Chapter 35
35
brAIDEN
I ngram calls at five sharp, as if he’s got me working on a factory line. I let the call go to voicemail.
He calls at 5:01.
5:02.
5:03.
I know exactly how this technique works. And I know it failed spectacularly when I tried to get Samantha home from Boston. Next up?—
Sure enough, he texts.
Ingram
Pick up or I send my own man to do the job
Then:
He’ll do two for one
So I’m in the crosshairs too.
I calculate how long it’ll take me to get to Boston. My plane can be in the air in less than an hour. Ninety minutes to Hanscom, northwest of the city. I can hire someone to meet me at the airfield with a car, and I can be in Southie an hour after that.
Ingram can be dead by ten tonight.
And I’ll be at war with every captain in the continental United States. Plenty of men in Dublin, too. And half my own crew, who’ve looked up to the Grand Irish Union since they were in nappies.
My phone rings again. I answer half-way through the first “Sunday”.
“No.”
“Don’t get smart with me, boyo.”
I say it again: “No.”
Ingram won’t listen to any argument I make. He’s made me his bumboy. Today, it’s kill Samantha. Tomorrow, it’ll be hand over half my take. The next day: Put Fiona in charge of Philly. I do what he says or he kills me.
Fuck it. I’m skipping to the end.
He splutters. “The bitch isn’t home yet?”
“No.” This is easier than I ever dreamed it would be.
“Ya haven’t killed her.”
“No.”
“Ya had a deadline, boyo!”
“No.”
“Stop sayin’ that ’n’ give me a real answer!”
“No.”
“Ya fuckin’ eejit?—”
I’m sure he’s got more to say, but he starts coughing. And I can tell from the start this is a different type of fit. Even over a phone line, it sounds like wet cloth tearing, a blood-soaked curtain being dragged across a stage .
I hear noise behind him. Someone says he should take a seat. Someone else gives him a glass of water.
There’s a clatter and a rumble, and the pounding of feet. A man shouts for a doctor. Another says he’s calling 911.
I can still hear Ingram, but his coughing sounds like boking now. From the cries of his men, he’s bringing up blood, a lot of it. He pisses himself. He starts to seize.
The shouting grows more frantic. The men seem far more lost. One man starts a frantic Hail Mary. Another blubbers like a child.
And then: Silence.
At first I think the call’s been cut off, but the numbers still tick up on my screen, second after second after second. I want to ask what’s happened, but I already know. I think about crossing myself, but the old bastard isn’t worth the effort.
Finally there’s a scraping sound, and my ear fills with broken breathing. Someone sniffs hard, like he’s just downed a kilo of cocaine. When he speaks, his voice is clogged, thick with equal measures of sorrow and hate.
“He’s gone, Kelly. Now you’re a dead man too.”