Aloysius Tempo Read online

  Stopping. Between big restaurant bins. My back hitting a wall, looking left and right, left and right, hands shaking.

  I spit, a blob of blood. I wipe at the sweat. Off comes my jacket, white T-shirt below. Off with the cords, leaving just the joggers’ shorts. I pull the headphones out of the jacket pocket. I open a bin, dump the jacket and cords, the hat, run my hand around the neck of the bin, close it, run my greasy hand through my hair, slicking it back then spiking it up.

  I jog out the end of the alley, head down, earphones, trying to tune out the white noise of adrenaline slamming around my system.

  And my pace is relaxed.

  Look at me – the professional, working out before working.

  And there are tears in my eyes, tears coming as I know I’m on the run, as I gear up once again to get the hell away from whatever it is that could burn and bury me alive.

  I cough, a film of bloody phlegm around the inside of my mouth, my throat choked with iron and oxygen flavours. And I feel dirt coming up from somewhere, bits of grit and filth crawling onto my tongue.

  I jog and spit, looking at no one. I jog in among emerging people starting their days, and I’m smiling, smiling as I turn around, running backwards, seeing no one, tilting my head side to side to the music.

  I get to the bridge, cross it, turn right, two barges along. I turn and don’t see them, don’t see anyone who is looking at me.

  And I drop onto the barge, go up to the front end, drop to the floor, my back against the red and black of the prow. I reach behind, flip open a little plastic hatch, take out a key, unlock the door on the floor, slide it open, fold my legs up, roll over and drop down, crunching as I land in the tiny salt-storage compartment.

  I get onto my back, facing upwards, lie still, stay silent in that black cube. I look hard at the blue-and-white square of new-day sky above. I reach to my right, wipe and wipe at the sticky, damp-sucking salt and pull up a plastic bag. I pull out the gun, raise it to that sky.

  It’s here, now, that I stop. That I wait. That I swallow blood and wait.

  I rub my face.

  And wait.

  I sweat and wait.

  And I say, ‘Stop, stop, stop … ’ when more tears come into my eyes. I wipe at them and say, ‘Stop, stop it.’

  And my stinking hand, my restaurant waste hand, my rats’ piss hand, wipes again at my tears.

  And nothing happens.

  And nothing happens.

  Sweet nothing happens.

  I blink and get my eyes as clear as they can be and nothing happens.

  And then I see something moving, arriving right above me, some kind of bouncing light, something sky-coloured high in the sky, something flying, stopping, silent, secret.

  And my normal mobile rings.

  6:45 AM.

  It rings.

  And I lie here. Folded and secret, stunned at everything.

  It rings out.

  I wipe some sweat, more tears, knowing that this newborn day might close tighter yet.

  I think about holding my ground, about dominating the environment, about flicking off the safety catch and fighting back, about being first to strike. I think about the pulse of war, about the thump of action I can bring crashing into any situation.

  And it all turns to nothing, all melts away in my head, all runs down my face.

  I breathe deep, keeping that pistol aimed at the sky, tilted right at that alien thing right above.

  And the phone rings again.

  And I know it will ring and ring and ring.

  I get it with my left hand, number unknown.

  I go for it, cough and collect myself.

  I go, ‘Hello?’

  She goes, ‘Hello Aloysius. It’s Imelda Feather.’

  I have nothing to say.

  This disastrous event has to involve her, but I have nothing to say.

  I want to say, ‘Oh hi Imelda, I so much enjoyed meeting you, you’re such a lovely person.’

  I want to say, ‘Hi Imelda, it’s not a good time because I’ve got a drone following me and my life is over.’

  I want to say, ‘Fuck off and die, Imelda.’

  Maybe I could ask her to talk about sitting in an office doing some nice PR, about going for a nice lunch together in some cramped Dublin restaurant.

  And no words pass between us.

  And someone’s on the barge. Some footsteps, slow, careful, on the deck, heading towards the hole I’m in.

  Step. Step. Step.

  She says, ‘Aloysius. That is a replica gun you are holding. You bought it in a shop in Bruges for €38.99’

  More footsteps.

