Black Water, page 20
Five minutes later he dumped his bike outside the bookies. He dipped under a man at the doorway having a smoke and entered. He looked around for them, but only saw men studying their racing pages or straining their necks at the screens, armed with their slips and their little pens. The floor was covered in discarded dockets.
They were seated in the corner, with an invisible cordon of space curved around them. Ghost was reading the sports pages. Cracko was looking down at a little notepad, a can of Red Bull on the counter.
‘Little J,’ Ghost said, looking up. ‘How are ya?’
‘Good.’
Ghost’s shoulders looked slanted to Jig. His chest was sunken, as if something was eating him. Ghost was wearing that T-shirt he liked. Planet of the Apes. Ghost told him it was a classic. Jig didn’t know what he was talking about, but he liked the image of the man kneeling down and banging the ground with his fists and a big statue out in the sea, toppling over.
Jig turned around, but no one was looking at them. He handed Cracko the wad. Cracko pulled off the elastic with a snap and flicked at the edges. He slapped the band back on and slipped it into his pocket. It took just a second or two. Jig liked the way he did it.
‘Fifty short,’ Cracko stated.
‘Ya what?’ Ghost said.
Cracko nodded and scribbled on his little notebook. Jig had heard Ghost call it a ‘tick list’ the last time. There were numbers and letters on each line.
‘Go back and tell that cunt,’ Ghost said to Jig, a pointy grey finger poking out at him, ‘that I want that fifty plus fifty extra tomorrow. Or I’ll rent that patch to someone else. Maybe get my friend here to pay him a visit,’ he said, with a look at Cracko.
Jig nodded.
‘Ya could be running that bridge in a few years. How about that, little J?’
Jig smiled at the thought. Being a little boss of his own, having little rolls of cash. But, he had something else on his mind.
‘Ya ever hear anything about Maggot?’
Jig stood there, knowing he had just said something he shouldn’t have. Ghost glanced over Jig’s shoulders, then at Jig.
‘Why would I?’ Ghost said, his voice drowned out by the racket from the screens. ‘Yer his bro?’
‘Just, Micko and Stu were asking?’
Ghost leaned closer to Jig, his eyes as black as a crow’s.
‘Don’t worry about it, Jig,’ he said quietly. ‘He had serious charges coming to him, so he could have legged it to Spain or something, to lie low for a while. What ya think, Cracko?’
‘Yeah, could be lying low alright.’
Jig looked down at his feet and swiped at the floor.
‘Micko said something about someone’s days being numbered after some fuck up or seizure or something.’
Jig watched Ghost stiffen, like a rope being twisted. His cheekbones jabbed against his skin; his jaw protruded. Ghost glanced at Cracko, who was staring at Jig and biting down on his bottom lip. Jig didn’t know which one of them scared the shit out of him more. He could see Ghost was trying not to let rip.
Jig wanted to go for a piss.
‘Anything else?’ Ghost said through clenched teeth.
‘He said about Cracko taking over.’ Jig could hear the nerves in his voice. ‘And said about them setting up on their own.’
Ghost didn’t look at Cracko this time. Jig thought he could see colour, like a dull red, on Ghost’s yellowy cheeks. He hadn’t seen that before.
‘They said something about the RA out to get youse as well.’
‘Did they? They know ya were listening?’
‘Nah, I was pretending to be away with it looking down on the canal. They didn’t think I heard nothing.’
Ghost stared at him.
‘I went at Micko after he said about Maggot being in the mountains and he shoved me back.’
‘Did he, the prick?’ Ghost said.
Jig could feel Ghost’s brain was spinning.
‘That Micko is a fucking runt,’ Cracko said. ‘His whole family are headbangers. They are going to be serious fucking trouble down the line.’
Ghost didn’t speak for a while.
‘Don’t say nothing to no one about this,’ Ghost said, eventually.
Jig was looking down at the floor. Ghost tossed a pen at him, hitting him on the head.
‘What did I say?’
‘Say nothing to no one,’ Jig replied, rubbing his head.
