The Dead Yard (13 page)

Jackie started going for me, but Touched put a hand on his shoulder. Light aphorisms were
clearly the way to get to the wee shite. Have to remember that one for the future.

"Well, I, for one, am very happy to have met such an enterprising young man, it’s not easy to
be
magnas inter opes inops,
" Gerry said, pleased with himself.

"His name’s Sean, not Magnus, Daddy," Kit said.

I would have loved to be able to source Gerry’s remark to impress him but that probably would
also have been a mistake. Besides, I had no bloody clue what he was talking about.

Gerry struggled to his feet, pulled his polo shirt over his enormous stomach and holstered
gun, and gave me a wink. "If you’ll excuse me, I have to make use of the facilities."

Touched nodded at Jackie. Jackie stole a look at me, got up, and followed Gerry out of the
booth. He was protection tonight, which meant that he also had a piece on him.

"I’ll take the opportunity too," Sonia said and looked at Kit.

"Me, too," Kit said in that bubbly voice of hers.

"Fucksake, are they giving out twenties for turds tonight?" Touched said, laughing. But I
could see that they were giving him five minutes alone with me. It was a bit obvious, but I’m
sure they were thinking, you can’t be too careful these days.

"Because of the incident. Jackie or me go everywhere with Gerry," Touched said when they had
gone.

"You’re both armed," I said.

"Aye."

"The incident," I mused.

"The incident," Touched said without inflection, his eyes narrowing.

"Kit said her da got caught up in that shooting by accident," I said.

"But you don’t believe that, do you?" Touched asked.

"No," I said.

"Tell me what you know," Touched said.

"I asked around. Kit’s da was a player back in the olden days. So I reckon it wasn’t an
accident at all. I reckon the hit was on him," I said.

"Why would the boys want to hit an old pal like Gerry?" Touched asked.

"A million reasons. He wasn’t making his payments, he pissed off the wrong guys, or maybe he
didn’t like the new direction the movement’s been taking recently," I said confidently and took a
sip of my beer.

"By direction you mean what?" Touched asked.

"The bloody cease-fire, what else? Fucking capitulation, if you ask me."

Touched nodded, lit himself a cigarette.

"When you were doing your snooping, did you ask around about me?"

"First of all, mate, I wasn’t doing any snooping. Just asked a few questions. Second of all, I
never heard of you until five minutes ago. You weren’t there that night," I said.

"Aye, more’s the pity," Touched said and rubbed his chin.

We sat in silence and I took another sip of beer.

"So," Touched continued, "you have Gerry pegged as an old Provo that the Ra either wanted rid
of or scared into toeing the party line. Am I right?"

"Something like that."

Touched nodded and shook the hair out of his face.

"What do you have me pegged as?" Touched asked.

An aging nutjob who looks like a roadie for the Grateful Dead.

"I don’t have you pegged as anything yet," I said.

Touched sat back in the chair.

"You’re a keen guy," Touched muttered.

"I just read the papers like everybody else," I protested.

"Where did you go to school?"

"Didn’t really. Bounced around. Belfast High School for a few years, then I left."

"What did you do after?"

"I was a brickie in Spain, dicked around London for a while."

"You’re not one of those fucking illiterate Paddy navvies, are you? You can read and write
though, can’t you?" Touched asked with disgust.

"Of course. I’m a big reader," I said indignantly, maybe a bit too indignantly.

"Ever been inside?"

"Never."

"Never?" Touched persisted.

"Well, do you mean jail or prison?"

"Prison."

"Never. Couple of overnight bins here and there, police lockups, never what you might call
real prison time," I said.

"That’s good, the smart ones never do a day’s time in their lives," Touched said, beginning to
warm to me. He took a knot out of his gray hair and wrinkled his brow, maybe remembering his own
numerous stretches in joints and lockups all over the British Isles.

"Can I ask you a question?" I asked.

"Aye," he said cautiously.

"What happened to the two geezers who were with Gerry that night in Revere Beach? Are they
still inside? I know they shot their guns and I’m sure the peelers lifted them."

"No, no, both made bail. It was a real fuckup, though. The serious charges are against Seamus.
Worried about him. They’re charging him with attempted murder. Even though it was obviously
self-defense. He doesn’t want to plea, wants to fight it, and Gerry says ok. Seamus is a good
bloke."

