The Last Four Days of Paddy Buckley (21 page)

8:25 p.m.

I
took a long pull on my cigarette and pushed the smoke deep into my lungs, thinking of Christy in the parlor taking the hiding of a lifetime. On the seat beside me were three plastic-sealed packets of duck-liver pâté, a bottle of water, and a fresh pack of Carrolls cigarettes. I'd parked on the road outside Vincent's house behind a line of cars, opened the window, and waited. I didn't want to leave Christy in Uriel Street any longer than I had to, but the dog over the wall could well end my time before her master got a chance, so I allowed myself one last smoke before I tried her. This is what my life had come down to: a final cigarette, the dog owned by the most dangerous man in the world, and if I was lucky, Christy's release and my subsequent execution.

The few drops of rain making it in through the window onto the side of my face were a welcome sensation, considering the violent end that was waiting for me. It was cold and refreshing, and coupled with the wind, gave my skin the last semblance of solace it would ever know and reminded me that I was still very much encased in it.

I couldn't face the dog with any trace of fear inside me; she'd smell it like the last time—she'd maybe even see it for all I knew. I had to free myself of it completely. But shaking it was easier said than done.

I stepped out of the car, flicked the butt away, and took a good look at the wall. It was about eight feet high. I could get over it with a running jump, but once on the other side, I'd be with Dechtire, with no room for faltering. It was time for communion.

I padded my pockets to make sure I had everything I needed, and with my adrenaline pumping, I made it over on the first effort and crouched down under a cluster of Scots pines to get my bearings. Save for a couple of windows glowing with a golden light, the place was in darkness, and there was no sign of the dog. There was only one car, and it was parked between me and the house, a silver Subaru, presumably belonging to Vincent's wife. I approached it quietly and tried opening the front passenger door. It was open. Of course it was—who in their right mind would rob a car from Cullen's house? I located the gate zapper and put it in my pocket. I clicked the door shut and retreated to the shelter of a giant oak tree fifty yards from the house, got down on my hunkers, and let out a low whistle.

“Dechtire,” I said, no louder than if she'd been right beside me, and settled my focus on the side of the house where I'd seen the kennel on Wednesday morning.

“Dechtire,” I said again a few moments later, and made a clicking sound with my tongue. After maybe a minute, she appeared from behind the house and stopped still to look at me across the drive, the light from the window reflecting in her eyes. I'd only ever seen her in Vincent's study and over by the greenhouse. Out here in the shade of night with the elements alive around her, she took on a far more majestic presence. The rain was lashing down on her and there was steam rising from her back and a beautiful stillness emanating from her eyes. I returned her gaze without as much as a blip of fear and felt my father come alive inside me. I could feel my dimples deepening just like his, and though I couldn't see it, it felt as if my right eye twinkled like his used to, and with a few more clicks of the tongue, I coaxed the dog over. Coupled with her stillness was a wariness, which was slowly turning into curiosity. Apart from our unusual introduction on Tuesday morning, she'd seen her master welcome me, give me refreshments and a gift, so off the bat, I was no threat.

Tentatively at first, she walked through the rain to the dry ground under the giant oak and arrived beside me to meet the back of my hand, which I gently stroked against her chest.

“Good girl,” I whispered, moving my hand up to her snout where, while rubbing her, I got her to relax even more, her eyes closing with pleasure when I hit an itchy spot. I took the pâté out of my coat pocket and opened it up. With the trust established between us, she was ready for a taste, totally alert now in a sitting position and licking her lips. I put a bit on my fingers and let her lick it off. As careful as she was not to hurt me with her teeth, it was clearly one of the most delicious things she'd ever tasted and she hungrily gobbled down every bit I offered her until she'd licked the packet clean. She let out a satisfied groan then and lay down on her back, opening her legs submissively while I gave her belly a good scratch.

Now that I had her eating out of my hand, I was faced with the difficult bit. I reached into my pocket and pressed the button that opened the gate. Dechtire stood up immediately and looked towards it. I straightened up, took out another packet of pâté, and took a few steps towards the road. The dog stayed where she was, looking at me, aware of every factor at play. She knew she wasn't meant to come with me, but she also knew I meant her no harm. The intelligence Chris O'Donoghue talked about was well evident in the dog's demeanor, but I wasn't hearing Chris's words in my head as I stood there with her in the rain. I was thinking my father's thoughts. It wasn't enough to will the dog to come with me, I had to expect her to come.

