CHAPTER 9

So now I’ve got this thing under the leg of my jeans. A security bracelet, Faber called it, quite popular with the celebs. Feels like there’s a mutant beetle clamped on to my ankle, waiting to sink its teeth or claws, or whatever weapons a mutant beetle might possess, into my fibula. It’s a clever little machine, no doubt about it. I’m surprised they’ve even got stuff like this outside the pages of a sci-fi novel.

Faber took great glee from explaining its workings to me. He came across like a techno-fool who knows how this one thing works, and bores the bejasus out of everyone passing on his snippet of know-how.

‘So what we have here, Daniel, is a little electronic insurance policy. Judge friend of mine gave it to me in payment for my opinion on a statutory case he was . . . eh . . . involved in. Homeland are already using them and there’s a strong lobby to snap them on US parolees too, given the percentage of repeat offenders.’

‘Yeah? Spare me the lecture, Faber,’ I said, playing it cool.

‘Okay. Let me give you the specs. It’s tamper-proof, naturally; there’s a sensor on there that monitors pulse and blood pressure; it’s got GPS that feeds into my laptop, so we know exactly what building you’re in at any time. You nip into the john for a quick dump, and the bracelet picks up the splash. But here’s the bit I really love. I can remotely inflict electromuscular disruption if you ain’t doing what you’re supposed to be doing where you’re supposed to be doing it. Or to give you the doorman version: I can zap enough voltage up your ass to make you shit your pants. This thing makes the Taser shock seem like a tickle with a feather.’

And then Faber gave me a little taste, just to show me he wasn’t kidding. Felt like he popped my brain into a blender; by the time it was over, I was giving serious consideration to the aforementioned pants-shitting.

So now I am Faber’s boy. He’s got the key to my heart rate. I spend a minute trying to think of some way to screw with him, but it’s a foolproof system, and so I settle down in my seat at the back of the New York bus and try to grab a little sleep. Maybe a low heart rate will fool Faber into thinking I’m dead.

I cross my ankles over the canvas bag at my feet. At least Faber’s plan involved me catching a bus, so I got to collect my weapons and drop off my cash after I had picked it up from the cruiser.

It takes most of the day to get out to Farmington from New York. First a train to New Haven from Manhattan, then a transit bus. It might speed things up a bit if the driver didn’t stop at every corner in Long Island on the way. Seems like everyone knows his name except me. I don’t know why I’m fuming; it’s not like I’m in any great hurry to get where I’m going. Plus the rocking motion should help me to digest the sack of Taco Bell I bought at Grand Central. I wolfed it down a little quick, my first proper meal in over twenty-four hours. When you’re having a crappy week, nothing comforts like Taco Bell.

I have to admit, standing there under Grand Central’s famous vaulted ceiling, I did think about nipping to the rest room, sticking my foot down a toilet and putting a few rounds into the bracelet.

How tough can this thing be? Ghost Zeb reasoned, eager to have me back on his own case.

While I was mulling this over, Faber gave me an almost psychic call on Macey Barrett’s cell, which I told him was my phone.

‘So here’s the thing, Dan,’ he said, and I could almost hear the air part as he jabbed a finger at his mouthpiece. ‘Sometimes distance makes people brave. They start thinking like it’s traditional warfare and they can run away. Before you give in to that impulse, I got some information a chivalrous guy like yourself should have.’

Chivalrous? Does everyone know my weak spot?

‘Yeah? What’s that, counsellor?’

‘Your lady friend. The cop on the trolley. If I don’t hear from you by nightfall, she goes in the freezer. We just wheel her right in there. And once in, she’s not coming out. I had a plate bolted over the safety latch. After that, I set my dogs on you. You shot the cops and my bodyguards shot you. Simple.’

Looks like chivalry might soon be dead along with Detective Deacon. The bodies just keep stacking up like sandbags.

I spend a futile moment wishing that things were normal again. If this were a normal week, I would be meeting Zeb for karaoke later. The little mensch loves the karaoke bar. Barry Manilow is his speciality, if you can believe that.

Oh Mandy, you came and I came, you were fakin’.

I think he might have screwed up the words a little.

Karaoke, says Ghost Zeb into his sleeve, the way he does when he’s in one of his moods. Not likely since you abandoned the search for me to save Princess Supercop. I’m as good as dead.

Don’t be like that. I haven’t abandoned you, but I’m on the clock with Deacon. They’re going to ice her, man.

