Eight Ball Boogie Part 30

"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 f.u.c.king 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 f.u.c.king 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 f.u.c.k 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 s.h.i.t 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 f.u.c.k 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.d 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 f.u.c.k 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 the boot down. I had a long way to go and the trip got longer every time.

25.

It was almost four when I crawled off the main road, taking the back lane. I cut the headlights halfway down the hill, parked up. Slipped and slid through the pitch black on foot.

The house was dark, no light showing from the road, no tyre-tracks in the driveway, which meant nothing. The snow had obliterated everything that wasn't moving. I jumped the wall, made my way up the garden behind the rhododendron bushes, so I wouldn't trip the spotlights, emerging behind the woodshed.

The kitchen was dark. The snow between the shed and kitchen door was unmarked, the white van's bonnet cold, which meant its driver had been inside long enough to get warm and maybe a little too comfortable. It wasn't much of an advantage, but it was something.

I slipped the safety off the Ice Queen's gun, trying not to breathe, my breath pluming, a dead give-away if anybody was lurking in the shadows. Crossed the open yard, every pore attuned for the slightest hint of impending oblivion, knowing full well I wouldn't even hear it coming.

The back door was unlocked. I eased it open, crept through the kitchen on tiptoe, opened the kitchen door a crack. The hall ran the full length of the house, all the rooms opening off it, and once I started walking I was a sitting duck. A murmur came from the living room at the end of the hall, voices confident enough not to be whispering. Voices that belonged to people not disposed to jumping out of doorways and blasting everything in sight. When I finally convinced myself of this fact, I slipped through the door and began inching down the hall. It took me a good ten minutes to traverse the sixty feet or so to the living room. Threw back my shoulders, pushed the door in.

The conversation stopped. By the looks of things, it had been a little one-sided anyway. Denise, sitting forward on the end of the couch, looked even less enchanted by small talk than usual. Hugging herself like she was trying to stay warm, dressed in a pair of her father's outrageous tartan pyjamas, feet bare, face haggard. She looked up quickly when I walked in; from the expression in her eyes, a quick blaze of hope, grat.i.tude and irrational expectation, I could have been Saint Nick himself.

Galway wasn't a believer. He snorted, derisive, casual on the other end of the couch. What looked like a Smith and Wesson 9MM, standard Branch issue, appeared in his hand. Ben, lying in front of the couch, playing trucks, swung around. His face lit up and he struggled into a sitting position.

"Dad!" he shouted, pointing at the bike in the corner of the room beside the Christmas tree. "Santa brought a bicycle. Look!"

"It's lovely, Ben."

"And a dumper truck, Dad!" He trotted across the room to show me the truck, a red-and-yellow plastic tractor with a shovel on the front that tipped up and down. I ruffled his hair. Chocolate had dried on his cheeks.

"That's lovely too." I swallowed hard but the lump in my throat stuck to its guns. "Now go sit with your mum."

He pouted.

"But Dad "

"Ben!"

Denise's voice was harsh enough to make him jump; he mooched back to the couch. Denise took the truck from him, folded him in her arms.

"Take him to the bedroom," I said. She started to get up, struggling to lift Ben from a sitting position, but she didn't even make it off the couch.

"Nice try, Harry," Gonzo said, laconic. His sleepy eyes looked me up and down, lazy. He was sprawled out on the armchair opposite the TV, in good shape for a corpse, relaxed, a can of beer at his elbow. All he needed was a pipe and a pair of slippers. "Sit down, Dee," he said. "It's too late to start listening to Harry now."

"Whatever it is, Gonz, it's between you and me. She has nothing to do with it."

He laughed, crooked a lazy finger.

"Come on in. Sit down. Have a beer. And put that down before you do yourself a damage."

I put the Ice Queen's gun on the coffee table, sat in the armchair beside the TV, facing Gonzo. Galway didn't take his eyes off me. I stuffed my hands deep into the pockets of the zip-up fleece, shivering. Gonzo picked up the gun, sniffed the barrel. He looked at me, intrigued.

"You been practising, Harry?"

I shrugged him off, looked at Galway.

"You know what they do to Dibble inside?" A prim smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. "No lubricant, either. Payback's a b.i.t.c.h. But then you're the expert when it comes to b.i.t.c.hes."

