The Devils Punchbowl

“That'’s already been communicated to me,” Sands says.

“From Hull, no doubt,” I say.

“We’re here to add the personal touch,” Kelly says. “I have a message of my own for you.”

Sands raises one eyebrow.

“I want you to understand that the only thing keeping you alive is this man standing here.”

Sands looks back and forth from me to Kelly.

“Penn is your old-school type guy. A gentleman and a scholar. Officer material, you might say. I'm more the direct type. A grunt. A grunt’s grunt might be more accurate. I have certain skills that your average grunt doesn’'t. When the brass sees a problem they can’t solve with a TV-guided bomb or an Abrams tank, they point guys like me at it. The paper pushers call it discretionary warfare. Doesn’t sound very bloody, does it?” Kelly smiles. “But you know the real definition, don'’t you? Mate?”

Sands’s good humor seems to be wearing thin. I doubt he’s accustomed to being challenged in his own office.

“I know what you did to his sister,” Kelly says mildly. “And he told me what you said you’d do to his little girl. I'm a big fan of that little girl. I like the way she smells—like clothes that just came out of a dryer. So when Mayor Cage asked my opinion of your recent

activities, I told him you were a one-bullet problem. Do you require a translation, Mr. Sands?”

Sands chuckles in appreciation. “You’re all balls, aren'’t you, Danny boy? Where was your grandfather from? Derry?”

“South Boston. You can play it as cool as you want, but you see me. You hear me. And I don'’t want any misunderstanding after I leave this room. We’re not your problem anymore, and you’re not ours. You guys can rob this town blind for all we care. Neither I nor the mayor is going to lift a finger to stop you. Am I right, Penn?”

“Right.”

“But,” Kelly adds, “if anything happens to my friend or his family—if his father should suffer a minor heart attack while walking through the produce section of the local Wal-Mart, say…then you, Jonathan Sands, will cease to exist. Your pal standing behind me too—but purely as an afterthought. I’d take him out just to get rid of the bog stink.”

I hear Quinn shifting his weight, but Sands stops him with a glance.

“Are we clear?” Kelly asks.

“Danny, Danny,” says Sands. “Who do you think you’re dealing with?”

“Rats,” Kelly says. “Informers. But that’s an old IRA tradition, isn’t it? That'’s why you have the kneecapping with the power drills and all that, to try to keep your mates from selling you out for a bottle of Bushmills.”

Sands’s eyes harden remarkably fast.

“You’re ratting Po to the government,” Kelly goes on, despite my trying to shut him up with a glance, “which sounds like a risky proposition to me, even if they get him. But if I were you, I’d be worried about what your lapdog behind me’s going to do if Po

doesn’'t

take the bait. Hull is going to want something to show for his years of investigation. Quinn might decide to flip on you and turn state’s evidence to keep his own ass out of jail. Yeah, I’d be thinking hard about that.”

I hear a quick sliding sound, and then Quinn is flying over Kelly, a gun in his hand. At first I think he’s pistol-whipping Kelly, but when the motion stops, Kelly is wrapped around the Irishman like a boa constrictor, his bulging calf locked across Quinn’s thighs, his forearm wrapped around Quinn’s neck. The Irishman’s spine is

bowed to the point of breaking around Kelly’s other knee. Sometime during this commotion Sands whistled and the white Bully Kutta went alert, but something makes Sands call him off. The dog stands with his forelegs braced three feet from Kelly and Quinn, his clipped ears back, his bunched muscles quivering, tongue panting in frustrated energy.

Then I see why.

Kelly’s free hand is holding something small and black against Quinn’s bulging neck. Thin and irregularly shaped, it looks like the ancient flint knives I used to see in my father’s anthropology books. Where the point should be, I see only skin; then a trail of blood begins to make its way down the flesh of Quinn’s neck. Sands is on his feet behind his desk, as ready as his dog to burst into action, but he can do nothing, short of ordering his dog to attack me.

“Pick up the gun, Penn,” Kelly says in a steady voice.

I look down. Quinn’s automatic is lying on the floor, two feet in front of me. It would be nothing to pick it up—if Sands’s dog weren’t here.

“You give that animal an attack order,” says Kelly, “Quinn will be spurting blood like the

Texas Chainsaw Massacre,

and I'’ll gut the dog before he’s dead. Pick up the gun, Penn.

Now.

”

I feel like I'm reaching into a cobra’s basket, but I bend at the waist and pick up the gun. There’s no question about who’s in charge in this room.

“Don’t point it at the dog,” Kelly says calmly. “Point it at his master.”

I turn to Sands, which brings the barrel of the pistol in line with his stomach.

“That'’s right,” says Kelly, like a man giving instructions to toddlers. “That dog could take three or four rounds from a nine mil, but Mr. Sands will have a hard time surviving one.”

Quinn suddenly jerks hard in Kelly’s grip, but Kelly tightens his arm and leg, and I hear a sound like rope being stretched taut. Quinn groans, then screams in agony.

“How do you like being on the receiving end?” Kelly asks mildly. He drags the black blade farther along Quinn’s neck, and blood begins to stream from the cut.

“You’re a dead man,” Sands says quietly.

Kelly laughs. “It takes one to know one. Open the door, Penn. Nice and slow. Just put your foot in front of it. Anyone but Penn moves, I'’ll sever Quinn’s carotid. Fair warning.”

“He’s bluffing,” gasps Quinn, still struggling against the hold.

With a strained smile, Kelly tightens his calf muscle, and Quinn screams like a heretic on the rack.

“I never bluff,” Kelly says. “You came after me with a gun. I kill you, it’s self-defense all the way. Right, Mr. Prosecutor?”

“Absolutely. Any reasonable person would have been in fear for his life.”

“Yeah, I almost shit myself from fear. Now, open the door.”

I obey, but slowly, the dog watching me all the way.

“Okay,” says Kelly, his voice strained from the effort of holding Quinn immobile, “just so we’re all clear. First, I'm going to let this piece of shit go. Then Penn and I are going to walk off this tub. And you two, after licking your wounds, are going to realize that business is business. You crossed the line when you brought Penn’s family into this, and I’'ve pointed out your mistake. Now we’re all going to go our separate ways.”

“Are we?” says Sands. “I think we have some unfinished business. You killed two of my dogs last night. I had an investment in those animals.”

“Consider it overhead. Now, I know what you’re thinking. As soon as the door closes, Quinn will say, ‘We’'ve got to kill that bastard. I'm not spending the rest of my life looking over my shoulder for him.’ But you don'’t have to do that, you see? For two reasons. First, because I'm a man of my word. We’re backing off. And second, because it would be a waste of time. You’d never see me coming anyway.”

Sands is smiling again, but the effect is more frightening than a scowl on a normal person. “Before you go, Mr. Kelly, let me tell you something about myself. I don'’t often do that, but you'’ve earned it, so I'’ll make an exception. You ever hear of the Shankill Butchers?”

Kelly thinks for a few seconds. “Northern Ireland. They were a Prod bunch, right? Mass murderers. More gangsters than political.”

“One of the bloodiest gangs as ever stalked the streets of Belfast. Scum, really. Grabbed Catholics at random off the streets and tortured them. Cut them to ribbons, beat them to death. When they couldn'’t get Catholics, they took whatever they found. I know,