That makes two of us, says Ghost Zeb. Why don’t you do something about my problem, since you’re just sitting there? Have you even thought of a plan yet?

I roll my eyes, which must look strange to the old lady in the seat opposite giving me the glare treatment.

I’m a little preoccupied at the moment.

Not so preoccupied that your brain doesn’t have a few spare cells to conjure me up.

Okay, okay. I have been thinking about this, as you perfectly well know. Let me make a call.

Make your call, Judas.

Hey, Judas wasn’t Irish.

Just make the call.

One call then I’m back on Deacon.

It takes me a minute to remember Corporal Tommy Fletcher’s number. I punch it in carefully, big fingers little buttons.

From what I hear, Irish Mike Madden has family in Ireland. Maybe Tommy can do a little recon, get us some leverage.

It’s a start, I suppose, says Zeb, unwilling to give up his sulk. But don’t think you’re off the hook. If you don’t find the real me, I’m gonna move into your temporal lobe permanently.

Great. Another ultimatum, just what I need.

Tommy answers when I’m on the point of hanging up.

‘What the fuck?’ he says instead of plain old hello, which is a pretty standard opener for Corporal Fletcher as far as I remember.

‘Is that any way to talk to your sergeant?’ I ask, half smiling in spite of the whirlwind of crap spinning around me.

‘I’m not in the army no more,’ grumbles Tommy. ‘Especially not at four in the bloody morning. I got a headache and it’s nearly bedtime.’ Tommy draws a sharp breath as he realises who he’s talking to. ‘Daniel? Dan fucking McEvoy? Is that the big jackeen himself?’

‘That’s Sergeant McEvoy to you, Fletcher.’

‘Danny, brother. Are you in country? We gotta party. We gotta go crazy, man. You ever see a one-legged man dance? So, where are you, Sarge?’

‘I’m overseas, Corporal.’

‘Still knocking heads?’

‘A few. That’s why I’m calling.’

‘Something I can help you with?’

Tommy always caught on fast. ‘I have a little recon mission for you, if you’re up to it.’

There is an uncomfortable silence, then Tommy mumbles, ‘Thing is, Dan, I don’t really do that kind of thing any more. I got kids . . .’

Now I feel bad. ‘Forget I mentioned it, Tommy. I didn’t realise . . .’

Tommy cackles. ‘Just screwing with you, Sarge. Course I’m up for it. No killing gypsies, though. I had a curse put on me.’

‘No gypsicide, honest. I just need you to trace the roots of a certain family tree.’

‘What?’

‘Find a few people. But be careful, they have dangerous relatives.’

Tommy is unimpressed. ‘Shit, my brother has a dangerous relative. Who do you need me to find?’

I give Tommy the details and he promises to get back to me asa-f-p.

I never wanted a phone before, but I’m starting to realise how convenient they are.

Irish Mike is paying for the call too, chuckles Zeb, coming out of his funk. Nice touch.

I must have chuckled too, because now the old lady opposite is showing me her can of Mace.

It’s early evening by the time I finally get where I’m going in Farmington. This is not the sort of place doormen are usually required. The entire avenue is so wholesome and autumnal that it reminds me of Ireland. Even in these circumstances I can feel the first lilting twinges of the immigrant gene kicking in.

Farmington is even nicer than Cloisters; far too nice, you would think, to have a criminal underbelly, but as I found out only hours ago, the Farmington criminal underbelly is doing quite well. On this avenue especially.

I do the last mile from the bus stop on foot, humping the weapons bag, and find a bench to rest my weary frame while I finish off my Big Bell Box meal.

The spicy food reminds me of Monterrey, and I can’t help wondering how fast I could get there.

Yeah, that’s right, amigo. Pack up and leave me to rot.

Calm down. I called Tommy, didn’t I? Wheels are in motion. Now piss off and let me think.

You think too much. You need to get out of your head and into the real world.

Irony. Must be.

So I sit on the bench, reining in my aura, trying to look like a member of the community and not an ex-army doorman sent to rip off a steroid lab. I chew my burrito awhile and grudgingly admit that Faber and Goran had a sweet deal figured.

Back in Cloisters, Faber got a little teary spelling it out.

‘As an attorney in the city, I represent a lot of drug people. I get to know them, they fill me in on every detail of their operation, and armed with this information, I get them off most of the time.’

I remember making myself pay attention, even though half my brain cells were fried from the anklet jolt and the rest were threatening to break apart and liquefy.

