by Ken Bruen
“Cullen was of interest to us but he’s connected to all kinds of top people so we were told to stay away from him.”
I said,
“He gave me a nonsafety match: It’s his calling card.”
Owen sighed, said,
“A discreet investigation was conducted but nothing solid was found. The guy gives out matches. Try bringing that to a judge—a judge Cullen plays golf with.”
I stood up. Owen asked,
“You don’t want another round?”
I tried to keep my rage in check, said,
“I’d love another drink.”
He seemed relieved, said,
“There you go, same again?”
I said,
“Just not with you.”
I got back to my apartment late. Shadows in the hallway and what appeared to be a bundle of rags outside my door. I edged forward cautiously. In the past, items left outside my door brought nothing but strife and violence.
The bundle moved. A small face appeared.
I was dumbstruck.
The girl Sara, one of the miracle children. She looked at me, said,
“Help me.”
I got her inside, gave her tea, biscuits, all of which she devoured with a fierce focus. I waited until she settled a bit, then I asked,
“How?”
I expected her to speak, if she could indeed speak at all, in broken English, but her English was near fluent—just one of many surprises to come. She said,
“I have listened and imitated English for many years, all the time of my travel.”
Then,
“May I have more tea?”
I got that, my mind in wonder mode, poured a large Jay for my own self. She said,
“I followed you after you got out of the hospital. I believed there was something on your face that said you were a man who helps.”
I said,
“You’re very grown-up for what? Fourteen years of age?”
She gave a tiny smile and it transformed her from urchin to someone aware and capable.
She said,
“I am much more in years than that but, during our travels, our being moved from country to country, it was wise to seem like a child.”
The question hanging over us,
The fire?
She saw in my face, said,
“I was not in the house.”
I asked the glaring question,
“Why?”
She studied my face, found nothing to spook her, said,
“I go to get candies for the boy. ‘Candies’ is the correct word?”
The fuck I knew but I nodded.
Her face crumpled for a moment and a tiny tear escaped, rolled down her cheek, fell to the carpet with—I swear—a soft sound. She composed herself with a practiced effort, fixed her features into a hard nine-yard stare, said,
“I cannot say his name, not since he burned, and I had left him unsafe, always, before, in all the danger, the ships, the bad men . . .”
Paused.
“The very bad men, women too, I kept my boys safe. I had a knife after Greece, and I used it.”
A hint of pride in that but short-lived as she realized again she wasn’t there when it counted. She continued,
“I saw the man.”
Fuck.
I held up a hand, went,
“Whoa, what man?”
Her face darkened, she spat,
“The man who set the fire, the man who waited until it burned high, then he bolted—is right word, to ‘bolt’? To stop? The door?”
God almighty.
I checked,
“You saw him? You saw him clearly?”
She looked at me, asked,
“You see the demon, you think maybe you forget what he looks like?”
I poured another Jay, she asked,
“This is Irish whiskey?”
I held the bottle mid-pour, asked,
“You know it?”
She gave a mirthless laugh, said,
“I know
Brandy.
Ouzo.
Metaxa.
Tequila.
Rake.
On the ships, all the travels, the men, they give us all kinds of drinks, to have a way with us?”
Jesus. I didn’t want to ask. Would you?
She said,
“I had my knife and I drank their poisons.”
Added sadly,
“The boy, they made him sick so I drank his.”
My face must have registered some of my horror. She said,
“I tell you before, I tell you, I am older than my face. My body is small, no food or food with worms, you do not develop, but my mind, I fed my mind with hate. Hate makes you old in the heart, in the soul.”
Unconsciously, I muttered,
“An old soul.”
She gave me a lovely smile and it transformed this girl-child into something glorious, something fantastically ferocious in the very best way.
She put her hand out, commanded,
“Now give me Irish whiskey where I do not have to use my knife.”
There was absolute threat in this request but a soft pleading too. I poured her a shot, she held the glass still outstretched, said,
“A drink for not-a-child.”
I poured more and she drank it like a docker.
I asked,
“You were there when a truck hit me.”
She gave a guilty smile, so I pushed,
“Did you try to rob me?”
“Yes.”
I near shouted,
“You could try denying it, for God’s sake.”
She went hard-core serious.
“I do not lie. I do many things that are very not good but I never lie.”
Oddly, I believed her.
Another smile, then,
“I know a man who is good—dangerous but good. I know because in the three years of our journeys to this . . .”
Pause.
“. . . place, I have known almost nothing but the terrible men, so one who has some soul of light, I know it.”
Well, I was this far in, might as well go for broke. I asked,
“The miracle? The Madonna cry, what was that.”
Without a beat, she said,
“A trick, a cheap light trick they have in village in Guatemala.”
