Aloysius Tempo Read online

  She smiles, pulls her arms in tighter as the trees on all sides rustle together.

  ‘Danny Latigan,’ she says. ‘Started out as a backstreet loan shark, started setting up offices across Dublin. Targets people with nothing, personally gives them cash. Personally rapes women who can’t pay. Has a crowd who work for him who like to rip out the tongues of his clients’ children. I’m not joking. Cops know all about him. Courts can’t beat him. Long story. Half of Ireland will celebrate if something terrible happens to him. Not only is every debt written off, but the government can claim a good €40 million off his estate in Wicklow.

  ‘And I know for a fact that every penny of that seized money, under a very special arrangement, will be given back to the people he stole it from.

  ‘Danny Latigan is the first on the list, Aloysius, the first of four. Spuds, veg, beef.’

  I’m smiling.

  ‘Of course,’ she says, ‘you’re on your own when you leave my side with that information. It goes without saying that while I have you in my loving Irish heart, if things go wrong I cannot have your back.’

  And I’m smiling, filled with purpose as tiny, tingling raindrops lands on my hands and face, as more wind slides around my happy skin.

  Nodding, I say, ‘Goes without saying.’

  ‘Good,’ she says, ‘so do you have any feedback other than that?’

  ‘One thing,’ I say.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘No more hacking emails, no more listening to what I am not saying to you, no more American drones above me, okay?’

  ‘Done.’

  ‘You can end that right away?’

  ‘Yes. Consider it done.’

  ‘Then we have a deal.’

  ‘Good,’ she says. ‘So shall we hard solve the Danny Latigan problem?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say.

  Her phone rings. She looks at it, then to me.

  She goes, ‘Imelda Feather, yes.’

  I watch her nod, and nod some more and I’m already feeling for the poor, misled guy on the other end.

  ‘I see,’ she says, and, again, ‘I see. Well, that’s a good one, I have to say. What an exciting moment it must be for you to ring and ask me that. I bet you’re fresh from your editor’s office having agreed with him what to say in this call, is that right? I bet you took a deep breath before you rang my number, did you? I imagine you tested your little digital recorder once, maybe twice, just to make sure it gets every word of this? Hmm? So here we go. Listen very carefully now. You do not have a picture because it didn’t happen. And if I see one fecking word of this bollocks – one fecking word – I will personally knock you into the middle of next week and send you the bill. And it will be a bill from my lawyers that will make your stomach fall onto the floor via your fucking arsehole. I’m not even going to ask if you understand that. Slán.’

  We walk back to her office, my arm around her to keep the chill from her mature bones.

  She says she will set up a salary, will be in touch with the details, will get me what I need on Danny Latigan, but she realises I don’t really need anything else at all.

  I leave her at the top of the stairs.

  I’m a few steps down when she says, ‘Aloysius.’

  I look back up, her hair like a tossed haystack. She’s shaking her head, shaking it over and over as if in some kind of shock.

  ‘Nice touch,’ she says, lifts a finger and points at the picture opposite.

  It used to be a beautiful image of an iron gate among trees on the left, of a road bending around to the right, of a mountain seemingly growing out of a field straight ahead.

  But now it’s of Ladies View, County Kerry, her favourite view in the world.

  I shrug. ‘Aye,’ I say.

  Chapter Sixteen

  November 2016

  A FALL down a long flight of stone stairs, a drunken tumble from a motorway bridge. A wheelbarrow of bricks from the top of a building site, a freak decapitation with a heavy spade. An overdose of heroin, a downed half-pint of mercury, a hand caught on the back of a moving trailer, a hanging from a lamp post, a blaze in a padlocked cabin, a rocky landing from a cliff fall, a mugging gone horribly wrong, an auto-erotic masturbation tragedy, a stumbled victim to a demented dog.

  As I have been informed by my employer, my moral compass is all over the show. It’s haywire, busted, buckled and fucked. But it spins and points at stuff the same as everyone else’s compass does. It only tells me which way to go, which way is up when I need a direction, and, if my interpretation of that clashes with someone else’s, then what’s new?