  She goes, ‘The man you are about to see above you is holding a real gun, but he can’t be completely certain that your gun isn’t real.’

  And he’s walking.

  ‘If he feels threatened by you, Aloysius, he will kill you.’

  His shadow arrives, climbs up me, up over my chest, my face, his toes right to the edge of the hole. I see the hands, steady and holding the gun, moving into place, pointing silently, ferociously, down at me.

  I blink as he becomes clear, as I see how the blood has run all down his bald head, all down his face, around his neck, onto his shirt collar. And I hold my fake gun at him, and I hold the phone at my ear, and I hold my breath.

  And the weapon feels so light now, so stupid, a child’s toy in a shaking, adult hand. Another tear exits, slides down my face, drops onto the crisp salt bed below.

  She goes, ‘Lower the weapon, Aloysius. Would you ever, please, lower the bloody weapon.’

  He goes, ‘Five, four, three … ’

  I say, ‘You win,’ opening my hand, the weapon falling, sticking into the crystals around me.

  He continues, ‘ … two, one.’

  She goes, ‘Brace yourself.’

  And a boot crashes onto my wet face.

  Chapter Ten

  August 2016

  SHE’S TWISTED around, firmly looking at me bunched in the corner of the back seat, hard-pressed against a door that will not open from the inside.

  Martin is right beside me, also glaring, in the big, thick Mitsubishi four-by-four. The guy in the driving seat, the bloody bald guy who slammed his size twelve onto my face, flicks his eyes at me in the mirror, pulls them away. And does it again.

  The blood has crowned him, spilled downwards, bits of dried trickles, spikes and lines left after a half-arsed clean-up job. His head has been split at the top, bone cracked, a coin sized slot. He should get that looked at.

  ‘Are you sad, Aloysius?’ she says.

  I look at her.

  She goes, ‘You’ve been crying, you know. You were out cold and crying. Very strange. People cry when they’re sad, don’t they?’

  Martin goes, ‘Or happy. It could be that he’s just a very happy man.’

  Silence.

  Imelda Feather says, ‘That’s such a good point, Martin. So, are you happy or sad?’

  I am trapped, tense, jammed in this big machine. We’re parked further along from the barge, from my blown hideout, my now-ended start point for a full and complete escape to another new life. Cash, ID, clothes, it’s all in there.

  Martin says, ‘Who owns the barge? We’ll be finding out, but you can tell us now if you like. It’s not yours, is it?’

  Imelda goes, ‘I bet you it belongs to your Dutch friend, the transsexual bon vivant. What’s her name – Tall Marianne? Would that be right, Aloysius?’

  I’m not contributing. Not yet.

  Martin goes, ‘Does Tall Marianne still have a cock, Aloysius? Or do you know that much about her?’

  Imelda looks at him, says, ‘What’s your interest there, Martin?’

  She looks at me, goes, ‘He’s asked three times now if Tall Marianne has a cock. I think we’ve found Martin’s happy place.’

  Martin laughs, ‘Sure I’m always happy. Crying with happiness half the time, just like yourself, Aloysius.’

  Baldy with the busted head look
s at me once more. I’m thinking how he’d shoot me in the face if he wasn’t a paid player for these two.

  I look at him, say, ‘Where’s your mate?’

  We stare.

  ‘Getting patched up in hospital,’ says Imelda. ‘He has lost an eye, by the way. There could be some deeper damage too, but it’s too early to know. I believe you misplaced a pair of glasses, Aloysius.’

  Martin goes, ‘Which is a tiny bit ironic, when you think about it. Losing an eye to glasses.’

  And Baldy still stares at me.

  Martin goes, ‘I’ve said it before – you can be a very angry man, Aloysius. You’ve a short fuse there, fella.’

  Imelda says, ‘And another fact about you is that at this moment you’re stinking, you know that? Fucking rank, to be honest. You smell like a festering toilet.’

  Martin agrees, ‘You do. It’s bad now, to be honest. You’ve got some kind of grease on your face and your hair and your sweat stinks like rotten onions. I’d say that fecking 1970s jogging outfit you have on you there hasn’t seen a washing machine in a decade or two. When did you last have a good wash?’

