. Moaning and sobbing came from the room. The Traveller crossed to it, both hands supporting the Eagle.

  Kevin Malloy lay on the floor between the bed and an open wardrobe, his legs tangled in sheets, a shotgun by his side. A ragged hole was torn in his shoulder.

  The Traveller lifted the shotgun and admired the polished wooden stock and steel barrel. ‘Fuck, that’s a beauty,’ he said, putting it on the bed. He recognised the stag’s head logo. ‘Browning. Very nice. Think I’ll have that. You got more shells?’

  Malloy lay there shaking. His blood soaked the carpet. It squelched under the Traveller’s feet. He kicked Malloy’s shoulder. Malloy screamed.

  ‘I asked you a question,’ the Traveller said. ‘You got more shells for that?’

  Malloy turned his head. ‘In… in there.’

  The Traveller stepped over him and found three boxes of 20-gauge cartridges in the bottom of the wardrobe. He threw them on the bed beside the Browning.

  ‘Anyone else here?’ he asked.

  Malloy shook his head.

  ‘Where’s your missus?’

  Malloy cried.

  The Traveller kicked him again. When Malloy’s screaming died down, the Traveller said, ‘Where is she?’

  ‘In town,’ Malloy said. ‘Please don’t kill me.’

  ‘When’ll she be back?’

  ‘I don’t know. Please don’t kill me. I’ve money. You can have my cash card and my PIN. There, in my wallet.’

  The Traveller went to the dressing table and put the wallet in his pocket. It would help make it look like a robbery, but he’d dump it somewhere on the road. No way he’d use the card.

  He rubbed his right eye on his sleeve, hissed at the sting. ‘You might’ve fucking blinded me, you know.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Malloy said. ‘Please don’t kill me.’

  The Traveller flicked the Eagle’s safety on and tucked it into his waistband. He went to the bed and lifted the Browning. He turned it in his hands, tested its heft. It was compact and light. ‘Fucking lovely,’ he said. He pulled back the slide to eject the spent cartridge and pushed it forward to load the next. The action was smooth and easy. ‘That’s a beauty,’ he said, running his fingers over the smooth walnut stock. He wedged the butt against his shoulder and lined up Malloy’s head.

  ‘Jesus,’ Malloy said.

  The Traveller took three steps back. He didn’t want to get covered in the splatter.

  Malloy wept and prayed.

  The Traveller blinked blood away from his right eye. He sniffed and swallowed. He shifted his weight onto his leading foot, braced for the recoil, and pulled the trigger.

  It didn’t make too bad a mess of Malloy, considering. The recoil gave the Traveller a solid kick to the shoulder, but it was a controllable piece. He held the Browning out to admire it again. ‘Nice,’ he said.

  He pulled the earplugs out by the plastic string and put them in his pocket. He opened and closed his jaw to clear the pressure. His eye stung pretty bad, now. He walked back to the kitchen and turned on the tap. A scoop of cold water eased the burning a little.

  He wondered if there were any old plastic bags under the sink in which to carry the boxes of cartridges back to the car. He opened the cupboard doors.

  A woman lay trembling on her side in there, squeezed beneath the plumbing. She covered her head with her hands, her knees drawn up to her chin. She smelled of gin.

  ‘Ah, fuck,’ the Traveller said.

  He reached for the earplugs.

  9

  Fegan knew he was being followed. The tall, broad man had been ten paces behind him when he entered Grand Street station. It was almost six, still dark above ground, when Fegan boarded the D Train. He watched the other man pass the car. Fegan guessed the follower would choose the next car along, probably glancing out at every stop to see if his quarry left the train.

  He’d be wasting his time. Fegan would ride the train all the way to Columbus Circle so he could walk in the park as the sun came up. Sleep had barely touched him last night. The Doyle brothers’ oily words and knowing grins kept him from slipping under, so he rose early and headed out.

  Fegan took a seat and opened his book. It was slim, a little over a hundred pages, and he’d found it not long after arriving in New York. He’d been walking along Bleecker Street, mouth and eyes agape, the city seeming to roar through him. He passed a small shop, stopped, and turned back. A memory drew him towards the door. The sign above the entrance said Greenwich Judaica. He walked in.

  He couldn’t recall the title of the book Marie McKenna told him about just a few months ago while he sat terrified beside her, but he could hear the sadness in her voice as she told him how her dead uncle, the man he had killed, forced her to tear it up. After some explaining, the young man in the shop found a copy of Yosl Rakover Talks to God in a box of used books. Fegan had read it twice so far, picking over the words in the same slow and deliberate way he had when he was at the Christian Brothers School back in Belfast. He hadn’t been much of a reader then, and he wasn’t now. He caught himself moving his lips as he grappled with the text, and brought a hand to his mouth.

  Fegan liked to read on the subway. His cold, damp room was too quiet. Outside was too noisy. The subway’s rattle and thrum was just right. Besides, you needed somewhere to put your eyes. He’d found it strange his first few days here, people seeming to fall asleep the instant they took a seat, or even clinging to the poles. But then he started doing it too.

