Chapter Seven #3
“You need a better career plan, son,” Cal says.
He’s thinking. Donie isn’t going to be a problem any more, but Tommy is a whole different question.
“This one isn’t working out for you. What are you now, headed for thirty?
You planning on spending the rest of your life smearing shit on doors and getting beat up by kids? ”
Donie shrugs, and winces when his shoulders don’t like that. “I do what I want, man.”
“Follow your dream,” Cal says. “Just do it somewhere else. You come back here, I’m gonna beat the living daylights outa you, and then I’m gonna get what’s left of you put on the sex offenders register. Same thing if you give any of those kids any shit. We clear?”
Donie works a piece of underbrush out of his teeth with his tongue and spits. “Yeah. Whatever.”
“Good call,” Cal says. He doubts Donie could even identify any of the kids, apart from Trey, and Donie knows better than to go after Trey.
“Listen, man,” Donie says. He tries to squirm around to make eye contact. “You say nothing to Moynihan, and I’ll say nothing. Hah?”
“You’re done talking,” Cal says. He moves back from Donie and texts Trey. Get everybody back here.
“I need a smoke,” Donie says.
“I don’t smoke.”
“They’re in my pocket.”
“I don’t touch you unless I have to,” Cal says.
His phone beeps: thumbs-up emoji. He glances up and sees pale flickers of light zigzagging among the trees.
Trey and her buddies take shape out of the dark, quick as deer, in a rush of small rustles and the crunch of leaves.
Cal catches Trey’s eye and gives her a nod.
“What’d he say?” Aidan demands.
“Didja beat him up?” Ross wants to know.
“He looks OK,” Ciara says, disappointed, inspecting Donie’s face. Donie grins and blows her a kiss.
“Same as he was,” Kate agrees. “Ugly as fuck.”
“Aah,” Ross says. “Then why’d we haveta leave?”
“Shut up,” Trey says, to all of them. “Listen to him.” She jerks her head at Cal.
They shut up. Their faces turn obediently towards Cal.
“Me and this guy are done here,” Cal says. “He won’t be back. Ain’t that right, Donie?”
“Fuck you,” Donie says sullenly.
“That means yeah,” Cal tells them. “I’m gonna take all of you home, then I’m gonna take him back where he belongs.”
“What was he at?” Kate wants to know.
Cal looks at her. She has a straight stance and steady eyes. She looks like the only one, apart from Trey, who has some inkling that this might be more than an awesome way to pass a few nights; whose mind sees the outlines of a bigger picture.
“I’m not gonna tell you right now,” he says.
Ross and Aidan make indignant noises, but he keeps talking to Kate.
“You’ve earned it, but I’m not clear on the details of what’s going on here yet.
Till I am, I’m gonna keep my mouth shut, make sure I don’t screw anything up.
I’ll get you up to speed as soon as I can. ”
“We done all the dirty work,” Aidan says, outraged. “That fucker farted on me.”
“Quit whinging,” Trey says. “He’ll tell you when he can.”
Cal is still looking at Kate. She gives him that steady gaze for another second; then she nods. “Right,” she says. “What do you want done with him?” She flicks her head at Donie.
“We’ll stick him in my trunk,” Cal says. “Let’s go.”
Cal is pretty sure that untying Donie’s ankles won’t do them any good—Donie isn’t the cooperative type, he’ll slump on the ground and refuse to move—so they haul him to the car like a trussed animal, Cal and Aidan hoisting him by the armpits, the rest taking turns to wrangle his legs.
Donie finds the whole thing entertaining.
Once he tries to lick Aidan’s face, and sniggers when Aidan yells and almost drops him.
They load him into the trunk, which is conveniently screened off from the rest of the car, for dog reasons.
Donie accepts this without much reaction, like it’s a regular part of his routine.
Trey jumps into the passenger seat, and the rest of the kids pile into the back somehow.
“Mister,” Aidan says, leaning forward between the seats, as Cal pulls out onto the road. “You gonna say this to our parents?”
In the corner of Cal’s eye, Trey’s face turns towards him. By rights he should have a long sit-down with every set of parents involved. But if Tommy Moynihan has the Reddys in his sights, Cal needs Trey and her buddies to keep talking to him.
“Nope,” he says. “You’re old enough that your parents are your problem. You want to tell them about this, it’s your call.”
“No fuckin’ way,” Aidan says.
“Toldja,” Trey says triumphantly to Aidan.
Donie starts kicking something, without much heat, just to create a nuisance. “Simmer down back there!” Kate yells. “This fella’s trying to drive!” When Donie kicks harder, she starts to sing at the top of her lungs.
