The Rage

by Gene Kerrigan

  For Vincent, the problem with a place like this was that most purchases would involve credit cards. Still, there was bound to be a bit of cash on the premises. And, to get his hands on it, just this tasty little bird to go through.

  He gestured towards the back of the shop, where a cash register stood on a curved waist-high counter.

  ‘Get the money.’

  Vincent made his voice come out low, harsh, like he was barely holding himself together. He could see the tremor in her hands. Jesus, she was something.

  Maybe a couple of years younger than Vincent, which would make her about twenty-four, something like that. A cool face with barely a hint of make-up, a permanently stuck-up kind of face. Short blonde hair drew attention to her long, slim neck. Loose silky dress, a lot of blue in it, coming down to just above her knees. Neat tits, not much showing. He liked that. Bare legs, going right up there. He could feel his hands sliding up the backs of her thighs. Pressing against her, her knees opening—

  Which would be really stupid. A bit of money goes missing from a city centre shop – with all the things going on in the world, what’s the chances the cops will give a crap about that? Bend little missy over the counter and make a bit of a mess on her – and do it within a spit of Grafton Street – that’s when they haul out the heavy gang and start pumping up the overtime.

  ‘Money,’ he said again.

  ‘Please—’

  Vincent was standing with his hooded face turned sideways on to the dinky little CCTV camera, high up on a side wall. He pointed towards the cash register. The woman backed away, until she was standing next to the counter. Vincent made his voice loud, abrupt. ‘Give it!’ The woman made a high-pitched Ah sound, her hand jerked in fear. It hit a small brown pencil cup and knocked it over, spilling a couple of biros and a long scissors to the floor.

  She hurriedly opened the register and took out a thin wad of banknotes, left them down on the counter. She fiddled in the drawer and took out a handful of coins. Vincent shook his head.

  ‘Any more notes in there?’ he said.

  The woman shook her head.

  ‘I check that and you’re lying,’ Vincent said, ‘you’ll never want to look in a mirror again.’

  ‘No, there’s – that’s all.’ She spoke quickly, her voice thin. She backed away as Vincent went to the counter and picked up the money. Three fifties, a lot more twenties and tens.

  Vincent pointed at a door set into the back wall. ‘What’s in there?’

  ‘Shoes.’

  ‘You’ve got a handbag, a purse?’

  She nodded.

  ‘In there?’

  Another nod.

  ‘Show me.’

  ‘Please,’ she said.

  ‘Show me.’

  Her legs were quivering, her hands too, as she went to the door and opened it.

  ‘No delay, get in there.’

  As he followed her in he glanced back, out through the shop window. People passing, no sign of any interest. He closed the door behind him.

  The walls of the back room were lined with shelves holding layers of shoeboxes. There was a short counter against a side wall, with a sink, an electric kettle and some mugs and glasses. The woman picked up her brown leather handbag and offered it to him.

  ‘Take out the purse, get out the money.’

  She did as he said, putting several notes – at least two fifties – beside the kettle.

  ‘Hand it to me.’

  It took her a moment to work up to it, then she picked up the money and extended it towards him. He stayed where he was and after a few seconds she stepped closer, hand outstretched with her offering. He stared at her face, forced her to make eye contact. Then he let her see that he was lowering his gaze to her breasts, to her hips and her legs, just for a moment, then back up. As he took the money with one hand, he reached out with the other, his palm cupping her hand. It felt soft, warm and promising, and it trembled.

  Jesus, it would be just—

  Not on.

  Anything like that and this becomes more than an easy cash pickup and maybe he’s missed something along the way and it leads the cops to his door and he’s looking at serious time.

  ‘You see this?’ he said. He gestured towards his face.

  She nodded.

  ‘You see this face?’

  For a moment she was puzzled, then it clicked and she said, ‘No, I didn’t see your face.’

  ‘I could find you.’

  ‘Please.’

  He let some silence run and watched her tremble.

  ‘Ten minutes before you call anyone.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ll know.’

  Her voice was barely there. ‘Yes.’

