The Rage by Gene Kerrigan

as fast as I can,’ he told Bannerman.
    Michelle looked worried when he came out of the bathroom. He told her it was just a family thing, he had to go collect Noel.
    ‘Is something wrong?’
    ‘I’ll manage. Go back to bed, love.’
    In prison, Vincent had planned to spend his first month of freedom shagging a new woman every day of the week and two on Sundays. The first night out, at a party in Noel’s house, he’d met Michelle Flood. In Mountjoy, Vincent had hung out with her older brother, Damien, who was doing four years for aggravated assault. She had the looks, but there was a lot more going on underneath the gloss. They’d been together all but one night since he’d got out. It felt like he knew her better than people he’d known for years.
    ‘What’s happened to Noel?’ she said.
    ‘I don’t know it all yet. Tell you in the morning.’
    He wasn’t up to driving. Get pulled in by a bluebottle, set the breathalyser on fire. They’d love that.
    Kevin Broe or Liam Delaney?
    He put on the bedroom light and began pulling on his clothes. When he made up his mind he tapped the phone and waited a long while. When Liam answered, Vincent said, ‘Are you sober?’
    ‘I’m OK.’
    ‘Sober? I need a lift, some backup.’
    ‘Yeah, I’m fine.’
    ‘You know Michelle’s place?’
    ‘No.’
    Vincent gave him the address. ‘Call me when you get to the bottom of the street. Soon as you can. And bring stuff.’
    ‘How many?’
    ‘One for you, one for me.’
    Liam Delaney said, ‘I’ll keep the Israeli automatic, if that’s OK.’ They were sitting in his Toyota Camry down the street from Michelle’s house. Liam Delaney knew more than anyone needed to know about guns, and was seldom done talking about it. ‘Nine mil, eighteen rounds in one magazine,’ he said. ‘The Israelis, they like a lot of firepower.’ Liam used a finger to remove a small oil mark on the side of the gun barrel. Thin and small, he had the intense expression of someone in a permanent hurry.
    Vincent Naylor took the other gun, a revolver with a shiny steel body, a short barrel and a black rubber grip. ‘Twenty-two calibre, eight rounds,’ Liam said. Vincent didn’t care what he used, as long as it made a bang and punched a hole in whatever he was pointing at. He’d carried a gun on a job not much more than half a dozen times. Just twice he used a gun on someone. First time, he took care of a smart-arse who was making trouble for Mickey Kavanagh, a player who gave Vincent occasional work. Just walked up behind the guy, gave it to him behind the left ear, one shot. Vincent was walking away before the loser hit the ground.
    Mickey was generous, but the money was neither here nor there. What counted was that Vincent proved to himself he could do it. It was a line – once you crossed it for the first time it brought you out of the herd. It marked you as someone who made moves, not just a skull who lived in someone else’s world. The thing that surprised Vincent most was that it wasn’t such a big deal. He didn’t feel any urge to do it again, but he knew he could if he needed to.
    The other shooting was a reputation thing – a gobshite who was bad-mouthing Vincent to people who took that kind of thing seriously. The surgeons got most of the bullet fragments out of his kneecap and now he walked with a limp you’d hardly notice. Word gets around, people know you’re not to be fucked with, you don’t have to prove it too often.
    ‘Could be Bannerman’s setting me up,’ Vincent told Liam.
    ‘Did you ring Noel?’
    ‘No answer.’
    ‘What’s Noel doing, screwing around with someone like Bannerman?’
    ‘No idea – but that could be bullshit. Could be Bannerman picked him up somewhere, took him there – as bait.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘How the fuck do I know? I stepped on someone’s toes, maybe. Could be he’s doing someone a favour. Could be that – or Noel really did turn up on his doorstep with a knife, could be that