Minogue put down the phone, drummed hard with his biro and then pitched it in the air. Kilmartin looked over. “What’s the matter with-Hello? Hello? Yes. I’m trying to get in contact with someone who’d know about modelling agencies. Yes. Well, that’s the problem now, this one is gone out of business.”
Kilmartin’s unseeing gaze roamed about the squadroom while he listened.
“Exactly,” the Chief Inspector went on in a pleasing tone. “I’m out of Dublin a while and I wanted to look up a person I used to know. Yes.”
He winked at Minogue.
“Oh, yes. A very nice girl she was. That’s right-What?”
Kilmartin’s face darkened and he slid off the edge of the desk.
“What did you just say to me?”
Minogue heard the line go dead. Kilmartin dropped the receiver and stared at it.
“Gave me the P.O. Did you ever hear the like? The nerve of him!”
“Maybe it was the genuine article, James. A real modelling agency.”
Kilmartin picked the receiver up and laid it gently on the phone.
“Huh. Any luck, you?”
Minogue shook his head. Kilmartin pulled a face.
“Sure, there’s no jobs in the country,” he said. “Wouldn’t surprise me if a girl’d turn to you-know-what. The trade.”
The Chief Inspector’s eyes closed. The fart, a prolonged one, reminded Minogue of a rusty door-hinge. Kilmartin opened his eyes again.
“At least inflation’s holding steady,” he whispered.
Minogue made for the room-divider toward Malone.
“Are you there, Tommy? Let’s try that place.”
“Which one?” Kilmartin called out. “That ‘Just You’ one?”
“That’s the one, Jim. On George’s Street. It’s the only place so far with an address. The rest are just phone numbers: ‘We’ll meet you at so and so’s.’”
Kilmartin lumbered up behind Minogue.
“Telephone girls, hah?” He yawned. “They’re getting to be like the banks. Pick up the phone, by God, and they make money. Not a stroke of work, real work as you and I would understand about.”
“Stroking’s hard enough work,” said Malone as he wrote. “If it’s done right.”
“Ha, ha, ha. Let me tell you, I know fellas do their day’s work on the phone. And they’re well paid too. Sure, that’s not the real world, I tell them. Know what they tell me when I ask them what the hell goes on in the line of real work in those bloody glasshouse-looking places? Like those efforts made of glass you can’t even use to look through? Christ, they’d blind you, and you trying to see where you’re going.”
“You can see out but you can’t see in, Jimmy.”
“Oh, a genius amongst the common rabblement here. Thanks. Well, anyway. Do you know what they say, cocked up in the chairs in the lounge with the Jag parked outside and the boxes of wine and the daughter married to the doctor, etcetera, etcetera?”
Minogue was wary of another fart. He beckoned to Malone.
“The suspense is killing me, Jim,” he muttered.
“‘This is the Information Age, Jim,’ they say. La-di-da. Like I’m a gom just in from the bog, you know? ‘The borders are coming down, Jim.’ ‘Jim, you only have to be in the right place at the right time.’ ‘Timing is everything, Jim.’ ‘Jim, the basic ingredient for making money is time.’ All paper money, says I. Tricks. Magic money with nothing behind it. The eighties gone mad: all money, no value.”
“Well, Christ,” he added as Minogue and Malone made for the door, “says I to one of them, a fella I know well and would ordinarily take halfway seriously, they were wrong about the oldest profession in the world. Do you get it?”
Malone let back the seat and leaned his arm out the window. Minogue drew a squeal out of the tires as he accelerated through the amber light onto the quays.
“Wouldn’t mind spending the rest of the day up in the Park,” said Malone.
Minogue looked at the greenery of Phoenix Park as it receded in his rear-view mirror. The Citroen picked up speed. He opened the sunroof completely. The breeze which blew his hair asunder barely stirred Malone’s crew-cut.
“Were you in the Park for the Pope’s mass there, back whenever?” asked Malone.
“Kathleen went all right,” murmured the Inspector. “I sort of prefer watching the deer myself.”
He took in Malone’s turn of the head, the second’s scrutiny.
“Okay,” he went on. “Tell me how you’d like to work this call now.”
The car was an oven. He thought about parking it in the shade somewhere, but Malone might not spot it. He looked at his watch. He’d give him ten more minutes. He couldn’t shake scraps of the conversation he’d had yesterday with Iseult out of his head. He checked the stand-by and the charge light again and shoved the phone into the door pocket of the Citroen. The sun was hot on his head, too hot. He turned the ignition and pushed the button to close the sunroof.
