In the city of Cork, in January 2000
It was a little after 4 a.m. on a January night. It was in the long, cold sleep of the winter. The shapes of the city were blocked out above the dark river, against the moonless sky. On the southside quays only the ghosts of the place traipsed by the doorways or idled on the steps of the river wall with their stories of old love. The black surface of the river moved the lights of the city about. It was hard not to believe sometimes that we were just the reflection, and that the true life existed down there in the dark water.
At the Judas Iscariot, an illicit drinking den set back a little from the quays, it was an arranged knock, a coded knock, that allowed entry and you played out the knock in a few quick hard raps, with this rhythm, like so –
*
The captain of the ship stood behind the bar counter. He surveyed the place with tranquil smile. This was Nelson Lavin, of the gold tooth and the whispery vowels. There beneath the optics he swung out a slow, benevolent scan of the room –
The Judas drew a low crowd but not an unglamorous one. Night people. Scavengers. A criminal ascendency. They were arranged at low tables in the dim light. There was an aura of trinket menace from their neck chains in the light. Over the course of a long night maybe a couple of dozen hardened souls would move in uncertain fraternity around the pools of table light.
The inclination at the Iscariot was to drink steadily but decorously. Nelson Lavin kept a watchful eye that such decorum be maintained. He loosened the brass ring on his pinkie and circled it slowly and, that the night might hold on a mellow note, he rubbed a charm on the ring with holy fingers. But his gums were swollen, and this was usually a sign for Nelson that trouble was coming.
He looked slowly around the room and reckoned the names and familiars of the place, their situations. He brought a shine the length of the counter with his bar cloth. He leaned into sleepy Vincent Keogh, the house-breaker, who was swaying somewhat on a corner stool.
Way is things shaping for you, Vincent? Bigger-picture wise?
Skaw-ways and unpleasantly, Nelson.
Throw back the shoulders for me there, Vince, and look straight out ahead of you.
He scanned the bar again, smiling –
The faces don’t be right around here. This was Nelson’s belief. A townful of hawky-looking dudes with sinister chins and dumpling noses.
Steve Bromell, the cocaine pedlar, was staring in fear to the low tin ceiling, as though it might cave in, but Stevie looked scared at the best of times, as often with good cause. He’d nearly miss the paranoia if ever it eased off.
Two ladies-of-love; a ponce; a prince amongst bouncers.
Discreet people.
Charlie Redmond was drinking alone but for his demons at a crowded table down the back.
There was something to be understood in the Redmond glaze, Nelson believed, in the slow, dull gaze, and the way that he was with careful deliberation ripping up the beermats.
Hard faces; burnt eyes; shebeen hours.
The vodka that turned in Charlie Redmond’s long fingers made a slow, ominous swirl – the turning glass caught the low, amber lights of the Iscariot.
Nelson dipped beneath the bar hatch and crossed the room with a half-litre of Grey Goose – he laid his hand to the back of Charlie’s to still the glass, and he topped it.
You know they say that vodka is uncouth, Charlie?
I was dragged up, Charlie Redmond said. Side of the road job.
The glint of humour was a reassurance, but Nelson still had the swollen feeling about his gums.
Jimmy Earls, a brothel-keeper, sat heavily over a half of Beamish stout and sipped from it and followed it with a dewdrop of Powers whiskey. He moved his lips daintily as he recounted beneath his breath the litany of his bitternesses. Rita Kane, a lady of schemes, played out for the benefit of her friend Sylvia’s ears the details of an acrimonious split with Edmond Leary, a common thief, and Sylvia’s left hand reached for her throat and clutched it softly, an expression of distilled Corkonian dismay. Alvin Hay, once a boxer, in the far corner wept tearlessly, with the catch of his throat opening – this was the season his wife was dying.
Out front, a sequence of knocks came in the precise arrangement – the boy fetched open the door and heads turned slowly in the room to mark the arrival of Maurice Hearne.
A face to match the night on him as he entered, but he softened it and made smiling across the room to Charlie Redmond. Charlie stood to greet him, and the men embraced.
