I laughed out loud. “Right. Then how did he go out that window?”
“Fell. It was dark, he was drunk, the place isn’t safe.”
“Bloody right, it isn’t. And Kevin knew that. So what was he doing in there?”
Shrug, blank blue stare, click of the lighter. “How would I know? I heard there’s people who think he had a guilty conscience. And there’s plenty of people think he was meeting you. Me, though, I figure maybe he’d found something that was bothering him, and he was trying to make sense of it.”
He was too smart ever to bring up the fact that that note had shown up in Kevin’s pocket, and smart enough to steer things that way just the same. The urge to punch his teeth in was rising, inch by inch. I said, “That’s your story, and you’re sticking to it.”
Shay said, final as a slamming door, “He fell. That’s what happened.”
I said, “Let me tell you my story.” I took one of Shay’s smokes, poured myself another slug of his whiskey and leaned back into the shadows. “Once upon a time, long ago, there were three brothers, just like in a fairy tale. And late one night, the youngest one woke up and something was different: he had the bedroom to himself. Both his brothers were gone. It wasn’t a big deal, not at the time, but it was unusual enough that he remembered it the next morning, when only one brother had come home. The other one was gone for good—or anyway for twenty-two years.”
Shay’s face hadn’t changed; not a muscle moved. I said, “When the lost brother finally came home, he came looking for a dead girl, and he found her. That’s when the youngest one thought back and realized that he remembered the night she had died. It was the night both his brothers were missing. One of them had gone out to love her, that night. The other one had gone out to kill her.”
Shay said, “I already told you: I never meant to hurt her. And you think Kev was smart enough to put all that together? You must be joking me.”
The bitter snap in his voice said I wasn’t the only one biting down on my temper, which was good to know. I said, “It didn’t take a genius. And it wrecked the poor little bastard’s head, figuring it out. He didn’t want to believe it, did he? He just couldn’t stand to believe that his own brother had killed a girl. I’d say he spent his last day on this earth driving himself mental, trying to find some other explanation. He phoned me a dozen times, hoping I’d find one for him, or at least take the whole mess off his hands.”
“Is that what this is about? You feel guilty for not taking baby brother’s calls, so you’re looking for a way to put the blame on me?”
“I listened to your story. Now you let me finish mine. By Sunday evening, Kev’s head was melted. And, like you said, he wasn’t the brightest little pixie in the forest to start with. All he could think of to do was the straightforward thing, God help him, the honest thing: talk to you, man to man, and see what you had to say. And when you told him to meet you in Number Sixteen, the poor thick bastard walked right in. Tell me something, do you think he was adopted? Or just some kind of mutation?”
Shay said, “He was protected. That’s what he was. All his life.”
“Not last Sunday, he wasn’t. Last Sunday he was vulnerable as hell and he thought he was safe as houses. You gave him all that self-righteous bullshit about—what was it again?—family responsibility and a bedsit of your own, same as you gave me. But none of that meant anything to Kevin. All he knew was the facts, pure and simple: you killed Rosie Daly. And that was too much for him to handle. What did he say that got up your nose that badly? Was he planning on telling me, once he could get hold of me? Or did you even bother to find out, before you went ahead and killed him too?”
Shay shifted in his chair, a wild trapped move, cut off fast. He said, “You haven’t a notion, have you? Neither of yous ever did.”
“Then you go right ahead and clue me in. Educate me. For starters, how did you get him to stick his head out that window? That was a cute little trick; I’d love to hear how you worked it.”
“Who says I did?”
“Talk to me, Shay. I’m just dying of curiosity. Once you heard his skull smash open, did you hang about upstairs, or did you go straight out the back to shove that note in his pocket? Was he still moving when you got there? Moaning? Did he recognize you? Did he beg for help? Did you stand in that garden and watch him die?”
