They couldn’t help but stare. The children particularly. Ghost always got a buzz from the faces of people who hadn’t seen him before.
Some of the mas pulled their precious children towards them as soon as he walked into the pool. They stared at his bones, pressed against his face and his chest and recoiled at the mass of tattoos. He gave them one of his trademark smiles and a couple of kids screamed. They thrashed the water when he jumped in and let out a laugh.
He did the dead-man float in the middle of the pool. The water lapped against him from the force of people swimming away. Like fucking lemmings.
When he turned for the deep end, most people had left. Leaning back against the bars, he split a smile. Just as well for them they did leave, he thought, because however much of a scary fucker he looked, Slammer was making his entrance. They’d shit bricks if they saw that beast coming.
He looked at Slammer’s great thick skull, bent in on one side, his chunky shoulders and mass of muscle for a body. Slammer eyed Ghost for a second, but didn’t acknowledge his nod; instead he scanned the pool to see who was there.
Lock Man followed, his head bowed, tying his shorts as he barrelled forward. He reminded Ghost of a little bull. The way his head swayed gave the impression he was arguing with himself.
Ghost had wondered why Slammer hadn’t buried him ten feet down in the Dublin Mountains by now. He had chosen Jobs and Shop, after all, but Shop, the prick, had, for some fucking reason, brought Maggot along. Probably because Maggot tormented him to do so. End of the day, the boss held him responsible for a fuck up of monumental scale. But here he was, still kicking. Probably because Slammer had cleaned up the mess and the garda had nothing on them. But he knew his cards were marked. Lock Man prized one quality above loyalty: survival. Then there were the two recent seizures. The boss must be chewing glass over that, he thought, and now this Leo cunt comes along.
Ghost rose his head to avoid the wave that came with Slammer’s body entering the water. From the far end, the boss swam towards them, like a mini-whale.
‘Ya think this guy is setting a trap?’ Slammer asked.
Ghost looked at Slammer. There was no fat on the man, just solid bone, layered over with thick muscle.
‘That scrawny junkie?’ Ghost replied. ‘He couldn’t set a mouse trap.’
Even Slammer couldn’t help but smile at that one, Ghost noticed.
‘We know where he’s holed up?’
‘Na. He be back on Tuesday for an answer. We can follow him then.’
‘Don’t use any locals. I’ll have two lads there,’ Slammer said.
Ghost liked Slammer. He just had that no-fucking-bullshit approach about him.
‘So, what’s the plan?’ Ghost said. ‘The boss going to take the chance?’
Slammer didn’t answer.
The two of them watched as Lock Man loomed, his bald head coming towards them like a torpedo, his arms smashing through the water. He showed no signs of stopping. Ghost moved to one side to allow his considerable mass to touch the bars, change and wobble into a backstroke, the belly undulating away from them.
‘Where’s this fucker getting his info?’ Slammer asked.
‘That’s the fucking thing. The more I think about it the more it wrecks me head. He could be spoofing, just to clear his debt. But he knows that, as soon as we know he’s spoofing, he’s a dead man.’
‘Unless,’ Slammer said, ‘it is a trap.’
They both moved as Lock Man took the steps at the far end and headed for the jacuzzi, his reds togs sagging off him. He hit a button and the jets erupted.
They took the three sides of the jacuzzi, leaving no space for anyone else foolish enough to think they could join them. Lock Man had his back to the pool and Slammer took the side facing the entrance.
Ghost could feel the boss’s eyes on him.
‘Yer fucking wasting away,’ Lock Man said, looking at him.
‘All the stress I’m under, boss. Ya should try it on the streets.’
The joke fell flat. Slammer threw him a look that said ‘not very smart’.
‘Speaking of jokers,’ Lock Man said. ‘What about this junkie? He on a suicide mission or does he actually know something?’
Ghost held his bruised hand, sore after smacking Leo, against a jet and thought for a moment.
‘I don’t know, boss. As I said to Slam, he could be bluffing, just to get his slate cleaned, but he knows he’s history if he doesn’t have something to tell us.’
Lock Man leaned forward and spat out some water.
‘So, what the fuck’s his game? Ya met him.’
‘I smacked him a few and he stayed. That says something?’
‘As?’
‘Junkies scamper after that. They don’t stay for more. This one got up, stood his ground and repeated what he said. There’s something up his ass alright.’
‘Yeah, what though, and who put it there,’ Lock Man said. ‘He connected with anyone?’
‘He hasn’t the balls or the brains,’ Ghost said. ‘And everyone knows we’re hunting for him.’
‘What about someone using him? The garda?’
Ghost shrugged. ‘Yeah, it’s possible. He says a detective told him about us having a rat or something.’
Lock Man’s face hardened. He adjusted his weight and looked at Slammer.
‘Youse putting eyes on this fucker?’
‘He’s back on Tuesday,’ Slammer said. ‘So we’ll trail him then.’
Ghost knew well that Lock Man had a thing about rats, even the faintest sniff of one. The two drug seizures had got to him. His cheeks were going red.
‘Who he say he wanted to meet?’
‘Yerself, me, Cracko, Slammer and Jig.’
‘Sounds like he wants revenge for his ma,’ Lock Man said. ‘Why else include the boy?’ He turned to Slammer: ‘What the fuck could he do, strap a bomb to himself?’
‘Could have someone on the outside to take us out at the meet,’ Slammer said. ‘He’d have to be followed or tracked for that. Either that or he’s bugged and cops hope we admit to something or do him in.’
Lock Man kept his eyes on Slammer. Ghost could feel his mind chewing on it all.
‘Whatever the reason is, boss, why chance it?’ Slammer said.
Lock Man went silent. Ghost could see he was sweating like a fucking hippo in a sauna. His cheeks were shiny red.
Lock Man raised his finger at Slammer, then Ghost.
‘The filth didn’t make those seizures by chance.’ He looked at Ghost. ‘What did Cracko say about that junkie who was holding the last haul?’
‘Well, he melted his moth’s head and he didn’t fess up,’ Ghost said. ‘Cracko thinks the junkie’s no rat.’
A blue vein in Lock Man’s temple pulsed.
‘And what about that Micko Hynes streak of piss? The boy told youse he overheard him and Stu blabbering away down the canal.’
‘Yeah,’ Ghost said. ‘Cracko’s paying him a visit as we speak. But that Micko prick didn’t know anything about either shipment.’
Lock Man twisted his head from side to side.
‘Things have gone way too ragged. I don’t fucking like it. The filth are getting info from somewhere, from someone. Rat or no rat, we need to make sure we have a clean fucking house. Arrange a meet.’
Slammer nodded.
‘We can make sure Leo is clean,’ Slammer said. ‘Take extra precautions. We’ll use a secure place, somewhere new.’
‘Yeah and,’ Lock Man said, his eyes widening, ‘we leave him to talk. We say fucking nothing. So even if they have a big fucking microphone sticking out of his bony arse, all they’ll hear is him talking shite.’
Lock Man looked at Ghost.
‘No chance that Jig is talking, after what happened to his fucking bro?’
Ghost hadn’t expected that.
‘He doesn’t know shit,’ Ghost said. ‘He does what I say. And no matter what, his crowd would never rat.’
But the thought scurried around inside Ghost’s head.
‘Better not,’ Lock Man said, pushing his legs forward and lying his head back, ‘cos ya have only one lifeline left.’