He was drawn out of his speculations by the rising wawa and the car horns which came in over the trees in the Green. Two police cars, an unmarked van and an army Land Rover sped by the hotel. Reflexively, he pushed his elbow into his side to feel the belt at his shoulder better and to feel the butt of the gun meet the inside of his jacket. Not for me, he thought. Only in the movies. He felt slightly claustrophobic with the noise filling the air.
He took his gabardine and went to the hotel foyer. He stepped out into the street. On the footpath outside the Shelbourne, a newspaper seller squatted on an orange box. The radio beside her chattered on and then broke into a monotonous disco beat. He walked over to the woman. The doorman from the hotel was watching the Mercedes and the Jags strewn along the double yellow line. The doorman rubbed his hands. The woman looked up at him.
"Looks like a nice how-do-ye-do, now. Shoot first and ask questions later, I say. Thugs down from the North is what they are. Disturbing the peace."
"Right enough. Thugs isn't the word for them. And them driving around in a Mercedes like they owned the bloody country. Unarmed pleecemen, I ask you. Where's the fairness in that. Shoot the buggers I say," said the doorman.
"I have a nephew out in Monkstown. I wonder if he's caught in the cross-fire," the newspaper woman said.
The doorman tried to ease the full weight of his sarcasm.
"Jases sure Monkstown is miles away. Cross-fire is it? What fillum was that in. Your cousin is under the bed if he's not inside in the shaggin' bed itself."
The tanned man stood quite still. He felt the ripple pass right to the top of his head. He turned to the doorman.
"What's going on with all these police cars?"
"Ah sir. There's some class of gunfight going on in Blackrock. There's a Garda after being killed and there's two of them on the loose-"
"— with tommy-guns," the woman interrupted.
"— and they think that they have the two of them boxed in. Turn over to Radio Eireann on that box of yours and you'll get it on the news… Hanging is too good for them. You see we're doing fine down here as you can see for yourself, sir. It's that crowd giving us a bad name abroad…"
"Indeed," the tanned man replied.
"Well, they have one of them captured so they have. I'd like to get a dig at him myself. In cold blood. What's the world coming to?"
The tanned man turned to walk toward Kildare Street. He was almost dizzy with the anger. The doorman had said there was a Mercedes involved… It couldn't be a coincidence. Some incompetents in a useless shoot-out. No discipline, probably free-lancing on a bank job. That proved exactly what he had been busting a gut trying to convince them, that personnel like the damned playwright couldn't run things. After getting them to set up a proper garage and a mechanic to do the cars for the couriers, the playwright had blithely turned over one of the cars to some amateur thugs down from Belfast. All the work and preparations and the moron had given them a car, a toy to amuse them. A car gone to waste, weapons probably captured or abandoned. Cops on edge all over the city. He'd have to close the place down right away. If one of the losers knew about the garage and he talked, the cops could be kicking the door in fast.
The tanned man tried to rescue some benefit from this episode. At least it might divert some attention away from his operation for a few days anyway. When he finished with this part, he'd have the playwright's head on a plate for this.
Minogue felt light-headed and pukey after the cigarette. It was like learning to smoke all over again. It left him feeling bloated and nervous after even the first few pulls. Kilmartin sat with his elbows on his knees listening to the odd parts of the drama that were interspersed with the other messages.
The two gunmen hadn't been sighted since the shooting. They had taken off across the gardens. The danger was in cornering them where they might use hostages. Two units from the army had set up in the area. The Special Branch and the Gardai were running down streets and behind houses. There still wasn't enough manpower to get to all the houses and evacuate people. Just over thirty-five minutes, Kilmartin reflected, and the damage was done. There was a maze of streets just south of the cul-de-sac, just a few gardens over. It was likely that they had split up and ditched the guns. Aside from a thick lip and a bang on the head, the driver was in one piece and in custody.
Minogue decided to phone Kathleen. She'd have heard something on the radio anyway, he guessed. Fair play to her, Minogue pondered as he heard her talking, she's determined not to show anything now.
"Tis a bad state of affairs to be sure. Lookit, I'm not much help here so I'll be off home soon. Do you want me to stop off at the shopping centre for anything?" Minogue asked her. The phone was greasy in his hand. He smelled his own fetid breath curling out of the mouthpiece.
"A bit of black pudding and some sausages," she said.
Kilmartin looked to him as he re-entered the dispatch room.
"Do you want a few smokes for the way home, Matt?"
"No thanks. Sure it'll be another while before I take them up again, I'm thinking. They're a great comfort though… I'd forgotten that. I'm off home now. You should go home yourself. The Special Branch lads will have the matter well in hand," Minogue murmured.
Kathleen Minogue answered the phone for the second time in five minutes. This time she didn't predict right because it was neither Matt nor the children.
"Em, no. He's due home though. A school reunion? Well, isn't that rich," she laughed. "But sure that's years ago."
Kathleen thought that the caller must have moved well away from County Clare himself. His voice had a polish to it, deliberate like Richard Burton, with a trace of country accent. "Indeed and you should, Mr…? Mr Murphy. Oh I'm sure he'd be tickled. We have the tea about six. In actual fact I'm waiting for Matt to stop off at the shopping centre to bring home sausages and the like. I wasn't out on account of the rain. Yes, do. About half six and you'll be sure to get him."
The playwright left the booth and got into the Granada. The car was no more than a year old and it had been in his possession for approximately twenty-seven minutes. It would remain in his care for about another three quarters of an hour, then to be ditched. With luck, he wouldn't leave a mark on it.
He drove off out the Bray Road, in the direction of Stillorgan Shopping Centre. He was pleased with his performance. It would look like he was giving every assistance to Mr Whiz Kid. The car insulated him from the road and the sights which slowly swept by him as he stop-started in the traffic. He observed the frustration on the faces of people standing at bus-stops. Cars inched by him, then fell back again to pass him again. He made studies of the faces in the cars. Bank managers and accountants on their way home to the vacuum of suburbia. This was the Ireland which we had fought the British for?
A woman laughed behind glass in a Jaguar. She looked like a carnival mask with that sinister leer. Made up to the hilt and wearing those stupid glasses, copying anything and everything American.
No one would have the nerve to even think that he'd tip off the Brits. After they'd taken the car apart, the council would know that he'd been wise not to entrust such a valuable weapon to the Yank's scheme. Him and his cars and his couriers. We haven't come through the lean years just to hand over the reins to some jumped-up Houdini opportunist who was trickacting with the Soviets.
In a room on the second floor of Blackrock Garda Station sat two hefty middle-aged men. One, Galvin, remained on his feet, pacing the room in a measured pattern. Formerly dark-haired, he was now balding. He had found suits disagreeable these thirty years and more and it showed. A shelf of shirt stuck out from his belt and gathered the end of his tie, itself at half mast. Galvin had the face you'd see squinting on the steps of a Sunday church in Tipperary as he'd edge out into the daylight before the end of Mass. When he moved, however, no fat jellied around him. Removed from the company of farm animals these thirty years, nature had compensated him with the attributes of a suspicious bull.