‘So a year goes by, maybe eighteen months, these guys have forgotten all about their natty attorney, when one of their labs gets busted by the cops. First through the door is my dead friend, Detective Goran, followed closely by a few of my own humps all rigged out in DEA armour and helmets. They secure the bad guys, load the drugs into the van and that’s all she wrote. Our fake police squad drives away, leaving the ripped-off drug merchants hog-tied with PlastiCuffs. Sometimes we load a couple in the van for show, then toss ’em a few blocks later.’

He leaned back on his heels, waiting for me to think it through, appreciate his genius. Which I did.

‘So the theft is never reported.’

‘What are they gonna say? Is that the police? I’d like to report that you people stole my drugs? Don’t think so.’

‘And you got a buyer?’

‘I represent a lot of drug guys. They figure I’m brokering for another client.’

That was pretty good, so I said: ‘That’s pretty goddamn good, Jaryd.’

Faber couldn’t help preening. ‘Why thank you, Daniel.’

‘But now you’re screwed because your pet detective is dead.’

Pet detective, says GZ. Nice.

‘And I’m guessing Goran wasn’t stupid enough to let you keep the riot gear.’

‘Correct. Goran headed up operations in the field; I did the planning.’

‘It’s a good plan. Sweet, the kids might say.’

‘Again, thank you. But much as I appreciate your appreciation, I need more than that before I let you go after my package.’

In Ireland, going after a guy’s package means grabbing him by the balls. I think Faber is talking about his drugs again.

‘You read my file?’

‘No. Any good bits?’

‘I have a special skill set.’

‘Any of those skills relevant?’

‘Shit, Faber, if your package was in Fallujah I could extract it.’

Faber licked his lips. Extract. He liked that bit of military.

‘It begins with an F, but it ain’t Fallujah.’

Ten minutes later, Faber had Deacon’s computer on his knee and was scrolling my file.

‘Kee-rist almighty, Daniel. This reads good. You kill anyone over there?’

‘Only the ones that died. What’s in this for me, Faber? If I’m gonna be a criminal, I might as well get paid.’

I figured if anyone could understand greed, it would be a lawyer.

‘You get my package and I’ll give you fifty grand plus your life back.’

He was lying and we both knew it; what we didn’t know was if the other person knew we knew it.

What are you, six?

‘Okay, Faber. You got a deal. Cut me loose and give me the details.’

Faber called one of his boys over, gave him a set of keys and a few whispered instructions.

‘Not just yet, Daniel. I need to make an impression on you first. Show you what a dead serious kinda guy I am. One more taste of electromuscular disruption should do it.’

The house I’m watching is straight out of the opening credits of a suburban sitcom. According to what TV tells us, there should be an overweight dad, a foxy mom, couple of smartarse kids and maybe an in-law down the basement. Work in a couple of catchphrases, like sheesh, Ma or none of you people get me and next thing you know it’s season nine and DVD box sets are topping the charts.

This is the last place you’d expect to find a steroid lab. Nevertheless, according to Faber, this is exactly where I will find one.

‘And a lotta security,’ he said. ‘State of the art. These guys don’t skimp.’

Faber is not risking any of his guys on this run, so I’m on my own. No fake police backup. A pity, as according to Faber, Goran had put together quite the strike force. Pro-bars, oneman battering rams, the whole kit and caboodle.

‘Think of it as a test, Daniel. You bring home the goods and maybe next time I let you take out some of the boys.’

I should call the FBI, that’s what I should do. But once the Feds become involved, the best-case scenario is I live out my days in witness protection; the worst-case is Deacon freezes and I get life without parole. So maybe I put Newark on speed dial, but I don’t push the button just yet.

Newark on speed dial? Your thoughts are beginning to sound American.

Zeb is right. I’ve been here too long. I need a pint of Guinness that’s taken five minutes to pour, and a date with a freckled redhead.

The house looks normal, but I squint into the shadows and see camera domes suckered to the eaves. Laser eyes too, on stalks in the garden. The windows are small, with decorative cast-iron bars, and the door is painted to look wooden, but I’m betting on steel. Spotlights on the lawn and roof complete the package. This place is a subtle fortress. There’s no chance I’m fighting my way inside.

I circle around back, which is not as easy as it sounds. In modern America’s paranoid suburbia, the tendency is to shoot strangers first and ask questions later, if at all. There are stories on the news every day about garbage men getting plugged by panicked housewives just because they were speaking in some language that was not English. Sometimes that’s their actual court defence.

He was round back of my house, messing with my trash, speaking terrorist talk. What does he ’spect?

