Dark Times in the City (17 page)

‘I thought we ought to talk.’

‘Did you, now?’

No sign of tension, no evidence of hate or loathing, just mild interest. Tucker seemed relaxed, even amused. He made a hand gesture. ‘Now’s your chance. Don’t be shy.’

‘It’s been eight years.’

‘That long? How time flies.’ He smiled. ‘Or, in your case, maybe it dragged a bit.’

‘I’m sorry. What I did to your cousin – I wish it had never happened.’

Tucker tilted his head. He nodded and said, ‘There’s a lot to be sorry about.’

‘What you said, that day in the court—’

Dead man, Callaghan – blood for blood
.

Tucker said, ‘Bad times, when that happened. For everyone. Brendan’s dad – my uncle – he drank a lot back then, drinks a lot more now. Used to be a man with a future. Brendan’s ma – she’s been in Swansea the past seven years, living with some young bloke.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m not saying that’s all on account of what you did to Brendan. I’m just saying, when that happened, it was like something came unplugged in that family.’

‘I never meant for any of it to happen.’

‘You did what you did.’

‘Have you had someone watching me?’

Tucker made an amused grunt. ‘That’s what this is about?’

‘Some people in a blue van?’

‘Fella – I haven’t given you a thought in eight years. Your friend – Novak – when he called, said he was speaking on behalf of Danny Callaghan, I thought Danny
who?
Then he said it was about my cousin Brendan, and the penny dropped. When he told me you were out – eight years, he said – all I thought was, Jesus, eight years, is it that long?’

‘You threatened me. That day in court.’

‘Did I?’

‘You said you’d kill me.’

Tucker seemed surprised. ‘If I did – we were all upset, relieved it was over, pissed-off. The blood was up.’

‘You sounded like you meant it.’

‘Probably I did, at the time.’

Tucker looked beyond Danny Callaghan, as though looking into the past. ‘Brendan and me, he was, what – about fifteen years older. He saw himself as a sort of uncle, I suppose. He was my cousin and I loved him, but what Brendan did best was throw shapes. He got a swanky car, swanky clothes, jewellery, bodyguards. You could quote any line from
Scarface
and he’d do the whole scene for you.’ Tucker’s tone changed. ‘Too tall to be Pacino, though. Too fat, and too dumb. Brendan talked to the crime hacks from the Sunday papers, made himself out to be a big player. But everyone knew Brendan would eventually fuck up. He did a bit of boxing early on, wasn’t much good at it but he knew how to push people around. Hardly a week went by he didn’t beat the shit out of someone. No way to build a business. Attracts the wrong kind of attention. And sooner or later—’

Tucker made a face.

Danny Callaghan said, ‘All those years – in prison, I was warned, his family would get someone to do the job. Then, when I got out—’

‘If I wanted to swat you, you wouldn’t see it coming. Why would I do that? Why would I bother? Have the cops crawling all over me? Like I say, I’m a busy man these days, I’ve got a business to run – didn’t even know you were out. If I knew, it wouldn’t have meant a thing.’

Callaghan felt uncertainty mixed with relief.

Is this real, or is it bullshit?

‘What about the rest of the family?’

‘Brendan’s dad, like I say – the only way he’s going to hurt anyone is some night he’s driving home from the pub and he runs the car over some poor loser. Brendan’s kid brothers – those two, I wouldn’t worry. Dumber than Brendan ever was. Besides, they wouldn’t lift a finger without asking me, and they haven’t.’

Callaghan felt a sudden rush of anxiety – it had been stupid coming here. Just stirred things up.

‘Blood for blood, you said.’

Again, Tucker was amused. ‘Very Italian – I must have been watching
The Godfather
around that time. If you’d beaten the rap – probably I’d have swatted you. Me or one of Brendan’s brothers – because watching you walk away, that would have put it up to us. Going to jail, that saved your life. The time you spent in there, eight years – you got what, twelve? – that was about right for what you did.’

Tucker was at ease, he wasn’t trying too hard. He didn’t give a shit what Callaghan believed. He was just saying the way it was.

Callaghan said, ‘I appreciate you telling me this – what I mean is—’

Tucker said, ‘I think that’s that, then.’

Callaghan was about to get up.
Let it be
.

Then, knowing it would be unlikely he’d ever speak to Tucker again, he said, ‘One thing – I’m not dragging all this back up again, but there’s something I want you to know. About that night, with Brendan.’

Tucker didn’t seem at all curious.

‘You were wrong. I know you said what you thought was true, in court. And Brendan’s dad, too. But you were wrong. It doesn’t matter any more, but I want you to know that. The golf club I hit him with, it wasn’t mine. I didn’t bring it to his house. It was Brendan’s. He came at me, I took it off him, he—’

Tucker nodded. ‘I gave it to him. Birthday present – he taught me the game. Bloody awful golfer, I was. Never took to it.’

Danny Callaghan stared.

‘It was part of the image he was working on – golf. Bought me membership in his local golf club – insisted on teaching me. His birthday, the one before he died, I gave him a club. The one you killed him with.’

Callaghan was breathing hard.

‘Brendan was a prick – okay, we know that – but he was my cousin.’ Tucker leaned forward. ‘You killed him. Why it happened, that doesn’t matter. As far as we were concerned, there was no way you weren’t going to spend a long time in the smelly hotel. Eight years – I think that’s about the right tab for killing my cousin.’

Danny Callaghan stood up. He turned and walked out of the nook, the bodyguard leading the way. The bodyguard held the front door open. ‘Mind how you go,’ he said.

‘Everything okay?’

Getting into the car, Danny Callaghan just nodded. He didn’t trust himself to speak. Novak looked across and said, ‘Take your time – we’ll talk later.’

