Disaster Inc

by Caimh McDonnell

  Smithy just looked at Bunny. The McGarry stare was legendary amongst the Dublin criminal fraternity. The legend was that when Bunny, with his lazy left eye, locked in on somebody, nobody could hold his gaze. He’d used it throughout his career in law enforcement to great effect. It was therefore doubly disconcerting when he found himself wilting under Smithy’s gaze. His big brown eyes gave the unnerving impression that he was looking right into Bunny’s soul.

  “Yeah, alright,” said Bunny. “I wasn’t spiked.”

  Smithy nodded. “The first step is admitting you have a problem.”

  “I’ll drink to that.”

  Bunny held his drink out, and with a shake of his head, Smithy clinked glasses with him.

  Smithy took a sip and then put his glass back down, placing his hands flat on the bar either side of it. As he spoke, he stared at the drink as if he were expecting it to do something. “So, my thing. Diller, by the way, was the first person I ever told about this. On Saturday, you became the second.” Smithy glanced up to see Bunny’s blank expression and gave an exasperated smile. “And now you’re going to be the third too. I wasn’t… I wasn’t always a good guy. I was angry at the world and, well, I wasn’t too bothered about right and wrong, or legal and illegal. To be honest, I’m still not overly concerned about the second part of that. Still, a few years ago, I was involved in a hit and run.”

  “Oh.”

  “I was the ‘hit’ in that equation. Some stoned housewife in her SUV reversed over me in the car park of a 7-Eleven and then hightailed it out of there. They caught her plate on CCTV. She said she thought she’d hit a dog. Can you believe that? A dog! So anyway, I ended up in hospital – broken collarbone, broken leg, head injuries. Quite the delightful smorgasbord of pain. I’m lying there, angry at the world, just, y’know, basting in my own rage and then – bam! Clear as crystal and live in stereophonic sound, I hear in my head, the voice of God.”

  Smithy stared at his whiskey once more.

  Bunny wasn’t sure what to say. “Jesus. That’s a hell of a thing alright. Are you very religious?”

  “No. Stone-cold fundamentalist atheist. Dust to dust, all that.”

  “Oh. That must be a bit awkward?”

  “Yeah, no kidding. So, I ignore it. It’s the drugs. It’s PTSD. It’s whatever. But it keeps happening. And happening. And happening. I try blocking it out, but it just gets worse. I try drinking myself to oblivion, but it keeps coming back. It is driving me crazy. I would’ve gone to see a shrink, but I couldn’t afford it. Then one day I gave up fighting it. I just started listening to the voice.”

  “Right.”

  “Do you know what it kept telling me? ‘Help this person, help that person.’ And I did, to see if it’d shut up, and guess what? It did – at least for a little while. This nurse who took care of me, nice Puerto Rican lady, her son had got mixed up with some bad people and run off. I went and found him, got him to go back home.”

  “Fair play.”

  “Look, I know how this sounds. ‘The Voice of God.’ But here’s the thing: after I did that, I felt better than I had in such a long time. It felt good to help somebody else. So y’know, PTSD, mental illness – hell, it could be the actual voice of God, I don’t pretend to know. All I do know is, pain in the ass that it is, that voice makes me a better person and I… I guess I kinda dig it. Don’t get me wrong, I ain’t no saint now or nothing like that, but I do listen to the voice when it comes to me.”

  Smithy picked up his drink and took another sip. Bunny did likewise. They both savoured it for a moment.

  “Can I ask,” said Bunny, “why did you decide to tell me this if you’ve only ever told Diller?”

  “Because you told me how you were here looking to save your woman. On a big mission and all that and, well, I could relate. Plus, I was really, really drunk. Your bottomless ATM card is the work of the devil.”

  “Well,” said Bunny, “I can’t remember it, so I’m guessing you’re right. So, hang on – not even Cheryl knows about this?”

  “Christ, no!” said Smithy, giving Bunny an appalled look. “The woman comes from Southern Baptist stock, and me and her… Let me put it this way: do you think you could have sex with someone if, right at that moment, you thought God might be talking to them?”

  “Oh. Right.”

  “Yeah. I’m trying to be a better man; I ain’t trying to be a celibate one. Only you and Diller know, and to be honest, that’s more than enough.”

  “Speaking of Diller,” said Bunny.

  “How I know him,” Smithy interrupted, “Diller, I mean, is the voice told me to help him, so I did. One of the first. I’m glad I did too. He’s a good kid.”

  “Yeah,” said Bunny, “but like I said, he’s got his flaws too.”

  Smithy sighed. “Yeah.”

  “All today,” continued Bunny, “I’ve been chasing my own tail. I’m not much for this detecting lark, but I got there eventually. Whoever robbed me when, let’s be honest, I almost certainly passed out, took my wallet and my phone, but they left me with twenty dollars and the picture of Simone.”

  “OK.”

  “The picture, no matter how pissed I am, I always put back in the pocket of my wallet, because drunk or not, I don’t stop being me.”

  Smithy said nothing.

  “So, somebody took my wallet, then took the picture out and put it back in my coat. That means they knew what it meant to me.”

  Smithy let out a deep sigh and put his forehead down on the countertop. “Shit.”

  “I wasn’t ripped off by a stranger.”

  “No,” said Smithy, lifting his head and running his fingers through his hair. “No. I’m guessing you weren’t. Damn it, Diller!”

  “Did you know?”

  Smithy shook his head. “Not for sure, but I had a suspicion.”

