Ronan Boyle and the Bridge of Riddles

by Thomas Lennon

  The captain ordered Lily to wait at the surface as a backup in case we got into serious trouble. Honestly, I didn’t always understand the commands between Lily and the captain at this early point in my training, but it seems they knew each other very well, and the one thing that was certain was that Lily could be trusted to the ends of the earth.

  As Captain de Valera and I rode down in the lift barrel, we could hear accordion music pumping up from below us. The captain explained to me the history of the place, which goes like this:

  Bob and Thing’s Famous Pickle Parlor is a speakeasy that was opened in 1723 by a leprechaun named Bob the Giant. (He was two feet, three inches tall.)

  His partner was a thing, and nobody ever knew exactly what it was, so they just called him that thing.

  Depending on whom you ask, that thing looked either like an enormous bat with tiny wings or a morbidly obese rat with muttonchops—nobody knew much about him, except that he had magnificent back hair that he would brush with a mother-of-pearl comb. That thing was the brains of the operation and famous for his business acumen. Bob was the front man who dealt with customers. Since the day they opened, the Pickle Parlor has served only one thing: pickles, straight out of the barrel.

  But not just any pickles. The pickles served at Bob and Thing’s Famous Pickle Parlor are one million times spicier than anything a human being could eat.

  If a human were to take one bite out of a Pickle Parlor pickle, he would explode. (I regret to say there are memorials in Collins House to two garda officers who attempted to eat the very mildest pickle on the parlor’s menu. Their smoldering hats and shoes were found three miles away from Nogbottom in opposite directions.)

  But somehow, leprechauns love to eat these pickles. Not just because of the spiciness, but because of the out-of-body experience that comes from eating something that’s one million times hotter than a Carolina Reaper.2

  So, believe it or not, leprechauns come to Bob and Thing’s Famous Pickle Parlor and pay several euros to eat one of these horrible items. What happens next is called the “pickle fits.”

  Watching leprechauns in the depths of the pickle fits is not a pretty sight. First, the leprechaun turns bright red; then smoke blasts from his ears, nose, and behind. The blast from their bottom is often so powerful that it launches them into the ceiling of the Pickle Parlor (which is padded with old mattresses for this very reason). The next stage of the pickle fits is the unstoppable giggles, and the leprechaun simply cannot stop laughing, while he dances like his insides are full of rattlesnakes and then lets out a burp that often burns off his eyebrows.

  And leprechauns love this.

  Perhaps the strangest thing of all about the pickle fits is that they only last about twelve seconds, which leads a lot of poor leprechauns to a life of “chasin’ the fits,” as it’s called, where they try to re-create the experience over and over again.

  The moldy barrel lift arrived at the entrance to the Famous Pickle Parlor, where a hideous thing (clearly a descendant of the original co-owner) was guarding the door.

  This thing’s features were batlike, but he had a beak like a toucan, sloth claws, and a thin tail, so even I cannot clarify what category of thing these things are. He had green eyes and fur that glistened like oil. He came up to about my elbow, and in his left claw he twirled a shillelagh made from a unicorn dowser (illegal everywhere since 1951).

  This ugly thing blew a wet raspberry at us and tapped an old sign by the door that read NO BEEFIES, NO CREDIT, NO SHOES KEPT ON PREMISES.

  The last line of that sign is tragic indeed, for so many of the leprechaun folk love chasin’ the fits that they will even trade five-hundred-year-old shoes with twenty-four-carat buckles for a few good “toots at the ceiling.”

  Without warning, Captain de Valera spun her shillelagh and cracked the hand-claw of the thing, causing him to drop his shillelagh and ca-caw in pain from his beak.

  This kind of bold attack was Captain Siobhán de Valera’s style. She never waited to see how a situation would unfold, but rather she would always make the first move. “Better to be wrong and apologize than be right and do nothing,” she would say. She had seen many good Special Unit officers who had hesitated in the wrong situation and been turned into pigs, logs, or waterfalls.

