by Ken Bruen
“I don’t want a white one.”
His body shifted as if “How much more aggravation can one man endure?”
He said,
“The Galway swans are white.”
God almighty.
I said,
“There’s a black one there now.”
He muttered,
“Sure.”
But made no sign of moving.
I asked,
“So can I purchase the black one or not?”
He reluctantly got it, blew some dust off it, said,
“Thirty euros.”
I was in some new realm of Monty Python so decided to go with it, asked,
“How much do you charge for the white ones?”
He took a step toward me. Was I going to end up wrestling with a shopkeeper on the floor of his shop?
He snarled,
“You’re a bit of a smart-arse.”
I said,
“As opposed to an actual customer?”
I threw the money on the counter, picked up the now controversial swan, said,
“You’re probably overwhelmed with return shoppers.”
And was out of there.
I headed up toward the square. A wino asked me for a few quid so I handed over some notes. I still had the swan, unwrapped, in my hand. He said,
“Funny, I always thought them birds were white.”
*
I got back to my flat and, not for the first time, missed how no little pup would be waiting to welcome me. I shook my head to rid myself of the memory of the wonderful dog I had.
Was into the flat when I realized I was not alone. A man was standing against the window, staring out at the ocean. He seemed completely at ease, said,
“Hell of a view.”
Turned to face me.
Tall, with a buzz cut, dressed in fatigues, a face that was nearly remarkable in its blandness. A suppressed energy danced around him. He said,
“I’m Michael Allen.”
I said,
“The psycho.”
He shrugged, said,
“Not an auspicious beginning to our meeting.”
I said,
“It’s not a meeting when you break into my flat.”
He saluted, said,
“I didn’t break anything.”
Pause.
“Yet.”
I gave him a long look, said,
“Time to pack up whatever nonsense you’re peddling and fuck off.”
He smiled, said,
“Harsh.”
I had been rationing cigarettes in between vapings and reached for one now, fired up, said,
“Spill whatever it is.”
He said,
“I thought a little gratitude might be forthcoming.”
I said,
“You knew where the boy was being held but did nothing for three days.”
He let out a deep sigh, said,
“Let me demonstrate something for you.”
Crossed the room and in a split second flipped me on my back, his shoe resting on my windpipe, said,
“A little pressure and it’s good night Jack Taylor.”
He stood back, said,
“Just so we’re clear.”
I got shakily to my feet, let my head hang down as if I were still groggy. He came over, said,
“Deep breaths, champ.”
My head came up fast, catching him under the chin. I followed with an almighty punch to the side of his head. He staggered back against the wall but
Managed to stay on his feet.
I went to the cupboard, poured a decent shot of Jay, knocked it back, said,
“Now we’re clear.”
He recovered fast, said,
“I knew it, my kind of soldier.”
I said,
“We going another round or are you going to piss off?”
He smiled. I could see a bruise under his chin taking shape. He said,
“Tevis, I know he’s some kind of buddy to you.”
“Not my buddy.”
He let out a shout, said,
“Excellent, then we have no problem.”
He leaned against the wall, his body both relaxed yet crackling with a manic energy. Whatever else, I knew this guy was extremely dangerous so I decided to play along, see where the madness led. I asked,
“What exactly is it you want?”
He pondered this, then,
“Tevis is a loose cannon, probably the gay thing. He is having bouts of conscience and that I can’t have.”
I said,
“From what he told me, he seemed quite delighted you solved the problem—the guy who killed his friend.”
He laughed, said,
“I like the way you tiptoe ’round the acts committed in the name of justice.”
Enough of this nonsense. I said,
“So you’re removing Tevis, that it?”
He made an odd sound like a strangulated sigh, said,
“No, no way.”
I nodded, said,
“Great, so you can be on your way. Nice chatting with you and all that.”
He said,
“You’re not getting this.”
“What?”
“You are removing Tevis from our game.”
When the king is attacked by an enemy piece
We say he is in check.
The king can never stay on
or move to a square
Where he could be captured by an enemy piece.
(Fundamentals of Chess)
26
I did a background on Tevis. Didn’t take long.
He was thirty-nine years old, born in Dublin, worked in IT, single. Mostly, I wanted his address.
Got that.
He lived in new apartments off College Road so I dressed like I meant business: the Garda coat, Doc Martens, black 501s, black T-shirt. I rang his doorbell. Answered with a towel in his hand and another covering his body, said,
“I was in the shower. Come in, brew some coffee, or do you want a drink?”
The apartment was completely white, even the furniture—so white you didn’t want to soil it. He said,
“Sit down, chill, and I’ll be ready in a moment.”
