The Dead Yard Read online

  “Get ya another?” the kid from Cork asked.

  “Nah, still working at this one,” I said.

  “It’s all right, is it?” the kid asked.

  “Aye, it’s fine,” I said.

  “One of this country’s great patriots.”

  “Who is?” I asked.

  “Sam Adams. He rode from New York to Boston to warn the people the British were coming. And he was the third president of the United States.”

  “And he made beer, too?”

  “He certainly did now,” the keep said and walked back to the bottles.

  I looked at my watch, three minutes to six. I couldn’t help but be a bit nervous. Quick time-out. I went to the bathroom and splashed some water on my face. Ok, take it easy, Forsythe, this is bloody nothing. Piece of piss, I told my reflection.

  Nothing for you, buddy, remember you were in a riot a couple of days ago, my reflection said.

  I splashed some more water and went back to the bar stool.

  The assassin had ordered another Schlitz Lite. The blond kid in the corner hadn’t touched his drink at all. And neither had a bunch of clean-cut men wearing board shorts and Gap T-shirts, sitting together, at two tables by the door.

  Ah, the federales, I thought.

  “So what you do for a living?” the assassin asked me out of the blue.

  “Me, oh, um, I was a postman back in Ireland,” I answered—the first thing that popped into my head.

  “Fucking posties, bastards so they are, on the whole. Always bills, always fucking bills,” the assassin said bitterly. The kid from Cork came over.

  “Pushkin said that postmen were monsters of the human race, a bit extreme perhaps but you could see his point of view,” he intoned, obviously attempting levity.

  Both the assassin and myself turned the evil eye on him and he pissed off. We didn’t need some know-it-all student showing us up.

  “The Commie with the dogs?” the assassin asked me when the kid had gone. For a sec I had no idea what he was talking about.

  “No, no, you’re thinking of Pavlov, mate,” I said and was about to explain but got interrupted by the assassin, who turned his full pale face and intimidating eyes on me.

  “Look, maybe you should make yourself scarce, mister Carrickfergus postman,” he whispered slowly, measuring out every word.

  “I’m heading just as soon as I finish my beer,” I said.

  “No, no, maybe you should split right now, if you know what’s good for ya,” the assassin said.

  I was touched. Fair play of him to spare me the coming unpleasantness, but I couldn’t go.

  “I’ll be heading soon,” I said.

  The assassin opened his mouth to insist that maybe I should leave right now, but before he could the outside door opened.

  In walked the bodyguards. The first one I noticed was “Big”

  Mike McClennahan. Of course, Big Mike was about five foot five. Bald, skinny, wearing a black polo shirt and blue jeans. He was from Boston, ex-cop, gunrunner, bookie. Next, Seamus Hughes—fifty-two, five nine, sallow-faced, wearing a tan jacket and a 5-0 shirt. Another Bostonian, another ex-cop in fact, twenty-five years, full pension, tough nut.

  A heartbeat behind them, Gerry McCaghan.

  Fifty-five years old. Six foot, a good three hundred pounds, pale, ursine, red hair, a really nasty smear of scar tissue under his left eye where he’d gotten hit by a rubber bullet at a riot in Derry. He was wearing sunglasses, blue corduroys, a Hawaiian shirt like Seamus’s, black loafers, and rather surprisingly he had a gun showing in a holster on his left hip. The gun visible only for a moment as the draft from the door wafted up his shirttail.

  “Mr. McCaghan, the usual?” the kid behind the bar shouted.

  Kit looked over, smiled at her dad, and waved.

  The feds tensed.

  The assassin put down his pint. Too late now to warn his compatriot about the upcoming slaughter.

  I got off the bar stool, began walking toward Kit.

  Here goes, I thought. She was hovering over a table, clearing away the drinks. The table was between the exit and a toilet, so I could always say I’d been heading for the toilet if she ever asked why I had suddenly started walking toward her when all hell had broken loose.

  About fifteen paces from me to her. How long did I have? A few seconds?

  Three paces, four, five, six, seven.