  As the ugly, oily thing ducked to grab his shillelagh, the captain delivered a swift knee to his head—her kneecap protector made a satisfying bonk, and the thing collapsed. Even though he was out cold, his sentient and seemingly independent tail tried to grab hold of the captain’s shillelagh, but I swatted it out of the air with my staff. (While the standard-issue cadet shillelagh is light, it’s also fast and easy to swing, which can be an advantage.)

  “Thanks, Boyle,” said the captain, collecting herself. “On the other side of that door are the dregs of Nogbottom, scoundrels who want nothing to do with beefies, let alone garda. Most of ’em are twitching in the pickle fits, so they may pay us no mind. But we may be in for a fight, understand?”

  I nodded, wiping sweat from my forehead and tightening the grip on my shillelagh. I rebuttoned up the top of my jumpsuit again, preparing for the worst.

  “If Lovely Liam and Wee Glen are here, and they’ve got any of the Malton Hotel’s wines on them, we can make an arrest. But without any solid proof, we’re just working a hunch, and all we can do is question them and let them go about their business.”

  “Yes, Captain,” I said, taking a few warm-up swings.

  “And mind you—do not look directly at Lovely Liam under any circumstances. Keep your eyes on his belt or his shoes,” she warned. “I can’t have you falling in love with a gancanagh on your first day.”

  “Aye,” I said, shaking my head, as I found the idea of me falling in love with a suspect quite silly indeed. I’ve never even fallen in love—even with my flatmate and terrible guardian Dolores, and she is one of the most beautiful fiddle players in Europe and also a lovely Irish dancer. Plus she makes a potato and crème fraîche soup that will knock your hat off.

  The captain held up a glove and counted her fingers down: three . . . two . . .

  * * *

  1 A few years later, I had the privilege of being the guest of my friend Aileen, Whose Luscious Eyes Sparkle Like Ten Thousand Emeralds in the Sun when she opened in a full seven-day performance of A Bonnet for Bonnie Bobby’s Buggy. To say it was the saddest musical I have ever seen is an understatement. The short version: A widower named Bonnie Bobby weds off his beloved daughter, Clara, to the evil prince of the Bog Lands. She does not love the prince, and so she wishes to never see him again. A sinister clurichaun named Jeff makes her wish come true by permanently attaching a bucket to her head. So, the musical is basically seven full days of a wee woman singing under a bucket about her regrets. At the end, she falls down a well for no apparent reason. Then her father falls down after her. Then her ghost comes back and sings an even sadder song, about how she can’t see the afterworld, because the bucket on her head cracked when she fell down the well—making her ghost blind. The only reference to the bonnet for the buggy is that (I think) it’s what the evil bog prince gave to Clara’s father as a dowry. The only positive thing I can say about A Bonnet for Bonnie Bobby’s Buggy is that the lunch was fantastic. And the other upside—even after seeing a sad, seven-day musical in Nogbottom, you always get out on Friday at eight P.M., which is before the restaurants get crowded.

  2 A Carolina Reaper is the hottest human pepper that exists, two thousand times hotter than a jalapeño, with a Scoville Heat Unit of over two million.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE RAINBOW ROOM

  CRUUUNNCH. Captain de Valera kicked the door off. The hinges exploded with a spark of rust. She lost her balance and fell with the door, managing to ride it like a surfboard. This was not intentional but just a very happy accident. It looked impressive, but she probably couldn’t have done it again for a million euros if she tried.

  My shillelagh was trembling as I followed the captain into th
e parlor. The accordion music was deafening now, and I could barely keep my eyes open from the toxic haze.

  The Pickle Parlor is a massive venue, larger than a three-ring circus. The floor is a crunchy mix of sawdust, dazed-out leprechauns, lost hats, and old pickle stems. A band of bewitched instruments that play themselves was performing “A Jug of Punch” as loudly as you’ve ever heard it.

  If the music was an assault on the ears, the air was a full-blown war on your eyes. It burned straight to the back of your retinas from a potent mix of three hundred years of hot pickles and a lifetime’s worth of leprechaun toots.

  I felt like I had descended like Dante into the inferno and that I must turn and run away to somewhere I could breathe—so as not to perish in this abominable, poorly ventilated purgatory. For a moment, I wished that I were back drowning in fastpeat in the Forest of Adair, as it would have been more pleasant.

