Eight Ball Boogie - Declan Burke [72]
I dug the Maalox out of my pocket, poured the contents down a drain, threw the empty bottle into the river. I was going to need all the pain I could get, just to keep me sane. The bottle bobbed away towards the bend and the bridge, heading for the open sea. I bade it bon voyage and told it to watch out for icebergs.
I was sweating despite the cold. The first thing I did when I lurched into the car was turn the heating up full blast. The second thing I did was freeze rigid, because that’s pretty much protocol when someone grinds something cold and hard, something that feels suspiciously like the barrel of a gun, into the soft flesh just below your left ear.
“I’m halfway to shooting you already. Sit still.”
I sat still, unloading the words like they were cut glass.
“Where’s the pederast?”
Wondering how he had managed to squeeze himself into the back seat without the help of a blowtorch. There isn’t much room in the back seat of a Fiat Bravo and Brady needed more room than most.
“Where’s what?”
“Your bum chum. Galway, the fag.”
“You tell me.” The gun ground into my neck. “Start with Conway. Stutter once and I’ll blow your head off.”
I took a gamble on how much Brady knew, started with Conway.
“Conway came to me about his wife. He reckoned she was screwing around. I got the impression he was after something else but I did what I was paid to do.”
“Nice job.”
“Pays the bills. I don’t get to stick guns in strangers’ ears but then you can’t have everything.”
“Stick to the facts.”
“Shut the fuck up and give me a chance.”
There was a long silence, the kind that doesn’t like itself. He said: “Go on.”
“Next thing, I’m getting a hammering from some blokes who like their job. They tell me to stay away from her, they don’t say who but I presume they mean Helen Conway. Next morning, you and the fag turn up. By now I know Conway’s trafficking E so I presume that’s what you’re after. Any idea of who had him offed, by the way?”
“I’ll ask the questions.”
“Say again? I get deaf when someone sticks a gun in my ear.”
There was a moment, a very tense moment, when I thought I’d pushed it too far. Then something detonated beside my ear, a safety-catch being clicked on, and he took the gun away. I rubbed at my neck. There was a circular indentation maybe a quarter of an inch deep just below my ear.
“Go on.”
“So I find out Helen Conway might be doing the dirt. Photos to prove it, too. I reckon it’s a job well done in quick-smart time and that Frank Conway’s in for a nasty shock that can wait until after Christmas. I’m sentimental that way. Mind if I smoke?”
“Don’t try anything funny.”
I left the balloon animals in the glove compartment, rolled a twist. Sparked the smoke, watched two middle-aged men, both wearing Santa Claus hats, stagger across the footbridge, holding one another up. The man on the left detached himself, stopped and steadied, unzipped.
“I went for a few pints. It’s Christmas, the job’s Oxo, and my brother’s home for the holidays. That’s Gonzo, by the way. And Eddie. Robbie too, apparently.”
“I can cross the T’s myself.”
“Gonzo ODs. On the way home a car pulls up, and some bloke with a cannon puts me in the river. I’m presuming you know that better than I do.”
“You think it was me?”
“Come on, Brady. You and the fag come around giving me grief about Conway. Then you haul me into the station because you think I’m hooked up with Conway, because Gonzo is. Next thing I know, someone’s trying to blow me away and the only fuckers using those things are the Provies and Branch. And the Provies haven’t been in touch lately.”
Brady laughed, although he didn’t much like the