Plugged

by Eoin Colfer

‘Now, if you’d be so kind . . .’

  And Faber reads the message in a hitching voice, filled with fear and phlegm.

  ‘I’m in a barrel at The Brass Ring. Bleeding real bad. Faber did this . . .’ The lawyer stops, unable to finish.

  ‘And . . .’

  ‘Please, Mike. I didn’t do this.’

  ‘Read the fucking rest of it.’

  Faber takes a few deep breaths. ‘It says . . . It says . . .’

  Mike can’t wait any longer. ‘It says: If I die, kill the forker. That’s what it says. Kill the forker.’ He laughs. ‘Forker. Predictive text.’

  Faber makes a desperate appeal for his life. ‘There’s this guy. On the floor back there. Covered in his own shit, probably. He did this. All of it.’

  Mike makes a big show of looking around. ‘Nope. No shit-covered mystery guy. You’re in the dock for this, counsellor.’

  ‘But he was there. You have to believe me. I’m telling you the truth.’

  Mike sighs. ‘This is a whole lotta hoopla for not much there-there.’

  I suppose if you’re as powerful as Mike, what you say doesn’t always have to make complete sense, though the hoopla there-there phrase has a ring to it.

  ‘Open the barrel, lads.’

  Two of Mike’s men yank on the lid until one of the teeth gives; the rest relinquish their grip and the barrel yawns open like a lazy crocodile. They pat around in the surface pills for a while until Mike grows impatient for his big moment.

  ‘Tip it,’ he commands.

  ‘Don’t. Please.’ Faber is begging. Maybe that should give me some satisfaction, but it doesn’t. Staying alive is all I want out of this.

  Mike’s boys put their shoulders into the barrel and it teeters past the point of no return, bouncing and skittering across the floor, spilling out a fan of pills and the corpse of Macey Barrett. He comes to rest at Madden’s feet, pools of blue pills in his eye sockets and mouth.

  Faber screams and screams like he’s seeing his own death, which of course he is.

  ‘Oh, please,’ says Irish Mike in disgust, and suddenly there is a gun in his fist.

  Faber holds up his hand to ward off the bullets, but Mike has already pulled the trigger. The bullet takes off Faber’s pointing finger, then continues, barely deflected, into the attorney’s heart.

  Faber clutches his chest, a final scream leaking out of him, takes a step backwards on to the spread of pills. His final act is an ignominious pratfall, then he’s dead on the floor.

  Mike kneels beside Macey Barrett and is about to touch him, when one of his guys coughs gently.

  ‘Uh, boss. Trace.’

  Mike pulls back his fingers. ‘Yeah. Good. Thanks, Calvin. Always looking out for me.’

  He pockets his gun, then gives the room a quick scan, looking for cameras, I’m guessing. I draw back from the freezer porthole and squat under the glass, just breathing and waiting. Deacon is coming around now, muttering to herself, mostly stuff about me, most of it bad.

  I peek through the porthole again and the only people in that room are corpses.

  I see dead people, jokes Zeb.

  Yep. Me too. Far too often.

  You had Mike Madden out there and you never asked him about me.

  There’s a time and place, Zeb. And that wasn’t it.

  I feel a sense of victory that I’m not proud of. My plan was full of holes, but nobody fell into them. Two birds with one bullet. Faber has paid the price for murdering Connie and Irish Mike is no longer on the hunt for Barrett’s killer. Home free.

  That’s really great. I’m happy for you.

  One thing at a time, Zeb. I still got problems.

  One of my problems groans and attempts to sit up. I wedge my forearm under her head and try for a tender smile.

  ‘Hey, Ronnie. How you doing?’

  ‘Who the fuck are you? Joey Tribbiani? And what’s that weird look you’re giving me?’

  I drop the tender smile. ‘Let’s get you off that trolley, Detective. The bust of your career is outside that door.’

  Deacon flaps her palm against the freezer.

  ‘What? The locked steel door?’

  I sit her upright, pulling my jacket tight around her shoulders.

  ‘Have a little faith, Deacon. It’s a freezer, not Fort Knox.’

  There’s a seal around the porthole, which peels off easily once I get a nail underneath it. Most modern freezers have a safety latch on the inside in case anyone gets trapped, but just as Faber said there’s a plate welded over this one.

