Cross

by Ken Bruen

  Wasn't going to happen.

  I raised my hands in a futile gesture, meaning 'That's the best you can do?'

  He reached in his pocket, took out a tube of pills and threw it to me.

  'You'll be wanting these.'

  I wanted to protest, get indignant, fling them back, exert some dignity, but I wanted the pills more.

  'Thanks.'

  He shrugged, asked, 'You want help?'

  Did he mean with my growing addiction?

  He said, 'You'll need to know where the enemy lives, and let's face it, I can do that better than you, I still have all my network.'

  Ridge wasn't going to help me, and tramping around on me own, hoping to get lucky, that wasn't too smart, so I said, 'Yeah, I'd appreciate that.'

  He smiled, actually a hint of warmth in this one.

  'You don't like relying on people, do you, Jack?'

  Not a whole lot of mileage in lying so I said, 'No. No, I don't.'

  He moved over to a small press, rummaged in there, took out a CD, frowned at it, then said, 'And when I find them, and find them I will, you want me to come do the deed with you?'

  The deed?

  Before I could mouth some crap about needing to do this alone, he said, 'My sister was murdered, and you helped me. These… people… wiping out a whole family, I feel I could get some closure by blowing out their candle.'

  I had to ask, 'Stewart, you do know what you're saying?'

  He'd come to some decision on the CD.

  'I always know what I'm saying – that's why I say so little.'

  Deep.

  I stood up, didn't know if I should shake his hand, seal the pact, but he was offering the CD.

  'This is for you. You give me a cross, here's something similar back, though perhaps a bit easier to carry.'

  It had a black cover, which was appropriate. The title was I've Got My Own Hell To Raise, by someone called Bettye LaVette.

  I indicated the title, asked, 'Cryptic message to me?'

  He was moving me towards the door, said, 'It's a CD. Not everything has significance.'

  I gave him my mobile number and he said, 'You'll be hearing from me, so keep the hearing aid on.'

  Yeah.

  21

  'When you eat, the meal is yourself.'

  Zen saying

  Ed O'Brien, the dog guy – the man who hired me to investigate the stolen canines – I felt I better make a report to him. What to tell him? That I'd hired an alkie ex-cop who ended up in the canal? That I was fairly sure a businessman named King was putting the dogs in tins and I'd set a psycho to burn the warehouse to the ground?

  Some report.

  Whatever else, I'd surely have his full attention.

  He'd given me his address. It was in Newcastle Lower, right alongside the university, and the walk there is almost soothing. You can hear the roar of the students, the high-spirited laughter and the sheer buzz of life. I found the house without any bother, one of those ivy-covered jobs, you have to figure a professor of something serious lives there. A heavy iron gate and then a short walk to the main door. Large neglected garden. When you're rich, you can afford to do neglect, it adds to the allure. A sign on the door warned:

  No salesmen

  All I was pitching was trouble and strife. I rang the door, waited, and finally it was opened by O'Brien, dressed in one of those heavy Aran cardigans I thought only the Americans purchased, and brown corduroy pants that were misshapen to the point of ridicule. He had a heavy book in his hand.

  He stared at me, said, 'Can't you read the sign?'

  I knew it had been a time since he'd enlisted my help, but not that long.

  I said, 'I'm Jack Taylor.'

  The penny dropped and he took a moment, as if he was going to dismiss me, then he said, 'I suppose you'd better come in.'

  Suppose?

  I could tell this was going to be a beauty.

  We entered a book-lined study, with comfortable worn furniture and a walnut writing desk, a riot of papers and folders on top. He settled himself behind it, indicated a hard chair in front. I sat, feeling like I was about to be interviewed.

  I wasn't sure where to begin, but he said, 'To tell you the truth, Taylor, we thought you'd never bothered.'

  A factory burned to the ground, a dead man pulled from the canal – imagine if I'd bothered.

  I said, 'I didn't want to get back to you till I had something to report.'

  His face conveyed total scepticism and I had a building desire to swipe the smirk off his face.

