Bunny flinched despite himself.
Simone’s eyes remained fixed on the floor as she spoke. “Bad.”
Chapter Eighteen
Franko Doyle walked slowly down the uneven path that sloped towards the tarmacked area below. This path hadn’t been laid down so much as worn into the ground as thousands of pairs of feet chose the same route over decades. It was slippery after the earlier rain, and the winter night was bringing in a chill of frost. That, and the bulky rucksack on his back, was making Franko walk with great care. More than anything, he didn’t want to stumble and go on his arse – not in front of this audience. He’d never hear the end of it.
They’d been instructed to meet at 8 pm prompt in the Furry Glen, an area within the bigger Phoenix Park. The main park was neatly trimmed and scrupulously maintained. The Furry Glen was the little corner where they let nature run wild.
The men he was meeting did not like to be kept waiting. It was now twenty past, and he could sense them shooting dirty looks of irritation at him from down by the bench where they were standing. Peter Dylan and Paul Roberts. Dylan was the taller and more muscled of the two. Looked like a heavyweight boxer gone to seed. Franko knew him vaguely. He worked security at a few places – or at least he used to until his recent promotion in the ranks of the organisation he’d affiliated himself with. Paul Roberts was considerably shorter. Franko had only met him the once, and they’d not exactly hit it off. Roberts was the power in the situation, whereas Dylan was only involved as a go-between and a bit of glorified muscle. One of the few things the paramilitaries thought Dubs were good for was talking to other Dubs. As always with the IRA, it was the bloke with the northern accent who held most sway, and that was Roberts.
Dylan had approached Franko and issued the ultimatum. The ‘RA wanted to meet him and Tommy Carter for a discussion about unpaid dues and unacquired respect for how things were done. Franko had duly passed the message on.
In the summer, this place would be lousy with school trips and tourists snapping pictures. But as the winter frost started to bite, under the atmospheric lighting, it had a crisp, moody beauty to it. Not that Franko could fully appreciate it. He was too busy watching his feet.
He glanced up to see Roberts’s eyes boring into him from above his cigarette. The light above the bench was on, despite this area of the park having been closed since dusk. Getting lights turned on – that was the kind of pull the balaclava boys still had in this town. Roberts sent a cloud of cigarette smoke up into the night to join the gathering fog.
Franko finally reached level ground and covered the remaining distance at a deliberately casual pace. He briefly considered whistling.
“Peter, Paul,” he said with a smirk.
“You’re late.” Roberts’s aggressive Northern whine would’ve probably sounded threatening in any circumstances, but now it was clearly meant to. “And where the fuck is your boss?”
Franko shrugged. “He’s parking the car.”
Dylan spoke next. “You’d want to mind your manners, Franko.”
“Oh, do I?” He casually took the rucksack from his back and laid it on the ground.
“Aye, ye fucking should, ye fat prick. Now where the fuck is Carter?” said Roberts.
Franko looked at Roberts for a long second and then turned to Dylan. “Peter, tell your Northern friend here that I don’t like to be spoken to in that manner.”
“I’ll fucking speak to you however the fuck I want, and if ye don’t like it, you can take it up with my bosses.”
Franko shrugged. “Who are your bosses these days? I thought with that Good Friday agreement thing youse all signed last year, you were out of the game?”
“The Irish Republican Army is, as ever, here to look after its interests and those of the Irish people.”
“Yeah,” said Franko, “in that order.”
Roberts tossed his cigarette towards the pond and stepped forward. “I came here to talk to the man in charge, not his fat monkey.”
“Tommy Carter doesn’t just come running when summoned. Out of respect, he sent me to hear what you have to say.”
“Respect, my arse.”
Franko yawned and then looked over at Dylan. “I can remember when you boys were supposed to be fighting the Brits, whatever happened with that?”
Roberts lunged at him, but Dylan thrust out a large arm and pulled him back.
“Alright, enough of this. Franko, stop playing the maggot.”
Franko blew into his hands. “I’m here, I’m cold and I’ve better things to be doing. Can we move this along?”
Roberts pushed Dylan’s arm away and straightened his jacket. “Fine,” he said. “Tell your boy king that his actions have been noted. He has been asked – twice – to pay his dues, and twice he has refused.”
