Plugged

by Eoin Colfer

  After a while the only ones sober are me and Jason, and he’s been chewing steroids like they’re Juicy Fruit.

  ‘This is fucked up, man,’ he says for the hundredth time.

  Some of the hostesses echo the sentiment back to him, but the number dwindles each time he says it.

  I know how Jason feels; there are no words for this kind of situation. Nothing covers it. The numbness is leaving me now, and I miss it. In its place there’s a ball of nausea in my gut.

  Have they told little Alfredo and Eva? Who’s going to take them in?

  I feel myself getting Irish maudlin again, asking the big questions. Where has my life gone? What have I got? I remember my brother Conor and the look he always had on his face. The look you see on dogs in the pound, the ones they find in burlap with chains coiled at the bottom.

  Fresh wounds are like doors into the past. Who said that? Hope to Christ it wasn’t Zeb. I don’t want to be therapising myself with any of his skewed wisdom.

  Thanks a bunch. I said plenty of wise shit. Who told you not to fuck with the Jews? Who told you that?

  By the time we run out of silver tequila, the cops are ready for interviews. They set up in Vic’s office and summon us one by one. I go second, after Brandi, who comes out snapping her fingers, like she’s won some kind of victory.

  There are two local detectives in the room, both African-American females, which is not as much of a long shot as it used to be. They’ve squeezed themselves behind Vic’s desk and swept some of his porn memorabilia into a drawer. The junior detective is the lady who gave Vic grief over his trainers. I want to take a liking to this girl, but she’s got her arms folded across her chest and is wearing a pretty clear I don’t make friends face. I duck from habit under the steel construction beam that spans the ceiling, even though it’s a couple of inches above head height, and sit opposite the detectives.

  I point at a Pirelli calendar on the wall. ‘You might want to take that down too.’

  I am not being a smartarse here; it is important to me that this investigation goes well. The first forty-eight hours, as they say.

  The younger detective rips the calendar out of the wall, taking a chunk of Sheetrock with it.

  ‘Satisfied, Mister McEvoy?’ she asks, giving me the bad-cop eyeball. We are off on the wrong foot; she has me down as non-cooperative.

  ‘That was a genuine suggestion,’ I protest, calmly and sincerely. ‘Connie was my friend and I want her killer caught.’

  The cops are not won over by my Irish brogue; if anything, a foreigner seems to make them more suspicious. They sit up, shuffle papers and stuff, bump shoulders in the tight space. They were going for authoritative, lining up behind the desk like that, but they look like two school kids squeezed behind a bench.

  ‘Cornelia DeLyne was your friend, Mister McEvoy?’ says the older of the two.

  Cornelia? I don’t know why Connie’s full name surprises me, but it does.

  ‘Mister McEvoy?’

  I focus on the lead detective. She is maybe forty, striking, a slash of rouge on both cheeks, strands of silver in her cropped hair. She wears a grey suit and a colourful Jamaican parrot shirt that kind of jumps out at you.

  ‘Yes, Detective . . . ?’

  ‘I’m Detective Goran, this is Detective Deacon.’

  Deacon, the smart mouth, is early thirties. Severe grey suit, wearing anger on her face like latex. I know the type; very serious about her work.

  ‘Well, Detective Goran, Connie and I were good friends. More than that, briefly.’

  I figure Brandi has already told her.

  ‘So she broke up with you, and you were pissed off.’

  I don’t sigh dramatically; I was expecting this.

  ‘We never broke up, as such. We had a weekend together, and I think there was another one coming up. If you want to talk pissed off, we had quite a ruckus in here last night. Bunch of college kids.’

  ‘We know all about it,’ says Deacon, cutting across me. ‘Harmless hijinks, I’d say. We want to talk about you, Mister McEvoy. You’re saying you were this beautiful young lady’s booty call?’

  I heard this phrase once maybe five years ago. Nobody uses it any more.

  ‘Booty call, Detective?’

  ‘Fuck buddy. How does that suit you?’

  From hijinks to fuck buddy in a couple of heartbeats. We’re down to this level already? I expected another minute of civility, but this is how it goes. It’s not personal, except with Deacon I have the feeling that maybe it is.

  ‘Okay, I get it, Detective. I know, she’s . . . she was twenty-eight and I’m . . .’

