A Carra King (2 page)

He yawned until the tear almost broke away from his eye. He'd been shaky enough getting up. He drew the pistol out from under the seat and laid it in his lap. Nice weight to it, balancing there, and the little knob under the trigger-guard. He'd been on the move for a month now, after he'd heard the rumours. Moving around every night had left him restless, washed-out. You couldn't really get a night's sleep like this. He couldn't even use the cell phone to talk to Yvonne. Someone had heard the law could get in on the new ones even. Well how was that anyway, wasn't it an infringement on a person's basic rights and all that?

He leaned over the wheel and stared at the red light. He should give up on the Fiat really. The blind spots were making him jittery. Cheaper to fix the smashed wing mirrors, sure, but it was burning a bit of oil now. He swore.

A screech and a flicker in the side mirror made him drop his hand on the pistol. He looked out the passenger window. A seagull drifted down onto the footpath. That's all it was? He looked at the twisted edges on the mirror frame. Both of them smashed in the one night a fortnight ago. Christ, if he got his hands on the little bastards. His back was tightening up on him already. He leaned over the wheel again but it didn't help. He let out the clutch a little, let the Fiat roll into the junction.

That van ahead was taking its time. Well what if he were to just drop it all and get into Australia or someplace? On his own, and then send for Yvonne after he was set up right — and on the QT of course. Shouldn't be that hard. A car, a Renault, was cruising up to the lights now. There was only the driver. He looked up at the red light again. Christ, were they broken or what? The road ahead looked suddenly huge and empty. He couldn't be sitting here in the middle of nowhere on a lousy, rainy Sunday morning. He let in the clutch.

The banging came steadily from the back. He jammed the accelerator to the floor. The Renault had come through the junction. The back doors of the van were opening. Spots appeared on the panel of the passenger door, and a burning smell stung in his nose. He banged the pistol on the ashtray as he went to find second gear. Glass showered across the seat at him. He kept the wheel turning. The growl and burr of the impacts didn't seem to be so loud now. The glove compartment shattered a split second before the windscreen went white. He banged at the glass with the end of the pistol but it wouldn't give.

The first shot hit him in the shoulder, knocked him hard against the door. The steering wheel went nuts and then locked as the Fiat mounted the footpath, slid along the seawall and stalled. He heard himself shouting. The spots on the steering wheel were blood, he knew. He wondered when he'd begin to feel his arm, why he wasn't panicking.

He rolled out onto the footpath. The glass grinding into his elbows didn't register with him. He thought of the rocks under the seawall, if he could get over there.

“Who are yous?”

The Fiat twitched with more impacts.

“We'll work this out . . .!”

Seaweed, he smelled; rubber, oil, sewage.

“Give me a chance to talk . . .!”

He waited. Still nothing.

“Just tell me what you're
after
. . .!” It wasn't a shout now, a screech that ripped at his throat. “. . . Just let me fucking
talk!”

The buzzer from the open door was driving him around the twist.

“Whatever it is . . .! Come on . . .! Who
are
you?”

There were more shots from the front now. It was a steady pattern now, like those drum rolls he used to do in that band the social workers organized for them back when they were in fifth class, that stupid community band. Something stung as it flew into his cheek. He pressed his face to the panel by the wheel. The bullets slamming into bodywork resonated through his cheekbone.

“Jesus,” Larry Smith whispered. “Yvonne.”

Running feet were zigzagging his way. They weren't stopping, slowing down even. The panic broke over him then. He shoved the pistol around the side of the bumper, fired twice, ducked back.

Larry Smith was turning to see if others had come up behind him when a bullet shattered the base of his skull. It was a firearm of similar calibre if not the identical weapon, the Garda press release stated two days later, that was also used to blow parts of Larry Smith's head across Strand Road. The post-mortem report contained three further sentences, which were to be much remarked upon in the Murder Squad. They concerned what appeared to be the marks of a kick to the face delivered, it seemed, prior to the coup de grâce.

“Lads,” said APF Colm Brennan. He waited until they looked over at him. At least they'd see the uniform and cop on that he was Airport Police. “Lads? Come on now, for the love of God. This is Dublin Airport now, not a bloody rave-up. Yous can't be blocking the way here.”

There were five of them now. Brennan looked around at the faces of these die-hard fans of Public Works. Nobody had actually complained. The trouble was that the big fella, the dopey-looking one with the four hundred studs in his ears, had started drinking out of something from inside his jacket. He could be fifteen or he could be twenty, couldn't be sure. But he was the one to watch. He might lose the head handy enough, that one.

“Well, turn it down at least. Do you hear me?”

The big fella threw his hair back, began nodding to the beat.

“
. . . teenage babies die at night . . .
”

Brennan thought, God, if he heard that stupid song one more time. Where were those fellas living with their depressing frigging “tunes”? Hadn't they heard there were jobs out there, the Celtic Tiger going around roaring money now? He waited for the big fella to look over. Not a chance, no. And the others were ignoring him too. The young one with the tights for pants and the yellow hair and the thing in her nose was swaying and dancing and grinning. A taxi pulled away from the drop-off area by the terminal doors. The driver beeped as he passed. The big fella waved and raised his fist.

“Yeaaaahhhhh!”

Brennan clutched the walkie-talkie tighter behind his back and glanced over at the video camera set high in the wall. The big fella turned away. He was taking another swig out of the bottle.

