Little Criminals Read online

  ‘How did you—’

  ‘Mam told me!’

  When Frankie peeled away the wrapper from the birthday card, the front showed a detailed drawing of a large sunflower, with ‘Happy Birthday’ in a half-circle around it. Sunflowers were Sinead’s trademark. Few of her drawings were without one. He opened the card and saw an elaborate sketch – two figures, himself and Sinead, she holding a stick with a fluffy cloud on the end, and carrying a teddy bear. There was a mountain behind her. He recognised the scene at once. The day they’d spent in Bray that summer, the candyfloss, the bear he won for her in a crane contraption in the amusement arcade. Above it all, the sun, and the rays from the sun shooting down on to everything.

  ‘Ah, sweetheart, it’s only gorgeous.’

  She was holding out a small, badly wrapped package and when he unwrapped it he found a black imitation-leather wallet with ‘Dublin’ stamped in gold on the front. ‘I bought it with my own money,’ she said. Frankie hugged her and she held on to him, proud and pleased.

  ‘It’s special,’ Frankie said, ‘just like you.’ She was blushing. ‘I’ll always treasure it, sweetheart, always.’

  Joan said, ‘Time for homework, love, while I get your tea ready. Say goodbye to your dad, then get changed, OK?’

  A minute later, Sinead was skipping up the stairs. She was humming a tune from a TV advert for a DIY superstore.

  ‘Jesus, she’s great,’ Frankie said. ‘There’s real talent in that drawing.’

  ‘She’s been working on it, off and on, for the past week. She’d take no help at all. All her own work.’

  There’s something there still, Frankie thought. There had to be. Joan reminding Sinead about his birthday. Despite it all, there had to be some feeling left.

  ‘Listen, Joan, thanks for – you’ve been really great, the way you help keep things going between Sinead and me.’

  Joan stared at him. Then she looked out the window as she spoke. ‘Just because I can’t stand having you near me is no reason why she shouldn’t be on good terms with her father.’

  ‘Ah, Joan—’

  ‘I’ve got to get her tea.’

  ‘OK, fuck it, no need to make it so obvious. I’m going.’

  Now that Sinead was out of earshot, there was no trace of the gloss of normality Joan had adopted when he’d arrived at the house. She was always good at that. Putting on a face she could hide behind, then coming on like a fucking martyr. Doing that, it was like Frankie was the total shit, like none of it was her fault. Most of it, when you got right down to it, was her fault. If she hadn’t been such a cold-hearted bitch.

  He started for the door, then turned. ‘About Sinead. I’m not sure about the next couple of Wednesdays. Two, three, I don’t know. Something’s come up, I’ve got to do something. I’ll be away.’

  He paused, but she didn’t display any curiosity. Fuck her.

  ‘Not sure how long it’ll take. I’ll give you a buzz when I know. OK?’

  ‘Have you told her?’

  ‘Yeah, she knows. I think I’ll be OK to pick her up from school the Wednesday after that, but I’ll let you know. That’s not going to mess things up for you?’

  ‘I’m here, one way or the other. I’m always here.’

  ‘Well, I’ll do my best.’

  ‘I’ve got to get her tea.’

  Frankie nodded. Going out the door, with the birthday card and the present held against his chest, he called up the stairs to Sinead and she returned the goodbye and added one last ‘Happy birthday’. That thing with the culchie bollocks, it was like it never happened.

  Before he was halfway down the path to the front gate he heard Joan close the front door behind him.

  In the car park at Flynn O’Meara Tully, Justin Kennedy and Helen Snoddy kissed.

  ‘Tomorrow night?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m off on my travels. Remember?’

  ‘Of course. Give me a buzz when you know how you’re fixed.’

  Madrid, of course. She’d told him a while back. Home for a couple of days, then she had to accompany some client to meetings with bankers in two jurisdictions, she was speaking at a weekend seminar in Galway, then she was taking a few days in London. She didn’t say, but the London thing was probably business, though he supposed there might be a bit of personal stuff. He never asked about her personal life. He knew there was a boyfriend of sorts, and her family was important. She never asked about his family, or his relationship with Angela. It wasn’t the first bit of offside fun that Kennedy had enjoyed. Fifteen months into his marriage he had realised that being happy at home didn’t mean he had to deny himself the pleasures of bachelorhood.

