a hole in the car’s rear just as it reached the corner.
He bent over, coughed, and spat blood onto the tarmac. His stomach and groin smoldered with a deep, hot pain.
So, this was it. No more pretending. It was time to run, time to hide, time to find a way to get McGinty and the others. He straightened and turned in a circle, looking for his nine followers.
“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” he asked the empty street.
He took faltering steps to his open front door, his arms across his belly. He didn’t have long. Even in this part of Belfast, afternoon gunfire wouldn’t go unreported. He stepped into his dim house.
“Gerry?”
He stopped at the sound of a distant, disembodied voice.
“Jesus, Gerry, what’s happening? Answer me!”
Fegan reached into his pocket and took out the phone. “Hello, Marie,” he said.
29
“You’re a lucky man,” the doctor said.
Campbell didn’t know if he was smiling or not; his eyes were screwed shut against the pain. It wasn’t the wound in his thigh, the one the doctor was currently stitching up, that bothered him. No, it was the one at his side, the one that screamed and roared every time he breathed.
“Almost done,” the doctor said. He had been summoned to McKenna’s bar shortly after Campbell limped in, leaving a trail of blood on the floor. Now Campbell lay on a table in a back room with the retired GP sewing up the neat hole in his leg.
Fegan’s second shot had creased his flank, barely taking any flesh with it, but Campbell knew enough of wound ballistics to understand the transfer of energy from the bullet was like a hammer blow to his ribcage. The doctor couldn’t be sure if it had cracked a rib, or merely bruised it, without an X-ray. All Campbell could be sure of was it hurt like hell. A gauze pad was taped over the wound, and Campbell breathed in shallow gasps, trying not to spark another burst of pain.
“There, now,” the doctor said. Campbell heard instruments being placed in a dish. “No major damage done. The bullet just nicked you, really. Sliced a bit less than an inch at the back of the thigh. Nine-millimeter wounds are always nice and tidy. It’s a long time since I treated any of you boys, and believe me, I’ve seen much worse.”
Campbell opened his eyes and saw McGinty standing over him, still wearing his black suit from Caffola’s funeral. He hadn’t heard him enter. They watched each other as the doctor washed and packed up his equipment.
“Take it easy for a few days,” the doctor said. He placed a small bottle of pills on the table. “Stay off your feet if you can, and take three of these a day. Antibiotics, in case of an infection.”
“Thanks, Kevin,” McGinty said. He handed the doctor a roll of cash. The doctor nodded and left them.
“You fucked up, Davy,” McGinty said.
“He got the drop on me,” Campbell said, wincing at the effort. “Even crazy, he’s better than I thought.”
“It won’t do,” McGinty said. “You’ve let me down, Davy. I’m very disappointed.”
“Christ, what was I supposed to do? He had a gun to my—”
“You were supposed to fucking kill him!” McGinty slammed his fist against the table, and Campbell howled as the impact resonated up into his chest. “You were supposed to do what I sent you to do instead of running away from him.”
“He would’ve killed me.”
McGinty leaned down. “You think I won’t?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. McGinty, I never—”
“Bad enough you didn’t get him, you even had him shooting up the street. The cops were called. He’s done a runner and they’ll be looking for him. Our friend in Lisburn Road Station let Patsy know. If they get him, and he talks, it’ll get out it was him killed Caffola and McKenna, and him beat Eddie Coyle’s head in. How am I going to look then, eh? The press will rip the shit out of me. I’ll be a fucking laughing stock.”
“Did anyone see me?” Campbell asked.
“Someone saw a silver car, that’s all they got out of the neighbors.” McGinty pointed a finger at Campbell’s face. “And you’re bloody lucky, ’cause if they’d tagged you you’d have a fucking bullet in your head right now.”
Campbell gritted his teeth to quell a scream as he righted himself on the table. His left leg felt heavy and wooden, and a roman candle burned in his side. “Any ideas where he went? To the woman, maybe?”
“No.” McGinty handed Campbell his shirt. “Get dressed. Patsy Toner’s parked outside her place now, keeping an eye on her. He’s going to make sure she goes to the airport and takes that flight I booked for her.”
“Why not just do her?” Campbell asked as he struggled to get into his shirt. It had a ragged hole in the fabric, underneath the left sleeve.
McGinty’s eyes flickered. “That’s my business.”
Campbell sensed that pressing the politician would be unwise. He lowered himself from the table, feeling a deep throb in his thigh. “Fair enough, but you could use her to draw Fegan out.”
McGinty thought about it briefly. “No, too risky. Not with the press conference in the morning. If anything went wrong I’d be fucked.”
“What, then? Just wait for Fegan to make a move?”
