Aloysius Tempo Read online

  She’s stunned. ‘Jeez, aren’t you all drama today?’

  I look over at Karson as Karson looks over at us, looks like he’s trying not to bite his nails.

  I go, ‘You sure about that guy? He’s into you? Not just trying to use you to … ?’

  ‘Hey Aloysius,’ she goes, ‘go fuck yourself. You think a chick with a dick can’t have a serious boyfriend?’

  ‘No,’ I say, ‘wise up. I’m just wary. Cloak-and-dagger mentality. I’d like to know you’re safe, that you’re not going to get hurt.’

  ‘Karson’s a good guy. And I can look after myself.’

  ‘I know that. I know … ’

  ‘Go,’ she says, ‘leave Amsterdam. Go to wherever it is you go. Go hide your SIM cards somewhere else, find some other safe house, some other secret messenger. We’ll meet again sometime.’

  ‘One thing,’ I say. ‘One last bit of help.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your mum,’ I say. ‘When she died, she left you the barge. You said there was a car too, a wee car somewhere.’

  ‘Yeah, I’ve never seen it. Never will see it.’

  I push some cash into her hand. She looks down, surprised. ‘What?’ she says, ‘you want the car?’

  ‘Yep. Where is it?’

  She pushes the money back. ‘Take it. Keep it. It’s underground, Oud-Zuid Apartments. Don’t ask me where the keys are.’

  ‘I’ll find it. What type is it?’

  She shrugs. ‘A dusty one.’

  *

  I walk a mile to the address, go into the lobby, drop down a floor to the car park.

  Ten motors in here, one of them sad and lonely, a Renault Clio with low tyres, a dusty screen and an out-of-date parking disc.

  I check for cameras, check the car’s security, smash open the back off-side window, flip open the front door, get on board. I pull the wires, confident I can hotwire this thing in seconds but, naturally enough, the battery is dead as Hector.

  ‘Balls.’

  I sit back, close my eyes, run the details of what I’m doing around my mind, try to find another way through this. And I try to find out, from myself, if I’m sure I know what the fuck I’m doing.

  Am I too paranoid about that Karson guy? Did I freak him out, freak Tall Marianne out? What are the rules of engagement for a guy on his own, trying to make sure the coast is clear to move when he’s sucking drones in above him?

  A man in a baseball cap walks into the garage, unsure of his surroundings. Jeans, black sweater. He runs his eyes over the cars, looking for someone, looking for me. I see his face as it swoops past my Clio, the face with the head I busted. He’s the bald guy with the boot on my face, the English guy working for Imelda’s office. That’s Wayne.

  He walks a little deeper inside, dipping now, starting to look under the cars, wondering where the hell I went.

  This fucker has been following me for I don’t know how long – days, weeks, months. It’s hard not to take it personally, although fair play to him for doing a good job.

  Ex-special forces? Ex-undercover police? He looks the type. But the poor, big bastard has just walked his big boots into my plan and he’s not going to walk out of it.

  It’s funny because Wayne hates me already, hates me with all his heart. That feeling of his is going to go off the scale.

  *

  We check in at the Port of Roscoff for the overnight sailing. The ignition wire is slack around Wayne’s throat, ready for tugging and tying around the headrest if he fucks this up.

  I stay low as he opens his passport for the woman in the security box. She waves him through, his black four-by-four slipping into the queue for the ferry to Rosslare.

  He eyes me in the mirror and I sit up a little.

  He says, ‘The Dublin office will definitely be looking for me by now.’

  I say, ‘I know.’

  The line moves onto the ship and I pull up into the front passenger seat, pulling the wire fast from around his throat, making him jump.

  I tell him, ‘Nothing personal in any of this, Wayne. We’re not enemies, not on different sides. I just have to get this shit done my way and can’t give you a say, you understand?’

  He doesn’t answer, just pulls neatly into the few square feet of space we have on this ship they call Oscar Wilde.

  ‘It’s been long drive,’ I say. ‘We’ve eighteen hours ahead of us on this bus. Let’s just get some sleep and, I promise you, you’re a free man when we get to Ireland.’