  “Steady, Boyle,” said the captain.

  I caught my breath and blinked my stinging eyes, trying to steady myself. I cleaned my glasses on my jumpsuit. The venue was an unsavory sight indeed. Of the hundred or so leprechauns scattered around the club, almost nobody had noticed our grand entrance—as all of them were in the midst of the pickle fits or recovering from a hard bonk on the ceiling.

  Those few that did notice us blew raspberries or made filthy gestures in our direction. Many of these obscene gestures I had never seen before, so I did not understand how nasty they were intended to be. (A Field Guide to Rude Leprechaun Gestures is available in the S&W Department at Collins House or the Joy Vaults gift shop for two euros in paperback, forty-five euros hardcover.)

  The only things that definitely did notice our arrival were the three massive woodtrolls1 that work the barrelchase.

  The barrelchase they were operating is an impressive machine, especially considering it was built in 1723. It’s a small roller coaster that takes up more than half of the parlor. Pickle barrels roll a quarter-mile around the track of the barrelchase, spinning, looping the loop—all to keep the pickles inside them awash in their spicy broths. Even while my mind was preoccupied with our case, the idea of taking a ride around the barrelchase did seem like fun for a brief moment.

  The largest woodtroll stood about nine feet tall, not counting his antlers. He was wearing a name tag that read MIKEY. Below his name was printed I CARRY NO SHOES. Mikey the Woodtroll approached Captain de Valera menacingly, polishing his large antlers with a filthy, broth-soaked rag.

  “Cheers, Mikey,” said the captain, as it turns out that they were acquainted.

  “Cap’n,” said Mikey, nodding his antlers with respect. The next thing that happened was the second strangest thing I would see this day. Mikey and the captain leaned in, and they each took a strong smell of the other’s armpit.

  Yes. Disgusting. Dis. Gus. Ting. And if you told me I would ever start doing something like this, I would have called you a filthy, filthy liar. But this custom is called wiftwaffing, and it is the traditional greeting between all manner of trolls. Any greeting other than wiftwaffing between trolls, and somebody gets eaten. This includes all three types of trolls: bridge trolls, woodtrolls, and haretrolls, which are the small kind of trolls that live in underground warrens and are always blind. Haretrolls are also the trolls who will get rid of their bad dreams by putting them into potatoes as they grow underground. If you eat some chips and later have nightmares that you’re being chased by a fox, trapped in a dirt tunnel, or being forced to marry a troll that you do not love, you probably ate a potato that grew near a haretroll warren and picked up some of their bad dreams.

  “This is Boyle,” said the captain, nodding in my direction. “He and I are working a case out of Killarney. Grand larceny. Thirty thousand euros in fine wines.”

  Mikey leaned in and aggressively sniffed my armpit. The captain’s eyes made it clear that I should do the same back to him, and reluctantly I did. Compared to the briny air of the parlor, Mikey the Woodtroll smelled surprisingly not that awful—just a bit like the inside of a barn where friendly chickens have been nesting. One of the best things I ever learned from Captain Siobhán de Valera is to meet the faerie folk with their own customs, and you will get further than trying to impose yours on them.

  “Mikey, you wouldn’t happen to know if anybody’s been bragging about just coming into a vast fortune, would you?” asked the captain.

  Mikey chuckled, sharpening his antlers with a small whetstone.

  “I just might know the whereabouts of two such rapscallions,” he said. “You don’t still carry that flask of Jameson whiskey do you, Cap’n?”

  Captain de Valera smiled and unclipped the steel flask of whiskey from her belt. She tossed it to Mikey, and he ate the whole flask in one bite, chewing in ecstasy—causing small sparks to shoot out of his mouth.

  “Mmm, that’s fine Irish steel,” he said, munching the metal flask like a crazy person, or rather the nine-foot-tall woodtroll that he was.

  I shot a confused look to the captain, and she shrugged in response as if to say: Woodtrolls, what are you gonna do?

  It took Mikey a while to swallow the flask; then he cleared his throat and leaned in, tapping his nose conspiratorially.

  “If it’s Wee Glen and Lovely Liam you’re after, they’ve come in bragging about robbing the beefies, and they’ve been showing off a vastsack. They’ve booked out the Rainbow Room for a fortnight,” said Mikey.

