Wind buffeted the car once, twice.
“I’m going in,” Minogue said finally. “Come on in yourself, sure.”
Kilmartin pretended to think about it.
Chapter 9
“Jacko’s a psycho,” Murph said. “Only you here, I’d tell him what’s what.” Murph had insisted that Fanning give him the two fifties. He would do the business with Jacko. His role, he had called it. Fanning eyed three more men arriving from the parking area. With their darker, wind-burned faces and their country accents plain in the sparing words, he was sure they were tinkers.
“Extortion is what it is,” said Murph. “I’ll sort him out later. Come on.”
Fanning watched Murph hand over the money.
“Behave yourselves,” Jacko said. “And bet lots.”
Murph pulled the handle on the galvanized door, and Fanning followed him into the dimness beyond. A short passageway led to a room the size of a school gymnasium, a storey-and-a-half high. Small groups stood around, men all of them, and they talked in low voices under small, slow clouds of cigarette smoke. There was some kind of half-disassembled industrial shelving at one end of the room, and discarded pieces of engine parts in a heap to the side.
Fanning’s first thought when he saw the chain-link was that it was a mistake. A chainlink cage simply belonged outdoors, not indoors. The strangeness of it continued to rub at his mind until the astringent smells pressed in sharply on him, cleaning fluids and fresh sawdust scattered in the enclosure. The chain link had to be six feet high, at least. A yard brush leaned against the outside of the cage, and beside it a shovel. The bright blue heads of masonry nails stood out from the bases of the sockets that anchored posts to the cement floor.
Fanning stood next to Murph, and avoided any eye contact with the groups of men. He studied the walls instead, the windows that had been filled in, the two painted-over skylights. One man from a group had detached himself and had begun strolling toward the far end of the room, slowly rubbing his face up and down like a comedian pulling faces while talking on his mobile.
“How come he gets to keep his phone?” he whispered to Murph.
“None of our business.”
A squat, bearded man walked smartly in from the hallway. His beard had the same blue-black tinge as his hair. The groups of men had noticed him, and they shuffled and turned to face him.
“I’ll take bets before,” he called out.
He had the same torn and gravelly voice as one of the Dubliners, the folk group that Fanning’s father had liked, and whose LPs he had later regretted discarding after the funeral. The bearded man coughed, and rubbed his hands.
“No bets during. For those of you here the-.”
He held up his arm then, and he fumbled in the pocket of his wind-cheater. He turned away then and spoke into his phone.
“We’ll see the talent in a minute,” Murph murmured to Fanning. “No rush.”
The smell of disinfectant was stinging Fanning’s nose now. He noticed darker patches on the cement floor next to the wire. The bearded man closed his phone, and whistled.
“A squad car taking its sweet time out on the Ballygall Road,” he said.
The shuffling stopped, and most of the men looked away. Low talk resumed. The man with the beard strolled toward where Murph and Fanning sat.
“Do I know you,” he said to Fanning.
“No way,” said Murph, smiling. “A mate of mine. Sound, so he is.”
“Is he not able to talk?”
Murph’s laugh was forced.
“Ah no, he’s not. He’s a dummy. Aren’t you?”
Fanning said nothing.
“There’s a pair of you then,” the bearded man said. “If and he’s in your line of caper, Murph.”
“Comedy club we’re in here, is it.”
“I’m not trying to make a joke.”
He turned back to Fanning, who concentrated on putting on his most neutral, attentive expression.
“Been here before?”
Fanning shook his head.
“He’s just trying it out,” said Murph. “See if he can make a few bob. I got the okay from Jacko.”
The bearded man’s eyes drifted slowly away from Fanning’s.
“You have him gambling for his fix, do you,” he said to Murph.
“Christ,” said Murph, and shook his head. “What a thing to say.”
“Why’s that? Business these days. Oh. Tell him if he pukes he’ll be cleaning it up himself.”
His eyes darted back to Fanning.
“No hard feelings there, head-the-ball.”
“Ah no,” said Fanning. “You’re grand.”
Something that was almost a smile came to the man’s face, but his stare remained flat and empty.
“He says I’m grand. Did you hear that. ‘You’re grand’ says he.”
“He only means he gets it,” said Murph. “He understands, like. Not as thick as he looks.”
The bearded man’s attention went to the hallway then, and he turned away. Murph elbowed Fanning. “What did I tell you? Didn’t I tell you to keep your trap shut? Didn’t I?”
“He asked me a question.”
“No he didn’t. He gave you notice, that’s what he done.”
“Notice, what notice.”
“You’re on his radar, is what. Don’t be telling people ‘You’re grand.’ Especially him. He runs the thing.”
“I know who he is, you know.”
“It doesn’t matter who he is. This is just something he does. On his own.”
Fanning stretched slowly, to put distance between himself and Murph’s breath. Turning, he saw the bearded man in profile. He was talking quietly to a man with a deeply furrowed forehead and bloodshot eyes.
“He’s one of the Delaneys,” Fanning said, unwinding his stretch.
Murph gave him a scathing look.
“Their pictures are in the papers,” Fanning said. “Newspapers, that is.”
Murph spoke in a low voice, barely moving his lips.
“Christ’s sake. We have serious talking to do after this, I’m telling you.”
Goading Murph had given Fanning a small portion of satisfaction. While Murph took out his cigarettes, Fanning stole another glance at the man Delaney was talking to. He was clean-shaven, in his late twenties Fanning calculated, wearing a newish leather jacket. The furrows on his forehead suggested that listening to Delaney took all his concentration, or patience. He gave curt answers to Delaney, pausing to yawn once. Fanning heard him say something about an Eddsie. It was an odd accent, not quite Dublin-sounding.
Delaney asked him another question. The man answered. Delaney’s head went back, and a look of distaste came to his face. “West Ham?” Fanning heard him say. “What kind of a name is that?”
Smoke from Murph’s freshly lit cigarette washed over Fanning’s face then. As he batted it away, a smell of aftershave came to him in its wake. Who the hell would douse themselves with it, and then show up here?
Delaney and this man were now joined by another man, also in his early twenties. There was a sleepy, morose look to him. His hands hung in the pockets of a plain, zippered jacket. His eyelids slid open and shut to reveal a flat, unfocused gaze. The bored teenager look about a decade later than it should be, Fanning wondered. Probably just stoned. Delaney was staring at him, but the man seemed to be making a point of avoiding eye contact. Delaney glanced at the maroon T-Shirt showing above the zipper, and a sliver of some crest visible, and he turned away.
Murphy’s elbow was sharper than it needed to be.
“Cut the gawking.”
“What colour’s the West Ham jersey?”
“The what? West Ham what?”
“The football team.”
“Christ, I don’t know, do I.”
Another volley of cigarette smoke came his way from Murph.