  He shook his head, as if he'd met every sort of con man and I was just one more in a pathetic line. He confirmed this by saying, 'You're here to get paid, I expect.'

  It had been the last thing on my mind, but before I could get this out, he said, 'You think because the affair is solved you'd, what? Come waltzing in and try and claim a fee? I wasn't born yesterday, Taylor.'

  Solved?

  I echoed, 'Solved? What are you talking about?'

  He mocked, 'The case is solved and ace investigator Taylor doesn't even know it. I think you might consider a new line of work, you're not exactly up to speed with this one.'

  Seeing my blank face, he realized I truly didn't know, and said with an exaggerated patient tone, 'A gang of teenagers were snatching the dogs, bringing them to the waste ground beside the hospital and dousing them with petrol, then seeing how far they could run before they – how shall we put it – burned out?'

  'Jesus.'

  He rubbed his hands together as if he were dry-washing and said, 'I doubt the Lord had anything to do with it, save perhaps in His mighty wrath.'

  The last words carried a ring of fundamentalism that was as chilling as it sounds.

  'It wasn't in the papers – I didn't hear it on any news bulletins.'

  Now he smiled, and there was a hint of mania, just a small dribble of spit on his lower lip, a sheen of excitement in his eyes.

  'The powers that be are too busy to deal with something as mundane as missing dogs. Why, you yourself didn't think it worth your time to even make a lazy attempt at checking into it. The world is gone to hell, Taylor. If you were ever sober for any length of time, you might have noticed.'

  I was clenching my fists, trying not to go over to the desk.

  He continued, 'So we began a more active style of Neighbourhood Watch, and, let me say, those particular teenagers won't be stealing dogs – or indeed anything else – for some time. Do I need to spell it out for you?'

  He nigh glowed with his self-righteousness.

  I said, 'Vigilantes, that's what you are.'

  He stood up. My session was over.

  'Ah, Taylor, we are what this city needs, citizens of affirmative action.'

  Short of walloping the bejaysus out of him, there was no way of bursting his smugness. I said, 'The Klan have a similar line of rhetoric. You wear sheets yet?'

  He looked at me with complete contempt.

  'Goodbye, Taylor, and let me add, you're not welcome in this neighbourhood, we're trying for decency and respectability here.'

  Fucker was threatening me. I asked, 'Or what, you'll take affirmative action?'

  He opened the front door, said, 'Treat it as a friendly word of caution.'

  'I'll walk wherever I damn well like, and you decide to take affirmative action, bring more than a sheet with you, pal.'

  I headed down towards the canal, bile in my mouth and deep regret that I hadn't taken at least one pop at him. My mind was a maelstrom. King's factory had been razed for nothing, and Eoin Heaton drowned in the canal. Why?

  A woman carrying a charity box, selling flags for the homeless, approached.

  'Would you like to help the poor?'

  I fumbled for a note, shoved a twenty in the box, said, 'Wrong terminology.'

  She stared at me. 'Excuse me?'

  'The poor. I'm reliably informed they're now the disadvantaged.'

  She moved away quickly, keeping the twenty.

  I
went back to Eoin Heaton's haunts, trying to figure out what the hell happened to him. A round of dingy pubs, dire bookies' offices and hit if not pay dirt, at least a lead in the Social Security Office – a guy there told me Heaton had lived with his mother, and if anyone knew him, she did.

  She lived in Bohermore, in one of the few remaining original houses that hadn't been converted to a townhouse. The original one-up, one-down model, in a terrace. It had a tiny garden that was well tended and the front had been freshly painted.

  I knocked at the door and it was opened by a tiny woman, bent in half by age and poverty. Her clothes were spotless, clean as anything to emerge from the Magdalen Laundry. The memory of that place gave me a shudder.

  'Mrs Heaton, I am so sorry to bother you, I was a friend of Eoin's.'

  She lifted her head with obvious effort, looked at me, said, 'Come in, amac (son).'

