Eight Ball Boogie - Declan Burke [34]
“Busy girl,” I commented. The bank accounts alone were impressive, nearly three hundred grand spread across five different banks at home. There were also the kind of accounts where you get a tan making a deposit, one in the Seychelles, another in Barbados, and she also had the obligatory Swiss deposit box, although that was probably for show. “Nice work, Herb. Give me the same on Frank Conway, yeah?”
“Who he?”
I counted to five.
“He’ll be Helen Conway’s husband, Herb.”
“Oh, yeah – right.”
“Get a chance to download those pictures yet?”
“What pictures?”
“From the camera. I dropped it around this morning.”
There was a brief pause. I could imagine him panicking, trying to recall what he’d been doing earlier. Herbie, who was hard put to remember his real name most of the time. When he spoke again he sounded cautious.
“You were here this morning?”
“Not there there.” It would have been too easy to wind him up. “I slipped the camera through your letterbox. In a padded envelope.”
The sigh of relief was audible.
“I haven’t been downstairs yet. Hold on.” I heard him pounding down the stairs. Moments later he was back. “Alright, I have it. Give me an hour and I’ll see what I can do.”
“Sound. I’ll be in the office until five.”
“Hey, Harry?”
“What?”
I knew what was coming.
“Anything moving on Imelda Sheridan?”
“Nothing, no. Hear anything more from Regan?”
“He’s not taking my calls. You didn’t get anyone to talk?”
“No go, Herb.”
“Fucking seen it on TV last night, Harry. They were all over it.”
I realised I hadn’t heard the news, or seen a newspaper, in nearly two days.
“They talk to anyone?”
“No. It was a short report, long-range shots of the house, the usual shite.”
“So what are you complaining about?”
“It’ll be dead in the water if we don’t do something, that’s what. Yesterday’s fucking news, Harry.”
“I know, Herb. But I can’t sell the story unless there’s an angle, something to hang it on. They’ll laugh me off the phone otherwise.”
“What are you talking about, angle? Sell them the facts. Just type it up, fuck the poetry. Tell it like it happened.”
“We don’t know what happened. Besides, the Sundays pay better, and they love the kinky stuff. I say we stick it out, stay awake, hit one of the Sundays for a spread. Do the shots some justice.”
It was a curve ball, appealing to his vanity. He didn’t even swing.
“Something you’re not telling me, Harry?”
I didn’t answer. He’d have thought I was insane if I told him that I didn’t want to dig too deep around Imelda Sheridan because, no matter how ludicrous it sounded, gut instinct told me Gonzo was involved. But then Herbie was one of the lucky ones, Herbie had never met Gonzo.
Plus, I didn’t know how Frank Conway and Tony Sheridan fitted together, or how close, or what kind of cesspit might turn up if I dug in the wrong place.
Plus, I was stiff, sore and tired, in no mood to answer to anyone, least of all Herbie.
“Harry?”
“I got laid last night, Herb. Which makes two nights in a row, first time in about five years. That’s what I wasn’t telling you. Happy now?”
“Harry –”
“I’ll buzz you later, Herb. Sit tight.”
I smoked a couple of cigarettes, sifted through the events of the last twenty-four hours. Brady and Galway, Conway and Sheridan, the Three Stooges – they loomed large, shadows up a wall. I closed my eyes, bumped them around, trying to get them to fit. It didn’t work, mainly because Helen Conway kept distracting me, svelte for her age in something black and silk with a suicidal neckline. The dodgems kept on bumping until Brady took offence at Conway digging him the elbow and a bare-knuckle brawl broke out.
I left them to it, wondered how much Helen Conway knew about her husband’s sideline in narcotics. The bank accounts suggested she was up to speed, but that kind of evidence is circumstantial at best and slander at worst. Besides, Helen Conway didn’t come across as the kind of woman who had recently discovered the high life. Helen Conway had been born in the stratosphere,