Barely a Crime

by Robert Ovies

  Well, Kieran didn’t get it, not for a long time. Then one day, he did.

  It was one of the reasons he didn’t really trust Crawl. He was still the closest thing to a brother Kieran would ever have, but to Crawl everything had strings attached, and they were usually hidden. Nothing was ever straight up with Crawl Connell.

  And so Kieran watched, wondering. Would Day actually let Crawl call him a name Crawl just made up instead of saying the name the man wanted him to say, and the man being the one having all the money?

  That would be worth an opened window and a cup of tea and a whole lot more.

  But the tall man just smiled a thin smile, the top of his scar stretching slightly to the right, and said, “I don’t answer to Daylight.”

  No apologies. No jokes. No follow-up.

  Crawl returned the man’s stare, then pulled the letter from his shirt pocket and dropped it, still folded, on the table. “I guess that’s enough pleasantries,” he said, smiling again, then letting the smile fade. “What are we here to talk about?”

  Kieran shifted in his chair.

  The man said, “You were referred to me by persons I trust.” He spoke slowly, like a man with time to kill. “As I wrote in my letter, I am inviting you to join me in a single, specific operation for which you are well qualified and for which you will be well paid.”

  Kieran asked, “Who are these people you trust?”

  Crawl added, “And what did they say that made us look like the well-qualified lads you’re lookin’ for?”

  “I’ve decided that’s not necessary information for you to have,” the man said. “Neither is what I do for a living, or where I come from, or anything else about me. Neither are the specific what’s, where’s and why’s of the operation. They’re certainly not necessary for you yet. Certainly not here, tonight.”

  Kieran looked at Crawl. Who was setting the rules now?

  Crawl leaned forward. “Well, see, we may differ on what’s necessary information, Mr. Day. So can we start off being honest here? Because you’re talking about things that don’t really go together, like no risk and—”

  “I said your risk will be largely nonexistent.”

  “Whatever. But no risk with all that money?”

  “And no robbery?” Kieran added.

  “And us with questions,” Crawl said. “Here we are—and I’m not telling you anything you haven’t thought out long and hard, I’m sure of that—but here we are walkin’ in thinking: How do we know this Mr. Day isn’t about to try and talk us into a scheme that’s not thought out real well? Something that’ll just end up with us staring into an illegal and very dangerous situation. How do we know he’s smart enough to know what he’s doing, in other words? What’s he want us to do? Why’d he choose us? All kinds of questions. No surprise to you there. In fact, the only two things we know for certain, walking in that door, are: you’re talking about throwing a lot of money at us, number one, and number two, whoever pointed you toward us did not tell you Kieran and I are stupid. Which means, as much as we love the nice talk you’re throwing around, we don’t really think that ‘Hey, Mr. Connell and Mr. Lynch, what I’m paying you for is none of your business’ is a great answer to all the questions we have.”

  Kieran was watching for the man to blink, but he didn’t do it. What he did was raise his attache case to the table, snap it open and pull out two dark canvas packs, each about four by eight inches. He put the two packs side-by-side on the table, pulled out two letter-sized manila envelopes and placed them next to the packs. Then he closed his attache case, put it back on the floor and laid his hands flat on the canvas packs.

  “I am not throwing around nice talk, as you put it, Mr. Connell. That would be inadequate. In each of these two packs is five thousand pounds, cash. Small bills. These are yours this evening, if you care to do business with me.”

  Kieran shifted and sat back in his chair, glancing first at Crawl, then staring at the canvas packs. He was thinking about Brenna, how she would greet him if he came home with five thousand pounds.

  Crawl was looking at the packs, too.

  The man kept talking. “The envelopes contain detailed instructions for you both. There is nothing you have to know beyond what I tell you in these, and everything in them is clearly detailed.”

  Crawl reached for one of the canvas packs but the man kept his hands firmly in place on both of them.