  ‘You’re what? Seventy?’

  I don’t get riled. ‘I’m forty-two. I counted my lucky stars, believe me.’

  Deacon goes for it. ‘You want to know what I think? I think you were fixated on Miss DeLyne. Obsessed. She kept turning you down. It’s disgusting, right? You’re an old man in a silly hat. So you freaked and shot her. Why don’t you sign the paper and we can call it a day?’

  I can’t see myself, but I bet my jaw is jutting stubbornly. ‘Not that easy, Deacon. You’re going to have to work on this one.’

  ‘Come on, Danny, give it up. I’m tired and the coffee stinks.’

  ‘What? You think I’m going to break down and blubber out a confession?’ I turn to Goran. ‘She always this lazy?’

  I shouldn’t be smart-arsing, but Deacon needs to refine her style a little. This shooting has to be solved and the detective is throwing spears into the ocean hoping to hit something.

  Goran shields her face with a file and I suspect she’s smiling. ‘You know the young ’uns, Mister McEvoy. Instant gratification.’

  And suddenly Deacon is smiling too and I realise that this bull-in-a-china-shop attitude of hers is the oldest trick in the book.

  ‘You do bad cop pretty good,’ I tell her. ‘But time’s a-wastin’ and I am not the guy.’

  Deacon flips open a field laptop. ‘Really? You have quite a file here, Mister Daniel McEvoy. And looky here, an interview with the FBI tagged on at the end.’

  Groan. Word travels fast over the internet. Some tool in the army records department e-mailed my info to the FBI last year. Not so much as a court order and he shoots it across the pond.

  ‘I know what the file says. If you look at the end of that page, you’ll find it was a case of totally mistaken identity. I got an official apology, for Christ’s sake.’

  Deacon ignores this, reading with great melodrama like she doesn’t already know what’s on the screen.

  ‘Company Sergeant Daniel McEvoy. Active service in the Lebanon.’ She says Lebanon with jazz hands, like it’s Disneyland. ‘Extremely dangerous individual. Trained in close-quarter combat. Expert knife man.’

  ‘I don’t like bazookas,’ I say, straight-faced. Luckily my file doesn’t mention sniper and marksman skills. I learned those on my own.

  ‘You’ve done some things, Daniel.’

  ‘Not murder.’

  ‘Not murder,’ she jeers, doing my accent. ‘Sez you. What are you, Daniel? Albanian?’

  ‘I’m Irish, American too. My mother was from Manhattan. It’s on the screen.’

  She checks it. ‘Your mom moved to Ireland from New York? Isn’t that a little ass to mouth?’

  Now she’s talking about my mother, it’s like we’re in the schoolyard. But it’s tactics, might even rile someone a little shorter in the tooth. I have to admit, this Deacon woman stirs shit good.

  ‘I think you mean ass backwards.’

  I’m watching Goran through all this. The senior officer taking everything in, letting Deacon have her head, for now. This is their routine. Mother and tearaway daughter, I can see how it could work on a guilty person. Not that I ain’t a guilty person; I’m just not guilty of this.

  What I want to do is cut through the bullshit, stop playing the game and really talk to these people.

  ‘Look,’ I say, palms up, which is body talk for trust me. ‘I liked
Connie, loved her a little maybe. Can we skip the regulation back-and-forth and see if I can’t actually help out? Come on, I’m not right for this. Once upon a time I was a professional. Do you seriously think I would shoot Connie, then leave her not ten yards from where I’m sitting drinking coffee? How does that make sense?’

  Goran nods slowly, accepting the truth of my argument.

  Deacon believes it too, but she sticks to her role just in case I’m a better actor than she is. ‘How do we know what kind of psycho you are, Daniel? Maybe you didn’t get enough killing in the army. Maybe you want us to catch you.’

  I’m staring at Goran now, head to one side. ‘Okay. I see what you’re doing. You’ve got nothing, so you’re shaking the tree.’

  Deacon closes the laptop. ‘Shaking the tree? Is that some kind of racist comment, McEvoy?’

  I do my best to ignore this accusation. ‘Ask me something relevant,’ I say to Detective Goran. ‘The clock is ticking. Your actual murderer is probably halfway across the GW bridge by now.’

