Norton slides across the seat to the open door of the car. He gets out. The driver closes the door behind him.
It’s cold today and quite breezy, but not unpleasantly so. As he stands on the pavement, Norton watches Ray Sullivan hurry over to join the little grouping in the middle of the concourse.
Waiting on the far side of it, at the entranceway to Richmond Plaza, there is a second little grouping – two men and a woman. This is the reception committee he has organised for the visit. It consists of the project manager, Norton’s own director of development and his senior operations manager. They are all wearing yellow hard hats and protective jackets. Over to the left, in front of the wooden hoarding, a few construction workers are standing around watching the scene unfold.
The one incongruous element in all of this, however, the one thing that makes Norton feel like he’s in the middle of an anxiety dream – the middle of a nightmare – is the presence of Gina Rafferty.
He walks to the centre of the concourse, a little unsteadily, almost as though he’s drunk. He doesn’t feel as frantic as he did earlier, which is good. But maybe that’s because he surreptitiously popped another three Nalprox tablets in the car as they were approaching Richmond Dock, and as Sullivan was occupied with his BlackBerry.
‘Ah, Paddy,’ Vaughan says, holding an arm out in a gesture of welcome to Norton. ‘Come along, come along. I was just saying to Gina here… when I was a kid, do you know who my heroes were?’
Norton shakes his head.
‘Not Batman, not Superman, not Buck Rogers, no, no, the labourers who built the Empire State, that’s who, the “sky boys” they were called.’ He waves a hand in mid-air. ‘Those young fellas in overalls, you know, the ones who stood on bare girders a thousand feet above the sidewalks of Manhattan.’
‘That so?’
‘Oh yeah. Man, those guys were incredible.’
Norton nods his head, thinking, How does this old fucker do it? If I had half his energy…
He glances around.
Standing very close to Vaughan now, right next to him, is Ray Sullivan. Phil has moved in a little closer, too.
Gina is standing there, slightly apart from the others, in her leather jacket – exposed, vulnerable.
He tries to catch her attention, but she won’t look him in the eye.
What is she thinking?
‘You see a part of the problem,’ Vaughan is saying, ‘I think, is that people don’t get the romance of it anymore, the romance of the skyscraper.’
‘No?’
‘Not in the States anyway, because we’re jaded, we’ve done it already.’
‘Done what?’ Gina says, her tone hard to gauge.
‘Look,’ Vaughan says, ‘you’ve got the Woolworth Building, the Wrigley Building.’ He checks them off on the fingers of an outstretched hand. ‘Tribune Tower, the Chrysler, the Empire State, on and on, the World Trade, Sears, whatever the next one’s going to be. No one cares anymore. But what’s happening now in Dublin, with this,’ he throws an arm upwards, in a voilà flourish, ‘well,it makes the whole thing exciting again. It’s like a return to those earlier days, it’s like… what is it Fitzgerald calls it? A fresh, green breast of the new world?’
‘Though of course,’ Gina says, ‘in reverse.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Well, it is like the frontier, I suppose, except that this time you’re heading east, back across the ocean.’ She pauses. ‘I just hope for your sake, Jimmy, that you’re not in for too much of a shock.’
Vaughan gives a little shake of his head. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Why don’t you ask our friend Paddy here?’
Norton’s insides turn.
‘Ask him what? I don’t…’
He stops.
There is a long tense silence, broken only by the hum of passing traffic, the sound of a distant pneumatic drill, the intermittent whistling of the wind blowing in now from the Irish Sea.
‘Please, Gina,’ Norton says eventually, ‘for God’s sake, you shouldn’t be out like this -’
‘Sorry?’
‘You’re not well, we know that, and -’
‘What?’
‘Your doctor, he’s advised -’
She leans forward. ‘Fuck you.’
‘OK, OK,’ Ray Sullivan says, stepping forward, arm outstretched, ‘enough already. Come on, miss, whoever the hell you are.’
Gina recoils. ‘Get away from me.’
Sullivan stops. ‘Phil?’ he says, quietly, over his shoulder.
‘What’s this?’ Vaughan asks. ‘What’s going on?’
Phil steps forward. Sullivan turns and stands in front of Vaughan, blocking his view.
‘It’s nothing, Jimmy,’ he says. ‘Let me handle it.’
Norton stares at Gina. ‘Don’t make a scene,’ he says. ‘It’s not worth it.’
Phil approaches her. ‘Come on, lady,’ he says, holding out an arm. ‘Let’s go to the car.’
She pulls away again. ‘Don’t you touch me.’
Norton swallows. Sullivan looks around. They’re very exposed here, but -
All very quickly, it happens. Phil lunges for Gina. It’s like a rugby tackle. He goes for her waist. He tries to restrain her by binding her arms together inside his own and then lowering her to the ground. But she manages to get one arm free and to wallop him on the side of the head a couple of times. The extra leverage this gives her causes Phil to lose his balance. Locked together in a wrestle, they turn and fall.
Norton looks on in horror.
Still trying to block Vaughan’s view, Sullivan catches a glimpse, over his shoulder, of what is happening.
‘Paddy,’ he says, ‘Jesus, do something.’
But Norton is paralysed. He watches Phil and Gina struggle on the ground, hears grunting, heavy breathing, is aware, too, on the edge of his vision, of an alarmed stirring – one or two of the construction workers rushing forward, the reception committee in sudden disarray.
Then there is a sharp, loud crack. It is followed by a single, brief yelp of pain. The construction workers pull back, as though reacting to the force of an explosion. The two bodies on the ground prise apart. Phil rolls sideways, remaining on the ground, and clutches the lower part of his left leg. Gina rolls the other way, but faster, with more purpose, and rises to her feet. She takes a few steps backwards, both arms held out.
In her right hand she is holding a gun.
Sullivan is saying, ‘Oh Christ, oh Christ.’ Vaughan is pale and looks confused.
Norton takes a couple of tentative steps over to where Phil is and bends down as though checking to see if the man is all right. ‘Have you got a gun?’ he whispers.
Phil nods, his face contorted with pain.
‘Then shoot her.’
Gina is looking around, and behind her. It’s clear to Norton that she has no idea what she is doing.
‘In the head,’ he says to Phil, ‘and quick.’
He withdraws.
‘Tell me,’ Vaughan is saying to Sullivan, ‘tell me… what’s going on?’
‘I don’t know, Jimmy, I don’t know. Let’s just get you back to the car.’
Slowly, Sullivan starts manoeuvring Vaughan around.
‘Don’t move,’ Gina shouts.
They stop.
Out of the corner of his eye, Norton sees Phil struggling to get something out of his pocket, then turning and raising his arm.
But in that same moment, Gina rushes over and flicks her leg up. She manages to kick the gun out of Phil’s hand and send it flying across the concourse.
Phil yelps in pain once more and collapses back onto the ground.