Brennan clutched the walkie-talkie tighter behind his back and glanced over at the video camera set high in the wall. The big fella turned away. He was taking another swig out of the bottle.
Enough was enough. Brennan stepped over.
“Look,” he said. “That’s the limit.”
The big fella dropped the bottle inside his jacket. He stared at some point on Brennan’s chest.
“What’s A, P, F? I mean, you’re not a real cop, are you?”
“Airport Police, and yeah, I am a real policeman. Now turn that thing down, get your gear and move on.”
“- The F, though. There — APF F stands for something. Right?”
Brennan stared at him.
“Airport Police and Fire Service. Take your mates too.”
“So it’s like fires too, you have to put out fires, right? Like, big fires?”
Brennan stared into the bloodshot eyes. He couldn’t tell if it was just the slagging or something else on the way.
“Okay,” he said. “That’s it. Out of here. It’s over, let’s go.”
“Well wait a minute here.” The big fella wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’ve got me rights haven’t I? No one’s hassled here, are they? All we’re doing is seeing the band off.”
He lit a cigarette. His eyes stayed steady on Brennan’s. A guitar riff howled behind him. The big fella started to snigger and turned away, shaking with laughter. Brennan looked from face to face, down at the ghetto blaster, the bags, the rucksacks. Badges everywhere, paint, beads, studs. And they thought Public Works was still the local lads, their pals. Gobshites. They didn’t even cop on that Public Works had their own frigging jet at the far end of the airport. That they were going off to do a video somewhere. That worldwide success didn’t begin with the bloody band climbing out of taxis and buses like ordinary Joe Soaps and pushing trolleys up to the bloody check-in. He wished he could tell them.
“All right then,” Brennan muttered. “Don’t say I didn’t tell you.”
A minibus with tinted windows had stopped near the doors.
“Look,” the big lug called out. “It’s the lads!”
Brennan knew that he’d left it too late. He made it in front of the girl. The others moved around him. He thumbed to transmit, hoped to God Fogarty or someone had been keeping an eye on things. Not a bloody Guard in sight. The girl got by him. There were hands pawing the minibus. The big fella had his face plastered up to a side window on the van. Fogarty, the supervisor, answered on the radio.
“They’re mobbing a van here,” Brennan said. “We need to get people out.”
He began shoving the teenagers away.
“Leave the van alone!” he shouted “That couldn’t be them!”
The girl with the face full of hardware shrieked the name of the lead guitarist. Brennan squinted in the window himself. Could it be someone from the band? The tint was so bloody dark.
“Get back!” he grunted and he shoved the girl.
He caught a glimpse of a sticker by the bottom corner of the windscreen. Squiggly writing, dots, a piece of a moon. Oh Jases, he muttered. Where did they put their CD signs now, those diplomatic plates? Well it was their own bloody fault. He turned and grasped the big fella’s collar.
The doors to the terminal slid open. Fogarty and Jimmy Doyle and the new fella what’s his name were coming out full tilt now. About bloody time. -
The big fella turned. The loose look on his face had turned to something narrow and Brennan knew he’d have to get a hold of him rapid, pull him off balance. Behind the lug, though, a window on the van slid down to reveal two startled brown eyes staring at Brennan. Masks, he wondered, but no, some of those things the women wore because… APF Brennan opened his mouth to say something and then fell backward as something connected with his cheekbone.
Chief Inspector James Kilmartin was on a roll now, and he knew it. He slid off his stool and hitched up his trousers. Minogue knew the routine: the cute countryman, nobody’s fool — so look out. He looked at the faces in the huddle around “The Killer” Kilmartin here in the bar of the Garda Club. One of the Guards, a red-faced sergeant, kept shaking his head and rubbing his eyes. Every now and then he’d repeat things Kilmartin had said and he’d chortle softly. Kilmartin leveled a finger and swept it around slowly by each of the Guards.
“So it’s getting dark now,” he said. “This poor Yankee tourist, he’s getting kind of worried, isn’t he?”
Over at the far end of the bar Sergeant Seamus Hoey was rolling depleted ice cubes around the bottom of his glass. Minogue counted back it was seven months since Hoey had transferred out of the squad. He now worked in Crime Prevention. Kilmartin still thought this was hilarious, annoying, stupid. A Guard didn’t just opt to leave the squad, especially to join a joke shop like Crime Prevention. On top of that he’d become a teetotaler of nearly one year’s standing. Kilmartin had stopped slagging him about that after Minogue had asked him whether he’d still be making the jokes if Shea had succeeded in his suicide attempt. Detective Garda Tommy Malone, who had taken up Hoey’s position in the Murder Squad, was staring at the goings-on in Hoey’s glass. He seemed to be mesmerized. Malone was simply knackered, Minogue decided, same as himself. The few pints had slammed the door on the adrenalin that had kept them going these past few days.
Kilmartin’s voice grew louder.
“I mean here he is, out in the back of beyond, down amongst the buffs of County Clare… ”
Kilmartin looked across at his friend and colleague, Minogue, and his wink gave way to a leer. Minogue raised an eyebrow to register the slur against his native county. This seemed to enliven Kilmartin.
“So anyway,” he went on voice, “here’s this fecking tourist, this poor iijit of a Yank, beginning to wonder if he’d been given proper directions at all. Researching his ancestors, walking in ditches, and staring at oul cow sheds — you know the routine! What happens but doesn’t he fall over this courting couple in behind a ditch…”
The red-faced sergeant began to chortle. Kilmartin paused and leaned back, let his tongue trace his bottom lip.
“Now you know what they’re up to,” he said.
The sergeant laughed outright. Malone drifted over to Minogue and laid his glass on the counter.
“Another pint, boss? My twist.”
Minogue shrugged. Hoey had followed Malone over now.
“Is this the Family Member one?” Hoey asked. “Or the Old Log Inn?”
“Family Member,” said Malone. “But we won’t know for a while yet.”
Minogue looked at his watch. Half-six. Kilmartin had insisted on taking them all to the Garda Club. Sure didn’t they have plenty to celebrate, God damn it, was the chief inspector’s tack: a) Tynan fighting off the decentralizing shite from the Department of Justice for another year. Who’d have thought he’d be coming to our rescue at all? Then b), finally getting the chief supers with their whinging about dispersing the squad buried for another year too? Tynan again, strangely enough, and this time telling those yobs just how bad crime had gotten here in Dublin with the frigging jackals and hyenas and wolves doing their own take on the Celtic Tiger rigamarole? Not to speak of c) Hoey’s promotion, the speed of it and all…? And not to mention d) that bastard Harte finally coughing up for the Dunshaughlin shooting?
Laughter erupted from around Kilmartin. Minogue had missed the punch line again. Now Kilmartin was heading their way. Minogue tracked the chief inspector’s approach, the slow rolling gait, the faked punch to the stomach of the laughing sergeant, the clumsy headlock and guffaws. High spirits entirely, and why not: Kilmartin was away on three weeks leave as of this evening. He could nurse his sore head on the plane to Boston tomorrow. As of one hour ago, in fact, Minogue had become acting head of the Murder Squad.
Kilmartin drew up opposite Malone.
“Well now, Molly,” he said. “Anudder one, den? My twist and all, now.”
“No,” said Malone. “Thanks.” Kilmartin turned to Hoey.