  Jeez, I hadn't heard that term in twenty years. She led the way into a small sitting room, again clean as redemption. The wall had three framed pictures: the Pope, the Sacred Heart, and Eoin in his Guard uniform. He looked impossibly young, fresh-faced and with an eagerness that tore at my heart.

  Mrs Heaton asked, 'Can I get you a drop of tea, loveen?'

  Jesus.

  Loveen .

  Time was, this term of endearment was as common as muggings. You never heard it any more. It conveyed effortless warmth and an intimacy that was reassuring without being intrusive. For one insane moment, I thought I was going to weep. I said I'd love a cup of tea. The old ritual, also dying out. Nowadays you went to a house, you got offered designer coffee and no warmth, maybe a stock option to put on the tray with the flash caffeine. You'd never refuse tea from such a lady, it would be like spitting in her face. And no matter how old or fragile she was, you never – ever – offered to help.

  On the mantelpiece – which was covered with Irish lace, all hand embroidered – were trophies for hurling and Gaelic football, and a small bottle of Lourdes holy water. I took out one of Stewart's pills and swallowed it. I was more shaken than I wanted to admit.

  Five minutes later, she returned with a tray. A pot of tea, her best china and a slab of fruitcake.

  She raised her head, asked, 'Would you like a drop of the creature?'

  Whiskey.

  Only if I could never leave and finish the whole bottle.

  'No, the tea will be grand.'

  Slipping into the old way of talking as if I'd never left.

  She said, 'We'll let the tea draw.'

  She lowered herself with deliberate movement into an armchair, and used a spoon to stir the pot. Around her neck was a Miraculous Medal, held by blue string.

  She said, 'Isn't it fierce cold?'

  It wasn't.

  I said, 'It's bitter.'

  Tea and the weather, does it get more Irish?

  I said, 'I'm so sorry about Eoin.'

  Fuck, I tried to come up with some convincing lie about him, but she was his mother, she was going to believe any crumb I could dredge up.

  I tried, 'He was a good man.'

  Brilliant, just fucking inspired.

  She began to sob. Not loudly – worse, those silent ones that rack the frame. A tear ran down her cheek, hit the china cup, made a soft plink, and I knew, knew with every fabric of my being, it would join the phantom orchestra of nightmarish melodies that tormented my sleep.

  She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue, said, 'I'm sorry, Mr Taylor, it's…'

  I rushed in with, 'Please, Mrs Heaton, call me Jack.'

  She wouldn't, but it bought me some time. I asked, 'Is there anything I can do? Get you?'

  She shook her head. 'Eoin was… very troubled, and the drink, that is a fierce curse, he couldn't get free of it.'

  I was trying to think of a way to get out when she said, 'I didn't think he'd bring Blackie.'

  Like a complete moron, I echoed, 'Blackie?'

  As if she was talking to herself, she continued, 'Of course, he loved that dog, and I should have known he'd never leave without him.'

  I felt my mind whirl, dance and reel as I attempted to put this into perspective.

  'Blackie was his dog?'

  The shrewd detective, not missing a beat, right on top of the data.

  She gave a small smile, it lit up her whole lovely face, took thirty years straight off her.

  'He lived for that animal, and when he… he… went into the river, I wasn't surprised he took Blackie.'

  She fumbled in her apron, took out a neatly folded sheet of paper, offered it to me.

  'He left this for me.'

  With a sinking heart, I took it, unfolded it, read:

  My Dear Mamie

  I'm so sorry, I can't go on and please pray for me, I'm bringing Blackie for company, there's a few hundred euro in my sock drawer. I love you Mam.

  XXXXXXX Eoin

  I handed her back the note, unable to say a single word.

  She said, 'He used his belt to tie Blackie to him. It was his Guards one, he was fierce proud of that. When they took his uniform, he held on to the belt. Do you think they'll take it back?'

  'No… No, they won't.'

  I got up to leave, promised I'd call in from time to time, check on her.

  She said, 'You never ate your cake. Wait a minute.' And she went to the alcove, wrapped it in paper, said, 'That will be nice after your dinner. A growing man like yourself, you need something sweet for energy.'

