The Dead Yard (25 page)

I cut her off with a shake of my head.

"That’s not what you wanted to tell me," I said.

"No," she agreed.

"What then?"

She hesitated.

"Just this," she said.

She leaned across the car and she kissed me. She’d been drinking and her lips and tongue
tasted of red wine. I kissed her and I ran my dirty hand up her thigh and I felt between her
legs. She moaned and pulled me close.

"Michael, you will be careful, won’t you?" she asked.

"Are you kidding? I’m one step ahead of everyone," I said.

I pushed back her seat and took off her panties. I pulled down my filthy trousers and we had
frantic, fugitive gunman sex.

Twenty minutes later, I was walking alongside the black ocean towards the big house on the
dunes, where every light was on, and inside, no doubt, chaos reigned.

I scooped some seawater and washed off any residual dregs of Seamus’s blood and brains.

I went to the kitchen’s patio doors and knocked on the glass.

Touched appeared with a revolver tucked down the front of his pants. A grin on his face. He,
at least, was pleased to see me. He pulled me in and hugged me.

"Jesus, Sean, thank God you made it," he said.

Everyone was up. Everyone but Seamus, who had not yet returned. Sonia in a man’s shirt and
white sweatpants. Touched and Gerry in their street clothes. Jackie showered and in a robe,
trembling from head to toe, holding a hot whiskey. Kit, in her tight Body Glove T-shirt, stroking
his hair.

I would have had Jackie packed off to Boston or Timbuktu on an alibi or in case the peelers
showed, but not these guys. Loyal to their crew, looking after him like mother hens.

"What happened, Michael?" Touched asked.

"It was terrible, Touched, it all went wrong. Terrible," I began, but Sonia interrupted
me.

"Unless it’s life and death, I insist you get out of those wet clothes and go and take a
shower first," she said. Gerry shook his head and that was enough to assert his authority.

"Where’s Seamus?" I asked. "Nabbed?"

"We were hoping you could tell us," Gerry said, his eyes bleary with worry.

I sat down at the kitchen table. Kit was holding Jackie’s arm and stroking his back. Jackie
looked as if he was well medicated. Touched pulled up a chair and sat beside me.

"Better spill it from the beginning," he said. "Don’t worry about repeating what Jackie said,
I want to hear your version."

I told it like it was, except for the very end. Jackie got separated from Seamus and the
soldier and then I got cut off from them when I swam across the river. I made it to the woods. I
thought I heard a gunshot but I wasn’t sure. I followed the coast and waded over the Plum Island
River to the wildlife refuge, to here. But the whole thing was a disaster, a debacle of the first
order.

Gerry nodded and patted me on the shoulder. Touched leaned in close and rubbed the stubble on
his chin. His eyes were wary and cold. It made me nervous. His breath stank of cigarettes.

"This is very important, Sean. Were we set up? Was it a police setup?" Touched asked.

I shook my head.

"No, I don’t think so. Just a fuckup. The soldier was as surprised as we were. The cops came
because of the alarm."

Touched looked at Gerry. His face was a mask. It either confirmed or shot down what they were
thinking.

"What was the last you saw of Seamus?" Gerry asked.

"I don’t know, he was pretty slow, he looked beat, he told me to keep going. I ran ahead of
him and when I looked back he and the soldier were way behind me. Then I waded over the river and
I thought they were behind me but they were gone."

"And did the police see where you went?"

"Nah, I lost the pigs. I hope Seamus did as well, but he seemed a bit…" My voice trailed
off.

"He’d been drinking?" Touched asked, his eyes narrowing.

I hesitated. I wanted to appear loyal and as if what I could say would be telling tales out of
school. I looked at Jackie and then at Touched.

"I don’t know," I said.

Touched nodded grimly.

"How bad was he? I want the truth," Touched said.

"I don’t know, Touched. He was ok," I said, appearing to be in the throes of an internal
struggle.

Touched shook his head but he seemed satisfied. It was neither my nor Jackie’s fault and we’d
done ok by getting away.

Sonia came downstairs.

"I’m running the bath in the guesthouse. I absolutely insist that he use it," she said.

Gerry nodded.

"I’m done, what about you, Touched?"