  Imelda goes, ‘Stinking. Humming. Fucking hanging. You’re a challenge of a man, Aloyisus.’

  Martin says, ‘If we take you to a nice hotel, let you get a nice shower, give you some nice fresh fashionable clothes, give you some painkillers for that broken tooth, buy you an excellent lunch, will you give us the afternoon?’

  Imelda now, ‘No more running and catching and punching and toy guns and all the rest of it. No restraining. Just chatting, just some grown-up stuff. A nice, pleasant, businesslike afternoon in Amsterdam? How does that sound?’

  I nod towards the guy in the front.

  ‘If he gets in my way again,’ I say, ‘I’ll pull his brains out with my hands.’

  ‘Wayne will go away if he’s not needed,’ says Imelda. ‘Is he needed?’

  And he’s burning up in front, he’s white hot with the urge to smash me to pieces, and he’s having to turn his eyes away from mine in the mirror.

  Suck it up, fucker.

  Imelda’s waiting for my answer and I go, ‘Wayne will not be needed.’

  *

  He takes us to the Grand Krasnapolsky Hotel, Dam Square, drives off, pissed off. Martin takes me to a suite while Imelda goes to order coffee in the downstairs cafe.

  I take his eye. He’s leaner than when I last saw him, likely been on some diet to save himself. ‘You said last month you wouldn’t contact me again, Martin,’ I say.

  He goes, ‘I didn’t contact you again. Imelda did. I just happened to be in the car when you were dumped in it.’

  It’s a five-star hotel this, a five-star space, some cosy, clean, casual designer clothes, cotton-rich stuff, laid over a bed.

  He says, ‘Shower, shite and shave, all the stuff you need is in the bathroom. We’ll see you downstairs in a half hour. If you run, Aloysius, then you run. Just remember, we’re not the police. We don’t have any bad news for you, okay?’

  He holds up the key card and I take it from his hand. He holds up a box of paracetamol and I take it too.

  ‘Let’s have a bit of trust, eh?’ he says.

  ‘Who are you, Martin?’

  He goes, ‘I think you know we’re serious, Aloysius. That’s all you need to know. Just give us your full attention, okay?’

  And I think that’s probably something I will do, but I don’t say it.

  *

  I’m neat, smooth, clean and, I think, on-trend and age appropriate in expensive, easy-going jeans, tan casual shoes, a blue-and-white striped shirt, a dark-grey sweater. I’m feeling and smelling good as I drop down through hotel floors.

  Their chase is over for today and they’ve won, and it’s very clear that I’m the prize. Yet I don’t know why, or what for.

  Doors slide open and smiling tourists towing luggage give me the space to walk out.

  ‘Danku,’ I go.

  I can see the back of Martin’s head in the lounge, a window seat onto thriving Dam Square. Every inch of it is under the feet of visitors, of groups in matching tops, of half the nationalities of the world mingling and watching puppets and pigeons and mimes.

  There’s a pot of coffee, some exquisite little biscuits waiting for me. The chair is wide, more comfortable than I’m used to.

  I sit and pour coffee as they watch me closely, saying nothing, barely smiling.

  I suddenly catch a fresh whiff of my own smell, whatever it was that had been left in the bathroom, and it’s a calm and easy but wide-awake scent.

  ‘For some reason,’ I say to no one in particular, ‘you two are seriously into me. Isn’t that right? For some reason, you are very keen to go really far out of your way, with your wee double act, to get my attention. I reckon you need me to do something for you, something not anyone could do, something only … ’

  And I sit back, hold court, take a drink of coffee.

  ‘ … a person with no obvious connections, something only a disposable person could do. How’s that for an opening statement?’

  Imelda goes, ‘You think of yourself as disposable? I don’t. Try valuable.’

  Martin nods, ‘Valuable, yes. Or indispensable is maybe even a better word for it.’

  And I take a drink.

  ‘Tell me about this PR job,’ I say.

  She’s in flat shoes, hair all standard windswept and undone and all over the show, a long blue coat she has thrown over a free chair, without a care as to how it ends up.