  As he let go of her hand, his fingers brushed hers and he forced eye contact again. He held that for a moment, then he smiled. He turned and left the back room. Again, nothing happening outside on the street. He left the shop immediately, turned right and hurried away. Walking up a narrow lane, out of sight of any CCTV cameras, he took off the rain jacket, rolled it up and stuffed it into his inside pocket.

  His hand touched the Tommy Tiernan DVD and he remembered tonight’s get-together with his mates. Something to look forward to.

  8

  William Dixon, known to his friends as Trixie, was feeding a succession of red-and-white jerseys into an industrial-strength washing machine. The walls of the small room were breeze blocks, almost all of the floor was covered with dusty, scuffed brown linoleum, layers of dirt worn into it. There was an old bicycle lying against a large, rusted tool chest, a ladder attached to hooks high on a wall. Shelves were laden with cardboard boxes, tins and tools and half-full jars, coils of wire and pieces of metal that might once have had a function. The room was cluttered in the way a room gets when it has no purpose except to hold all the things that don’t fit anywhere else.

  ‘This is a minimum-wage gig,’ Trixie said to Detective Sergeant Bob Tidey. ‘And I was trying to work out, the other day, what kind of money I earned when I was thieving. I reckon – allowing for the value of money all those years ago – I probably take home more, doing this.’ He coughed. ‘Mug’s game.’

  Mostly Trixie’s history was shop burglaries, small change – only twice did he make the papers, each time no more than half a paragraph in the District Court reports. The Herald promoted him to the front page – this was twenty years back – after Trixie shimmied up a drainpipe and into the front bedroom of a burning house. THE HERO, the headline said over a picture of William ‘Trixie’ Dixon in a hospital bed. On his way home, after an unsuccessful expedition to liberate a few boxes of cigarettes from a local Centra, he saw smoke coming from an open window. After he roused a neighbour to call the fire brigade, he rang the doorbell of the burning house and began shouting. When there was no response, he went up the drainpipe, in through the window and came back out and down the drainpipe, a baby tucked inside his zipped jacket. A neighbour collected the kid, then Trixie went back up and did it again, this time sliding and groping his way to ground level, using both feet and one hand, the other arm clutching a two-year-old. By then, the brigade had arrived and they took the parents out. Trixie ended up with scorched lungs and a cough that occasionally still troubled him.

  A uniformed Bob Tidey was one of the first Gardai on the scene, as Trixie was lifted into an ambulance. Tidey went to Beaumont Hospital later, where a nurse showed him the roll of housebreaking tools she’d found in a long inside pocket of Trixie’s jacket.

  ‘Isn’t there somewhere we could lose these?’ Tidey said. The nurse looked at him for a moment, then she took the tools away.

  The Glencara GAA club, where Trixie had played as an under-21, stepped in when he was back on his feet and still fragile. A variety of things that would otherwise have been done by volunteers were cobbled together into a paying job. Looking after the hurling and football gear, a bit of bartending in the clubhouse, a bit of stewarding on match day.

  When Trixie’s son Chr
isty’s image turned up on a CCTV tape after a warehouse break-in, a couple of uniforms were sent to pick him up. Christy didn’t make a fuss. It was only when the uniforms began searching his flat that he got nervous, and when one of them came out of the bedroom carrying a .38 Ruger wrapped in a T-shirt, Christy came close to crying. He sat on the arm of his shabby two-seater sofa, his hands covering his face, and said, ‘Oh fuck,’ over and over.

  Bob Tidey was involved in questioning Christy when he was brought to the station. When Christy’s father approached Tidey to put in a good word, Tidey’s Superintendent agreed there was no harm in that. ‘The son’s going to jail, no doubt about that, but he’s a pathetic little fucker.’

  Trixie Dixon slammed the door of the washing machine. After he fiddled with the controls for a moment the thing made a noise like a 747 hurtling down a runway. Trixie and Tidey went outside. On the pitch, a dozen young hurlers were warming up, pucking a ball about, one lad crouched in a goalmouth, his hurley at the ready, a Spartan holding the pass.