"Me, too."

"Ok then," Gerry muttered. "Come with me, Touched."

Touched and Gerry went to the upstairs den to confer and probably have a blazing argument.
Jackie sat next to me at the kitchen table.

"Are you ok, mate?" he asked, trying to be conciliatory.

"Thanks for asking, Jackie; to tell you the truth, I’m bloody wrecked. Wrecked but basically
in one piece. What about you?"

"I did something to my ankle, and there’s a cut on my thigh from the barbed wire, but I’ll be
fine in a day or two," he said.

"You see, Jackie boy, that’s the advantage of having the old bionic ankle," I said and lifted
up my prosthesis.

Jackie smiled, patted me on the back.

"You did well, Sean, as well as could be expected under the fucking circumstances."

"How did you get away?" I asked.

"I just ran; I got to the river and kept going. I hope you don’t think I left you in the lurch
or—"

"No, Jack, you did your best," I interrupted.

Kit smiled and held my hand. Jackie, God bless him, didn’t seem to mind.

Gerry and Touched came back into the room.

"Listen, folks, we may as well go to bed. Seamus either made it or he didn’t. We’ll know in
the morning," Gerry said.

I didn’t need to be told twice. I said my good nights, walked across to the guesthouse, had a
quick bath, found my room, and lay down on the big bed.

"We’ll know in the morning," I whispered to myself. Then I closed my eyes and slept.

A tangle rain. A thick sea mizzle that came from the east, cold and sleekit, with a hint of
knife that might freshen into gale. The kind of damp that penetrated everything. I shivered in my
robe and bare feet. Up here on the balcony with its enormous field of view you were really aware
of the weather. Normally, September in America still has a summer feel but September in Ireland
is definitely the autumn. This felt like an Irish day.

Condensation blocked the window and the view of the woman next door, but I saw her husband in
an overcoat climbing down from his observatory. No stars last night, so he probably kept his porn
collection up there. He nodded to me and I nodded back. Secret sharers, the pair of us. I sipped
the coffee and bit into the croissant that had been placed outside my door on a silver tray.

The cops had not come yet.

The news on the local radio said that a body part had been found at the scene of the robbery.
The all-news station wouldn’t say what part had been found. But I knew. Half a bloody head.

Still, it had been an ebb tide and the current was the Gulf Stream, so maybe they’d never find
Seamus.

The radio also said that a soldier had initially been taken hostage by the burglars but had
escaped. There were three burglars. White males, twenty to forty. The reporter said the whole
scene was still one of confusion. Some people were speculating that it could only have been an
inside job, others that the whole thing was a practical joke gone wrong.

Confusion was good; the FBI would help muddy those waters.

I finished my coffee, showered, changed into a sweater and blue jeans, went to the big
house.

The servants had been given the day off. Sonia was making breakfast. Touched saw me and shook
me firmly by the hand.

"What news?" I asked.

"Nothing definite. But I’ve talked to a couple of sources in the cops. There were no arrests
but they found an ugly mess that they think was bits of somebody’s head."

"Seamus?"

"I don’t know, Sean. They haven’t found a body, so no one knows."

"The radio said a cop fired his gun. Could he have hit Seamus?"

"I don’t know, Sean. Seamus hasn’t been arrested and he hasn’t showed up here, so either he’s
scarpered or he’s dead."

"Christ. What a fuckup," I said.

Touched nodded.

"I take full responsibility," he said. "I should have run the show. Seamus was hit pretty hard
by what happened in Revere; I thought showing him that I believed in him would help snap him out
of the funk he’d fallen into. Clearly a big mistake. I’ve told Gerry. My fault. I apologized to
him, and I apologize to you, too, Sean. You’re only new, shouldn’t have let you go there under
Seamus’s command. I should have known better and I’m sorry."

"It’s ok, Touched. We’re out in one piece and the descriptions they’ve put out are pretty
vague."

"Aye, well, we’ll see about that. If Seamus was hit and managed to crawl a couple of hundred
yards, they’ll eventually find the body and they will ID him. And of course they’ll come to Gerry
and ask him questions. Gerry was his employer and he lived next door. They might bring that
soldier boy to do a lineup on all of us. We are not out of the woods by a long way."