  I knew it was the wrong thing to do but I couldn’t help but half-turn and look at the assassin. His pint was on the bar now, his cigarette in the ashtray, both his hands free. He slid off the bar stool, stood, legs apart, steady.

  Nine, ten, eleven . . .

  Gerry, slightly behind Hughes and McClennahan, nodded at someone in the far corner of the room.

  Kit picked up an empty glass, put it on her tray.

  Twelve, thirteen, fourteen . . .

  The assassin reached in his coat, pulled out a sawed-down AK-47 assault rifle. He hooked in that big curved magazine, lifted the gun, and aimed it. I leapt at Kit just as someone yelled:

  “He’s got a gun.”

  My hands reached Kit’s shoulders.

  Seamus went for his revolver. McCaghan reached for his pistol.

  The assassin leveled the AK at McCaghan, pulled the trigger.

  Nothing.

  A blank look on the assassin’s face.

  I hauled Kit to the floor. Her body warm, slender, slight. A pint glass fell out of her hand and I pushed it away in midair before it smashed on top of her.

  “What the fuck—” she began saying to me while her father ducked and the assassin, looking baffled, pulled the

  AK’s trigger again.

  Then a dozen people stood and yelled “Drop your weapon” and “Put the gun down” and “This is the FBI.”

  And at the same time, the blond-haired kid in the corner took out a 9mm pistol, leveled his arm, took aim, and fired two quick rounds at Gerry McCaghan. Put off by all the noise, confusion, and yelling, he missed Gerry by ten feet and the bullets sailed through the upper windows and out into the back bay.

  Panicking, one of the FBI agents fired his weapon, hitting the effectively unarmed assassin at the bar, nailing him in the left shoulder.

  The blond-haired kid fired again, almost getting McCaghan this time, missing him by a few inches, hitting a bell hanging from the ceiling just above his head. Seamus spun round and shot twice at the kid in the corner. Bullets ripping up a Boston Celtics wall hanging above his booth. The kid shot back at Seamus and, seeing that the situation was untenable, began making a break for a side door. Underneath me, Kit writhed and called out, “Daddy, Daddy, oh Daddy”

  while the FBI men were screaming: “Everyone drop your weapons, cease fire, this is the FBI.”

  The kid shot a round that thumped into a Guinness mirror just to the left of us, shattering it. Three seconds of everything happening at once: Kit howling, the FBI yelling, Seamus shooting at the kid, the kid shoot-ing at Seamus, Gerry completely safe, crouching behind Seamus and McClennahan. The other patrons lying on the floor, absolutely terrified.

  An FBI agent jumped unnecessarily onto the first gunman, crashing him over the bar and into the Cork barkeep. Two other agents fired at the blond assassin, missing but almost killing an innocent tourist who had wandered in off the street to see what all the commotion was. Smoke, cordite, chaos, and Gerry’s bodyguard, Seamus, keeping the coolest of everyone, crouching, taking good aim, firing just to the left of the kid’s determined face.

  It had lasted almost fifteen seconds, but it couldn’t last much longer.

  The kid fired the final bullet in his clip, hitting an FBI guy right in the center of his Kevlar vest.

  And at that, a senior FBI man with a mustache stood on a table and screamed to make himself heard: “Everybody fuck-ing freeze. You’re all under arrest. This is the FBI. Stop shooting. Drop your guns, drop your guns, drop your goddamn guns.”

  The blond-haired kid finally saw sense and put his hands up. S
eamus dropped his gun and put his hands up too.

  Kit, writhing, turned round to look at me.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I whispered. “Away from the bloody peelers.”

  “How?”

  “Stairs to the basement and up through the barrel hatch,” I said, wildly improvising.

  “My dad?” Kit whispered.

  “Is going to be arrested, everybody is, let’s go,” I said. “We can slip out through the smoke.”

  The senior FBI agent yelled commands over the ringing in our ears: “Drop those guns on the floor and put your hands on your heads. Everyone else freeze. This place is surrounded by the FBI.”

  The blond kid put his hands on his head and two agents knocked him to the floor, pinning him. They grabbed Seamus and Gerry and attempted to render assistance to the injured assassin.

