Chapter Seven #2
“I woulda borrowed your gun,” Trey says helpfully, “only I figured you’d say no.”
“No shit,” Cal says. The weight of the knife in his pocket makes him feel weak at the knees. “You’re still a dumbass.”
“We got him,” Trey points out, unfazed.
“Yeah you did,” Cal says. He finds himself suddenly and ferociously proud of her, which is probably the wrong response. “And then you didn’t know what to do with him.”
“We didn’t think about that part,” Trey acknowledges. “Aidan wanted to beat the shite outa him and dump him back on his mammy’s doorstep, and Ross wanted to pull his kacks off and shove him in the river, but I said no. I wanta know what he was at, giving us hassle. He wouldn’t tell us.”
“Well,” Cal says, “with Donie, you just gotta know how to talk to him. I’ve had a productive conversation with him before, I can probably do it again.”
“I know, yeah. That’s why I texted you.”
At least Cal still has a use in her life, even if it’s only working over some Z-list mope.
He can do that. He glances over at Donie, who has started squirming again—not with any real intent, just from the instinct to make things difficult.
“You do anything lately to piss Donie off?” he asks. “You or any of your family?”
“Nah. Haven’t even seen him.”
“You sure? Maybe he saw Maeve down in Noreen’s and said something inappropriate, and she told him to fuck himself, something like that. Would you know?” Maeve is thirteen, but that wouldn’t bother Donie.
Trey shrugs. “People tell Donie to get fucked all the time. He’d just laugh at her.”
“True,” Cal says. “How about anyone else? Your mama have beef with a neighbor, anything like that?” Donie is for hire. Donie also has the attention span of a fruit fly, except where money is concerned. If he’s been hanging around here for weeks, Cal is betting there was cash involved.
“Not that she said. Maeve had a fight with her mates coupla weeks back, but she always does, and anyway it’s sorted now.”
“Nah,” Cal says. “OK, let’s go find out. I like a challenge.”
Donie has got bored of wriggling and is lying still again, staring glassy-eyed at nothing. “He’s a frisky one,” Aidan says proudly, giving him a clap on the shoulder. “I might keep him for a pet.”
“You’d never get him housetrained,” Ciara says.
“Just auction him off,” Kate says. “My uncle’s pigs went for two euros twenty the kilo. What d’you reckon he weighs?”
“Too much,” Ross says. “The little fucker rolled on me, when we were taking him down; fuckin’ flattened me. He needs to go on a diet.”
It’s not bravado; they’re genuinely having a blast. They’re not one little bit worried about Donie, regardless of his flick knife and his general unsavoriness.
On the one hand, they all have a bad case of teenage immortality; on the other, Cal agrees with them that, while Donie would have shanked any of them during the struggle without batting an eyelid, he’s unlikely to have the follow-through for revenge plots.
Cal plans to eliminate any possibility that they’re all wrong.
“Have him stuffed and stick him on the wall,” he says. “Who’s got that garden wire?”
“Me,” Ciara says, waving it.
“Do his ankles,” Cal tells Trey. “I like things nice and thorough.”
“Fuck sake,” Donie says.
“Hey,” Aidan tells him reproachfully. “You heard the man: language. I don’t want to get corrupted.”
“Except by Ciara,” Ross says. Ciara gives him the finger.
Cal aims his flashlight at Donie’s ankles, Ciara scoots out of the way, and Trey squats down and starts tying them. Donie tries to kick out. Ciara gives him a smack on the leg, like a mama smacking a kid’s hand away from a hot pan, and he settles down.
“Good,” Cal says, when Trey’s done. The kid is thorough; someone is going to have a long night with a pair of wire cutters. “Now you all head over there a ways. Me and Donie need some privacy. I’ll text you when you can come back.”
“Aah,” Aidan says, miffed. “We’re the ones that caught him.”
“I know that. Do you butcher your own cattle, since you’re the ones that raised them? Or do you leave that to the professionals?”
“You gonna butcher him?” Ross asks. “Can we watch?”
“I haven’t decided yet,” Cal says. Donie is lying still, a sullen lump ignoring the whole situation, like a toddler refusing to get dressed. “Depends how bad he pisses me off.”
“Come on,” Kate says, getting up and dusting Donie residue off her jeans. “Let the man get to work.” She pulls Aidan up after her and gives Cal a quick nod of approval. Cal, what with everything else on his mind, hadn’t realized he was being evaluated. Apparently he’s passed, at least so far.
He watches Trey and her buddies head off into the trees, shoving and snickering and hissing at each other to keep it down. Once their light gets far enough, he turns his attention to Donie. Donie, all trussed up, looks like a great big grub.
“Donie,” Cal says. “My man. Long time no see. How’d your finger heal up?”