  Goran is not ready to share just yet and covers the file with her forearm. ‘This looks like a crime of opportunity, Mister McEvoy. Right place for him, wrong place for her. Some crack-head looking for bag money.’

  It’s a theory, but not a great one. In Ireland we would say she was patting my bottom and closing the door behind me.

  ‘You’re in Cloisters, Detective. We’re not exactly overrun with crackheads. This is the roughest joint in town and I haven’t even seen a needle in a couple of years. How many crackheads you know can make a shot right between the eyes?’

  Goran’s chin comes up. ‘You saw the wound, Daniel. How’d that happen?’

  That was a little slip. Maybe it’s time to stop talking so fast.

  ‘I made it my business to see before the tape went on. Wanted to be sure it was Connie.’

  ‘Touch anything?’

  ‘Not one damn thing.’

  Goran gives me a long look, searching my eyes for the lie, which she doesn’t find, or maybe she does find it and decides to give me a little rope to tie myself up with.

  ‘Take a walk, but not too far. I’ll be dialling your number.’

  My shoulders sag. ‘You don’t want to ask me anything useful?’

  ‘You want to tell me something useful?’

  I leave without saying another word.

  CHAPTER 5

  I had a whole six months of sessions with Simon Moriarty before the medical discharge finally came through after my second tour. Twice a week I took a bus to his Dalkey practice and waved a cup of coffee under his nose until he rolled out of bed.

  ‘Come on, Sergeant,’ Moriarty said to me one day, with a grin that told me he knew a whole lot more about the world than I did. ‘Make it difficult for me. This is too easy, textbook stuff.’

  I was lying on an oxblood leather sofa, feeling about as comfortable as a cat in the doghouse. Usually Simon lay on the sofa, but this was our last session and he was taking me to task.

  ‘I’m an open book, huh?’

  ‘A pane of glass, Sergeant. Trans-parent.’

  ‘Let me in on the secret, Doc. What’s my problem?’

  Simon lit a thin cigar. ‘With Irish and Jews usually it’s the mother; with you it’s daddy dearest.’

  I sat up, gave him a serious look. ‘Are you trying to tell me that having an abusive father leads to problems in later life? You must be some kind of genius.’

  ‘Hilarious, Sergeant. Hiding behind humour. Good tactic. How’s that been working out for you?’

  Simon could be a pain in the arse, but he generally hit the nail on the head.

  I lay down. ‘Not so good. Listen, Doc, everyone’s got problems, issues, whatever. You just get on with it, try to stay as calm as possible.’

  Moriarty flicked ash from the front of his Ramones T-shirt. ‘That’s what we’re here to as-certain, Daniel. Can you stay calm? We can’t go releasing a trained murder machine into the big city if he can’t keep his talents to himself.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that. I’ve seen enough bloodshed.’

  ‘You have plans?’

  ‘I’m free on Tuesday and I know a nice bar.’

  More ash-flicking. ‘Life plans, smartarse. With your tendencies, you need to be careful what kind of situations you put yourself in.’

  ‘Tendencies? You make me sound like a pervert.’

  ‘Here’s my theory, Daniel. You had a violent father who beat up on your mother, yourself and your baby brother, got the entire family, except you, killed drunk driving. So now you feel like you have to protect the defenceless. That’s why you joined up. Not to kill, to pro-tect. The problem is that you also have difficulties with authority, father figures. So, you felt compelled to join the army, and you also felt com-pelled to clock your superiors. Do you see the conflict?’

  I felt I had to defend myself. ‘My superior officer left three of his own men pinned down between Israeli troops and the militia and he refused to order any covering fire. Some people need to be clocked.’

  Simon pretended to write something. ‘There are protocols for these things, Dan.’

  ‘I know. Fired upon twice, blah-blah-blah.’

  ‘So you broke protocol and once again drew fire on your own twenty by deciding to ignore the chain of command and providing some covering fire of your own.’

  ‘Twenty? That’s CB, not military.’

  ‘I’m reaching out; cut me some slack. So you break protocol, this time getting half a mortar shell up yer hole.’

  ‘It was a whole shell.’

  Simon frowned. ‘A shell made specifically for holes?’

  ‘Whole with a silent w.’

  ‘Oh, I see. But my point stands: you felt compelled to protect.’