  She reached up and gave me a hug.

  After I got out, I walked down the street in a daze, the slice of cake in my hand like the worst kind of recrimination.

  The pub beckoned stronger than in a long time, but the odd thing, I felt it would be a real slap in the face to Mrs Heaton to use her grief to fuel my own desperation. I was guilty of so many things, but adding her to the list, that I couldn't quite stretch to.

  I swallowed another of Stewart's pills.

  22

  'A thirsty evil; when we drink we die.'

  Shakespeare

  Gail was about to leave the club when the man spoke to her.

  He said, 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer?'

  She'd heard every line in the book, but this caught her. The guy was older than most of the other clubbers, but she could see he was in shape, a tight lean body. But the eyes, the eyes were the lure. Hard, cold, like she knew she had her own self. He was wearing jeans, and a white open-neck shirt that showed off his build.

  She said, 'Is that, like, a line?'

  He shrugged. 'I'm sitting over there, having me some tequila shots. You want to do some?'

  She loved tequila, got you there in jig time. He didn't wait for an answer, just moved on and sat down. That appealed big time. Usually guys were whinging, pleading with her to join them. This one, he acted like he couldn't care less.

  She went and sat opposite him. A row of shots were lined on the table. She asked, looking around at the dancers, 'Aren't you afraid someone will steal your drinks?'

  He gave a small smile.

  'No one will steal my drinks.'

  Solid.

  She raised a glass, said, 'Cheers.' Downed it and felt the nigh instant hit.

  He was staring at her with only a vague disinterest. He said, 'Have another.'

  She did.

  Then, as she let it jolt, she asked, 'Aren't you having some?'

  He flexed his arms – she could see the muscle.

  'I'm on another trip.'

  Gail was astonished. For the first time in – how long? – she was interested in another person. This guy had some moves.

  'Like dope you mean?' she asked.

  He moved a glass towards her.

  'That's some of it?'

  She could see the flames building in the corner of the club, and on impulse asked, 'Do you see… flames?'

  He said with a knowing look, a half smile, 'I ignite them, that's part of the trip.'

  She had to know.

  'And the rest of the trip – what's that?'

 
He leaned over, said, 'I kill people.'

  It had been such a long time since she'd felt attracted to a man, indeed to any human being, but this guy, he had a grace, a litheness, like a panther, and that aura of darkness she knew so well.

  He drained a tot, stood, said, 'Time for my walk by the ocean.'

  Didn't ask if she wanted to come, so she simply followed him.

  Outside the club, he hailed a cab and turned to her.

  'Aren't you afraid of what I might do?'

  The tequila blended nicely with her psychosis and she said, 'You'd need to be good.'

  He held the door of the cab for her, said, 'That's what I thought.'

  He told the driver to take them to Salthill and sat back, staring straight ahead. She loved that, no need for any of that small-talk shite. She felt a delicious frisson of anticipation as they passed the site of the burned-out car. It was gone now, but she could still summon the vibe.

  She said, 'That's where the girl was burned to death.'

  He never looked, said, 'Yeah?'

  Like he could give a fuck.

  He tipped the driver from a wallet laden with cash and it crossed her mind that she might take it later, after she was done with him. As the cab pulled off he said, 'You want money, ask, don't try to take it.'

  And then he was heading towards the water.

  She giggled, blamed the tequila, said to herself, 'I'm in love.'

  They sat and talked for about two hours. He was telling her how the sea washed away everything and then was quiet. She couldn't believe he never made one move on her.

  She said, 'In your wallet, I saw a girl. She your wife?'

  He shook his head, stood up, said, 'Come on, I'll take you home.'

  And took her hand. His touch was electric. She was astounded at herself, letting him do all the running.

  He hailed another cab, got the driver to drop her at her address, and as she got out of the cab he said, 'You want to see me again, I'll be at the beach, Friday night, round eleven. I'll bring some booze, some other stuff.'

  And she was standing on the footpath, wanting to ask him in.

  She asked, 'What's your name?'