The Traveler eased back onto the bed and pulled the sheet up around him. “Going away for a while,” he said.
Sofia kept her naked back to him, the late afternoon light pooling in the valleys of her flesh. A scar, pale against her tan, spread across the small of her back. He’d never asked how she got it, but he had a good idea. “What for?” she asked.
“Business,” the Traveler said.
She stretched as she rolled onto her back, her skin brushing against his, the stubble of her underarm scratching at his shoulder. “When will you be back?” she asked.
“Depends,” he said. “Not long, maybe.”
“Maybe,” she echoed. “You said that last time.”
“Then get yourself someone else to play with. Won’t bother me. Just make sure he wears a johnny. Don’t want to catch nothing off some dirty bastard.”
“Pig,” she said as she rolled away.
He reached under the sheet and squeezed a fleshy buttock. She slapped his hand away. The sound of it reverberated around the high-ceilinged bedroom. It was made up to look like some grand old place, with cornices and an elaborate rose above the light, but the house couldn’t have been standing more than five or six years. New money trying to look like old, the Traveler thought. Sofia had inherited the place from her dead husband, along with half a dozen other properties, a fat investment portfolio, and a luxury-car dealership. Did she know he was the one that did the husband in? He reckoned so, but she’d never let on. That scar on her back wasn’t the only one. The first time he’d bedded her there had been something close to gratitude in her eyes.
Not that she’d bought the hit. That had been a rival businessman the husband had shafted on a deal. When the Traveler had been watching the doomed man’s comings and goings, figuring out the job, he’d seen Sofia driving the big Range Rover away from the massive house. He’d followed her to some young lad’s place where she drew the curtains and emerged two hours later with her skirt crooked and her hair messed up. He’d made a mental note then to call on her once the job was done.
Two years ago, that was, and he visited her at least once every few weeks. He’d even taken her to Benidorm. She got drunk and tearful on cheap sangria and talked about her only regret: the husband hadn’t given her a baby. He sometimes wondered why she didn’t just quit the pill and not tell him about it, get pregnant and say goodbye. Maybe she had an honest streak in her. He laughed out loud.
“What’s so fucking funny?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he said. He turned onto his side and slipped his arm around her waist, pulled her in close to him. She took his hand and placed it on her plump breast.
“Fancy another?” he asked.
“Already?”
He squeezed. “Me? Sure I’m always raring to go.”
“Bastard,” she said.
It took an hour and a half to drive north through Ardee, Carrickmacross, and Castleblaney before hitting the outskirts of Monaghan town a few miles south of the border. The Traveler had bought a ten-year-old Mercedes from a dealer he knew near Drogheda. It was a big, wallowing estate with 200,000 miles on it. An automatic with plenty of room in the back if he needed to stash anything or anybody.
The Bull had described the place well, even drawn a map. The Traveler stopped at junctions as he got nearer, traced the shape of the words on the map with his finger, and matched them to the road signs.
He remembered the word “alexia” as a shadow, how a doctor explained it to him in broken English fifteen years ago. Another name for it was acquired dyslexia. Something about the piece of Kevlar they dug out of his head, how it fucked up something in his brain, made written words turn into a jumble of criss-crossing lines.
The doctor had told him he’d never read anything again. That didn’t bother the Traveler at first; he’d never been one for books. But when he re-entered the living world, the lack of words became an obstacle. So he had trained himself to memorize the letters as shapes, all twenty-six of them. He could study a word, judge each letter in turn, and decipher its meaning if he tried hard enough. But more than one or two words, and it might as well be Chinese. It suited him to let the likes of Bull O’Kane think he was illiterate. No one ever suffered for being underestimated.
Another thirty minutes and he found Malloy’s place, just as it was getting dark. An old cottage set back a hundred yards from the road with a single-track lane running up to the small garden.
He stopped the car halfway along the lane, far enough so the Merc couldn’t be seen from the road, and not too close to the cottage. He pulled the IMI Desert Eagle from under the seat. People said a Glock or a SIG was a better combat pistol, and they were probably right, but the Desert Eagle was a big bastard that scared the shite out of anyone he pulled it on. It was noisy, too. If you needed to take someone’s head off in a crowded pub without worrying about heroes, it was the one.
It sounded like the end of the world, and it could stop anything with its .44 load.
Lights glowed behind drawn curtains up ahead. He got out of the Merc and walked toward them. If the Traveler lived in a place like this, he’d have a dog. A big, mean one. He kept to the grass verge to silence his footsteps and listened for growling as he approached.
Kevin Malloy had a wife, the Bull had said. She might or might not be in the cottage. Malloy was still bedridden from his injuries. It was a simple job, really. Get in, do anyone inside, grab any money, wreck the place, get out. The cottage stood black against the hills behind.
Just twenty yards now. The wind changed direction.
There, a low rumble as a dog caught his scent. The Traveler froze, listened, waited. The Eagle’s heft felt good. Solid, like the power of God in his hand. He started toward the house again.
The rumble turned to a growl punctuated by gasps. He could hear the animal’s excitement and fear. No sign of it in the shadows yet. He listened for another sound: the high jangle of a chain. No one would leave a big dog loose out here, but he wanted to be sure.
It launched into a clamor of barking, then, the low bass vowels of a deep-chested animal. The Bull said Malloy was an arsehole. If he was an arsehole he’d have a dog he thought made him look hard. Something stupid and brutal, maybe a Rottweiler or some kind of mastiff, rather than a smart guardian like a German shepherd or a Dobermann.
