Danny Dempsey and the Unlikely Alliance (13 page)

Anna was wondering if she should take a chance and bring Lily for a walk outside for ten minutes or so, if for no other reason than to keep her spirits up and revive her confidence in Anna's truthfulness. It was dark outside. No one would see them. They could slip in and out the main entrance and be back before anyone knew they'd even gone. Even though the terrain outside was rough and ready, Lily would appreciate the break. And give Anna some respite from her endless questions. It would also take Lily's mind off her Mommy and Daddy for a while. Anna decided to risk it.

H
arrington hoped he looked the part. He was dressed in much the same manner as on his last visit to the pool hall, except that he'd exchanged his Man. U. top for a Homer Simpson T-shirt. If he was being regarded as a lamebrain, he decided, he might as well look like one. He descended the concrete steps into the hall. There were an awful lot more people in it than earlier that day, most of them men who looked like they'd stepped right out of a hard-boiled gangster movie, but only one person paid him any particular attention.

Harry couldn't believe his eyes. He felt like falling to his knees and saying a few extra prayers to go with the ones he'd already said to whatever god it was had sent the pigeon back to him so quickly. The guy had said he wouldn't be here until tomorrow, yet there he was now, all nice and sweet and innocent, not having the patience to wait to try and win some of his money back the following day.

The trouble was, all the tables were buzzing at this time of night, and Harry knew old Baldy had a list as long as his arm of names waiting to take over the next vacant table. Harry had tried to rope in what he thought were a few likely looking suckers earlier before the place was jumping, but the very suggestion that he might engage them in a few friendly racks had them splitting their sides laughing.

‘Thanks, but no thanks, Harry,' the first one told him. ‘I'm not feeling all that generous tonight. If I'm gonna lose a few shekels, I'm gonna lose it fair and square.'

Harry had never seen the guy before in his life. Neither did he know the second prospective pigeon he approached a little later. The one who told him to take a long hike off a short pier with a couple of ton weights tied to his ankles. Harry was put out by all this unwarranted rejection. For Pete's sake, all he was trying to do was earn an honest living. Even guys he didn't know from Adam had his number. He tried everything he knew with the second pigeon. Eight racks up out of the best of twenty, and all for a measly fifty euro stake to cover the entire number of racks. Any self-respecting hustler couldn't offer fairer than that.

‘And after I've cornered the first eight racks.' the guy said to him, ‘What then? I just sit there like a spectator while you rattle off the next twelve? Huh?'

Harry walked away from him without even bothering to answer. How could you do business with a sceptical guy like that? Harry would have let him win
nine
racks before pocketing the fifty euros. And that was value for money in anybody's diary. The guy could even go around town boasting how he'd come so close to whipping Harry's butt. What more did he want? A free haircut and shave while Harry was at it?

But, just like Baldy Bradford had told him that night a while back, everyone was on to him now. The price of fame, Harry sighed to himself, as he sat in his usual spot and drank from the neck of a bottle of beer. And then he saw Harrington making his way down the steps, instantly restoring his faith in the gods of pool who looked down benevolently on those who'd dedicated their lives to the game.

Harrington leaned against the dirty wall well away from where Harry was seated, pretending he hadn't seen him yet. He stood in the gloom on the periphery of the tables, shading his eyes as he peered through the glare of the lights beaming down on the cloth surfaces, for all the world looking as though he was trying to catch sight of someone.

Harry hopped up from his seat and scuttled over to where old Baldy was skimming through the pages of a glossy magazine. Harry plonked his empty bottle on the counter. Baldy looked up at him enquiringly, mechanically reaching beneath the counter for another beer. Harry shook his head. He placed twenty euros in the centre of the magazine, winking at Baldy as he did so.

‘How about sticking my name at the head of the queue, Baldy?' he asked softly, closing the magazine over. ‘The pigeon's landed way ahead of schedule. When I've cleaned him out again, there'll be more where that came from.'

‘Are you crazy?' Baldy whispered, glancing behind him at the big slate board on which were chalked a long list of names, the owners of same being scattered around the hall waiting for a session to finish, some of them quite close to the counter, every so often glancing at the board to see how things were progressing. ‘You want to start World War Three or something?'