But I politicise.

Luckily, shadows are lengthening, I’m wearing black and I have done this kind of thing before. I nip through the adjoining yard, all ready to lay someone out if I have to. I’m hoping for a male. I could live with socking some stocky gardener, but a slip of a girl might be more than my beleaguered psyche will allow.

Pull yourself together or you’ll start making mistakes.

Yeah. That’s rich coming from a guy who once tossed back three shots of furniture polish after the club one night. Three shots before he noticed something wrong.

First decent crap I took in months, says Ghost Zeb.

I make it around back through a bricked alley without having to relieve anyone of their senses, and conceal myself in a cluster of evergreens. I peep through branches to the bay window and see the empty lounge of an affluent suburban home with regulation Eames recliner that is too expensive for the kids to ever sit in. Nice garden, though, I gotta say. Plenty of green, nice wild feel to it without being neglected. Reminds me of . . .

Oh, please. Shut the hell up.

Okay, then.

I hear a sudden growling and I realise that there’s a dog in the trees with me. Big bastard too, I’m guessing, by the way his breath is in my ear. These are his trees and he’s pissed. I have maybe two seconds before he clamps his teeth around my face. Faber will notice a hell of a spike in my vitals then.

Please not a Rottweiler. Please not a Rottweiler.

I look and there’s a Rottweiler two feet away from me, his sharp head comically bewigged by soft green ferns. He’s got his lips pulled back over his incisors and his black eyeballs are on me like target lasers, which kinda takes the comic out of it.

Christ. This is not right. How much more shit can be piled on one person in a day?

The dog lunges and I roll back into the tree roots and shrubs with him, clamping his snout with one hand. I get a fistful of dog snot, but at least those teeth are contained for the moment. I reach down with the other hand and grab the dog’s crotch.

Congratulations. It’s a boy.

Screw squeamishness. In the words of David Byrne: I ain’t got time for that now.

The dog is in my arms and he’s wriggling like a sea creature out of water. I can feel the animal’s fury testing my muscles to their limits. Branches snap around our heads, and with the dusk falling it’s like a scene from a horror movie. I half expect some masked creep to emerge from the alley with a mommy fixation and a carving knife.

I give the Rottweiler’s balls a squeeze to get him good and angry, then use every pound of strength I can muster to flip him over the garden fence. I hear the thump and scrabble as he lands awkwardly next door then finds his paws. This is not a move I had ever planned or run through in any of my justin-case scenarios; it’s kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing and could even work to my advantage.

Go, Bonzo, I broadcast at the dog. Give ’em hell.

Next door the commotion is immediate. Bonzo rampages through the drug den’s back garden looking for some throats to tear out. I’m betting this particular dog is not used to being manhandled over a fence. They say that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, but I would argue that a scorned woman would pale and back out of the room faced with a Rottweiler who just got his scrotum twisted.

I peep over the fence. Next door’s garden has roughly the same dimensions: a rectangular lawn maybe twenty by thirty, with various immature trees clustered at the end. It also has a freshly laid rear driveway with a pick-up reversed up to a back door, which is obviously reinforced.

There’s a guy on the door who doesn’t know whether to give Bonzo his tough-guy face or shit his pants.

I may not be able to get myself into this house, but maybe I can make whoever is in there come out to me.

The dog shakes his sleek head like he’s disembowelling an imaginary rabbit, then spots the guy at the door and decides to transfer my crimes to him. His growl says, I am going to eat you alive, motherfucking ball-squeezer.

There isn’t a man on this planet who isn’t scared by a Rottweiler coming at him with drool streaming out of his mouth.

I squat to rummage through the bag at my feet. First I pop a couple of earplugs from their plastic envelope, then I select a Steyer Bullpup assault rifle with a 40mm grenade launcher slung underneath the barrel. And to think I almost didn’t go for the launcher option, but the dealer sold me on it. Hey, don’t take the launcher model, what do I care, but for a hundred bucks I can throw in two grenades. A hundred bucks! You telling me, Irish, that you can’t think of a single situation where a couple of grenades wouldn’t come in handy?

I could think of a couple of situations. This wasn’t one of them. Flying dogs and grenades in the suburbs.

I stick my head over the fence and peer through the branches just in time to lip-read the doorman’s fuck this and see him hurry in the back door. He slams it half a second too late to stop the Rottweiler making it inside.

That is a lucky bonus. I was hoping for the dog outside at the door, causing a distraction, but inside the house itself . . . Should be carnage. Hopefully.