  Still, it’s just a door with a basic lock. A lot less complicated than your average automobile door.

  I reach down inside my pants.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’

  I pull out the slim jim taped to my leg. ‘For your information, I’m gonna jimmy-jang the lock. Thinking ahead, Ronnie. That’s the secret.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re a regular Nostradamus-seeing-into-the-future-motherfucker.’

  This might not be the time to ask for a second date. I think I preferred Detective Ronelle Deacon when she was blue and frozen.

  I feed the thin steel band into the door’s innards through the slit vacated by the seal. A good carjacker could pop this door in under a dozen seconds, but it takes me half a minute. I feel the latch cord tugging the steel band and I can’t resist a wink at Ronelle before I yank it open.

  ‘Show-off,’ she says, but she’s smiling and I think that maybe there’s a future where she’s not trying to kill me. Maybe.

  Deacon tries to slap me off, but I carry her out into the kitchen. Freezer steam floods out behind us like London fog.

  ‘Christ,’ breathes the detective, and I realise that this is probably her first glimpse of carnage. ‘Whose fault is all of this? Ours?’

  I prop her on a high-backed stool. ‘Goran was dealing drugs,’ I tell her. ‘She had a scam going with Faber ripping off dealers. Faber murdered my friend too.’ I clasp her shoulders firmly, making steady eye contact. ‘They were always heading towards this. None of it is our fault.’

  Deacon does not avert her eyes. ‘I think maybe a lot of it is your fault, Dan. But I don’t know how.’

  A siren sounds in the distance. Coming closer.

  ‘Finally, a concerned citizen,’ says Deacon. ‘I was starting to believe that there weren’t any left.’

  Bad timing, I haven’t had time to drill a story into her.

  ‘Listen, Ronelle. We have shady circumstances here. Very dubious. You have to tell Internal Affairs something they want to hear or both of us will be taking a trip to State.’

  Deacon’s brow furrows, cracking the ice on there. ‘I gotta tell the truth, Dan. There’s no other way. I’m still police.’

  ‘There are bullets from your gun in your partner. Who’s to say that you’re not the bent detective and Goran died trying to take you down? At the very least your career is over for not calling this in last night. At most you get nailed for murder one.’

  It makes sense, but will Deacon see it in time? That siren is awfully close.

  ‘What do you suggest?’

  Thank Christ.

  ‘You got an anonymous tip about Faber on the DeLyne murder, which is true. You came over to find a drug deal in progress. They got the jump on you, shot your partner and locked you in the freezer. You got out and made them pay for shooting a cop.‘

  Deacon’s eyebrows go up and snow flutters down her cheeks. ‘What? All of them?’

  ‘Hey. You’re Ronelle Deacon. You were pissed. I’d believe it.’

  Deacon wrings her fingers, getting the blood flowing. ‘Okay, lemme think.’ She wrings for another second. ‘Right, that’s the stupidest bucket-of-pigshit plan that I ever heard. You know how long it’s gonna take IA to tear that into confetti? What? You hate me, McEvoy. Is that it?’

  ‘Hey, take it easy, Ronelle. I got feelings.’

  ‘So, Officer Deacon, you bust out of a freezer in your French under things, unarmed, and kill like a
hundred guys. Jesus Christ.’

  The sirens are closer; I think I hear tyres squealing. ‘It sounded better when I said it. You’re using mocking voices and stuff.’

  While she’s thinking, Ronelle paws at an automatic in the sink, picking it up with fingers that are still white.

  ‘That’s probably loaded, Ronnie. Just so you know.’

  She twists her frozen finger around the stock. ‘Loaded. Okay. Christ, I hope my spazzy fingers don’t accidentally shoot someone.’

  I swallow drily. ‘Okay. Funny. Now I got to get going.’

  The automatic is pointed roughly at my groin. ‘I’m supposed to let you walk?’

  I try to look earnest and good. ‘Come on, Deacon. I’m just a complication. If I disappear, all is right in the world.’

  The siren is right out front. Red light swings across the roof through the blinds. I start tapping my foot; can’t help it. The foot-tapping jiggles my anklet, so I quickly saw through the strap with a handy cleaver.

