fight with Murphy. That’s what I’m saying. It was luck, not brains.”
Cully went back to tightening the rolled-up bill.
“Murphy was doing you no favours. He was playing you.”
Fanning didn’t care now if his anger showed.
“No he wasn’t.”
“Sure he was. You just didn’t know it.”
“Look, whatever it is about you and Murph-”
Cully made a sudden, short laugh.
“Me and Murph? What are you talking about?”
“All I’m hearing is ‘you haven’t a clue,’ or ‘this is reality,’ or… ‘you don’t get it.’ Like you guys are geniuses, and I’m a moron.”
“That’s you thinking,” said Cully, suddenly serious.
“And for another thing, I didn’t expect favours anyways. I pay Murph- I employ him!”
“Really? Well then. Tell me why you were paying a bloke who has fifty ways to skin you out of your money?”
“But that’s just you saying that, isn’t it.”
Alarm alternated with pride in Fanning’s mind in the quiet that followed. Light flickered off Cully’s eyes as he glanced down at the lid.
“I know what you’re saying,” said Cully thoughtfully. He looked over the lines of powder. “But…”
“I know: ‘But you don’t get it.’ I know.”
“Shut up a minute and listen to me.”
Said in the same calm tone, Cully’s words had no sting to them now.
“Murph, your bosom pal there,” Cully went on. “Now he’s nothing but trouble, isn’t he.”
“You must have said that a dozen times the past day or two.”
“That’s how long it’s taking to persuade you then, isn’t it. Struts about, cock of the walk. But what’s he got? Nuffink.”
“Nuffink. That’s more like it.”
“Thought that’d get your attention. Look, he owes all over. Can’t even cover his habit, can he.
The only way he got in was his uncle, kind of adopted him I heard. You don’t know this. His uncle was big, even inside. Inside, like…?”
“Jail?”
“Prison, you can call it. Right. Fifteen years they gave him — not here, over in England. Just another Paddy on the game there. He was greedy, to be honest. And lazy. Thought he knew everything. Didn’t do his homework on silent alarms.”
“What is his name, the uncle?”
“I’m not telling you, am I. But what I am saying is, everybody knows everybody. Here, there. People aren’t stupid, are they. But his uncle isn’t around anymore. He got the big C there last year, in the lungs. So last year, he goes to meet his maker. R.I.P.”
“I think I read something about it, wasn’t he-”
“-it doesn’t matter, I said.”
Cully placed the fat end of the rolled-up bill in his nostril.
“I’d like to hear Murph’s version of this sometime.”
“Oi,” said Cully. “Can’t you see I’m busy here?”
Chapter 39
Fanning tried to see through the teeming windows. With his index finger over the other nostril, Cully snorted one line, and then a second. He sat back and shook his head, and he began to slowly squeeze his nostrils between his thumb and his forefinger.
“Once in a blue moon,” he said then. “I only accept donations.”
He drew in his breath, closed his eyes and let it out again. His eyes popped open.
“Go ahead,” he said,” it’s proper order, it is, yes.”
He held out the rolled-up note.
“Now we’re talking,” he said. “Cock-a-doodle-doo.”
Before he knew it, Fanning was taking the lid from Cully.
“Just a sampler,” Cully said.
Fanning’s arm rested on the door again, his hand already anticipating the feel of the door release. Cully licked his lips and smiled. Fanning realized it was the first time he’d ever seen him smile.
“See,” he said. “Puts you back in the game.”
“You’re used to it.”
Cully’s eyes opened wide and then almost shut.
“Oh, I get it. I get it now. You’re sure you’re going to be a junkie now. Poof! One go and you’re doomed, right?”
“I don’t want to get into it.”
“Of course you don’t. You’re Mister Respectable. You’re going to do what you’re told. Follow the rules and all that. No wonder you want to make up stuff about criminals and all that.”
When Cully held out the lid, Fanning’s hands moved reflexively. Cully said something about holding it this way. The anger roiled in him. The end of the roll felt like a roach. Raising it with his left hand, he poked his nose with it, twice. Then it was pushing against his nostril, inside. His hands worked on. The lid was close enough to his nose for a strong scent from the plastic. He couldn’t remember having decided anything.
He let his head back. He felt the urge to sneeze, but it passed quickly. It was followed immediately by a dull burn that reminded him of a head cold. The warmth spread under his eyes.
“Nothing,” he said to Cully. “It did nothing.”
Cully hawked, rolled down the window and spat out. He rolled the window back up slowly, as though listening for something. Fanning’s heart began to speed up.
“All I hear is ‘you don’t know this’ and ‘you’re clued out.’”
“You said that already.”
“You were actually listening to me? You know how hard writing is?”
“Pencil and paper. It can’t be that hard.”
“It’s damned hard. It’s the hardest thing. Nobody knows that.”
“Nobody…?”
“And I’m sick to death of people who…”
Fanning stopped. He glanced at Cully and saw that he seemed to be concentrating on something.
“I’m talking a lot, aren’t I.”
Cully nodded. Whatever he was interested in seemed to be in front of the speedometer.
“You do understand that, right? What I said about writing, being a writer?”
“What did you say about it?”
“I’m saying it’s tougher than anything. It takes it out of you like you wouldn’t believe. No-one gets it. No- one.”
Cully looked over.
“Yeah they do.”
“No they don’t,” Fanning said. “No way. No how.”
“Shut up,” said Cully.
“Oh, it’s a one-way street, is it? You say whatever you want — nothing most of the time, for Christ’s sake and I get told to shut up?”
“You’re yelling,” said Cully. “And I don’t like it. The yelling. So I’m telling you again, shut it.”
“‘Shut it.’ Who says ‘shut it’ here in Dublin, in Ireland? You’re English, you’re Irish. You’re this, you’re that.