Before I could echo “Guatemala,” she yawned, asked,
“Please, now I sleep.”
I gave her my bed, said,
“Sleep well. You are safe here.”
She gave me an impish grin, said,
“Of course. I have my knife.”
Touché.
As she turned to go, I noticed the snake tattoo on her left arm. As her arm stretched out, it seemed as if the snake, a cobra, unfurled, its hood in full effect, the fangs clearly etched, and, I swear to god, it looked like it was about to strike me. I jumped back in fright, muttered,
“Fuck, get a grip.”
She smiled and almost absentmindedly scratched at what appeared to be a cross under her left jaw.
She then uttered a sentence I didn’t understand. The way she said it, it sounded like a curse. I am far too familiar with curses to mistake one for a blessing. She then gave me a look of such sultry, sensual intensity that I had to turn away. She disappeared into the bedroom. I was badly shaken, got a pen, and wrote down what she’d said as phonetically as I was able.
Took me ten minutes to find an approximation on Google; it was Aramaic.
Another ten minutes to attempt a translation; it seemed to be:
You will perish in awesome torment.
No, that couldn’t be right. She was just a y
oung, traumatized child, and I would keep her safe. Like all my bright ideas, interpretations, I was utterly wrong.
I sat by her bed, keeping vigil.
Alas, being a semiliterate horror movie buff, the movies
Orphan.
Case 39.
Did cross my mind.
Both feature a child way older than appearances suggest.
I shrugged them off, or tried to. Then Sara began to shiver, soundlessly scream, make contorted turns in the bed. Sweat was rolling in rivulets off her tiny form. Warily, I got a damp cloth, tried to cool her brow, all the while aware she might suddenly knife me.
A leaflet slipped out from under her pillow. It had a picture of a small village, Ballyfin, and a plea to save the village. The headline was simple:
“Provide Our Miracle.”
I’d work that out later. Right now, I needed another opinion.
I phoned Keefer, said I needed his help.
He didn’t ask why or when, simply said,
“You got it.”
Such friends are utter gold.
“When
I
Was
Five
I
Was
Just
Alive”
(A. A. Milne, Now We Are Six)
Keefer and I were in my living room, sipping brewed coffee—not instant, yer actual roasted beans, whole real nine-yards gig. Keefer felt it was his influence as, on a previous occasion, I had given him a mug of instant that he unceremoniously spat on my not-so-new rug, snarled,
“What is this shit?”
Now, he was here, satisfied with the real java (Colombian, if you persist), dressed per usual like a cross between biker/thug/longshoreman. His bike boots were perched on the coffee table due not so much to horrendous manners but to the spliff he’d just smoked. I’d been all righteous, saying,
“Little early for recreational drugs.”
Got the withering look, then he produced his silver flask with the Stones tongue logo, a flask that on close scrutiny had what seemed like bullet dents in it.
“Altamont,”
He said.
When I asked.
He unscrewed the top, poured some liquid into my mug of still-steaming coffee, said,
“Kentucky sour mash.”
Tasted real fine.
Took a full pot of the elite coffee for me to lay out the whole saga of the miracle girl and why she was now sleeping in my apartment. He took it all in, then,
“Fuck.”
I said,
“Might need a little more than that, buddy.”
He looked at me, said,
“You have an uncanny knack of attracting the weirdest vibes. You know that, right?”
I said,
“She can identify the man who not only set the fire but bolted the front door to prevent anyone from getting out.”
The horror of it touched his eyes, which first turned a shade of sadness I had rarely seen, then he shook himself and his eyes returned to the dark slate he presented to the outside. He guessed,
“You’re thinking this is our old buddy Benjamin J., the nonsafety match dude?”
I noticed a worn paperback protruding from his side pocket, went,
“You’re reading?”
Alas, my tone did carry a hint of superciliousness that only a complete asshole would do. He pulled it out, ignoring my barb, said,
“Hey, you’re the guy who told me to read some mystery novels. You said, I think, some of the best writing is in that neighborhood these days.”
He handed over the book, battered as it was:
Tin Roof Blowdown,
By James Lee Burke.
I said,
“It’s a stone-cold classic and disproves the idea that a series goes stale. This, his sixteenth, is his best ever and probably the finest writing on Katrina.”
God only knows how long I would have droned on about American mystery writers but the bedroom door opened and Sara came out, wearing an old Notre Dame sweatshirt that Emerald had left behind.
If you were a literary type, you might suggest a Kate Atkinson use of coincidence between the shirt and the fire in Paris the week before.
She held a small book in her hand, asked, sleep in her voice,
“Who is A. A. Milne?”
She saw the leaflet on Ballyfin on the table, snapped it away, warned,
“Do not put your nose in my business, ever.”
