by Ken Bruen
She did back off, a vicious smile in place, said,
“He’s coming for you.”
Of course he was. I said,
“Tell him to join the queue.”
Confused her, she went,
“What?”
I shot my hand out, tapped her lightly on the head, said,
“God bless you child.”
I walked off.
She shouted some obscenity at me but it was caught on the wind, went in the other direction, much like the story of my life.
*
North Korea continued to launch missiles, edging closer to the U.S. mainland.
The Guards were still involved in the massive breath-analyzing scandal, where it now emerged that close to a million tests were blatantly invented. The Garda commissioner finally resigned.
You grasped for any hint of light in a world darkening by the very minute.
Took:
A homeless Irishman found dead in Manchester. Despite repeated searches, no relatives could be found.
The Met, in a compassionate move, appealed to the Irish community to attend the poor man’s funeral.
They did.
In the hundreds.
Such moments gave you that breath to keep going another day.
Finding Kiki.
Like a poor version of a Pixar movie.
My daughter.
Fuck, My daughter?
The very words filled me with a range of emotions from joy to despair.
Me, who could barely run a cigarette lighter, was a father.
Then Kiki found me.
Life is trouble.
Only death is not.
To be alive
is to undo your belt
and look for trouble.
(Nikos Kazantzakis)
30
Kiki stood in front of me.
Looking gorgeous.
She had called at my apartment, came in, and gave what could only be interpreted as look of disapproval, said,
“Are you moving in or out?”
She had a doctorate in metaphysics, so I drew on that, asked,
“Is that a philosophical question?”
She looked like she might give me a hug. I said,
“I thought you were headed for Berlin.”
She was dressed in light leather jacket, dark jeans, boots, and had the appearance of casual wealth. She said,
“That was the plan and then the most extraordinary man came into my life.”
Fuck.
I asked,
“How fortunate. Are you, like, collecting men?”
Her mood soured. She said,
“No need to be jealous.”
I had a hundred answers but none of them even touched on civility so I said nothing. She gathered herself together, asked,
“Would you like to come to dinner and meet him?”
Would I fuck!
I said,
“That would be just lovely.”
*
There are times I stand on the Salmon Weir Bridge and just stare at the salmon leaping. Not that they do much leaping since the water was poisoned. But if you focus, seriously concentrate, you may, in your ideal vision, see a massive brown-red specimen jump absolutely clear of the water, and then, with a fine lunge, clear the very weir.
That delights me to my core.
A tinker woman once told me,
“Free your mind of the narrow world amac [son], let the wild entrance you with a magic that is not of this space.”
Times I could, others I let Jameson do an artificial version, neither endured but briefly. Alongside the river are wooden seats, relatively free of graffiti and vandalism. A woman sat there, staring intently at me. I did what you do.
I stared back.
She summoned me.
I sighed, muttered,
“What fresh hell awaits me now?”
I wasn’t far off the mark as it turned out.
As I approached, I could see she was in her mid-fifties, petite, with a very elegant coat that didn’t quite disguise that here was a person who had recently emerged from major trauma, the stain of tragedy large in her eyes. She might be moving away from whatever it was but she certainly wasn’t recovered.
I know this from bitter experience.
From such events you can put distance but, really, that’s all it will be.
Distance.
She said,
“Mr. Taylor.”
Patted the seat beside her.
Something in the gesture implied gentleness. Of course, it might be just an empty gesture. I sat.
She gave me a look of deep sorrow.
Up close, you could see she’d been a looker in her day but life had beaten the hell out of her. She said,
“I’m Loren Renaud.”
Oh, fuck, Pierre Renaud’s wife, mother of the murdered twins, and now a dead husband. The fact wasn’t that she seemed beaten but that she was still functioning on any level. What did I say?
“Sorry your old man killed the kids”?
I tried,
“I am so sorry for all your...”
Fuck, pause.
“Grief.”
She made a small sound not unlike an involuntary laugh, said,
“It seems too much for one family, n’est-ce pas?”
Of course, she was bound to have absorbed French. I asked,
“You wanted to talk to me?”
Long silence, then,
“You are yourself pursued by ghosts, I think.”
Indeed.
I said,
“Most days I outrun them, not by much but enough to keep going.”
She said,
“Une chambre sans meubles.”
Explained,
“My mother used to say grief is like a bedroom stripped of all furniture.”
She asked,
“Would you have a cigarette?”
Now that I could handle.
Her hand shook as she took the cig. She said,
“You should have seen me a week ago.”
I liked her, the bald honesty of the admission. It was simply heartbreaking.
I said,
“Been there, even my voice shook.”
And she hesitated, then laughed, echoed,
“Your voice?”
“Yeah, imagine how fucked you have to be for that.”
