Fear slammed into Fanning.
“I don’t want this,” he said. “This is wrong.”
“Give it to me then. Your bleeding phone.”
With that, West Ham grabbed his arm and pulled it up. Fanning didn’t resist. One of the men was speaking now.
“Your pockets,” Cully said to him. “Empty your pockets.”
“Policia?” said the man. “Policia?”
“Yeah we’re Policia. Now empty your pockets.”
“How do you work this stupid thing?” West Ham asked.
The man that West Ham punched was straightening up. He eyed West Ham and then Fanning himself.
“How?” West Ham said louder.
“The menu, the main menu. Scroll down a bit.”
“Do you know what pockets are?” Cully said, his voice rising. “Pockets, yes. Empty, now. Yes. Now, you’re deaf as well as stupid?”
Fanning saw the man’s hand go to his coat pocket. He stayed in a crouch and glanced back to the other.
“Video?” West Ham said. “Yeah, yeah. Okay, I did it, yeah.”
He held up Fanning’s phone.
“There we go,” said West Ham. “Smile, thicko. You’re going to be a star.”
The other man with Cully was protesting now.
“Papieri, policia? Papieri?”
“No papieri. Empty your pockets.”
“No speak English good.”
West Ham turned, the phone held out.
“Now it’s working. You take it.”
The man glanced at Fanning and then he launched himself at West Ham.
“Got a knife,” Cully called out.
West Ham let go of the phone, and Fanning followed its fall, watching it hop sideways and come to rest. His phone, he thought, wrecked: a man with a knife not twenty feet from him, another who had a gun.
The man with the knife hesitated, his free hand over his stomach still. He shouted a name, Andrey.
Cully’s man had stopped talking, and was now staring at him.
“No Policia,” the man with the knife shouted. “No.”
“Do him,” Cully said to West Ham. “Do him, now.”
West Ham stepped forward, and his hand came from his back with a pistol. The man with the knife shouted, and spread his hands.
“Put down the knife,” Cully said. “Put it down. Down?”
Fanning felt the brickwork against his back. He couldn’t remember getting to the side of the laneway. His phone was still flipped open, and there were no broken pieces around it that he could see. He looked back toward the street. Where were the Guards, here in the middle of Dublin? The man with the knife seemed to be pleading.
“Down!” yelled Cully. “Put it down.”
Still, Fanning did not dare look over. He heard something clatter on the cement. The two men were almost shouting now. Cully told them to shut up.
He risked a glance over, saw West Ham stoop to pick up a knife. The two men had backed closer, and Cully had stepped away from them.
“No,” Fanning said. “Don’t, for Christ’s sake!”
“Shut up you,” said West Ham, and shoved the pistol into the back of his jeans.
“You can’t do this,” Fanning said. “You can’t.”
West Ham’s impassive face twisted suddenly into a grimace as he ran at the knife man.
He brushed aside a feeble arm and gave him a hard kick, and then kicked again as he went over. He said nothing as he kicked, and he darted in and out from the flailing man, dancing almost, and landing kicks. The man tried to cover his head, but West Ham landed a kick under the man’s chin. The man yelped and turned on his side, and Fanning saw spots of blood on his lips. West Ham jumped in again, and a flurry of kicks followed. The man curled up, squirmed, and tried to roll away.
West Ham paused, his wheezy breath coming fast. Then he darted in with a kick to the side of his head. Something small had fallen on the pavement and Fanning saw pink and white. Now West Ham was whispering something into the man’s ear, and he dragged him upright, grabbing his arm and turning it behind his back. Without warning West Ham shouted, jerked the arm hard with a grunt.
Fanning himself yelled now, jammed his eyes shut and pushed his palms hard onto his ears. Still he heard the bone break. He opened his eyes for a moment, saw the man’s contorted face as he tried to shout something. The man went suddenly limp. West Ham let him go and he fell heavily to the cement.
West Ham strolled toward Cully. The other man had backed to the wall. His face had gone white; his jaw moved but he said nothing. He watched Cully go through the unconscious man’s pockets, scattering bills and ripping open a packet of cigarettes. Cully lifted out a set of brass knuckles from a pocket and turned to West Ham and made a sly smile. Then he picked up the wallet and pulled out cards.
“Andrey,” he said. “Andrey sombody I can’t pronounce.”
West Ham stood staring at the other man.
“Who do you work for?”
“I no,” said the other man. “I no know nothing, nothing. Family. A poor man. Nothing.”
“You don’t look too poor to me. Who are you with? You and him. Who’s your boss?”
“No boss, no. Roma, many bad people, no like Roma.”
Cully held up a small bag of pills.
“Who gave you these?”
“Nothing, is not.”
“Ecstasy? X?”
“No, nothing. A man. He give to me. He say ‘sell, I give you money.’”
“What man? Who?”
“I don’t know man.”
“Irish? Ireland?”
He would not look back at West Ham’s stare. But suddenly his eyes left the ground and darted toward the alleyway.
“Oi oi,” said Cully.
A middleaged man with a shopping bag was now standing there, frowning, his mobile half-open in his hand.
“Is that man hurt?” he called out.
Cully stepped forward, picking up Fanning’s phone as he did. He stuffed it in his pocket and lifted up the man’s wallet again.
“Drug Squad,” he said. “Garda Drug Squad. You need to stay back now, there’s a squad car on the way. Thank you.”
“Drug Squad? Is that man hurt?”
“An overdose,” said Cully, “the ambulance will be here any moment.”
The man looked at West Ham, and headed back down the street.
Cully turned back. Fanning saw the man start as Cully stepped in closer to him.
“Go,” said Cully and flicked his head toward the street. The man was trembling now; he nodded at the man on the ground.
“No,” said Cully. “Go, or…”
He drew his finger across his throat.
West Ham made a feint in the man’s direction as he passed, and the man stumbled, falling into Fanning. His stomach heaving and chest ready to burst, Fanning pushed him off. He had the clammy foretaste of puke in his throat.
“Yeah,” said West Ham, and began picking up banknotes. He crammed the wallet in to his pocket.
The man on the ground moaned but he did not open his eyes. Fanning looked at his mouth and saw the blood was still draining down his chin. Cully was talking to him.
“You go through the pub, there’s another door out, do you hear me.”
Fanning stood rooted to the ground, watching the other man skip rapidly down the street.
“Gary, take him with you.”
Fanning felt exhausted, and the cold, sweaty calm that came before vomiting had enveloped him. Somewhere in the nausea and reeling thoughts, it registered with him that now he at least knew this lunatic’s real name.
Chapter 24
Minogue was almost finished making his notes from the Effects list. Hughes himself had compiled it from the room at the hostel. Passport, Polish government documents: social welfare card, bankcard. No driver’s licence for a twenty-two year old? No address in Ireland for contacts, for friends. Former friends even?
“We have one of the boys in here now,” said Wall. “Mr. Aidan Matthews.”
“Arrest, or for questioning?”
“Straight arrest,” said Wall, with a strong hint of satisfaction.
“And what class of humour is he in?”
“No real fireworks,” Wall replied. “But he’s a Dub, isn’t he. A bit belligerent when we put the word on him. Bit of effing and the like, but no actual resistance. He said we’d be sorry. Promises to sue us.”