The Bloomsday Dead Read Free Page B

gave me the phone. His eyes were expressionless. Cold.
    “It’s for you,” he said with a sneer.
    “Hola,” I said.
    “Michael,” Bridget replied.
    I recognized her voice immediately. I staggered a little and the man with the pistol had to steady me.
    “You,” I muttered, unable to articulate anything more.
    “Michael, if you’re taking this call it means that a man is pointing a gun at your head,” Bridget said.
    “He is,” I agreed.
    “He’s been instructed to kill you,” Bridget said.
    “Aye, I gathered that.”
    “I mean business,” Bridget said.
    I knew she did. A year ago, in March 2003, when the U.S. Army was rolling into Baghdad and most people had other things on their minds, she’d sent a team of five assassins to get me at my hiding place in Los Angeles. A nasty little crew, but they’d screwed it up and I’d taken care of them. Still, I knew she’d come for me again. Honor demanded it. I had killed her fiancé, the mob boss Darkey White, and I had turned state’s evidence against all my old pals. A killer and a traitor. Bridget wanted me dead, even if all that had taken place in 1992—twelve goddamn years ago. You had to admire her tenacity.
    After LA I had skipped town, getting a job here in Lima as head of security at the Miraflores Hilton.
    I had thought that I’d be safe for a while. I liked the place, I liked the people, I could have maybe established a wee home here permanently, settled down, a family. A nice local girl. A couple of cute kids. You could get a house overlooking the ocean for a pittance.
    Now those plans were dead. Bridget was going to taunt me and her boys were going to pop me. And if Hector came running through the door, they’d have him too, poor bastard.
    “I want you to listen to me, Michael,” Bridget said.
    “I’m listening.”
    “You better not try anything, these men are trained professionals.”
    “Oh, professionals, eh? Oh, my goodness. I am keeking my whips,” I groaned, attempting bravado.
    “Michael, you worthless shit, shut up and listen to me,” Bridget said.
    “If the nuns could hear you talk like that,” I mocked.
    “I am dead serious.”
    “I know, Bridget, but you should have come here yourself, I would have liked to have seen you one last time,” I said.
    “For a decade I’ve been trying to kill you, and, believe me, if something hadn’t come up, I would have come there and I would have watched them torture you with arc-welding gear until you were begging me for death. But, like I say, something terrible has happened.”
    “Go on,” I said.
    “My daughter, Siobhan, she’s gone missing,” Bridget said.
    I had no idea that Bridget had a daughter. It was a new one on me; she must have a boyfriend or maybe even a husband in her life now. Well, bully for her. I guess she wasn’t holding a candle out for yours truly.
    “Where are you, in New York?” I asked.
    “Belfast, I’m in Belfast, Northern Ireland. She’s been missing for three days. I am worried sick. She’s only eleven years old, Michael.”
    “What? Eleven?” I said hesitantly.
    “Eleven,” Bridget confirmed.
    “She’s Darkey’s kid?” I asked, making an intuitive leap.
    “Yes.”
    This information was another shocker. Bloody hell. So she had been pregnant the night I’d smacked her and knocked her unconscious and then killed her old man. In mitigation she had been trying to shoot me, but still, I’d hit a pregnant woman and I’d murdered the little girl’s da in cold blood. What a charmer I was and no mistake.
    “Where do I come in?” I asked.
    “I want you to find her, Michael. You know Belfast like nobody else, you have the contacts, you can ask around. I need you, Michael, and by God you owe me.”
    “Well, that’s debatable, love,” I said. “Darkey kind of got on my bad side. I’d say the score’s pretty even.”
    “This isn’t a request, Michael. If you don’t tell my boys the stop command they are going to kill you.”
    Not just