Mermaid in a Bowl of Tears (Exit Unicorns Series) (57 page)

Jamie had the advantage of surprise, his wits, and a strength few would have suspected of him. The heap had its abnormal size and a temper to go with its flaming hair and beard. The heap however, having been intimate over the last forty-eight hours with several bottles of spirits, was at a distinct disadvantage and found itself head first in a tub of water that was only slightly above the freezing mark.

Thrust in and out of the water like a clog of rags, the heap found full consciousness and with it, the return of all five senses. They were not welcome. “You,” he wheezily intoned, between dunkings, “are,”
splutter,
“a dead,”
cough—splutter
, “man.”

“Tsk, tsk,” said a honeyed voice above him, “threats so early in the morning? You’ll poison your spleen along with your liver.”

The heap, now fully cognizant of whose clutches he was in, described five fascinating, if circuitous, routes by which his captor could take himself indirectly to hell. For this information he received another dunking.

“Well my little poppet, have you had enough yet?” Jamie asked, hand like a vise in the man’s hair.

“Get ye back to the gates of hell where ye came from, spawn of Satan,” the heap roared in reply, water streaming through a thick beard the color of Chinese poppies. One eye, the mottled texture of a fresh-nipped prairie oyster, cracked open, glaring things best left unuttered. Utter them he did, though—in five languages, a ripe polyglot of syllables and vowels that geographically straddled the linguistic divide from pole to pole.

“How colorful,” Jamie said pleasantly, “if my ear serves, you’ve just called me a stinking, fresh-lipped whoreson mothered by two-headed yaks, fathered by Lebanese sodomites.”

The mottled eye cracked again. “Aye, an’ ye deserved it, ‘twas you taught me to curse in every known language.”

“Those being the only words you showed any proficiency for, I hardly had a choice.”

The heap, commonly called Thrawny, collapsed against the tub and ruffled two big hands through his beard, a great laugh rolling up from the pit of his abundant belly.

“Ach, never could stay mad at ye, ye daisy-headed bastard. Sit will ye? My head is spinnin’ fit to kill.”

Jamie put down the lid of a cherub festooned toilet and sat. “You owe me a new pair of shoes you poppy-faced souse. These,” he looked distastefully at the dripping buttery leather on his feet, “are completely ruined.”

Thrawny cast a bleary eye on the shoes. “Made by a blind cobbler in a tin shack in Calcutta, formed to yer royal little bones no doubt.”

“His name’s Badeesh and he only works from dawn ‘til dusk, so you’d best get your grains of rice together and put the order in now and,” Jamie said with dignity, “he’s only blind in the one eye as the other was lost to leprosy two years past.”

Both oyster blue eyes were open now, the flaming beard dripping a pool into the hollow where belly rounded over into massive chest. “Yer an evil man, Jimsy, an’ make no mistake of it. Now help me to my feet, will ye?”

Jamie gave him an arm and levered Thrawny onto his feet. Thrawny shook his massive head like a Saint Bernard flinging off fleas, then cocked it towards the doorway, around which curious heads bobbed like loosed apples from time to time.

“Mary,” Thrawny roared, “make us a pot of coffee will ye, now there’s a girl.”

Mary said something distinctly uncomplimentary about the state of her bathroom and then headed off toward the kitchen. The scent of extremely strong coffee drifted down the hallway to the parlor where Thrawny plunged into a deep wingback chair that dwarfed even his mammoth proportions.

“I take it,” he said, peering at his visitor through slitted eyes, “that this is not a social call?”

Jamie sat opposite him and came swiftly to the point. “Yesterday a man was lifted out of a safehouse in the Murph. There were eight men in the army lorry that took them away, only seven made it to Girdwood Barracks. I want to know where the eighth went. His name is Casey Riordan.”

Thrawny gave him a narrow eye. “An’ why d’ye think I might have that sort of information?”

“If you don’t you certainly know who does,” Jamie said coolly, hands laid lightly on the damask arms of the chair in which he sat.

“Jesus, I’m too hung-over for this conversation,” Thrawny sighed. “Colleen always said ye were a chilly bastard when ye wanted to be.”

“
You
,” Jamie said, “are the one with the bleeding eyeballs, don’t try distracting
me
.”

Thrawny looked at him, curiosity flaring like pinpricks in his eyes. “Hundreds of men were lifted this mornin’, why’s this one so important?”

“That’s my business.”

“Yer a mite prickly, this a personal matter?”