Malone opened the door, climbed in and slammed the door in one fluid movement.
“Thanks,” he said. “Got something anyway.”
“Yes?”
“Yeah. I let her know right off the bat that I could come in heavy if she wasn’t on the ball here. Swore on a stack of Bibles she had nothing to do with brassers or that.”
“So why did she give you the come-on over the phone?”
“She thought I just wanted pictures.”
“That’s what she has?”
“Yeah. ‘What sort of a project do you have in mind?’ says she. ‘Project.’ That’s when I flashed the card. Big change. Anyway. So far as I can read between the lines, she’s an agency for models. No actresses or that, just fashion and advertising. It’s a room with fancy chairs and stacks of fake flowers and all. There’s folders like you get when you’re going to get married, photographs and all, with her clients. Models. Nothing wild now. Bikinis is as far as they go. She didn’t know anything about Mary Mullen. I tried the names of the other places we’ve dug up so far. ‘1001 Nights’ got her going. Turned up the nose, admitted she’d heard of it. ‘One of those places that gives the business a bad name.’ ”
“What do you think then?”
Malone scratched at his bristly crown.
“Hard to say. Says she, ‘You have to be very careful these days.’ She’d heard that ‘organized crime’ had moved in and was dragging the profession into the dirt.“
“‘Profession,” said Minogue.
“She said she’d thought of getting out of the ‘profession’ but couldn’t do it to her clients.”
“Is she scared?”
“Hard to say. She’s happy enough to pass a fella on to someone who does a different kind of photography though.”
“What’s in it for her?”
“I reckon she’s in on it somewhere. Far enough out to be able to hold her nose and walk away from any poking we can do. But I bet she gets a backhander for passing someone on to the other end of the business.”
“Just a front?”
“No. I saw ads and clippings in the model’s port…what you call it. I suppose she’s legit.”
“Portfolios.”
“Well, I got a phone number that we didn’t have before.”
Minogue started the engine and the Citroen rose up smartly on its suspension.
“Lift-off,” said Malone. The Inspector worked the car down off the curb.
“What are we looking at, Tommy?”
“Pictures. ‘Models.’ Mary Mullen. Prostitution. I don’t know.”
“Who tossed her place?” asked the Inspector. “What did they want?”
Malone tapped the door panel.
“And was she already in the canal when the place was done?”
Minogue took the phone out of the glove box. Murtagh was back.
“Thanks, Eilis,” he said. He studied the crowds on South Great George’s Street.
“Johnner? Me and Tommy are out here baking away in the car. How’d it go with Lollipop?”
“Oh, we kept after him but little else came of it. It was Tommy woke him up in earnest.”
“We’re still working that angle about, er, modelling, John. Did Lenehan spit up any more about this modelling thing?”
“No. He was talking about dirty pictures, he said.”
“Of Mary.”
“Right. That’s the same as he told us earlier on. He didn’t budge on it.”
Minogue heard the yawn.
“Book off, John. You’ve been on all night, man. Call after a snooze, will you?”
There was nothing in the paper. Where would he get hold of yesterday’s? He should get batteries for the Walkman and get some news. He looked around the restaurant. The lunchtime mob had gone and the shoppers and the unemployed and the chancers were sitting around. What was that long-haired bollicks looking at? He got up and stepped out onto the footpath. Probably trying to score a hit, thought he looked the part. Jesus. Did he look that obvious?
He moved along Capel Street close to the shops. The hamburger and milkshake were moving around like snakes somewhere in his guts. He stopped by the open door of a pub and squinted into the dim interior. A pint of something, anything.
He ordered a pint of lager and drank half of it in his first draught. The barman eyed him as he loaded the fridges. He could stay here all day just nursing pints, that’d be perfect. He’d be off the streets; he could think, figure out a plan. What was the bloody barman looking at? It felt like the cold lager had slushed around his brain. He looked around the pub at the handful of customers. There were two fellas with aprons from the Markets. A middle-aged guy with his tie loose and his face all rubbery from the drink was moving in on a woman with a tube skirt. She kept trying to laugh him off, crossing her legs and talking to the barman who was trying to ignore her. Maybe there was a reward. He saw himself talking into the phone, a cop at the other end. His eyes came back into focus: he was staring at his face in the mirror. He grabbed his glass but one finger jabbed it. It whirled before falling.
