Read Online The Scrapper by Brendan O'Carroll - Free Book Online Page B

telling himself, I only drive the car – just like the piano player who takes no responsibility for the singer’s performance. The truth was that Sparrow had never broken the law in his life and he had made it clear to Williams when he took the job that he was not getting involved in anything like that. And in the six years he had worked for Williams he had never been asked to do anything other than drive the car and mind his own business.
    ‘Right, that’s the last one!’ Teddy said as he tucked the money in his inside pocket. ‘We’ll pick the boss up from his mother-in-law’s, and then it’s home to Snuggstown.’ Teddy spoke to Sparrow’s eyes in the rear-view mirror. Sparrow simply nodded back.
    Within fifteen minutes they had arrived at old Mrs Plunkett’s. She lived in a Dublin flat complex. As the Jaguar pulled into the courtyard of the tenement flats it looked decidedly out of place, yet nobody took a blind bit of notice of it. Sparrow applied the handbrake and honked the horn twice. Within moments a ground-floor door opened and aman and a woman emerged. Dressed to kill in his tan cashmere crombie coat and brown trilby hat, Simon Williams made his way to the car. If Simon was the most feared man in Snuggstown, the person coming behind him was surely the most feared woman, Simon’s wife, Angie. Angie was a pretty woman, who wore too much make up. She had a reasonably good figure and wore expensive clothes, the best that money could buy. Whatever Angie wanted, Angie got. She had short blond hair and an even shorter fuse. Many’s the man who was found unconscious in an alley because he had upset Angie. And it didn’t take too much to upset Angie – a taxi driver simply looking at her the ‘wrong way’ could find himself a week later with a broken arm. Sparrow worried about Angie. He didn’t ever want to upset her. She reminded him of the kids at the end of his road who kept pitbull dogs; you were all right unless you upset them, but they would never tell you what it was that upset them. So Sparrow went out of his way not to talk to Angie and not to make eye-contact with her if he could help it.
    Teddy jumped from the passenger seat in the front of the car and helped Angie put her shopping bags into the boot. After seeing Simon and Angie safe into the back seat he climbed back into the front beside Sparrow. Williams looked every inch the businessman to Sparrow as he eyed him in the rear-view mirror.
    ‘Home, Mr Williams?’ Sparrow asked. Simon was waving out the window at his mother-in-law and didn’t turn around. ‘Home, Sparrow, like a good man, and don’t spare the horses!’
    Angie leaned forward and poked Sparrow in the neck. ‘Take it easy, you, there’s china in them bags in the boot,’ she warned.
    Slowly the Jaguar pulled away from the flats and headed for Snuggstown. Ten minutes later they passed the Fairy Well which marked the city boundary with Snuggstown. Sparrow smiled towards the Fairy Well and said aloud, ‘Hello, fairies!’ as he did every time he passed the well. Years ago his mother had told him that if he didn’t say hello to the fairies every time he passed them they would not be good to him. And like all good Irish Catholics, Sparrow was superstitious. Simon smiled and Angie looked to heaven. The car was quiet; there was no conversation.
    To break the silence, Sparrow spoke to Simon. ‘I see the Falcon has opened up again, boss!’
    ‘The Falcon? The Falcon Inn? When?’ Simon asked with a frown on his face.
    ‘Last night, a new owner. A northern fella. The word is he’s IRA,’ Sparrow said.
    Teddy wasn’t convinced. ‘IRA, me bollix! Some stone-thrower opens a pub and every gobshite in the area is callin’ him IRA!’
    ‘Last night?’ It was as if Simon hadn’t even heard Teddy speak. ‘I didn’t hear anything about that.’
    Angie now joined the conversation and as always was the antagoniser. ‘They shouldn’t do that without consulting you, love. No