Islandbridge by John Brady

ago. She was sort of charmed about it. She had said she’d heard that some husbands went through this, these sympathy symptoms, they were called. But he should talk it out, she’d said. Declan Kelly wasn’t inclined to do that. Too often he imagined himself bursting out, shouting about the mess he was in, they were in, how he had to keep it to himself, how he couldn’t sleep, how he nearly fell asleep at the wheel on patrol. How he was ready to give O’Keefe a clout if he started up again tomorrow.
    He fished in the corner of the bag for any fragment of peanut, or for salt even, and licked his fingers. Then he took a small sip of the whiskey, and let it lie in a pool under his tongue. After a few moments he let it trickle and scorch its way down his throat. He felt his shoulders loosen even more now, their weight draw him down. He could almost sleep right here.
    The barman continued to fill shelves and half-whistle a tune he was making up as he went along. He looked up to the mirror behind the counter when the door opened. Kelly didn’t know the man entering. Still, he had the look about him, Kelly decided, that aggressive wariness and deliberately loose-limbed way of walking. But didn’t every second man he saw in Dublin have that?
    The man shook change in his pocket and took his time heading to the bar. Kelly took in the scuffed elbows on the leather bomber jacket, the forehead that seemed to end in a line over small eyes, the wispy red-blond hair, the neck settled tight into the collar.
    Kelly saw the door move again and Rynn’s face appear. The man in the leather jacket was standing in the middle of the floor now, and he was staring at Kelly.
    â€œGentlemen?” from the barman.
    â€œRemy Martin for me,” said Rynn. “And another whatever for this man.”
    â€œI’m okay,” said Kelly, his voice catching. He cleared his throat. The blood now pounding in his head seemed to deafen him. Rynn’s minder had perched on a stool now, and he was watching him in the mirror.
    â€œWhat’s that,” said Rynn. “A small one? Give him a small one.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œNo nothing. Give him a small one.”
    Rynn leaned one elbow on the bar and turned to face Kelly.
    â€œYou look like you need it, believe me.”
    Kelly had rehearsed this so many times so often in the past few days: the tone, the way he had to be sure to look Rynn right in the eye, the expression he’d put on his face.
    â€œEver see anything like it,” Rynn said to the barman. “Poxiest week of rain I ever seen.”
    â€œYou’re right there. Absolutely right about that, Mr. Rynn.”
    The name was like a blow to Kelly. Barmen knew everybody. This one would be able to say he’d seen Garda Kelly and Rynn having a little chat.
    Rynn skated his glass around in a slow arc, over and back on the counter, and then lifted it.
    â€œWell now,” he said.
    Kelly shook his head. Rynn nodded back his first gulp of whiskey.
    â€œWhat,” he said then. “What are you shaking your head at me for?”
    â€œCan’t do it. I just can’t.”
    Kelly looked away from the mirror.
    â€œI can’t,” he said. He was surprised at how easily it came out.
    â€œYou can’t,” said Rynn. “One name? One address? What, you can’t find it?”
    â€œI can’t do it.”
    â€œYou can,” said Rynn. “And you will, because you’re not stupid.”
    Rynn’s minder was no longer pretending not to listen. Kelly glanced his way and locked eyes for a moment.
    â€œI’m a Guard,” Kelly said. “That’s why I can’t do it.”
    Rynn looked into his glass, and then flicked it slowly from side to side.
    â€œYou’re serious, I think,” he said.
    Kelly wondered if it was the whiskey had held the panic back, had given him his voice, the quiet exhilaration rising up in him. Again he saw himself