“Let's go down to Vincent,” I said, and nodded towards the gate. “Come on.” I started walking and kept going with my head down till I was out on the road. I turned around to see her standing in the same spot thirty yards away. The wariness was back. I was halfway across a tightrope that was leading to my dream's end and I didn't want to take Christy with me. I wasn't sure what the dog could or couldn't see, what she knew or didn't know, or how bright or exceptional she was, but I needed her to come with me. I closed my eyes and felt my father closer than ever.
Please, get the dog to follow me. Make her come.
I opened my eyes again to see the dog in exactly the same place.

We were at a crossroads, Dechtire and I, but this was the end of the line for me, I knew that. My life was over and I'd just reached the point where I was okay with that. The world of Paddy Buckley was soon to be a lesson learned, and I'd be returned to spirit. With this acceptance came a kind of direct knowing, an exultant feeling of arrival, having traveled a long and laborious journey. And I knew exactly what I had to do before checking out.

I crouched down and stretched my left hand out in front of me and focused on my palm and centered every part of me in it. Nothing else mattered now. I felt my palm pulse and get warmer, and then, with the ease of just intending it, my consciousness rippled down my left arm until my palm became the seat of my subtle self, housing the perceiving part of me. Instead of looking at my palm as I'd started out, I looked back at my face from the seat of my palm. And just like on Monday night in my bed in Mourne Road, I detached. And rose above myself. Independent Channel 24 perceptible only to Dechtire and me.

I looked down at my crouching self with my hand still outstretched and saw myself stand up. Watching myself in the rain, I continued rising until I was ten feet above my head, and I stopped. I looked to where Dechtire was standing, still in the same place, but she was watching me now in my suspended state, floating high above my body. An excitement took hold of her. I tossed the pâté a few inches in the air and caught it. “Come on,” I said. “Let's go down to Vincent.”

I drifted weightlessly above my body as I started walking towards the car and watched her lick her lips excitedly and briskly walk out the gate after me. I got to the car and opened the passenger door for her. She hopped in and sat down. I got in the other side and started the engine. With us both seated side by side, Dechtire seemed perfectly comfortable dealing with the two parts of me: my material self behind the wheel and the invisible part of me floating just above the dashboard, which was the one she watched with lucid eyes. I opened up the pâté and gave her the lot. She sat down further on the seat and busied herself with eating it while I started the drive back to the yard.

It's a strange feeling, surrendering to death. Fear and resistance drop away. Every facet of life around you seems valid and beautiful and oddly perfect. What once sounded like a cacophony takes on a symphonic quality; the seemingly disparate and disconnected elements of life combine to make up strands of the same fabric, blending together in a perfect euphony. And a limpid calm descends.

The dog sitting beside me would have ripped me to shreds if it wasn't for the unique understanding between us, but we weren't finished with each other just yet. When she'd eaten her food, she sat erect and watched the road till we'd parked around by George Perrin's, a five-minute walk from Gallagher's.

I took the last packet of pâté out of my coat and placed it on the dash. The dog looked at it and then back to me, probably more concerned with getting out of the car, and I could see she was expecting to come with me. I rubbed her snout again, but she didn't go along with it this time. She just stared at me, suspended as I was. I couldn't go in to Vincent without her collar. Getting it, though, was another matter—if she was going to turn on me, that's when she'd do it, even if I was inhabiting the ether beside her.

I closed my eyes and relaxed my body, knowing this would be the last time I ever could, and as I imagined meeting Eva again, I could hear the fleeting echo of her laughter—I searched around me but she wasn't there. I was removed from my skin and senses, yet I could still detect her scent near me, like a subtle harbinger of our imminent reunion. The thought of holding her close to me, feeling her at one with me, made the price of any pain I might be subjected to beyond worth it.

Facing Vincent removed from my body would be the easy way to exit my life; with one foot already in the grave, so to speak. But I had penance to pay. My independent channel had successfully helped usher my passenger to where I needed her to be, but the threshold awaiting me was to be crossed with honor and courage, and in the flesh. I had to face Vincent as a man. With my intention firmly set, I started breathing slowly and deeply into the base of my belly, and I dug my heels into my shoes and the floor. Slowly, I moved away from the windscreen, closer to my body, until I felt myself sitting into my skin, fully encased in it again with my blood rushing through my veins and my scalp tingling around my skull.