As the car started up, Danny Callaghan stared at the leaded windows with the coloured glass. Somewhere behind that glass the bastard was sitting, his mind already on something more important than eight years wasted.

‘That
fucker
!’

‘Take it easy’, Novak said.

‘Eight fucking
years
.’

‘Tell me about it when we’re clear of this place, okay?’

It was dark by the time they got back to Glencara. Half a mile from the Blue Parrot, Novak pulled his Audi into the car park of St Aidan’s church and switched off the engine.

‘Okay, tell me.’

‘The golf club I killed Big Brendan Tucker with was the odd one out. It didn’t match any other club in his bag.’

‘I know all about that.’

‘That
fucker
!’

Across the road from the church, an end house on a street of small council houses was ablaze with coloured lights. Santa sat atop the roof – his reindeer were on the side of the house and also lined along the front gutter. The legs of an upside-down Santa stuck up from the chimney. Another lit-up Santa tirelessly climbed up and down a short ladder. A blow-up snowman swayed between a blow-up Santa and an under-dressed Angel of the Lord. Christmas stars of assorted colours blinked from all sides. There wasn’t a surface left undecorated. Before Callaghan went to prison, Christmas lights were an indoor thing, draped on the Christmas tree, with maybe a few lights around the front window. Now, on estates all over Dublin, the competition to see who could publicly hang the most bulbs per square foot was relentless. This house had to be the champion.

‘Talk to me,’ Novak said.

Callaghan told him that Frank Tucker seemed to have genuinely forgotten about his threat. He considered Danny Callaghan dealt with long ago.

‘And you’re pissed off why?’

‘It wasn’t manly fisticuffs, the judge said. What made the difference was whether I brought that golf club.’

He told Novak what Tucker had said about the club.

‘
Eight years
, he said,
just about the right tab for killing my cousin
.’

‘It’s done now.’

‘Eight years. And those years – if I hadn’t been sitting in that shithouse – my whole
life
might –
fuck
it!’

Callaghan’s eyes were closed, two fingers pinching the bridge of his nose.

‘Let it go,’ Novak said. ‘It’s all done now – the good of it and the bad, the right and the wrong – all set in stone, no way of changing any of it.’

‘I deserved it.’

‘What’s done is done.’

Callaghan was calm now. ‘That night, I hit him – he came at me with the knife and I saw the golf club in the corner and I went for it and I hit him once and that should have been enough.’

‘Look—’

Callaghan held a hand up. His voice was low, he spoke quickly. ‘I’ve never told anyone this – not the lawyers, not Hannah. After I hit him with the club, it just felt right. Big bad Brendan, the heavies at his beck and call, he could stomp on anyone, as the mood took him. No fear at all, just contempt. So I hit him again with the club. Because I wanted to.’

‘Danny—’

‘He’d already dropped the knife – no
need
to hit him again, but I did. Because it
felt
right.’ Callaghan paused, then he said, ‘Maybe because it felt
good
. I hit him again and he screamed, and I knew right away I’d done damage, and I threw the club down and I walked away.’

Callaghan’s head was low, he was looking straight down at his feet.

‘Danny, let it go. Chance and impulse, that’s what it’s mostly about – people act on instinct, do what they think is best at the time. Let it go.’

They sat in silence for a while, then Callaghan sat up straight, his head back against the headrest. ‘Frank Tucker’s changed. Used to be a small-time thug, now he’s Mr Cool.’

‘They all want to be Al Capone, those guys, or Don Corleone or Tony Soprano. I’ve met that sort, down through the years – through Jane’s job. She dealt with a lot of today’s hard men back when they were teenagers. She still goes to the occasional funeral when one
of them’s found toes-up in an alley. And they’re all nice guys, they love their grannies and they’re mad about their kids. Get in their way, they’ll nail you to the floor and then complain you spoiled their evening.’

Across the road, in front of the Christmas house, a couple of kids had linked arms and were twirling in a circle, singing about Rudolph’s nose. Their parents, all woolly hats and scarves, smiled and stamped their feet against the cold.

Callaghan sat there, his head back, and Novak sat beside him for about twenty minutes, by which time the dancing kids had gone and been replaced by new waves of sightseers come to visit the glowing house. Finally, Novak said, ‘You ready?’

Callaghan nodded.

It took just a few minutes to drive to the Blue Parrot, where Callaghan had left his car.

‘You going home to mope all evening?’

Callaghan smiled. ‘No, I’ve got to do some grocery shopping. Then I’ll go home and mope.’

‘Drop down later for a drink.’

‘Maybe.’

‘I need the business.’

Callaghan held out his hand. ‘Thanks again.’

Novak shook his hand. ‘No problem.’

‘All those years, I should have told you how it happened, what I did.’

‘None of us is going straight to heaven.’

He watched until Danny Callaghan had driven away.

His name was Stephen. It was cold inside the car, he was wearing just his jeans and a T-shirt and a thin Hugo Boss jacket, but he was sweating.

Get it right
.

He liked this part of it. The anticipation was almost as—

But right now there was something—

Could be important, might be nothing—

He couldn’t remember.

A thought, sliding, like it was a picture falling through his head, and it wouldn’t stay still long enough for him to—

Gone—

And then there was another one, sliding down behind it, and he tried to get hold of that –
shit, gone
.

Zippo said, ‘You ready?’

Stephen said, ‘Just a minute.’

Sweat trickling down the side of his face, sweat on the back of his neck.

‘Come on, let’s get it over.’ Zippo was a nervous type, never seemed to enjoy his work.

Fuck him. Get the feeling right
.

When there’s a job on, you need a few lines of blow – it clears all the shit away so the inside of your head is clean, everything’s got a sharp edge to it—

Sometimes, though, it was like this. Things sliding, things—

Stephen shook his head violently, took a long breath and used the back of his hand to wipe the sweat from his cheek.