Shay was hunched over the table, shoulders braced and head down, like a man fighting a high wind. He said, low, “After you walked out, it took me twenty-two years to get my chance back. Twenty-two fucking years. Can you imagine what they’ve been like? All four of yous off living your lives, getting married, having kids, like normal people, happy as pigs in shite. And me here, here, fucking here—” His jaw clenched and his finger stabbed down on the table, over and over. “I could’ve had all that too. I could’ve—”
He got some of his control back, caught his breath in a great rasp and pulled hard on his smoke. His hands were shaking.
“Now I’ve got my chance back. It’s not too late. I’m still young enough; I can make that bike shop take off, buy a gaff, have a family of my own—I still get the women. No one’s going to throw that chance away. No one. Not this time. Not again.”
I said, “And Kevin was about to.”
Another breath like an animal hissing. “Every bloody time I get close to getting out, so close I can taste it, there’s one of my own brothers holding me down. I tried to tell him. He didn’t understand. Thick bloody fool, spoilt kid used to everything falling in his lap, didn’t have a clue—” He bit off the sentence, shook his head and jammed out his smoke viciously.
I said, “So it just happened. Again. You’re an unlucky fella, aren’t you?”
“Shit happens.”
“Maybe. I might even fall for that, if it wasn’t for one thing: that note. That didn’t suddenly occur to you after Kevin went out the window: gee, I know what would come in useful right now, that piece of paper that I’ve had hanging around for twenty-two years. You didn’t trundle off home to fetch it, take the risk of being seen coming out of Number Sixteen or going back in. You already had it on you. You had the whole thing planned.”
Shay’s eyes came up to meet mine and they were blazing blue, lit up with an incandescent hate that almost knocked me back in my chair. “You’ve got some neck, you little bastard, do you know that? Some fucking brass neck, getting all superior with me. Of all people.”
Slowly, in the corners, the shadows clotted into thick dark lumps. Shay said, “Did you think I’d forget, just because that would suit you?”
I said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, you do. Calling me a murderer—”
“Here’s a little tip for you. If you don’t like being called a murderer, don’t kill people.”
“—when I know and you know: you’re no different. Big man, coming back here with your badge and your cop talk and your cop buddies—You can fool anyone you like, fool yourself, go right ahead, you don’t fool me. You’re the same as me. The exact same.”
“No I’m not. Here’s the difference: I’ve never murdered anyone. Is that too complex for you?”
“Because you’re such a good guy, yeah, such a saint? What a load of shite, you give me the sick—That’s not morals, that’s not holiness. The only reason you never murdered anyone is because your dick beat your brain. If you hadn’t been pussy whipped, you’d be a killer now.”
Silence, just the shadows seething and heaving in the corners and that telly gibbering mindlessly downstairs. There was a tiny terrible grin, like a spasm, on Shay’s mouth. For once in my life, I couldn’t think of a damn thing to say.
I was eighteen, he was nineteen. It was a Friday night and I was blowing my dole in the Blackbird, which was not where I wanted to be. I wanted to be out dancing with Rosie, but this was after Matt Daly had put the kibosh on his daughter going anywhere near Jimmy Mackey’s son. So I was loving Rosie in secret, having a harder time keeping it hidden every week, a
nd bashing my head off walls like a trapped animal looking for a way to make something, anything, change. On nights when I couldn’t take it any more, I got as hammered as I could afford and then picked fights with guys bigger than me.
Everything was going to plan, I had just headed up to the bar for my sixth or seventh and was pulling over a bar stool to lean on while I waited to get served—the barman was down the other end, having an in-depth argument about racing—when a hand came in and whipped the stool out of reach.
Go on, Shay said, swinging a leg over the stool. Go home.
Fuck off. I went last night.
So? Go again. I went twice last weekend.
It’s your turn.
He’ll be home any minute. Go.
Make me.
Which would only get both of us thrown out. Shay eyed me for another second, checking whether I meant it; then he shot me a disgusted look, slid off the stool and threw back one more swallow of his pint. Under his breath, savagely, to no one: If we’d any balls between the pair of us, we wouldn’t put up with this shite . . .
