The going rate imm-9

by John Brady

  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, not 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 f
ront 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 fever. 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.

  The man walking sidestepped the brimming puddles, but then he missed one. Fanning sniggered.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing. I was just thinking.”

  “Better that than yelling your head off,” said Cully, rolling down the window and blowing out a volley of smoke.

  The man stopped and drew out a map. He angled it, held it up, turned to the light to read it. Fanning knew by Cully’s stillness that Cully too was watching him.

  The man lowered the map and turned to face the end of the street. Then he turned back and resumed walking.

  “Talking to himself,” Fanning murmured. “Must be local.”

  Within a few steps the man had noticed them. His gait slowed slightly and he pulled the pack tighter on his shoulder. How amazing to be able to read a person’s mind by how they walk Fanning thought. How easy it was now.

  Every minute movement was apparent to Fanning now: steps taking him away from the curb toward the wall the closer he got to the car. The hand now holding the strap of the packsack tighter, the head apparently turned away but the lateral vision locked on the car. He heard the footsteps now, saw the white lines on his runners against the wet, glistening pavement.

  The man slowed and readjusted the strap.

  “What the hell,” Cully murmured.

  The man was almost stopped now, uncertain.

  Fanning tried to see into the shadows on the man’s face. The man sniffed the air and nodded appreciatively.

  “Good,” he said. “Is good.”

  Fanning’s mind teemed with detail: a foreign accent, twenty or twenty-one; pale with an excuse for a goatee; a smell of saturated clothes, cigarettes.

  “Ah, you can maybe give…?”

  The man mimicked a quick pull on a joint.

  “No much,” he added. “Just one, man?”

  “Where are you from?”

  “From Poland.”

  “Poland.”

  “Yeah man. Is like Ireland, you know? The people, nice. Cool, you know?”

  “You’re from Poland, and you’re looking for…?”

  “Fun, man. Good times. This I hear, Dublin is good times. People they are fun.”

  “Fun? You’re looking for fun?”

  The man made a self-deprecatory smile.

  “No much English. Fun is, cool, you know? Good times.”

  Again he raised his two fingers to his lips.

  “How do you know we’re not the Guards?”

  “The Guards? I don’t understand.”

  “Guards. Police. Politzei?”

  “Ah. Politzei is German. Yes. I go Germany but no like. Some Germans people cool, nice, but not all. No, no.”

  “Pretty high standards you have, haven’t you?”

  The smell of the man’s breath seemed to be everywhere now.

  “Uh-uh, no understand. Sorry? Is big problem, this English, I am-”

  “So you come here and you wander around the place looking to score?”

  “Shut up,” said Cully, “just leave him.”

  He turned the key. The engine didn’t catch at first.

  The man shrugged, and made another cautious smile and he nodded. Now the engine caught. Fanning’s chest felt like it was ready to explode. He tugged hard on the door release.

  “What the hell are you doing,” Cully said. “Shut the door.”

  “Did you hear him? Did you?”


  “You’re freaking out over nothing. Close the goddamned door.”

  “Like I’m some kind of dealer? Hey! I live here, you understand? This is my city? Irish? Dublin? You getting any of what I’m saying here?”

  The man had stepped back from the curb. Fanning got out slowly. He left the door ajar, felt the slight give of the wet curbstone underfoot. The night air worked around his neck and his chest.

  The man was walking away sideways, back to the wall. He was about to run. Fanning rummaged in his pocket.

  “Here,” he said. “Wait, I’ve got some. Here.”

  Watching the hesitation showing on the man’s face, Fanning began to marvel at how clear everything had become. Small beads of rain on the car bumper, the scuffing of the man’s runners as he made a tentative step toward him, the dank oily stink of the Liffey nearby. Cully’s leaning and stretching across the passenger seat to pull the door closed again. The sickly yellow light.

  “You’re on your own,” Cully called out before tugging the door closed.

  “Is problem?” said the Polish man.

  The hand out already, Fanning registered, the fingers almost twitching in anticipation of a joint.

  “No,” said Fanning. “No problem. No problem in the wide world.”

  He took his hand out of his pocket and held it out, still clenched. He watched the man’s changing expression, how he looked back from the fist to Fanning’s face. Fanning opened his hand and spread his fingers and he smiled.

  “There’s your fun,” he said. “Do you like it?”

  The young man said something in Polish, and he glared at him.

  “You too,” said Fanning. He began to laugh. It felt like he hadn’t laughed for years.

  “Is joke?”

  Fanning nodded. He felt twice his normal height. The laughter seemed to have let all the pressure out of his chest. He eyed the Opel’s exhaust hanging in the air.

  “Asshole,” Fanning heard from the young man as he ran.

  Then he was standing back, watching the Pole hobbling on and trying to flex his knee where Fanning’s kick had landed. Again it astonished Fanning how clear and sharp and predictable everything was. He could not remember running after the Pole, much less kicking him.

  “Is that cool now? Man?”

  The Pole stopped and glanced at the lights of the Opel getting smaller. He made a feint in that direction and then he ran.

  Fanning watched and smiled. Then he turned to watch the car’s progress away into the distance. Even from here he could hear every detail of the car’s tread as it rolled and hissed over the pavement. Amazing.