“He should have turned in that other fella,” Kilmartin said. “When he found he was dealing over there. ‘West Ham’ or whatever his name was.”
“Parker. Gary Parker.”
“No sense of right and wrong when you’re in the army. And sure the world knows, you can’t deal with a junkie. Not one inch can you trust one. But there he is, covering up for this fella over there in Iraq. That’s not how to do things, is it.”
“Hardly.”
“The story I heard,” Kilmartin said, his voice dropping. “I heard a rumour they were, em, gay.”
“Em gay, or just gay?”
“There you go again. But did you hear that too?”
“I heard nothing.”
“I thought gay fellas were supposed to be, you know?”
“So did I.”
“I’m just saying that it’s not the stereotype.”
Minogue said nothing.
“So here’s this fella, a corporal, and he’s trying to shield the other fella. And then see what happens for his trouble — your man goes off the deep end one night, and that family there in Iraq winds up dead. Isn’t that it? Tell me that’s an accident now.”
“Not in the record,” said Minogue, the urge to mischief returning. He thought of Kathleen’s injunction, and the promise she had extracted from him, to try to avoid rows tonight.
“Ah stop it, would you? The army brass got them out of there so fast, whitewashed the proceedings. Like they do everywhere, the British. Oh yes. Some people may forget, but the Irish don’t.”
“Don’t forget what?”
“Are you going to tell me it’s okay for some freelance hit men, trained and primed over in England, to be let loose here in Ireland?”
“Our gangsters hired them.”
“And what does that prove?”
Minogue looked up and down Wicklow Street. It was still one of his favourite steets of all in the city. The curve as it slid down toward Grafton Street beckoned him always, its trove of side streets like adventures of their own.
Kilmartin made a sour laugh then.
“Wonder who gave those other fellas the tip-off,” he said. “I say it was Egan himself. The kind of thing the bastard would do. Save him having to pay them.”
Minogue couldn’t disagree. Malone had told him that the word was West Ham had gotten out of hand at an after-hours in Finglas, and blathered about what they did, and what they could do. He waited until Kilmartin took a pause.
“James. James?”
“What. What are you Jamesing me for?”
Minogue looked at his friend, took in the fierce eyebrow slant, the blinking.
“James. You’re just blathering. It’s too much. Okay?”
Kilmartin made to say something but held back. A look of desperation crossed his face for a moment, but was quickly gone.
“Easy for you,” he said, quietly. Minogue did not think so. Nor did he think he could ever tell his friend how much he had tried to dissuade Kathleen from doing this.
“Look,” said Kilmartin, nudging his arm. “It’s like I told Herlighy. That old goat, sure he’s gone deaf, I’m sure. ‘I want what I had,’ I says to him when he asks me where I wanted to be when this was over. ‘Well you won’t have that,’ he says. ‘Nobody can have that.’ Something about the same river twice?”
“Not as deaf as you think then, is he. Or as dumb.”
“Whisht, will you. Says he, things are not just going to happen — what’s the word he used? To ensue. Big word. You have to write the script, practise your role and then produce the film, says he. Or the play — I was going to say ‘drama’ but by Jesus, I don’t want to use that word, do I.”
Minogue nodded. The thought of the Szechuan noodles had cheered him a little.
“It’s just a dinner,” he said to Kilmartin.
“For you it is. For me, it’s auditioning.”
“Just keep it light, that’s the trick.”
“No mention of why she tried to kill herself then, I suppose.”
Minogue stared at him. Too far gone? Maybe he had misjudged Kilmartin entirely. Maybe the silent bitterness ran deeper and longer than even Kilmartin himself knew.
“Well you got that out of your system at least,” he said.
Kilmartin sighed and shuffled his coat.
“I don’t know why I said that.”
“You’re nervous. But I’m going to kick you under the table if I think that class of a comment is on its way out of your mouth again.”
Kilmartin examined the cement edges of the footpath. He let out a deep breath. He looked up then, his face easing a little.
“Did you say a kick, or a tap under the table?”
“A kick I said. I’ll root you out of it, so I will.”
Kilmartin nodded as though to agree.
“And you’re certain she doesn’t know?” he asked.
“Not unless you told her.”
Almost against his wishes, a small smile of satisfaction crept over Kilmartin’s features. He looked across at the restaurant window.
“I don’t much like Chinese food,” he said.
“Ask them for potatoes and cabbage instead, why don’t you.”
“I don’t want any trouble from you. Kathleen I like, but you, you’re work.”
“You behave yourself in there. You Mayo bullock.”
“Listen to you. A mucker from Clare. I’ll have to show you how to use a knife and fork again, I suppose.”