I said, We’d get rid of him.
Shay stopped moving, halfway through flipping up his collar, and stared at me. Throw him out, like?
No. Ma’d just take him back in. Sanctity of marriage, and all that shite.
Then what?
Like I said. Get rid of him.
After a moment: You’re serious.
I had hardly realized that myself, not till I saw the look on his face. Yeah. I am.
All around us the pub was buzzing, full to the ceiling with noise and warm smells and men’s laughter. The tiny circle between the two of us was still as ice. I was stone-cold sober.
You’ve been thinking about this.
Don’t tell me you haven’t.
Shay pulled the stool towards him and sat back down, without taking his eyes off me.
How?
I didn’t blink: one flinch and he would throw this away as kids’ rubbish, walk out and take our chance with him. He comes home pissed, how many nights a week? The stairs are falling to bits, the carpet’s ripped . . . Sooner or later, he’s going to trip and land four flights down, smack on his head. My heart was in my throat, just from hearing my voice say it out loud.
Shay took a long pull at his pint, thinking hard, and wiped his mouth with a knuckle. The fall mightn’t be enough. To do the job.
Might, might not. It’d be enough to explain why his head was smashed in, anyway.
Shay was watching me with a mixture of suspicion and, for the first time in our lives, respect. Why’re you telling me?
It’s a two-man gig.
Couldn’t go through with it on your own, you mean.
He might fight back, he might need moving, someone might wake up, we might need alibis . . . With one guy, more than likely something’d go pear-shaped, along the way. With two . . .
He hooked an ankle around the leg of another stool and pulled it towards us. Sit. Home can wait ten minutes.
I got my pint in and we sat there, elbows on the bar, drinking and not looking at each other. After a while Shay said, I’ve been trying for years to think of a way out.
I know. Same here.
Sometimes, he said. Sometimes I think maybe, if I don’t find one, I’ll go mental.
This was the closest to an intimate brotherly conversation the two of us had ever had. It startled me, how good it felt. I said, I’m going mental already. No maybe about it. I can feel it.
He nodded, with no surprise. Yeah. Carmel is, too.
And there’s days Jackie doesn’t look right. After he’s had a bad one. She goes spaced out.
Kevin’s all right.
For now. As far as we can tell.
Shay said, It’d be the best thing we could ever do for them, too. Not just for us.
I said, Unless I’m missing something, it’s the only thing. Not just the best. The only.
Our eyes finally met. The pub had got noisier; someone’s voice rose to a punch line and the corner exploded in rowdy, dirty laughter. Neither of us blinked. Shay said, I’ve thought about this before. A couple of times.
I’ve been thinking about it for years. Thinking’s easy. Doing it . . .
Yeah. Whole different thing. It’d be . . . Shay shook his head. He had rings of white around his eyes, and his nostrils flared every time he breathed.
I said, Would we be able?
I don’t know. I don’t know.
Another long silence, while we both replayed our very favorite father-son moments in our heads. Yeah, we said, simultaneously. We would.
Shay held out his hand to me. His face was white and red in patches. OK, he said, on a fast breath. OK. I’m in. Are you?
I’m in, I said, and slapped my hand into his. We’re on.
We both gripped like we were trying to do damage. I could feel that moment swelling, spreading outwards, rippling into every corner. It was a dizzy, sweet-sick feeling, like shooting up some drug that you knew would leave you crippled for life, but the high was so good that all you could think of was getting it deeper into your veins.
That spring was the only time in our lives when Shay and I voluntarily went near each other. Every few nights, we found ourselves a nice private corner of the Blackbird and we talked: turned the plan over to examine it from every angle, fined off the rough edges, scrapped anything that wouldn’t work and started over. We still hated each other’s guts, but that had stopped mattering.
