The Dead Yard (6 page)

Nine, ten, eleven…

Gerry, slightly behind Hughes and McClennahan, nodded at someone in the far corner of the
room.

Kit picked up an empty glass, put it on her tray.

Twelve, thirteen, fourteen…

The assassin reached in his coat, pulled out a sawed-down AK-47 assault rifle. He hooked in
that big curved magazine, lifted the gun, and aimed it. I leapt at Kit just as someone
yelled:

"He’s got a gun."

My hands reached Kit’s shoulders.

Seamus went for his revolver. McCaghan reached for his pistol.

The assassin leveled the AK at McCaghan, pulled the trigger.

Nothing.

A blank look on the assassin’s face.

I hauled Kit to the floor. Her body warm, slender, slight. A pint glass fell out of her hand
and I pushed it away in midair before it smashed on top of her.

"What the fuck—" she began saying to me while her father ducked and the assassin, looking
baffled, pulled the AK’s trigger again.

Then a dozen people stood and yelled "Drop your weapon" and "Put the gun down" and "This is
the FBI."

And at the same time, the blond-haired kid in the corner took out a 9mm pistol, leveled his
arm, took aim, and fired two quick rounds at Gerry McCaghan. Put off by all the noise, confusion,
and yelling, he missed Gerry by ten feet and the bullets sailed through the upper windows and out
into the back bay.

Panicking, one of the FBI agents fired his weapon, hitting the effectively unarmed assassin at
the bar, nailing him in the left shoulder.

The blond-haired kid fired again, almost getting McCaghan this time, missing him by a few
inches, hitting a bell hanging from the ceiling just above his head. Seamus spun round and shot
twice at the kid in the corner. Bullets ripping up a Boston Celtics wall hanging above his booth.
The kid shot back at Seamus and, seeing that the situation was untenable, began making a break
for a side door. Underneath me, Kit writhed and called out, "Daddy, Daddy, oh Daddy" while the
FBI men were screaming: "Everyone drop your weapons, cease fire, this is the FBI."

The kid shot a round that thumped into a Guinness mirror just to the left of us, shattering
it. Three seconds of everything happening at once: Kit howling, the FBI yelling, Seamus shooting
at the kid, the kid shooting at Seamus, Gerry completely safe, crouching behind Seamus and
McClennahan. The other patrons lying on the floor, absolutely terrified.

An FBI agent jumped unnecessarily onto the first gunman, crashing him over the bar and into
the Cork barkeep. Two other agents fired at the blond assassin, missing but almost killing an
innocent tourist who had wandered in off the street to see what all the commotion was. Smoke,
cordite, chaos, and Gerry’s bodyguard, Seamus, keeping the coolest of everyone, crouching, taking
good aim, firing just to the left of the kid’s determined face.

It had lasted almost fifteen seconds, but it couldn’t last much longer.

The kid fired the final bullet in his clip, hitting an FBI guy right in the center of his
Kevlar vest.

And at that, a senior FBI man with a mustache stood on a table and screamed to make himself
heard: "Everybody fucking freeze. You’re all under arrest. This is the FBI. Stop shooting. Drop
your guns, drop your guns, drop your goddamn guns."

The blond-haired kid finally saw sense and put his hands up. Seamus dropped his gun and put
his hands up too.

Kit, writhing, turned round to look at me.

"Let’s get out of here," I whispered. "Away from the bloody peelers."

"How?"

"Stairs to the basement and up through the barrel hatch," I said, wildly improvising.

"My dad?" Kit whispered.

"Is going to be arrested, everybody is, let’s go," I said. "We can slip out through the
smoke."

The senior FBI agent yelled commands over the ringing in our ears: "Drop those guns on the
floor and put your hands on your heads. Everyone else freeze. This place is surrounded by the
FBI."

The blond kid put his hands on his head and two agents knocked him to the floor, pinning him.
They grabbed Seamus and Gerry and attempted to render assistance to the injured assassin.

"This is our chance, in all the confusion," I whispered.

"Ok," Kit said.

We slipped down the steps into the basement. I didn’t know if they even had a hatchway for
delivering the kegs, but Kit did.

"It’s over here," she whispered. "There’s a stepladder against the wall."

