I Hear the Sirens in the Street (33 page)

“You wouldn't believe what he went through when Jennifer died. She was in so much pain. He tried to take it all on himself. They should have given that guy a medal.”

I told her that they had given him several medals, and this was news to her.

I asked her about his work for the government and she said that he never discussed it. She said that she was devastated to hear about his death. That he was the most honourable man she knew.

“Most people these days don't even know what the word ‘honourable' means,” she said.

At lunchtime I drove into Newburyport and found the Ten Cent Savings Bank. The main branch on State Street was not the one that contained the safety deposit boxes. I had to go to the adjunct branch on Jefferson Street; but I knew that already.

I had a toasted cheese sandwich at Fowles Diner and found a review of
Fanny and Alexander
in an old Boston Globe someone had left lying around. The reviewer liked the film, but didn't say what happened at the end.

I walked down to the little harbour and strolled along a pier that had rows of lobster boats and fishing smacks. An attractive lady with a screaming infant asked me the way to the McDonald's. I told here I was a stranger here myself and she hazarded a guess that I was from Down Under. “Belfast,” I said, and she smiled and wished me a pleasant trip.

I found an Irish pub called Molly Malone's. It was an embarrassing explosion of kitsch and sentimental Oirishness. Comedic leprechauns jostled for space with photographs of the dead hunger strikers and framed newspaper headlines celebrating infamous bombings. There was a collection tin for the IRA on the bar and posters that said things like “Death to the RUC”, and “Death to the Brits”. No Mick with any self respect would ever drink in a place like this, which was why it was packed to the rafters.

I went next door to a dive bar and got a bottle of Sam Adams for a buck fifty. I knew that I was only delaying the inevitable, so I gulped my brew and went back outside.

Jefferson Street.

The Ten Cent Saving Bank's adjunct branch was a brown concrete
single-storey structure that had all the aesthetic charm of a nuclear fall-out shelter. But perhaps that was the point. Your stuff will be safe here even in the event of the apocalypse …

I took out my key and walked boldly inside.

You had to go past a clerk who was sitting behind bullet-proof glass.

He was a thin, bald man with a comb-over and a caterpillar moustache that conveyed a great well of sadness. He was reading
The Parsifal Mosaic
by Robert Ludlum.

The boxes, presumably, were in a room to his right behind a locked metal door.

“Key number,” the man said.

“Twenty-seven,” I said.

“Let me see it, please,” the man said.

I took out the key and passed it under the partition. He examined the key and looked at something in a book and passed the key back.

“Do you have any identification, Mr O'Rourke?”

I slid O'Rourke's licence through the partition. I had a story ready that Mr O'Rourke had passed on and I was his son-in-law closing up his estate, either that or a policeman investigating his estate. I hadn't completely decided on the narrative, but neither proved necessary. The guard nodded and passed the licence back and even though O'Rourke and myself looked nothing alike he pushed a buzzer which opened the inner door.

I went through into the next room which was a kind of antechamber. An armed security guard was sitting on a stool and staring into space. He was a big white guy, about thirty, who looked like he could handle himself. There was a TV monitor above his head.

“Good morning,” he said, cheerfully enough.

“Good morning,” I replied.

The boxes were behind an armoured door. “Through here?” I asked.

“Yeah. Take as long as you like,” he said. “But we close at four.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“I'll buzz you through and lock you in, but I'll keep an eye on you on the TV monitor. When you want out, knock the door one time. I'll hear.”

“Okay.”

He unlocked the armoured door and I went inside the room and waited until he closed the door again. There were a hundred safety deposit boxes in two rows. In the centre of the room there was an oak table.

I went to box 27, put the key in and turned it.

I pulled out a long metal box and set it on the table.

I opened the box.

Inside was a brown envelope.

I opened the envelope.

Photographs. A dozen 8x10s. Black and white, taken with a telephoto lens.

They were all of the same subject.

