wherever you go… He stopped and looked out toward the Main Road again. The lump in his throat was gone. He was thirsty again. He scratched the handle of the knife with his thumbnail. There were bits of dried clay in the hinge now. He looked down at the knife and then dropped it into his pocket. He had started something with that phone call, he realized. He couldn’t just stand here. It was late enough. He was going back into town.
Malone’s lower lip was still swollen. He fingered the Elastoplasts on the knuckles of his right hand and stared at the passing traffic. Minogue was still surprised that Kilmartin hadn’t fired a few jibes Malone’s way when he’d seen him. Just a look, he recalled, a look a zookeeper might give an ape who had unexpectedly pinched him as he was delivering the day’s food to the cage. The two detectives were parked across from the offices of Kenny, Doody Chartered Accountants. They were waiting for Kilmartin’s call. The Chief Inspector needed time to dig up any muck on Kenny he could before Minogue and Malone walked in. Minogue didn’t ask Kilmartin what he could unearth beyond what he had himself seen looking back at him from the computer monitor: no criminal record. He suspected Kilmartin could filch credit info from one of his cronies in the bank.
“Yeah,” said Malone. “That’s about the size of it. Hickey knows the score the same as anyone else coming from his side of the street would. Sees the likes of the Egans running the show, Guards or no Guards.”
He took a swallow of the can of 7-Up he had brought with him from the squadroom and grimaced.
“You have to live in the place to know what I’m saying really. It’s no good talking in the abstract and stuff. If you’re in a neighbourhood and it’s run by gangs, I mean. You can’t move out, you don’t have a job. You can’t go crying to the Guards because they can’t protect you in the middle of the night. You know what I mean?”
Minogue glanced over at him. Yah know whar ah mee-ann? He had missed Malone, his Dublinisms.
“Two generations of men unemployed where I grew up. Nothing to lose, the young fellas. Rob a car, get a thrill. Joy-ride it, torch it. Get pissed and start a fight. Bang up. Do time. Me, I was a skinny little bollocks, so I was. Very much the Mammy’s boy. So I got into the boxing. Now, with the boxing club, I tell the kids to save their best for the fellas coming by with the needles and the dope. I tell them to beat the living shite out of them and I’ll take care of the rest.”
Minogue gave a breathless laugh. Malone swished more 7-Up around his mouth. He gave the Inspector a rueful look.
“Not the official line there, don’t you know.”
Malone seemed to be suddenly distracted by the traffic. He began tugging gingerly at his lip. Minogue looked at his watch. They’d been waiting ten minutes now.
“So what are we going to work on this Kenny fella with?” Malone asked. “Mr. Accountant. The fact that a barman or bouncer working there saw him talking to Mary a couple of times over the last few months?”
“It’s a start. Dropping the name of the Squad is a good opener.”
“I noticed.”
“Him seeing how serious we are when we ask him for the car too. Watch him.”
“What if it pans out into just a client thing? You know, Mary doing a call-girl or escort type thing with him?”
“We work another angle. Follow other, ahem, lines of inquiry. Leads.”
“That’s it?”
“That might be it for the Mercedes thing. We have Hickey to find, don’t forget. We need to go back over Jack Mullen and his timetable again. There’s Lenehan-he might crack. The teams might pick up something more from the door-to-door. Maybe we’ll turn up an associate we haven’t seen yet. Just go at it again.”
“Huh.”
Malone suddenly crushed the can in his fist. Minogue looked down at the knuckles and back up at Malone’s frown. The detective continued to stare at the top of the can. Minogue decided to wait for Kilmartin’s call no longer.
The phone went as Malone was locking the car.
“Just going in there, Jim. Yes. No, I didn’t want to wait any more… For what? Nothing? Okay. Yes. He’s what? I think I remember that one, yes. About a fishing village and a ghost or something? We’ll go ahead with the walk-in. No. Okay.”
He switched the phone back to stand-by and handed it to Malone.
“Seems Kenny is as clean as a whistle. Among his accomplishments are doing the money end for films and theatre. His finances are in good order. Unfortunately.”
“Bet you he jumps on the phone for a solicitor,” said Malone.
“Do you think, now.”
“Yeah. Southside prat, isn’t he?”
“Aha. You’ve been to the night courses on psychology? Okay, let me try you on this. What if Mr. Kenny does not wish to help the Gardai with their inquiries?”
“Give him the chop, boss.”
“Give him the chop,” said Minogue, nodding. “Phone call?”
“From the station. He’ll open the car for us first or he’ll give us his keys.”
“You’re a fast learner there, Tommy.”
“No messing,” said Malone. “Do the business.”
Minogue grabbed the detective’s arm as Malone made to push the plate-glass door.
“Tommy. By the way, like. Perhaps Mr. Kenny didn’t kill Mary Mullen. Okay?”
Minogue took in the glass portico, the metalwork, the polished granite in the foyer. Sharp, no nonsense. A man in his early twenties, with a badge high up on his short-sleeved shirt and a Marine haircut, sat behind a granite-topped console.
“Are you all right?”
Minogue held out his card.
“Grand, thanks-can’t complain. Yourself? The one door at the back, as well as the goods entrance?”
“Er, yeah.”
The man tugged at his tie. Malone was taking in the sculpture next to savanna grass.
“Hey, is this a bust, like?”
Malone turned around, a puzzled expression on his face.
“I don’t know what it is. What’s it supposed to be?”
Minogue smiled at the security man.
“There’ll be no fuss now,” he murmured.
The lift smelled of cologne. The doors opened out onto a peach carpet, black doors, grey walls and more dried flowers. Malone plucked at his shirt under his arms.
“Air conditioning,” he muttered and nodded at the name-plate. The secretary’s ante-room breathed out more perfume. Macintosh computer, black furniture and a leather sofa for gamogs to cool their heels while they waited to be told what the firm of Kenny, Doody could or couldn’t do with their tax messes and their proposals for film funding. Show business, thought Minogue, paperwork: he and Malone, two sweaty detectives, had been beamed to Los Angeles. At least there was a homely layer of dust on the windows outside.
The secretary had a tan, wholly bogus eyelashes and a direct look. She tapped at a dangling ear-ring.
“Hello?”
Minogue smiled.
“Mr. Kenny within?”
“Is he expecting you?”
Minogue drew up his card from his side.
“It wouldn’t surprise me. But I can’t be sure, now.”
Her expression changed to a bewildered suspicion. She reached for the phone.
“I’ll let him know you’re here.”
Minogue raised his hand.
“Prefer if you didn’t, thank you now. As a matter of fact, I insist.”
“He has a client there.”
Minogue smiled again.
“As do we. Kindly do not use the phone for the next couple of minutes or so.”
