The Tick-Tock Trilogy Box Set Page 6
Today is the first day I’ve acted in decades. If I can nail Nick from Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? then playing Vincent Butler on a normal Tuesday morning shouldn’t be a problem at all. I have to rid myself of the tension I’m feeling and forget about any outside influences. I have to take two million euros from each of our four banks, acting as if it’s a normal procedure, and then I have to return to my apartment before midday. It can’t be that difficult.
I am not nervous. I am not under pressure.
I repeat that into the mirrored wall of the lift over and over again as it takes me down to the underground car park. I let out one big sigh before the sliding doors open and I make my way towards a smiling John.
‘Mornin’, Vincent,’ he says, tipping the peak of his cap at me. His Dublin accent as thick as ever.
‘All good, John boy?’ I ask, as composed as I am every other morning.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Can you pop the boot for me? I’ve a few withdrawals to make today and I need to make sure I’ve enough cases.’
I do. I look inside the boot of the car and see eight cases. There are always eight cases. That’s exactly how many I need. They each pack up to a million euros. Hopefully they’ll all be full in the next few hours. I don’t have to worry about John. He has absolutely no idea how the banking system works. It’s unusual that I’d drive around all four banks to withdraw money in one morning, but John will barely notice. He’s just always happy to be out and about rather than sitting around a small office sipping coffee while waiting on me to decide to go somewhere. He’s been driving me around for over a decade and has actually been employed by ACB longer than I have. There used to be fourteen bank branches in Dublin before the crisis hit in 2008. I was manager of the Drumcondra branch before it closed and was given John as a chauffeur when I first took the job in 2004. When we restructured in early 2010 the board decided to cut some of the large wage bill by closing down the ten branches that were scattered around the Dublin suburbs, leaving just the four that operated in the city centre. They were the only ones making money. They let go all thirteen of the bank managers, leaving me to run all the four remaining branches. They would hire assistant managers on lower wages to assist in the everyday running of the banks, but I would be the man mainly responsible for the entire Irish operation. The restructure saved ACB almost three million a year in wages and expenses and the Irish branch of the company just about managed to survive. You would think that being the manager of four branches rather than just one would have meant a huge pay rise for me. Not so. I was told I’d be taking a salary cut. I didn’t mind, initially. I was just so proud to be the only manager kept on. I felt valued. I hadn’t felt as proud of myself since I won the audition to play Nick all those years ago.
‘So, where we off te?’ asks John as he opens the back door for me.
‘Church Street first, John, please,’ I reply before I realise I’m making a mistake. ‘No, Camden, no, Nassau Street. Yeah, Nassau first, John, thanks.’
‘Y’alrigh’, Vincent?’ he asks, staring at me through the open door. ‘You don’t seem yerself today.’
I nod my head in response before breathing heavily. In the time it takes him to walk around to his side of the car I feel panic setting in. Maybe I’m not as good an actor as I always assumed I was. I look at my watch and grind my teeth. It is genuinely the first time I’ve lost my composure since leaving the apartment. The digital clock on the car dashboard just blinked to 8:50. Time to start robbing some banks.
08:50
Jack
Watching teenagers hanging around the bottom of Grafton Street makes me wonder what other people are up to today. It’s the mid-term holidays. Most kids are enjoying their break from school. Most adults are probably cooped up in some office or factory in a job they hate. For almost every one of the million people in this city, today is just another Tuesday morning. Dublin has no idea that the subtlest bank robbery in the history of this city is under way. Bank robberies used to be a big deal in Dublin. If one occurred, it would make national headlines. But that’s hardly the case anymore. They estimate that thirty-five bank robberies happen in Ireland every year. It’s not a huge number, but it’s significant enough to not have news editors drop their jaw each time one happens. This will be a different story altogether though. Nothing like this has ever happened in this country. It’ll go down in folklore. Mostly because the guys that did it got away with it.
A brunette pushing a pram past the side wall of Trinity College reminds me of Karyn. They share the same shaggy, curly mop of brown hair. I twist my neck to take a peek at the baby and notice she must be only a few months old. I think it’s a girl. She has a bright yellow bib on. That’s all I can go on. Karyn never pushed a baby that young.