  ‘Who is this gentleman?’ she asks, a hard little stare at me, confusing me, even annoying me a little, those blue eyes taking too much of my attention. ‘Where did that scruff go?’ she says. And she smiles now, a smile that says she is pleased with what she sees.

  She turns away, looks to her coffee, turns back, a suddenly different, suddenly more official look.

  ‘PR job?’ she goes. ‘Sure I haven’t offered it to you yet.’

  I shrug and eat a very small biscuit.

  She says, ‘But yes, it is in one way all about PR. It’s about reputation, just like everything is about reputation.’

  I say, ‘Whose reputation?’

  ‘Ireland’s.’

  And I’m thinking how she can’t know much about me after all, not really. I’m thinking she’s misinformed, that she’s still misreading this entire situation.

  Martin says, ‘Do you love your country, Aloysius?’

  And I go, ‘Pleading the Fifth.’

  He goes, ‘Because of what happened when you were a kid?’

  And I say nothing.

  We all take a moment, look out at a clanging tram, at a stoned couple laughing uncontrollably as they feed a bird who is wise to the drill.

  Imelda puts her cool hand on mine, says, ‘Let’s go for a walk.’

  Outside, her wrinkled coat under one arm, her laptop bag over a shoulder, Martin watches from the window as we disappear into the crowd.

  She asks, ‘What’s spuds, veg and beef in Munich?’

  ‘A good dinner.’

  ‘It was the message on your phone, the one you picked up this morning, wasn’t it?’

  How in the hell?

  She goes, ‘It was the order from your latest client, wasn’t it? I reckon you’re an à la carte assassin, and this client has just ordered the full works. He asked you to come up with a cruel ending to your victim’s story, just like you did with that Dutch lad that Martin spoke with you about. Am I close?’

  I go, ‘You and I both know fine rightly that I have no idea what you are talking about.’

  I shake my head at her. No way lady. No way, lady of sixty-four, you know too much already.

  She takes my arm, steers me towards a little cart under an archway. She fumbles in her coat pocket for coins, asks if I have any. I don’t.

  She finds some and the guy gives her a little, sweet pie. She inspects it, takes a bite, inspects it again.

  And we’re walking now, strolling, the city sounding like a
busy playground, the big grand Centraal Station ahead of us.

  ‘I hate to bang on but isn’t that the craic, Aloysius?’ she says, ‘That someone has this morning confirmed a hit in Munich. That’s what that spuds, veg-and-beef message means?’

  I shake my head, about to speak.

  She goes, ‘I’ll let you in on one of my secrets.’

  Dipping into a whisper she goes, ‘I know who the target is.’

  And I know she cannot know.

  She goes, ‘He’s a dog fighter. The worst in England. And he’s going to be in Germany next month. My guess is that the client is some good-hearted animal rights sort, someone with a few grand to spare, someone who has dipped into the coffers and found someone to do some very permanent damage to this horrible person. Or, as you put it in your advert, they have a problem you can hard solve. Isn’t that the term you use?’

  And I let her keep going, let her just fling open the gates and rush it all in before I start the stocktake.

  ‘Anyway,’ she says, ‘this conflicted, compassionate person did a search, got in touch with you. And soon, I’d bet, you’re off to Oktoberfest in Munich, probably under the pretence of taking pictures of drunk people for that shite website you work for. And then you’re going to find this person and kill him in a way that will bring joy to those who hate him. You’re going to do spuds and veg and beef to him. He’ll probably end up looking, more or less, as if he has fallen into a combine harvester. And it’ll have been an accident, of course. You will make it look like it’s just possible it was an accident, not something or someone the police are going to put too much work into. I think that’s about right, is it?’

  A group of Irish pass, fresh from the train station, springing on their feet, happy to hit the comfy crazy streets of Amsterdam.

  She says, ‘So now you know some of what I know.’

  And I’m people-watching, adding up ages, letting her roll on.

  She goes, ‘But in order for me to explain more of what I know, I need you to give me something. Because when you give me something, I will give you something, do you understand?’

  An elbow into my arm.

  ‘Do you?’ she goes.

  More quiet.

  ‘I need you to say yes,’ she says. ‘I need an admission, a private, private, private admission, and then I can give you something.’