While I was still immersed in my final meditation, the dog placed her head down on my lap, stretching herself across the two seats, and let out a tired groan. I stroked her head gently and massaged behind her ears, making her moans more constant and relaxed. This was the communion my father had known with animals all his life. While continuing to stroke her head and neck, I slowly unbuckled her collar, pulled it from around her neck, and put it in my pocket.

“Dechtire,” I said softly. She raised her head to look at me. “I'll be back with Vincent. Stay here and I'll bring him back with me.” I lowered the window an inch and took the keys from the ignition while she sat back up, her pregnant belly more obvious, elevated on the passenger seat. I opened the pâté and placed it by her front paws, and I pulled the handle on the door.

“Stay here, I won't be long.” I got out of the car and closed the door while she continued to sit there, staring at me. Whether she somehow understood what was going on and was helping me in some selfless capacity because of our special connection or she was just a dog who could be manipulated and cajoled, I'll never know. But she'd given me what I needed, nonetheless. She'd trusted me just long enough. Now that I was armed with Dechtire's collar, the likelihood of both Christy's release and mine was far more probable, never mind that we were going to different places.

9:10 p.m.

I
placed my hands on the cold bars of the cast-iron gates and pushed them open, sending a creaking sound vibrating through the wall of the front office. It was time for my purging, to lay down my life and join my beloved Eva. But not before my final charade: poker masquerading as chess. I slipped Dechtire's collar along the inside of my belt, stepped through the open door of the back office, and readied myself for my personal apocalypse.

The place was in darkness and as quiet as a nest of caterpillars. I heard footsteps on carpet and then from the shadowy doorway came Matser, who seemed to drift, his strides were so long.

“Buckley,” he said, taking a grip of my shirt and pressing me against the wall to frisk me. The man with the glass eye came in from the corridor, holding a short length of gaffer tape, which he pressed over my mouth. I could tell by the way he was smiling at me he was a sadist, as he seemed to derive great pleasure from silencing me, and then, as if to confirm it, he took a rough hold of my throat with one hand and squeezed my balls tight with the other. Then to compound it, he let go of my balls and kneed them full force. I doubled up and groaned behind the tape, but was pulled up immediately by both men, who took an arm each and paraded me into the pitch-black of the front parlor.

“Lights, Richie,” said Vincent, his menace a gliding calm. The lights turned up to a soft glow to reveal Vincent, Sean, and Richie, all standing, glowering at me with malevolent intent, and Christy sitting by the wall with his mouth taped up and his eyes glazed over with the fear of death. He was bloodied and bruised, and his glasses were gone. I could only imagine what kind of darkness they'd been filling his head with. I hadn't counted on being silenced like this, and with my arms immobile, I couldn't reach for the collar.

Vincent held up the black plastic bag with the syndicate money in it and tossed it on the bier. “Back for the money,” he said. “A greedy cunt like you couldn't keep away from it.” He moved to the armchair at the end of the bier and sat down on it, in no rush to go anywhere.

“You're not as wide as you'd like to think, Buckley. I met one other sham like you in my time. I was fifteen years old and my mother had a stall up on Thomas Street. The number one spot on the street, she had. A little goldmine, it was. She had it for years. And it took a pox like you to turn it sour on her. She was always the first to have her stall set up in the morning, and this particular day was a Saturday. She was there on her own when this hungry pig turns up and breaks her face up, tears her stall apart, and tells her she's finished on the street. She ended up in James's for a month with her heart broke. I caught up with the fucker a week later and tied him down, got stuck into him, and dismembered every part of his poxy body. I talked to him before I killed him, and it turns out it was himself and his mother in it from the start. So I emptied his parts all over her stall in the middle of Thomas Street, right in front of her, and I told her the same thing I told her son: that he was only a lowly cunt. And that's what you are, Buckley. And tonight you get the same treatment, with a slightly different twist. But you'll know what's coming, I'll demonstrate on your boyfriend first.”

He got up from the chair and led the way out of the room. I made urgent sounds through the tape, pleading to be heard, but Richie didn't want to hear it. He gripped my lapels roughly and hammered his forehead twice into my face, sending flashes of searing pain into the center of my head and a dizziness I thought would floor me.

“Shut your fucking hole, Buckley,” he said, and grabbed hold of Christy with Sean and shoved him along ahead of me. Apart from holding one of my arms, Matser also had a grip of my hair and, along with the glass-eyed man, dragged me into the embalming room behind Christy.

