No Timeouts - Page 8

Surrounded by barrel-shaped kegs and cardboard cases of beer in the cold basement of Finnegan’s, Bobby can’t stop his teeth from chattering. The chill of the damp concrete walls seeps into his bones. Big Pete O’Shea, Finnegan’s bouncer, uses a thick nylon rope to bind Bobby’s wrists together behind the wooden chair in the middle of the room. Bobby’s legs are secured to the chair by an elastic cord. He’s surrounded by Molly, Big Pete, and the two men who’d been sitting on either side of him at the bar, Scotty and the Giants jersey guy. Two guns are pointed at Bobby’s head. Bobby now realizes it was no coincidence that the only empty bar stool he could find was wedged between these two goons. It was a trap. They knew he’d be comin’ in today.

Molly breaks the silence. “Been watchin’ ya for over twenty years now, Kehan. Ever since ya ran off to Manchester when your own parents kicked ya out a’ the house an’ the Ulsters told ya to get lost. We knew ya’d find me and come lookin’ for revenge one day. Troubles’re over but we still got a network that stretches all the way across the pond to our little enclave here in New York. We had eyes on ya the second your feet hit the tarmac at JFK two days ago, Bobby-boy.”

Bobby stares back at her. “But why Denny?” he says. “I know he hung around with the Murphy boys sometimes, but it was just through William Moore. He ’n Willie went way back to primary school together, but Denny wasn’t—”

Molly shakes her head with a mix of pity and contempt. “Ya really didn’t know, did ya? Your brother was no choirboy, Bobby. He ran with the Shankill Butchers, stone fuckin’ killers.” She nods to Big Pete, who hands her a large envelope. She removes a few old photos and shows them to Bobby. The images depict dead bodies, faces bruised and throats cut deeply across the neck, the horror captured in stark detail. “Police photos, got ’em from a contact inside the RUC. Most a’ those lads were with us, but some had nothin’ to do with the IRA or the cause. Hell, some were even Proddies in the wrong place at the wrong time. Murphy didn’t care – he was a lunatic, a bloody psychopath. Look at those cuts – straight through the neck ’til he hit the spine. Almost cut their heads clean off. The Butchers weren’t soldiers, Bobby. They were fuckin’ serial killers.”

“But that was the Murphys and a few others, not Denny!” Bobby protests.

“For fuck’s sake, Bobby,” Molly says in disbelief. “I don’t know if Denny ever slashed a throat but he sure as hell was there. He was died-in-the-wool UVF, and a Butcher. They all were. Moore got ’em the knives ’n guns, Denny was the explosives man – learned his trade with the Rangers. Johnny Murphy took over the unit when Lenny went to the Maze in ’77.” She stares him down with piercing eyes. “Can’t believe ya didn’t know this.”

Bobby goes silent while Molly places another photo on his lap. This one shows a much-younger Molly, in her early twenties, with a handsome, smiling young man in a plaid flannel shirt. Molly nods down at the photo, a slight hitch in her voice. “That was my fiancée, Declan. Killed in a pub off the Lower Falls Road back in ’73. By an Ulster bomb. That’s when I joined the cause.”

Bobby closes his eyes.

“The Provos had girls planted at Mooney’s, White’s an’ even ole Kelly’s Cellars most every Friday ’n Saturday night. Your brother’d been spotted takin’ girls outta those pubs every weekend. Made himself a target. That’s why we were at Mooney’s that night. Denny was quite the ladies’ man when he wasn’t killin’ taigs as you call us.”

After a long silence, Bobby looks up at Molly, his voice steady but bitter. “So now ya got me here. Ya killed my brother, an’ now ya got me. So what happens next, Molly?” He pauses, challenging her. “Or is it Gracie? Or maybe some other name altogether?”

“Molly. That’s my name. Gracie was just the name I used back when I was workin’ for the cause.”

Molly points to a small TV in a corner of the room. “Tommy puts his TVs everywhere in this place so he don’t miss even a minute of his games,” she chuckles. On the screen, the Giants have the ball at the Eagles’ 45-yard line for a third and five with just twenty-three seconds left on the clock. “Will ya look at that, Bobby?” Molly says, eyes fixed on the TV. “Just twenty-three seconds left for the Giants to score.” She looks back at Bobby. “And no timeouts.”

They all watch the TV quietly as the Giants manage just a two-yard run on third down, leaving them at fourth and three on the Eagles’ 43-yard line with the clock ticking down to fifteen seconds. The Giants’ field goal unit sprints onto the field to attempt a 55-yard field goal to tie the game. They barely get the snap off as the game clock ticks down to zero, but the kick is good, splitting the uprights and tying the game at 30-30. The upstairs bar crowd erupts into a loud, deafening cheer as their beloved Giants send the game to overtime.