The five of them sing “She Looks So Perfect” all the way down the twisting dark roads, over the sound of the engine and the smooth rush of air against the windows.
The headlight beams stretch out far in front of them, seizing hedges and stone walls into vivid life for a moment before releasing them back into the night.
Aidan has Ciara on his lap, with his arms around her, and they’re all swaying back and forth to the song.
Cal didn’t think Trey was even acquainted with that kind of music, but she knows all the words.
Cal drops off various kids at discreet distances from whatever houses they’re supposed to be at, and they vanish expertly into the dark, waving cheerfully. Then he and Trey head back towards Ardnakelty.
Donie has quit making a ruckus, but he still gives the occasional token kick. “He’s alive, anyhow,” Trey says, nodding backwards at the trunk.
“Yeah, well,” Cal says. “You can’t have everything.”
Trey grins. “What’d he say?” she asks.
“He says Eugene Moynihan hired him.”
“The fuck?” Trey sits up straight. “Why?”
“Keep it down. ’Cause Tommy wanted your mama scared.”
“Why the fuck would that arsehole—”
“Donie doesn’t know.”
“Says he doesn’t.”
“He doesn’t. Would you tell Donie anything, if you were Eugene?”
“He hasta have some—”
“Not now,” Cal says. “We’ll talk about it later.”
Trey shuts her mouth. For a minute she glances over her shoulder at Donie, like she’s considering taking another shot at him, but in the end she settles back in her seat and watches the road disappear under the Pajero’s tires.
The simmering quality of her silence and the set of her jaw both say she’s thinking up things to do to the Moynihans.
Cal is going to have to defuse that, but first he needs to deliver Donie back where he belongs. He’s looking forward to that part.
His mind is on the Moynihans, too. If Mart is right—and when it comes to this place, Mart is mostly right—Tommy Moynihan’s main focus right now is Eugene’s political career, and Cal can’t see any way that would be furthered by hassling a bunch of kids and a woman who stacks supermarket shelves.
On the other hand, he can’t see Tommy putting time and energy into side quests, what with everything else on his plate. This makes no sense.
The Moynihans haven’t quite worked up the balls to put in a remote-controlled gate, but of course their place has a fancy motion-activated security system, which blasts floodlights in Cal’s face as soon as he turns in between the tall concrete gateposts.
He pulls right up to the front door. “You stay in the car,” he says. “Keep your head down.”
Trey doesn’t bother answering that, just hops out and slams the door. On second thought, Cal sees no point in dying on this hill. Donie knows Trey. Regardless of whether Tommy sees her face, he’s going to hear what she did.
“Wave to the cameras,” he tells Trey, as he gets out of the car. He grins and waves like a maniac.
Trey snorts with laughter and does the same. “C’n I moon them?”
“No,” Cal says, going around to the back of the car.
“Why not?”
“ ’Cause I don’t want to see that. Evening, Donie.”
“What the fuck,” Donie says, outraged, when he’s struggled into a sitting position and taken a look around. “We were gonna keep Moynihan outa it, man.”
“You were,” Cal says. “Me, I don’t give a shit whether you get paid or not. Let’s go.”
Donie expresses his sense of betrayal by deciding his limbs don’t work.
Cal and Trey have to maneuver him out of the car chunk by chunk, while he stares sulkily up at the lid of the trunk, and haul him to the doorstep by his armpits.
He slumps and lets his feet drag; Tommy is going to have to get someone to rake his pretty gravel smooth.
Tommy, alerted by his app or his butler or whatever, is waiting for them in the doorway, wearing pajamas and a plush maroon bathrobe that looks like someone just steam-cleaned it.
Cal considers sticking with tonight’s direct approach and just punching Tommy in the face, but he knows better. Tommy is no Donie.
They dump Donie on the doorstep. Tommy takes a step back and raises his eyebrows, looking for an explanation.
“Evening, Mr. Moynihan,” Cal drawls. “I’m right sorry to disturb your beauty sleep, but me and Trey here, we found something of yours at her mama’s place. So we brought it back to you.”
Tommy inclines his head to stare at Donie. “My God, man,” he says. “Is that Mrs. McGrath’s young lad? What’s after happening to him?”
“He’s safe and sound,” Cal says. “Or close enough. No need for a reward; just being neighborly. Like you said to me, the other day: neighbors gotta look out for each other.”
He nods to Tommy and gets back in the car. Trey slams her door good and hard, for emphasis.
“So,” Cal says, starting the car, “where’m I taking you?”
“Yours,” Trey says. She’s craning her neck to watch, in the rearview mirror, as Donie tries to wriggle himself up to standing, and Tommy ignores him to gaze after them. “Can I?”