His confidence was rock-solid but he didn't like the dig. He sat forward, backhanded me across the face.

"Grow up. Jesus." Gonzo sounded tired. "Time's a-wasting, Harry. Where's the camera?"

"What's the hurry, Gonz? The party's only starting. Galway's mates are on their way and they'll be looking for their c.o.ke. Not that there is any, but you know what I mean."

Galway shot me a quick one. Gonzo c.o.c.ked his head to one side.

"Say again?"

"They know about Galway. They've known all along. Brady has you nailed."

Galway looked at Gonzo, Gonzo at me.

"They know?" It wasn't a question.

Galway licked his lips, said, a little too fast: "He's bluffing."

Gonzo put a finger to his lips, nodded at me.

"Talk me through it."

"What the f.u.c.k's going on, Eddie?"

"You're a liability is what's going on," I needled. "Like I say, payback's a b.i.t.c.h."

Galway surged forward; a click stopped him dead. Denise screamed, turned away, pulling Ben into her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, pushing him between her and the sofa cushions. His surprised squawk came m.u.f.fled. Galway didn't have to turn to know that Gonzo was pointing the Ice Queen's gun at him but maybe he needed the exercise because he turned anyway.

"Sit still," Gonzo said. His voice was silky. "And drop the rod."

Galway looked frantic, thumb trembling over the safety of the Smith & Wesson.

"Do it now or I'll do it for you."

Galway dropped the gun.

"Now slide it over here."

He did it. Gonzo didn't take his eyes off him. He said: "Go on, Harry."

Denise was staring at me, bewildered. I held her gaze, kept my voice calm.

"The way Brady tells it," I said, jerking a thumb at Galway, "the fairy here is public enemy number one. Brady reckons the boys in the back room don't like their own running rings around them, especially when they're not getting their cut. Galway got greedy and didn't look after the lads. Now the lads are going to look after him."

Denise clutching Ben so tight he was in grievous danger of smothering.

"The way it was supposed to happen was, Galway sets up a deal with Sheridan. c.o.ke, like. Sheridan bites. Once Sheridan is on the hook, Gonzo hits him on the bounce. The boys walk away, quids in. It's so sweet it's rotting my teeth just talking about it."

Gonzo said nothing. Galway twitched.

"Only thing is, there's no c.o.ke. Only other thing is, Tony Sheridan isn't playing ball. So Galway's getting nervous, because there's only so many times you can pull the scam he's pulling, and that's once. So Galway goes for the Big Kahuna and Imelda Sheridan winds up dead. Now the pressure is back on Tony, but Galway needs a fall guy. He tells Sheridan that I've been snooping around with a camera. The timing couldn't have been any worse. Tony is nailing a drug dealer's wife, they're waiting on Galway to bring a shipment through, and all of a sudden Gonzo is squeezing them on the c.o.ke front. Then they find out there are compromising photos doing the rounds. All that c.o.ke sloshing around, and there's the possibility that Sheridan is going to have the tabloids crawling up his crevices."

Denise was staring at me across the top of Ben's head, who had nodded off to sleep. The excitement had finally sapped his energy.

"So Galway and Sheridan cook up a way to take Gonz out of the picture, feeding him dodgy pills. Nice plan, except Galway and Gonz are best buds. Gonz pulled a choker in the toilets and Galway whisked him away. Then Galway rang Brady and told him to let me go. On the way home I get mown down and Gonzo comes out of the woodwork, putting the bounce on Sheridan again, this time for murder, aka The Big Kahuna."

I looked at Gonzo.

"That was the idea, yeah? You wanted them to nail me so you could sit back and milk them. Except I f.u.c.ked it all up by staying alive. Then I really queered the pitch by playing hardball with Sheridan and Conway. So you tried to set me up again, tonight, by putting Katie in the frame."

He didn't even have the decency to look embarra.s.sed. Denise transferred her wide-eyed gaze from me to Gonzo. He should have shrivelled up and died. He didn't.

"They could have killed me, Gonz. They tried, Christ knows they tried."

"Don't take it personal, Harry."

"Just business, Gonz. You set me up to take a bullet for a few lousy quid?"