Beyond the Odyssey stood Samson and Goliath, the massive gantry cranes towering over the old shipyard. On the other side of Queen’s Island, a small airplane circled the City Airport, now renamed after the great George Best, the footballer who destroyed himself with alcohol. The plane’s engine whined and buzzed. McKenna’s shoulders rose and fell with each breath.
Fegan raised himself up to sit behind the politician, the gun still at the center of the seat-back. The sweat-damped fabric of his shirt slid across his shoulder blades. He looked around the patch of waste ground they were parked on. No CCTV, no people. Only the rats to witness it.
And the followers.
They moved between the pools of darkness, watching, waiting. All except the boy. He leaned against the driver’s door, cupping his hands around his eyes, staring at McKenna though the glass.
“Look at that,” McKenna said, indicating the stretch of land around the cranes. “They’re calling it the Titanic Quarter now. Can you believe that?”
Fegan didn’t answer.
“There’s a fortune being made out of that land. It’s good times, Gerry. The contracts, the grants, all that property they’re building, and everybody’s got their hand out. But, Jesus, they’re naming it after a fucking boat that sank first time it hit the water. Isn’t that a laugh? This city gave the world the biggest disaster ever to sail the sea, and we’re proud of it. Only in Belfast, eh?”
McKenna fell silent for a few seconds before he asked, “What do you want, Gerry?”
“Make a phone call,” Fegan said.
“Who to?”
“Tom. Tell him to close up. Tell him you dropped me off and you went to see someone at the docks. If he asks who, tell him it’s about a deal you’re doing.”
McKenna’s laugh betrayed his fear. “Why would I do that? Why would I phone anyone?”
“Because I’ll kill you if you don’t.”
“I think you’ll kill me anyway.”
Fegan looked up to the rear-view mirror. He could just make out McKenna’s eyes in the darkness, his glasses reflecting the light from across the water. “There’s dying and there’s dying, Michael. Two very different things. You know that.”
“Jesus.” McKenna’s shoulders shook as he exhaled. “Oh, Jesus, Gerry. I can’t.”
Fegan raised the Walther’s muzzle to the base of McKenna’s skull. “Do it.”
McKenna bowed his head and sighed. His mobile phone’s screen washed the car’s interior with a blue-green glow. The phone beeped and burbled in his trembling hand before he brought it to his ear.
“Yeah . . . Tom, listen, just lock up and take the cash home with you . . . He’s all right. I put him to bed. I’m over at the docks . . . To meet a fella . . . Just business. Listen, gotta go. I’ll pick up the cash tomorrow . . . Yeah, all right . . . See you then.”
The phone beeped once, and its soft light died.
McKenna turned his head. “Do you remember when we were kids, Gerry?”
Fegan smelled sweat and fear, McKenna’s and his own. Enough memories were stirring without this.
McKenna continued. “Do you remember that time the Brits got us for bricking them? What were we, sixteen, seventeen? Remember, I threw the first one and went running. Wee Patsy Toner was too scared to do it, so he came running after me.”
He craned his neck, trying to see Fegan. Fegan jabbed the gun’s muzzle against the back of his head until he looked straight ahead. Ahead to where the followers waited. Except the boy. He still stared through the driver’s window.
McKenna laughed. “Not you, though. You were never scared. Not of anybody. You stood your ground. You waited till you saw the whites of their eyes before you chucked yours. Remember, you hit one of them in the face. Their heads were poking out the top of the Land Rover and the brick hit him right in the nose. Blood pissing everywhere.”
“Enough,” Fegan said. Memory cursed him.
“And then they chased us up the Falls. Jesus, do you remember? You and me laughing, and wee Patsy screaming for his ma.”
Fegan pressed the gun harder against McKenna’s skull. “I said enough.”
“And they got us in Brighton Street. Christ, they kicked the fuck out of us, didn’t they? Oh, that was a beating. And do you remember . . .” McKenna’s shoulders shook with laughter. “Do you remember they got hold of wee Patsy, and he pissed himself all over one of them?”
A smile found Fegan’s lips and he wiped it off with his free hand. “They broke his arm for that.”
“That’s right,” McKenna said, the laughter dying in his throat. “And we joined up the next day. Broke your ma’s heart, that, didn’t it?”
“That’s enough.” Fegan’s eyes burned.
McKenna’s voice turned to a snarl. “It was me got you in, Gerry. Me. I got you in with McGinty and the rest. They’d have never taken you without me. Don’t you forget that. You’d have been nothing without me, just another Catholic boy on the dole.”
“That’s right,” Fegan said. “I’d have been nothing. I’d have done nothing. And those people would be alive. That boy would be alive. He’d have a wife, children, a home, all of that. We took that away from him. You and me.”
McKenna’s voice boomed inside the car. “He was a fucking tout. He squealed to the cops. He was dead the second he opened his mouth.”
A stillness settled in Fegan. “That’s enough,” he said.
“Gerry, think about what you’re doing. The boys won’t let it go, ceasefire or not. Stormont or not. They’ll come after you.”
A tear traced a warm line down Fegan’s cheek and he tasted salt. “Jesus, I promised myself I’d never do this again.”
“Then don’t, Gerry. Listen, it’s not too late. You’re drunk and you’re depressed, I know. You’re not at yourself. There won’t be any trouble if you stop now.”
Fegan shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
“Thirty years, Gerry. We’ve known each other thirty—”
The Walther barked once, throwing red and grey against the windscreen. McKenna slumped forward onto the steering wheel, and the Merc’s horn screamed at the night. Fegan reached forward, pulled him back against the seat, and silence swallowed them.
He climbed out of the car and used his handkerchief to open the driver’s door. In the scant light from across the water he saw McKenna’s dull eyes staring up at him, his designer glasses cracked and hanging off one ear. Fegan put another bullet in his heart, just to be sure. The pistol’s hoarse shout rippled across the Lagan towards the glittering buildings.
Fegan wiped the wet heat from his eyes and looked around him. The followers emerged from the dark places and jostled for position around the open door, glancing from Fegan to the body, from the body to Fegan. He studied each of them in turn, his eyes moving from one to the next. He counted them as they retreated to the shadows.