The fluorescent tubes suspended over the two steel tables bounced alive, filling the room with such stark and unappealing light that nobody present would ever be able to erase the night from their memory. I was shoved into a sitting position on a bin by the wall while Christy was pulled onto one of the embalming tables and pushed onto his back. He grunted and squirmed under their force, his left leg trembling so violently it banged the steel repeatedly, but they pulled him and stretched him out until he was rigidly still. Vincent stood by the counter, taking a good look at the instruments laid out before him, which Eamonn had left sparkling clean.

“Open his shirt,” said Vincent. Sean ripped it open, sending the buttons dropping to the floor, while Richie struggled to hold Christy down.

“Matser,” said Sean. “Give us a hand over here.”

Matser left my side to help them, giving the glass-eyed man both my arms to hold. I had to somehow get Vincent's attention without getting head-butted again.

“Want to cut that, Vincent?” said Sean, pointing to Christy's vest. Vincent picked up a scalpel and moved to Christy's side while Matser, Richie, and Sean held him down.

Christy's breathing quickened through flared nostrils while his eyes locked wildly with mine. I sounded the syllables of Vincent's name as urgently as I could, imploring him to look at me, but he didn't. He took a hold of the neck of the vest and cut it down the middle to expose Christy's bare chest and belly.

I tried to get his attention again with my voice and even tried to shake my hip out to expose the collar but got a knee to my right kidney and a thumb dug deep into my neck, which was kept up afterwards. Christy just groaned for mercy, his face a maddened grimace.

Vincent's hand glided over the different instruments until he stopped above the trocar, which he picked up and gripped in his hand and pursed his lips approvingly. He turned to me with a mirthless little smile.

“I've got to get my back into it, is that what you said?”

I pointed my head desperately towards my belt, willing them to look, but all I got was the thumb stuck deeper into my neck.

“Watch now, keep fucking watching,” whispered the glass-eyed man, with his mouth pressed to my ear.

Christy's feet writhed around in agonized circles while he expelled fearful fits of breath. I grunted and moaned as loud as I could and shook my pelvis against the force being applied to me.

“Now, a triangle, Buckley, between the sternum, the naval, and just here on the left, is it?” said Vincent, getting the trocar ready to penetrate the skin over Christy's abdomen. Christy's eyes rolled madly, and he writhed and groaned.

I steeled myself with everything I had, violently shaking my whole frame until I'd freed myself enough to be able to reach for the collar and fling it onto the table beside them. Before I could see Vincent's reaction, the glass-eyed man had jumped on me and was pounding my face and head in a frenzy of elbows and fists. I held my hands up to stop him and then saw Vincent pushing him aside and reaching down to pull me up, lifting me by my throat and slamming me down hard on the empty table. I could hardly breathe with the strength of his grip around me.

“What the fuck is this?” he said, holding the collar, and then he crawled up on top of me. Up until now there'd been a controlled stillness to his menace. But seeing the collar changed all that. He'd just let the animal out of its cage.

I grunted from behind the tape. He ripped it off me, picked my head up, and slammed it back down on the steel.

“What have you done?” His voice was guttural.

My heart thumped inside my head.

“I've got the dog . . .”

He gripped the skin of my mouth and cheeks in his hand like he was about to tear it off, and with his free hand, he picked up the trocar like a dagger and buried it in my left shoulder. The pain was excruciating and immediate and spread instantly across my chest and up my neck, restricting my breathing to shallow gasps.

“Call,” said Vincent, through clenched teeth, still gripping the trocar. In my peripheral vision, I saw Sean put a phone to his face. The room went silent while he waited, Vincent never once taking his focus off me.

“Angela, it's Sean. Listen to me, check where Dechtire is, will you? . . . Thanks, love.”

How many more beats before my heart gave me up? It was drumming through them fast, regardless, getting me closer to Eva all the time. I fought back a momentary urge to smile and thought of Christy, who I had to get out of there before I could drop the body. I couldn't turn my head to look at him with the trocar still in me, but I knew he was all right, at least for the moment. If I could get him out in one piece and unpunctured, I would die willingly.

“Right. No, don't worry . . . bye.” Sean ended the call and turned to Vincent. “Nowhere. And the gate's wide open.”

Vincent pressed the trocar forward, making me roar, the severity of the pain nearly knocking me out.

“Where is she?” he said, stilling the trocar. I winced to talk.