‘Except for the cash that’s short,’ Ghost said. ‘Tell the fucker that alright.’
Ghost strummed the counter with his fingers, the nails clipping hard against the wood. He pulled his arms up and folded them on the back of his head.
Jig turned his head to look at the inside of Ghost’s lower arm. He had only half seen it before. It was a tattoo of horses running away from each other, pulling something on ropes. Jig blinked as he made out two arms, a head and shoulders at one end and legs on the other. He scrunched his face when he copped it.
‘Keep those little ears wide open down on the canal, with each of them crews,’ said Ghost. ‘Things are getting way too loose around here. There’s no fucking respect any more. We’ll have to work on that.’
Jig nodded.
‘And I’ll tell ya what,’ Ghost added. ‘I’ll lob a big chunk off that bill of yers. Keep it up, and it will be paid off in no time.’
That’s that bill for the woman, Jig reminded himself. The bill was unfair; he was only doing what Ghost had told him. But he felt good cos he was ‘taking it like a man’, as Ghost had said.
46
Hall tapped the side of his cup and appraised the recent successes against the Canal Gang. A second major drug haul last night; two in a week. Both of them thanks to the bug Shay planted in Ghost’s jacket. Both hauls were conducted by ISD units, not local gardaí, further boosting his standing.
The hauls would have cost Lock Man hundreds of thousands of euro. That would hurt. And being such a paranoid bastard, Lock Man would suspect a rat. That would hurt even more. All of which fitted in to the second part of Hall’s plan.
He grabbed a seat inside the door of the coffee shop facing the window. It was just after 7 a.m. Through the steam he watched a geezer scarper across the busy junction and stride down towards the hospital. He had the typical gait of an addict on his way to score, like a man late for a flight. He had a hoodie pulled up, but Hall knew it was Leo.
Not long after, Leo skipped around the corner heading in his direction. He was making his usual pit stop. Pushing open the door, he strode past Hall, who bowed his head.
‘Four packs of twenty blue there, bud. Hold on, I wants me Coke as well.’
Hall heard a fridge door open and close and a can land on the counter. As Leo headed back out, Hall shoved his hand out, blocking him.
‘Hey, hey, coming through there, pal,’ Leo shouted.
Hall didn’t move his hand. He sensed Leo leaning down towards him.
‘I can help ye,’ Hall said, keeping his face looking straight ahead.
‘Don’t need Jesus, pal. Have me own God in me pocket.’
Hall smirked.
‘Thought you were off the gear?’
Leo bolted still.
‘Do I know ya, pal?’ Leo said, an edge to his voice.
‘It’s about your mother,’ Hall said quietly.
That was met with silence, broken only by a bus horn beeping outside.
‘Sit down,’ Hall said.
Leo shuffled behind him and took a seat. He placed his smokes and Coke on the table. He tried to edge a look at Hall, past the cap, shades and high collars of his coat.
‘Don’t be sneaky,’ Hall said. ‘You don’t need to know who I am. All you need to know is I can help you.’
‘Don’t know what buzz yer on, pal,’ Leo said, pulling his hoodie tighter. He cracked open his can and took a swig.
‘You want revenge for your mother,’ Hall stated.
‘Don’t be talking about me ma, right, or I’ll slap ya one.’
Leo leaned closer, but Hall didn’t budge.
‘As I said, I can help you.’
‘Help me what?’
‘I know you want to get the Canal Gang,’ Hall said. ‘I can help you do that. But I need to know you’re serious.’
Leo shot up, forcing his chair back, metal end scraping hard on the floor.
But before he could say anything, Hall added in a controlled voice: ‘You walk out of here and your chance is gone.’
Hall knew it was a gamble, particularly with an addict gunning to get high. They knew he had given up the gear alright, but he was going through trays of tablets and bags of weed. Hall put out his hand, gesturing to Leo to sit down. Another moment passed. Hall knew he would sit. He would have been over the bridge by now otherwise. Leo slumped down.
‘Who the fuck are ya?’ Leo said, leaning towards him, whispering. ‘The Garda?’
