Fanning wasn’t sure if it was a dig or not. He pretended to study the pattern on the shutters of a shop. Cully braked gently and curbed the car. He shut off the ignition and watched a couple walk by under an umbrella.
“Okay,” said Fanning.
Cully took something from a pocket inside his jacket. An envelope that had been folded twice. He unfolded it, held it level, and began rummaging for something else.
“Hold that a sec,” he said.
The envelope was light but there was something other than paper in it.
“Is that what I think it is?”
Cully took out a phone card from his jacket pocket.
“What do you think it is?”
Fanning felt suddenly vulnerable again. The city outside had been washed away by the rain running down the windows. Cully sighed as he leaned to his right and lifted the corner of the floor mat.
“I’m out of here,” said Fanning. “I don’t want anything to do with this,”
“Open the glove compartment there. There’s a lid of a plastic box, give it to me.”
Fanning pulled on the door release.
“Don’t,” snapped Cully. “You’ll blow it all over the place.”
“Look, I’ve got to go.”
“Bail out you mean. Reality too much for you?”
“It’s not that.”
“You have no clue, do you.”
Fanning watched Cully put the envelope on his knee just above where he had placed the plastic lid for the sandwich container. Cully continued to unfold the paper with one hand.
“It’s research I’m doing, not getting involved in crime.”
“You don’t say. Ever done this? Coke?”
“A few times. It was ages ago.”
He watched as Cully angled the paper up. Small grains of powder fell out. And then clumps. Cully tipped the paper back up, folded it, and put it back in its envelope.
“So what did you use then?”
“It was ages ago, I forget.”
“A straw? Smoke it? In your arm?”
“Not in my arm, Christ, no. I was drunk. I don’t remember.”
“You have an answer for everything.”
Cully had already began separating the powder into four separate clumps, and then into lines.
“I didn’t say I was proud of it,” said Fanning.
Cully tipped the phone card and handed the plastic lid to Fanning.
“Careful, okay? And close the door properly. It takes a minute. Can you spare the time?”
Fanning said nothing. The car rocked on its springs as Cully reached in to his trouser pocket. Some coins spilled between the door and the seat and he drew out a roll of bills. He peeled one off and dropped it into his lap, and replaced the roll. He rolled the banknote, tugged it tight at both ends, and then rolled it again.
“Okay,” said Cully. “Are you ready?”
“No thanks. I’ll stick with the self-preservation bit.”
Cully looked sideways at him. His face seemed to crawl with the shadows from the rain-strewn windows.
“There you go again,” he said. “Philosophy or whatever. Let me tell you something. Self-preservation takes brains. And for a bloke with a big brain, you’re doing pretty crap.”
A chill descended on Fanning. He fought to keep his arm from wavering.
“Yeah, well you should be nervous,” Cully went on. “I don’t think you realize it. You are lucky you went to that fight with Murphy. That’s what I’m saying. It was luck, not brains.”
Cully went back to tightening the rolled-up bill.
“Murphy was doing you no favours. He was playing you.”
Fanning didn’t care now if his anger showed.
“No he wasn’t.”
“Sure he was. You just didn’t know it.”
“Look, whatever it is about you and Murph-”
Cully made a sudden, short laugh.
“Me and Murph? What are you talking about?”
“All I’m hearing is ‘you haven’t a clue,’ or ‘this is reality,’ or… ‘you don’t get it.’ Like you guys are geniuses, and I’m a moron.”
“That’s you thinking,” said Cully, suddenly serious.
“And for another thing, I didn’t expect favours anyways. I pay Murph- I employ him!”
“Really? Well then. Tell me why you were paying a bloke who has fifty ways to skin you out of your money?”
“But that’s just you saying that, isn’t it.”
Alarm alternated with pride in Fanning’s mind in the quiet that followed. Light flickered off Cully’s eyes as he glanced down at the lid.
“I know what you’re saying,” said Cully thoughtfully. He looked over the lines of powder. “But…”
“I know: ‘But you don’t get it.’ I know.”
“Shut up a minute and listen to me.”
Said in the same calm tone, Cully’s words had no sting to them now.
“Murph, your bosom pal there,” Cully went on. “Now he’s nothing but trouble, isn’t he.”
“You must have said that a dozen times the past day or two.”
“That’s how long it’s taking to persuade you then, isn’t it. Struts about, cock of the walk. But what’s he got? Nuffink.”
“Nuffink. That’s more like it.”
“Thought that’d get your attention. Look, he owes all over. Can’t even cover his habit, can he.
The only way he got in was his uncle, kind of adopted him I heard. You don’t know this. His uncle was big, even inside. Inside, like…?”
“Jail?”
“Prison, you can call it. Right. Fifteen years they gave him — not here, over in England. Just another Paddy on the game there. He was greedy, to be honest. And lazy. Thought he knew everything. Didn’t do his homework on silent alarms.”
“What is his name, the uncle?”
“I’m not telling you, am I. But what I am saying is, everybody knows everybody. Here, there. People aren’t stupid, are they. But his uncle isn’t around anymore. He got the big C there last year, in the lungs. So last year, he goes to meet his maker. R.I.P.”
“I think I read something about it, wasn’t he-”
“-it doesn’t matter, I said.”
Cully placed the fat end of the rolled-up bill in his nostril.
“I’d like to hear Murph’s version of this sometime.”
“Oi,” said Cully. “Can’t you see I’m busy here?”
Chapter 39
Fanning tried to see through the teeming windows. With his index finger over the other nostril, Cully snorted one line, and then a second. He sat back and shook his head, and he began to slowly squeeze his nostrils between his thumb and his forefinger.
“Once in a blue moon,” he said then. “I only accept donations.”
He drew in his breath, closed his eyes and let it out again. His eyes popped open.
“Go ahead,” he said,” it’s proper order, it is, yes.”
He held out the rolled-up note.
“Now we’re talking,” he said. “Cock-a-doodle-doo.”
Before he knew it, Fanning was taking the lid from Cully.
“Just a sampler,” Cully said.
Fanning’s arm rested on the door again, his hand already anticipating the feel of the door release. Cully licked his lips and smiled. Fanning realized it was the first time he’d ever seen him smile.
“See,” he said. “Puts you back in the game.”
“You’re used to it.”
Cully’s eyes opened wide and then almost shut.
“Oh, I get it. I get it now. You’re sure you’re going to be a junkie now. Poof! One go and you’re doomed, right?”
“I don’t want to get into it.”
“Of course you don’t. You’re Mister Respectable. You’re going to do what you’re told. Follow the rules and all that. No wonder you want to make up stuff about criminals and all that.”
When Cully held out the lid, Fanning’s hands moved reflexively. Cully said something about holding it this way. The anger roiled in him. The end of the roll felt like a roach. Raising it with his left hand, he poked his nose with it, twice. Then it was pushing against his nostril, inside. His hands worked on. The lid was close enough to his nose for a strong scent from the plastic. He couldn’t remember having decided anything.
He let his head back. He felt the urge to sneeze, but it passed quickly. It was followed immediately by a dull burn that reminded him of a head cold. The warmth spread under his eyes.