  Victor Gonzalvez, an electrician from Brazil with wide, hairy shoulders, called it New York Narcolepsy. Rather than constantly avoiding other passengers’ eyes, it was easier to close your own and drift. But then the dreams would creep in behind Fegan’s eyelids, refugee visions from the night. So he preferred to read.

  The train slowed, its brakes singing, causing his weight to shift on the seat. A flat voice announced 59th Street–Columbus Circle. Fegan stuffed the book down into his pocket, left the car, and made his way up towards ground level. He still crackle
d with that childish excitement as a fleet breeze ferried the noises and smells of the city down the stairwells to swirl about him.

  Fegan didn’t care about the footsteps behind. The Doyles thought he’d flee the city, and he would, but not yet. He needed time to think, to plan. He wouldn’t let them panic him into running before he knew where to go. When he was ready, he would slip out of the city regardless of who followed. Perhaps back to Boston – he’d spent a month there before coming to New York – or maybe Philadelphia.

  It was past six-thirty, now, and the first hints of light glowed behind the towers to the east of Central Park. The glass palace of the Time Warner Center reflected the weak dawn. Fegan had gone in just the once and felt poor as he wandered between the boutiques full of hard-faced women and stiff-backed salesmen. He had no desire to return. Countless yellow taxis rumbled around the Circle, carrying workers getting an early start. Fegan waited for a break in the traffic before crossing over to the massive Maine Monument and the park entrance beyond. He resisted the urge to glance behind.

  He took the path that ran under the westerly wall’s shadow and hesitated as the trees darkened the way. Yellows and reds peppered the leaves, but autumn had not yet set them to balding. The follower was still behind him somewhere, Fegan sensed him there, but his footsteps were lost in the morning bustle. He scolded himself and kept walking. If he hurried he could be at Umpire Rock in time to watch the sun rise over the grand buildings of Park Avenue. He would keep to the wide paths.

  Quick footsteps came from behind, and Fegan braced himself. As they approached, he heard them veer to his right. He turned his head to see an early jogger pass, giving him a wide berth. Fegan allowed himself a glance over his shoulder. The darkness concealed all but the vague silhouette of the big man. He kept walking, his hands buried in his pockets, but curled into fists all the same. He couldn’t—

  Oh God she’s burning the child’s burning oh no please no make it stop she’s burning—

  Fegan staggered, barely held his balance, his stomach hurling bile up to his throat. He coughed, choked, wrapped his arms around his middle as the shock of the vision pounded his chest and stomach. Another jogger coming towards him slowed, thought about—

  Jesus sweet Jesus no don’t let her burn please stop it she’s drowning in the smoke she’s burning—

  Fegan’s legs betrayed him, and he pitched forward. His left shoulder hit the ground first and the pavement scraped his cheek. He vomited, hot foulness stinging his throat and nostrils. The jogger stopped for a moment, hopped from foot to foot, then sprinted to him.

  ‘Sir?’ he said as he crouched. ‘Sir, do you need help?’

  ‘She’s burning,’ Fegan said.

  The jogger called to someone beyond Fegan’s vision. ‘Excuse me! Sir! This man needs help. Do you have a phone?’

  The follower came into view, his heavy shoulders twitching as he looked around, confused.

  ‘Do you have a cell?’ the jogger asked.

  ‘I don’t carry mine when I’m running.’

  ‘Uh,’ the follower said. He looked back to the park’s entrance.

  ‘Sir,’ the jogger said. ‘This man needs help. Do you have a cell-phone to call an ambulance?’

  The follower patted his pockets as he looked in every direction but down. ‘I, uh, don’t know if I, uh …’

  ‘Do you have one or not?’

  ‘I guess not,’ the follower said.

  ‘Will you stay with him while I get help?’

  The follower sighed and nodded.

  ‘We need to get him into the recovery position,’ the jogger said. ‘Help me out, here.’

  The follower bent down to grab Fegan’s legs while the jogger slipped a hand underneath his neck. Fegan felt his body turn, his head supported by the—

  She’s burning the fire it’s eating her up the child oh no not her—

  Fegan’s right foot lashed out and connected with the follower’s knee. The follower screamed as Fegan felt something buckle. Then he was up, his shoulder ramming into the jogger’s chest. Fegan ran as the jogger went tumbling, each breath scorching his throat, his eyes streaming. He ran until his legs and lungs could carry him no further.

  10

  The elevator doors slid open and Lennon stepped inside. Susan, the divorcee from upstairs, stood there with her daughter Lucy huddling against her.

  Susan’s face brightened. ‘And how’s you this morning?’ she asked, reaching out to stroke his upper arm.

  ‘Not bad,’ Lennon said, returning the smile.

  Susan had flirted with him from the moment she moved in a year ago. She was attractive, he couldn’t deny it, but he’d never responded. It took him six months to figure out why: she was a good woman bringing up a child on her own. A child around the same age as the daughter he’d abandoned. She didn’t need a bastard like him to mess her around. Susan deserved a decent man who’d treat her well, who’d look after her and Lucy. Lennon knew that wasn’t him. He’d only let her down.

