“Damned right it is.”
“Well you shouldn’t turn off your mobile then, should you.”
“It died. Ran out of juice.”
“Should I believe you?”
“I’ll show you.”
“No, no. Let’s just move on. What were you saying?”
“Okay. Whatever turns up out of this thing, you know, that guy… We do nothing. Right?”
“Forget it ever happened?”
“Something like that.”
“He takes his licks, and he — what do they say in the television things… ‘he moves on with his life…’?”
Fanning felt the fear returning. Cully didn’t do irony. He must know what he’d done to the man.
Cully let his hands drop from the wheel.
“You give me your word?” he asked.
“Absolutely, I do.”
“Not a word, even to your missus.”
“Not a word. As if she’d let me talk to her now anyway.”
Cully’s half-smile returned and then dissolved.
“You shouldn’t be so hard on her there. You and her wouldn’t be fighting if neither of you didn’t care, would you.”
“It’s hard to remember that when you’re in the middle of it.”
Cully nodded, and yawned.
“So we’re okay then,” he said. “You and me.”
“I think so, yes.”
“Even after you read the papers, or whatever you writer people do every day.”
“Right.”
“Because, sooner or later, you’ll come across something, and you’ll wonder,” Cully said. “Sooner, rather than later.”
“There are a lot of those kinds of things in Dublin,” said Fanning. “What happened there, with that guy. It probably won’t make the papers.”
“Well there’ll be something,” said Cully. “I’m pretty sure about that. Just want you to think about that.”
“I gave you my word.”
“They have the car by now,” said Cully. “Doesn’t take much, obviously.”
“The car. What car is that?”
“Murph’s car.”
“A lot of joyrides end up like that. I wouldn’t worry.”
“Leave it to Murph to worry, right?”
“I suppose.”
“Well he’s not worried.”
“That’s good,” said Fanning. “I suppose?”
“It’ll take them a couple of days though,” said Cully. “On account of the petrol.”
“Well I could phone him and tell him if you like,” said Fanning.
“That’s a good one. I like that. Nothing wrong with a sense of humour, is there. Sign of that creativity thing, isn’t it. That’s what they say.”
They looked at a lone cyclist on a racing bike heading out toward the Scalp and Wicklow.
“Wants to get out before the rush hour,” Cully murmured.
Fanning felt the weight begin to ease.
“So…?”
Cully looked over.
“I’ll give you a lift then,” he said. “You were making a run for it, weren’t you?”
Fanning froze, but saw that Cully was putting him on.
“From the missus,” he added.
“I was going to go into town, see if someplace was open, I could get a cup of something. Think things over — with her, I mean.”
Cully started the engine.
“Okay,” he said.
Fanning allowed himself a bit more room to stretch.
“Don’t forget your belt there,” said Cully. “Don’t want a fine now.”
He pulled out slowly onto the road.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” said Fanning.
“Falluja,” said Cully. “Let me guess. That’s another story. But not now.”
“No, I wasn’t thinking that. More like, why you’re interested in this stuff. What I’m doing, I mean. Scriptwriting is not that exciting, you know.”
“Oh I don’t know about that. But to tell you the truth, I’ve always been interested in films. I mean who hasn’t.”
He looked over at Fanning.
“Larger than life, and all that? Better than the real world, and that’s no joke. Right?”
Fanning was not in a mood to disagree.
“Money, of course. There’s money in making films, isn’t there?”
“Not enough,” said Fanning. “From my end anyway.”
Cully had dropped something down between his seat and the door. He stopped fumbling for it to change into third gear.
“Never quite realized the impact of a camera,” said Cully, and began fumbling again. “But, like I mentioned there, you see things.”
“What place is that?”
“Falluja. Actually not in the place itself.”
“I thought it was an expression of yours, you know, I’ve got a pain in the fallujia, or something? Like a cockney expression or something?”
“Cockney?”
Fanning saw that he had stopped fumbling.
“Just a guess,” he said to Cully. “It’s not important.”
Cully looked over at him. His face had taken on the blank expression that Fanning remembered from the dog fight.
“I’m Irish,” said Cully. “People don’t seem to think that’s proper, or something.”
“No offence,” said Fanning. “Really. Look, at this stage, I’m just babbling, I’m so knackered. Just stupidity. I’ve been saying stupid things all night. But I’m going to fix that. Starting with Brid. She’s right, you know.”
“They’re always right,” said Cully, absentmindedly, and returned his attention to the road. “Aren’t they.”
Fanning closed his eyes to yawn. Opening them, he saw lights in the mirror, a car turning onto the road behind them. An early shift, he thought; nurse maybe, bakery or the like. Cully had noticed it too.
“Much more practical,” said Cully, glancing in the rearview mirror again. “Women. Wives.”
Something was working its way into Fanning’s mind now, and it suddenly loomed.
“They say that men are the facts people, but it’s not true,” Cully said. “They make things up more than the women, I tell you.”
He turned in his seat to look at Fanning.
“They lie more too.”
“Wait,” Fanning said loudly, the terror already engulfing him.
He saw Cully’s hand come up, and the flash that came at the same time as the explosion. The belt cut hard at his neck. There was another flash but he did not hear any sound this time.