I grabbed the ladder, climbed it, and pushed open the hatch into the glare of the sun setting
over Boston Harbor. I clambered onto the sidewalk and helped Kit up.

"What about my dad?" Kit asked.

"He’s fine, he’ll be going downtown for having that gun, though," I said.

"Who are you?"

"I only came for a bloody drink."

"Who are you?"

"Sean McKenna."

"You two, you better hold it right there," a Boston cop yelled from behind one of the trash
compactors.

"We’re FBI," I said and reached in my pocket for my driving license, which I couldn’t let Kit
see because it was still for Brian O’Nolan.

The cop walked over and when he was close, I lowered the license, let him bend down to look at
it, smashed my fist into the side of his head, kicked his legs from under him, and kicked him
twice on the ground, blows that probably hurt me more than him—with my stabbed foot—but which
rendered him briefly unconscious.

Kit looked at me, appalled but also excited.

"Let’s go," I yelled, and we ran down an alley into the back streets of Revere.

Within a minute we had disappeared into the holiday crowd, but just to be sure, Kit found a
parked Toyota Camry, wrapped her jacket round her arm, broke the side window with her elbow,
yelled in pain, opened the door, kicked the plastic off the ignition system, sparked the starter,
turned to me, and said:

"I’m a little bit…um, can you drive?"

"Ok, honey," I said and drive I did.

Route 1 out of Revere. Kit distracted, on the mobile phone, trying time and again to call her
dad and her dad’s lawyer and finally getting through to Sonia, whoever Sonia was, explaining what
had happened and asking Sonia to call her back.

Kit ignoring me completely. Not that I cared—I was focused on not getting us killed in the
hellish evening traffic heading out of the city.

"Where are we going?" I asked when she finally seemed done with her phone calls.

"Plum Island."

"Can we drive there?" I asked, remembering that this was also the name of one of those islands
in Long Island Sound.

"Of course. Forty-five minutes."

"Where is it?"

"Route 1 to 133 to Route 1A, it’s at the mouth of the Merrimack River."

Kit’s mobile rang.

"Dad, Daddy, is that you? Oh my God. Ohmygod. Oh my God."

Apparently it was. Kit started to cry, and I gave her a tissue we’d found in the glove
compartment. She blew her nose. Wiped her eyes.

"Daddy, where are you?" she asked into the phone.

Gerry told her and Kit seemed reassured.

"I’m going back to Newburyport; a nice boy called Sean is driving me, he sort of saved me,
he’s from Ireland."

Gerry must have been suspicious, because Kit gave me a winning smile.

"It’s ok, Daddy, I’m totally fine. He’s nice. We’re heading home. What about you, are you
hurt? Did you tell them about your blood pressure?"

Gerry said something and Kit laughed. She put her hand over the receiver.

"He’s fine," she told me.

"Good," I replied.

Gerry said something else that sent her into hysterics. She put her hand over the mouthpiece
again.

"He says he’ll be out tonight because he’s got something rarer than a tap-dancing dodo," Kit
explained, the tears gone from her eyes now.

"What’s that?" I asked.

"A Massachusetts concealed carry permit," Kit said and chuckled at her father’s unfunny
remark.

Gerry gave her a few instructions and told her he loved her.

"I love you too, Dad," Kit said and hung up.

Kit turned to me and smiled.

"They’re all ok," she said.

"Ok, good. I’m glad," I said and gave her a quizzical look.

"What’s that expression about?" she asked.

"Well, this may be a perfectly normal event to you but I’m a stranger in these parts, so you
wanna tell me what the fuck happened in there?" I asked.

"I don’t know, I suppose it was a gang thing," Kit lied.

"A gang thing? Jesus. Does that happen in Boston a lot?" I asked.

"No, not really, but sometimes it does. It doesn’t usually come down to violence."

"How come your dad had a gun?"

"Oh, he, like, runs a construction company, gets a lot of threats from the mafia and stuff,
he’s allowed. But I don’t think this was anything to do with him. Just wrong place, wrong
time."

"Well, I must say you’re taking it pretty well, been in anything like this before?" I
asked.

Kit said nothing but her face was hard and wary.

"It’s certainly a first time for me," I said, as gentle a probe as I dared.

