Moon pushed Tommy out and walked him toward the house; the machine pistol was loose in one hand, the money in the other. I stepped out between Tommy and Moon and had the Sig in Moon’s neck before he saw what was happening.
“Hold the sub out,” I said. “Slowly.” I dug the Sig deeper into his neck as he extended his arm. The gun was a Steyr 9mm TMP (Tactical Machine Pistol), compact, dark grey, with an angled handgrip and a rotating barrel. It hung in a sling off Moon’s right shoulder, beneath his coat. Tommy went to take it from him, and he started fumbling with the sling.
“Hold up,” I said. “Tommy, step away. Moon, let the sub down and take your coat off, right arm first.”
Moon let the pistol hang by his side. I pressed my gun in behind his ear. He began to wriggle out of the right sleeve of his coat. As the sleeve came off he raised his right fist up by his ear and smashed it back into my wrist.
“Ed, watch it! He’s going for the sub!” Tommy called.
I kept my balance, and before his arm had dropped, I hit Moon on the back of the head with the butt of the Sig, twice, three times, not taps like I’d given the security guard. Moon collapsed in a heap. I detached the machine pistol from him and handed it to Tommy. Brock Taylor was out of the car, but he just stood, watching me. His hair and mustache were dark, except for the streak of white that flashed through both, the natural marking that had won him his nickname. When Tommy went to frisk him, he gave a weary smile, as if he was too grown- up for all this child’s play. He was unarmed. The gates were closing automatically; I went into the hut and hit the switch to open them again. Maria still hadn’t moved from the passenger seat. I opened the door.
“Maria,” I said. “Come with us.”
She got out of the car, looked at Tommy and spat in his face.
“Not with him. Pig!” she said.
“Not with him. You can go where you like now. To Anita?”
She looked at Brock Taylor in panic, then back at me, her eyebrows raised.
“You know where?” I said.
She nodded.
I wanted to ask her what had happened, or rather, how it happened. But all that could wait. I pulled some money from my pocket and gave it to her.
“Go on then,” I said.
She looked around the yard and almost smiled, then walked toward the opened gates. Her heel was broken, so she walked lopsidedly, then on her toes, then she pulled her shoes off and threw them in the dirt and ran barefoot into the lane and disappeared.
I took the Steyr from Tommy and told him to get the money. Then I tossed the Steyr on top of Sean Moon where he lay, blood seeping out of the back of his head. An all-in-one package for the cops. Then I looked at Brock Taylor, who hadn’t taken his eyes off me.
“I don’t much care about the Reillys. Don’t mess with the girl again.”
“I was helping the girl,” he said, in one of those Americanized Dublin drawls that turned “the” into “de” and “girl” into “gurrl.”
“Don’t help her then,” I said. “And don’t fuck with me either, do you hear me?”
“I hear you, Edward Loy,” said Brock Taylor.
I looked at him then, heard the threat, implied if not real, and realized this wasn’t over, that there was no possibility, having witnessed the Reillys’ murders, Tommy and I could just walk away as if nothing had happened. I went into the security hut and closed the gates again, then I came out, retrieved the SMG and showed it to Brock Taylor, who hadn’t moved.
“Tommy, help me get Moon into the hut.”
We dragged his body in and heaved him on the floor beside the security guard; Moon’s head was oozing slowly, but I’m afraid, right at that moment, I simply didn’t care. I pushed the heavy door to and walked over to the Bentley.
“Keys,” I said to Taylor. His face fell.
“You’re not taking this on me,” he said, his accent thickening in panic.
“That’s right,” I said. “We’re all staying here. Keys.”
He handed me the keys. I gave Tommy the Steyr and told him to keep it trained on Taylor. Then I sat in the Bentley, reversed it as far as the gates, and jammed it in alongside the door of the security hut. I got out and nodded Taylor toward the house. Tommy kept the SMG trained on him as we walked.
“Is he safe with that?” Taylor said.
“Guess you’ll have to hope so,” I said.
What looked like a restored kitchen lurked at basement level; at the bottom of the metal steps that led up to the ground floor, I stopped Taylor.
“Lights are on. Is anyone home? Anyone expecting us?”
“No,” he said. “There’s always lights, for security.”
“Because if we’re going, you’re going with us,” I said, showing him the Sig.
“There’s no one. I’m not working like that anymore.”
“You’re not? What was tonight? All you forgot was to make them dig their own graves.”
I nudged him in the back with the Sig, and he climbed the steps, pressed a security code on a panel by the high four-paneled door and pushed through into the house. We followed, shutting the door behind us and walking through a room that had been stripped down to plaster and boards and not yet refurbished, along a narrow passageway and through into a high-ceilinged hallway with a flagstone floor. Paint and paper were peeling off the walls, and cornices and center pieces were crumbling; oilcloths and tarpaulins covered furniture and woodwork; paint color charts and pattern books for wallpaper and upholstery lay strewn about. Fitzwilliam Square, the last of the great Dublin Georgian squares, being bought up by the likes of Brock Taylor. However much the Criminal Assets Bureau had taken off him, it wasn’t enough.
“I haven’t got the restoration work fully under way yet, lads,” Brock Taylor said, like an excited wife showing some pals round her new house. He led us into the front reception room, which was carpeted deep blue and wallpapered in a tatty lavender and violet Regency stripe. “This is still from the previous owner. I’m going room by room, want to live here too. Let the builders in when you’re not around, fuck knows what they get up to.”
Heavy wine-colored velvet curtains were drawn; Tommy and I sat in armchairs of a burly three-piece suite the same shade; Brock Taylor took the couch. Having sat down, Tommy immediately stood up again and began to pace the floor with the Steyr. I found it a little irritating, but from the alarmed looks Taylor was casting Tommy’s way, it was evidently irritating him rather more, so I let it roll.
“Now lads,” Taylor said, “what can I do for you?”
“You could start by telling us why you had Wayne and Darren Reilly murdered tonight.”
Taylor laughed in an expansive, bogus manner he must have practiced at Seafield Rugby Club. He stood up as he was laughing, wriggled out of his biscuit-shaded overcoat, which on closer inspection looked like it was made of cashmere, and sat down again. He wore a pale grey linen suit and a charcoal polo neck and tan Italian loafers with transparent grey silk socks; his back-combed black hair sat high on his head; the white streak through it seemed to glow; there was a plastic sheen to his tanned face, to his groomed appearance, that gave him the embalmed look of a cabaret entertainer from the 1970s.
“Well, don’t work up to it or anything, barge right in there with the leading question.”
He laughed some more.
“I don’t want to stay here any longer than I have to,” I said. “I’m just trying to figure out how long I’d have to spend giving a witness statement to the Guards, and when I’d be likely to get out. See, I’ve a lot of things to do tonight.”
Taylor looked at me coolly, appraisingly, trying to weigh up whether I was bluffing or not.
“We’ve got the murder weapon. We’ve got Moon’s prints on it. We’ve got two witnesses. I think that’s open- and-shut. What would you say, Brock? ’Cause it’s nothing to me, in fact, it’s about time I did myself some good with the guardians of the peace. Not that I had any special affection for Wayne and Darren, quite the reverse, but even they deserved better than what they got tonight.”
“Well, I wouldn’t agree with you there, Ed. And you might not agree with yourself when you hear the whole story.”