Franko nodded.
Roberts stepped forward and lowered his voice, despite there supposedly being nobody around bar the three of them to hear. “Furthermore, it is our belief that the weapons you are using have been acquired from us without our permission.”
Franko smiled. “Would these be the same weapons that you acquired from the Irish Army barracks down in the Curragh a couple of years ago without their consent?”
“Nobody steals from us.”
Franko laughed. “Well that’s clearly not the case now, is it?”
“Are you willing to make reparations or not?”
Franko laughed. “Reparations? That’s a good word for it. Reparations.” He said it slowly, as if savouring the taste.
Dylan squared his body towards him. “Franko, you’d want to start taking this seriously. Don’t go thinking our friendship is gonna protect you here.”
Franko didn’t take his eyes from Roberts as he spoke. “Friendship? Are you fucking kidding me? You’re a joke to us, Dylan. You and all your bullshit wannabe brethren. What kind of a sad sack from Dublin goes off to join the IRA to get bossed around by some Northern pricks as they fight a dead man’s war over and over again?”
Dylan shot out a meaty paw and pushed Franko’s shoulder. “Fuck you, Franko.”
Franko stumbled backwards slightly and looked down at his shoulder. “I really wouldn’t do that again if I was you.”
“So,” said Roberts, “do we have your answer?”
“Yes,” said Franko. “In fact, allow me to deliver the exact message Tommy gave me for you. You can take your reparations, your taxes and your stolen guns and you can whistle for it. In fact . . .”
Franko whistled – one long, loud blast.
A half a second later, a red dot appeared on Peter Dylan’s chest, fractionally beating the one that appeared on Paul Roberts’s. To be fair, thought Franko, Dylan had a lot more chest to aim for.
Dylan looked down and swallowed. “Paul?”
Roberts kept smiling at Franko. “Is this little parlour trick supposed to impress me? Aye, very good. Do you think you’re the only one with skilled soldiers at his disposal?” Roberts gave Franko a big grin, then stepped back and raised his voice. “Tony, time to come out and play.”
Nothing happened.
For several seconds, nothing continued to happen. As the silence stretched out, Roberts’s grin slowly crumbled.
Roberts raised his voice slightly louder. “Tony?”
Franko burst out laughing. “The look on your face.” He jigged a couple of steps back and looked around him in mock amazement. He raised his voice into a sing-song warble. “Tony? Where are you? Your Uncle Paul needs you to come out and play!”
Dylan went to say something but Roberts silenced him with a glare. This time though, he did look down at the red dot still shining directly onto his chest.
Franko was still grinning. “So, was Tony one of the three boys you’d hidden in the woods around us here? Or was he one of the two lads down the road in the van?”
“Don’t you try and fuck with us.”
Franko laughed again. “Try? I think you’ll find we already have.” He stepped forward and the sm
ile dropped from his face. “Here’s the rest of Tommy’s message. This is our town now. You try and interfere in our business again and next time there’ll be a body count. The only reason you aren’t the star attraction in one of your silly balaclava-and-bullets funerals right now is that we chose for that to not be the case. Remember that. Consider this your one and only warning.”
He kicked the rucksack at his feet. “This is for you. It’s the clothes belonging to your band of five wannabes. I’d hurry if I was you, it’s getting nippy and I’d imagine they’re feeling the cold right about now, tied to those trees in nothing but their panties. Tell your bosses Tommy Carter says ‘fuck you’.”
Franko turned and began walking back up the slope he’d come down.
“This isn’t over,” said Roberts.
“For your sake, you’d better hope it is.”
Chapter Nineteen
Nathan Ryan woke with a start.
He’d not been sleeping well for the last few nights. Had it been another nightmare? No, probably not – certainly no residual memory of it clung to his consciousness. It was probably noise-related. He lived in Temple Bar, after all, and even with the penthouse’s double glazing, the drunken hollering of the great unwashed could not be entirely silenced.
He looked at the clock. 3:17 am.
