can’t get over it. You’re looking twenty years younger.’
‘I’ve discovered Botox, my Irish friend,’ Serge chuckles as he turns to give Ructions a side profile.
A group of Irish supporters approach and one puts his arm around Serge’s neck. Both Serge and Ructions join the Irish supporters in singing ‘Amhrán na bhFiann’. Ructions leads a swelling chorus of Gaelic goodwill. ‘Come on, Ireland!’
A bonding, a spiritual union from Serge, ‘Vive l’Irlande!’
‘Vive la France!’ Ructions shouts.
A French supporter bumps into Panzer, who is approaching with two pints of Guinness. Miraculously, none of the Guinness is spilled. The two apologise to each other. Panzer, his face alight, hands one of the pints of Guinness to Serge. ‘Thought you might need this, old-timer.’
Serge has to look twice before he recognises Panzer. His dramatic weight loss and grey pallor shocks him, but he quickly recovers and smiles widely at his old friend. ‘Ha!’ Serge says. ‘Old-timer, indeed! You’re older than me!’ Serge takes the pint from Panzer and sips it gingerly.
‘You’ve hardly wet your whistle there, Frenchie!’ Panzer cries. ‘Take a decent slug.’
Serge drinks the whole pint. A white foam moustache adorns his upper lip. ‘C’est magnifique, Irish,’ Serge says, thumping the pint glass down on a table. Panzer and he throw their arms around each other and warmly embrace.
Walking into the stadium, Panzer gets a phone call and drops behind Ructions and Serge. After a few seconds, Serge stops to tie his shoelace. He looks up at Ructions. ‘Can I ask you, Ructions,’ he says, ‘how much do you expect to lift?’
‘It’s difficult to say. At a rough guess,’ Ructions purses his lips, ‘I’d say anything from thirty to fifty.’
Serge stands up, clearly taken aback. ‘Million?’
Ructions nods.
‘Mon Dieu!’
‘Can you handle it?’
Serge hesitates before replying. ‘Yes, yes, I can. But understand this – money of that quantity will be extremely expensive to clean.’
‘How expensive?’
‘I don’t know yet, but it could go to fifty or even sixty per cent.’
Ructions stands with his hands on his hips, hanging on Serge’s every word and mannerism. ‘Jesus, that’s rough. Wow!’ Ructions puts his hands in the back pockets of his jeans. ‘I’m gonna come right out with it, Serge, I wasn’t expecting that.’
‘It may not be as much as that or …’ Serge holds up his palm and shrugs, ‘it may be more. I simply don’t know yet. I admit, I’ve never had to deal with that amount of money before.’ Serge is lost in thought. ‘I’ll have to make enquiries.’
Panzer comes back. ‘We’ll talk after the match,’ Ructions says.
‘Well, you two,’ Panzer says, putting his arms around both men’s shoulders. ‘What’s the buzz? Tell me what’s a happenin’.’
‘Ireland’s playing France,’ Ructions says. ‘Come on, Ireland!’
‘Éirinn go brách!’ Panzer shouts.
Back at the hotel after the match, Panzer flicks a half-smoked cigar over the hotel balcony railings. It spirals downwards, revolution after revolution, until it lands on the roof of the concrete hotel entrance, bounces and comes to rest. He sits down, lifts his gold cigarette lighter with his thumb and index finger and tumbles it repeatedly. He didn’t really understand rugby, but he liked the physicality of it, the die-for-the-cause attitude of the players. His thoughts are interrupted by thumping on his bedroom door.
Panzer peeks out the spyhole, pulls back, squints again at the figure on the other side and rubs his eyes. Whoever it is, he or she is wearing a black, ankle-length leather overcoat and a large black hat and is facing away from the door. Then Finbarr turns around. Panzer opens the door and Finbarr walks into the room. ‘Sweet Jesus!’ Panzer exclaims, coming behind his son, ‘I thought for a minute there, Old Nick himself had come to put me to the scythe.’
‘Nope,’ Finbarr says. ‘It’s just me.’ He makes for the minibar, takes out a small bottle of whiskey and puts it to his mouth. ‘That other thing’s sorted,’ he says casually as he empties the whiskey down his throat.
Panzer turns up the volume on the television, motions Finbarr out to the balcony, closes the glass doors behind him and sits at the table. Finbarr fidgets. ‘So, Charles is away, then?’ Panzer asks.
Finbarr nods.
‘Where’s Geek?’
‘With Charles.’
‘I thought you were going back to Belfast with him?’
‘No, I’m meeting up with a few mates for a drink.’
‘Okay.’
A glass door slides open in the next room and Ructions steps out on to his balcony.
Finbarr raises his hat. ‘Hello, Ructions.’
Ructions sniggers. ‘Like the outfit. Creepy.’
‘So everybody keeps telling me.’
‘What time is our table booked for?’ Panzer asks.
‘Eight o’clock,’ Ructions says and heads back inside to take a shower.
Panzer stands up and puts his hands on the balcony railing. Without turning around, he says, ‘Remind me, when Benzo gets his two hundred large, how much do we come away with clean?’
‘Three hundred.’
‘And you’re certain you can move the stuff?’
‘That won’t be an issue. I know people who’ll break our arms for it. Dad, when we’re on the subject of goods, I think we can move at least another container of cigs a week, maybe even two. I know people who work in Dundalk harbour and they’ll turn a blind eye for the right money.’
‘Interesting,’ Panzer says.
‘And sooner or later, the IRA are going to get out of the fuel-laundering business altogether.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘The politics of the peace process will demand it. And once they go, they’ll leave behind a very lucrative diesel-laundering market. We should grab that market; we should start looking for sites where we can launder our own diesel and develop our own client base.’
‘Your mind has been at full throttle, hasn’t it?’
‘Not really. It’s just—’
‘What makes you think the Provos are just going to walk away from a multi-million-pound annual turnover?’