“Shit,” he hissed.
“Look here,” the barman said and stood up.
“You think I did it on purpose?” he muttered to the barman. The barman stared at him.
“Well, do you?” His voice was louder than he’d expected.
“Get off the premises, now. Or I’ll call the Guards.”
He was moving toward the door, a bit dizzy but full of the strength his anger had brought. Out in the street with the door swinging behind him he stopped and stood. Two women with shopping bags gave him a wide berth. The sunlight hurt his eyes. He began walking but blundered into a teenager.
“Hey,” said the teenager. He thought about turning back and giving him a rap in the snot.
He spotted a phone box at the corner of the next street. Some pages of the Dublin phone book had been torn out but he found the Guards’ one. He took out his change and placed the coins on a ledge. He lit a cigarette, shoved in the coins and dialled.
“Yeah?” he replied to the voice. “Which of yous does murders and stuff?”
Malone was doubtful. He pulled at the hair sticking up over his forehead.
“I’m not the expert,” he said.
“You look the part,” said Minogue. Malone gave him a sidelong glance.
“Thanks very much,” he said.
“We can’t go together anyway. So go on in and get what you can.”
Malone moved off reluctantly from the car. He pushed open the door and moved around the partitions to the deeper recesses of the pub. A tall man with thinning light-blond hair turned on his stool. On his own it looked, Malone thought, a pint of beer in front of him. Blondie gave him the once-over and nodded. Malone slid onto a stool and ordered a pint of lager.
“Howiya,” said Blondie. “Was it you phoned?” Dub accent, but not the real thing, Malone decided. Late thirties. He looked like a clapped-out pop star.
“Yeah. I was looking for, you know. Did you bring any?”
“Any what?”
It flashed through Malone’s mind that the one from the modelling agency might have tipped Blondie off. Why would he show up then?
“You know yourself, like.” He shrugged and glanced down at the floor. No bag. Blondie took a slow drink from his glass. Malone paid the barman and started into his pint. He felt the eyes on him while he drank. Maybe he should act like a creep.
“Well, what sort of stuff are you into?”
Malone kept at the pint for several seconds.
“Well, I’m kind of into sports a bit. You know?”
“Sort of figured that,” said Blondie. His face stayed blank. He continued to stare at Malone. “You’re either a fucking cop or a fucking gangster.”
“I could be a fucking priest too, couldn’t I?”
Blondie’s stare was unblinking.
“So who do you know?”
Malone looked from the row of bottles back into the man’s stare.
“Painless. Painless Balfe? Lollipop Lenehan. Them.”
His gamble seemed to register in Blondie’s eyes. Was he going to smile? No.
“That’ll cost you.”
“What?”
“Extra, that’s what.”
“So?”
“If you’re into the same stuff as those guys. It costs money to play rough, pal.”
“Well, I’m not totally into that, man. I mean, there’s lots of stuff, right?”
Blondie’s eyes glazed over. He looked around the pub.
“I’m not a fucking shopping centre, pal.”
“Well, all I want is to get an idea of what stuff I can get.”
“You want rough trade. What else?”
“Christ, I don’t know.”
“You’re new, are you?” He swilled the beer around in his glass.
“Well, I like the outdoors and stuff,” said Malone.
“The outdoors.‘ Motorbikes? Farm shit? Girl-girl? Black and yellow? I don’t care what you’re into. Just make up your mind.”
The anger rose up in Malone’s chest.
“Well, I like them to look like, you know. Girls you’d meet. Next-door types, I suppose.”
“Ugly, you mean.”
“Well, I mean… I just broke up with someone. She wouldn’t, you know. Turned her off and stuff, like? If I could find ones that remind me or, well, look a bit like her.”
He stopped. The blond-haired guy was eying him again.
“So you’re going for a resemblance or something, is it?”
Malone let go of his glass.
“You looking to leave through that fucking window, pal, just keep talking like that. All I fucking said was-”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Relax. So you’re not the expert. Okay, okay.”
Malone settled back in his stool. Blondie finished his glass and slid off his stool.
“So how is Painless anyway?” he said.
“Same as ever. You know yourself.”
Blondie gave a half-hearted grin and dipped his chin to release a gassy belch.
“Come on then.”
Malone gulped more lager and followed him.