Jamie merely raised his eyebrows and delivered a chill green look.

“Alright, alright, the name’s familiar. He’s a ‘Ra boy, isn’t he?”

“He was but he’s not any longer.”

“An’ he’s still got use of the both legs? Jesus they must be gettin’ slack in the ranks.”

Jamie folded his arms, placed them on his knees and leaned toward Thrawny. “Stop avoiding the question.”

“Jamie ye know this sort of information never comes without a price for somebody.”

Jamie didn’t so much as blink. “You owe me this Alexander, just answer the question.”

Thrawny winced. “Lower yer voice. Joan an’ yerself are the only ones that know my Christian name.” He shifted his bulk uncomfortably, sunlight threading in the nutmeg tufts of hair on his forearms. He pursed his lips and took a reluctant breath. “There was some money changed hands, lot of it actually, to make sure that boy didn’t make it to Girdwood. Truck was paid to go down a side road an’ stop. Someone was waitin’ to take him off there. That’s all I know, I swear to ye Jamie. If I was found to be talkin’ to ye my life’d be worth no more than a peckerless snake.”

“There were seven other men in that truck, why him?”

There was no mistaking the look Thrawny gave in response to his question. “Well as yer here askin’ the question I imagine ye know better than I why someone wanted him bad enough to pay that sort of money.”

“What sort of money?”

Thrawny drew his eyebrows down and began to give off distinct emanations of discontent. “Never miss a goddamn beat do ye?”

“I’ve been up roughly forty-eight hours and I’ve a house filled to its gilded ceiling with refugees so you’ll have to forgive me if my patience is wearing a little thin.”

Thrawny named a figure, which gave Jamie a moment’s pause.

“I’ll need a name.”

Protest formed in Thrawny’s face immediately. Jamie heard the excuses, could have recited them verbatim before they crossed the man’s lips, but he allowed him to finish his litany of the rain of curses that was likely to land on both their heads for this one name.

“Are you quite done?” Jamie asked politely when Thrawny came to the end of his hellfire monologue.

“This is no bloody joke Jamie,” Thrawny leaned forward until there was no more than an inch between their faces, his breath a fog of stale whiskey. “Have ye heard of the Trustees?”

Jamie gave the slightest nod.

“Alright, well they’ve got their own hired guns. Assassins who go in an’ out of the Catholic neighborhoods an’ kill who they’re told.” He pressed a meaty hand to his head, wincing slightly. “I’m goin’ to need a drink if ye want me to continue.”

Never a man to arrive unprepared Jamie took a bottle of Connemara Mist out from under his coat. Thrawny took the cap off and drank a long steady stream of the golden fire before returning to his story. “Boy,” he said emerging for air, eyes streaming, “that’s powerful potent stuff.”

“The name,” Jamie repeated calmly.

“The lawyer that was killed with the car bomb, that was their doin’.”

“These Trustees?”

“Aye, though ye’d be hard pressed to prove it.”

“Then how did you come by this information?”

“There’s four assassins that I know of alright. Two are drones, do what they’re told to, pick up the envelope of money an’ go home. ‘Tis neither here nor there to them who’s killed nor why. The other two are a bit of a different story.” Thrawny’s eyes darted quickly about the room as if he expected the faded wallpaper to have sprouted ears. “One’s got a mouth on him, gets liquored up an’ brags a bit. Times he’s partnered with the fourth man an’ this is where the story gets really frightenin’.”

“This fourth man?”

Thrawny nodded, tongue flicking around his lips nervously. “Two months back there was a murder, ye’ll remember—body was found in an alleyway off Wimbledon Street. Some poor sod stumblin’ home drunk got beat real bad, teeth’d been pulled, fingers broke, face cut up fierce from a knife?”

“I remember,” Jamie said curtly, the vertical crease between his eyes deepening.

“’Twas the fourth man that did it. Word is there’s no political motivation behind most of his murders, he just kills for the sheer joy of it. Name’s Kenny Murray an’ he killed a man in prison as well. Poisoned him before the poor bugger could take the witness stand against him.”

“Are you telling me this Murray is the man I want?” Jamie asked.

“Aye,” Thrawny clutched the bottle of whiskey tight to his belly, “unfortunately it is.”

“And how do I find him?”

Thrawny shook his head violently. “Ye don’t man, don’t even think it. This man is psychotic, he’s not just some Shankill tough, he’d slaughter ye for a lock of yer hair. Besides no one knows where he lives or what he does.”