  “This is our chance, in all the confusion,” I whispered.

  “Ok,” Kit said.

  We slipped down the steps into the basement. I didn’t know if they even had a hatchway for delivering the kegs, but Kit did.

  “It’s over here,” she whispered. “There’s a stepladder against the wall.”

  I grabbed the ladder, climbed it, and pushed open the hatch into the glare of the sun setting over Boston Harbor. I clambered onto the sidewalk and helped Kit up.

  “What about my dad?” Kit asked.

  “He’s fine, he’ll be going downtown for having that gun,

  though,” I said.

  “Who are you?”

  “I only came for a bloody drink.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Sean McKenna.”

  “You two, you better hold it right there,” a Boston cop yelled from behind one of the trash compactors.

  “We’re FBI,” I said and reached in my pocket for my driving license, which I couldn’t let Kit see because it was still for Brian O’Nolan.

  The cop walked over and when he was close, I lowered the license, let him bend down to look at it, smashed my fist into the side of his head, kicked his legs from under him, and kicked him twice on the ground, blows that probably hurt me more than him—with my stabbed foot—but which rendered him briefly unconscious.

  Kit looked at me, appalled but also excited.

  “Let’s go,” I yelled, and we ran down an alley into the back streets of Revere.

  Within a minute we had disappeared into the holiday crowd, but just to be sure, Kit found a parked Toyota Camry, wrapped her jacket round her arm, broke the side window with her elbow, yelled in pain, opened the door, kicked the plastic off the ignition system, sparked the starter, turned to me, and said:

  “I’m a little bit . . . um, can you drive?”

  “Ok, honey,” I said and drive I did.

  * * *

  Route 1 out of Revere. Kit distracted, on the mobile phone, trying time and again to call her dad and her dad’s lawyer and finally getting through to Sonia, whoever Sonia was, explaining what had happened and asking Sonia to call her back.

  Kit ignoring me completely. Not that I cared—I was focused on not getting us killed in the hellish evening traffic heading out of the city.

  “Where are we going?” I asked when she finally seemed

  done with her phone calls.

  “Plum Island.”

  “Can we drive there?” I asked, remembering that this was also the name of one of those islands in Long Island Sound.

  “Of course. Forty-five minutes.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Route 1 to 133 to Route 1A, it’s at the mouth of the Mer-rimack River.”

  Kit’s mobile rang.

  “Dad, Daddy, is that you? Oh my God. Ohmygod. Oh my God.”

  Apparently it was. Kit started to cry, and I gave her a tissue we’d found in the glove compartment. She blew her nose. Wiped her eyes.

  “Daddy, where are you?” she asked into the phone.

  Gerry told her and Kit seemed reassured.

  “I’m going back to Newburyport; a nice boy called Sean is driving me, he sort of saved me, he’s from Ireland.”

  Gerry must have been suspicious, because Kit gave me a winning smile.

  “It’s ok, Daddy, I’m totally fine. He’s nice. We’re heading home. What about you, are you hurt? Did you tell them about your blood pressure?”

  Gerry said something and Kit laughed. She put her hand over the receiver.

  “He’s fine,” she told me.

  “Good,” I replied.

  Gerry said something else that sent her into hysterics. She put her hand over the mouthpiece again.

  “He says he’ll be out tonight because he’s got something rarer than a tap-dancing dodo,” Kit explained, the tears gone from her eyes now.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “A Massachusetts concealed carry permit,” Kit said and chuckled at her father’s unfunny remark.

  Gerry gave her a few instructions and told her he loved her.

  “I love you too, Dad,” Kit said and hung up.

  Kit turned to me and smiled.

  “They’re all ok,” she said.

  “Ok, good. I’m glad,” I said and gave her a quizzical look.

  “What’s that expression about?” she asked.

  “Well, this may be a perfectly normal event to you but I’m a stranger in these parts, so you wanna tell me what the fuck happened in there?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, I suppose it was a gang thing,” Kit lied.

  “A gang thing? Jesus. Does that happen in Boston a lot?” I asked.

