A reason to kill, p.12
A Reason To Kill, page 12
With trembling fingers Tom pulled at his clothing. He could only manage to tug off his shirt and trousers before they converged again. Openhanded blows connected with his unprotected flesh and he cried out.
Wear clean under drawers! As they tore at the fabric, he foolishly remembered his mother’s warning to him as a boy. A silly giggle sprung from his throat.
“Laugh, will ya. I’ll show ya ta laugh!” This time the bent knee made the correct contact. Screeching, Tom clutched at a throbbing groin as his legs buckled.
“Get up!” A hard leather toe planted between his naked buttocks convinced him to struggle to his feet.
“Bend Over.”
Hot tears blurred his vision as he obeyed.
“Spread them cheeks.” He obediently reached behind him to follow the instructions. Heat from a small bulb warmed a spot of Tom’s flesh while a plastic gloved finger jabbed into his rectum. Satisfied as to the lack of contraband, in a nasty gesture the warder rapped the flashlight against the dangling testicles. Vomit gushed forth with Tom’s garbled scream.
They left him lying in his own filth with the promise, “We’ll be back Paddy. We’ll be back.”
He lay there until the raw pain turned to bearable throbs. Mucus dripped from his nostrils and Tom drew a hand across to discover it was tinged with blood. The leftover taste of vomit soured his stomach. He crawled along the sharp cement floor. With the aid of a small-corroded sink, he pulled his aching body upright. Only the cold tap worked. He shivered as he splashed the water over his bruised hide. Rinsing out his mouth with the only thing available, yellow soap, he gagged. Then staggering to a hard cot he slumped down. Chin resting on his drawn up knees, he wrapped his arms about his legs hugging himself against the chill, the pain, and the fear.
Tears rolled down his stinging cheeks. His mind refused to cooperate and he grew more terrified with each thought. Rory Hanlon was into something. Most lads their age were. But not Tom Devlin. He had a job; there was no living on the dole for him. Still, he liked the lads, enjoyed hanging ‘round agreeing with their violent chatter and was proud to be known as Rory Hanlon’s chum.
Tom figured Rory had been taken immediately to interrogation only a few rooms away from where Tom crouched in torment. Constantly he trembled at the noise of barking grunts, shuffling, banging, and a racket that mimicked the rapid clapping of hands. Tom whimpered, shivered, and clutched at his body. Though he needed to piss he was afraid to move.
The cell door clanged. He squeezed tighter against the wall.
Only a single warder entered. This graying fellow grinned as he tossed the youth’s britches at him. “Come on lad, it’s up and out ya are. The O’Neill’s a barkin’ for sure. Ya aren’t all that busted up?” The sudden show of concern was short lived.
Quickly donning his shirt and trousers, Tom left the torn underwear lay. Shoving feet into shoes without socks, he neglected to ask after Rory. He was too frightened.
~~~
The sun hadn’t yet risen. Tom Devlin groaned as he looked up from where he lay on the narrow cot. A full-face grin was Emanon O’Neill’s trademark and he rarely lost it. But now his blue eyes were shadowed with concern and a frown stiffened his young features.
“That ice doing some good?”
“It is,” Tom agreed and then added, “The booze is doing some better.” His voice echoed a rasping pain the whiskey had numbed but not destroyed.
“Ya keep nipping at this, lad, you’ll be pissin’ and bellerin’ the whole bloody night,” Emanon warned.
“O’Donnell have the ass over me?” Tom worried as he reached for the bottle to take a healthy swig.
“Him so stony drunk. Sure he can’t find his own cobs let alone be missing yours. Long as the bar’s covered he ain’t asking by who.” Emanon paused to remove the soggy towels from Tom’s body. He wrung them out, refilled them with fresh ice, and gently replaced them on his friend’s bruised flesh. “You’d best see a doctor.”
“Forget that.” Tom cut him short. Shaking as the chill from the ice crept over him he forced himself to ask, “Hear any word on Rory?”
“Sure, but don’t they have him cold. That lad won’t be seeing the sun in this lifetime. My pa claims he should be in hospital but a doc passed him fit for detention.”
“And you’d have me see one?”
“Tell him you were in a brawl—”
A high pitch scream brought instant silence.