  ‘Com-pelled to pro-tect. Got it. Where were you when I was signing up?’

  ‘Also you have the gambling addiction.’

  This was a new one. ‘Addiction? Come on. Who told you that? I like a hand of poker, it’s true, but no more than the next man. It’s hardly a problem.’

  ‘Wishful thinking,’ Simon admitted. ‘I grow weary of this analysis, plus I like a game of poker myself.’

  ‘I don’t think you’re a man to be bluffed.’

  Simon closed his notebook with a snap. ‘All in all, I think the medical discharge is the best thing for you.’

  ‘Medical discharge? Sounds disgusting.’

  ‘Find yourself a nice conflict-free position,’ continued Moriarty, ignoring my attempt to hide behind humour. ‘Somewhere you don’t have to protect anyone.’

  I can’t help it. ‘Don’t you mean pro-tect?’

  Simon ha-ha’ed drily. ‘Very good. Wisecracks, the fast track to mental health. Seriously, Dan, find yourself a stress-free position. No cards, no boss and no one depending on you for their well-being.’

  So now I’m a doorman at a casino. But it’s not my fault; I’m com-pelled.

  The town is busy tonight, but I don’t feel connected. It’s like I’m watching everything through a dirty window. The world I’ve been holding together with spit and dreams is finally coming apart. The cops toss us out on the street like we’re trespassers and tell us to get lost. There won’t be any rickety roulette or polka-dot bikinis tonight.

  Connie is dead, Zeb is missing. I killed a person with a key, for Christ’s sake.

  I know that really the key part of it is not important, but there seems to be some kind of irony in it.

  Instead of locking the door, I opened Barrett’s doorway to the next life.

  Forced. Laboured.

  There is no key to life, just a key to death.

  Better, but I won’t be writing slim volumes of poetry any time soon.

  I feel sick deep in my stomach and there’s bile in my throat. Bile and tequila. I stop and spit in the drain, and as I hawk it up, bent over with my hand on a pole, I see a glint of streetlight on a gum wrapper and remember something.

  Macey Barrett’s stiletto spinning
like a cheerleader’s baton, burying itself in the ceiling.

  The stiletto. It’s still there.

  Shit.

  Shit. Shite and bollocks.

  What can I do about it? What should I do?

  I straighten slowly, like a very old man, and actually admonish myself aloud.

  ‘Okay, Daniel. Think about this calmly.’

  In the third person now? Christ, things are bad.

  Unfortunately my calm thinking space is out of service at the moment. I try to swat aside the waves of grief and tequila fumes, but my brain is fogged and buzzing.

  It should be fine.

  So the stiletto is up there; it shouldn’t lead back to me unless there’s a spy-cam in the handle.

  The way my luck’s been going . . .

  I chuckle and spit one last time to restore my manhood after all those thoughts of irony.

  Think this thing through.

  Going back to the surgery would be a big mistake. Irish Mike could be keeping an eye on the place, and showing up would only put me on his radar.

  What about Zeb?

  I want to think something positive, I would kill for some kind of bright shining answer, but there’s nothing coming out of my brain but fog and sadness.

  Connie, darlin’.

  Zeb is dead.

  Call him and find out. It’s a thought.

  I block the ID on Barrett’s Prada cell and punch in Zeb’s number.

  Couple of rings, then a man answers.

  ‘Yeah?’

  Not Zeb. I can tell from a single syllable. Zeb’s got this asthma voice, all in the nose.

  ‘Dr Kronski?’ I ask, like it’s a professional call.

  ‘Who’s speaking?’ says the man.

  ‘You are,’ I say, and hang up. I should probably have invented some medical yarn and promised to call back later, but I can’t be bothered.

  They’re answering his calls too. Whatever Macey Barrett was looking for, they haven’t found it yet, otherwise Zeb’s phone would be at the bottom of the reservoir, along with his body.

  I shouldn’t have called. I don’t want any of this information; it’s funnelling me towards a choice.

  There’s a dawn glow cupping the clouds by the time I get home. I feel like crap and probably look like week-old crap. The last thing I need is my upstairs neighbour Mrs Delano going off on an abuse bender, not to mention the fact that Mike Madden could have cottoned on to my being a fly in his ointment by now.