  “No, not really, but sometimes it does. It doesn’t usually come down to violence.”

  “How come your dad had a gun?”

  “Oh, he, like, runs a construction company, gets a lot of threats from the mafia and stuff, he’s allowed. But I don’t think this was anything to do with him. Just wrong place, wrong time.”

  “Well, I must say you’re taking it pretty well, been in anything like this before?” I asked.

  Kit said nothing but her face was hard and wary.

  “It’s certainly a first time for me,” I said, as gentle a probe as I dared.

  “First time for me, too,” she said and patted me on the leg.

  She was being comforting but also taking the piss. Still, the physical contact was welcome. A lot of attractive women were finding me extremely tactile these days. That unwashed combination of prison cell, banana plantation, riot, sunblock, and cheap beer must be an irresistible mix.

  “Terrifying,” I said, and Kit nodded. “I mean, Jesus, it was terrible, oh my God, it was really terrible,” I added, hamming it up.

  But Kit was bored with me. She didn’t want to pretend that this was her virgin encounter with serious violence. She tried to look away. Her lip began to quiver and she looked for her fags. No, not bored, it was all just too much to deal with right now.

  A good idea to change the subject.

  “Well, you’re not going to tell me that that was the first car you ever broke into,” I said.

  Kit pressed the button to open the Camry’s sunroof.

  The scent of pollen.

  The night air smeared with stars.

  “No, I’m not going to tell you that,” she said softly and with a nervous laugh. “Let’s talk about you, though. Why are you over from Ireland?”

  I had to be quiet now as I exited Route 1 and joined the 1A, via the 133. The 1A was a narrow two-lane road, not much traffic, that made its way through little white clapboard towns, swampy grasslands, boggy woods, and big wet marshes near the tidal shore.

  “What are you doing in America?” Kit asked me again.

  “Apart from beating up cops and saving girls?”

  “Yeah, unless you do that full-time? You’re not Superman, are you?”

  “Superman digs the police. I’m here just the same as everybody. Looking for work. Someone told me this morning that I might have a job opening up in Salisbury Beach, Massachusetts,” I said, hastily recalling what Samantha had told
me of the second part of the plan.

  “Doing what?”

  “I’m not sure what exactly, probably bar.”

  “Salisbury? Well, I don’t think you’ll have a problem with gunplay up there, it’s not exactly the most happening of places.”

  “Hope not. Christ, twenty-five years in Belfast and I’m safe as houses, a week in America and I’m in a bloody gun battle.”

  Kit said nothing. She rummaged in her bag and found a cigarette.

  “Smoke?” she asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Filthy habit,” she agreed and lit herself one.

  “Not so much that, I had a hard time quitting; I was addicted and I don’t want to start again,” I said.

  “I’m just a social smoker. Addictions are for the weak,” Kit announced with condescension.

  I grinned inwardly and said nothing.

  “At least everyone’s ok,” Kit said more to herself than me, and out of the corner of my eye I noticed that now her hand was starting to shake.

  Well, yes, it had been scary, and after all she was little more than just a kid. No Mexican prisons on her résumé.

  “Yeah, everyone seemed fine,” I agreed.

  The woods thinned and the road went over a narrow perfumed river winding its way uneasily into the black sea.

  “The feds had it all staked out,” she muttered to herself.

  “I suppose so,” I concurred, staring at her.

  “I should have known those guys were feds, they didn’t tip,”

  she said.

  “And I was suspicious of that guy with the assault rifle from the start,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “He was drinking lite beer,” I said. “Don’t you find in your professional capacity that lite beer drinkers are generally wankers?”

  “Now you come to mention it,” Kit said, drawing in the tobacco smoke and relaxing a little.

  We drove in silence and she smoked her cig, lit another, and was soon chill enough to become the proud amateur tour guide.

  “See the road to that beach?”

  “Yeah?”

  “That’s where they filmed a Steve McQueen movie, the one with Faye Dunaway and he’s a bank robber.”

  “Don’t know it but it sounds good,” I said.

  “And down there is where the famous writer John Updike lives.”