Emanon tore from the room as Tom staggered after him. Colin O’Donnell lurched by the two youths. The owner of the pub reeked of liquor and sweat. “Where the fuck you been?” His meaty hand rose towards Tom as if to strike him. He was too drunk to follow through and Tom ducked by. Ignoring his brother-in-law’s curses, he followed Emanon to where the scream had originated.
The cellar door stood ajar and he could see Seamus O’Donnell kneeling with Beth’s head in his lap. Dark blood discolored Tom’s sister’s fair hair as it bubbled from her scalp.
“Mummie?” was a whimper at Tom’s back. The three-year-old boy stood naked, dripping water from his bath.
Glancing up from his kneeling position on the cellar floor Seamus O’Donnell yelled, “Tom, get the nipper away!”
But Tom could only stand half-bent from his own pain and stare down at his injured sister. “What happened? Sweet Jesus Seamus—what happened!”
Emanon O’Neill scooped up Tom’s tiny nephew. Hugging him tightly he lied without knowing. “Your mommy took a spill—she’ll be fine.”
“Mummie faugh ‘own?” Little Sean O’Donnell seemed a bit unsure but finally giggled as Emanon tickled his plump belly.
~~~
Tom Devlin was numb from the three-day ritual required to put his sister in her grave. He slumped in his chair and toyed with a half empty pint of Guinness—his third in less than an hour. He tried to focus on what the tall copper haired youth was saying. It seemed to Tom that Seamus O’Donnell had been talking and thinking for them since Beth’s death.
Seamus had ordered, “Beth fell. That’s all we tell the RUC. Them bully boys got so many problems right now we’ll sucker ‘em easy.”
At first it had seemed wrong to Tom. They were not going to tell the police the truth. Not going to tell them Beth’s husband had shoved her.
“You didn’t see nothing. Emanon saw nothing. I was right there. It was an accident. But the peelers won’t see it that way,” Seamus had said. “I ain’t hanging my own brother. It won’t bring Beth back and it ain’t right her weans knowing the truth. Colin ran like the ass he is.”
Emanon seemed to agree, at any rate he hadn’t argued, so Tom didn’t either. Now Seamus was constructing a plan for the two little boys; Beth’s death and Colin’s desertion had left orphans.
Just on nineteen Seamus O’Donnell tilted his chair surveying his friends’ faces as he said, “This pub’s a money maker. With the following of that new bartender Beth hired, filling the place every night, and Colin not around to drink up the profits, we’ll do fine.”
Emanon O’Neill leaned across the old bar tracing the pattern of its countless scratches as he grumbled. “You, lad, are begging for some damn rough going.” He stroked a beardless chin as if in troubled thought. “With studies, tending ta business, sure, what’s to be done with the little blokes times we’re at classes?”
“I’ve a thought on that. Seems between the three of us we can generate enough female companionship to see us through. Lasses, our age, why they’ve a natural instinct for mothering.”
“Seamus, you’re bloody daft!” Emanon yelped. “You’d have us courting just to attract baby tenders. Sure, and where’s all this energy ta come from?” Unlike Tom Devlin, he had taken the pledge never to drink before dark; but on this rainy afternoon, Tom watched him break it. The stout went down easy. Emanon drew another before he came round the turn of the bar.
Seamus whistled. “I’m not for bedding everyone. Most won’t be willing no how.” Then he chuckled. “All we got to do is get them interested. Fine looking little chaps and motherless. Before long we’ll have to assign visiting rights.” The tall good-looking youth imparted confidence. He had a style that allowed few arguments. Tom met him through Emanon several years before but they’d never been true friends. When fate decreed they become related through marriage, they both tried but the same closeness each shared with Emanon O’Neill never developed between them.
“Jack Walsh will handle the bar—I have his word on that. Two small boys won’t present that much of a problem. All we have to do is see they’re clean and fed and they don’t get damaged. We’ll make a list of the most likely girls.” Seamus apparently conceded that his friends should have some say in the selection.
“Nina Farrell?” Tom felt obliged to propose something.
With the mention of Nina, Emanon’s grin resurfaced. Then Seamus shook his head and Emanon frowned like he’d been slugged. “But I’ve a liking for that luv.”
“Too pretty,” Seamus said.