Trouble out west, trouble in Berehaven, was the word on the wind that Nelson Lavin had caught. Love trouble – the worst strain. He attended carefully with his cloth to the run and turn of the grain of his counter’s wood.
The room kept its breath. It held on a moment of violent possibility. Maurice sat in the chair opposite Charlie’s. He kicked the legs out in front of himself. Charlie rested his long, thin face on the knit of his hands beneath the chin. When he began to speak, there was a hungry pleading in his eyes.
Nelson considered the room’s resources should unpleasantness occur. Jimmy Earls was put together like a Victorian bridge but not a man of stout convictions since a brush with death the night a knife was bared in Cobh, a kidney scarred the result of it. Alvin might be useful, if the mood took him. The boy who worked the door was of an intemperately brave stock and could be a help. There was no knowing how the night could spin out. Discreetly, Nelson felt under the counter for the reassurance of his whitethorn cosh.
Outside, the wind was getting higher – this was at every fucking chance it got an operatic place.
The wind blew the lights of the city about.
The lights moved back and forth in a slow, narcotic swaying on the black skin of the river.
At the Judas Iscariot the two old friends sat and consulted each other. This was trouble of a particular timbre – Nelson Lavin could read it at a half-glance.
Jimmy Earls tiptoed his great bulk barside and by a flutter of his eyelashes summoned Nelson to a huddle.
You watching over?
Am I the fuck.
There’s smoke coming out the ears, Nelson.
Been trouble yonder?
In Berehaven. It’s reported.
On account of the beore?
Good-looking woman. In fairness. And fierce.
These were fabled people. These were tricky times. They were in a moment of dangerous splendour. The men were lizardly, reptilian. They wore excellent fucking shoes. Nelson carefully with Jimmy Earls kept an eye on the confrontation. It was a smiling one, yet, and soft-voiced. These were deliberate people. Why should they meet just here, just now? Maybe it needed to be seen, and recounted.
Charlie Redmond leaned in to confide. He spoke seriously, and Maurice Hearne leaned in and listened. Now he reached for Charlie’s glass of vodka and took a sip from it.
Covertly, with fear and anticipation mingled, Nelson Lavin and Jimmy Earls watched the show from the sidelines.
Way is they fixed generally, you reckon?
Not great, Nelson said. They lost a boat below last year.
Bother on the home front be the last thing they need.
These two went way back, Nelson knew. Barrack Street in the ’80s. A pub called the Three Ones. An eyes-sideways-in-your-head job. Charlie and Moss at the back table, barely shaving. Their dope stashed behind the cross on the wall of the deadhouse across the road. Younger fellas running it for them. He served Alvin Hay a Drambuie and said, friend, catch a hold of yourself. Life or death, each day has its insistences, and there is nothing we can do to gainsay them.
You can’t beat the machine, Alvie, he said.
Would he swing by the table? Try to get a sense of it? They were huddled close in and speaking with animation. Jimmy Earls stayed barside, sensing Nelson’s worry – Jimmy considered himself A Rock in edgy circumstances. Also, by constitution, he was out for the full of his mouth. He was fetched up another half of Beamish – it was Jimmy Earls’s life-long conviction that pint glasses were ignorant-looking. As the black stout settled, he took out his little can of 3-in-One oil from the inside pocket and added five drops – counting them off – to the glass.
Shocking habit, Nelson said, as he did every night.
It’s the lubrication is the only thing keepin’ the lungs straight in me back, Jimmy Earls said.
Now bravely Nelson slipped out and swung from behind his bar and roamed the shebeen floor. He took up a glass here, a glass there. He made a precise shuffle around back of the Hearne, Redmond table – they’d invaded Russia with less complication than the way some nights Nelson Lavin had to move around his own fucking bar-room. He tuned in, briefly, to their low, serious talk.
Can the liver and chips be bate for a hangover, Maurice? Charlie Redmond said.
Not if you were stuck into them above in the Uptown Grill, Charlie.
The Uptown, Charlie said. Regal premises.
Jesus Christ, Nelson thought – their devotion. As he sidled back to the other side of their table, he caught Maurice’s eye and enquired by a small shaping of the lips if a drink was required.
I’m good a while, Nelson. The night’s a pup yet.