  The thing with Helen Snoddy began two years back, an off-and-on thing. When it was on, Kennedy didn’t look around for any other diversions. He wasn’t sure that was true of Helen. He never asked and he didn’t much mind. This kind of thing was as much a part of Kennedy’s life as his occasional lunchtime indulgences in the small, expensive restaurants that catered to the business trade in this area. It was pleasant, it added something to his life, it made him feel good about himself. It was going nowhere and neither he nor Helen wanted it to.

  As Helen’s maroon Chrysler Crossfire pulled out of the car park, Kennedy unlocked his Merc and threw his briefcase on to the back seat. When he sat at the wheel, he paused for a moment, allowing himself the ritual indulgence of enjoying the moment – the achievements and the pleasures of the day, the evening yet to come, not least the feel of the car, the way it fitted into the life he had built around him. It would be nice to get home at a reasonable hour. The kids would still be up.

  6

  The house lights went off within a few minutes of ten thirty. They could see just one light now, in an upstairs room at the front, but it was too far away to see anything useful. Frankie Crowe and Martin Paxton spent three evenings parked in a lane from which they could see the Kennedy house, but Frankie thought that kind of thing was too risky. ‘One snoopy copper and it’s all fucked up.’ Tonight they were just cruising the neighbourhood, stopping for a few minutes down the street from the target house.

  They drove by the house several evenings, sometimes up to half a dozen times, getting a handle on the routine. Twice they saw the target arriving home in his Merc. Other than that there was very little to see.

  Every house in this part of Ballsbridge cost at least two or three times the price of the average Dublin home. Every house on Pemberton Road cost at least twice the Ballsbridge average. The Kennedy place was bigger than any of its neighbours. It was a double-fronted red-brick Victorian, bay windows all over the place. The front of the house was almost completely clothed in creeping vines. Each corner of the roof was dominated by a chimney, making it look a little like a small castle. Although set in a busy neighbourhood and parallel to a main road, Pemberton Road managed to retain a placid atmosphere. The house was set well back, behind an array of bushes and trees, with plenty of space on either side. Private, or – from another point of view – isolated.

  As they drove away from Pemberton Road, Martin said, ‘Ready for Jo-Jo?’

  ‘Tomorrow. He’ll be OK.’

  ‘You’re up for it, then, a bit of crawling?’

  ‘Fuck off, Martin, we’re not crawling. Jo-Jo’s no problem. He owes me.’

  It was starting to rain as Angela Kennedy closed the bedroom curtains. The weather had been fitful through the summer, rain never far away. Angela enjoyed the certainty of the approaching winter, the cosy feeling she got closing curtains against the elements. Soon, they’d be on the run-in to Christmas, their second Christmas in this house. She had enjoyed the two weeks in New York with Justin and the kids, and the week in Barbados alone with Justin, but she welcomed the coming winter just as much. More, perhaps. The summer was pleasure, the winter was intimacy. Just a few years back, when drink and parties and the frippery of social conquest mattered, she could never have imagined the depth of happiness to be found in the weeks of long nights at home, snuggl
ed with the kids and – when he could manage it – Justin. The fire blazing, games or crayons or a last video before bedtime, reading and hugs and all the stuff that sounded too trivial until it became the centre of everything. There were enough nights on the town with Justin or with friends to make a contrast. Knowing it would be just a few short years before the kids became too old or too cool for that kind of thing only made the intimacy more intense.

  By the time Angela slid between the sheets, Justin was locking up downstairs. The kids were already asleep. When Justin came out of the bathroom, Angela said, ‘Saskia has your birthday present already. Luke wants me to take him into town at the weekend, he has something in mind for you.’ She paused. ‘I know you’ll make it home early.’

  ‘It’s not for another – what? – two weeks.’

  ‘They’re counting on it. You’ll be there?’

  ‘I’ll be there.’

  ‘Sometimes I regret you’re not a bit more humdrum, drawing up wills for pensioners. We’d get to see more of you.’

  He got into bed. ‘You’d soon get sick of the sight of me.’