The nightmares were ludicrous. While awake, he remembered clearly what had happened. He’d been nothing but charming and the bloody woman had been playing mind games with him. Sure, turning up in the first place might’ve been a bad idea, but Christ, who didn’t have a bad idea every now and then? She had completely lost it and thrown his bottle of Rémy Martin at him. Could’ve bloody killed him. Then she’d jammed her finger in his eye and his hand had flailed out, entirely in self-defence.
He’d been wearing sunglasses for three days now and pretending he’d poked himself in the eye with his shower loofah. She was damn lucky there appeared to be no lasting damage, otherwise she’d be looking at a serious lawsuit. He tried to pull his mind off that mental track, as it led to an unhappy place. He knew how people would try and make him look. They could throw around some very ugly words indeed. The kind of words that could end a career.
He heard a noise in the kitchen.
“For fuck’s sake, Mrs Twinkle!” He’d only got the bloody cat because his ex had wanted it. He’d only kept hold of it for the exact same reason. Truth was, he really didn’t like cats. This cat in particular seemed to delight in trying to cause as much damage to his apartment as possible. That was all he needed – another moody bitch in his life.
He threw the duvet back and sat up on the edge of the bed. He had a couple more painkillers in the kitchen. Jackie would have to line him up with something stronger tomorrow. He didn’t want to go to the doctor; they’d have questions. No fucker could mind their own business any more.
He tugged his boxers out of the uncomfortable crevice they’d snuggled up in and headed towards the kitchen. The large windows offered an unparalleled view of a rain-soaked Dublin, across which the dawn light would soon be creeping. The sooner he could move on and leave this dump of a city behind, the happier he’d be.
He had half a bottle of Stoli vodka left from the weekend that would help chase the painkillers down, and finally get him some solid kip. He opened the fridge. In its light, he could see the purple bruising on the right side of his stomach that the cheap shot from that raging muck savage had left. That animal was lucky that Nathan just wanted to put the whole unsavoury incident behind him. Several highly-placed police officers were good friends of his. Anyone who wanted to eat at his restaurant on a civil servant’s wages had to be very friendly. He was owed favours. As he gingerly ran his fingers over the bruising, his other hand reached for the bottle of vodka.
It wasn’t there. He looked into the fridge in confusion. Had he . . .
Nathan jumped as a lamp in the open-plan sitting room behind him was turned on. He turned to see the black leather chair swivel around. A man was sitting there holding Mrs Twinkle.
“Ah, Mr Bond.”
Nathan yelped in shock, slamming the fridge door closed and pressing himself up against it. The cold steel against his back made him suddenly aware of his near-nakedness. On instinct, he cupped his hands over his nether regions.
“Are you expecting a free kick?”
On the second look, Nathan recognised the man. Yes! He was that copper, the one he’d seen a few times in Charlie’s, mostly in the company of the big gorilla.
“What the bloody hell are you doing in my apartment?”
The man – he seemed to recall hearing someone refer to him by the name of ‘Gringo’ – stroked the cat affectionately.
“See, Mrs Twinkle, I told you’d he’d shit himself.”
Mrs Twinkle purred disloyally.
Nathan pointed. “That cat does not like to be touched!” Even as he said it, he was aware of just how stupid it sounded.
Gringo turned the cat around and held her up. “She seems happy enough to me.” He pulled the cat closer and it licked his face. “She’s a happy little puss-puss, yes she is.”
Gringo lowered the cat back to his lap. “Although I’m glad you brought up the subject of inappropriate touching.”
Nathan’s mind raced. His mobile was beside the bed; the flat’s phone was on the other side of the sitting room.
“You have been an unacceptably naughty boy, haven’t you, Nathan?”
“Look,” said Nathan, trying to keep the fear from his voice, “I don’t know what that big gorilla told you but he got entirely the wrong end of the stick. It was all a misunderstanding.”
“Ahh,” said Gringo, “I thought it might be. So you didn’t assault a woman half your size and you weren’t going to do a lot worse, when the – what was it? Ah yes, ‘big gorilla’ – showed up?”
“Of . . . of course not.”
“Man,” said Gringo, “I wish you played poker because you are one god-awful liar, Nathan.”
“I’m telling you, he’s lying. It wasn’t like that.”