“Well, if it’s the ugly wenches we’re to be looking to.” Emanon’s eyes frosted. “That being your plan? I’m about to say no deal.”
“We can’t be bothering with those that are too much the lady.” Seamus lightly rapped Emanon on the forehead with heel of his palm. “Can you picture Nina if the babe was to spit porridge on her fancy blouse? She’d never come back. It would be time wasted on her.”
Emanon was forced to grant this was a definite consideration. Tom snickered and sucked at his stout as Emanon decided, “We’ll draw up a list of requirements for our targets,” and Seamus nodded in agreement.
Looks, they all contended, were essential.
“Intelligence?” Tom’s proposal was quickly voted down.
“If they’re too smart, they won’t come.” Emanon’s grin bedeviled his features. “Best they show a bit of the bitch. I’m not about ta go through all this hassle and end up sweating it out with ‘Dame five-fingers’ every night. Now the Davitt sisters—they’re prime. Nearly got it on with Emily last time. Save on petrol if we have to drive them home.”
Tom Devlin chuckled with his friends but it was only on the surface. Fear was a constant companion now that even the death of his sister couldn’t drive from his mind. Quietly he thanked God, out of habit not belief, that his friends had chosen this course. He still had a job and a place to live.
Emanon’s father, solicitor Mr. Liam O’Neill, had done his best to convince the youth he was not a wanted criminal. Still, remembrances of the cell and the sounds coming from the interrogation room, remained wide-awake nightmares. Tom knew once a Catholic lad was pegged by the RUC they wouldn’t forget him.
Chapter 23
New York City, 1981
If June was any indicator, he decided, the residents of New York City could prepare for a hot and muggy summer this year. Thomas Devlin crossed over from Forty-Fourth Street to Fifth Avenue. He walked briskly, his ordered mind going over his immediate problems and categorizing them as to their significance. A multi-tasker, he attended to urgent issues but constantly sifted through the others in matter of importance.
His new offices would open by the end of the month. True they were in the Connors Building but not openly connected to them. He was his own man. He’d had his fill of answering to some prick. Well almost, he grinned, there was still Mike. He entered the Shannon. Only 11:30am and already the air-conditioner whistled loudly in the restaurant. Michael O’Neill liked early lunches and he didn’t care to eat alone.
O’Neill sat in the back lounge sipping a coffee while watching the news. He glanced up at Devlin’s entrance and a smirk appeared on his face. He rapped his knuckles on the table as he said, “Damn, but all it takes is an ounce of lead to make a bloody hero. That prick Hinckley fixed it so only a real assassination will free the Whitehouse for the next eight years—if then. That nick on the neck made Reagan a bigger idol than JFK.”
Devlin had other things on his mind as he slipped into a chair across from O’Neill. Still, he rode with the conversation. “So the Democrats just give lip service for the next election and put their dollars into congressional races. We’ll do all right.”
The television cameras left the American president to his shy smiles and showed an overseas scene of devastation. The news cameras panning from shore couldn’t give a clear picture of the efforts going on so the public was subjected to verbal opinions and descriptions. The area, not a bit foreign to either of them, caused O’Neill’s remark. “Damn shame, a plane brought down like that.”
“Pity,” Devlin agreed. “They’re saying it was a bomb—it took the leaders of the International Gaelic Association. The IGA had some darn good ideas. Build up a nonpolitical Irish awareness group geared towards the young.”
“When the hell were you ever interested in something nonpolitical? Didn’t get far did they? All twenty of them turned into fish food.” O’Neill gulped the remains in his cup and motioned for a refill. “A psycho blew that plane.” It sounded like he was attempting to convince himself. “Not a reason in hell for anyone else to. I ordered. You want something?”
“Coffee,” Devlin said. “Think I’ll forgo lunch. Got a meeting with the Connors’ this afternoon, they always lay out a spread.”
“Raymond’s letting Johnny Boy move back home.” O’Neill chuckled. “Must have figured five years of being civilized by the English was enough.”
In the quiet time, before the lunch crowd descended, the owner of the Shannon brought O’Neill’s order, toting along a draft for himself. “Pat.” Devlin smiled at the welcome company. “You throwing a big ta-do for Megan’s graduation?”
