In the weeks before the hit, Tommy had thought he was fucked, dead; that Marlo would have one of his mates put a bullet in him and dump him in the Royal Canal. Instead, Aidan and Tommy had been told they were going to kill Garda Stephen Burke, which didn’t seem all that much better. They’d been shown photographs of Burke and they’d watched footage of him filmed from pubs and bedroom windows with cameras and mobile phones. They were given a video cassette case with a gun in it.
          I want a fuckin statement, Marlo said.
          He was punishing them and Garda Burke in one swoop.
          It had occurred to Tommy to hop on the next Ryanair flight to Spain or Portugal but he knew it wasn’t worth it, that he’d be found. Marlo was prepared to have a garda killed, the toast of the town, the poster boy for young gardai, and he wouldn’t have any problem bumping off two nobodies, two Livornos. Ed Walsh wouldn’t have been safe in prison, either; Marlo had made that clear as well. Ed was getting a severe hiding one way or the other, but if Tommy and Aidan made Marlo’s statement, that might be all that happened to him.
          Days passed and the phone call came.
          Tonight, said Marlo. You do it tonight. And that was only eight hours ago.

So they had no choice. Tommy left the dole office and went home, picked up the gun. He rang Aidan and sat alone in the house. A couple hours later Aidan arrived, half drunk. Tommy downed a couple of whiskeys with Aidan at the kitchen table, the one he was sitting at now, then lifted a Fiat with a dodgy exhaust and a tape deck that didn’t work. Aidan was disappointed that he couldn’t play his Lou Reed compilation tape. Tommy drove and Aidan sat on the passenger side, staring out the window, not saying much. He had a scar under his right eye, very faint, from a fall when they were kids, and he touched it absentmindedly. The car shuddered onwards.
          Twenty minutes later they unclasped their seat belts and Aidan spat a fat wad of phlegm through the open window and they stepped into the cold. Aiden took out the gun and switched the safety off and returned it to his jacket pocket. Tommy wondered why he’d worn the new Adidas runners he’d bought last week; they were too shiny and white. That was the working class for you, he thought, always eager to dress up for a night out. He was sweating. Aidan pulled the balaclava over his head, adjusting it so only his nose and mouth showed. Tommy was breathing hard and he could taste the whiskey again.
          —Put yer fuckin balaclava on, said Aidan, shaking his head.
          They were on a quiet street. There was a takeaway over the road, with a girl looking up at the menu on the wall like some improbable passenger checking departure times. Tommy took the mask from his jacket and pulled it over his head. It was itchy and he wanted to pull it off.

3

  

Copyright 2008 Disclaimer