I sat near a bookcase. The titles were all tech manuals, not one novel. He came back into the room, dressed in sweats, bare feet, like a guy who hadn’t a care in the world, asked,
“What’s up, dude?”
I said,
“Your psycho buddy came to visit.”
That stopped him for a bit, then,
“And you’re alive to tell the tale.”
Well, there was a cue right off. I said,
“Odd you should say that as he wants me to kill somebody.”
He didn’t seem fazed, asked,
“Anyone I know?”
Something off about his tone. I said,
“You.”
He laughed.
Not the response you’d expect. He said,
“That is priceless.”
I asked,
“What do you mean?”
He gave a bitter smile, said,
“He made me the same offer.”
Took me a moment, then,
“He wants you to...”
Deep breath.
“Kill me?”
He said,
“Guy likes to mind-fuck.”
One way of putting it.
I asked,
“Are you planning to try?”
He laughed, asked,
“Are you?”
I said,
“I saved your life, what do you think?”
He moved to a cabinet, pulled out a bottle of Glenfiddich, said,
“Been saving this for a special occasion. This seems to be it.”
Poured healthy measures, handed me one, said,
“To our continued good health.”
I said,
“Indeed.”
He knocked his right back. I paid
mine a little more respect. He said,
“Something I want to share with you.”
“Go for it.”
He took a deep breath, said,
“You might recall I told you my partner was killed in a gay bashing?”
I remembered, nodded. He continued,
“We’d been drinking in Jurys bar, bottom of Quay Street.”
I thought,
Who the fuck drinks there?
He said,
“You’re thinking who the hell drinks there.”
No answer required, so he went on,
“We’d downed a fair few when I noticed a bunch of guys giving us dirty looks, like the looks you get from queer bashers.”
He looked at me, said,
“Trust me, you know the hostility vibe.”
I said,
“Hostility I’m very familiar with, gay or otherwise.”
He considered that, said,
“The guys left before us but I knew they’d be waiting. They smelled blood.”
He spat, said,
“The fuckers.”
Then asked,
“Know what I did?”
I told the truth.
“Ran?”
He nearly smiled, said,
“When we came out, John didn’t realize the danger and I didn’t tell him. I told him I was going to grab something from the shop.”
Now he paused.
He looked at his feet, as if there was some salvation there. There wasn’t. He continued.
“John looked baffled, especially as there are few shops down there and even more confused when I began to walk very quickly.”
Another long pause, then,
“Away.”
He was now reliving it and not for the first time, said,
“I glanced back only once and they were already on him, like a pack of wolves.”
A heavy silence hung over us, and finally he could bear it no longer, asked,
“What do you think about that?”
I thought of a lot of things and none of them would do him any good, so I tried,
“We all have shite we wish we could change.”
As lame as it gets.
I finished my drink, said,
“Okay, what about our current situation? Maybe we should pool our scant talents and go after him.”
He gave a shrill sound, said,
“No fucking way.”
“What then?”
He poured another drink, sank it, said,
“I’m going to do what I apparently do best.”
I waited and came the predictable,
“Run.”
Our dreams drench us in sense, and
sense steeps us again in dreams.
(Amos Bronson Alcott, 1799–1888)
Part 4
Dark to Darkest Days Unfolding
27
Trump fired his sixth top guy in so many weeks. The lunatic in North Korea daily upped his threat to fire nuclear missiles at the island of Guam. An ISIS cell led by a seventeen-year-old committed another atrocity, in Barcelona, eighteen killed, hundreds injured.
The Irish women’s rugby team was beaten by France in the World Cup series, and Galway’s hurling team geared up for the All-Ireland final; tickets were like gold dust.
Pat Hickey, the erstwhile head of the Irish Olympic Council, enmeshed in a ticket scandal, briefly jailed in Brazil, was now back in Ireland and declaring his aim to be reelected. You had to kind of whistle at the sheer nerve of the guy. Pictures of him in the papers told you everything you needed to understand about smugness and utter entitlement.
Our new leader, Leo Varadkar, fronted up to the UK about borders in the forthcoming Brexit negotiations. The Tories screamed,
“How dare he?”
The country said,
“Way to go, Leo.”
Well, the Church, which was keeping quiet on just about every topic, reckoned a low profile might be wise, especially as one of the pope’s top cardinals in Australia was arrested on child molestation allegations. His face on TV had a lot in common with the one worn by Hickey.
A book of short stories on my table had the title
How to Be a Goth in the Country.
How to resist that?
Netflix had a terrific new series, Ozark.
I revisited
Witnesses
The Divide
Nobel
The kind of TV that had little exposure but was true gold.
