As if Minogue's new-found vigour had by default led him to lassitude, Kilmartin slouched in the back seat listening to the driver. He was becoming aware that Minogue was more than merely contrary. Because Minogue did what he had just done so rarely, it appeared almost aggressive. Kilmartin decided he needed some time in the near future to sort out how to deal with Minogue. The sergeant was stroking his neck in anticipation of a reply on the radio.
"Takes 'em long enough," the sergeant muttered.
Kilmartin idly watched two drunken men staggering arm-in-arm down Dame Street. They didn't even notice the police car.
Then Minogue was climbing into the front seat, breathing heavily.
"'A magenta Toyota Cressida,' he said."
"What?" said Kilmartin.
"It's a magenta Toyota Cressida. It's on its way north tonight."
"What are you saying?" asked Kilmartin.
"All this talk of a big Japanese car. I was thinking about that McGuire girl, the Walsh boy's girlfriend. Allen gave her a lift to the funeral in a fancy car, I'm sure it was a Toyota, and I think it was a magenta colour. You know, the one you don't know if it's crimson or purple. I could kick meself, so I could."
"But how in the name of Jas-" Kilmartin began.
"— I asked one of the porters, one of the fellas who works in the college. He checked the parking passes off a list."
A voice yowled on the radio.
"No reported thefts of that type. A magnet… a magan-a magenta Toyota Cressida or Datsun. Over."
"Tell them," Minogue said. His wide eyes bored into Kilmartin's.
"Hold on a minute," Kilmartin leaned over. "Tell them what?"
"The suspect car is heading for the border."
"But the tip-off was for tomorrow, Matt."
The driver looked to Kilmartin.
"Over," the radio said.
"Allen has a car like that. He's gone up north to deliver a lecture. He left a day early. He's the one."
Kilmartin's frown bit deep into his forehead. "The professor fella who does the peace lectures?"
"Allen. Dublin registration. A Professor Allen."
He ate in McDonalds in Grafton Street. His throat was still tight, barely letting food down. The restaurant was full. He looked around and realised that almost all the customers were young people. The older folks didn't trust hamburgers. So this was freedom and progress. He looked down at the shoulder bag under the table and he thought back to his exit from the hotel. The shift had changed for the evening and he hadn't been noticed. He had peeled off the moustache in an alley. The glasses irritated the bridge of his nose. He could discard them later.
The food tasted the same as stateside. Near the bottom of his coffee cup, he decided that he should try to get out tonight from Dun Laoghaire. There was nothing else for it. Either he left tonight or he waited for a week or two. His disguise was foolproof up to the point of someone checking when he had entered the country. They'd never go that far.
He stepped back out onto Grafton Street and crossed onto the footpath which led to the Front Gate of Trinity College. Busses and cars swept by him. The lights of shops spilled out over the path opposite. He remembered that the ferry left at nine o'clock.
He felt quite alone for the first time since he had landed. This bothered him all the more when he wondered as he passed people if they knew he was carrying a gun or that he had killed someone. There was no one he could phone or say goodbye to. This is absurd, he thought: get some control. Nothing would be served by an attack of nostalgia on top of the fear. As he passed the front of the college, he noticed a police car turning into Dame Street. The doubts began to creep in again. What could McCarthy tell them if he was picked up? His thoughts turned to wondering how much surveillance there would be at the dock in Dun Laoghaire. Had they installed a metal detector there since he got the O.K.?
Ahead of him, the bustle of O'Connell Street lit up the bridge. A tinker woman with a baby shawled next to her breast sat by a cardboard box on O'Connell Bridge.
"A few ha'pence, sir, to feed the child," she said.
He walked by her thinking of O'Connell, the Liberator, with beggars in his liberated land. In the distance he heard a siren. It came from behind him, from College Green and it faded quickly.
As the police car sped up Dame Street, Minogue watched the red light spilling and wiping along the buildings. The siren seemed to vibrate inside the car. For a few moments he wondered if this was real at all. In five minutes he'd be aloft in a helicopter from Dublin Castle on the way to the border. Ridiculous, to be sure. Was that him who shouted at Kilmartin to get him a place on it with the Special Branch men? And why had he insisted so? He wanted to see Allen's face, to tell him something, not to ask him questions. Minogue didn't know what it was that he should tell Allen. His mind struggled, looking for a grip on some words.
"Have you ever been up in one of those things before?" Kilmartin asked.
"Never in my life," replied Minogue.
The car shuddered over the kerb and stopped abruptly at the gate to Dublin Castle. Walls loomed over the car. A uniformed Garda walked over to the car. The driver knew him. The Garda nodded his head and returned to the booth. The barrier lifted soundlessly. '^r
"Who owns it?" Minogue asked.
"Who else but the bloody army. They can get what they want these days."
Minogue stepped stiffly from the car. He was excited and nervous at the prospect of being whisked away into the night in this contraption. Kilmartin called out to him and he paused. Kilmartin half lay on the seat looking out under the window at Minogue. Looked like a child, Minogue thought.
"Matt. Don't bite any of your company in that whirlygig thing. Remember you're on the trip on sufferance. I'm a bit out of order insisting on you going along so don't poison the well for me. The Branch men will make the arrest and have him driven back to Dundalk most likely. I'll be arranging from this end that they give you a few minutes with him. You know this fella better than I do."
"So: observe," Minogue said
"Now you have it."
Minogue recognised one of the men who had sat with him in Pearse Street listening to McCarthy. He walked over to Minogue.
"Are you the one who hit the button on this?" he said.
"Sort of, " said Minogue, anticipating trouble.
"Be the living jases you must be some kind of magician. Would a bit of it rub off on me now?" he said.
Minogue smiled despite the excitement. It felt like he hadn't smiled for days. He fleetingly recalled the moments in Bewley's, the talk around the tea-table at home: worlds away.
He followed the Special Branch men out through the building to a tarmacadam pad. Eerily, a light helicopter sat there. To Minogue it looked like a big insect. Its blades were claws, its Plexiglass screen a giant eye. Two men in jogging suits stood next to it, smoking. In the floodlights the smoke writhed Hallowe'enish toward the machine. Both men looked up when Minogue and his companion neared the helicopter. Just like that, Minogue was thinking. We're going to walk into this thing, like a bus. One of the two eased into the seat and switched on what sounded like a ventilator fan.
"Are we right?" the other said.
"As right as we'll ever be," the Special Branch said. He looked at Minogue and said,
"It'll be cold, er… "
"Minogue. Matt Minogue. I'll be all right. How long will this yoke take?"
"We'll be landed and sitting in the customs post within fifty minutes. Less even."
"Be the hokey fly," Minogue marvelled. What was that expression? 'I have seen the future and…?'
As the craft lifted and bowed away over the city, Minogue was again stunned. It was incomprehensible that no wires held this thing up. The city was completely changed from here. It fell away under the belly of the helicopter like glowing embers of a coal fire. To the east the sea was in blue darkness. Ahead of them, then veering away, he saw runway lights at the airport. Minute moving lights of cars pulsed along the veins of this thing below. The lights petered out as they tended to the mountains. Minogue sat between the pilot and the Special Branch man. It felt as if he were in their care. The helmeted pilot was shockingly casual about it all, drawing lightly on the stick, commenting into the stalk microphone which stuck out from the gladiator helmet. Over the rotor noise, the Special Branch man shouted.