  Sometimes, when she’d lean her shoulder against his in the lift, or when she’d brush her hand against his as he held a door for her, he thought about telling her so. He considered telling her he was no good, that she should stop the flirting, it could only lead to hurt for her and her daughter.

  But what was the point?

  ‘You look thoughtful,’ she said. ‘Busy day today?’

  ‘Something like that. A big interview.’

  She nodded and smiled. He’d never told her he was a cop. The elevator door swished open. He stepped aside to let her out first. Her hand ran down his sleeve and glanced off his fingers.

  ‘See you,’ she said.

  He smiled in return. Outside the lift, he stooped to fiddle with his shoelace so that she could get some distance on him. Distance would be best for all concerned.

  * * *

  ‘You have friends in high places, Dandy,’ Lennon said.

  Rankin crossed one slippered foot over the other and stared at Lennon from the hospital bed. ‘Don’t call me that,’ he said. ‘Anyone calls me that to my face, and anyone I hear of calling me that behind my back, they get sorted. Right?’

  ‘Sorted,’ Lennon echoed, a laugh thinning the word as he spoke it. He took a plastic cup from the stack on the bedside locker and opened the bottle of Lucozade that stood beside them. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’

  He didn’t wait for an answer before filling the cup. Three swallows drained it of the fizzing orange liquid, and he filled it again. He’d headed out again last night, and the late hours had started to catch up on him. A boost to his blood sugar wouldn’t go amiss.

  Dandy Andy Rankin looked resplendent in his silk pyjamas and dressing gown. No hospital duds for him. If not for the wires snaking out from beneath his pyjama top, connecting him to the beeping monitor at his bedside, he’d have looked like an aristocratic gentleman enjoying a late morning. Albeit with a Red Hand of Ulster tattoo peeking out from between the buttons on his chest. The graze on his cheek from when he’d hit the ground behind Sylvia’s café had started to scab over. A cut on his lip suggested that Crozier at least got a decent punch in before Rankin knifed him.

  Lennon took another swig of Lucozade and went to the window. They’d given Rankin a nice quiet private room, the kind of room only those with the best medical insurance could afford, while the rest of Belfast’s sick and injured had to make do with the NHS. Being a scumbag had its perks. The only downside was a police guard on your door.

  ‘Like I was saying,’ Lennon continued, ‘friends in high places. I’m told you’re going to cooperate, which is awful good of you. If it’d been up to me, you’d be facing two counts of attempted murder. I’d have plenty to make it stick. But your pals have persuaded me to put GBH to the Public Prosecution Service. Aren’t you the lucky boy?’

  ‘Luck’s got nothing to do with it, son,’ Rankin said, a slight lisp lending his speech a greasy effeminacy. ‘It pays to befriend the right people.’

 
‘You’re not their friend,’ Lennon said, turning from the window. ‘You’re a tout. You’re a commodity. They’ll shit on you the second you’re no more use to them.’

  ‘That’s another name I don’t like.’

  ‘I don’t give a flying fuck what you like,’ Lennon said. He put the cup on the windowsill and dragged the vinyl-covered armchair from the corner to face Rankin’s bed. It wheezed displaced air as Lennon sat down, an odour of stale urine coming with it. ‘You tout for Special Branch. That’s why they stepped in for you, asked me to soften the blow. That’s what got you off the hook.’

  ‘I’m not off any hook,’ Rankin said. ‘I’m still going to do time, aren’t I?’

  ‘Not the sort of time you should be doing,’ Lennon said. ‘You’re getting off easy, and you know it. I agreed to the GBH against my better judgement. Now what are you going to do for me?’

  ‘Sweet fuck all,’ Rankin said, smiling, his eyebrow arched. ‘Special Branch tells the likes of you to jump, you jump. Don’t make out you’re doing me any favours, son. You’re just doing what you’re told.’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not. I haven’t sent the file to the PPS yet. A lot can change between now and then.’

  Rankin turned his face to the window. ‘Fuck yourself.’

  Lennon leaned forward. ‘Course, I have my own contacts among your boys. And Crozier’s. I might say the wrong thing to one of them. I might let something slip. And I know how you boys talk amongst yourselves. Rumours spread like crabs in a whorehouse. Next thing you know you’ve got a gun in your—’

  ‘Don’t threaten me,’ Rankin said. He turned his gaze back to Lennon, his eyes blank like a cadaver’s. ‘Don’t do it. You can’t scare me. You’re not the only one with contacts. I know all sorts of boys in all sorts of places, some of the mon the other side. Some of them aren’t on ceasefire. Some of them would love to have a crack at a peeler, score a goal for their fucking lost cause. You get me, son?’

  Lennon didn’t reply.

  Rankin’s eyes came back to life. ‘Right, now we’ve shown each other how big our cocks are, let’s try being a wee bit civil about it, eh? You want to ask me some questions, go on ahead. Maybe I’ll answer them, maybe I won’t. Fair enough?’