"First time for me, too," she said and patted me on the leg. She was being comforting but also
taking the piss. Still, the physical contact was welcome. A lot of attractive women were finding
me extremely tactile these days. That unwashed combination of prison cell, banana plantation,
riot, sunblock, and cheap beer must be an irresistible mix.

"Terrifying," I said, and Kit nodded. "I mean, Jesus, it was terrible, oh my God, it was
really terrible," I added, hamming it up.

But Kit was bored with me. She didn’t want to pretend that this was her virgin encounter with
serious violence. She tried to look away. Her lip began to quiver and she looked for her fags.
No, not bored, it was all just too much to deal with right now.

A good idea to change the subject.

"Well, you’re not going to tell me that that was the first car you ever broke into," I
said.

Kit pressed the button to open the Camry’s sunroof.

The scent of pollen.

The night air smeared with stars.

"No, I’m not going to tell you that," she said softly and with a nervous laugh. "Let’s talk
about you, though. Why are you over from Ireland?"

I had to be quiet now as I exited Route 1 and joined the 1A, via the 133. The 1A was a narrow
two-lane road, not much traffic, that made its way through little white clapboard towns, swampy
grasslands, boggy woods, and big wet marshes near the tidal shore.

"What are you doing in America?" Kit asked me again.

"Apart from beating up cops and saving girls?"

"Yeah, unless you do that full-time? You’re not Superman, are you?"

"Superman digs the police. I’m here just the same as everybody. Looking for work. Someone told
me this morning that I might have a job opening up in Salisbury Beach, Massachusetts," I said,
hastily recalling what Samantha had told me of the second part of the plan.

"Doing what?"

"I’m not sure what exactly, probably bar."

"Salisbury? Well, I don’t think you’ll have a problem with gunplay up there, it’s not exactly
the most happening of places."

"Hope not. Christ, twenty-five years in Belfast and I’m safe as houses, a week in America and
I’m in a bloody gun battle."

Kit said nothing. She rummaged in her bag and found a cigarette.

"Smoke?" she asked.

I shook my head.

"Filthy habit," she agreed and lit herself one.

"Not so much that, I had a hard time quitting; I was addicted and I don’t want to start
again," I said.

"I’m just a social smoker. Addictions are for the weak," Kit announced with condescension.

I grinned inwardly and said nothing.

"At least everyone’s ok," Kit said more to herself than me, and out of the corner of my eye I
noticed that now her hand was starting to shake.

Well, yes, it had been scary, and after all she was little more than just a kid. No Mexican
prisons on her résumé.

"Yeah, everyone seemed fine," I agreed.

The woods thinned and the road went over a narrow perfumed river winding its way uneasily into
the black sea.

"The feds had it all staked out," she muttered to herself.

"I suppose so," I concurred, staring at her.

"I should have known those guys were feds, they didn’t tip," she said.

"And I was suspicious of that guy with the assault rifle from the start," I said.

"Why?"

"He was drinking lite beer," I said. "Don’t you find in your professional capacity that lite
beer drinkers are generally wankers?"

"Now you come to mention it," Kit said, drawing in the tobacco smoke and relaxing a
little.

We drove in silence and she smoked her cig, lit another, and was soon chill enough to become
the proud amateur tour guide.

"See the road to that beach?"

"Yeah?"

"That’s where they filmed a Steve McQueen movie, the one with Faye Dunaway and he’s a bank
robber."

"Don’t know it but it sounds good," I said.

"And down there is where the famous writer John Updike lives."

"John Updike? Sounds like a porn name," I said.

"Joan Updike would be more appropriate…. Oh, and see over there, that’s where Jackie did a
hundred and five in the Porsche and got caught by the state police."

"Who’s Jackie?"

"My boyfriend," Kit said breezily.

"Nice boy?"

"Who cares about nice?" she said in her best Madonna.

"Well, I’m sure he’s perfectly charming, but I can tell you one thing about him that you don’t
know."

"What?"

"He isn’t good enough for you," I said.

Kit turned her head slightly and looked at me.

"Are you making a pass?" she asked with a smile.

My lack of an answer was my answer and it unsettled her in a way I found I liked a lot.

At Ipswich we approached a well-lit place called the Clam Box, where you could smell fried
fish through the Toyota’s sunroof and broken window. Dozens of cars. Perhaps fifty people waiting
outside.