  He turns to me, a look that gives nothing away.

  I go, ‘I’ll be sure to tell them your neck was on the line the whole way. That’s why you didn’t contact. That do it?’

  His lip curls, his head shakes and his heart pumps with hatred for me.

  ‘Yes,’ he says.

  We leave it at that.

  His mobile is already gone, fucked onto the roof of a parked plumber’s van in Amsterdam. He could always make a phone call from the ship, but what for? To what end?

  I reckon he’ll do fuck all beyond grumble, sink a pint, lie down. And if things go the wrong way for me, I’ll dump him overboard, or he’ll dump me overboard for trying. One way or another, that would fix it.

  We climb the stairs among excited children and overwrought folks, get to the bar deck and split. I go to the back, see him heading off to the front.

  Twenty minutes later I take a walk, see him sitting, looking at a golden whiskey, contemplating something, managing his emotions. He watches me stroll in and over to him and looks away.

  Light shining on his bald head, I see the scars I’ve left him, the smashes I rained down on him with the edge of a mobile phone. A man in his line of work finds shame easily, and it hurts.

  ‘Fancy another?’ I ask, and he doesn’t look back.

  ‘Two of whatever he’s on,’ I say to the barman.

  ‘What do you reckon to Imelda?’ I ask, taking the stool beside him. ‘She’s trying to bring me in to her agency but I don’t know a whole lot about it. How’s it working out for you?’

  ‘She’s just a boss,’ he says, puts his eyes front, watches his next whiskey being poured.

  ‘You think she’s on the level?’

  ‘I think you’re a fucking prick,’ he says, turning to me. ‘And if she didn’t value you so much for whatever the fuck it is she wants you to do, I’d smash your head off this bar right now. Are we clear, Aloysius?’

  I go, ‘Wow. Jesus. Well then Wayne, why don’t you just break a rule then, give it a go? See how far you get?’

  He goes, ‘Wow. Jesus. Well, I don’t know, Aloysius.’

  And two Grouse on ice arrive, two baby bottles of lemonade. I can tell he’s not going to refuse it and I’m glad.

  I say, ‘What are you? Ex-special forces, ex-cop?’

  He says, ‘Let me answer that this way – go fuck yourself.’

  I say, ‘You too. Sláinte.’

  And we drink.

  I go, ‘How’s your one-eyed friend?’

  ‘Taken early retirement,’ he says. ‘How’s your Dutch girlfriend’s cock?’

  ‘The same.’

  And we drink again.

  ‘It’s just circumstances,’ I say. ‘Following me around Amsterdam like a bad smell, what did you expect?’

  He turns to me, takes a deep look at my face, goes, ‘How would I know? I don’t know who the fuck you are. In fact, who the fuck are you?’

  I say, ‘Let me answer that this way – go fuck yourself.’

  He says, ‘Christ, you’re an annoying bastard.’

  And I say, ‘I’ve been called worse.’

  He goes, ‘That outfit you’re still wearing, the one Imelda bought you. It’s the only half decent set of clothes you have, isn’t it?’

  I go, ‘Don’t worry Wayne, it’s all been washed.’

  ‘I picked all that out for you,’ he says. ‘She sent me into ’Dam to get you some fresh gear, said you had the dress sense of a doughnut.’

  I go, ‘Jesus
, you’re my stylist? Wow.’

  He goes, ‘Fuck off.’

  I say, ‘So, Wayne, you think I should carry my phone in my top pocket or just leave it stuck in your head?’

  Chapter Fifteen

  November 2016

  I’M IN the passenger seat as Wayne drives the hundred miles from Rosslare to Dublin. I won’t say it’s a friendly journey, but it’s better than the drive from Amsterdam to Roscoff.

  He pulls up where I tell him to, on Camden Street, and I’m about to get out.

  ‘You know I’ve got to call Imelda now,’ he says. ‘Tell her about this.’

  I nod, ‘I know.’

  ‘Pretty sure I’ll get sacked today,’ he says.

  I say, ‘Wait until the end of the day, then call her. I think you’ll be all right.’