Donie tries to spit at Cal, but he doesn’t have the angle.
Cal takes a walk around him and points the flashlight at his hands, which are tied behind his back.
Trey and her buddies didn’t skimp on the garden wire; a crisscrossing snarl of it reaches halfway up Donie’s forearms. One of his middle fingers is bent at an unnatural angle, halfway down, and has a lumpy look.
“You shoulda taken that to a doctor,” Cal says. “What do you do when you want to give someone the finger? Use the other hand?”
“Untie me, man,” Donie says. “They done it too tight. It’s killing me.”
“And I’ve got a pain in my ass, son,” Cal says. “We’ll just have to suffer. What are you doing here?”
“Went for a walk,” Donie says.
“Son,” Cal says, still leisurely scanning Donie up and down with the flashlight, “you and me go back, you know what I’m saying?
And I gotta tell you, Donie, as a friend, I’m concerned about you.
You’re going downhill. I knew you were a scumbag, but I never thought you were the type of scumbag that goes around peeping on little girls changing into their nighties. ”
“I don’t peep on anyone.”
“Sure you do. Which one was it? The thirteen-year-old, or the seven-year-old?”
“Fuck off. I’m not into that.”
“Huh,” Cal says. He wanders over to Donie’s head end and shines the flashlight in his face.
He’s gauging how scared of him Donie is.
Donie is a pretty basic system, operated via a couple of simple dials: who can give him most, and who can scare him most. Cal has no intention of giving him anything.
After their last encounter, Donie ought to have a useful level of fear going on here, but then again, Donie doesn’t have much power of retention.
If something isn’t hurting him in the moment, he has trouble establishing any emotional connection to the fact that it might. “Then what are you doing here?”
Donie, squinting into the flashlight beam, grins. “Told you. I was out for a walk.”
“That’s right,” Cal says. “You did mention that.” He moves over to Donie’s side and gets a good grip on the wire between his wrists.
“I like to think I’m a memorable guy, son.
I’m vain that way. So it hurts my feelings, Donie, it pisses me right off when you forget one of the most important things about me, which is that I don’t like mopes being fucking predictable. ”
He yanks his handful of wire upwards, not hard enough to dislocate Donie’s shoulders, but close.
Donie opens his mouth to yell, and Cal gets a foot on his neck and shoves his face into the wet leaves.
After a few moments he steps away and lets Donie flop back onto the ground. Donie blows and heaves and spits dirt.
“That refresh your memory?” Cal asks.
“You ripped my fuckin’ arms out.”
“Nah,” Cal says. “That was just a reminder.”
“What’d you do that for?”
Cal squats down by his head. Donie’s pasty face is squished up against the ground, and he smells powerfully of stale sweat and cigarette smoke.
“If I have to work you over to make you talk, Donie, I’ll do it good.
And once you’re done talking, I’ll take you into town and dump you on the Guards’ doorstep, and I’ll tell them I caught you peeping on little girls and you came at me with a knife.
And I’ll have five witnesses, plus the knife, to back me up. You see that ending well for you, son?”
“Fuckin’ sliced my arms open,” Donie says, flexing his wrists experimentally and grimacing.
“Last chance before I get bored,” Cal says. “You here off your own bat, or did someone pay you?”
Donie grins up at him. He has to be scared by now, but Donie’s emotions don’t soak through all the layers; his eyes are still flat, like nothing much is happening. “You wanta make me a better offer?”
“Nope. Who was it?”
“Nah, man. I don’t wanta piss him off.”
“Probably not,” Cal agrees, “but you don’t want to piss me off either, and I’m here and he’s not. Talk to me, or I’m gonna do it right this time.” He takes hold of Donie’s wrist wire again and braces his feet.
“I’m fuckin’ talking!” Donie yells.
Cal stops. “Keep it down,” he says. The lights in the house are still off.
“It was Big Tommy Moynihan. Not himself; he sent his young fella. Little fuckin’ ladyboy, thinks he’s great. Holding his coat in like he didn’t want it touching me.”
“I don’t blame him, son,” Cal says. “You look like you got diseases they haven’t even named yet. What’d Eugene say?”
“Said his dad wanted Sheila Reddy scared. Nothing hands-on, he said, to start with anyhow. Just a bitta hassle.”
“He say why?”
“Nah, man. Not my problem. Maybe she pissed him off. Moynihans are all pricks.”
“When was this?”
“Last month sometime, I dunno.”
“You talk to them since?”
“The ladyboy rang me coupla weeks back. I gave him the update. He said keep going, I said that’ll cost you, he posted me the cash—fuckin’ pussy wouldn’t send it off his phone, too scared he’d get in trouble.” Donie snickers. “So I got back on the job. Take this shit off me, man.”