  Is your north the same north as the next person’s north? Is your green the same, your black and white? Do you feel the same about charity, about war, disease, the electric chair, religion? Do you feel the same about matters of life and death as the next person?

  At certain times, everywhere, certain life and death things are permissible, certain rules of engagement come into play. And hard times call for hard play, and hard play has hard rules.

  At different times, for different causes, you will blame whoever made the man swing the bat. At certain times you will blame whoever swings it. At certain times you will blame the bat, the blunt instrument that does the damage. But before you decide where you join in and point the finger, take a look back at human history and be sure to point it everywhere, at every place you see on the map, at every tribe that ever walked it, right up until today, until right now, this minute. And then you can point it at me.

  I know, you see, that with a certain world view these things I do are easy. And I know that, for me, this kind of work is strangely life-affirming, as if the power it bestows provides intention, accomplishment, resolution.

  If you say to me, ‘See this guy? His death will make many people happy because he’s the biggest cunt in the country and, oh, here’s some cash,’ I’ll say to you, ‘That’s interesting – what’s his address?’

  Like everyone else, I just want to get by in the way that suits me best and, in the end, to leave this world more peacefully and happily than I entered it.

  In the big, grand scheme of things, at the age I am now, I reckon it doesn’t really matter a damn whatever journey it is that brings me to that point.

  *

  ‘Evening Danny,’ I say, and he turns as fast as he can in his heated swimming pool, eyes me through the mist lifting off the crystal blue surface of his own little mechanical lagoon.

  He goes, ‘Who the fuck are you?’

  ‘Aloysius,’ I say …

  Chapter Seventeen

  December 2016

  CHRISTMAS 2016 and I meet with Martin and Imelda at a Dublin restaurant made loud by office parties and garish, sparkling outfits.

  Our wee bash isn’t so wild, but we are enjoying a fine meal and a few glasses of wine courtesy of the sozzled taxpayers all around us.

  Martin has opened up a little, told me some of his story, how his daughter Kiera converted to Islam some years ago.

  He’s told me it was a bombshell among the old school Catholics of his family, how he feels they gave her Irish-based French-Algerian husband the cold shoulder, told Kiera her new fashion tastes didn’t suit her.

  It hasn’t ended well in that, after a time, she grew tired of the insults and dirty looks, cut all ties with her family and moved with her husband to what they saw as an emerging caliphate in Syria. They felt, they said, it would be the best fit for them.

  ‘Jesus,’ I say. ‘Hardcore.’

  ‘Aye,’ says Martin. ‘She told me she was Muslim first, Muslim before Irish. Can’t say that didn’t hurt.’

  I go, ‘Right.’

  He says, ‘I went to France to meet the man’s family and they were as shocked as we were. They’d no idea why. Just a couple of people who decided what was for them wasn’t what the rest of us would see as healthy.’

  And I’m thinking how stories like that are already known to me, how the world is full of stories like that, of people who find comfort in la
bels they were not born with.

  Says Martin, ‘We’ve come to terms with it in one way,’ he says, ‘me and my wife. We started out thinking she just needed a few wise words or a big bear hug, y’know? But we know now, from what we’ve heard from some of our American friends, that she’s way beyond that. Way, way beyond that. And we’ve accepted it. Basically she’s been swallowed up by this thing, this Islamic State world view, that fucking jihadi ideology, and she would by now expect the rest of us to want to give her a big hug, to want to tell her she’s wrong. And, y’know, she would be ready to resist that, ready to fight it. The truth is hugging her would only reinforce what’s already going through her head. There’s no way back.’

  I say, ‘Have you lost her? Is that how it feels?’

  He goes, ‘It’s like she’s dead, Aloysius. It would be easier if she was dead, to be totally honest with you. We could start grieving, start to stop thinking about her, y’know?’

  Her story, says Martin, has been in all the newspapers, all of them focusing on the fact that she’s the daughter of a former senior civil servant.