She didn’t have to imagine as she still had some occupancy of that dark borough. I said,
“It is a wonder you are here at all.”
And could have bitten my tongue.
She nodded, said,
“I was in a haze of booze and pills for a long time and only one thing pulled me back.”
I didn’t ask, waited.
She said,
“Cross my heart, I didn’t know Pierre killed his...”
Pause.
“Our sons. Until the animal told me.”
I had a fair idea who that was but, again, waited.
“Michael Allen. In the beginning, he was all charm and Pierre, he was in awe of him, gave him money for that ludicrous vendetta, Two for Justice, as if Allen cared a toss for that.”
She gave a deep sigh, reliving many nightmares, then,
“When Pierre died, I really believed it was suicide until Allen laid out the whole shocking series of events. He told me he’d need to keep the cottage Pierre had let him use and that he would be...”
Deep breath.
“Requiring funds from time to time.”
She gave me a look of utter outrage, said,
“In effect, I’m to support the man who destroyed my whole family.”
She shook her head at the sheer horror of that.
Crunch time. I asked,
“Why have you come to me?”
She said,
“You have to stop him.”
Right.
*
How do you dress to meet your ex-wife’s new man?
Carefully.
I put on the obligatory black jacket, white shirt, tie (loosely, to suggest mellow or couldn’t give a fuck), black jeans, Docs. The Docs had steel toe caps because who knows? Checked in the mirror, saw a battered undertaker’s assistant, the guy you keep in the background.
Took a deep breath, a Xanax, and good to go.
We were meeting in the Bijou, a quasi-French place run by Vietnamese. Such was the mix of Galway today.
In the foyer of the restaurant, Kiki was waiting. She was looking gorgeous. Fuck it.
She said,
“My man is parking the car, we’ll go ahead to the table.”
My man!
Stung.
I asked,
“Where is Gretchen?”
Waited a beat, added,
“My daughter?”
She smiled briefly, asked,
“You are going to behave, right, Jack?”
I smiled, said,
“Of course.”
We were at the table. I’d ordered a large Jay, Kiki an orange juice, when her face lit up. She said,
“Here he comes.”
I turned,
Michael Allen was striding toward us.
I was utterly dumbfounded.
The bollix was smiling, hand outstretched, said,
“I feel I know you already, Jack.”
Pause.
“May I call you Jack?”
He leaned over, gave Kiki a lingering kiss, said,
“You minx, you never said your ex”—leaned on that—“was one fine-looking dude. Should I be a wee bit jealous?”
His accent was now that polished mid-Atlantic shite that has spread like a disease. Kiki was behaving downright coquettish.
We sat, or rather they did, and I sort of collapsed into my chair. The waiter arrived, said,
“Good evening, folks. I’m Fanon and I’m going to be your server so anything you need, just holler. Now, how about drinks?”
They each ordered juice. I said,
“Double Jameson.”
Allen said,
“We don’t drink.”
Kiki babbled on about the ambience until the drinks came, then Allen raised his juice, proposed,
“A toast to fine company.”
And fucking winked at me.
They ordered some vegan shite. I had a sirloin, adding,
“Lots of heavy gravy.”
Kiki excused herself to go, and it mortifies me to remember, to
“The little girls’ room.”
Soon as she left Allen reached over, grabbed my glass, sank the lot, belched, said,
“Christ, I needed that.”
I asked,
“Won’t you reek of booze?”
He looked at me as if I was completely clueless.
“Dude,”
he said.
“The chick is in love, all she smells is them there roses.”
So many words there to warrant a puck in the mouth.
...dude, chick...
I seethed.
He said, dude to dude,
“Tell you, bro, I got to sneak out late evenings, after some serious fucking, grab me some carbs, like double cheeseburger, side of chili fries.”
Then he looked right at me, asked,
“Tell me, Jack, that blow job she does, you teach her that?”
I was reaching for him when Kiki returned, all aglow, asked,
“You guys getting to know each other?”
I said,
“You bet.”
Somehow the horrendous meal ended and I reached for the bill. Allen grabbed it, said,
“Your money’s no good with this family. Am I right, sweetheart?”
She preened as he pinched her bum.
Outside, Kiki was getting into a cab and Allen hung back, whispered,
“Any idea you have of, how should I say, spilling the beans, I’ll shoot the cunt of a daughter in the face.”
Then he was in the cab, already fondling Kiki.
There is only one good plot. When two men
want to sleep with the same woman.
(William Faulkner)
31
I was lost, riddled with fear, anxiety, paranoia.
Edward Lear’s biographer described him as
A man who wandered hopefully
Without hope
In a desperate refusal to despair.
What in God’s name was I doing reading Lear?
