*

Right enough, we start getting jobs, the odd bank heist, the occasional kidnap. We were on our way. We meet Mack at a cafe in town. He orders one of them salads. It was the first time any of us had seen a radish. Barney picks one up to examine it. A wee, perfectly formed one. See if I was a radish, he says to us, I would be this one right here.

I need youse to kidnap somebody for me, Mack says. That got our interest. But it’s a woman, he says. Barney puts the radish down. What’s she done to anybody? Tommy says. It’s not her, Mack says. It’s her man. Her man owes us money and the fucker has stopped paying. Did you threaten him with the kidnapping of his wife? I says to him. Of course not, Mack says. This way we’ve got the element of surprise. What do you want us to do with her? I says to him. Youse just need to hold her hostage, Mack says. I can’t have a woman going home with me, I says to them, especially if she’s bound and gagged. That got a laugh. We’ve got a house youse can use, Mack says, but one of youse will have to look after her till her man pays up. And what if he doesn’t pay up? Tommy says. I guess we’ll just have to sell her off, Mack says, and he shrugs. Everyone’s sat there like that: dumbfounded. They’re fucking selling women now in the IRA? But then Mack bursts out laughing. You bunch of fucking eejits, he says to us, things aren’t that bad. One of youse will just have to marry her, that’s all. And keep her imprisoned behind closed doors for the rest of her life. Just like my loving ma and da, Tommy says, and we cracked up laughing all over again.

*

Her name was Kathy M. She worked as a waitress at the Europa Hotel, the most bombed hotel in Europe. She lived on the Springfield Road. Her husband ran some bookshop in town. Every day she walked to the Europa, about a half-hour walk each way. We picked her up in a car on her way home from work and threw her in the back seat. Barney sat on her and Tommy put a pillowcase over her head. I was the driver.

*

this house they puts us in

you should have seen this house

the state of this house

dirt floors and

IRA graffiti on the walls

w/a single burst

couch on the dirt

floor

what do you fucking

want,

le Europa? Mack says to us

a fucking carpet would’ve be nice,

I says to him.

*