The Whore-Mother Read Online Free PDF Page A

paper and reached for the mouth of the postbox. “Is that all they taught you at the university? Are’y tryin to make policy now, McManus?” It was a right good line. Hadn’t he just come from Clune and McCann and McCandless and what did these blirts know about what passed there?
    â€œOch, for Jasus sake, Pat,” Callaghan protested, “my oul woman put a letter in there a wee minute ago.”
    Powers dropped the burning paper to the ground and a child darted in to pick it up. “Away on back to the house,” he said, and tried to read McManus’s face. He was, he believed, a reliable reader of faces. Leaders need to be.
    He believed also that he was a shrewd manipulator of men. They walked to the new car at seven o’clock and only Powers knew where they were going, or why.
    Twice, Callaghan asked him what the job was. McManus did not, and Powers turned that over in his mind.
    McManus thought about it too, and decided his silence was a mistake. “If the car’s loaded with gelignite, I should be thinking about a good route,” he said carefully, “to wherever we’re leaving it.” He had never needed to say that before. It was too careful without being casual enough. Powers didn’t answer him. He couldn’t immediately think of anything to say but he knew that silence is a disturbing weapon.
    McManus felt the warning in his silence. He was being taken to a court, he was certain. His sister would get his letter in the morning if the postman didn’t lose it throwing away all that paper in the postbox, and in the evening she would read in the Telegraph that a man had been found in a ditch, a black hood over his head. Another IRA execution, the Telegraph would explain. Sickly, he walked to the car. If he ran, they would wound him from behind and have to shoot him more than once. If it was a court, it would all be over in one shot. He would probably be crying as he turned his back to wait for it. He wanted to cry now and fought it away. Everything was pointless—fear, grief, tears, regret, contempt. He tried to suffocate thought and scarcely felt the granite sidewalk under his feet and did not see the car when they came to it.
    â€œI’ll drive,” Powers said. “Up wi me, Danny. In the back, McManus.”
    McManus was not aware of Powers’ self-consciously searching stare. He was not aware of anything till they were passing through Castle Junction in the center of the city. It came to him slowly that if he was on his way to meet a court, they would not be here. He paid attention.
    Royal Avenue, York Street, Duncairn Gardens, the Antrim Road. The whole trip was one of those malignant acts of gleeful Irish sadism. They’d already had their court and he was destined for a ditch beyond the edge of the city. Why else was Callaghan sitting sideways, watching him like a cat? They were going to drive him to the execution ground past his own home. They liked sadistic symbolism. Symbology, one of those glass-eyed American specialists in Irish affairs called it in a book in his last course at Queens.
    But they turned into Cliftonville Road, into Manor Street, down Crumlin to Agnes Street, and out of Agnes onto Shankill. They went up the length of Shankill, turned on Woodvale, and came back.
    â€œUnder your seat, McManus,” Powers said. “Put your hand down.”
    When his hand touched the gun in its sacking, he knew what it was all about and slid his hand between his thighs to hide its shaking. He heard Powers mutter something to Callaghan but couldn’t tell what it was. He hadn’t been listening anyway.
    When he straightened up, Callaghan’S jacket bulged towards him like a tent peak. The man was grinning.
    â€œPick yourself two Shankill Protestants, McManus. At the corner of Northumberland,” Powers said, and there was gloating challenge in his voice.
    It didn’t take brains to work it out. He hadn’t covered