But still, anything was better than before, when the shadows of the dead followed him through Belfast’s backstreets and alleyways.
He threw the blankets aside and let the damp air jerk him awake. Even as his consciousness flickered to life the dream-figures climbed the walls. He blinked and rubbed them away. The heels of his calloused hands scoured his eyelids as the city’s early rumbles and screeches seeped through his single window. He hoisted himself upright and dropped his legs over the side of the cot.
The scarring on Fegan’s left shoulder itched, a shiny pink sun surrounded by the slashes of amateur stitches. He rubbed them with his palm, the layers of hard, cracked skin scraping the irritation away. Aches of fatigue rippled through his shoulders and arms as he stretched.
Last night, just before knocking off, Tommy Sheehy had given him a message from the Doyles. They wanted to see Fegan at the site this morning. The summons had been gnawing at his gut ever since. He knew about the Doyle twins, both round-faced, cheery men. They were forever slapping their workers’ backs, making jokes, sometimes slipping a little cash in their pockets, winking, saying, ‘Get yourself a drink, son, you’re a good grafter.’
And the workers would smile, nod, say thank you, and never look the Doyle brothers in the eye. The boys on the site talked over sandwiches and flasks of coffee. Fegan didn’t join in the conversations much, everyone knew he was a quiet one, but he listened. They said Packie Doyle fed a man’s liver to his dog. They said Frankie Doyle made another man cut off his wife’s little finger in front of their children. Fegan knew enough of hard men to know the stories were most likely just that: stories. The truth would be much uglier.
He knew a killer when he met one. Packie Doyle stank of it, Frankie more so. They wanted to see Fegan at nine. The radio alarm clicked on. He slapped it quiet. Car horns and shouts rose up from the street, echoing between the high buildings.
Fegan got to his feet, crossed his one room, and raised the blind. He pulled the window up, ignoring its creaking protest. September warmth flowed around him. The air in this old building was always colder and wetter than outside.
Just two months he’d been here, and he loved New York. Never mind the miserable room he shared with mice and cockroaches. This city had no memory. No one cared who he was, what he’d done. He could walk through the crowds, as clean as the next man, his guilt buried. Until last night. Until the Doyles sent for him.
‘You’re Gerry Fegan from Belfast,’ Packie Doyle said.
‘
You’ve got me wrong,’ he said.
The Doyles each grinned the same grin back at him, Frankie from behind the big mahogany desk, Packie from his perch on the windowsill overlooking the alley behind the bar. Plastic sheeting covered every surface to protect it from plaster and sawdust.
‘Oh, yeah,’ Packie said.
‘We’ve got you wrong,’ Frankie said.
‘My name’s Paddy Feeney,’ Fegan said. ‘I’m from Donegal. I showed your foreman my passport.’
The foreman had no qualms hiring an illegal immigrant for the renovations. Most of the boys were illegals from one place or another. He’d given Fegan a day to prove his carpentry skills. He didn’t look too hard at the passport.
‘If you’re not Gerry Fegan from Belfast,’ Frankie said, ‘you’ll not be bothered that someone’s looking for a man of that name.’
Packie said, ‘Someone’s willing to pay good money for the whereabouts of a Gerry Fegan from Belfast. They even sent out a photo.’
Frankie placed a computer printout on the desk. It showed a man in his mid-to-late twenties, sharp, hollow features. The picture was at least two decades old, a police mug shot.
‘It’s not me,’ Fegan said.
‘Looks like you,’ Frankie said.
‘A lot like you,’ Packie said.
Fegan looked at the young man in the picture. It made him ache at his centre. ‘It’s not me,’ he said.
‘We did some asking around,’ Frankie said.
‘Called some boys in Belfast,’ Packie said.
‘They said Gerry Fegan’s a mad bastard.’
‘Said he was hard as they come.’
‘Dangerous.’
‘A killer.’
Both men had round heads like light bulbs, and thick bodies. If you were stupid, you’d think them fat and slow. Fegan knew different.
Packie got off the windowsill, came around the desk, and sat on its edge. Cheap aftershave scratched at Fegan’s nasal passages.
‘I saw you take on that big Russian fella,’ Packie said. ‘He was twice the size of you, and you flattened him.’
Fegan knew he’d regret that. Andrei wasn’t Russian, he was Ukrainian, and he had a bigmouth. He’d been needling Fegan all day. He said something ugly about Fegan’s mother. Fegan hadn’t lost his temper, his pulse had barely risen. ‘I just wanted him to leave me alone,’ Fegan said.
‘Fuck, he left you alone, all right,’ Packie said. ‘He didn’t even come back for his pay.’
Frankie sat quiet, now, letting his brother talk. Hemet Fegan’s gaze and smiled.
‘It won’t happen again,’ Fegan said. ‘I’m not a fighter.’
‘Paddy Feeney may not be a fighter,’ Packie said, ‘but Gerry Fegan sure as fuck is.’
‘I told you, I’m not this Fegan.’ He got to his feet. ‘I’m Paddy Feeney, and that’s all there is to it. If you don’t believe me, there’s nothing I can do for you. I’ve work to be getting on with.’
He turned to the door.
‘Sit the fuck down,’ Frankie said.
Fegan turned back to the brothers. He’d thought he was done with taking orders from men like these. Hard men, men with a hollow place inside that allowed them to profit from the suffering of others. Fegan had known many such men. He’d killed some, but that was another world and another life. He sat down.
Frankie smiled. ‘So, you’re Paddy Feeney from Donegal. Do you have a good life here, Paddy?’
‘It’s all right,’ Fegan said.
‘You making a few bucks?’
‘A bit,’ Fegan said.
‘You’re good with your hands,’ Frankie said.
Fegan didn’t like the way Frankie licked his lips. ‘I can cut straight. That’s all this job needs.’
‘But you’ve more skills than that,’ Frankie said.
Fegan looked at his feet.
‘Do you want to earn a little more money?’
‘I earn enough,’ Fegan said.
‘No such thing as enough,’ Frankie said. ‘Just a small job here and there, nothing too strenuous. Good money for a man with good hands.’
‘I don’t need more money,’ Fegan said.
‘Maybe you don’t, but that’s not really the point, is it?’ Frankie said. ‘Let’s say we take your word for it. Let’s say we believe you’re Paddy Feeney from Donegal, not Gerry Fegan from Belfast. We don’t get in touch with the man who’s looking for this Gerry Fegan and tell him we might know of his whereabouts. There’s nobody by that name works for us. How much is that worth?’
Fegan looked from Frankie to Packie. ‘I need to get back to work. I’ve the handrails for the staircase to finish.’
‘Sure, you take a day or two to think about it,’ Packie said.
‘Talk to us in a couple of days,’ Frankie said.
Fegan stood and went to the door.
‘One thing, Gerry,’ Packie said.