  ‘You look like shit, McEvoy,’ comments Deacon as I work.

  ‘Guy tagged me when I was trying to save your life for the second time,’ I say picking up Barett’s phone which I have become attached to.

  I hope I didn’t overplay the hero thing. Doesn’t matter really, because any Brownie points I might have accumulated are about to be wiped out.

  ‘Yep, so anyways, I gotta put you back in the freezer,’ I say, stuffing the anklet in my pocket.

  Deacon’s face says what the fuck?

  ‘My plan was fine, until the last bit about you breaking out and going Rambo.’

  Deacon doesn’t say anything for a moment, and I’m pretty sure she’s thinking about shooting me in a vein.

  ‘You’re a good cop, Ronelle. I know it. This is your chance to be a good cop again. It might cost you a few brain cells, but you can offer that up to Jesus. That’s what we do in Ireland.’

  Deacon mulls it over, then hands me my jacket and nods at the freezer door.

  ‘You’re right. I gotta go back in, fuck it.’

  It really is the only way. If the blues find Deacon strapped to a gurney in a locked freezer, then she is totally clear. She can even claim memory loss.

  ‘It’s just for a few seconds; they’re right here, and I turned the temperature up.’

  Ronelle lets me hoist her back inside. ‘Well turn it back down, dipshit. I hope it’s not Krieger and Fortz. Those two couldn’t find their dicks with a dick-o-scope.’

  Dick-o-scope. Nice.

  I lay Deacon on the trolley, hoping her frozen marrow doesn’t snap, and strap her down just tight enough.

  Before I can secure her right arm, she reaches up and catches my jaw with one shivering hand.

  ‘I’m cold, Daniel,’ she says.

  ‘It’s just for a minute.’

  She pulls me down for an icy kiss. I feel our lips stick together.

  ‘Thanks for coming back. I won’t forget it. Next time I catch you for murder one, I might break it down to manslaughter.’

  ‘Appreciate it.’ It takes a lot for someone like Deacon to say thank you; I expected the barb on the end as soon as she started the sentence.

  ‘You better get out of here before I start warming up.’

  Cute.

  I am out of there.

  CHAPTER 11

  I worked for Zeb off and on for a few years, mostly around Manhattan, and I saw gallons of Botox injected into acres of skin. The money was irregular but good, and I have to admit that the perks were exciting; only problem was, the ladies that Zeb had ministered to were not supposed to do a lot of jiggling for twenty-four hours, so things could be a little muted.

  We got on okay at first. When I say okay, I mean I never had to ask more than five times for my money, and he never tried to hold back more than forty per cent. On one occasion I was forced to shake him by the collar, but that was as rough as it got. Nobody tried to rip him off either for the first year, which really pissed Zeb off; in his twisted mind, nobody ripping him off was tantamount to me ripping him off, as he was paying me for nothing. I tried explaining that I was a bit like a nuclear deterrent, but Zeb refused to see the sense in this, as it didn’t align with how he was thinking. It got so that he started to pick fights with people, daring them to screw with him, or rather with me. Mostly these people were confused housewives who had never heard verbal abuse before that wasn’t filtered through the TV, but every once in a while the household had its own security and I took a couple of unnecessary punches because Zeb felt the need to big himself up. It got so he took to strutting down Eighth Avenue like Tony Minero, tossing insults left and right. He barely noticed me, just took my presence for granted. One night I just stopped at the crosswalk and let him go ahead with his motherfucker this and get out of my way asshole that, until some college kid pounded him a good one in the side of the face. The kind of punch that makes everyone who sees it go damn.

  We parted company soon after and I upped sticks for Cloisters, but after six months Zeb tracked me down and set up Kronski’s Kures in the mini-mall. For almost a year he claimed the relocation was on account of me being his only friend. But one night in O’Leary’s, he got so drunk that he forgot who I was and confided in who he thought I was, saying how some pusher’s girlfriend in Queen’s had a permanent droop on one side of her face on account of the cheap botulism he pumped into her forehead and he was hiding out here in the Styx with the big Mick until things cooled down. But then he started making good green here in Cloisters and decided to stay a while.

  I don’t work for Zeb any more, though he begs me every day. I just hang around with him for free. It’s nice to have a whiskey buddy, plus we have this thing we do with movie references and song titles. Can be lots of fun.