  “What I am doing,” he said after Crawl eased back into his chair empty-handed, “is offering you each five thousand pounds before we leave this room, with the guarantee I will give you another forty-five thousand, either in cash or by electronic transfer, as my letter indicated, before we begin our operation. That willingness to pay up-front buys me some confidentiality, gentlemen.”

  Mister, sir and now gentlemen. Kieran almost smiled again.

  “Five thousand here and now?” Crawl said. “And that’s cash?”

  “If we agree to work together.”

  “And another forty-five thousand each. . .?”

  “Before the operation.”

  “Before.”

  “Cash or transfer to your account, anywhere in the world.”

  Crawl rubbed his chin. “If we do this, we get the transfer early enough to settle in our accounts before the job is done. We get to check that. We don’t have you tell us you’re transferring it as we roll out the door with masks on our faces.”

  The man stared at Crawl. His expression didn’t change. “Before we carry out the operation. Cash or transfer. I’m willing to go that far, which is a good distance out of the ordinary. You know it, I know it. It’s that or we don’t do business together.”

  Crawl hunched forward. “Ten minutes before the job or ten days before, what difference would it make to you? We could back out either way if that’s what we wanted to do. What’s to stop us?”

  Kieran nodded. He leaned forward, too. “That’s right,” he said. “You must have thought about that. How do you know we won’t just take this five thousand here and kiss you goodbye? Five thousand for doing nothing. Or how do you know, we wait for the whole fifty thousand, we won’t just smash you on the head and go home?”

  Crawl said with his eyes narrowed, “Like my friend says, you must’ve thought about that.”

  Again, there was no blinking, no raising of the man’s voice. “I know how you got the name ‘Crawl’, Mr. Connell. You told me your father is dead, but I knew that too. I know who turned on him, who killed him in H-block of Maze Prison. And I know how the law got so close before your father noticed them.”

  Crawl’s face paled. He eased his hand from the table and sat up straight, moving slowly, jaw set tight.

  “I know why your mother died,” the man continued, “and where and how she died. I know the date you and your brother went to live with Kieran and his mother and his sister, Colleen.”

  “Your point is what?” Kieran asked sharply.

  Nothing about the man moved except his eyes, which shifted toward Kieran. “I also know about Willy Doyle,” he said evenly. “I know about the gasoline and the fire.”

  Kieran’s mouth opened. He didn’t speak. He didn’t move.

  “And I know why you did it. I know about Colleen.”

  Kieran shot to his feet, tumbling his chair backward, his lips pulling in a furious scowl.

  Crawl jumped, grabbed him by the arm. “If you know us so well, Mr. Day,” he said loudly, “you know about this young man’s temper, about places you’d better not go.”

  Kieran jerked his arm from Crawl’s grasp and glared at Day.

  “Easy.” Crawl grabbed Kieran’s shoulder and held tight. “Easy, little brother.”

  “Well, what the hell’s all that about?” He was shouting at the man, not at Crawl.

  “He’s making a point,” Crawl said evenly. He turned to the man, who hadn’t moved. “Aren’t you?” Then back to Kieran. “He’s making a point, Kieran, and I’ll tell you what it is.”

  He picked up Kieran
’s chair and pressed him back toward his seat.

  “We said to him, ‘What if we just take your money and tell you to shove it up your ass?’ His point is: we shouldn’t be thinking about doing that. The reason is, because he learned about us inside and out before he sent that letter, and we’re right for the job, and if we say we’ll take the job and then decide just to take the money and disappear, it won’t work because he can find us again, and he will. That’s what he’s sayin’. Or he’ll have someone else do it, more to the point. He’s sayin’ he knows what he’s doing, so he’s advising us not to try to steal his money.”

  “Say what you mean, mean what you say,” Kieran said to the man with a hard stare. “But my family’s not the subject here. I don’t like that.”

  For the first time, the tall man leaned forward. “A fair request,” he said calmly. “What I’m saying is this: if you do agree to help me in this few minutes of safe and simple work, you will each be fifty thousand pounds richer than you are right now. I swear that. But if you agree to help me and then betray me, I will spend a half-million pounds, if that’s what it takes. But I will find you. And I will have your heads delivered to me in a box.” He paused. “I said what I meant, I meant what I said.”