Minogue followed the two men’s progress with one eye open until they turned the corner. Then he started up the Citroen, reached for the phone and let it rest in his lap. A bus let him out. He made the turn down toward Mount Street and cruised by on the far side of the street. The blond-haired fella didn’t seem to be bothered. He moved quickly. Malone kept up with him. Minogue placed them in the side mirror as he passed. Minogue stopped at the end of the block and took a torn manila envelope from the back seat. With the phone in his pocket, he stepped out onto the curb and began looking up at the office windows and down at the envelope.
Blondie stopped by a Celica and squeezed a remote. The sidelights flashed on the car and Minogue saw him nod Malone over to the passenger side. Minogue put on his best pissed-off look and got back in the Citroen. He dithered with the phone. Was the blond guy going to take off or do the business there and then? He adjusted the mirror and deciphered the registration plate. He clicked the call button and stared at the Celica while he waited. It looked as if the sky had been pasted on the windscreen. Damned tinted glass or something: he couldn’t even see an outline through it..
“Ah, Eilis, a stor. Key in this car number, will you. I’m in a wicked hurry.”
“Fire away then, can’t you.”
He stared at the Celica, willing it not to move. Maybe this Ryan gazebo had a mobile office full of smut. How was Malone playing it? Eilis’s voice sounded from his lap.
“Yes, sorry, Eilis. I’m just staking something out here.”
“Like the real police do? That’s nice. Here it is.”
He scribbled on the envelope.
“And it’s straight?”
“Yes, indeed, your honour. All paid up and properly belonging to same.”
“I’ll get back to you. Thanks.”
The Celica hadn’t budged. Dermot Ryan, Howth. No record. He looked back down at the address. The Moorings was swanky, wasn’t it? Way to hell out in Howth. Malone was out of the car. He walked slowly along the footpath back toward Baggot Street. The Celica pulled out abruptly and was driven hard in the opposite direction. Minogue drove after Malone, passed him and turned on to Baggot Street where he pulled in. Malone took his time crossing the street.
“Enjoy yourself?”
“Not much,” said Malone. “He showed me a few magazines. German or Danish or something, asked if I wanted to get some.”
“Can we can him, Tommy?”
Malone breathed out heavily, making a whistling sound against his teeth.
“He was vetting me. He says he’ll be back here in an hour. Same pub.”
“Careful, so he is.”
“Yeah,” said Malone. “He has his little car phone and all. Not the grubby little bollicks in a raincoat you’d expect.”
“Dermot Ryan, Howth. He’s not the only fella in Dublin with a phone in his car.”
A double decker bus slid by within six inches of Minogue’s mirror and let off its passengers.
“Get this,” said Malone. “He wanted references, if you don’t mind. I fed him Balfe and Lenehan. He knew their idea of fun too.”
Malone’s head swivelled around and he looked into the Inspector’s eyes.
“Rough stuff with girls.”
Minogue noted the clouded look in Malone’s eyes.
“Well, now,” he murmured. “Isn’t that the curious piece of information to be sure.”
“Maybe I should have put the heavy hand on him in the car,” Malone said. “Then tossed the gaff out in Howth, see what turned up.”
Minogue leaned heavier into the armrest and looked about the street.
“We’ll see. Don’t be worrying.”
The policemen fell silent for several moments.
“Let me ask you something, Tommy. Patricia Fahy?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think she’s good looking?”
Malone looked over his shoulder at the Inspector.
“Why?”
“I’m not asking if you want to marry her. Do you think she’s good looking?”
“I suppose.”
Malone frowned.
“You put her in the game too?” he asked.
“What if?”
Malone stretched.
“It could explain why she’s clammed up, I suppose.”
Malone began stroking his chin harder. “Who paid the rent, like.”
Minogue nodded. Malone stopped rubbing his chin.
“What do you want to do?”
“About fifty things,” said Minogue. A fireball had been trapped where the small of his back met the seat. “All at the same time. Number one is to keep this going with Ryan.”
“If he shows up here, he’s moved from just having it to selling it, right?”
Minogue paused before answering.
“That’s right. See what he can give you here on the spot. Or in the car. Then he’s ours if we want him.”
“And if I think he’s holding out?”
“Well, then, in my judgment, Garda Malone, Mr. Ryan is asking for it.”
“Curse-of-god device,” Minogue grumbled. “You get so’s you actually depend on the thing.”
Malone sipped at his coffee and nodded at the phone.