  ‘Never,’ she said, embracing him. They kissed. She let her fingers loiter on the back of his neck and brushed his lips with hers again. Justin returned the kiss, then he reached down for a green folder on the floor beside the bed. Settling back on the pillow, he opened the folder.

  Angela hesitated. The signal hadn’t been bare enough, and he was tired and distracted. She could make it more obvious, or leave it for now. She said, ‘Goodnight,’ and he murmured a reply, already skimming through a column of figures.

  7

  They parked around the corner from Jo-Jo’s house.

  ‘What’s the worst he can say?’ said Martin Paxton. ‘No. He can say no, that’s the worst he can say. And how bad is that? I mean, it’s not like this town isn’t brimming with loose money waiting to be picked up.’

  ‘What’s wrong with that old bitch?’ Frankie Crowe was looking at a fat, middle-aged woman, her hair dyed jet black, who was backing her car out of the driveway of the house outside which they were parked. As she edged past, she glared resentfully at the two men.

  Martin smiled back at her. ‘We’re poking our grubby little motor car into her personal space, that’s what. People around here, they like their personal space.’

  ‘Fuck her.’

  Although the woman couldn’t hear them, she revved aggressively as she drove away, as though in response to Crowe’s remark.

  ‘I’m off,’ Crowe said, opening the door. After yesterday’s rain, the weather had swung round and the sun was bringing out the autumn colours in the trees.

  Paxton wound down the car window. ‘Don’t stay for tea and cakes, right? Remember I’m out here cracking my knuckles. And good luck.’

  Walking up the path to Jo-Jo’s house, Crowe pulled at the hem of his leather jacket, making it taut at the shoulders. He used both hands to tug the collar of his shirt straight. He recognised the gesture as one of nervousness and felt annoyed at his deference. No big deal. There was a way of doing things, a necessary display of respect, and that’s all this was.

  Jo-Jo’s place was a large detached red-brick, off the Howth Road. Lots of greenery around the outside, big gardens front and back, enclosing the house in a cocoon of privacy. When Crowe pressed the button, the bell played the first few notes of the theme from Star Wars.

  The bodyguard’s name was Christy something. Crowe had met him in company a couple of times, had a drink with him, but they’d never worked together. Christy was tall and solid. He wore jeans and a dark blue checked shirt, his sleeves rolled up over thick forearms. Unlike most men who shave their heads, Christy wasn’t masking the symptoms of encroaching baldness. The bald, hard look was more suitable for his position as Jo-Jo’s primary minder. He nodded a welcome and closed the door behind the visitor.

  ‘What’s the mood?’ Crowe asked.

  ‘You know Jo-Jo, mate. Take him as you find him. One minute he’s a cuddly bear, next minute he’s pulling your spine out through your ear.’ Christy grinned. ‘Relax, Frankie. He likes you. Always did. You need something?’

  ‘No, just keeping in touch, more or less. I don’t want to step on any toes.’

  ‘Always a good idea,’ Christy said. ‘Wait there, Frankie, back in a mo.’ He went out through the kitchen.

  The hall was wide and high, the floor was black marble, the walls were oak-panelled. Off to the right there was a games room and bar. There was a snooker table at one end of the room, at the other an array of PlayStation, GameCube and Xbox consoles. The bar came with optics for dispensing spirits and old-fashioned long wooden-handled pumps for pulling pints. It had high stools, beer mats, all kinds of glasses, little bowls for cherries and olives and slices of lemon, a bowl of peanuts and a variety of drinks ranging over half a dozen shelves. Frankie wasn’t very clear about the kind of life he was working towards, but it included a games room like this. The kind of place where you could pull a pint when you had your mates over for a frame or two.

  Frankie had last played snooker here with Jo-Jo eighteen months back, two days after he got out of prison. Jo-Jo was the kind of snooker player who chalked his cue before every shot. He’d assessed the lay of the blue, first from one side of the table, then the other. ‘There’s always room on my crew, you know that,’ he told Frankie. Jo-Jo bent low to judge the probable track of the white, then went to the top of the table to see if there was a follow-on pot. After staring at the balls for a while, he decided on a safety shot and sent the white gently up the table, where it softly kissed the blue and spun off to stop within a hair of the top cushion.

