“How can you…?” His throat closed on the last words. Tierney took a step back.
“You’re so fucking out of it,” he hissed. “I don’t know what the hell stuff you do any more. I bet you don’t even remember your name.”
Jammy had given him a lot of money. That meant… His thoughts rushed back.
“Jammy! She had some fella set up, that’s what she told me!”
“What? What fella?”
“I don’t know! I don’t! She had an in with him. Told me it could go serious. He had money. She was going to take him, you know, like?”
“You don’t even know when you’re lying! It was you hanging around got her-”
“Jesus! If you really want to know, Mary was always giving me the brush-off!”
“Not often enough, you bastard! Not hard enough, either!”
He stared into Jammy’s eyes. For some reason he couldn’t keep them in focus. Smells and sounds and colours kept leaking in somewhere. His head began to feel light. The Egans, he thought. Tierney was still talking to him.
“What?”
“See, you’re out of it again! Don’t you get it? Get to hell out of here! Dublin!”
“What? How do you…? Where was she… you know?”
“How would I know? Here I am like a gobshite giving you a pile of money so as you can piss off out from under the Egans.”
“Jammy! You got to tell them I didn’t! You got to, man! You believe me, don’t you? You know I’d never hurt Mary! We’re mates, man! You’re Mary’s friend too, man!”
“Shut up. You’re making me puke here.”
“But where was she?”
“Read the paper, man, on the boat to Liverpool or somewhere.”
“Come on, man!”
Tierney’s eyes narrowed.
“Listen! There was a time when Mary had a chance. But she got dragged down, didn’t she? And it was you, you were one of the bastards that dragged her under!”
“Come on, Jammy! You know I could never do anything to Mary!”
The anger slid off Tierney’s face. What took its place scared him even more.
“Aw, Jesus, Jammy,” he whispered. “Jammy! You can’t be serious!”
“Do you think it matters what I think? You’re the fella telling me you could do anything. Wanted the Egans to know so’s they’d take you on. You’re the one, man.”
“The Egans? The fucking Egans? Jammy. Man! You’ve got to get the word to them! They won’t listen to me! Jammy? Is the whole fucking place gone mad?”
Tierney nodded his head slowly. This time he didn’t raise his voice.
“Yeah, Leonardo. As a matter of fact, it has. Didn’t you notice?”
NINE
I have to sit down, Joe.”
He yanked on the leash. The dog gasped. She leaned on his arm and lowered herself to a bench. God, he thought, the day would soon come when he’d have to take her to the toilet.
“Grand now,” she said. “I’ll be okay in a few minutes.”
He sat down next to her. The canal was calm and full. Why did she want to go for a walk by the canal this hour of the morning? He took off his glasses and rubbed them with his hanky. The edges of his vision had the familiar blur now. He tried to remember if the eyes had already been like this last year.
“They said that there’s low pressure on the way.”
What was she talking about? She turned to him and smiled.
“The news, Joey. The weather forecast, I mean. Do you know what that means?”
No, he didn’t. Forecast sun and you’d better bring an umbrella. They were as bad as the politicians. Not for him the endless speculation about the weather. Guessology. Facts or nothing. He’d been the happy man in his job. Forty-four years of inventories, lists, parts, serial numbers. Locating, ordering, shipping, investigating.
“Long enough we’re waiting, aren’t we, Joe? For the bit of rain.”
Jennings, his boss, had died four years ago. A big crowd at the funeral, all his kids-grown up, of course. Seven kids, Jennings had had. Lucky number, ha ha. If anything ever happened to him or the wife, he used to say, didn’t they have the seven to fall back on? He yanked on the leash again.
“What’s wrong, Joe?”
“Nothing’s wrong. I was just thinking.”
Daughters loved their fathers more, he’d heard. If they’d had a boy, it would have been an Edward. Eddie, his own father’s name. Edward Thomas Byrne. Thomas after his uncle.
“Were you thinking about the poor girl?”
He looked into her eyes.
“Why would you think that?”
“I’m just asking, amn’t I? That Guard you met.”
He shifted on the bench and looked out over the water.
“What about him?”
“You were talking to him, weren’t you?”
“That’s right, Mary. I was talking to him. And he was talking to me.”
She sighed.
“I can tell you’re getting annoyed.”
“No, I amn’t. Why would I be getting annoyed about meeting a Guard?”
The skin around her eyes creased but she didn’t smile.
“You get like that when you’re annoyed.”
He stood and let the dog lead him a few steps.
“He’s the one’d be annoyed. ‘A bit late in the day for yous to be showing up,’ says I.”
Mary Byrne rose slowly from the bench. She took a few steps before standing upright. Clutching his arm, they walked toward the lock.
Method, he thought. Everything accounted for, sorted, on the proper shelf. You knew where you were going, what you were looking for, where it would be. A simple rule: there was a place for everything. And that was long before computers too. The wands you wave at a label and that puts the numbers in a computer-they’d taken over completely now. Next step’d be robots getting the parts and taking the bloody money off the customers. Jennings, God rest him. Of course he was fond of the gargle and everything, but a decent man, saying to him: “By God, Joe, you have the most remarkable system here in Parts, the best in Dublin.” He’d meant it too. Jennings was the old school, of course. Always had the time of day for you, would ask your opinion and all. Always asking to be remembered to the wife.
“It was on the news,” she said. “They asked for anyone who was around the place.”
“Yes, Mary,” he said.
“Witnesses, like.”
Why couldn’t people conduct business like that in this day and age? Get organized, be smart about things. Know where everything was, or, if it wasn’t in stock, where to get it. He remembered the satisfaction, the joy even, of finding a bulb, a bracket, a clamp-right there on the shelf, exactly where it was supposed to be. Put it right down on the counter in front of their noses. And the look on their faces! How did you do that, Joe, was the usual question. I went to where I knew it was, he’d tell them, to where it was supposed to be. That simple. Oh, you’re a beaut, Joe, they’d say. Fellas phoning up from all over the country, looking for parts.
“You heard that, I suppose.”
“They do that a lot nowadays, Mary.”