  Trixie said, ‘Will he be OK?’

  ‘He’ll do time.’

  ‘I know that, but there’s time and there’s time.’

  ‘Possession of a loaded gun – and no explanation. These days, gangs all over the headlines – judges don’t like to be seen to be soft on that kind of thing.’

  ‘You know that’s not Christy.’

  Bob Tidey let it lie for a moment, then he said, ‘He tell you who the piece belonged to?’

  ‘You know I can’t say.’

  ‘Off the record – and you know I won’t fuck you over.’

  Trixie began walking along the side of the pitch, watching the kids slashing at the ball, listening to them shout encouragement and derision at one another. The only others around, apart from the hurlers, were three old guys standing on the far touchline, shouting occasional advice. Trixie and Tidey had almost reached the halfway line before Trixie stopped and said, ‘Roly Blount.’

  Tidey winced. ‘That’s bad.’

  Roly was one of Frank Tucker’s nearest and dearest. Working from his base in the west of the city, Tucker had established outposts on both sides of the river, everything from armed robbery and protection to drugs and smuggled cigarettes. Anything that might be a danger to him or his outfit was simply removed. Christy Dixon had no option but to take the weight for the gun possession.

  Trixie said nothing. After a while, they turned and walked back towards the clubhouse. Bob Tidey said, ‘There’s no happy ending to this, but let’s see what we can see, right?’

  9

  Carrying meat and vegetables bought in Moore Street, Vincent Naylor emerged from his local Spar with a carton of milk. The small cluster of shops – Spar, hairdresser’s, coffee shop, pharmacy – was set apart from the main retail area, on the other side of an almost empty car park. That was a shopper’s paradise. You could buy all you needed to build and furnish a house, stock the fridge, turn the garden into a botanic wonder and get your hair coloured for the house-warming party. Everything was spread out, all the shops huge, the paved areas twice the size they needed to be. Designed for relaxed shopping. The place had everything, including lots of To Let signs.

  It was a long walk across a flat space towards the MacClenaghan building. Just six floors, but all the emptiness around it gave the impression of a majestic tower. The MacClenaghan was to be the first of a set of four apartment blocks – the only one completed. The hoarding around the intended site of the other blocks was shabby and broken, the foundations half finished. The flats in the MacClenaghan came furnished, fitted out with standard low-grade stuff – aimed at workers anxious to get on the property ladder, with not much left over after paying the mortgage. Then, just as the MacClenaghan went up, the property ladder turned to dust.

  Vincent was breathing normally when he reached his fourth-floor apartment. The door was ajar, the lock broken. The lift had been disabled but Noel arranged for an electrician mate to hook up the apartment, so the sockets worked, the fridge and the shower. He bought a kettle and a microwave.

  Vincent stashed the food, made an instant coffee and sat by the window. Taking his time, he counted the money he’d stolen. He liked this bit, not sure exactly how much it would amount to, but knowing it was a good handful – it was like opening a gift on his birthday.

  It came to three hundred and eighty. Not bad.

  Sitting here, a coffee within reach, some handy money, nice view – Vincent didn’t see how life could have worked out better, all things considered.

  Vincent was the only one living in the block.

  ‘No point paying rent,’ Noel said. Two days before Vincent got out of the Joy, Noel broke the lock. Fourth floor – a good choice. Too far up for casual snoopers. He also paid a visit to a couple of junkies squatting in a flat two floors down. No electricity, no fridge or heater. That kind of thing wouldn’t do – a junkie gets cold and lights a fire in the middle of the living-room floor and dozes off. Vincent might go to sleep one night and never wake up.

  ‘It’s our flat – we’ve done things, fixed it up,’ the woman said.

  Noel looked around – it was like someone had dumped the contents of a wheelie bin on the floor, then spread it around a bit.

  ‘Tell you what,’ Noel said. He held out a twenty-euro note.