  Frankie had explained about the plans he’d made with Waters and Cox, two hard men from Rialto that he’d hooked up with in the Joy. Partners, they said, three partners with a big future. This was before experience proved what fucking eejits they both were. Jo-Jo understood the need to move on, to start over.

  ‘Come see me any time, Frankie. You know you’re always welcome in this house.’

  With nothing much on, Frankie went for the remaining red down the other end of the table. He hit the white hard, the red jangled and the white had enough speed left to touch three cushions before glancing off the red again and leaving it hanging over a centre pocket. Jo-Jo cleared the table.

  Later, standing in the hall when Frankie was leaving, Jo-Jo produced an envelope and tucked it into the inside pocket of Frankie’s jacket.

  ‘A little welcome-home present.’ He winked. ‘Get you up and running.’

  On his way home, Frankie checked the envelope and found three grand. That night, they left Sinead with Joan’s mother and Frankie took Joan for a slap-up at La Stampa and they spent the night at the Shelbourne.

  As the Waters and Cox thing went pear-shaped, Frankie talked on the phone with Jo-Jo a couple of times, met him in this house with a roomful of others for Christmas drinks. It was understood that Frankie was still trying to find his feet as an independent, but within the glow of Jo-Jo’s goodwill.

  There were lots of others who saw Jo-Jo as a mentor, but only Frankie Crowe had stood with Jo-Jo Mackendrick in the front room of this house, just over ten years earlier, when death came crashing through the window. Not yet out of his teens, Frankie was rooted to the floor, white-faced. Jo-Jo scrambled to a desk drawer and came back in a hurry with two handguns, one of which he held out to Frankie.

  A hard man from Blanchardstown, figuring there was a short cut to writing off the debt he owed Jo-Jo, had sent two assholes over Jo-Jo’s garden wall with shotguns. After the front window was blown in, Jo-Jo and Frankie stood shoulder to shoulder, blazing away, while the dark figures in the garden crouched in the bushes and fired one more volley before their nerve broke and they legged it. The trouble ended a few days later, when Jo-Jo sent a crew to Blanchardstown and the hard man had his debt cancelled in the most permanent way possible.

  The events of that evening made Frankie more than just another crew member, which was
why he now felt confident that Jo-Jo would look tolerantly on any new direction he wished to take. Jo-Jo was old stock, came up the hard way, one of the pioneers. Maybe a bit laid-back these days, maybe a bit out of touch with the younger scene, but Frankie knew he was a fair man.

  ‘Frankie! Frankie Crowe!’ The fragile, high-pitched voice came from behind him. Crowe turned and saw Jo-Jo’s mother coming through the kitchen doorway. Pearl Mackendrick, once a legend of inner-city Dublin, the hard-nosed widow-woman, a pitiless moneylender. Now she was celebrated as the proud mother of two of the most feared gangsters on the Northside. Her ancient face seemed too slender for all the wrinkles it had to accommodate.

  ‘Pearl, you’re looking great!’

  Her smile broadened.

  Pearl was in her mid-eighties. Hair dyed a discreet blonde, fingernails an imprudent scarlet. The Ralph Lauren blouse and skirt, a trophy of her annual shopping trip to Harrods, hung a little too freely on her thin frame.

  ‘It must be a year, Frankie! No, I tell a lie, it was Christmas, and that’s an age.’

  ‘Pearl, you’re looking younger every time I see you. Must be all the toyboys keep you fit and healthy.’

  She laughed obligingly and as they embraced he was surrounded by the sweet perfume with which Pearl drenched herself each morning as soon as she rose. Obnoxious as it was, it was an improvement on the carbolic smell Frankie remembered from his teenage days, hanging around the Mackendrick house, carrying messages for Jo-Jo and Lar. Even back then he’d figured there was no future in freelance knocking-off, the real money was in the organised outfits that were coming together. Pearl was a permanent presence through the years when Frankie served his apprenticeship with the Mackendrick brothers. Her husband, an anonymous little mouse of a man, his purpose in life served by providing Pearl with sons, drank himself to death before the boys were out of their teens.