"What about the other guy?"

"We won’t talk about Big Mike. That weasel went yellow on us, heard nothing from him since we
paid his bail, fucked off the next day, didn’t even leave a place where we could forward his
wages. He’s gonna cost Gerry fifty thousand if he doesn’t show for court, which he won’t."

"Don’t blame him getting scared, it was pretty intense. Local, was he?"

"Aye, ex–Boston PD."

"There you go, he didn’t grow up with it," I said, hinting that I, by contrast, had grown up
with it.

"I should have been there," Touched said, clenching his fist at the thought of the
assassination attempt.

"I wish I hadn’t been there, except for being able to help Kit," I said and took a long drink.
Touched smiled.

"You did well, anyway, for a civilian," he said and slapped me on the back.

"It was just something I had to do, get the wee lass out of there," I said.

Touched leaned over, grabbed my hand, shook it deliberately.

"Well, we’re all happy that you did," he said.

"Don’t even need to say it, mate."

Touched reflected for a few seconds, tapped his nose, and pulled his shaggy locks into a
ponytail. He tied back his hair and looked at me.

"What do you make of this?" he asked and rolled up his sleeve to reveal a tattoo of the
legendary Irish hero Cuchulainn, the Hound of Ulster. Except that the Cuchulainn of the tattoo
did not resemble the famous statue in the GPO in Dublin. This one had been done in prison with a
needle and smuggled ink by an artist of questionable skills. With big hair and equine features,
he actually bore a strong resemblance to the queen of England—an unfortunate circumstance for
Touched, a staunch Republican and anti-Royalist.

"What’s that mean to you?" Touched asked, pointing at the tattoo.

"It’s not Queen Elizabeth, is it?" I couldn’t resist asking.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" he said furiously.

"Looks like her, or some member of that selective breeding program they have over there for
picking the royals. Wait a minute, it’s not the Queen Mother, is it?"

Touched was boiling with rage. I’d pushed him too far. He let go of my hand.

"For your information, mate, that is Cuchulainn, hero of the
Táin,
Hound of Ulster,
greatest Irishman since Finn McCool. Clearly, you are one very fucking uninformed bog Paddy."

"Sorry, no offense meant, I’m just not a big history buff," I said.

"Aye, well I can see that," Touched said, finished his drink, and poured another from the
pitcher.

"So in school you never even read the
Táin Bó Cúailnge
?" he asked after a long
pause.

"Sorry, no," I said.

"Aye, I forgot you said you were a laborer, despite your protestations you probably didn’t
learn your letters at all, did ya?"

"I read just fine," I said angrily, letting him see that I had limits too.

We sat in silence for a minute, Touched glaring at me and shaking his head. I took a big drink
from my glass.

But then his anger began to slip and he looked at me and suddenly laughed.

"Well, I suppose it
is
a bit of a fucking shite tattoo," he said.

The break in the tension made me laugh too.

"No, it’s good," I insisted.

"It’s shite. The guy who did it, did a lot of murals but he couldn’t work in miniature. He
bollocksed it up."

"I was only joking with that queen remark. I knew it was Cuchulainn, sure I seen that statue
of him on O’Connell Street," I said.

"Taking a hand out of me were ya, ya wee shite," Touched said with a huge attractive grin
playing over his face.

"A wee bit," I said.

"Jesus, have to watch you. You’ve got back doors to you, haven’t you? Well, ok, Sean, we’ll
drop it now. Change the subject, bit of a sore topic for me and I’m trying to fucking relax."

"Are you into music?" I asked, trying to think of some other conversational opening.

"Nah. Not really."

"What do you like to do?"

"You like to gamble?" Touched asked. Touched, I recalled, grew up near Down Royal racetrack.
Maybe this was a place to butter him up.

"Well, I haven’t really had much opportunity, but I have bet on the gee-gees now and again.
It’s fun," I said.

"Oh aye? What do you prefer, flat or the fences?"

"Flat," I said. "Fences is too much of a lottery. Jesus, any punter could win the Grand
National, but the Derby or the Triple Crown, that’s more of a science."

Touched liked my answer.