  ‘No fucking way,’ the woman said. Her partner reached out and took the money, folded it and tucked it inside his shabby shoe. The woman stared a moment, then turned her back and looked out the window.

  Vincent filled a closet with clothes and he was more or less ready to rock. Noel offered to get him a telly, but Vincent said it was all shit – he had his iPod. Noel got him a speaker dock so he could listen without earphones.

  There was a balcony outside the window – just about deep enough for a potted plant. At night, Vincent liked to stand out there, looking across towards the Edwardstown housing estate, music playing loudly behind him. A six-floor building, sticking up into the sky, all shiny and new, at the edge of the low-rise estate. Gave him a Lord of the Manor feeling.

  He didn’t use the lights at night, just candles – with the curtains closed. You never knew when a weary developer might come by to look up at his property and mourn the death of his ambitions. Besides, the flicker from the candles added to the magic of the place.

  Three hundred and eighty euros – fair enough, for a few minutes’ work. It would do for walking-around money. All going well in the days to come, what he’d have was more like sitting-down-and-putting-your-feet-up money.

  When Vincent Naylor got out of jail, Noel took him to see a man named Shay Harrison. Vincent gave him a big smile. ‘What’s the story, Shay?’

  The security guy looked defeated. He’d mouthed off in the back of Tommo’s taxi, complaining about his job, Tommo provided his address, and it took Noel just days to suss out the basics. Married, four kids, a house in Ballybrack, an eight-year-old Fiat and a girlfriend several years younger than his wife.

  They took him late at night, after he’d left his girlfriend’s flat. Liam Delaney and Kevin Broe brought him to a garage out in Stillorgan, owned by a cousin of Liam’s. Shay did his best to behave like the tough guy he was paid to be, but that stopped after a couple of hours with his hands tied behind his back.

  Shay was a big man, muscle still holding under a layer of flab. He’d spent a lot of time working on a delicately trimmed hairy decoration on his chin – probably figured it would make his face look thinner. By the time Vincent and Noel got there the beard was flecked with beads of sweat.

  No marks on the face, Vincent had told Liam and Kevin. He goes to work with marks on his face, it’s all over. It took no more than half a dozen punches to his stomach and kidneys before Shay was ready to cough. They gave him a few more, just because.

  ‘Tell him where you work, Shay.’

  ‘Protectica. I deliver cash.’

  Vincent said, ‘Of course you do, old son.’

  Vincent decided there was no need for a
ny more physical stuff, just a threat followed by something Shay could use to claw back some pride.

  The threat was very basic. ‘You probably know the best way out of this is to stay calm and do what we say. And probably you’re thinking that once you get out of here you make a phone call and when we make our move the cops are all over us. Or, after the job, the cops show you a line-up and you point a finger and we spend the next twenty Christmases in the Joy. Am I right, Shay?’

  Shay said nothing, but his face said that was about right.

  ‘All I’m going to tell you, Shay, is we’ve got another place like this – much more isolated. You could scream your eyeballs out and no one would hear you, OK? We’ve got a machine there – they call it a wood chopper, you know the kind of thing I mean? One of those machines the gardeners use in the parks, to grind up branches and shit – a wood chopper.’

  ‘It’s called a wood chipper,’ Noel said.

  ‘It’s pretty old, to be honest, a bit rusty, but that’s not your problem. Your problem, Shay, is making sure you don’t say a word to anyone about any of this – ever. Not even when this is over and the cops are sniffing around everyone who works for Protectica. Say a word, one word – even if they’ve picked me up and I’m safely locked away in the Joy – that’s where you go, into the wood chopper, an inch at a time.’

  ‘I said I’ll do whatever you want.’

  ‘My guess is you’ll pass out by the time it gets to your ankles – that’s what happened, the couple of times we did it before. What I’m saying – by the time the machine gets to your balls the chances are you’ll be unconscious, so that won’t be so bad.’

  Vincent gave Shay a moment to take that in, then he offered him a chance to see this in a positive light.

  ‘What you earn – I don’t know what you take home, but I’d say you could do with a bit of loose change, am I right?’