Colm Brady

Flying for dummies

Click- The pilot beckoned to Detective Mulligan as he turned on the starters and flicked banks of complicated switches. The engine reached a high scream and Mulligan tugged the pilots arm to ask if that was normal. The pilot pointed to the earphones on the seat and Mulligan put them on. He had always hated flying and although he had never set foot in a helicopter before he knew he wasn’t going to enjoy this. A couple of joyriders had been playing havoc in a white hatchback and the chopper had been sent down from Dublin to help sort them out.
"How long have you been flying this thing?"
"A couple of years , I am still finding new stuff to do with her, why last week I got her to hover over a tower block for twenty minutes, magic…"
This didn’t seem like Mulligan’s cup of tea but he said nothing. Part of being a detective was taking on extra work and this was definitely extra work. He should be at home with his feet up instead of flying over the city in a noisy contraption piloted by some young lad that thought he was in Vietnam.
On the ground two lads were standing by an elderly car arguing. Danno was the taller of the two and had always been the leader since they were kids. The other party was called Schillaci because he was born the day the Italian knocked Ireland out of the world cup in 1990. To be fair it wasn’t a bad name not like Sewer Rat McGonagle up the road – he quite liked the name now. Danno drove a forklift in a frozen food warehouse and that was paying the insurance of this, his first car. Schillaci was an apprentice electrician and could not yet afford wheels. The father was always at him that he would have plenty of money in years to come but that was fuckall use to him now. At least now that Danno had bought the car they could cruise around town and impress the chicks.
Well maybe impressing the chicks was a bit ambitious in this particular machine. Danno had wanted a Honda but the insurance had creeled him financially. He had ended up paying three grand in insurance over instalments and what was left was the car budget. It was a 1987 Micra with a big vinyl "Micra" stuck on the back window in case anyone hadnt noticed. The parts that werent made of filler were white with touches of rust. It had alloys on one side and not even hubcaps on the other - Danno didn’t mind that so much – the alloys were on his side. It meant he had to carry two spares and that meant the subwoofer had to go in the back seat. There was one half of a spoiler on the roof of the hatchback and a brake light hanging from the back window and it was all his, all of it.
When he pulled up outside Schillaci’s house ould Schillaci had cast an eye over the No Fear sticker on the side window.
"No Fuckin Fear of that yoke going" he said and went back inside.
Danno looked up at Schillaci and smirked.
"We are now officially in business"
Schillaci looked at the windscreen and the top glare guard that said the driver was called Mick and the passenger was called Donna.
"I am fucked if I am going round town labelled as a woman, people will talk man"
"I will get rid of it tomorrow now are you coming out for a spin or not?"
He hopped into the passenger seat which had the stuffing knocked out of it.
"Drive it like you’re late for mass"
At that point they should have screamed off down the road but all the Micra could muster was a leisurely chug to the lights.
Above them Mulligan was praying he didn’t throw up his dinner on this shitbird as he called it to himself. The pilot nudged him and pointed to a white car slowly taking off from the lights on Padraig Pearse road.
"Roger we have a white hatchback heading for the city centre please advise"
"Is it a high powered machine with two occupants, over?"
The pilot looked over to Mulligan who shrugged and looked miserable.
"We believe we have acquired the target , over"
The chopper lurched as they followed the car then the pilot turned on the searchlight bringing daylight to a circular area on the ground. Every patch of rust was visible and cars veered in panic around the micra.
"Jesus its like being in the x files so it is" said a dazzled Schillaci beginning to sound worried.The situation got worse when Danno mentioned that he had not got around to taxing the car.
"They are hardly gonna use a bloody helicopter to check for tax"
"You wouldn’t know what those bastards would use"
Danno looked worried and was more so when he spotted the Vectra flashing him from behind. This could be cops but it was unmarked – why would they bother with him anyway? He decided not to take a chance and he suddenly veered down a side road into Saint Teresas.
Mulligan was roaring down the radio and thinking that this was like playing PacMan all over again.
"He has lost the unmarked squad and is travelling down St Teresas - it looks like he left his exhaust on the road on the last speedbump – he wont like that"
" Ok this guy sounds dangerous, we wait til the Armed Response Unit are ready to set up a roadblock, over"
"That’s a cool exhaust you have on this baby - it sounds a lot better than up at the house"
"It does alright but its giving me an awful bleedin headache"
"That’s weird my head is killing me too like I cant get enough air or something"
The car was slowly filling with carbon monoxide which neither of the lads had heard of, must have been on the mitch from Science class that day. This was their biggest problem at that moment but things were about to get a whole lot worse.
They rounded a corner to meet three jeeps forming a roadblock with a phalanx of armed detectives waiting for them. Each member had a Heckler & Koch machine pistol trained on the car and looked like they would love to use it.
Danno lurched the car to a halt in front of them while Schillaci roared "Don’t shoot for Gods sake – its his own car"
The Robocops looked perplexed – these didn’t look like hardened criminals and this definitely was no high powered motor.
"Get out of the car slowly lads" came the order from the super. Danno obliged but Schillaci ‘s seat belt was stuck in its holder.
"You there , out you get – NOW!"
"The fuckin seat belt is stuck – what do you want me to do?"
The super smiled and turned to a detective beside him
"At least they observe the law on belts if nothing else"
Mulligan sat up queesily in the chopper and congratulated himself on a good nights work. He had his story ready for the lads in the station…..How he had directed the operation from above , how he was a natural at the flying and all the rest. His radio interrupted him then.
"These clowns arent our men. A white hatchback is doing 150 out the bypass – please take up pursuit, over"
The chopper banked suddenly and headed for that end of the city. Mulligan thought for a second he was going to puke and when that second was over he Knew he was going to puke. Then he puked.
On the ground the lads werent too sure if this had been a good result. On the positive side they had avoided being shot to smithereens by enthusiastic cops. On the negative side the same cops had impounded the micra and they had no money for a taxi home. The super offered them a lift but they refused because ould Schillaci would not respond well to his son landing home in that fashion.
"Nothing for it but to walk I suppose"
"Same as before you got the car"
"Have to admit it was a bit of a gammy wagon anyway"
"Yeah it wasn’t great really"

posted by Colm Brady @ 5:58 PM 0 comments