Shows the fragmented state of my being, that in a mad moment I thought,
Gretchen might enjoy Edward Lear.
I mean, fuck it. I had barely spoken two words to my daughter and here I was thinking what I might read to her. Utter insanity. At least I recognized it.
Michael Allen had my family literally as hostages and I felt powerless to act.
Pathetic.
After the wholesale violence of my previous case, I had sworn to avoid violence but now it not only beckoned but had become obligatory.
Like Chandler suggested, when you’re stuck, I needed
A man to come through the window with a gun.
What I got was Tevis.
He came back.
Was waiting outside my apartment, looking tanned and healthy. I asked,
“Couldn’t stay away?”
He sighed, said,
“He found me.”
I didn’t need to ask who.
I did ask,
“So why are you still alive?”
He hesitated, then,
“I saw him first.”
Wasn’t entirely sure that was the whole story. He said,
“I was in Cork.”
I echoed,
“Cork? Who hides out in Cork?”
He smiled, said,
“Exactly.”
His whole demeanor was off. I asked,
“Your tan, in Cork?”
He said,
“See, thing is, Jack, not sure I fully trust you now.”
I was more curious than angry, asked,
“So why are you in my place?”
He thought about that, then,
“Harley asked me to contact you.”
The name struck a vague chord but evaded me. I asked,
“Who is Harley?”
“The filmmaker. He had Allen on film actually killing the pedophile.”
“Had? The fuck use is had?”
Tevis took a deep breath as if patience was necessary, said,
“He felt that if we joined forces we could finally rid all of us of Allen.”
I shook my head, said,
“Tell him to bring his story to the Guards.”
Got the look. He said,
“We’re fucked if you don’t help us.”
I thought about that, then,
“Tell you what. I’ll meet you guys tomorrow, see what Harley says.”
If I only knew, they wouldn’t be there.
In less than twelve hours they would both be dead.
I tried to ring Kiki. She had given me her mobile number. The call was answered
By
Michael Allen.
Fuck.
I asked, with more than a spread of rage,
“The fuck are you doing answering her phone?”
He made a sound I thought existed only in novels of soft porn.
“Tut-tut. Language, fella.”
I tried to rein in the anger, asked,
“Can you put her on the phone?”
Long pause, then,
“Anything you wish to say to her, say to me, we share...”
Beat.
“Everything.”
I wanted to hurl the phone across the room, asked,
“Just how far do you think you can goad me?”
I heard a slight snigger, then,
“I need to ask you a biggie, my man.”
“What?”
He was definitely having a high old time, said,
“I mean, old chum, I want a favor, if that’s not a heavy burden on o
ur blossoming friendship.”
Yet again he blindsided me. I asked,
“You’re asking me for a favor?”
“Indeedy.”
I was already exhausted trying to keep pace, said,
“What.”
“Would you do me, actually us...”
He managed to imbue us with a sinister lewdness.
“The honor of being my best man?”
Sweet Jesus.
I went,
“You’re getting married?”
He gave what was meant to be a shy chuckle, a gee shucks sound, said,
“Why wait, when you’ve met your soul mate. Go for it, am I right?”
God almighty.
I said nothing.
He continued,
“Need one last teeny bit of advice, bro, and I swear I’ll let you get back to your drinking or whatever it is you waste your days with.”
I said,
“Let’s hear it.”
“It is a wee tad delicate but who better to ask than the previous daddy.”
I said with absolute granite,
“Be real careful now, asshole.”
“Righty-ho. Gretchen is acting more than a little flirtatious.”
The sheer obscenity of that. I said,
“You are going to die slowly, I swear.”
“So anyway, Jack. I’m no kiddie fiddler but it is a little awkward to keep rejecting her, um, advances.”
He now sounded like a stand-up guy, bewildered by feminine wiles. I near screamed,
“She’s nine years old.”
That evil chuckle again, with,
“I’ll do my best to end her off.”
Before I could reply, he said,
“Two for Justice.”
“What?”
Now he laughed loudly, said,
“The two deadbeats you sent to, um, deal with me? Had some car trouble, I hear.”
I could hear voices behind him and he said,
“Got to run, woman to satisfy and, speaking of women, shame about the widow.”
Pierre Renaud’s wife?
I asked,
“You hurt that woman?”
Long beat, then,
“Grief, they say, is a bitch, am I right?”
And he clicked off.
Leaving me in a hundred different tones of dread.
*
I headed for O’Connell’s pub on Eyre Square.
When the original owner died, she left the property to Saint Vincent de Paul. The estimated value of this was conservatively
Twelve million.
Needless to say, an intricate messy legal war ensued.
I had a great affection for this bar. It was where my dad drank. Not that he ever drank anything like I did. He’d go on a Friday evening with his mates, have, at most, three pints.