Shay spent evening after evening schmoozing Nuala Mangan from Copper Lane: Nuala was a hound and an idiot, but her ma had the finest glazed look around, and after a few weeks Nuala invited Shay home for tea and he nicked a nice big handful of Valium from the bathroom cabinet. I spent hours in the Ilac Centre library, reading medical books, trying to work out how much Valium you would have to slip to a two-hundred-pound woman or a seven-year-old kid to make sure they slept through a certain amount of ruckus, one night, and still woke up when you needed them to. Shay walked all the way to Ballyfermot, where no one knew him and the cops would never go asking, to buy bleach for clean-up. I had a sudden burst of helpfulness and started giving Ma a hand with the dessert every night—Da made nasty comments about me turning into a poof, but every day we were getting closer and the comments were getting easier to ignore. Shay swiped a crowbar from work and hid it under the floorboard with our smokes. We were good at this, the pair of us. We had a knack. We made a good team.
Call me twisted, but I loved that month we spent planning. I had some hassle sleeping, every now and then, but a big part of me was having a blast. It felt like being an architect, or a film director: someone with long-range vision, someone with plans. For the first time ever, I was engineering something huge and complex that, if I could just get it right, would be utterly, utterly worthwhile.
Then all of a sudden someone offered Da two weeks’ work, which meant that on the last night he would be coming home at two in the morning with a blood-alcohol level that would stop any cop’s suspicions in their tracks, and there were no excuses left for waiting. We were on our final countdown: two weeks to go.
We had run over our alibi till we could have recited it in our sleep. Family dinner, finished off with yummy sherry trifle, courtesy of my new domestic streak—sherry not only dissolved the Valium better than water, it masked the taste, and individual trifles meant personalized doses. Up to the disco at the Grove, over on the northside, in search of a fresh pool of lovely ladies to fish in; getting thrown out by midnight, as memorably as possible, for being loud and obnoxious and for sneaking in our own cans; walking home, stopping along the way to finish off our contraband cans on the banks of the canal. Home around three, when the Valium should have started wearing off, to the shocking sight of our beloved father lying at the bottom of the stairs in a pool of his own blood. Then came the much too late mouth-to-mouth, the frantic banging on the Harrison sisters’ door, the wild phone call for an ambulance. Just about everything, except the stop for refreshment,
was going to be true.
Probably we would have got caught. Natural talent or no, we were amateurs: there were too many things we had missed, and way too many that could have gone wrong. Even at the time, I half knew that. I didn’t care. We had a chance.
We were ready. In my head, I was already living every day as a guy who had killed his own da. And then Rosie Daly and I went to Galligan’s one night, and she said England.
I didn’t tell Shay why I was pulling the plug. At first he thought I was having some kind of sick joke. Slowly, as it dawned on him that I meant it, he got more frantic. He tried bullying, tried threatening, he even tried begging. When none of those worked, he got me by the neck, hauled me out of the Blackbird and beat the shite out of me—it was a week before I could walk upright. I hardly fought back; deep down, I figured he had a right. When he finally exhausted himself and collapsed beside me in the laneway, I could barely see him through the blood, but I think he might have been crying.
I said, “That’s not what we’re here to talk about.”
Shay barely heard me. He said, “At first I thought you just chickened out: didn’t have the guts, once it started getting close. I thought that for months, right up until I got talking to Imelda Tierney. Then I knew. It had nothing to do with guts. The only thing you ever cared about was what you wanted. Once you found an easier way to that, the rest wasn’t worth a damn to you. Your family, me, everything you owed, everything we’d promised: not a damn.”
I said, “Let me make sure I’ve got this straight. You’re giving me shit for not having killed someone?”
His lip pulling up in pure disgust: I’d seen that look on his face a thousand times, when we were little kids and I was trying to keep up. “Don’t get clever. I’m giving you shit because you think that puts you above me. You listen to me: maybe your cop mates all believe you’re one of the good guys, maybe you can tell yourself the same thing, but I know better. I know what you are.”
I said, “Pal, I can promise you, you do not have the foggiest clue what I am.”