The Glorious Heresies (32 page)

“So you're admitting you did it?” Jimmy straightened. “I'm not saying you owe me, Cusack, not at all. This is your mess as much as it's mine. One of us has to get this sorted. It can't be me. You're a nobody. That's why it's you. You got away with the last one, didn't you?”

“I don't know where Duane went,” Tony said.

“Yeah, you said.” Jimmy went for the kitchen door. “Let's say till Friday to find the girl and do the deed. If you need to go boating I'll let you off one more time. Give me a buzz when you're finished and I swear to the Lord Above that we'll be done with this.”

“How do I know that?”

“What? You don't believe me?”

Cusack stood up. He leaned on the table, lost his nerve and looked down. “How do I know you won't pin this on me? Isn't that why you roped me into the Robbie O'Donovan thing? That's what dopes like me are there for.”

Jimmy smiled, and jovially slapped his hands off the worktop. “Putting two and two together, are we? And what fucking ridiculous number are we coming up with?”

“What would you want with this,” Tony said, “except a place to pin the blame?”

Jimmy paused to weigh the violation.

“That could be it,” he said. “And so what if it is?”

Cusack looked up.

“Just like that, Jimmy?”

“Just like that.”

“I did you a good turn, boy.”

“And what d'you want? A fucking medal? Cusack, if we lived in a world where good deeds meant anything I'd have played along, but this isn't that kind of world, and this isn't that kind of fuck-up.”

“You dragged me into this.”

“I did.”

“And how do I know I'm going to get out of it at all?”

“Coz I fucking said so. We're going round in circles, Cusack.”

He moved back towards his old friend, and felt—and was astonished at it; it was something he'd taken for granted for far too long—the sickly satisfaction at seeing the other flinch and then cower. His guts twisted. He caught Tony's shoulder again. Half a man, halved.

“Don't think I'm completely black-hearted, Cusack. We have history. I respect that. Do this and we're square. Don't do this, and…Well. You know you're going to do it because you don't have a choice, do you? Father-of-how-many, knock-kneed killer.”

The front door slammed.

Jimmy turned, hand still on Tony's shoulder, and into the kitchen came, he guessed, the little prince.

“What's going on?”

Jimmy pinched Tony's shoulder and said, “Well, fuck me. They grow up so fast.”

The kid was the spit of his ould lad. A touch taller and missing the gut, the benefit of his mother's genes in these and other refinements; a good-looking lad, Jimmy thought, not your typical scut. He was out of the scut's uniform, too, in a smart jacket and black jeans instead of the tracksuit-and-bling combo. “Ryan,” Jimmy said. “I'm right, amn't I? The heir to the Cusack fortune. Well, how are you today?”

“Can I help you with something?”

“That's not a very helpful tone.”

“Well let me re-fucking-calibrate. D'you want something?”

Jimmy whistled.

“Not so much a chip-off-the-ould-block as he looks, is he?” he said to Tony. “Fire in him, though this town'll have something to say about that eventually.” Back at Ryan he said, “I do want something, and I got it. Don't worry your pretty little head about it.”

He released Tony.

“Friday,” he said. “I'll talk to you then.”

The son moved out of the way as he walked past and back into the cluttered hallway, back out through the grubby door, back down the driveway lined with ragwort and dandelion, back onto the street outside and its concrete footpaths dashed with gum and bird shit.

He wondered, as he walked, about the turns that made a man a murderer. Jimmy didn't consider himself a member of that family; no, there was something sicker to murder than pragmatic judgement, which is all he ever engaged in. Tony Cusack was one kind of man: shuffling from one weak comfort to the next. What darkness was in him had been so well buried Tony himself likely didn't know it was there to call on, when his position as man and father and household god was threatened. But then maybe he did. And maybe the boat was a tool seized to carry out another task in a long schedule. You just don't know, do you?

He unlocked his car door and as his fingers closed around the handle a voice caught him and spun him back again.

“Hey!”

Ryan Cusack strode right up and stopped just short enough to leave room for swinging fists.

“What the fuck was that about?” he said.

Jimmy laughed. “Excuse me?”

“You. My dad. In my dad's house. Just now. What the fuck was that about?”

Jimmy closed the gap between them.

“None of your fucking business, pup.”

There was a height difference. Jimmy thought:
A good gut-punch will sort that out if necessary.

“Watch me make it my fucking business,” said the boy.

“Aw, stop,” sneered Jimmy. “I know what you're at and I appreciate it, I do. Showing off your baby claws is how you little fuckers learn. But you don't practise your play-acting on me, because I will put you in the ground. And your daddy after you.”