  He nods, smiles, ‘I’ll do that.’

  ‘Grand,’ I say, reaching out. We shake for one second and he’s looking in the mirror, ready to go.

  I get a coffee in a crowded, kiosk-size café, look up a few numbers, dial one of them.

  A guy answers, ‘Irish Mirror editorial.’

  I say, ‘I have a story and photograph for you about Imelda Feather. I don’t want any money. What’s the chances of meeting?’

  *

  Five hours later and I’m sitting, cross-legged, damp-arsed, in the dead centre of a GAA pitch. Trees border three sides, and dead ahead of me is the back wall of Imelda’s office. From where I am, the third floor is framed between the posts.

  It takes around seventy minutes – the wind beginning to stir, the light beginning to dip, the rain beginning to moisten the air – before she clocks me, posed like Yoda, where a ball might be.

  She stands still at the window before stepping away. I sit my ground, head up, face full-on in her direction.

  Imelda reappears with a pair of binoculars and double-checks my ID at close range. I wink and she takes them away from her eyes. I can almost make out her saying some swear word.

  If you have never seen a less-than-happy sixty-four-year-old woman in heels march across a GAA pitch, then you should have a look. There comes a point where she will stop, as Imelda is doing, remove her shoes and shout ‘fuck sake’ at herself. She continues towards me, her hair seemingly alive like snakes throwing themselves around her puckered face, her white blouse throwing shapes in the breeze.

  ‘What in the name of Jesus are you playing at?’

  ‘GAA.’

  ‘I said what are you playing at? You have the attention-seeking behaviour of a six-year-old.’

  ‘Look who’s talking.’

  ‘What? I mean – what?!’

  I shrug. I’m not sure what I meant by that, but it sounded like it made sense.

  She bucks a shoe at me and I have to duck to avoid a heel in the eye.

  She goes, ‘Why are you testing me, Aloysius? What the bloody hell is going on in that fecking head of yours?’

  ‘Your husband,’ I say, looking up at her insulted face, ‘he was called Arthur. Lost a load of money, a couple of million, on a property gamble when the market hit the skids.’

  She throws up her shoulders, dramatic as she can, goes, ‘So fucking what? What’s it to you?’

  I say, ‘He went for a walk into the sea one morning at Malahide, never came out again.’

  ‘Yes,’ she says, ‘I heard about that, thanks, Aloysius. I know my husband killed himself. What’s your point?’

  ‘Ladies View in County Kerry,’ I say. ‘It’s your favourite view in the world.’

  Imelda nods. ‘And what?’ she says.

  ‘Am I right?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says, confused. ‘Ladies View, yes. What’s your point?’

  ‘When you were a journalist, you once met a government minister in his car, you assured him you would not run a story on his affair providing he privately admitted it to you,’ I say.

  ‘And then an advert for that very story you were discussing came on the radio then and there.

  ‘In fact, your own voice came on the radio to plug the story in the next day’s paper. The man took a heart attack and you had to call the ambulance.’

  Imelda nods again, is realising I’m just going to keep talking, going to make this point the way I want to make it.

  She drops her other shoe, sits down in front of me on the grass, pulls up and hugs her legs a little against the rising wind, the uneven sprinkles of soft rain.

  ‘You used to drink vodka in your office in secret, until one day you were caught,’ I say.

  ‘Your son Liam wanted to be a paratrooper in the British army and you and your husband fought about it to the point where he walked out of the house and never really came back to you.

  ‘You used to screw a very, very senior policeman and a very, very nasty gangster in your days as a crime reporter, that’s how you got all those scoops.’

  She goes to speak, ‘I—’

  ‘Or so they say.’

  She says, ‘You’ve been talking to some of the hacks I used to compete with. They were all jealous fuckers, if you want the truth. The cop I was screwing never gave me a story, although his cunnilingus was front-page stuff, I can tell you.’

  I say, ‘You had a cervical cancer scare when you were forty-four, but it was a misdiagnosis. Your best friend Ellen was accurately diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in the same year. She died.’