A week after my failed attempt at asking her for a dance at Trolli’s Dance Hall, my father informed me on my return home from work that some girl had phoned looking for me. He squinted as he tried to make out his own handwriting.
‘Karyn Ritchie,’ he said, as butterflies swarmed around my stomach. He handed me the small note and I immediately ran to the home phone under the stairs. I didn’t hesitate in dialling the number.
‘You asked me for a dance last week,’ she said smartly after I had told her who was calling. I rang so quickly that I didn’t give myself the opportunity to get nervous.
‘Yes, I did,’ I responded, unsure what she would say next.
‘Well, I don’t really like to dance, but I do like Italian food. In fact, I really like the Italian food in Pirlo’s restaurant on Dame Street. And I would particularly like their food this Friday night at seven o’clock.’
I was stumped. I wasn’t sure if the confidence in this girl made me fall in love with her or feel intimidated by her. Either way, I was fascinated.
‘Don’t you have a boyfriend, Karyn?’ I asked sheepishly.
‘I might do by Saturday,’ she responded, before hanging up.
How bloody cool is she? I couldn’t compete with this shit, could I? It turns out I could compete with it. I had a few days to play it cool and managed to gain a pinch of confidence before I met her for our first date. We bounced off each other as if we were an experienced comedy double act. We literally fell into each other’s arms laughing. It was as if the script for our first date had been written by Billy Crystal for some Oscar-winning romantic comedy.
Karyn lived about a half an hour from my parents’ house and I needed to take two buses to see her. I didn’t mind. When I wasn’t working in the print factory I would be hanging out with Karyn. We were each other’s best friend immediately. The relationship wasn’t very physical. She was a strict Catholic girl but it genuinely didn’t bother me that we weren’t having sex. The relationship wasn’t about that, it was about finding somebody who mirrored me and who I knew I could spend the rest of my life with. We shared the exact same sense of humour and brought the best out in each other. A successful relationship isn’t about finding someone you can’t live without, it’s about finding somebody you can live with. I was working extra shifts at the factory just to save enough money for us to afford a flat together, but in order for that to happen, we would need to speak to her father first.
‘That’s no problem, he can’t be that strict, can he?’ I distinctly remember asking her after we’d been going out for three months. ‘I mean, we’re both nearly twenty, we’re adults.’
‘You know I told you his name is Harold, right?’ she said, arching an eyebrow. ‘And you know my second name is Ritchie?’
I nodded, hanging my bottom lip out in confusion.
‘Harry Ritchie!’ she emphasised.
‘Holy shit!’ I responded before dropping my mouth open in shock. ‘You’re Harry Ritchie’s daughter? Well, that’s it, we need to break up. Break up now!’
We both laughed. This was the kind of stuff that made us giggle, but behind the wide grin on my face lay a deep fear. I only knew about Harry Ritchie through stories lads would tell down
the pub. It wasn’t really a secret in Dublin that the gangland boss – who the tabloid newspapers nicknamed The Ghost – was Harry Ritchie from Crumlin. It was just sorta known by everyone. The papers couldn’t name Harry for legal reasons. So they nicknamed him, just like they nicknamed anyone else involved in gangland crime. The cops couldn’t get near him. He kept his hands too clean. I never bothered to read about gangland crime in Dublin. The subject never really interested me. But now it would have to. If I were to get my one true wish in life, which was to get this young woman to accept my ring on her finger, I would literally be marrying into the mob. That would be some transition for somebody who used to be an altar boy in St Peter’s Church.