“Beats playing Relevio on the radio,” he said. Minogue shifted in his seat.
“Okay,” he said. “We have a crew waiting behind the ESB place.”
He had moved the Citroen around the block into the shade of the Bank of Ireland.
“Ryan has the office out in Howth. Weddings, school pictures, etcetera. I wonder if he does the smut himself or is he just a middleman.”
Malone cleared his throat and spat halfway out into the street. Caught between admiration and revulsion, Minogue looked away. Boxing habit, he wondered.
“Hope to God he doesn’t check up on Balfe and the other head banger,” said Malone. He checked his watch. “Uch. I’d better go out and try this stunt.”
Minogue tapped him on the arm as he yanked the door handle.
“Are you okay, Tommy? Even the slightest inkling he might turn Turk…”
“What’s he going to do to me? I’m a big boy now.”
“He might go haywire if you have to lay the card on him.”
“Like hell he will,” said Malone. “I’ve got his fit. Mr. Semi-detached. Fuckin-excuse me, sorry. Bloody hair-do on him. Bet you he was never in a barney in his life.”
“I’ll be on the street with the car.”
Malone moved off down the path. Minogue pulled away from the curb. He coasted by the parked cars and pulled in within sight of the pub. No sign of the white Celica. He turned off the engine. Five minutes passed. His mind began to wander again. Weddings, Iseult. He let his head back on the headrest. There was a warren of streets here, lanes plenty wide for a car. He rubbed his eyes. The canal was behind those buildings there. He stopped rubbing and looked down at the sweaty pads on his fingertips.
The white car coming down the street had dark windows. Minogue stayed still and watched the Celica. Ryan stepped out of the passenger side and stood stooped in the open door talking to the driver. Then he slammed the door and strode empty-handed into the pub. Minogue saw the driver indistinctly behind a half-opened window: a man, sunglasses. The Celica drove off but came to an abrupt halt and was reversed into the curb. The driver got out and looked up and down the street. Mid-twenties, chunky and sunburned, liked his clothes. Film director gold-rimmed sunglasses. He strolled to the footpath, put a foot against the wall behind him and lit a cigarette.
He eased away from the wall and began pacing slowly up and down the footpath. Occasionally he kicked at things he found in his study of the path. The head came up and the sunglasses swivelled with the head as he looked up the street. Minogue shoved his head back into the headrest, closed his eyes and let his jaw sag. He counted to six and allowed the eyelashes to part a little. The sunglasses were still facing his way. Bugger, he thought: sussed. He couldn’t look away. Sunglasses took out keys and opened the driver’s side. Minogue reached for the phone and glanced down to locate the memory button for Mobile Dispatch. He’d asked for the squad car to stay off the street. Sunglasses was winding up the window. He stepped back, slammed the door and set the alarm on the car. Minogue dithered and dumped the call. Sunglasses had sauntered into the pub. Minogue would go in after him himself.
He eased the Citroen out onto the road, reversed and parked it across the front of the Celica. He walked around the back and stuck his face against the glass of the Celica’s hatchback. He shifted around and cupped his hands better against the reflections. He even tried standing back. All he could make out was his own disgruntled frown.
The pub was air-conditioned. He let the door swing shut behind him and tried to adjust his eyes. A barman wearing a dress shirt nodded at him. Minogue moved through the pub, trying to remember if there were other doors out. There was a dozen or so customers but no Malone. He rounded a partition wall and saw Ryan walking away from the bar. Behind him he saw the driver, his glasses dangling in one hand. His other hand, fingers spread, was almost touching Malone’s chest. Malone’s eyes went from Minogue to the driver and back. He took a step but the driver blocked him. Ryan slowed and his eyes searched Minogue’s face. Malone said something to the driver. Minogue saw the splayed hand push at Malone’s chest, the sunglasses being flicked away from the other.
Ryan’s mouth was open now. Minogue had his card up.
“Ryan,” he said. “Hold your horses there, pal-”
The driver’s hand flashed up but Malone was ready. His head darted across and down to one side and came up again. The sound of a grunt and breaking glass caused Ryan to look back. The driver’s legs were up and rolling across a low table.
“You’re under arrest!” Malone called out. “I’m a Guard!”
The driver wriggled off the table. Malone kicked him under the ribs as he came up. Ryan’s eyes bulged. Minogue pointed at a seat. Ryan said something but Minogue didn’t hear him.
“Fucking stay there this time,” he heard Malone say.