He meant to turn away. He didn't. There was, all of a stark sudden, too much there to turn away from.

Ryan said, “You don't come into my house, and threaten my father, without giving me the chance to put you back in your box.”

Jimmy pushed against him; Ryan stood solid.

“If you had any idea who you were talking to,” Jimmy said, “you'd be cleaving out your tongue on your fucking knees. Boy.”

“I know full well who I'm talking to. Phelan.”

Jimmy bared his teeth.

“Well, look at the fucking balls on you. That must be the Neapolitan talking, because it sure as shit isn't your father.”

“Funny that, isn't it?”

“Fucking hilarious. All I had left to know about you was how you spoke to your betters. Part-time half-grown dealer scum, Ryan Cusack. Kicked out of school, time under your belt already and a future bright as a bruise.”

“Spot on, boy. And your problem with my dad is what?”

“Hoho! Like a dog with a bone. Why don't you ask him?”

“Because I'm asking you.”

“The question is, Ryan, would you like it if I told you?”

Jimmy stepped back again, leaned against the Volvo and folded his arms. The boy's fingers curled into fists. Fifty feet away, Tony Cusack hovered at his hall door. Jimmy nodded towards him.

“He's afraid for you, Ryan, but more afraid for himself. Watch him.”

“Maybe he's not afraid for me at all.”

“No, he is. Always thinking about you. Oh, you've no fucking idea. But he won't come out here after you, because you've gone and gotten yourself into deep, deep shit. Didn't he warn you, when you went rushing out the door after me?”

Ryan snorted. “There's a problem, I sort it.”

“What, you think getting banged up in borstal qualifies you to butt heads with me?”

“You bothering my father in my kitchen qualifies me to butt heads with you. You want something, talk to me about it. My dad's no good to you. And you fucking know it.”

In the doorway, Tony Cusack pushed his hand over his forehead.

Aloud, Jimmy wondered, “After all he's done, the man throws his boy to the fucking wolves.”

Ryan said, “So. What the fuck was that about?”

Jimmy swiftly measured outcomes. In front of him, the young avenger waited, a sharp twist to the corner of his mouth. Tony Cusack never once looked like coming over the threshold to reclaim him.

“All right,” said Jimmy.

Underneath logic and strategy, he was burning. Anger, more than was reasonable, caught his breath and quickened his pulse. There were more out there like Ryan Cusack, boys half Jimmy's age for whom reputation was a thing to be taken from someone else.

“There's a problem your father and I share. I want it gone. It has a name: Georgie Fitzsimons. It shouldn't be hard to find because it circles this town like a bad penny. Take the thing out of circulation and I'm square with your piece-of-shit father. Let this go one step further and I'll make orphans of your siblings and hang you over the Lee in a fucking gibbet. You got that?”

He smiled.

“Bet you're sorry you asked now, aren't you?”

The boy said, “Is that it?”

“It's in the smart mouth you betray yourself, kid. You have till Friday.”

He got back into his car unimpeded and drove out of the estate.

Mission accomplished, he supposed.

The nights were getting shorter, and once the weather cleared they'd see the sky, the lot of them, and feel the vastness above the city; the air, the wind and the world. They just had the April to suffer first. The walls of Jimmy's city inched towards the sides of his car as he drove. The lamp posts bent over him.

It would right itself, sooner or later. He just needed to be prepared.

Tony was at the kitchen sink, one hand on the draining board, the other in a tight fist by his side, bled out from his forehead to his knuckles, but still standing.

His father used to be a giant but as Ryan had stretched he'd shrunk to frailty, and his stature was only part of the story. All those rages, distilled by time down to petty tantrums. The good moods Ryan used to pray for, reclassified as desperate shows of learned affection. And that fucking strength, ha? Where was the bruiser now? Ryan could take him. He could do more than take him. He could kill him. Even with his bare hands. Catch him by his mop, knock his head off the wall, slam his face off the draining board, run him onto the stairs, slip his belt off, whip the old fucker.

Instead he walked over to the table and picked up the electricity bill. He counted out the fee, then a fifty on top of it, and put it on the table. He'd brought an eighth of grass too, a good poky smoke, and as such one he was considering leaving in his pocket and laying into with extreme prejudice once he got home. He left the baggie by the bill.

“Better for you,” he said.

He looked back at his father and Tony swallowed and looked at the floor.

“Rocky…”

“And you say I make stupid mistakes, Dad.”

“You don't understand.”

“No.” For a moment his stance matched his father's, and then he tossed his head and looked up again and said, “Make me understand.”