"Aye, you’re right there, Sean," he said. "I used to go over to the Cheltenham Gold Cup all
the time and then sometimes the Derby. I went to Ascot one time; Jesus, do you know they don’t
search you going in there? Talk about the queen. I swear to God, if I’d brought a wee revolver in
there with me I could have bloody assassinated half the British establishment."

He waited to see what my reaction would be. I didn’t hesitate.

"Aye, and half the world would have thanked you," I said.

He smiled. His large gray-blue eyes relaxing, radiating genuine affection for me.

"I couldn’t then, you see, didn’t have the authorization. Actually had a few problems back in
the Old Country. Little local difficulty, had to come to America, you know."

"What was the problem?" I asked, to see how far he was going to trust me on a first meet.

"Well, since you’ve asked, mate, it was fucked up for a start, totally fucked up. I was sent
out here under sentence. Told not to come back," he said bitterly, his face growing white with
anger. I let the rage boil in him for a while and decided to probe a little deeper. I knew the
story but I wanted to see how much he would give me.

"Why?" I asked.

"You heard of Corky Cochrane?"

"Yeah, IRA man in South Armagh, everybody’s heard of him. He’s inside."

"Aye, hardly the most bloody discreet of characters; anyway, I was doing Corky’s ex. Divorced.
All legal like and everything. Seeing her. All aboveboard. Jesus, one night, dragged me from my
bed down to Corky’s house. His two brothers there waiting for me. Went at me with pistol butts,
the bastards, said I’d raped Corky’s old lady or something. Anyway, long story short, either I go
to America or England or I was going to get a bullet in the fucking brain."

"Jesus."

"Aye."

"So you came here and started working for Gerry?"

"Nah, I see it more like working with Gerry, subtle difference," he said.

"I see that," I agreed.

Across the bar I spotted Gerry and Jackie coming back from the toilet. They were having a
heated discussion about something. Gerry looked pained. Jackie, animated. They had to be talking
about sports or kung fu movies or some other tedious thing in which Jackie considered himself an
expert.

"Believe me. I’m telling you, corned beef in Ireland comes from Brazil or Argentina," Gerry
was saying despairingly.

"Saint Patrick ate corned beef, cabbage, and potatoes," Jackie was insisting. "That’s why you
eat it on Saint Patrick’s Day."

"Hardly likely, since potatoes are also from South America. There wasn’t a potato in Ireland
before the seventeenth century," Gerry said as he sat down next to us. A look passed between him
and Touched that I couldn’t interpret.

"Saint Patrick ate potatoes," Jackie muttered as he slunk down in his chair and knocked back
his beer in one.

"What’s your opinion, Sean?" Gerry asked me.

"What’s the debate?"

"Jackie, bless his heart, believes that you eat corned beef, potatoes, and cabbage on Saint
Patrick’s because that’s what Saint Patrick himself ate as he wandered round the emerald
isle."

"Well, I’m no history expert." I nodded at Touched and he nodded back. "But I thought Walter
Raleigh brought back the spud from South America and that was a good bit after Patrick, I
believe," I said.

"You are absolutely right, Sean. And you are put in your place, Jackie," Gerry said and turned
to Touched. "Now let me hope that your conversation with young Sean here was more riveting than
mine."

"We chanced over many subjects, Gerry. I was just finished telling Sean here about me and
Corky Cochrane’s old lady," Touched replied.

"Oh aye, I remember her, she has the MS now, doesn’t she?" Gerry said.

"No, no, not MS, she has lupus, early-onset lupus," Touched said. "Funny story, actually. Tell
you, Sean, just before I had to, uh, gather up my stakes, shall we say, she tells me she has
lupus. Right, well, I’m a good Catholic and I did Latin to A level, and I never heard of lupus
before and I think bloody hell, lupus, she’s been bitten by a werewolf."

Gerry and Touched both laughed. Jackie did not and I knew that this was a good opportunity to
establish a bit of character. It might have been a bit much rubbing it in his face with that
Walter Raleigh line.

"I don’t get it, sorry, David," I said to Touched.

"Lupus, lupin, the wolf, you know? You see, I got it mixed up with lycanthropy," Touched
said.

I looked at him blankly.

"Do you get it now?" Touched asked.