A fleck of saliva hit his cheek but he didn’t flinch. This man wasn’t fat. This man looked as if he had just left a maximum security prison, possibly through the wall. As she stood three inches from him, his chest looked as big as her bed. He glanced back to the drunkard boss, who flicked his wrist in the direction of the door.
The Mountain stepped between her legs and took hold of both arms, ready to wrestle her out of the bar. He was expecting Paddy to fight him but she went limp and he fumbled as she slid below his waist, letting go for a second, giving her an opportunity to duck around him and scream across the table, “He threatened my son!”
The Mountain grabbed her around the waist, dragging her back from the table just as the tracksuit came forward and punched her in the stomach. It wasn’t an expert punch. The flat of his knuckles didn’t slam into her spine, but made a short jab up to the diaphragm, knocking the wind out of her, bruising her lungs, making her jackknife over the arm.
An uncomfortable quiet fell over the bar. The tinny music droned in the background, an upbeat tune with a jig rhythm. She opened her eyes as the Mountain spun her in a half circle. The whole bar was watching them now, retreating, appalled.
The Mountain dragged her on her heels, not to the front door but out the back.
“What the fuck did ye do that for?” a Scottish voice asked.
Lifting her head for a second, she saw the tracksuit shrug.
They were going through a fire exit door, painted black with a bar handle, leading straight out to the dark and a dirt floor next to stinking bins. He lifted her over his own leg, dumping her but keeping hold. Rats scuttled away behind a wall and Paddy realized that she was utterly fucking done for.
The door slapped shut behind them, blocking out the music and the silence, leaving them alone. The Mountain pinched her face between his thumb and middle finger, cutting the inside of her cheek on the edge of her teeth, and held her up to look at him. He was very calm.
“You-”
Behind him the door opened again and Paddy shut her eyes, expecting the tracksuit with his sharp jab.
“Off. Inside. Move it.”
She opened her eyes. Donaldson.
The Mountain dropped her back onto her feet and turned. “Oh,” he said, politely, “awful sorry.” He looked down at her. “Awful sorry. Are you OK?”
She nodded hard, hoping he’d go away. Donaldson flicked his thumb at the door and the Mountain stepped back into the bar, letting the door fall shut behind him.
Donaldson reached out and brushed her shoulder, making her jerk upright, flinch away from him.
He dropped his hand and stepped back, giving her space. As she breathed in deeply a sharp pain shot across her gut, making her feel as if she might vomit.
Donaldson stood calmly by, hands in his pockets, letting her gather herself together for a moment before turning back to the door. “That was…” He looked perplexed. “Well, that was… what it was.”
The bins behind him were stuffed full, overflowing with ripped black bags and bottles, newspapers and smell. Paddy rubbed her stomach. “That wee shite in the tracksuit’s working for you?”
Donaldson dropped his head and pinched his nose, his shoulders jerking.
“I don’t see what’s so fucking funny.” She sounded angry when he had just saved her. She shouldn’t. He might step back in and send the big guy out again.
“Ah.” He held out his hand. “Come on.”
“Come on what?”
“Come on, shake my hand. You’re a wild woman.”
“My house is smashed up, he pissed on my bed. My friend died and I’m trying to find out what happened to him. Is that what happens to people who ask questions? I thought you nut jobs were all about justice for the workingman and truth, for fucksake.”
He looked at her playfully. “Well, girlie, that’s a different story from the one you were telling me the other day. You sat across from me and said we were nothing but thugs who’d hijacked the history of the Fenian Brotherhood.”
“And that annoyed you enough to set that wee shit on me, did it?”
“That wee guy is a-what’s this you call them, neds?” He savored the unfamiliar word and fell serious. “He hangs around the bar, trying to be part of something he doesn’t understand. He hasn’t any conviction, knows nothing about history. He’s just angry. People tolerate him.”
“You know about history, do you?”
“I got a two one from Trinity.”
She looked up at him, not sure if he was telling the truth, but he seemed serious and rather impressed with himself, the way genuinely degree’d folk did. “Well, no one with a degree ever did a bad turn, did they?”
He flashed a dutiful smile. “The boy’s a sympathizer for a cause he doesn’t understand. Thinks making his first communion qualifies him as a Republican. He wasn’t following anyone’s orders; we wouldn’t send him for cigarettes. He was here that day you phoned. He must have asked the barman who called and gone looking for you. He’d be trying to impress the boys. He’s a hanger-on, nothing more.”
“The Celtic top was a clever disguise.”
Donaldson pinched his nose and laughed again, shaking his head to stop himself. “I’m very sorry. We’ll tell him to back off. I had no idea.”
She rubbed her stomach theatrically.
“Still got that photo, have you?”
She didn’t answer him.
He swiveled on his heels, looked around the dark yard, looking at head height, looking for people. “Ye want a safety tip? Get rid of the picture.”
“Yeah.” She was annoyed he hadn’t asked her about her stomach. “No one likes the McBree picture. I gathered that.”
He moved closer to her, sliding in, shoulder on. “Meehan, Paddy, if I can call you that.” He was standing so close to her and his voice was so low she thought for a moment he was going to try and kiss her. “That picture.” He shook his head and stopped, staring hard at the bins. He stepped away from her and raised a hand. “This is my office, ye know. This bar, this filthy yard. This is where I do all my business. I got quite a thrill when you came to see me the other day. I don’t know who told you I was the man to talk to, but they were wrong.” His face laughed but his eyes didn’t. “I used to be the man, but now…”
Donaldson was a bit pissed, she realized. It made him more animated than he had been the other day, loose, and it suited him.
“What are you doing in Scotland?”
“Oh, I’m out. They sent me away. I used to be the king of the Sweetie Bottle Bar. Drank with all of them, gave orders from there. If a woman was worried about her boy she’d come and see me, ask me…” He stopped, looked back at her, staring at her chest, taking that male, every-seven-seconds moment.
She circled her sore stomach with her hand, finding it helped. “Sweetie Bottle Bar?”
His face warmed in remembrance of a better time, when he mattered. “Ye know the Sweetie Bottle?”
“No, just… good name. I read about your son in the clippings. I’m sorry for your troubles.”
“Aye.” He didn’t react. He must have heard it a hundred times.
They stared at each other across the gloom of the evening, both fat and out of shape, both sick thinking about their sons.
“What should I do with the picture?”
He answered quickly. “Burn it.”
“Or one of you’ll kill me?”
He shook his head slowly. “Not us.”
“McBree came to my house. He threatened me. I was lucky. My son was out and someone else was there or I don’t know what he’d have done.”
“But we don’t kill journalists.”
“Ye bombed the Stock Exchange a month ago.”
“We gave fourteen different coded warnings half an hour before it went off.”
“Are you telling me McBree’s working alone?”