“OK,” said Gringo, moving to scratch Mrs Twinkle under the chin. “Let’s ask him.”
Nathan followed Gringo’s gaze as he turned his head to the front door of the apartment. He nearly jumped out of his skin as McGarry stepped forward into the light from the lamp. He gave a lazy-eyed glower of such hatred that Nathan was in serious risk of losing control of his bodily functions.
“Stay away or I’ll call the police!”
Gringo chuckled. “With what? You could also try screaming.”
“Briefly,” added McGarry.
Gringo nodded. “Briefly. And we are in Temple Bar. I’m guessing the locals are very good at ignoring people hollering in the middle of the night. You’d have to be, to live here.”
“You can’t do this. You’re the Gardaí!”
“Actually,” said Gringo, picking Nathan’s bottle of Stoli up from beside the chair where he’d left it, “right now, we’re just concerned citizens. In fact, feel free to mention our names to law enforcement. We have the most cast-iron of alibis. We’re currently enjoying a late, after-hours drink with . . .” He started counting people off on his fingers. “ . . . Mr Noel Graffoe, the proprietor of Charlie’s jazz bar; a charming retired couple called Joan and Jerry, teacher and bank manager respectively; and, wait for it, wait for it. . . Sister Bernadette – a nun, an actual honest-to-God nun!”
Nathan was only half-listening. He was nodding while gradually moving his right hand back towards where he knew his block of knives would be. Every good chef always knows where his knives are.
Gringo leaned forward slightly, “And you’ve got to ask yourself, Nathan, how much of an utter fuck-up you are that nuns, actual nuns, are happy – nay, excited – to provide an alibi to a man coming to deal with you.”
“I’m sorry,” said Nathan. “OK? I’m really sorry.”
Gringo turned to McGarry again. “He says he’s sorry.”
“Does he?” responded
McGarry, clearly not concerned either way. “Not as sorry as he’s going to be.”
Gringo nodded and stroked Mrs Twinkle under the chin. “By the way, Nathan, I moved your knives. We don’t want somebody getting hurt now, do we?”
Nathan glanced behind him and his body sagged. “So what is this? The two of you have come here to scare me?”
Gringo shook his head. “Oh no, Nathan. You see, my associate here’s attitude towards men who put their hands on women is very well known in certain circles. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I, like almost everyone else – and again, Nathan, a nun, a fucking nun! – do not have much time for such men, but he,” Gringo said, pointing over towards the door, where McGarry stood stock-still, “is on another level. He seeks them out and does everything he can within the law to bring them to justice, and if that isn’t possible, well . . .” Gringo looked down at Mrs Twinkle, who was looking up at him with undisguised affection. “Well, we go play gin rummy with a publican, a teacher, a bank manager and a nun.” Gringo chuckled to himself again. “Seriously – a nun.”
Nathan flinched as McGarry started moving towards him.
“No, no, no, no, no.”
“Ah,” said Gringo, still sitting calmly in his chair, “so you do know what that word means.”
Panicked adrenalin pumped through Ryan’s veins. “So two of you have come here to beat me up? Ohh, big men!”
Gringo laughed humourlessly. “Oh no, Nathan. You see, my friend here has come to punish you.”
Nathan slid down the shiny metal front of the fridge-freezer, his hands placed protectively above his head.
He looked up to see McGarry towering over him.
“I’m just here to make sure he doesn’t kill you.”
Chapter Twenty
Bunny walked into the briefing room and placed one of Pearse Street station’s famously bad cups of tea in front of Gringo. Gringo nodded thanks as Bunny slid into the chair beside him.
They’d come straight in after an uneventful day shift on the Clanavale Estate – well, uneventful by the standards of the day before. The night shift had confirmed that John O’Donnell and Franko Doyle had returned home about 1 am. Jimmy Moran had stumbled out of a taxi just before 4 am, with a worse-for-the-drink blonde in tow. Detectives Dinny Muldoon and Pamela “Butch” Cassidy had been on his house at the time. Butch was standing up in the centre of the room, relaying the story to the other members of the task force.
Angels in the Moonlight_A prequel to The Dublin Trilogy Page 13