‘Ah, come on, Baldy,
please
!' Harry begged, though keeping his voice low enough to avert the upheaval Baldy had mentioned. ‘He's back. The same guy who was in here earlier throwing his readies around like confetti. He can't wait to be turned over again. He's over there leaning against the wall close to number five.'

Baldy glanced in that direction. Sure enough, the sap had returned to the scene of his earlier scalping, propped against the cinder block wall Baldy had never quite got around to sweeping the cobwebs from. ‘Sorry, Harry,' he said. ‘But it's no deal. These doddery old legs of mine just about get me around as it is. I don't think I'd be able to manage after a couple of cues had played baseball with my kneecaps.'

Harry could hardly prevent tears of frustration from welling up in his eyes. But he knew exactly what Baldy was talking about. Jumping the queue at any time wasn't a great idea, but trying it on when half the lowlifes in town were patiently waiting their turn to hit a few balls was positively dangerous. But Harry was desperate, and desperate people are sometimes prepared to take risks they wouldn't take under more normal circumstances.

‘Who's at the head of the list?' Harry hissed, squinting over Baldy's shoulder trying to make out the squiggly scrawl sitting in prime position.

Baldy glanced over his shoulder. ‘Razorblade Riordan,' Baldy informed him softly, ‘or as both of us know what he likes to be called,
One Slash Rodney
.' Baldy couldn't contain a mocking little smile. ‘You could always ask him nicely to let you have his spot. That's if you don't mind being separated from your earlobes.'

‘You've got to do
something
, Baldy!' Harry pleaded, anxiously looking over at where Harrington was still propped against the wall, glad to see he hadn't taken off after seeing how crowded the hall was. ‘Slip in my name right underneath Razorblade's I'll split fifty/fifty with you, cross my heart.'

‘No can do, Harry. The Rhino might twig what I was doing. He's next in line after Razorblade. You know yourself what happens when anyone tries to pull a fast one on him.'

‘Yeah, yeah,' Harry replied despondently, racking his brains for a way out of his dilemma. ‘What would you say it I offered you a sixty/forty split?'

‘Not a thing. You could promise me the sun, moon and stars, Harry, but that board stays exactly the way it is. I don't want this place reduced to a heap of rubble, if that's all right with you.' He opened his magazine, sliding the twenty back in Harry's direction. ‘See, you're twenty ahead already.'

‘Funny,' Harry said, giving him a look which would have refrigerated a buffalo, snapping the note into his pocket and heading over in Harrington's direction. ‘Hey, I thought it was you, Brendan,' he said, smiling. ‘But I didn't think I'd be seeing you until tomorrow. Looking for some more action already?'

‘You could say that,' Harrington replied, scowling to convey he wasn't very happy about something. ‘I thought I might find you here. I let myself down badly earlier. All day it's been bugging me the way I played. So I said to myself I'd come tonight instead of tomorrow to win my money back.'

‘You know something,' Harry said, nodding his head in agreement. ‘I said something like that to Baldy when I came back after our snack earlier today. I told him it was sheer luck I came out on top in the end. I
knew
you had something more. “That Brendan guy can play a lot better, Baldy,” I said, “Looks to me like he was having an off day.” Those were my exact words.' He shuffled his feet and flicked a spider off the arm of his jacket. ‘Tell you the truth, Brendan, I was hoping you wouldn't come back at all. I reckon I'd have no chance against you if you were cueing your best.'

‘And you're right too,' Harrington said, adding a touch of indignation into his act. ‘My granny could have beaten me earlier.'

Harry nodded sympathetically. ‘That's the way it goes sometimes,' he said sadly. He was weeping inside at the thought that there were no tables available, and that the prospect of getting one tonight appeared to be out of the question. ‘Lucky for me all the tables are booked right up to closing time,' he forced himself to say. ‘Look, I know how you feel. I've been there myself hundreds of times. Why don't you come back tomorrow like we arranged and I'll give you another shot, even if I've got the feeling I'll be the one who's gonna be cleaned out then.'

‘But I feel hot
now,
' Harrington retorted, rubbing his hands together in a show of agitation, ‘and I've got five hundred burning a hole in my pocket I'm either going to drop or double.'