“I imagine his partner does,” Jamie said quietly.

“Oh no, no, no, no,” Thrawny said agitatedly, “ye’d not get near him either.”

“You have.”

“Only when I’ve ended up in the same drinkin’ establishment an’ that’s The Club. Ye’d never get past the door an’ if ye did, ye’d not come back out it.”

“Not if I went with someone who’s known there.”

“Are ye feckin’ nuts?” Thrawny said, a slight squeak in his rumble. “Everyone an’ his dog knows who ye are man. That club is sacred Loyalist ground, they’d roast ye an’ eat ye an’ use me for toothpicks once they were done.”

“Can you be sober enough by—” Jamie glanced at his watch, “eight o’clock?”

“No,” Thrawny shook his head so hard that whiskey slopped over the neck of the bottle and trickled in a stream over the hummock of his belly. “No, you may have some crazed death wish, but I don’t. I’ll not go an’ ye’ve no way to make me.” He thumped the bottle against his knee for emphasis.

“You won’t?” Jamie asked lightly, and Thrawny felt the short hairs on the back of his neck stand straight up. He’d a miserable feeling that old debts were about to be called in.

“Now Jimsy,” he began in a conciliatory tone, but was cut off by Jamie’s raised hand.

“No, don’t waste your breath, I can see you’ve your reasons.” He stood as if to leave and Thrawny relaxed slightly, which was his mistake.

“Oh by the way Joan said not to forget to pick up milk before you drag your useless corpse back home.”

Thrawny, already an unhealthy gray, blanched visibly. “Ye went to see Joan first?”

“Did I forget to mention that?” Jamie smiled sweetly. “Odd that it should slip my mind. She worries about you a great deal, doesn’t she?”

“She’s my sister, ye know our family is tight man, or at least ye knew it well once.”

Jamie turned and came across the room, putting his face in Thrawny’s, hands on the arms of the chair. Despite the fact that he outweighed Jamie by a good eighty pounds he shrank back as far as the chair allowed.

“She worries too much, hardly seems fair, does it? But even Joan doesn’t know the extent of your troubles does she?”

Thrawny went deathly still, suddenly understanding where the conversation was heading. And knew the man wasn’t even going to give him the illusion of choice.

“I don’t know what yer talkin’ about,” he said, attempting to bluff it out.

“What I’m talking about, Alex, is gambling debt. Joan doesn’t know how shaky the floor under her feet is, does she? What do you think she’d do if she realized the house is mortgaged to a loan shark, who has every intention of kicking her out in another month.”

“I was goin’ to find the money...” Thrawny began in protest but Jamie merely raised an eyebrow.

“You’ve got thirty thousand pounds up your sleeve?”

“I had twenty,” he said angrily before he could stop to think what he was letting slip.

“
Had
being the operative word in that sentence,” Jamie said. “All gone on the horses. Twenty to win on Balmoral’s Whelp, am I right? Blew all twenty grand in an afternoon didn’t you? I find it interesting that you could come up with it in the first place. No overtime hours at the shipyard, no extra job and yet you had it certain enough.”

“Look, man—”

“No you look,” Jamie grabbed him hard under the chin, “I know, do you understand? I know where that money came from. Couldn’t believe it at first, said to myself you couldn’t do that sort of thing, wouldn’t get mixed up with those kind of people. Not the Thrawny I knew. But the facts kept piling up and I, not being given to blind faith, saw the picture. It made me sick, actually physically ill, Alexander. Realized I didn’t know you anymore.”

“Jamie please, ye don’t understand, ye don’t know how desperate I was.”

“I don’t care how desperate you were, nothing excuses what you’ve done. You could have come to me, did you even consider that? I’d have lent you the money, Christ I would have given it to you, you had only to ask. Or is Catholic money tainted?”

Thrawny shook his head slowly, tears moistening the pale oyster eyes.

“Ye know better than that. How long since ye been by, Jamie?”

“That has no bearing on this situation.”

“Oh but it does. We were family Jamie, we loved ye as our own, we wept when ye lost the bairns, we died a little when Colleen left ye. We loved ye an’ you abandoned us.”

Jamie took a deep breath and stood. “I couldn’t be there Alex, I just couldn’t.”

“Well neither could I anymore,” Thrawny said through gritted teeth. “An’ if ye bear me any fondness at all man ye won’t go to that club. Ye don’t understand how deep this thing goes.”

“I have to find this man Alex, do you understand? I have to find him now, alive and well.”