A group of four middle-aged men having some kind of meeting at a restaurant. There were photographs of the men going inside the restaurant, photographs of the men sitting by the window and shots of them coming out again.

One of the men, unmistakably, was John DeLorean.

I stared at the photographs for five minutes to confirm that I was right, but there was no possibility of a mistake. Who the other men were I had no clue at all, and I wasn't sure where the photographs had been taken. The only car I could see was a Volkswagen Beetle, and you can get those all over the western world.

I put the photographs back in the envelope and put it under my arm.

I closed the empty safety deposit box and locked it.

I knocked on the door.

The guard opened the door and buzzed me into the street.

The sunlight startled me.

What to do now?

Only one thing to do now. Find out who these men were. Who was DeLorean meeting and why had O'Rourke taken photographs of the meeting? And why were the photographs in a safety deposit box? And who the fuck
was
O'Rourke?

Jesus, what the hell was going on?

Should I take this to the local peelers or the FBI? Maybe. But, I'd have to think about it. Have a think, find a phone box, maybe call Crabbie, get it all sussed.

I walked to my car which was parked in the lot behind State Street.

I decided that I would drive to the VFW Post, give them the five hundred dollars and perhaps try to talk to some of O'Rourke's buddies. What if he wasn't a retired IRS agent? What if post-retirement he'd taken on a new career? A PI or something? Maybe someone would know.

I got in the Buick and drove out of Newburyport along the 1A. I'd gotten about a mile out of town when I saw flashing lights behind me.

It was an unmarked police car.

Had I been speeding?

Who knew what the limit was around here.

I pulled the Buick to the side of the road.

Thick woods on either side of the car. An odd patch of snow in the deeper parts of the forest. I wound the window down. There was a smell of salt water and marsh gas.

A man wearing sunglasses and a suit and tie got out of the unmarked prowler behind me. He had a gun drawn. Didn't traffic cops always have to wear uniforms?

“Get out of the vehicle and put your hands on the hood.”

I sighed, got of the car and put my hands on the roof of the Buick.

“Spread them!” the man yelled.

I spread my hands far apart.

I heard him come up behind me.

“Was I speeding, Officer?” I asked.

“Give me your right wrist and do it real slow,” he said.

I put my right hand behind my back. He slapped the cuff on. He asked for my left hand and cuffed that, too.

“How can I get my driver's licence out now?” I said.

“We won't be needing that, Duffy,” he said.

I just had the time to experience a little rush of panic before he hit me in the neck and I crumpled to the ground.

I wasn't unconscious, but I was dazed.

Two men were dragging me into the trees. There was a third man keeping an eye on the road.

When I was well off the road one of the men kicked me in the head. Another kicked me in the gut. The wind was knocked out of me and I winced in agony. Somehow, I scrambled to my feet, but I was hit twice in the ribs in quick succession by a really big guy with a long reach who was a fighter and fast and strong.

My heart was pounding and there were white spots in front of my eyes.

I threw up in my mouth and I felt myself being tossed down a small embankment.

A momentary respite and then more kicks.

Blood in my eyes.

Scrapes all down my back.

Pain everywhere.

Red out …

Black out …

Faces.

“Shut the fuck up, he's coming to!”

Tape over my eyes, and then they were holding my mouth open, pouring in bourbon.

I choked, spat, and they poured in more.

It was a goddamn classic.

I almost laughed.

Someone held my head in his greasy paws and they made sure I got the bottle down.

I was scared now. Drunk and scared. They could kill me and make it look like an accident.

“Motherfuckers! What is this all about? I'm a cop.”

A punch in my kidneys.

“You're not a fucking cop. You're a fucking Brit, you're a fucking black and tan bastard.”

“Stop talking to him,” another man said.

They slapped my face. Gut punched me. Sucker punched me.

Hands squeezing my throat.

More booze.

I was well gone now.