I’m not sure if it’s nerves or excitement that hits me when I stroll onto Nassau Street. Rather than walk by the ACB building, I stop at the wall of College Park where I can glance over at the entrance to the bank without looking suspicious. I perch myself against the brick wall and play with my phone. I could easily be waiting on one of the many buses that pull in here on a minute-by-minute basis. There are no CCTV cameras pointing in this direction. I’d planned to sit here when the Nassau robbery was going on. In fact, I know where I’ll be for each of the four thefts today. I’ve sat here on quite a few occasions over the past months, imagining Vincent walking out of the bank with two full cases. I’ll be watching that image for real in the next half hour or so. The bank’s still not open, but I notice that there are two parking spots available directly outside and I expect John will be pulling up to park in one of them very soon. I look at my watch. 8:58. There’s three hours left. It should take Vincent at least half an hour in each bank to go through the procedure required to withdraw money from the vaults. Taking driving time between branches into consideration, we really have given him a tight deadline. But we did that for a reason. The longer this process goes on, the more likely it is that somebody will notice something odd is going on. Plus, I want the deadline to be tight. I need it to be tight. Vincent isn’t supposed to complete the task we’ve set him. I’m mentally trying to play the full morning out in my mind once again when I notice a black BMW indicate right and pull into one of the empty spaces in front of the bank. I know John to see. He climbs out of the far side of the car before walking around to open the door for his boss. I watched Vincent walk out of his apartment earlier this morning looking quite composed; I wonder if he still feels the same way. But the fact he doesn’t instantly get out of the car worries me. He seems to be in conversation with John. I hope nothing funny is going on. When I finally see Vincent emerge from the car he doesn’t look right. He’s really pale. He seems faint. As he and John walk towards the back of the car to retrieve the cases Vincent collapses to the ground on all fours.
What the hell is going on?
08:50
Darragh
I hold a finger towards me nostrils as I walk into their bedroom just in case I can smell the gay sex. It’s a big bedroom but I know the waft of bum fuckin must be floatin’ round here somewhere. I step over some old clothes at the edge of the bed to get to the far side of the room where Ryan told me his coke was. I don’t get angry with him when I can’t find it in his big-ass bedside cabinet. I know it’s probably just me. Any time I have to look for something in a drawer or a cabinet I somehow manage to see everything in there bar the one thing I’m lookin’ for.
‘A silver tin,’ I whisper to meself over and over again as I root through old newspapers and gadgets. This fucker must collect watches for a living. There must be at least a dozen old watches in this cabinet alone. Me mind gets distracted by a black Hublot that has the coolest lookin’ face. Everything on it is a different shade of black: the face, the hands, the numbers, the date scroll. I throw it round me wrist. It suits me.
‘What the fuck are you talkin’ about, boy?’ I scream out of the bedroom towards Ryan. Me accent goes all Cork when I’m cursin’.
‘The silver tin,’ he shouts back.
I slam the cabinet door shut, get up off my knees and storm out to the fag. I reach for the gun resting on the table in front of him and point it straight into his face.
‘If you’re fuckin playing me for a fool I’ll end your life right now,’ I snarl at him. He’s practically shitting himself. ‘There’s no fuckin silver tin in there,’ I snap.
‘It’s there, it’s there,’ he stutters back.
I’ve no doubt he’s telling the truth. I probably wouldn’t have noticed a beach ball in that cabinet if it was the one thing I was looking for. I don’t know what my problem is. I guess me mind just likes playing tricks on me. I crouch down and yank at the tape strapping Ryan’s legs to the chair and, after a struggle, I free both of his ankles. I then pull at the tape round his wrists and set him free. He doesn’t budge an inch when I release all the tape. I have the gun resting in the waistband of my jeans behind my back. I reach for it as soon as I’m done with the tape and point it at him again.
‘I’m stayin’ right behind you, fag,’ I say. ‘Go get it for me.’
I was in his position once. Piotr and I went a step further with our addiction to coke about three years back. We managed to do a deal with our drug dealer who introduced us to his boss. He talked us into taking five kilos of coke that we were expected to sell over the course of a month on the streets of North Dublin. We were given our own little patch to work on. I was super excited about the deal because I worked out that we could take in around two and a half grand profit each week. Piotr and I drove out to an old warehouse on the way to Enfield to pick up our package. It was explained to us how we should chop it up into sellable sizes that would bring in around €120,000 in total. We’d just have to return in four weeks’ time with a hundred thousand euros to The Boss, pocketing the extra twenty thousand for us to split between ourselves. Easy dough.