  ‘They want me to talk about it over and over again,’ he says, ‘but I have nothing left to say. I have lost my daughter and the whole thing has broken up my marriage, taken pretty much all I had. The press have suggested, in their own little way, that I don’t say enough, that it’s as if I’m not fighting for her, but they have no idea. All of this is about as personal as you can get, but they don’t give a fuck. Imelda here has given me the best advice about how to deal with journalists you don’t want to talk to, and she would know.’

  I wait for it, but the pair of them just cut into their steaks instead.

  ‘So, what’s the best way to deal with journalists?’

  And they both chew, look around them, enjoy the dark, happy, seasonal craic of this low-lit, bouncing wee restaurant.

  ‘Ignore them,’ says Martin, not even looking at me. ‘Don’t complain, don’t explain. Don’t feed them, they’ll get greedy.’

  And I’m wondering if he and Imelda have some wee trick going, some wee practical joke that fits the answer – if they ignored me on purpose.

  ‘You’re sure?’ I say.

  Imelda looks at me, says, ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well,’ I say, ‘there’s truth in the idea that the best way to keep the focus on you is to ignore it.’

  Imelda goes, ‘Maybe with people, not with the press. People don’t easily let go of what they are drawn to, but the press do. The press move on faster, have no emotional investment.’

  Martin eats some more beef, wipes at his mouth. He’s slimmer than I have seen him, must have lost a stone or more, but is eating like a horse tonight.

  He says, ‘Ignoring them is working for me. The lads reckon I shouldn’t speak about it all, so I just say I can’t talk about it when reporters call.’

  ‘What lads?’ I say.

  ‘The intelligence guys,’ he says.

  ‘Who?’ I ask.

  ‘Our own lads,’ he says. ‘The Americans as well. They all say to say nothing. It’s the Americans who get me updates on my daughter, but they don’t want anything bleeding into the press, y’know?’

  ‘What do you reckon to Irish intelligence?’ I say. Neither of them have spoken about any official agency in this land to me.

  Martin nods, says, ‘G2? They don’t know about our work and we’re keeping it that way.’

  I say, ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because the Americans would tell me.’

  Imelda isn’t responding. She’s drinking white wine to our red, looks well in the candlelight, looks somehow impressive when she eats, chews and swallows. I see how her neck is older than her face, but that it’s classy, petite, pleasing in its symmetrical perfection. This may be the first neck I have ever really noticed, I reckon.

  She sees me and I turn away, back to Martin, and her full blue, candlelit eyes linger on my cheek and now I just want to look back at them.

  He says, ‘The passing of Danny Latigan has brought a lot of joy to this town. Have you felt it, Aloysius?’

  Imelda nods, takes a drink, ‘It’s been bloody good for the government too. Fifty million, he was worth, that fucker. Fifty million! They thought it was forty. Oh, and they kept the promise they made me.’

  ‘I read about that,’ I say. ‘A wee Christmas bonus on the way for thousands of ripped-off people by the sound of it. Ireland does Santa. It’s what you might call good PR, home and abroad.’

  She laughs, ‘That’s right. It’s all about the PR. I told you that back when we first met, didn’t I?’

  ‘You did.’

  She takes a drink, ‘It’s been a while since we had a bit of the feel-good around here.’

  ‘You’re not joking,’ says Martin.

  They’ve put me up in an apartment near Shinay Associates, not that I’m encouraged to ever go to the office.

  My role is to just be around, to stay fit, to stay out of trouble. I cannot, they say, be involved in any other work and I have, at least temporarily, removed the offer of my services from the Dark Net.

  They advise very little drinking and no drugs. They advise keeping a low profile, they advise not making friends, not taking a lover. They advise reporting each and every suspicious thing I see or hear, keeping my eyes peeled for people watching, for who is coming and going into the places and spaces around me.