Tony came over to the table. He sat down, awkwardly pulled a packet of cigarettes from his jeans pocket, and slit one open. Ryan put his Rizla on the table. Tony rolled a joint. His hands were shaking.

“What did he say to you?” he mumbled, once he'd sparked up.

Ryan sat down. “Nothing that made any sense.”

Tony exhaled and rested his forehead on his wrist. His fingers scratched at his hairline.

“He wants that girl killed,” Ryan said. He coughed out a laugh. “Like, fucking hell.”

“That's the long and short of it,” Tony said.

“Eh, no it fucking isn't, Dad. That's the bare bones. The girl who came up here asking after her fella is a problem you share with Jimmy Phelan. And somehow he thinks you're capable of pulling shit like that and you're not, Dad. How could you be? What the fuck is he on?”

Tony looked up. “I couldn't,” he said. “You know that. See? You know that but he doesn't. Or he does and he doesn't care. But you're right, Rocky—I couldn't be like that and I'm not.” There were tears in his eyes.

“How's Georgie a problem you share with Jimmy Phelan?”

“I didn't mean for any of this to happen. I was walked into it. That young wan's fella…he was killed.”

“Oh, fuck me.” Ryan leaned back in his chair.

There were threads of dusted web drifting gently round the shade above him.

“I met her in town, last Saturday,” he said. “First time since she was here in your sitting room, Dad. She looked like shit, y'know. Like a skeleton in a dress. She said the feen was dead. I guess that's why Jimmy Phelan's taking out contracts on her.”

“She's a buddy of yours—”

“No. I fucking told you she wasn't. She's someone I used to sell dope to.” He pushed the chair back and paced over to the worktop, and brought a fist to the surface between the hob and the dirty mugs.

It needed saying.

“Did you kill him, Dad?”

“No,” Tony said.

He was staring at the table. “Phelan crossed my path one day, five years ago now. He said he needed a favour. I had no clue what it was until I was landed in front of it—the fella, dead on the floor up in one of Phelan's gaffs. A total accident, he said. I was to help him clean it up. And I did it. You don't say no to Jimmy and at that stage…I couldn't have said no. That's Jimmy. He shoves you off the cliff and as you're falling he shouts after you:
No way back now, boy!
I didn't know the girl'd come looking for him and I didn't know she'd come up here. I don't know why she never learned to shut her mouth. Whatever madness drove her to piss him off, it's done now. And because I'm the only one who knew about the first one, he says I have to…to do the second.”

“How do you even know Jimmy bloody Phelan?”

“From years back. Before you were born. Before I was your age, even. We went to London together.”

“That's how he knew about my mam, so.”

“What did he say about your mam?”

“Oh, fuck all, for Jesus's sake.”

Ryan's phone beeped. He took it out of his pocket and stared down at the screen. It was a text from Karine. She'd be on her lunch break by now, back there in the real world. He turned the phone over in his palm and closed his fingers round it.

“So what did Tara Duane know about all this?”

Tony inhaled, sharply, making a sound somewhere between a hiccup and a bleat.

“What d'you mean, boy?” he said.

“She sent Georgie up here, didn't she? Telling her you'd know where her fella went?”

“Twist of fate, I suppose. She was late remembering that I knew the poor fella.”

“So you did know him.”

Tony closed his eyes. “Yeah.”

“How'd you know him?”

“Pub. That's all. I couldn't tell her that, though, not after what had happened.”

“And Tara just landed on that one, did she?”

“Why couldn't she? We both know, don't we? The world marked that wan for divilment. Why else would she have…” He flinched. “…With you.”

“Are you still going on about that?” Ryan snapped.

“You were fifteen, Ryan.”

“Yeah, well. Fifteen-year-olds are all dick, aren't they?”

He put his phone on the worktop, placed both hands flat on either side, then sank onto his elbows and covered his head with his hands.

“I didn't have a choice,” his father stressed feebly, from behind him.

“There's always a choice,” Ryan said.

“If it makes you feel better to believe that.”

Ryan straightened. He put his hands on his head and moved to the window, and let his eyes drift from clothesline to back wall to lawn.

“Rocky, listen—”

“Don't fucking talk to me a minute!”

He'd seen it splashed and screaming on her face: Georgie was fucked anyway. Her cheeks, sunken; her eyes like holes punched in paper; fated to expire in a gutter after ODing or being choked out by the wrong punter and there was nothing Ryan Cusack could do about that. Child already taken off her. Slipping from salvation to the street. Hanging.

“Aw, fuck,” he breathed.

Tony tried again.