  Crawl nodded at Kieran. “See? That’s the man’s point.”

  The silence lasted nearly thirty seconds, Kieran and the man staring at one another, Crawl looking back and forth between the two.

  “So,” Crawl said, finally settling his gaze on the man and sounding relaxed again, “what are you going to tell us about the job here and now?”

  “Only the information that’s already in these packets and envelopes.”

  “And why is that? At least tell us why you won’t spell it all out.”

  “Because you drink too much,” the man said. He didn’t hesitate and he didn’t change his expression. “You both do. And when you’re drunk, you talk too much. That’s as honest as I can be.”

  The two men stared at the man with a scar and with so much information about them, and another silence settled in, this one lasting a full twenty seconds. From the kitchen, Connie Dover sang, “Laddie, lie near me.” Outside a horn sounded, and the rain rapped harder against the front door and windows.

  Kieran broke the silence. “So tell us what you’re gonna tell us.”

  “You are each registered for a prepaid, two-week tour of Italy.”

  Kieran raised his eyebrows. “For what?”

  “Two different, legitimate vacation tours. That’s where you’ll begin.”

  “The job’s in Italy?”

  “You, Mr. Lynch, leave in six days from Belfast. You, Mr. Connell, in seven days from Londonderry.”

  “That’s quick,” Crawl said.

  Kieran asked, “Why Italy? And why so fast?”

  “You each have active passports and no police records to complicate your travels. The calendar is important to me.”

  “And the job’s in Italy?”

  “You’ll leave your tours to help me in this endeavor, then rejoin them fifty thousand pounds richer.”

  “And the job’s in Italy?” Kieran repeated.

  Crawl said, speaking quietly, “Italy has museums, and Italy has churches.”

  “Your respective tours both pass through Genoa, although on different days. Not long afterward, they pass through Milan on the same day.”

  Kieran stayed after it. “That’s where we’re doing the job then, in Genoa? Or is it Milan?” He paused, then added, “And why do I feel like I’m talking to a parked car?”

  “When you are each in Genoa, on your different dates, you will offer your tour director an instructed amount as payment for a new service rendered. You will confide that you have, in whatever way you choose to phrase it, lost your heart to the love of your life. You will beg the tour director’s understanding with a wink and money in his or her pocket, and you will instruct them to hold your place at the tour hotel in Milan, where both tours will spend the latter part of the same week. Your promise will be that you’ll rejoin the tour there with another cash payment at that time for their understanding and cooperation. The individuals leading the tours have accepted payment for much more bizarre reasons in the past, and for less money than you’ll be giving them. You’ll have no problem.”

  Crawl tried again. “Those days between Genoa and Milan, that’s when we do the job.”

  “You will be picked up in Genoa on your appointed day and time by a man in a white Fiat. He’ll introduce himself as Mr. Day’s friend Antonio.”

  “At a place you’re not going to tell us about tonight.” Crawl had leaned back in his chair. His smile had returned.

  Kieran shook his head, then looked at Crawl and smiled. What the hell? Might as well enjoy it.

  “Antonio will bring you to meet me.”

  “Milan’s got a lot of museums,” Crawl said, grinning and glancing back at Kieran.

  He was in another game now, and Kieran knew it. He knew that the tall man knew it too, and watched him. He expected no direct response to Crawl’s remarks and got what he expected.

  “There are maps of Italy included in your tour packs.”

  “You look like a man with an eye for art,” Crawl said, still with a smile.

  “When we meet again, in Italy, we’ll rehearse the operation for three days. We’ll carry it out on the third night. You’ll both be in Milan by sunrise of the following day ready to rejoin your individual tours, your hearts broken by your rudely shattered love lives but your spirits hopeful, nonetheless.”

  “Why not just fly straight home?” Crawl asked. “You said no risk. Nothing stolen.”

