It isn’t exactly rocket science.
Nor is he under any illusions about what might be required of him. Or about how easily an endorsement from Oberon could be withdrawn.
But still, he enjoyed what just happened, and would like more of it… the naked flattery, the attention, the access.
He places his hand on the shiny black surface of the leather car seat and strokes it. He’s enjoying this, too – being driven at speed through the city, invisible behind the tinted windows of a limousine. On the outside, people flicker past, heads occasionally turning, but never close enough to see in any detail. Buildings, storefronts, façades – these are all insubstantial, one-dimensional, the city reduced to a celluloid, hallucinogenic rush. What it would be like to have a police escort, or to be at the head of a full motorcade – open top, waving at crowds, engines roaring all around you, in the line of fire – he doesn’t even want to think about, because the whole thing gives him such a tingling sense of urgency, of power, that it’s almost unbearable…
The car pulls up outside his hotel. As he waits for the driver to open the door, he takes out his mobile phone and switches it back on.
Crossing the sidewalk, he glances left at the dark windblown canyon that is 57th Street, and feels a sudden chill.
On his way into the lobby, holding his mobile out in front of him, he sees that he has six voice messages and seven texts. That volume of traffic over only a couple of hours is just a little heavy, even for him – so before he spots Paula approaching from the other side of the lobby, ashen-faced, shaking her head, Bolger knows that something is wrong.
‘What is it?’ he says.
Paula is still shaking her head when she speaks. ‘Ken Murphy.’
‘Jesus,’ Bolger says, ‘what?’
‘He’s working on a story for tomorrow.’
‘About me?’
‘Yes.’
He swallows.
Paula seems reluctant to go on. She also seems angry, or disgusted, or just weary – he isn’t sure which.
‘And?’
‘Well,’ she says, not looking him in the eye, ‘apparently it’s something about an affair and… unpaid gambling debts?’
4
‘How’s it going, love?’
Gina turns around. She’s startled but tries not to show it. She arrived early and sat in a booth opposite the bar, with a clear view of the entrance. She ordered a bottle of Corona. She waited.
Now, unexpectedly, Terry Stack has appeared from behind her.
She looks up at him. ‘Fine.’
She wonders if he was already here. She doesn’t think so, because she looked the place over before sitting down. Does that mean he has special privileges? He’s allowed to come in by the back door?
Maybe he actually owns Kennedy’s now.
Stack slides into the booth opposite Gina. He nods at the bottle of Corona in front of her and says, ‘Get us a pint there, would you?’
For a second Gina thinks he’s talking to her, but then she sees one of his hoodies sloping over to the bar. She doesn’t want to look around again, but she also suspects that the previously unoccupied booth behind her is now occupied.
More boys in hoodies?
His security detail.
‘Thanks for agreeing to meet me,’ she says.
Gina is determined to be civil with Stack – and neutral, as neutral as she can be.
‘The pleasure’s all mine, love.’
But straightaway she’s wondering how civil or neutral it would be to tell him that her name isn’t love.
‘Whatever,’ she says, studying the label on her Corona bottle.
‘Anyway, I’m glad you’ve kept in touch, because -’
‘I wasn’t keeping in touch,’ she interrupts. ‘Jesus. I just have a few questions I want to ask you.’
‘Right, right. Yeah. Anyway, I was going to contact you.’
‘Why?’
‘We’ll get to that.’
The hoodie returns. He places a pint of stout in front of Stack and then, glancing at Gina, disappears. Stack takes a sip from the pint and clears the foam from his upper lip.
‘So,’ he says, ‘how are you?’
‘I’m fine.’
She has no intention of elaborating. It’s none of Terry Stack’s business how she is.
‘I knew Noel’s ma had a few sisters,’ Stack then says, ‘but I didn’t realise -’
He stops here, searching for the right words.
‘What?’
‘That one of them’d be so young and… gorgeous-looking.’
Jesus. ‘Well, there you go.’
She takes a sip from her bottle. He takes another sip from his pint.
‘So what do you do?’
Gina wants to scream. Is this a date she’s on? ‘I work in software.’
‘Oh?’
Not exactly the opening he was looking for, she expects, because what’s he going to say now? That’s funny, I dabble in software, too – the piracy end of things.
‘What area?’ he says.
‘Data recovery. I work for a development company.’
‘That’s interesting.’
‘No, it isn’t.’ She leans forward. ‘Look, Terry, I don’t want to talk about my job or about how I fucking am – I just want to talk about my brother and my nephew, OK?’
Civil, neutral. Nice going.
Stack smiles. He looks less like a priest in civvies today. He’s wearing a jacket and shirt but no tie. He has thick greying hair and tired brown eyes, and there’s a weird twist to his mouth when he speaks.
‘OK,’ he says, ‘fine.’
‘Right. OK.’
‘I told you I wasn’t going to let this rest, and I’m not. I’ve been making, er… let’s call them enquiries.’
He pauses for effect.
Eventually, Gina says, ‘And?’
‘You’re in a real fucking hurry, aren’t you?’
‘Aren’t you? I thought you said whoever did this was going to pay.’
‘I did. I did. And they will.’
‘So?’
Gina can’t believe the tack she’s adopting here. Is it nerves? Is she compensating for the fact that she’s actually terrified? Because the thing is, she got Stack’s number from Catherine, but before she rang him she trawled through a few newspaper archives on the Web, and it turns out that Stack’s gang not only infringe the Copyright Act to the tune of millions of euro every year, not only deal heroin, cocaine, ecstasy and cannabis, not only traffic young girls in from Eastern Europe, but they are widely believed to be responsible for – and she can’t discount, she supposes, possible involvement in this by young Noel – three recent and particularly vicious murders.
She’s also aware of the unorthodox uses to which Stack himself sometimes puts his training as an electrician.
So just what is it, she wonders – given that she’s pretty much spent the last ten years of her own life sitting in front of a computer screen – what is it that qualifies her to be so pushy and aggressive with him?
Stack shakes his head. ‘I’m getting to it. Jesus. OK, first up, there are feuds going on out there, right? Fuckers blowing each other away because one of them has a lip on him, or he gave the other one’s girlfriend a dart, or whatever, but I run a tight ship.’
She nods.
‘The lads I have working for me are focused, you know what I mean?’
Gina wants to say, Yeah, yeah, get on with it.
‘So there was no reason for anyone to do Noel, no reason I know of, no reason at all in fact.’