For a moment, Minogue believed that he was well and truly had, that Hughes was setting him up.
“Tommy Malone. Yes, I do.”
“Well small world,” said Hughes, following Minogue into the lift. His tone seemed genuine to Minogue now. They stood next to the doors.
Minogue could almost sense Hughes thoughts turning over.
“I wonder,” Hughes began, hesitating over his words. “If it’d be out of order asking you, if you could maybe, you know…?”
Minogue thought of Mrs. Klos, her hands that wouldn’t stop shaking. Bed-and-breakfast, Fairview. A stranger in a strange land.
Chapter 15
Malone was in a car somewhere when Minogue called. He was more than a bit surly.
“Hughes is being taken care of,” he told Minogue. “Tell him to get his hearing checked.”
“He believes that I have an in with you,” Minogue said.
“Really. Well I believe Posh Spice is my half-sister.”
“It’s working its way through, I’ll tell him then?”
“Tell him what you like.”
“Did I tell you it’s murder, that the man is dead?”
“Twice already. Is it your case?”
“I sat in, that’s all. He’s a Foreign National. But the man’s mother is here. An only son. The father is a ne’er- do-well, not involved at all. The mother’s on her own here, well except for someone from the consulate.”
“Sounds to me like Hughes is after guilting you. So now he can jump the queue here and get the glory.”
“He doesn’t want the glory, Tommy.”
“Wait a minute, will you, hold on, I think I see Santa Claus here, oh look, it’s the Tooth Fairy as well.”
“Did you hit the sack at all over the past few days?”
“Oh, I know where this is going. ‘You sound contrary.’”
Minogue had to smile at Malone’s effort at a country accent. A pang of nostalgia arced in his chest when he thought of the sessions back in the Squad, with Kilmartin and Malone going at it. There was no going back.
“Look. Hughes is not being bollicky. He knows how busy you are.”
“Busy? Nice of him. Tell him we’re in the middle of a war here. Mulhall, the other day? I was working him, trying to work him, you know. Wouldn’t listen to me. I told him he wouldn’t last. I told him…”
“All hands on deck then, is it.”
“You’re telling me. It’s like last year’s big thing never happened. Oak and Anvil…? Might as well be ancient history.”
Minogue recalled the haul displayed on the television and in the papers. Over five hundred kilos of cocaine was on show, close to a million Euro, an assortment of pistols, submachine guns, and two assault rifles. He never found out who had called it Operation Oak and Anvil in the first place.
“Okay,” he said to Malone. “I’ll relay that. Sin sin.”
“What shin?”
“Sin sin. ‘That’s that.’ You should have taken Irish lessons.”
“There’s a thick idea. A dead language, for culchies.”
“How’s the Cantonese then?”
There was a pause.
“I’m jealous,” said Minogue. “That’s all.”
“I’ll bet. Tell you what. Stick to your fecking French lesson things. French is a joke compared to what Cantonese is doing to my head.”
“You’ll have a lifetime of peace from the in-laws. Respect too, of course.”
“My arse, I will. Her ma’s grand, but that oul lad of hers will never change. Sweet and sour I call them now. I leave it up to you to figure out which is which. You’re the Detective Inspector, after all.”
Someone asked Malone a question then. Minogue waited for the hand to be taken off the mouthpiece. He couldn’t make out the words but he was reasonably sure that Malone swore twice.
Whoever was in the car with Malone was using the radio. Malone’s hand came off his mobile.
“Leave it for now,” the Guard said. “Wait ’til he comes out.”
“Look,” said Malone then. “I’m on the job here, I have to go. I’ll see you Monday. The usual.”
He meant the get-togethers, Minogue knew. The Club Mad had moved location to Clancy’s on the North Strand. It was the only pub that remained locked in the 1970s, reliably dreary and down-at-heel, and all due to a long-running dispute between two brothers over a will. The mixture of heavy daytime drinkers from the corporation flats nearby, the few greying Bohemians, and a changing set of petty criminals half-pleased Minogue. Neither Plate Glass Sheehy nor Jesus Farrell — not even the tee-totaller Shea Hoey — had complained about the place. Kilmartin had nevertheless pronounced Clancy’s a dump, but still attended.
“Monday’s a long way away, Tommy. Can’t you do better?”
Malone didn’t answer.
“Hughes has done fantastic work here,” Minogue said. “More in two days than we’d have done in a week, I have to say.”
“Good for him.”
“But he’s run ragged, Tommy, spinning his wheels.”
“Happens to the best of us.”
“The mother, come on — you can imagine, hardly a word of English. An only child.”
“Everyone has a mother,” Malone was saying. “You never knew that?”
“You’re a hard man, Tommy. A real desperado, these days, I tell you.”
“Ah don’t start that crap.”
“Just give Hughes a start.”
“What do I have?”
“One of your touts.”
“I don’t believe you actually said that. I don’t.”
“Just someone who’s not in this big war thing you’re in the middle of.”
“I can’t believe you’d ask me for the loan of a source. Jesus.”
“Anybody. This Klos man is showing up with cocaine in his system.”
“Who doesn’t, these days? Any club now, you see people snorting.”
“Be that as it may. Give the mother something to hope for, and she taking him home.”
“You are frigging piling it on, so you are.”
“You know I’ll be above board with whoever you give me.”
“What do I tell him? What’s in it for him?”
Minogue thought about it for a moment.
“‘Assisting the Guards.’”
“Don’t be an iijit.”
“Is he coming to trial, sentencing maybe? Paste it into a plea for him?”
“Uh-uh. Anyone worth anything isn’t going to be in any position.”
“What, then?”
“M-O-N-E-Y. That works nicely.”
“You pay them?”
“Damned right we do. It gets results.”
“Really. Okay then. What’s the going rate?”