  I’ve been in worse shape, but not recently. Seems to me there was a time when I could take punishment the way a young man takes his liquor; go all night and still function at work the next day. Now I’m grunting with every step, walking like my bones are made of glass. The various tussles with Bonzo, the tuna-melt guy and Faber’s goons have really taken a toll, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I die earlier than I should as a direct result.

  At least the book is closed on Faber, unless he can generate himself a fresh ticker. Whatever his reasons for murdering Connie, he took them to the grave. Maybe when he floats out of the Tunnel, he’ll have to explain himself to St Peter. For his sake, I hope he can come up with something better than she slapped me, Jesus. I would pay good money to hear that conversation.

  The Deacon problem is on hold. But I have a feeling that as soon as Ronnie gets bored of the super-cop tag, she’ll be giving me a call. It would be nice to believe that Detective Deacon would be in my corner should I need some badge. I’ll make the call if I have to, but I’m not counting any chickens. First and foremost Ronnie is a cop, and she’ll uphold the law even if it means hanging her and me both.

  Counting chickens? pipes up Ghost Zeb, still hanging on in there. What the hell are you doing counting chickens?

  Don’t you listen? I’m not counting chickens.

  Counting chickens, not counting chickens, I could give a shit. All these situations you’re closing the door on, what about me? I’m out there somewhere.

  Probably dead.

  Probably, yes. But did you ever think that I could just be maimed? I’m out there somewhere with my dick cut off, I got maybe forty-five minutes to make it to the ER for reattachment surgery.

  I can’t help wincing.

  Okay, Zeb, okay. I’ll make a few enquiries.

  When?

  Soon. Very soon. I just have to pick up my funds at the bus station, then square things with work and Mrs Delano.

  I’m bleeding to death and you’re squaring things?

  If I find you, will you get out of my head?

  Not only that, but I’ll do all your check-ups for free.

  Yeah, see that’s how I know you’re not the real Zeb.

  My apartment should be goon-fr
ee now that Faber’s breath has fogged its last mirror. Just in case there are any hostile stragglers, I dial a phoney B&E call into the local blues from Mr Hong down the hall and slip upstairs to Sofia’s apartment when the cruiser whoops up to the steps.

  Sofia Delano pulls open her door before the knock reverb fades and stands before me, chest heaving like she’s run a mile to get there.

  ‘Carmine,’ she breathes. ‘I’ve been waiting so long.’

  I slip inside her lobby, passing close, feeling the breath from her upturned mouth on my cheek, seeing the sheen of her lipstick.

  Delano reminds me of someone. Not Cyndi Lauper any more; another eighties icon. Blonde hair, blow-dried big. Striped woollen dress, leggings and ballet pumps.

  Ghost Zeb puts his finger on it. We’re the kids in America, woh-oh.

  ‘My Kim Wilde look,’ says Sofia Delano. ‘You always liked it, Carmine. Remember that club? The One Eight Seven? Those were good times.’

  She looks wonderful, smells intoxicating. If only I could remember the good times.

  ‘Mrs Delano . . . Sofia . . . I’m not Carmine. I’m Daniel McEvoy, from downstairs. You hate me, remember?’

  She takes my face in her hands. ‘Not any more,’ she says and kisses me hard. Not any more? Does that mean she doesn’t hate me any more? Or she doesn’t remember?

  I don’t know, and for a moment I don’t care.

  And even though I didn’t share the eighties with this woman, I do remember the decade. And here they are, coming around again. With sweet chocolatey perfume, shoulder pads, the haze of hairspray and soft red lips. This is more than a kiss; it’s a time machine.

  I feel Sofia’s sprayed hair scratch my cheek, and hear the moan in her throat like all her dreams have come true, and I want to weep. Is this how low I have sunk, making out with a disturbed woman?

  I push her gently away, hearing the soft pop as the vacuum seal of our lips is broken.

  ‘W . . . wait,’ I stammer. ‘This is not right. I can’t . . . we can’t.’

  There is a bruise of lipstick smeared across her upper lip. ‘Sure we can, baby. It’s not the first time. But let’s do it like it’s the last.’

  What an invitation. You could sell a movie with a tag-line like that.