  “I’m thinking of your safety when I suggest you stay with the tours. Even minimal risk is worth covering your steps. For my part, it makes no difference. You’ll never see me again in any event.”

  “And we’re doing the job within a night’s drive of Milan,” Crawl said.

  “Or train ride,” Kieran said. “Or flight. How big is Italy?”

  “At this point, we won’t discuss geography. Instead, I propose to play a children’s game with you.”

  Kieran looked at Crawl, eyebrows raised.

  “It goes like this. I will give you sixty seconds to make up your minds, with no more questions. Then I’ll count to three. If you have not picked up your five thousand pounds and your tour instructions by the time I say three, I’ll take them with me and you’ll never see or hear from me again. If you do take them before I say three, I will see you both in Italy in a very few days. I will have forty-five thousand pounds in small used, unmarked bills or be ready for a cash transfer in those amounts for each of you at that time. But this meeting is over.”

  He slid the packs and envelopes several inches closer to them and looked at his watch.

  Kieran and Crawl looked at one another. They looked at the packs and the envelopes. They looked at one another again.

  Kieran thought about Brenna and about the five thousand pounds, cash in hand.

  But more than that, he thought about Italy and fifteen minutes of work and forty-five thousand pounds more.

  After what seemed to Kieran like several minutes, the man said, “One.”

  Kieran looked at Crawl.

  Crawl raised his shoulders in a slow shrug.

  Two.

  Kieran nodded.

  Crawl nodded back. A smile played again at the corners of his lips.

  They reached for the packs and envelopes.

  “Goodbye, gentlemen.” The man rose to his full height and put on his coat. Retrieving his attache case, he crossed the room and opened the door. “I will be walking to the north when I leave,” he said to them in an even voice. “Do not follow me. And please don’t disturb things for Mrs. Dougherty. That would not be kind.”

  He closed the door behind him.

  Kieran and Crawl had the canvas packs opened and the money out by the time the closed sign in the door stopped quivering. There were five thousand pounds in each pack, all in s
mall used bills, exactly as promised.

  “Said what he meant,” Crawl said with a grin, “meant what he said.”

  “Meant what he said,” Kieran whispered.

  Crawl held his grin. “I guess we’re going to the land of Italy.”

  Kieran stared at the money for a long moment, then raised his gaze to meet Crawl’s. “So. What have we got ourselves into?”

  3

  Kieran washed down a mouthful of cheese and sausage sandwich with a long drink of Guinness and said to Brenna and Crawl with narrowed eyes and a soft smile, “It seemed pretty clear, if there’s no risk and no weapons and no possibility of anybody getting hurt, and if it’s really about nothing getting stolen, why, hell, you think about it, it’s barely a crime.”

  “Just take some pictures or make copies of something,” Crawl said, nodding in agreement. “More like espionage.”

  A map of Italy was taped to the wall next to the kitchen window. It had circles around Genoa and Milan. Their green-and-white tablecloth was littered with biscuits, breads, cheeses, meats and six bottles of stout, two of them already empty, all bought with the money given to Kieran and Crawl. A dozen more bottles, still full, waited on the floor like soldiers on standby. The radio on the table near the couch was on. Classics in jazz, playing low. Outside, the night rain had stopped. It was 10:40.

  “Barely a crime,” Kieran said again, looking at Brenna.

  Her chin rested on the lip of the just-opened bottle of stout she cradled with both hands. She gazed at Kieran, who had made the decision to do the job without talking it over with her, after all.

  “So tell me what you’re thinking, Bren,” Kieran said. “I know you’re thinking something, just staring at me. And I know it’s not, ‘Give the money back.’ ”

  She raised her chin from the bottle and said in a lazy voice that was hard at the edges, “No, I’m glad for the money. I’m just thinking, I’ll bet the job is in a museum or someplace like that. What do they have in Italy but museums and churches? And then I’m wondering, why take two ex-paramilitaries from Belfast all the way to Italy, and for something that takes three days of rehearsal, if the whole thing’s so simple there’s no risk?”