‘Who I am is not important. What is important for you is that I can give you the bait.’
Hall could see from the reflection in the window in front of him if anyone was around, but it was still quiet.
‘What bait ya on about?’
‘You tell them the garda have them compromised.’
‘Yer a copper alright.’
‘Just listen. You tell them the garda have inside info on them and you know who the rat is.’
‘How the fuck do I know that? Anyways, they’ll tie a rock around me neck and fuck me into the canal as soon as I says that.’
‘You tell them you know because the gardaí had to throw you in a cell as you were raging to go after them, over your mother. To calm you down, a detective let it slip they had someone on the inside and they were working on that.’
‘What ya think I am, the dope of the year?’ Leo said. ‘Ghost won’t fucking buy that and he’ll have Cracko pour acid down me throat.’
‘Maybe, if it was their call, but it won’t be. Ghost will have to send it up the line. I know the boss man. He’ll want to know.’
That was what Hall had said to Nessan. Both of them calculated that Lock Man would not be able to resist this one, despite the risks, particularly given their recent successes against the Canal Gang. Anything sniffing of a rat would override the rational part of his brain.
Leo took another swig.
‘What’s in it for youse?’
‘Don’t worry about that. We need to know you’re serious?’
Leo tapped his smokes on the counter.
‘If you’re not,’ Hall said, ‘we’ll leave it.’
‘Yeah, I’m fucking serious.’
Hall mentally ticked the first box.
‘Now, do you know when you’re meeting your contact?’
‘What contact?’
‘In the RCAD.’
‘How the fuck do youse know all this?’
‘We just do. Well?’
Leo was tapping his feet.
‘Haven’t got the word yet.’
‘Okay, they’ll put holes in your knees for wasting their time if you go in half-cocked. Even with your uncle.’
‘Ah here, how do you know about me fucking uncle?’
‘Never mind. With the bait I’ve given you, they might, just might, go for it.’
Hall could tell Leo was taking in what he was saying. Second box ticked. Leo was an addict, but he had brains.
‘Now, another thing you can tell the Provos is this, that you heard Ghost was back. He’s up at the soccer training. You go up to Ghost –’
‘Hold on, he’ll fucking shove a knife into me head …’
‘It will be out in the open and there’ll be other people there, so he won’t do anything, anything serious anyway. And when you tell him there’s a rat, he won’t chance it. As I was saying, tell the Provos that you’ll say to Ghost you want to meet all of the gang, that you’ll say it to their faces and in return you want your debt cleared.’
Silence again. Leo was hopping his legs and tapping his smokes in unison.
‘This is your best chance to get revenge, Leo, for your mother,’ Hall said.
‘Fuck it,’ Leo said, nodding.
Hall got Leo to go through it all several times, so he knew it backwards. Third box ticked.
‘What do I do next?’ Leo asked.
‘That’s up to your Republican friends. If they bite, they’ll devise a plan. But we’ll be watching, from a distance. When you know the plan, repeat it back in your room in the priest’s house, like as if you are trying to remember.’
‘Youse have me bleeding room bugged too? Jaysus. This is fucking mental.’
Leo was nearly jumping out of his seat.
‘You clear on everything?’ Hall asked again.
‘Crystal.’
He could see Leo was fingering the drugs in his pocket.
‘Don’t fucking OD on the tablets,’ Hall said.
He got up to leave, telling Leo to wait a few minutes.
‘Last thing,’ Hall said. ‘Don’t let anything slip about this conversation to anyone. You do, not only will your plan be history, so will you. And not at my hands.’
47
Jig looked over his shoulder as the BMW revved behind him.
‘Just give us the fucking money, or I’ll call him over,’ Jig said, nodding over to the car.
The woman cursed and gave him the wad of cash and the card.
That was the last one, Jig said to himself. He ran back and hopped into the front passenger seat.
‘Got it all,’ he said, giving Cracko the mound of cash. ‘They all gave me shite about leaving them some of their children’s allowance, but I just said they could talk to ya and they handed it over sharpish.’