Seconds later the consternation starts. Crashing, tinkling, shouts of surprise. A couple of gunshots.

They’re thinking, What the hell is going on? Where is this coming from?

Pack up the shit. Pack it up.

First rule of any factory: protect the product.

I pull the assault rifle into my shoulder and flick off the safety, and instantly I am a soldier again. It’s the click. Once the safety is off, it is no longer a drill.

I strafe the roof, knocking holes in the slates, leaving beams exposed and severing the power lines. If those guys don’t have a generator in there, surveillance is down. Even if they do, I have a minute.

Now they’re thinking, Gunfire. It’s a raid. We need to move out.

Gunfire is one thing, but explosions really light a fire under people. I feed a grenade into the launcher, close the slide and pull the secondary trigger, sending a silver 40mm egg of explosives through a hole in the roof. I hope no one was hiding their Christmas presents up there.

The explosion is not Hollywood big but it’s enough to reduce the attic space to so much firewood. The sound wave makes reality jump a frame or two, and a cloud of smoke and dust hang over the house, a marker for the fire brigade.

That’s all the destruction I need. I stuff the assault rifle back into my magic bag and drop over the fence into enemy territory. Maybe their cameras are out, maybe not. Either way, I have to act.

The pick-up crouches in the driveway like a wild beast. A brand-new Hilux with outsize wheels and probably a lot more than shop horsepower waiting under the hood. This is the getaway vehicle, no doubt about it. Any aggravation comes in the front door, and the steroids go out the back in this beauty.

A guy comes on to the patio, gun in one hand and keys in the other. There’s a stripe of blood across his arm and I’m thinking good boy, Bonzo. And also rest in peace, doggie. I twist the wing mirror so I can follow what’s happening, then squat behind the Hilux’s grille, and give the situation a few seconds to develop. Maybe this guy has the steroids on him.

Or maybe not. A second man wheels out two large sealed plastic barrels on a drum caddy. This guy is limping from a leg bite and I’m starting to feel sad for Bonzo.

The men load both barrels into the flatbed, grunting and cursing.

‘Get the last barrel,’ the first man shouts over the crackling flames billowing from the attic.

‘Fuck that,’ says junior guy. ‘I ain’t going back in there.’

Guy 1 brandishes his weapon in a way that tells me he doesn’t have a whole lot of gun-time.

‘Okay,’ says junior guy hurriedly. ‘Jesus, Bobby. We just split a tuna melt.’

‘It was a nice sandwich, man, and we’ll always have that. But I’m the supervisor and I gotta put the tuna aside. So just get the barrel, E Bomb. Shit.’

E Bomb tiptoes back into the house in a way that makes me think that Bonzo is still alive.

E Bomb? Christ, what have nicknames come to? The problem is that these guys are inventing their own names. No one christens themselves Four-eyes, or Shit-breath. One guy back in Dublin, did six months for peeping Tom offences, guys called him Windows 2000. Now that’s a nickname.

Even though the house is under attack, this guy is so focused on making sure there isn’t a dog clamped to his arse that he never sees me coming. I sneak around the driver’s side, punch him in the temple. Hard. And catch his keys before they hit the ground. I don’t even need to take my slim jim out of the bag.

Thanks, Bobby.

Bobby bounces off the door, belches, then collapses to the drive. I smell tuna. I am amazed when he shakes his head and gets in a swing at me. A good one that connects with my entire face. I am going to be lit up like a pumpkin in the morning. I am so pissed that I smack Bobby’s head against the fender maybe a little harder than I need to.

I beep the pick-up with a Toyota fob and jump inside, slinging my bag of tricks into the passenger seat.

That punch hurt my knuckles. Maybe cracked one.

Could be arthritis, says Ghost Zeb, rifling my repressed memories. Your father suffered from it. One of the reasons he drank.

So he said. Didn’t stop him beating on us.

The pick-up starts on the first turn of the key. I should bloody think so, all the money those steroid manufacturers spent on it. I yank the gear lever and floor the gas. The only thing between me and the open road is a key-coded gate that looks like it has enough square bars to contain even the Hilux.

Which is why I veer left and go through the flimsy wooden fence. Morons. I mean really, what kind of a tool organised their security? It only took one man and a mutt to reduce it to smithereens.

The last thing I see of the steroid house in my rear-view mirror is Bonzo, loping out of the back door with a hank of something in his jaws. Good dog, I think. Good dog.