She sounded like a complete psycho, like the cobra about to strike, her lethalness uncoiling like a black slither. Keefer didn’t even notice. I blame that fucking whiskey.
She took a step back when she saw Keefer, her body in flight/fight mode. She asked,
“Who is he?”
Keefer gave a warm smile, a rare to rarer event for him, said,
“I’m the dude who brought breakfast.”
Reached in his backpack, produced cornflakes, pancakes, asked,
“You think Jack has breakfast stuff?”
She shook her head. Keefer stood, handed me the items, said,
“Go be domestic.”
I managed to produce some bowls, heated the pancakes, made tea, more coffee, put this hopeful bunch on the table. Keefer looked at Sara, asked,
“What’s missing?”
Before I could say,
Her childhood.
He said,
“Can’t have no pancakes without syrup, am I right, girl?”
Put up his palm and, fuck me, she high-fived him.
How’d that happen?
When she’d finished, I suggested,
“Sara can give us a description of the man who set the fire.”
I turned to her, said,
“Now take your time, think carefully, and tell anything you can recall of what he looked like.”
Keefer made a sound of disgust, said,
“No need to waste time. Let’s cut to the chase.”
We both looked at him in dismay. I said,
“What are you thinking?”
He produced a shiny iPhone and handled it like it was his go-to accessory. He’d sworn a line through hell would happen before he’d be caught with such an item. I said,
“You hate phones.”
He gave me a look of bafflement, went,
“Me? Dude, you got to have one.”
Many things were annoying about that answer, starting with dude, but I let them slide, waited. He asked, pulling up a photo on his screen,
“This guy?”
Sara physically shrank from the image, nodded her head. He turned the phone to me. There was Benjamin J.
I was impressed, asked,
“How’d you get that?”
He smirked, like I was being deliberately dense, said slowly,
“I put the phone in his face, clicked.”
It was an answer.
Sara was curled up in the chair. I went to her but Keefer caught my arm, said,
“I got this.”
He knelt down and spoke in a low, near whisper to her. For minutes she didn’t respond, then she uncurled, a tiny smile at the corner of her mouth. He said,
“You go get washed up, hon.”
She didn’t dance away but she was for sure much better. I asked,
“What did you tell her?”
He said,
“I told her the truth.”
Fuck.
“Mind sharing that?”
He made a face of Lord grant me patience with this idiot, said,
“I told her we’d kill the fucker.”
My daughter’s dead clothes.
Or
My dead daughter’s clothes.
After the deat
h of my daughter, those two sentences bounced, danced, and mired in my mind. I was so consumed with madness, grief, anger that those lines were like a cursed mantra in my head. Round and round they spun in an insane reel. Fueled with Jameson, I was fixated on which was the correct statement.
I’d even gone to church, sought out a priest, and laid that question on him. I scared the shit out of him. He didn’t actually flee but he backed away fast, muttering,
“Perhaps some medical help?”
The day before her death, I had bought her jeans, sweatshirts, the small Converse trainers she loved, and wrapped them with great care. Men can’t fold a parcel for shit but I tried and figured if I put a bow on it, it would be less of a befuddled mess.
That care/less package had lain at the bottom of my wardrobe ever since, untouched, unseen. I told Keefer that the clothes might fit Sara; I couldn’t meet his eyes as I did so.
He asked,
“You sure, buddy? I can go out, get some gear.”
I managed,
“No, it’s fine.”
It wasn’t fine, it would never be fucking fine. Never.
I had some very bad dreams in the days after Sara left. I woke one night and wrote down a thought, then went back to sleep.
In the morning, I read this:
“You search in a black dark cave for a candle
That was lit
Two thousand years ago.”
Benjamin J. didn’t fuck up.
That was as close to a slogan as he’d ever come.
He’d fucked up.
One of the miracle children had survived the inferno.
He replayed the days before the fire.
He’d mounted a massive charm campaign on Brid to persuade her to lead the way into the house they’d burn. Took some doing but his full attention and flattery did the trick and she actually said to Connie,
“I may have been wrong about him.”
He’d laid out the details to Connie.
“You and Brid go in, chloroform the children and their carer, then you . . .”
Pause.
“Disable Brid, allow your arm to be burned, and flee.”
He gave Connie the gasoline, said,
“Spread freely.”
She was very dubious but he bamboozled her with an engagement ring, said,
“Not only will you be a hero, nearly a martyr, hurt as you tried to save the children and your best friend, but you will soon be Mrs. Benjamin J.”
He’d rehearsed the two women at different times, drilled them on the importance of fine timing. He was well pleased with his machinations, fooling one woman is not so difficult but two, simultaneously, it was a friggin’ work of art.