  “You’re a good troll, Mikey,” said the captain, stretching up and scratching behind his antlers as if he were a puppy. He purred and leaned his head into her hand.

  I reached way up and scratched behind his other antler. Captain de Valera and Mikey both gasped and shot me a horrified look, as this was not a troll custom, but rather a gesture only performed between very good friends in Tir Na Nog. I had overstepped. The awkward silence would have been deafening if not for the bewitched instruments that were now playing “Zombie” by the Cranberries, and doing a decent job of it.

  I pulled my hand away, feeling like the eejit that I almost always feel like in social situations.

  Mikey the Woodtroll finally broke the silence and let out a huge belly laugh. The captain laughed, too, and patted me on the back.

  “Honest mistake, Boyle,” she said. “Just never do it again, because I’ve nothing to carry your bones back in.”

  I tried to laugh along just to be part of the team, but I’m sure that with my clenched teeth and my eyes watering from the spicy air I just looked like a jittery teenage pole with glasses and lockjaw who missed being in his shared flat in Galway with Dolores.

  “Say nice things about me,” laughed Mikey as he turned and loaded a fresh barrel onto the barrelchase. He pointed toward the door to the Rainbow Room in the far depths of the venue.

  The Rainbow Room is the private VIP lounge of Bob and Thing’s Famous Pickle Parlor, where the pickles are stronger, the ceiling is higher, and the prices are steeper. Lovely Liam and Wee Glen had rented it for a fortnight, which is two weeks. Clearly, they were set on having a picklebender.

  We set our positions, and the captain nodded for me to kick the door open, and I must say I felt a wave of excitement. I had never kicked a door open in any type of scenario, and this would be my first one.

  Perhaps this is why it took nine tries. Possibly ten. And then, in two-three-more tries after that, oh boy-o—the door broke somewhat in half . . . but enough for us to duck through. Adrenaline flooded my veins. The captain dove through the small opening in the door and rolled into a fighting stance. I tried to do the same but ended up performing a belly flop onto the putrid sawdust floor of the Rainbow Room.

  Lovely Liam and Wee Glen were right there, puffing their pipes and giggling like eejits on an old sofa, making merry with three of the oldest merrows you have ever seen—these ladies had been out of the water far too long, and it showed.

  Merrows are the only faerie folk that technically live in the human Republic of Ireland, as their habitat is the Irish Sea, exclusively. A
s a result of human misuse and overfishing, many merrows have had to look for work in the entertainment industry in Tir Na Nog. For a young merrow, say under five hundred years old, there are some opportunities, certainly. But for a middle-aged merrow of seven hundred to a thousand years old—sadly, they may often end up as hostesses in places like Bob and Thing’s Famous Pickle Parlor or Johnny Makem’s House of Tears and Waffles in Oifigtown, where the famous buttery waffles are custom-made to remind you of a great personal tragedy. Leprechauns are a strange lot.

  I did as the captain instructed and focused my eyes like a laser beam at Lovely Liam’s shoes instead of at his face. This was not hard to do because his shoes were more beautiful than any person I had ever seen—white silk with velvet ribbons, blue heels, and detailed with thousands of tiny sapphires. The thought that raced through my mind was: Good heavens, there’s a universe of sapphires on his feet.

  Sitting beside Lovely Liam was Wee Glen with the Gorgeous Ears, and his ears looked completely ordinary to me. I couldn’t pick them out of a lineup. Indeed, he was missing a finger on his wee left hand. His face looked like a rather bad car crash had happened between a summer squash and a very unhappy billy goat, and this face was the only thing that stumbled out of the burning wreckage.

  As it turns out, there would be no time to question either of the suspects, because the moment they saw us, they bolted. Wee Glen’s eyes went wide in panic. He started musking, and the smell was of burnt hair mixed with anchovies.

  “Beefies—run for the bridge!” shouted Wee Glen.

  Lovely Liam tossed a little leather sack to Wee Glen. I can’t report Liam’s expression because my eyes were fixed on his magnificent shoes, and things were starting to become a blur through my foggy glasses.