"And if Seamus is wounded? But on the run?"

"He better keep running," Touched said sourly.

We sat in silence while Sonia brought a plate of pancakes and more coffee.

"Are you hurt at all?" she asked me.

"No, I’m fine. Everything aches, but I’m fine."

"Kit took Jackie to the hospital this morning. He needs to get stitches on his leg. I looked
at it myself, nasty cut on his thigh. While he’s there, he’s also getting an MRI on his ankle, he
was in pain all night," Touched said sadly.

"He’s going to a local hospital?" I asked, surprised.

"No, we haven’t fallen that far from the straight and narrow. Kit drove him all the way to
Mass General in Boston."

He put his head in his hands.

"I can’t fucking believe this. And things were starting to come around," he muttered to
himself.

I said nothing and scanned the sports section of the
Times
. Gerry appeared and put
his big paws on my shoulders.

"Are you ok, Sean? Did you hear about Jackie?"

"I heard. I’m fine," I said.

Gerry looked at his comrade-in-arms and his face contorted as he dredged up a just-memorized
quote from Virgil or somebody.

"Cheer up, Touched.
Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit
. This is not the end of the
world," Gerry said, terribly pleased with himself.

"It’s bloody close, Gerry. Even if the cops don’t get us, the FBI will have to take an
interest now. An even bigger interest. And as for our plans to get the Real IRA to sponsor us, we
can forget that, we’re a fucking laughingstock. Can’t even do a bloody burglary. Jesus Christ,
Gerry, what a bloody joke. I don’t know. Maybe we’re getting too old for this. Maybe we should
pack it in," Touched said.

Gerry shook his head and sat down.

"Come on, lads. You can’t pack it in after one stupid setback," I said, thinking of my pardon
and my million.

Gerry nodded at me.

"Yes, listen to the youngster. And he went through it, Touched, the new generation sparks the
old, remember that. What was it Jefferson said about the tree of liberty and the blood of the
young or something…" Gerry said.

Touched tapped the table, forced a smile onto his depressed face, and ran his fingers through
his long, graying black hair.

"No, I suppose you’re right, Sean," he said after a while.

"I know I am," I said. "You have to bounce right back up. Start organizing, be one step ahead
of the peelers."

Aye, start organizing right now, boys, a nice big conspiracy that’ll net the pair of you and
lead to bloody easy street for me.

Touched grinned at Gerry, that big charming grin that gave me the willies.

"There’s always Portsmouth. Our little plan B," Touched said.

"I don’t know," Gerry muttered.

"It’s your call. It’s a target of opportunity and the window is slipping away. Although pull
that one off and it’s instant respect from across the water," Touched said knowingly.

Gerry nodded.

"I’ll think about it," he said.

"Though I’ll need to do a lot of work on that still, Gerry," Touched said.

"Well, what are you waiting around for?" Gerry asked.

"I’m waiting for the cops to show up and ask about Seamus," Touched said angrily.

"What exactly is the point of that? If you make yourself busy, things will seem a lot better.
Come on, Touched. I have houses to build, people to hire, people to fire. Stop your fucking
moping. If the police come, we’ll deal with it. If they don’t, we’ll deal with that, too."

"And what about the FBI?" Touched asked, his mood darkening and his mysterious little
Portsmouth op getting pushed to the back of his mind again.

"Are you afeard of the FBI, Touched McGuigan? Show some initiative, man; where is the bold
wild colonial that I met twenty years ago, full of fire? Come on. Seize the day. Get out of here.
Go and do something. I’ve got a spade and a shovel waiting for you, if you cannot think of
anything else."

Touched stood, laughed.

"You’re right, Gerry. As always."

Gerry hugged him.

"Now get out of here."

Touched nodded to me and went outside. Gerry punched me on the shoulder.

"You too, Sean. Outside."

"It’s raining."

"So what? Have you forgotten rain in your fortnight in America? Get my daughter and the pair
of you go for a walk. That young lady has been mooching around ever since she left Jackie at the
hospital. You’d think he was going to have open-heart surgery, not a couple of stitches and an
MRI. Come on, out of my house."

I got to my feet.

"Kit, get down here," Gerry bellowed up the stairs.