“You can have her back as soon as you let Christy go.”

“Nobody's going fucking anywhere, Buckley. Now whoever's holding the dog, get them on the phone . . . now.”

“No,” I said, and braced myself for the worst. He moved the trocar back and forth like he was changing gears, sending the pain shooting down my whole trunk and arm and into the pit of my stomach and bowels. This was the purging. This was my agony in the garden. The blood collected on the table behind my shoulder and streamed down to my armpit and left side.

“Get them on the phone right fucking now,” said Vincent. He'd stopped moving the trocar and waited along with everyone else in the room for my answer.

“There is no phone, just a straightforward trade: Christy's life for the dog's. I've come here to die—your brother's blood is on my hands—but Christy did nothing. Let him go and you get the dog back tonight.”

Vincent pulled me up by the lapels.

“Everything's veneer with you, Buckley. You drive your wife's car while keeping the murder weapon concealed in your fucking garage. You laugh behind my back while playing the caring friend. And now there's no fucking phone. Maybe there's no one holding the dog, either. You drugged her, didn't you? You drugged her and have her in the boot of your car. Tell me the truth, Buckley,” he said, squeezing my face in his hand. I could only talk through gasps of breath I was so overwhelmed by the intensity of the pain, and the swelling bruises on my head pulsed relentlessly.

“The dog isn't hurt and will remain that way. She's with a person who's got acres of land and nothing but love for the dog, and you'll never find her. I never made the phone call an option because they're not equipped to talk to you and I wouldn't put them in the position.”

“And you organized this tonight, did you?”

“I made it happen tonight, but it occurred to me that it'd be the perfect life for the dog on Wednesday in your garden when I was petting Dechtire.” This was my last act, and knowing he could read the truth, I loaded my story with the truth of Christy's right to live, which came straight from my heart. Everything else was just dressing. “If Christy walks, the dog will be delivered to Terenure tonight.”

“How will they know Boylan has walked?”

“Webcam, O'Connell Bridge.”

“You want me to take your word on all this, do you?”

“You know the truth when it's uttered. I surrender, you've got me, and you get the dog back tonight, unharmed, once Christy has walked.”

I don't know if Vincent expected me to tell him the dog's throat was going to be cut or that she'd be drowned, but whatever it was about my answer, he climbed off me and spat on his hands to wipe the blood off while his men waited patiently for his decision. He took a grip of the trocar, which was sticking straight out of me, and pulled it out, leaving me bleeding badly and unable to sit up. Vincent moved across to Christy's side and tapped the stainless steel table with the trocar.

“Get up,” he said. Matser and Richie released their grip, and Christy climbed down off the table and faced Vincent, who raised the bloodied trocar to Christy's jugular.

“Now, Boylan,” he said. “Deirdre's sixteenth birthday . . .” He let the words hang there for Christy, who just stared at him, horrified that his daughter's name was known by Cullen, never mind mentioned.

“That'll be a nice day for the family,” said Vincent softly, the picture of composure again. He stared at Christy a few moments longer. “Be wide now,” he said, and moved the trocar down by his side. Christy looked over at me, his mouth sealed, his eyes the saddest I'd ever seen them, and slowly shook his head.

“Get him out of here,” said Vincent. Sean pushed Christy out through the door into the selection room, and they were gone.

The glass-eyed man had cut another length of gaffer tape and was in the process of pressing it over my mouth when Vincent raised the trocar.

“Leave it off him. I want to hear him scream,” he said, looking at me, deadpan. It was reluctantly taken off me while Matser and Richie each took a hold of my arms and legs respectively, and stretched me out just like they had Christy. My shoulder ached badly, and the temptation to try to access my independent channel was enormous, but I held fast. This was my cross to die on, my rack to purge into; there'd be pain, and plenty of it, but not fear. And waiting on the other side was Eva.

Sean came back in and joined them all in looking down at me. I'd never been faced with such collected contempt in my life; the hatred in Scully's eyes was matched by every other man standing, except Vincent, whose eyes contained something different: smoldering fury, a thirst for vengeance, and a resolution to uphold his code of honor. But not hatred. He slowly unbuttoned my shirt to expose my bare torso and gently ran his hand down my chest and belly. I tried to level my breathing, knowing it would only be moments now till I was joined again with Eva. I closed my eyes and imagined her waiting for me, whispering that everything would be okay, that this was just the slipping of the skin.