Enough was enough. Brennan stepped over.

“Look,” he said. “That's the limit.”

The big fella dropped the bottle inside his jacket. He stared at some point on Brennan's chest.

“What's A, P, F? I mean, you're not a
real
cop, are you?”

“Airport Police, and yeah, I am a real policeman. Now turn that thing down, get your gear and move on.”

“— The F, though. There — APF. F stands for something. Right?”

Brennan stared at him.

“Airport Police and Fire Service. Take your mates too.”

“So it's like fires too, you have to put out fires, right? Like,
big
fires?”

Brennan stared into the bloodshot eyes. He couldn't tell if it was just the slagging or something else on the way.

“Okay,” he said. “That's it. Out of here. It's over, let's go.”

“Well, wait a minute here.” The big fella wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I've got me rights haven't I? No one's hassled here, are they? All we're doing is seeing the band off.”

He lit a cigarette. His eyes stayed steady on Brennan's. A guitar riff howled behind him. The big fella started to snigger and turned away, shaking with laughter. Brennan looked from face to face, down at the ghetto blaster, the bags, the rucksacks. Badges everywhere, paint, beads, studs. And they thought Public Works was still the local lads, their pals. Gobshites. They didn't even cop on that Public Works had their own frigging jet at the far end of the airport. That they were going off to do a video somewhere. That worldwide success didn't begin with the bloody band climbing out of taxis and buses like ordinary Joe Soaps and pushing trolleys up to the bloody check-in. He wished he could tell them.

“All right, then,” Brennan muttered. “Don't say I didn't tell you.”

A minibus with tinted windows had stopped near the doors.

“Look,” the big lug called out. “It's the lads!”

Brennan knew that he'd left it too late. He made it in front of the girl. The others moved around him. He thumbed to transmit, hoped to God Fogarty or someone had been keeping an eye on things. Not a bloody Guard in sight. The girl got by him. There were hands pawing the minibus. The big fella had his face plastered up to a side window on the van. Fogarty, the supervisor, answered on the radio.

“They're mobbing a van here,” Brennan said. “We need to get people out.”

He began shoving the teenagers away.

“Leave the van alone!” he shouted. “That couldn't be them!”

The girl with the face full of hardware shrieked the name of the lead guitarist. Brennan squinted in the window himself. Could it be someone from the band? The tint was so bloody dark.

“Get back!” he grunted and he shoved the girl.

He caught a glimpse of a sticker by the bottom corner of the windscreen. Squiggly writing, dots, a piece of a moon. Oh Jases, he muttered. Where did they put their CD signs now, those diplomatic plates? Well it was their own bloody fault. He turned and grasped the big fella's collar. The doors to the terminal slid open. Fogarty and Jimmy Doyle and the new fella what's his name were coming out full tilt now. About bloody time —

The big fella turned. The loose look on his face had turned to something narrow and Brennan knew he'd have to get a hold of him rapid, pull him off balance. Behind the lug though, a window on the van slid down to reveal two startled brown eyes staring at Brennan. Masks, he wondered, but no, some of those things the women wore because . . . APF Brennan opened his mouth to say something and then fell backward as something connected with his cheekbone.

Chief Inspector James Kilmartin was on a roll now, and he knew it. He slid off his stool and hitched up his trousers. Minogue knew the routine: the cute countryman, nobody's fool — so look out. He looked at the faces in the huddle around “The Killer” Kilmartin here in the bar of the Garda Club. One of the Guards, a red-faced Sergeant, kept shaking his head and rubbing his eyes. Every now and then he'd repeat things Kilmartin had said and he'd chortle softly. Kilmartin levelled a finger and swept it around slowly by each of the Guards.

“So it's getting dark now,” he said. “This poor Yankee tourist, he's getting kind of worried, isn't he?”

Over at the far end of the bar Sergeant Seamus Hoey was rolling depleted ice cubes around the bottom of his glass. Minogue counted back: it was seven months since Hoey had transferred out of the Squad. He now worked in Crime Prevention. Kilmartin still thought this was hilarious, annoying, stupid. A Guard didn't just
opt to leave
the Squad, especially to join a joke shop like Crime Prevention. On top of that he'd become a teetotaller of nearly one year's standing. Kilmartin had stopped slagging him about that after Minogue had asked him whether he'd still be making the jokes if Shea had succeeded in his suicide attempt. Detective Garda Tommy Malone, who had taken up Hoey's position in the Murder Squad, was staring at the goings-on in Hoey's glass. He seemed to be mesmerized. Malone was simply knackered, Minogue decided, same as himself. The few pints had slammed the door on the adrenalin that had kept them going these last few days.

Kilmartin's voice grew louder.

“I mean here he is, out in the back of beyond, down amongst the
buffs
of County Clare . . .”

Kilmartin looked across at his friend and colleague, Minogue, and his wink gave way to a leer. Minogue raised an eyebrow to register the slur against his native county. This seemed to enliven Kilmartin.

“So anyway,” he went on voice, “here's this fecking tourist, this poor iijit of a Yank, beginning to wonder if he'd been given proper directions at all. Researching his ancestors, walking in ditches and staring at ould cowsheds — you know the routine! What happens but doesn't he fall over this courting couple in behind a ditch . . .”