“Ryan, I—”

“I'll sort this,” Ryan said. He went back to the worktop and picked up his phone. Tony shook his head. His mouth warped and changed his grimace into something faintly ludicrous.

“How ‘sort it,' boy? What's that mean?”

“It means I'm going to fucking sort it, Dad.”

“Ryan, you can't bargain with Jimmy Phelan—”

“I'm not going to bargain with him.”

“Aw Jesus Christ—”

“Aw Jesus Christ what, Dad? What? It has to be sorted, doesn't it?”

Tony got to his feet.

“Ryan…I can't let you do this.”

“That's grand coz I amn't asking your permission, am I?”

He turned back at the hall door.

“Don't bring this up with me again,” he said.

He watched his father's pallor wash out against the smudged eggshell blue of the kitchen walls, and couldn't decide whether it was the right tone at last that had done it, or the right words or the right height or the right criminal trajectory. Or the right emergency. What the name of the magic trick was that turned Tony Cusack from one kind of man to no man at all.

He made the decision but it sat with him for a while, and he ended up driving from one end of the city to the other, smoking, and asking himself who the fuck he was.

He picked up Karine at the hospital at clocking-off time and she jumped into the passenger seat with the post-work high she denied and he was addicted to.

“Hey, baby boy!”

There was an even blanket of mist over the city. Karine shivered. “So dark,” she complained, turning up the heat. “It's like December.” Out of the corner of his eye he noticed her narrow hers and smile. “You're cranky, are you?”

“Not really,” he said.

“You OK?”

“ 'Course I am.” They were at the car park exit; he leaned over the steering wheel and stared into the traffic. “How was work?” he said.

“Mental. Like, we're supposed to be learning and the only thing they're teaching us is how not to explode with stress. I swear to God, that's the number one nursing skill.”

“Someone's got to do it,” he said.

She shimmied in her seat. “Yeah! Someone's gotta patch 'em all up.”

It wasn't a dig at him. It might have looked perverse to the uninitiated, him doing what he did for money and her being nearly-a-nurse, but they both knew, well, you've got to be realistic. Someone's got to do it: the mantra applied to both paths. He was glad of that shared pragmatism, though when he was hungover he worried that it was as down to rebelling against her parents, who hated him, as it was to her urban ethics.

He dropped her home to her parents' terrace, and she leaned over and into a slow kiss.

“Will you come and get me later?” she whispered.

“Yeah.”

“Don't be too long.”

Before she pulled away he framed her face in an open hand.

“Tell me you love me,” he said.

“Duh. I love you.”

“Really, though?”

“Oh my God, is my word not good enough?” She smiled, then the smile faded, and she cocked her head. “Have you done something?”

“No.”

“You're talking like you've done something.”

“I haven't.”

“Coz I'm all done forgiving you, Ryan.”

“I know.”

She let him kiss her again. “I'm just a bit off,” he said. “I was up with my dad earlier. You know how it goes. He gives me the emos.”

“I should have guessed.”

“I've a small job to do. I'll be back later for you. We'll go to mine. Watch a film or something. Listen to some tunes. I dunno. Have fucking tea and Jaffa Cakes.”

“OK,” she said, soft as the rain.

“And you can tell me about work,” he said. “Tell me plans, and tell me stories.”

He crossed the river for the fifth time and turned onto the quay, and traffic lights quivered through the mist on the windscreen.

She was there. He pulled up alongside her and rolled down the window.
If I'm caught doing this,
he thought,
how the fuck will I ever explain it?

“Get in, Georgie.”

She looked at him like a cornered teenager, slid towards the passenger door, and slouched in.

“What?” she said.

The mist had teased her hair into a tangle, and its volume made her face even more gaunt. She pulled her jacket sleeves over her fists. Her skirt was short and her legs bare; he'd had the GTi only a month, and was still obsessively odd about anything dirtying the seats. He recognised his revulsion to her naked skin as irrational. Possibly essential, if he was going to be smart about it. He pulled back onto the road and drove towards the Mall. “How the mighty have fallen,” Georgie muttered.

Over her right wrist she was wearing a piece of brown cloth, wound and knotted; it kept catching as she yanked at her sleeve.

“That's the best you can come up with?” he said. “Mumbling something snippy to shame me? Fucking hell, Georgie. You've no fight in you.”

“I'm supposed to fight you?”

“You think I'm a hypocrite, don't you? You think I've some nerve picking you up after what happened Saturday. You think it all boils down to whether or not I'm horny.” He snorted. “And you get in anyway, and you'd let me, wouldn't you? After everything.”