  I don’t know any of their contacts in government, any of their contacts anywhere. I don’t know how deep they run, how high they go. I don’t know if the taoiseach has signed off on this gig, or if it’s all tight inside some black-ops department of the civil service or military. I don’t know anything about when or how often they talk with people, and I don’t really care. It’s separation of state and state assassin, and that’s the best way for everyone.

  My glass is topped up again and I feel ready to drink some more. I’m tipsy, buzzing a little, feeling that lighter, happier, expectant, rolling mindset getting to work. I’m feeling I could drink a lot tonight, let my hair down a little, aim myself towards a nice, deep drunk and fall down laughing with my head spinning.

  It’s been a long time.

  I’ve been training hard at my posh little gym beside a posh big hotel, and I’ve been losing weight and remoulding muscles. I’ve been taking advice on what to wear, shopping on Grafton Street, smelling better and cutting dashes. I’ve bought a suit and some nail clippers, slippers and a good watch, and life has never felt as easy to live.

  And tonight I’m drinking in the safest, smartest company I could be in. I reckon my blank face is smiling two or three times a minute, some kind of rhythm, all caught up in some kind of cheery conversational beat that is playing out in my body language.

  I like it when Imelda says, as we talk about what next year might bring for us, for Ireland, that feeling happy ‘is a sign you’re growing.’

  ‘Yeats said it himself,’ she says, and I see Martin roll his eyes, bracing himself for another quote.

  She says,

  ‘Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that, but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing’.

  Says Martin, ‘Or when we’re pissed.’

  ‘Aye,’ she says, ‘that too.’

  We call it a night at 11:15 PM. Imelda and I bid Martin a farewell in his taxi. We go the other direction, towards Ailesbury Road, where we will turn a corner, pass the office, stop at my apartment further along, and drop me off, and the cab will roll on to Imelda’s house.

  ‘Martin makes me sad,’ she says, watching him go, his jacket seeming almost too large for him as he wanders towards an imminent sleep.

  ‘How does he make you sad?’ I ask. ‘He’s the chirpiest, smartest man I know.’

  ‘He just does,’ she says. ‘He smiles through a lot of pain.’

  And I think I can understand that a little.

  Imelda taps the driver on the shoulder, tells him to pull over at the office. She pulls h
er laptop bag over her shoulder, asks me to go inside with her.

  Keys and a code open the main door, a physically and mentally held security combination. She walks ahead of me on the back staircase, just the dark light of the winter sky clearing the route for us as we climb. I’m looking at her arse, her rounded maturity, her supple limbs pistoning as she climbs. And yet it feels like stealing, I feel guilty for nicking a boozy clock at my boss’s bottom.

  The picture at the top of the stairs comes into view. It’s a moonlit night, the big wide full-fat yellow ball reflected in a peaceful pool, a pool shaped like a kidney, tiled by an artist. It’s the late Danny Latigan’s pool.

  ‘Fuck’s sake,’ I say, and she turns to me.

  ‘I know,’ she says, looking over her shoulder, ‘it’s sick as fuck. You have to laugh.’

  Keys and a code open the office door and, walking through in the dark, she plugs in another code at the door to her office. A little stamp-size disc slides out of the wall and lights up her face in a swimming-pool blue. She places her index finger onto it, the plate vanishes back into the wall and the door unlocks.

  We’re in, the room’s blinds already closed against the night, and it’s jet black when the door clicks shut. We stand there, momentarily, sensing the room, sensing each other, and I don’t know what is happening.

  I hear her walk and a desk light at the far end of the room flicks on, spotlighting her workspace.

  ‘Coffee?’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘Me neither,’ she says. ‘There’s something I want to show you.’

  I sit on the plush, soft leather armchair in the dark, back corner. This place intrigues me with its simplicity, with the crowded ordinariness hidden behind its smart security.

  I have no idea who comes into this place, what gets said, what plots and calculations are made and how. I have no idea what kind of lists have been discussed and how, who, why and when. Who knows who gets the final say in matters of state discussed at the highest, quietest levels in a democratic republic?