Harry grabbed his arm and put a finger to his lips in a warning gesture, glancing around meaningfully at the dodgy looking characters who were hopefully out of earshot. Then he leaned closer, whispering in Harrington's ear, ‘For the love of Pete, Brendan, keep your voice down! There are guys in here would slit their Mother's gizzard for half that!' He blew through his lips in relief on seeing that none of the nearby lowlifes had apparently heard of Harrington's foolishness. ‘Everyone's not like
me
, you know.'

‘Why can't we go somewhere else?' Harrington demanded, ‘What's so special about here? A pool table's the same no matter where it is.'

‘I'd love to, Brendan,' Harry said. ‘But that just isn't on the cards, I'm afraid.'

‘Why not? You're not running scared, are you?'

Harry would have laughed only he was feeling so put out about not immediately being able to get his hands on Harrington's stake money. He was almost tempted to approach Rhino and put the same deal to him as he had to Baldy. But with Rhino, you never knew. He could be a mite touchy by times. Catch him in the wrong humour, and you were liable to wind up looking like a contortionist before you realised it. Rhino was a collection agent for one of the leading illegal moneylenders in town. Some people called him an enforcer. Clients who were behind in their payments called him everything under the sun after they'd recovered from one of his weekly visits. Rhino liked to twist people into complex knots just for the fun of it. Harry decided against approaching him in case he was in one of his moods. His smooth cue action might never be the same again if Rhino took it into his head to keep his hand in practice as he waited for his table.

‘You don't understand, Brendan. It's not that I'm all
that
scared, though I've got to admit the thought of playing you again gives me a few butterflies when I think about it. It's just that I'm barred from every other hall in town. A couple of complications here and there from way back. Nothing to get excited about. So it looks like it's gonna have to be tomorrow before we get down to it again.'

‘I'm not waiting that long,' Harrington retorted, making as though to leave. ‘I'll hit one of the other halls by myself and see if I can square my account that way.'

Harry almost fainted at the thought. He couldn't let something like that happen. Not to a nice guy like Brendan. The sharks in the other halls would eat him alive. He clung to Brendan's sleeve like a limpet. Harrington allowed himself to be detained. He could quite easily have shaken off Harry and headed for the door, but stayed where he was to see what he would come up with next.

Harry's mind was revolving like a roulette wheel. He knew he couldn't keep the sucker here for much longer. The guy was only chomping at the bit for more action, and if Harry couldn't provide it, those barracudas in the other halls would be only too glad to accommodate him. Harry felt like throwing up at the idea of them getting their filthy paws on what was rightfully his. Six Cushion Pete or Side Pocket Sid would see the poor innocent slob coming a mile off if he strayed into either of the halls they plied their trades in. They were small time hustlers, not in the same league as Harry, but neither of them were pushovers, either.

‘Tell you what, Brendan,' Harry finally said, ‘let's you and me see if we can work something out. What do you say? Fair's fair, and seeing as you're so anxious to square things, I've got an idea.'

‘What did you have in mind?'

Harry placed his hand in his pocket and extracted a couple of dice. ‘Maybe these babies will get your juices flowing,' he said, thinking that there was more than one way to peel a grape. ‘You come back to my place, we can get the action going there. I tell you, Brendan, rolling dice for the right kind of readies can get your heart pumping like a trip-hammer. But I guess you know all about that already.'

‘I've never played before,' Harrington told him, pretending not to notice Harry's eyes light up as though there were a couple of thousand watt bulbs screwed into his sockets. ‘Though if it's as exciting as you say, I'm willing to give it a go. But you're going to have to teach me the rules first.'

It was all Harry could do not to kiss Harrington's hand. He wondered what he'd ever done in his past life to deserve what was being shoved his way right now. He supposed that time a couple of years ago he'd helped a blind man cross a busy road might have something to do with it. The first time he'd resisted temptation in his entire life. He could have easily dipped the guy's pocket as he was shuffling him across, but he'd told himself not to be a jerk. Anyway, there were a few too many people around at the time. He might have found himself hanging from the nearest lamppost if one of them twigged what he was up to. Just goes to show, he told himself, what goes around comes around sooner or later when you've done your good deed for the day.