Tevis was true to his word and simply disappeared, which left me versus Michael Allen. My previous case I had with malice afterthought immersed in utter darkness, embraced revenge with total focus. If, as they say, for revenge dig two graves, then I nigh Olympic dug.
Resolved after to be done with violence, so far I hadn’t as much as raised a mutilated finger in aggression.
Would it last?
Fuck knew.
When / if Michael Allen came for me, I’d react on the day and, bizarre as it seems, I didn’t lose a whole lot of sleep over the prospect.
Not so much fatalistic as deep fatigued, I only knew that me and plans never met with anything like joy.
Then, life as it goes on its muddled path decided to switch from the murderous to the ridiculous. The first manifestation of this was, of course, a priest.
A very young priest.
He found me sitting on the square, watching the various encampments that sprang up overnight with a blend of refugees and homeless and stranded tourists.
The priest looked barely out of his teens and his clerical collar was blinding in its whiteness. He approached me with,
“Mr. Taylor?”
I stared at him with a mild contempt, born of years of clerical debacle. I said,
“Yeah?”
He asked,
“May I sit?”
“Kneeling would be better.”
That shocked and bewildered him. He tried,
“I beg your pardon?”
I said,
“Kidding. You guys need to lighten up but, then, you don’t really have a whole lot of stuff to laugh about.”
He stood in a cloud of unknowing, so I said,
“Spit it out.”
He composed himself as if he was about to recite a rosary, said,
“I come on behalf of the bishop-elect, Father Malachi.”
I laughed, said,
“Jeez, what a mouthful.”
He ventured on.
“As a mark of respect to your late mother, he would like to grace you with some assistance.”
I asked,
“Money would be good, I don’t have any scruples.”
He faltered, then,
“His eminence would be open to offer you the position of general groundsman.”
I marveled at the sheer audacity, said,
“Like the janitor.”
He searched for a description, said,
“Groundskeeper would be the title.”
I asked,
“Shouldn’t you be saying, His preeminence? I mean, he hasn’t got the gig yet.”
He made a show of checking his watch, an impressive slim gold job, said,
“I presume you do not wish to avail yourself of this opportunity.”
A hint of hard seeped into his tone and I could picture him in later years, lording it over some lofty parish. I said,
“You’re in the right job, fella.”
He turned to go, said,
“I shall convey your best wishes to his eminence.”
I went,
“Whoa, don’t do that. I didn’t ask you to say it so... don’t.”
He shook his head in frustration, said,
“You’re a very disagreeable man.”
And I liked him a little better, said,
“Go preach the good word, lad.”
As I watched him stride away, not a single person greeted him. In my youth, a priest took a walk, everybody saluted him.
So much had c
hanged and utterly. I wondered how much had been lost in the new brash Ireland. A homeless guy approached and before he could ask I handed him a few notes. He was taken aback, muttered,
“You should have been a priest.”
*
I was feeding the swans, trying not to think of my beloved dog who would always accompany me. The memory still burned hot and blistered.
The black swan glided across the basin like a sleek ballerina. I sat on the bench, which gave a view clear across the bay. You could imagine you saw the Aran Islands resting on the horizon. As America to the west wondered who Trump would rant at this day, my own day was now about to move into the realm of the absurd.
A woman in her forties sat beside me, well dressed and with a fragrance of patchouli. Not unpleasant.
She asked,
“Mr. Taylor?”
“Jack.”
Got a lovely smile for that and it’s amazing how such a tiny gesture can lift your deadened heart. She said,
“I’ve been told you have a great fondness for dogs.”
What the fuck?
I said,
“I do, I did.”
She pursed her lips, took a breath, said,
“Someone has been poisoning the dogs in our street.”
I said,
“We can safely rule me out.”
Not what she was expecting but she continued.
“I’d like to engage your services to catch the culprit.”
I felt tired. A psycho was out there who waited to see if I’d kill Tevis, the two women in my life were seriously pissed at me, and now I could be a pet detective. When I didn’t answer, she said,
“I can pay.”
I said,
“Tell me what’s been happening.”
She explained how she lived in the small residential street just off Newcastle Avenue. Three of the neighbors’ dogs had been poisoned, and now only four dogs remained in the neighborhood. The dogs had all been in their gardens late evening when they were hit.
I thought about that, asked,
“Any suspicions on who might be responsible?”
“No, no one has complained about dogs or anything like that.”
Her name was Rita Coyne, a widow, her children grown, which was one reason her dog was so vital to her. She said,
“It’s hard to be lonely when a little dog is with you.”
I suggested I use her home as a base for a few days to see if I could figure out the culprit. She clapped her hands in glee, said,
“Oh, perfect. I want to visit my sister and was worried about leaving the house. Here, a spare key. I’ll leave provisions for you.”