Eight Ball Boogie - Declan Burke [85]
The other was also a nauseous sensation, this one driven by fear, a primal instinct I had never experienced before, even when the Ice Queen was churning the tea chests to splinters. This was a fear for someone else, a sleepy-eyed kid who wouldn’t even know he was in danger until it was too late, for whom it was maybe already too late. I hit the road, put the boot to the floor, dug out the mobile and dialled. He didn’t answer until the tenth or eleventh ring.
“Who’s this?” Voice thick with sleep and one too many double Jameson’s.
“Happy Christmas, big man. Santa’s arrived and he’s heard you’ve been a good boy.”
“Rigby?”
“Just about. You still in town?”
“Yeah. What –”
“You know The Odeon?”
“What?”
“There’s an old cinema on Connolly Street, it was closed down years ago. Get there and get to the top floor. The projection room.”
“What’s going on, Rigby?”
“Nothing. It’s gone on. Sheridan should still be there, and Helen Conway. She’ll have a hole in her side, if she’s still alive, and he’ll have a lump on his head. You’ll need stretchers.”
“Rigby?”
“You’ll need a body bag too. A gunnie, I’m thinking maybe ex-Provie.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Rigby! Slow down. Start at the start.”
“No time, Brady. It’s all over and the ending is getting happier by the minute. Here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to get to The Odeon with a couple of your Dibble mates, and you’re going to arrest those two and put them away for as long as possible. Understand?”
“You’re giving me orders, Rigby?”
Still a yard off the pace.
“There’ll be an old bloke there too, doing your job for you. And you’re going to do whatever it takes to keep him and me out of it. Alright?”
“No it’s not fucking alright.” He did his best to impose himself on the proceedings. “What did you do to get into it?”
“Nothing, Brady. I was there as an impartial observer, a UN gig.”
I could hear heavy breathing, Brady weighing up his options. I couldn’t wait for him to work it out, a species could evolve from the slime and be hunted to extinction before Brady got the knots out of his shoelaces.
“Brady?”
“What were you observing, Rigby?”
“Jesus, Brady!” I took a deep breath. “Helen Conway convened her fan club. When we turned up she ran amok and shot at us all, including herself, except she missed me. Can’t understand why, she was such a good shot with the Provie.”
“Helen Conway? The flaky tart?”
“She was running the show, Brady. Sheridan’s just a front, a poster boy. The Ice Queen’s the one you want.”
“What are you, clairvoyant?”
“Just a shamus doing his sums, Brady. I’m guessing that’s what Frank Conway was looking for me to dig up when he came to me first. Not that it matters a fuck now.” I paused. “Whenever you want the murder weapon I’ll turn it over. A magic gun it is, too, fires different kinds of bullets, some of them at the same time. But you’ve dealt with that kind of shit before, right?”
He said, slow, measuring the words: “Right now, Rigby, I’m wondering why I shouldn’t put you out on the air, have you hauled in on suspicion of murder. I’m wondering, too, why you’re giving me orders. And I’m wondering why you should be kept out of whatever the fuck happened in that cinema when you’re going to be the star turn at the trial, as defendant or witness.”
It was the $64,000 question. Actually, it was three $64,000 dollar questions.
“Because you’re like me, Brady. You’re a selfish bastard who’ll do whatever it takes to get what he wants. And I’m going to give you what you want on a plate.”
“What I want? What do I want?”
I let him dangle. Then: “Galway.”
There was another silence, but I could hear it tingling. He said, cautious: “You know where Galway is?”
“I know where Galway is.”
“Where?”
“I was never at The Odeon?”
There was the briefest of pauses. Then he said, cold: “Who are you? Who the fuck am I talking to?”
I sighed some relief, not enough, but some. Then I gave him explicit instructions, hung up before he had time to argue. The road was clear, the perfect white of the snow scarred by the tracks of traffic that had gone before me. I put