Beyond the pain. Across the border. Into the dark.

I watched as the world erased itself.

I was being carried.

I was in the car.

“This is a good one, lads. This is an old-school fix up,” I said.

The engine kicked into life. The car was moving. Fast.

Death stamped her iron hooves. She was coming. With Finn's spear and Ossian's bow. At the speed of understanding.

The car hit.

Exquisite silence.

Fire.

I was on the car's ceiling. I was upside down.

I wanted to lie there.

I couldn't breathe. The seat was burning. The seatbelt had trapped me in.

“Help!” I said weakly.

“Help!”

“Help!”

Smoke.

Vomit.

No breath.

Smoke.

An ellipsis.

Breaking glass.

An arm around my neck.

Air.

Sweet, beautiful air.

“Christ, son. Are you all right?”

I breathed.

“My God, you're lucky I was passing!” the voice said.

“Lucky,” I said.

I wasn't here. I was at the Langham Hotel on Regent Street watching a man clutching his chest, falling, his right hand flapping like a dove in a magician's act. I was eleven years old with my aunt Beryl. The man was yelling without sound and we sat there under the palms, taking in the wonder of it as if we were at the starblown circle of the Giant's Ring. Everything frozen save for the man's right hand which was scrabbling for a finger hold on the air which he thought would save him and pull him vertical once again.

It did not …

No.

My mistake.

Not his finger in the air.

Mine.

My finger connected to a pulse monitor. A drip in my arm. Nurses and morphine.

Two days of this and everyone, how shall I put it, a little bit aloof.

A doctor told me I had two minor first-degree burns and three cracked ribs. It could have been worse.

A British consular official came on the third day. He was called Nigel Higgs. He was a tall good-looking spud with a slight stammer. He seemed to be just out of his teens, although presumably he was much older, having gotten a plum like America.

“Nothing broken at least. You're jolly lucky to be alive,” he said.

“What happened?” I asked.

I knew full well what had happened but I wanted to hear the official story.

“Well, I'm afraid you had a little too much to drink, old boy. You pranged your car. Total right-off … You could well have been killed. You certainly would have been burned alive had not a passing motorist pulled you out.”

“What motorist?”

“He was an EMT.”

“What's that?”

“A fireman.”

He talked for a while and I listened.

“The Yanks are being awfully nice about the whole thing …The local police say that they'll only charge you with a misdemeanour DUI.”

The upshot was that if I left the country immediately, everything could be swept under the rug. No one needed to spell it out for me. I got it, even if this fucking Nigel didn't. However, if I kicked up a stink I'd be charged with dangerous driving, drunken driving and so on. They'd make sure they threw the book at me. They'd probably plant narcotics in the car. I'd be looking at jail …

Oh, yeah. That's how it would play.

If I forgot the photographs and everything I'd seen and quietly left the country with my tail between my legs then all this would go away. I don't know what the average bloke would do, but let me stress the fact that I am no fucking hero.

“Tell them I'll take their offer but I want talk to a goon first. I want to talk to an FBI man. Off the record. That's my condition.”

“FBI? What are you talking about? You were drunk driving. You're being prosecuted by the Massachusetts State Police.”

“You heard me, Nigel. That's my condition. I want to talk
to the FBI, off the record. They'll speak to me. They'll know what this is about. They already know this whole thing is a crock of shite. Someone tried to get rid of me and someone royally fucked it up.”

He left in a state of confusion.

He didn't come back. Special Agent Ian Howell did.

He was tall, tanned, pock-marked. Handsome. North of forty. Serious. He looked like he could happily listen to you yakity yak or he could coolly inject an overdose of morphine into your drip – whatever the situation demanded. He was wearing a brown wool suit with very wide lapels. He had a tape recorder running in one of his jacket pockets, that I wasn't supposed to see.

He introduced himself.

I was sitting up now. I was a lot more comfortable. I was keeping down the solid food. I was ready for him.