Eight Ball Boogie - Declan Burke [74]
“Conway wanted into politics?”
“Not that bad.” He paused, relishing the moment, and said: “Coke.”
“Coke?”
“Charlie. Snow. White. Call it what you want, Conway got a sniff that Sheridan was into it, maybe through his good wife, who knows. Either way, he wanted his cut.”
My mind had never boggled before. It was an interesting sensation.
“Sheridan’s into coke? Next you’ll be telling me he’s into little boys.”
“If he is, we don’t know about it. What we do know is that Sheridan’s about to do wonders for the sale of Kleenex in the northwest. At the moment the market is in the region of nine million a year. That’s expected to treble in the next two years, and that’s a conservative estimate. If it sounds like a lot of money, think about the potential clientele. Doctors, solicitors, dentists, accountants – all those fuckers can pay top dollar and keep on paying it.”
“Christ. Tony Sheridan though?”
“Man’s looking to the future. A Dail seat isn’t worth its varnish since they started poking into offshore accounts and Legal Aid isn’t going to pay for the villa in Marbella.”
I digested that, thinking about Gonzo dying on a toilet floor. Herbie with his face mashed in. Remembering the glutinous mud at the bottom of the river. Thinking about the grainy, slow-mo images of a pro’s sub-machine gun ripping Ben apart.
“If you know all this, how come you haven’t put him away already?”
“We need proof.” The last word came coated in salt. “We need to connect Sheridan with his supply.”
“And you don’t know who his suppliers are.”
“We know who his supplier is. It’s a small-time operation, relatively speaking.”
“Relative to what? Microsoft?”
“But he’s going big. He’s waiting on the delivery to come down, we thought maybe yesterday. Nothing doing. So we thought maybe today. There was always the possibility you were off on a wee errand this afternoon, bringing a taster in.”
I twisted around, so I was looking straight at him. His gaze didn’t waver.
“You’re kidding. Me, with a kid to look after, moving coke around the countryside?”
“There’s good money in it.”
“Fuck you and your money. Fuck all you sick bastards and your money.”
“That’s pretty high-minded for a man with a kid to look after.”
“Look, Brady, all I was doing was my job. I did it, did it well and then someone poisoned my brother and now they’re trying to kill me. Alright? I’m not involved in coke or smack or dope. No one I know is involved either.”
“Relax. I searched the car while you were playing snowballs with the kid. Nothing. I searched it again while you were yakking in the pub. Still nothing. You didn’t have time to take a piss in between, never mind salt away a stash of coke.”
I forgot about the gun. I jabbed a forefinger in his face.
“Stay the fuck away from the kid. Don’t drag him into this.”
“He’s already in it, Rigby. You’re in it, your wife’s in it, the kid’s in it.” I didn’t quibble over my marital status. “Eddie dragged you all into it.”
“Gonzo? What the fuck has he to do with it?”
The question was out before I remembered that I didn’t want to know. Brady laughed, enjoying himself.
“Eddie had everything to do with it.”
“The coke? Gonz was into pills, a couple of tokes. Where would he get that much coke?”
He grinned.
“Galway.”
“There’s that much coke in Galway?”
“There’s that much coke in any two-horse burg you want to mention. But I’m not talking about the town. I’m talking about…” He grinned again, that slow and evil grin. “What did you call him?”
The penny dropped like the first lemming.
“The pederast?”
“The very man. There’s a cop that’s bent all ways up.”
Something crawled up my back, leaving a trail. The gun lay in Brady’s lap, forgotten, but a gun isn’t the kind of thing you forget for long.
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
“Relax, Rigby. Galway’s no friend of mine. We’ve been watching him for the last year but we’ve never been able to finger him properly. Something like this, you want to get your facts right. Put him away for the full stretch.”
I nodded,