43
Fegan knew it was useless, but he tried again anyway. The phone refused to come to life no matter how hard or how many times he pressed the button. The screen was cracked and the casing loose.
He brought it to his ear and shook it. Something heavy rattled inside. He could hear its movement above the rumble of traffic from the New Jersey Turnpike.
The Doyles had bundled Pye into the back of the car and sped off from the diner, leaving their driver lying on the sidewalk. Fegan was confident they would leave him alone for the time being. Packie and Frankie had both looked terrified. But they wouldn’t stay scared for long. Fegan needed to move.
He placed the phone on the motel-room dressing table. The dreams had been bad during the night, fire and screaming. He had woken soaked with sweat, his heart racing, his lungs burning for oxygen. Even now, hours later, he saw the flames every time he closed his eyes.
A jet roared overhead as it approached Newark Airport. Fegan took two items from his bag and laid them next to the broken phone: a roll of hundred-dollar bills, totalling just less than three thousand, and an Irish passport in the name of Patrick Feeney. From his window he could see the lights of an airplane as it took off.
‘I’m going home soon,’ Fegan said, his voice hollow in the miserable room.
He started packing.
44
The place felt more like an airport than a hospital, all glass and open spaces. Even a sculpture of a snake clinging to a pillar outside the entrance, for Christ’s sake. The Traveller moved among the halt and the lame, avoiding their glances. Women in dressing gowns wandered aimlessly, coffee in hand, some clutching cigarette packets and lighters. Doctors who looked like children walked in pairs and threes.
No matter how clean it was, no matter how new, the smell of sickness still underlay everything. The Traveller hated hospitals almost as much as he hated the medical profession. Hospitals were churches of the dead and dying, and doctors were the thieves who robbed the corpses, even those corpses that still breathed.
One of the thieves approached.
‘Are you looking for A&E?’ she asked, a bright young girl with a white overcoat and pens in her pocket.
‘No,’ the Traveller said, turning a circle as he scanned the reception area.
‘Oh.’ She stepped away. ‘Sorry. It’s just your eye looks—’
‘My eye’s fine. Where do you keep the stroke victims?’
‘Depends,’ she said. ‘When was the patient admitted?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘I mean, they could be in ICU, or in Admissions, or on a ward, or—’
‘I’ll find him myself,’ the Traveller said.
As he walked away, he heard, ‘Well, fuck you, then.’
He turned back to the girl, but she was already striding away, her head down, her arms churning.
‘Cunt,’ he said to her back.
45
Lennon recognised Bernie McKenna, Marie’s aunt, hovering over the bed, fussing about the motionless form, adjusting pillows and straightening sheets. Bernie stiffened as Marie approached, but did not look up. Ellen clung to her mother’s fingers, her doll dangling from the other hand.
‘So you’re back, then,’ Bernie said, her stare fixed on the bed.
Marie faced her across the bed. ‘How is he?’
‘How does he look?’ Bernie smoothed the sheets and spared Marie a glance. ‘Poor cratur doesn’t know where he is. You’d have been better going to see your mother. It’d do her more good than him.’
Bernie looked up from the grey sliver of a man once more and saw Lennon. Her eyes narrowed as she searched her memory for his face; her jaw hardened when she found it.
‘Jesus, you brought him here?’
‘He gave us a lift.’
‘I don’t care what he gave you. You shouldn’t have brought him here. Has he not caused you enough trouble?’
‘I’ll take a walk,’ Lennon said. When Marie looked to him, he said, ‘I won’t go far.’
He backed away from the bed and looked around the bay. Old men gazed back, their eyes vacant, IV lines and oxygen masks hanging from them. Lennon shivered and went to the corridor. He leaned his back against the wall, keeping the women and the little girl in his vision.
They would be safe here, he was sure of that.
46
The Traveller watched the cop through the swinging doors as nurses and visitors brushed past him. He couldn’t see the woman and the kid from here, but he could tell they held the cop’s gaze.
Maybe this was the place to act, maybe it wasn’t. A lot of people around. Sometimes that was a good thing. People are generally cowards. They’ll keep their heads down if they can help it, not get involved.
Either way, he had time. All the time in the world.
47
Ellen clutched the doll to her chest and smiled at the air above her grandfather’s bed. Lennon wondered what she saw there between the slanted shafts of light and the shadows. She opened her mouth and spoke, but Lennon couldn’t hear her from his position at the other side of the corridor.
Marie and Bernie turned their heads to her. Bernie’s brow creased while Marie showed nothing but a kind of surrendered fatigue. She put a hand on her daughter’s cheek, said something, and her shoulders sagged at the answer. Marie’s father watched them both with watery eyes that showed no understanding.
Ellen said something, pouted at her mother’s response, said it louder. Marie closed her eyes and breathed deep. She stood, took Ellen’s hand, and marched her over to Lennon.
‘Please, take her for a walk, will you?’ Marie said.
‘What’s wrong?’ Lennon asked.
Marie looked down at their daughter. ‘She’s being a bold girl. Telling fibs. In front of Auntie Bernie, too.’ She levelled her gaze at Lennon, her eyes shadowed with weariness. ‘I’m sorry, it’s just too much. Not when I have to see my father like that. Not when I have to face Bernie.’
Lennon straightened, lifting his shoulders from the wall. ‘Do you trust me with her?’
‘I don’t have much choice,’ Marie said, placing Ellen’s hand in Lennon’s. ‘She’s safer with you than anyone else. I mean, you’ve got a fucking gun, haven’t you?’
Ellen stretched her hand up towards her mother’s mouth, but couldn’t reach. ‘You said a bad word.’
Marie seemed to fold in on herself, a tired laugh breaking from her. ‘I know, darling. I’m sorry.’
‘I’ll take her,’ Lennon said. ‘If she’ll come with me.’
Marie hunkered down, took a tissue from her sleeve and dabbed at Ellen’s face. ‘You’ll go with Jack, won’t you, love? Maybe he’ll take you to the shop downstairs. Get you some sweeties.’
Ellen leaned close to her mother, whispered in her ear, ‘Who is he?’
Marie lifted her head, glanced up at Lennon, the sorrow laid naked across her face. She gathered Ellen close. ‘An old friend of Mummy’s. He’ll look after you.’
Lennon swallowed a sour taste.
Marie untangled herself from her daughter, looked her in the eye. ‘I’ll be right here, okay? I’m not going anywhere. I just need to talk to Auntie Bernie for a wee while. Jack will bring you right back up once he’s got you some sweeties, okay?’