Cracko held the cash and the cards in his hand, but didn’t bother counting it. Jig could see he was looking at some text on his phone.
‘Fucking bitch,’ Cracko said.
He put the phone away and quickly counted the cash. He took out his little notebook and jotted an amount beside some initials and slotted the cards into a flap at the back of the book.
‘Listen, I need to make a house call,’ he said, driving off. ‘Me moth is at the tanning salon, so I needs ya to watch Seb.’
Jig looked into the back seat. Sunlight flooded through the Ninja Turtles blind and swam over the toddler’s face.
‘Ya still got those tickets?’
Jig looked at Cracko, confused.
‘What?’
But Cracko didn’t reply. Jig knew he didn’t like repeating himself. So he thought about what he said.
Oh yeah, them tickets. Ghost was asking me about them at the match.
‘I still has them in the same place, since before the summer.’
He had put the bags in a neighbour’s shed. The neighbour was old. He hardly ever went out and never into his back garden. Jig only had to hop over the low railing into his garden. He left the bags in there, behind a press.
Ghost had said to him at the game about giving Cracko a hand from time to time. Said it be all part of the money he was putting aside for him, on top of minding the tickets and being his gofer. Ghost said he would be like ‘the credit union’; he’d have his own account and all. Jig imagined big wads of notes in a safe. But Ghost said that first he still had a bit to pay for the old dear. That was the agreement they had. And a man had to keep his word, he said.
Cracko pulled to a halt.
‘Ya able to look after Seb here?’ he said.
Jig shook his head.
No fucking way.
‘Okay, follow me, but don’t touch nothing, don’t do nothing. Just keep an eye on Seb.’
Cracko opened the glove compartment and took out pairs of transparent latex gloves and gave one to Jig. He looked at them, then copied Cracko and slapped them on.
They motioned to get out. Cracko opened the back door and lifted out the car seat. Jig pulled up his hoodie. Cracko strode ahead in his bright white Tottenham FC T-shirt. He carried the car seat in his left hand, his right arm swinging back and forth. His chain jangled under his top.
Jig tried to figure out where they were going. They passed some homes with neat front yards, with trimmed grass and flower pots. Jig spotted a house with a shopping trolley inside the gate, stuffed with bags and bags of rubbish. The windows were smashed in downstairs, the upstairs one was boarded up. Cardboard covered over holes in the glass in the front door. The step at the door had some sort of white paint all over it. It looked dark inside.
Cracko banged on the door with his fist and handed the car seat to Jig. He adjusted his feet at the weight.
A scrawny thing, all grey in the shadows, opened the door slowly. Before she could react, Cracko shoved her back into the little hall. She fell like building blocks, down on her arse. She sat there hunched and braced herself for further violence. Cracko stepped over her. Jig waited till she got up before carrying Seb in.
‘Wait out there,’ Cracko said back to him.
Jig put the car seat down and tried to close the door separating the tiny porch area to the front room, but the top hinge was off and the door wouldn’t quite shut.
The place smelled worse than his gaff. There were bags of stuff in the room and wrappers, foils and cans. The curtains were closed, casting the room in a greyness, apart from a narrow shaft of light running across the middle of the floor.
Jig looked down at a long streak of a guy stretched out on a sofa. His right leg was in a big plaster cast and he had a can of beer in his hand. Jig thought he looked familiar. His mouth looked like someone had reefed it open when he saw Cracko. He tried to pull himself up a bit, but he was monged and couldn’t with the cast.
‘Jaysus, Cracko,’ the woman said, as she followed them in, bent over, ‘he’s just out of James’s.’
Cracko lashed her. The woman grasped her face. Jig backed out of the gap in the door and looked at Seb. He was playing with a little mobile hanging off the seat.
‘He’s out two days,’ Cracko said, pointing at her, ‘so don’t fuck with me.’
There was a creak from the ceiling. Cracko looked out at Jig and nodded at him to go up. The woman motioned to move, but pulled back when Cracko slapped her. She bowed her head like a dog.