Molly smiles. “Never know what’s gonna happen in sports, do ya? Goin’ to overtime, anyone’s game now.” She turns back to Bobby, her tone more contemplative. “Sports are like life in many ways, aren’t they Bobby? So many things are just a matter a’ chance, random circumstance, that can alter the course of a game. Even change the entire outcome. Some things the players can control, some things they just can’t.”

“S’pose so,” Bobby says quietly.

Molly reflects for a moment, then speaks. “So what happens now, y’ask? Well Bobby, we were just gonna kill ya down here and clean up the mess. But now I’m thinkin’ why don’t we leave it to chance? Just like the ballgame up there. Just like your brother Denny killed by the IRA after goin’ to the pub for a few pints with his mates. Just like my own Declan killed by a UVF bomb, maybe even one that was set by your dear departed brother.” She walks up to Bobby’s chair and leans down to look him straight in the eye, her breath hot against his face. “It’s all just a matter a’ chance, ain’t it, Bobby Kehan?”

Bobby holds her stare but says nothing.

“So I’ll tell ya what, Bobby. We’ll make it simple for ya. Giants win, you live. Eagles win, you die in that chair. That’s what happens now, t’answer your burnin’ question.” Molly looks back at the others. “So whattaya say, boys? A fine way to enjoy the rest a’ the ballgame?” She looks back at Bobby with a grin. “Loosen up, Kehan, it’ll be fun. Nothin’ better’n a close game that goes down to the wire, not knowin’ who’s gonna win an’ who’s gonna lose.”

As the captains of each team jog out to midfield for the overtime coin toss, Scotty grabs beers from a case against the basement wall and hands them around to the others. They all watch as the Giants win the toss and elect to defend. Then the clock begins to tick down. Both teams struggle to move the ball, trading possessions back and forth. Halfway through the overtime period, neither team has scored and they’ve only managed two first downs between them – both defenses playing surprisingly well after having allowed sixty total points in the first four quarters. Throughout the overtime period, Molly and the others watch the game with amusement and good-natured chatter, working their way through a case of beer. Bobby sits quietly in his chair, ropes biting into his wrists as he awaits his fate.

At the two-minute warning, Bobby interrupts their banter, his voice breaking through the haze of excitement. “I gotta take a leak. Ya took my gun, so I’m unarmed. Ya can even send one a’ your boys to the toilet with me if ya want.”

Molly looks over at Big Pete, who shrugs back at her. She turns to Bobby and says, “Fine, but y’ain’t goin’ upstairs. Take an empty bottle into the corner over there.” Turning back to Pete, she says, “Untie the wanker and give ’im an empty ta’ piss into. And keep your gun on ’im the whole fuckin’ time.”

Big Pete unties Bobby from the chair while the others look on with a mix of curiosity and amusement. When Bobby stands up, Pete grabs him by the arm and walks him into a corner of the basement behind a stack of crates. He looks at Bobby with a smirk. “Sure as hell made a mistake comin’ back here, Kehan. An’ I was always told you’re the smart one a’ the family.”

“Actually you’re the one who made a mistake, Pete.”

“Oh yeah? An’ how’s that?”

“For thinkin’ I’d show up here with only a .38 snub-nose. Denny taught me more’n how to kick a football, mate.” Catching Big Pete by surprise, Bobby opens his black wool overcoat and places a finger on a small device attached to his belt.

Pete’s eyes widen as realization dawns.

“I may not be the smartest one in my family,” Bobby says with a glint in his eye. “But I’m sure as fuck the smartest one in this room. Ya let me down here without even a pat-down, ya stupid fuckin’ taig.” He looks up at the ceiling as his eyes grow moist, then close forever. “See ya soon, Denny.”

Twenty miles northeast of Giants Stadium, where a heated NFL division rivalry heads to the end of overtime, five kilos of Semtex blow up the basement of Finnegan’s Pub, killing four former IRA volunteers and the brother of a notorious UVF bomber. Bricks, debris and body parts blast up into the bar and out onto the street as the floor caves in, killing another three and injuring a dozen more. The pub’s owner, a former IRA brigade commander responsible for hundreds of murders in Northern Ireland over the past fifty years, survives the blast.

Throughout New York and Philadelphia and the rest of the country, faithful fans of both teams watch the game anxiously from the edge of their seats, with the score tied and less than a minute left on the clock.

And no timeouts.