15

Mickey had seen what the final stages of cancer looked like up close, when Heather’s mother had been dying. In the last month of her life, she’d lost almost sixty pounds: chemo and radiation had taken away all of her hair and her strength to fight, had turned a vibrant, active woman who loved gardening, golf and running into a zombie – no light in her eyes, just a frail sack of skin and bones.

Seeing the man out in the open was very different from watching him sitting at a dining table, struggling to breathe. Byrne, using a cane, shuffled instead of walked, and he was clearly in pain. Suddenly Mickey realized just how close to death Byrne actually was. Not days now but hours.

Byrne had two men with him. They wore overcoats over their rumpled suits, and they were both thick and wide and dressed in clothes straight from the Bada Bing! fashion line. One guy, with a shaved head, picked up a carton of orange juice and placed it in his trolley. The other one was a few inches taller and had curly hair and was walking swiftly towards Mickey.

Mickey, however, couldn’t keep his eyes off Byrne. The oxygen mask Mickey had seen him wearing the other night had been swapped for a nasal cannula. It was connected to a portable oxygen concentrator hidden inside a black bag that he wore slung across his shoulder, like a woman’s handbag.

‘Hey, Mickey,’ the man with the curly hair said. ‘How you doing?’

‘I know you?’ Mickey’s eyes were on Byrne, who was gimping towards him.

‘I know your old man.’ Curly snorted and scratched the area under his nose with his thumbnail, his eyes downcast when he said, ‘Look, I take no pleasure in doing this, but I’ve gotta ask you to, you know, leave.’

Mickey turned to him. ‘Who the fuck’re you?’

Byrne answered the question. ‘He’s with me,’ he wheezed, the veins popping out on his neck. ‘He’s here to protect me. From you.’

Curly swallowed, his face and tone full of empathy when he said, ‘Come on, Mickey, you know the drill.’

Mickey didn’t move, his mind filling with images of Claire standing on top of the Hill, frightened, her vision terribly blurred without her glasses; Claire crying out for help and swatting away the strange hands so eager to touch her.

‘You’re in violation of your probation,’ Byrne wheezed. ‘I have my cell phone – and witnesses. Right, Father Cullen? Go ahead, Paul, make the call. Mr Flynn is refusing to –’ He cut himself off when Mickey lunged.

Curly and his partner were quick and strong, and they stopped Mickey. Father Cullen too: the priest sank his fingers into the meat of Mickey’s bicep, Cullen’s back towards Byrne and his breath hot against Mickey’s ear as he hissed, ‘Leave him to God.’

Mickey could only see Byrne. ‘YOU’RE GOING TO PAY FOR WHAT YOU DID TO MY DAUGHTER!’ Spit flew from his lips and the words scraped his throat raw. They were trying to drag him away. Mickey fought them but his eyes never left Byrne’s. ‘I DON’T CARE WHAT IT TAKES OR WHAT IT COSTS, I’M GONNA MAKE SURE YOU FUCKIN’ BURN!’

Byrne licked his lips, his eyes gleaming.