“Nah,” Pat O’Donnell said. “The lass don’t want no party.” The thick foam from the beer encircled his lips and he paused to run his tongue around them. “Stubborn business. Claims she ain’t got enough friends to fill a washbasin let alone a pool. And she don’t want me loading up the place with old people who’ll only come ‘cause they owe me.” He gave a short laugh. “Nice kid I got.” He appeared to toast himself with the beer mug.
“Now don’t play hard ball on Meg,” Devlin said. “She’s a good kid.”
“You’re right there. When you see what’s running loose these days. But damn it, Tom, I only got me one kid and she makes me feel like a pauper. Says I should put the money into buying her furniture for her new pad. Can you beat that? Sometimes I wish to hell you’d never gotten her that newspaper job.”
Michael O’Neill, had only been toying with his food. His face showed a rather blank expression as if his thoughts were somewhere else. Now, with a show of surprise, he asked, “Pat, you’re not hurting on funds?”
“Hell, no, it’s just this argument the girl and I been having. Don’t like her moving into Manhattan. It ain’t just the living alone; don’t want her going away period.”
“Time comes they all do,” O’Neill said.
“What?”
“Nothing Pat.” O’Neill shoved from the table. “Got some things need taking care of.” He paused and asked, “Pat? You sure you aren’t hurting for cash?”
O’Donnell gave a negative shake of his head and waved the offer off. A wise man, Devlin thought, the last person Pat would accept money from was The O’Neill. Pat O’Donnell liked owning his own soul.
Eyeing the hardly-touched and abandoned lunch plates, O’Donnell said, “Something bothering him?” It was more a statement than a question as they watched the restaurant door swing shut.
Devlin guessed out loud. “Likely thinking how his kid, if there hadn’t been a change in plans, could have been on that plane that got dumped in the Irish Sea.”
“Shame about that. Saw it on the news.” O’Donnell switched to, “You coming to dinner Friday? Megan’s doing the cooking.”
“Suppose I better then. Got her a little something for graduation.”
“And most likely ya spent too much.” O’Donnell’s grumble was false. He added, “Tom, you’re good for Megan. You make her laugh. The lass is too damn serious.” O’Donnell’s meaty palm fell on Devlin’s shoulder in a parental squeeze. Years of friendship allowed this older man to easily read Devlin’s moods. “Rough few days?”
“Seen better.” While Devlin was cautious with what he shared with others, he felt confident, he could trust this man. “Should have heard Raymond Connors on the phone to Beechen. Small wonder the Atlantic didn’t turn to steam.” He gave a short laugh. “His Lordship told that fag, he better get his ass back here pronto or his boyfriends were going to have to locate new digs.”
“That old guy can raise a rumble.” O’Donnell snickered. “Raymond must be beating himself up bad. He kind of handpicked Beechen for his daughter. Shelia Connors was some looker before she crawled into the bottle. Use to come in here back then with Mike. Kind of thought her and Mike had something good going. Damn, don’t she up and marry that English fellow.”
“Her break down is not all Jim’s fault,” Devlin said. “Nor Shelia’s for a fact. How’d you like to be the only daughter of a tyrant?” He shrugged. “A princess in a household determined to raise up King Connors the First.”
“Them Connors’ got a proud name.” O’Donnell snickered like it wasn’t true.
“Never told you, did I?” Devlin thought a minute. “Got a brother-in-law and a couple of nephews back home named O’Donnell. Must have been what drew me to your place at first. “
“You were a snot-nosed kid. Needing a touch of family.”
~~~
Family. He would be having his fill of it the next couple of weeks. Seamus and the boys were headed his way. At first the idea of having his dead sister’s kids for a visit appealed to Devlin. Recent developments were causing him to rethink the ‘playing a host’ part. John Connors was moving back to the States and Raymond Connors had given Devlin the task of overseeing the news stories and events that would set John up as a Congressional hopeful.
They had just commenced laying out their plans when, James Beechen, fed up with his alcoholic wife, had deserted the family. Shelia in a fit of hysterics took an overdose of sleeping pills. Devlin was a certain it was only a ploy for attention on her part, but it caused a heck of a ruckus. The type of stories that once only filled tabloids and were mostly laughed at suddenly were becoming headline news. A homosexual brother-in-law and a suicidal sister could spell disaster for John Connors.