‘We’re trusting you to deliver,’ we were told. ‘Any false moves and you’ll both be dead before you even realise we’re in the same room as you.’
Dublin gangsters are kinda funny but they’re also scary as fuck. They all seem to wear tracksuits that are too big for them. Big, grey, baggy pants with a massive bunch of keys in the pockets. I’ve never worked out why Dublin people carry around massive bunches of keys. Despite looking a bit like clowns, gangsters are genuinely intimidating. But me and Piotr were really happy to get involved with them. We drove away from the warehouse with a trunk full of coke and talked for ages about what we were gonna do with the money. It was when we were driving through Lucan on our way home that Piotr pulled over and reached for the glove compartment. I genuinely thought he was joking when he grabbed a gun and pointed it at me. I think I laughed out loud.
‘Get out,’ he said in his thick Polish accent.
The smile dropped from my face when I realised he was serious. He followed me out of the car and walked behind me with the gun held against my spine for about three hundred yards into a small forest. I heard the gun click in his hand.
Is my best friend about to kill me?
‘I’m sorry, Darragh,’ he said before spinning on his heels and sprintin’ back to the car. Lanky prick. I never saw him again. I don’t think anybody did.
I hold the gun to the back of Ryan’s head as he leans his left arm on the bed to crouch towards his cabinet. He pulls out a tiny casing that looks more green than silver to me. It’s decorated with some sort of Scottish tartan. I remember brushing past it as I repeated the words ‘silver tin’ to meself just a few minutes ago.
‘Here,’ he says, taking the lid from it.
I take a look inside and see a massive bag of fluffy powder that forces a wide grin across me face.
‘Good lad,’ I reply before nodding at him to walk out of the room. I keep the gun at his back but I can’t keep me eyes off the coke. It looks like snow. This guy certainly buys straight from the mixer. The fag is mumbling something, along the lines of, ‘Please don’t hurt me’, as I force him to sit back down on the kitchen chair again, but I’m not listening. A thought crosses my pa
ranoid mind that this powder may be something other than coke and that this little prick is tryna poison me. Had he somehow planned that somebody would kidnap him so he thought of hiding a bag of poison in his bedroom to pass off as coke to his captor? Course not, but I’m gonna play it safe.
After re-taping both of his legs, but just one of his arms, to the kitchen chair I pour out a small hill of coke onto the magazine before givin’ it a little chop of me library card. I don’t need to chop this stuff up much. This is as fluffy as it could possibly get. I reach for my old five-euro note and offer it to Ryan.
‘You first,’ I say, eyeballing him. It’s the first time I’ve seen a glint in his eyes all morning.
08:55
Vincent
I pull at the collar of my shirt to allow some of the cold air circulating in the car to creep inside. I am sweating everywhere: my armpits, my neck, my chest, my back, my forehead. I never sweat like this. I have the air conditioning turned up so high in the back of the car that it sounds as if a small aircraft is flying by my ears.
‘You sure you’re okay, Vincent?’ John shouts back again, eyeballing me in the rear-view mirror. I don’t answer him this time. I pretend I can’t hear him. Instead I concentrate on my breathing but I’m sure I’m doing it all wrong. I’m breathing way too quickly. I wish I’d accepted Ryan’s constant requests for us to go to yoga classes together over the years. I try to calm myself by thinking in the same selfish manner I have been thinking in this morning.
My life is not immediately under threat.
But it’s not working. The calm, composed figure I managed to portray back at the penthouse in front of Ryan’s kidnapper is proving elusive. I catch a glimpse of myself in the reflection of the car’s tinted windows. I can make out a glistening across my forehead. I remove my glasses and wipe my whole face with the sleeve of my expensive suit. Just as I’m dampening down the sweat on the back of my neck with the other sleeve our car pulls right and comes to a halt. Holy shit. We’re outside the Nassau Street branch already. That was quick. I stare up at the windowed building and try to force myself to calm down.