The braying grew louder and the Traveler heard heavy paws crunching on gravel. Then a gallop, the jangle of chain, and a yelp as it snapped taut. That was all he needed to know.
He reached into his pocket and took out the Vater earplugs. Drummers used them to protect their hearing. The little beehiveshaped pieces of rubber blocked out the dangerous frequencies but let through the detail of the environment. They blocked out the worst of a gunshot, but you could still hear a mouse fart. He pressed the two earpieces, joined by a twelve-inch plastic string, into place. He worked his jaw open and closed, swallowed, and walked.
There it was, some sort of mastiff cross. A low wall surrounded the cottage. The dog stood just inside the open gate. It stopped its barking and watched the Traveler approach. There was enough light yet to see the glow of its eyes. He pulled back the Eagle’s slide to chamber a round and thumbed the safety off. The dog’s legs quivered and its chest rumbled.
The Traveler raised the Eagle in a two-handed grip, his wrists firm so his shoulders would take the brunt of the recoil, and squeezed the trigger until he felt resistance. Sometimes he forgot which was his right hand, and which was his left. Something else that came out of his brain along with that piece of Kevlar. Not that it mattered much; he had trained one hand to be about as strong as the other.
He lined the sights between the dog’s eyes. It lunged. He blew its skull apart.
The boom rolled across the hills. The Traveler watched the house for movement. No surprises now, just get in and do it. He marched to the old wooden door and booted it below the handle. He kicked it again, and it swung inward. He went in gun first, ready to take down anything that moved.
The tiny open-plan kitchen and living room was empty. Old bottles and beer cans crowded around the sink. The remains of a Chinese takeaway littered the dining table. The place reeked of stale cigarettes and alcohol, damp and rotten food. Only two doors led from this room. One of them stood open, revealing a dirty bathtub and toilet. He went to the other, the Eagle at shoulder level.
The Traveler threw it open, and the door frame exploded around him. He fired blind into the room three times, the recoil throwing him backward against the table. His wrist shrieked; splinters and plaster dust stung his face.
“Bastard,” he said. He wiped his sleeve across his eyes. Hot pain seared the right. He shook his head, tried to dislodge whatever burned there.
“Jesus,” he said. He rubbed the heel of his left hand against the eye. It came away wet and red. “Dirty fucker.”
He calmed his breathing and listened. Moaning and sobbing came from the room. The Traveler crossed to it, both hands supporting the Eagle.
Kevin Malloy lay on the floor between the bed and an open wardrobe, his legs tangled in sheets, a shotgun by his side. A ragged hole was torn in his shoulder.
The Traveler lifted the shotgun and admired the polished wooden stock and steel barrel. “Fuck, that’s a beauty,” he said, putting it on the bed. He recognized the stag’s head logo. “Browning. Very nice. Think I’ll have that. You got more shells?”
Malloy lay there shaking. His blood soaked the carpet. It squelched under the Traveler’s feet. He kicked Malloy’s shoulder. Malloy screamed.
“I asked you a question,” the Traveler said. “You got more shells for that?”
Malloy turned his head. “In … in there.”
The Traveler stepped over him and found three boxes of 20-gauge cartridges in the bottom of the wardrobe. He threw them on the bed beside the Browning.
“Anyone else here?” he asked.
Malloy shook his head.
“Where’s your missus?”
Malloy cried.
The Traveler kicked him again. When Malloy’s screaming died down, the Traveler said, “Where is she?”
“In town,” Malloy said. “Please don’t kill me.”
“When’ll she be back?”
“I don’t know. Please don’t kill me. I’ve money. You can have my cash card and my PIN. There, in my wallet.”
The Traveler went to the dressing table and put the wallet in his pocket. It would help make it look like a robbery, but he’d dump it somewhere on the road. No way he’d use the card.
He rubbed his right eye on his sleeve, hissed at the sting. “You might’ve fucking blinded me, you know.”
“I’m sorry,” Malloy said. “Please don’t kill me.”
The Traveler flicked the Eagle’s safety on and tucked it into his waistband. He went to the bed and lifted the Browning. He turned it in his hands, tested its heft. It was compact and light. “Fucking lovely,” he said. He pulled back the slide to eject the spent cartridge and pushed it forward to load the next. The action was smooth and easy. “That’s a beauty,” he said, running his fingers over the smooth walnut stock. He wedged the butt against his shoulder and lined up Malloy’s head.
“Jesus,” Malloy said.
The Traveler took three steps back. He didn’t want to get covered in the splatter.
Malloy wept and prayed.
The Traveler blinked blood away from his right eye. He sniffed and swallowed. He shifted his weight onto his leading foot, braced for the recoil, and pulled the trigger.
It didn’t make too bad a mess of Malloy, considering. The recoil gave the Traveler a solid kick to the shoulder, but it was a controllable piece. He held the Browning out to admire it again. “Nice,” he said.
He pulled the earplugs out by the plastic string and put them in his pocket. He opened and closed his jaw to clear the pressure. His eye stung pretty bad, now. He walked back to the kitchen and turned on the tap. A scoop of cold water eased the burning a little.
He wondered if there were any old plastic bags under the sink in which to carry the boxes of cartridges back to the car. He opened the cupboard doors.
A woman lay trembling on her side in there, squeezed beneath the plumbing. She covered her head with her hands, her knees drawn up to her chin. She smelled of gin.
“Ah, fuck,” the Traveler said.
He reached for the earplugs.