  Imelda nods, waves a hand, ‘Stop,’ she says, speaking up now as the wind rises. ‘Stop there. Whatever your point is, you’ve made it. Now explain it.’

  I say, ‘In six minutes you’re going to get a phone call from a journalist. He’s had a very strong tip-off that you – a former high-flying media type turned high-flying government recruitment agent and close colleague of the taoiseach and the president – have been smoking a pile of pot. He has seen a picture of you with a large spliff in your hand in an Amsterdam coffee shop. And that picture on the front page will end your career, no matter how deeply unfair that might seem.’

  ‘Ah,’ she says, that cold November wind charging over and through the field now. ‘You’ve turned on me, Aloysius. You’re ending it all, so.’

  She looks down to the grass, quickly adapted, fast resigned to what’s coming next. She’s shivering now, out on this big pitch, a place of screams and shouts and sporting struggle she usually just sees and hears from a distance.

  ‘I hadn’t expected this,’ she says, a mellowness in her voice. ‘I’d planned for all sorts of twists and turns from you, but not this. Ah well. Fair enough. An error of judgement about you on my part.’

  She looks at me, not an angry face, not even a disappointed face. She looks at me and smiles now.

  ‘I’m sorry this has happened,’ she says, ‘I really am. I think maybe I didn’t give that strong mindset of yours enough consideration. Not to worry. Front-page justice and all of that. I’ve been behind enough of it myself to know the score.’

  Just the cold air runs between us now and I can tell the light has dimmed another notch, that the big Dublin day is drawing to a close.

  She smiles again, a kind of casually beautiful smile, and I don’t know what to do but shrug.

  As she goes to stand, to tell me some forever goodbye, I say, ‘But they haven’t got the picture.’

  She stops, dips to the grass again, says, ‘Sorry? I don’t get you.’

  ‘The snap of you smoking a spliff,’ I say. ‘They’ve heard there is one. I might even have shown one to a reporter or two, but they haven’t got a copy of it.’

  ‘What are you up to?’ she says.

  ‘Someone is going to call you and bluff it out, tell you they have the picture, describe it to you and see if you will confess. You know the deal, Imelda. You’ve done the same yourself.’

  ‘But,’ she says, ‘you do know they can’t run anything without it because I’ll sue the holes off them?’

  ‘Of course I do. They’d have no proof, it’s a straightforward libel.’

  ‘Then why … ?’

&n
bsp; ‘I want you to feel vulnerable,’ I say. ‘I want you to feel spied on. I want you to feel as if I might show up anywhere, do anything, that I can change the direction of your day. I want you to feel that I can bring you down. I want you to feel like I do, to feel as if your private world has been cracked open and rifled through.’

  ‘Okay, I get it,’ she says, wiping hair from her face, a chill in her voice now. ‘I understand. And I’m sorry.’

  ‘And I want you to know this,’ I say. ‘I need to do something, something significant. I need to fill one of those holes in my soul you talked about, to do something that fits and works with my very own and very fucked up view of the world. What we’ve been talking about, Imelda … ’

  She says, ‘What we’ve been talking about, in its own very fucked up way, means something to you, doesn’t it, Aloysius?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It means you can play a part in making things better, because you understand that it’s people, not places that make bad things happen.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Because,’ she says, ‘you know exactly what I mean when I say a rising tide lifts all boats. You know what I mean when I say the difference between who we are and who we can be lies in taking action.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, and she’s really making me smile now. I can hear it, see it, as if a little fire is starting to burn inside her, to warm her up.

  ‘You know,’ she says, ‘that it’s either Mother Nature or motherfuckers that make the changes in this world, and the first one of those two is seriously slow at getting things done.’

  I go, ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s the moving parts that make the changes,’ she says.

  I say, ‘You want me to tell you I’ve crossed a little bridge into some place called patriotism?’

  ‘No,’ she says, taking in a deep breath. ‘I don’t need to hear it. I just want to hear that you know what it is we are talking about when we talk.’

  ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘If you secretly want to call my commitment patriotism, you go for it.’

  ‘That’s maybe what I will do,’ she says. ‘What do you call your commitment?’

  ‘Purpose,’ I say.