  “I need my stuff back – and fast.”

  “OK, but…” Smithy turned about in his chair. “But first, I need you to understand. Yeah, he’s got a propensity for larceny. It’s… it’s like a compulsive thing. He’s not in control of it.”

  Bunny pulled a face.

  “Need I remind you” – Smithy first pointed at himself – “inveterate gambler who starts fights in bars and then hears the voice of God” – then at Bunny – “heavy drinker who blacks out and wades into fights in bars.”

  “I was backing you up! Well, I assume I was.”

  “Exactly my point. I’m just saying, none of us is perfect. He’s done wrong, but I’m not telling you where he is until we come to an understanding. No cops and nothing too heavy.”

  “I’m not a big fan of crime,” said Bunny.

  “Really? Have you been one hundred per cent inside the law today at all times when trying to track down your stuff?”

  Bunny thought about this as he sipped at his beer. “Alright, but that was mostly self-defence.”

  “Yeah, but not all of it was, was it? Same as I consider myself a moral man, but odds are that, after another drink, I’m going back to Bernice’s and stealing a Siberian husky because he deserves a better life than having an a-hole owner who thinks it’s OK to turn him into a punchline. Gene frickin’ Simmons!”

  “Did…” Bunny hesitated.

  “What?”

  “Did…” Bunny lowered his voice. “Did God tell you to steal it?”

  “No, this is all me.”

  “And nicking my stuff, that was all Diller,” said Bunny.

  “Yeah, OK. I get it. I’m not saying the kid isn’t responsible for his actions. I’m just saying, nature versus nurture. Diller’s a good kid by nature but he’s a damned thief mostly by circumstance. He had to be, just to survive this long. So, just, y’know, go easy.”

  “What am I supposed to do? Ask nicely?”

  Smithy gave him a look. “We haven’t known each other long, Bunny, but I’m going to guess you’re really good at knowing how to ask a question.”

  It was Bunny’s turn to sigh. “Alright, you have my wor
d.”

  “OK.”

  “So, you know where he is?”

  “No,” said Smithy. “But I know where he’ll be in about an hour.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Douglas Randall smiled.

  He was good at smiling. It was an underrated skill. When he’d first got into TV news, he’d been a “weather reporter” on a nothing channel in Montana. They’d only used the title of weather reporter because the producer said it gave the job a bit of gravitas. Plus, it meant the kid that did the weather could also be sent out to state fairs to report on the size of livestock and pies – and people after they’d eaten all those damn pies. Doug Randall, as he’d been known back then, had been the know-nothing, eager puppy yapping at the heels of the revered top dog of channel MNN, Terry McNamara, the face of Montana news. Terry had called himself a mentor. In reality, that meant Doug spent a lot of time sitting at bars with Terry before pouring him into the back of a cab and making sure he got home in as many pieces as he’d been in when he’d left that morning. Terry was a master. He could’ve made the phonebook sound exciting. After the broadcast, Doug would stay behind for hours and read and reread Terry’s script off the teleprompter, trying to learn the skill. Doug had always been ambitious. He’d wanted to be a news anchor ever since he’d been old enough to know what one was. He owed Terry for that.

  One night, when they’d been out drinking, Doug had helped a particularly smashed Terry all the way back to his “in town” apartment, which he’d got for convenience – Terry’s wife no longer being able to stand the sight of him having proven particularly inconvenient. After Doug had managed to get Terry onto the sofa, he’d been instructed to sit down. Terry told him that if he wanted to succeed in the news business there were three things he needed to do.

  The first thing he needed to do was drop this Doug crap and be Douglas. Doug was a guy who helped you move a wardrobe and came over to your house on Super Bowl Sunday and dominated the dip. Douglas, on the other hand, was a man of importance who could be trusted to handle the news.

  The second thing Doug, now Douglas, needed to do was work on his smile. It wasn’t a dental thing. Douglas’s teeth were perfect – he’d spent large chunks of his first few pay cheques making sure of it. Terry explained the all-important smile. Anyone could look serious talking about the economy going down the toilet or bombs being dropped – that was easy. The tricky bit – the bit that made a career – was the “other news” smile. At the back end of the broadcast, when the stories got lighter, that was where you made hay. It was the finest of balancing acts: too jolly and you couldn’t be trusted; too sombre and you lacked personality. As Terry had explained it, “You’re in people’s homes every night. A lot of the time, they’re eating dinner with you. Alone. You give ’em that soft half-smile, it’s like you’re sharing something. You’re a friend. A partner. You have a relationship. You’re someone they can trust.” Then Terry had given Doug that patented McNamara smile, the one that made him beloved throughout the state by people who didn’t even know why.

  The third thing that Douglas needed to do, in Terry’s opinion, turned out to be Terry. In one fluid motion, he stood and dropped his pants. Douglas stood, slapped Terry fraternally on the shoulder, thanked him for the great advice and walked out. The last thing he saw as he closed the door was Terry standing there, holding his penis, his confused expression that of a guy who couldn’t understand why the empty cab that’d passed him by hadn’t stopped when he waved.

  Terry had been right on all three counts. Doug had been Douglas from that moment forth. Douglas had spent hours with a camcorder and in front of the mirror, perfecting the “other news” smile. And, to the surprise of both of them, Terry’s penis had indeed made Douglas’s career – in particular, the crippling urinary infection that hospitalised him in the first week of April 1996. Douglas got to step in as emergency anchor. As luck would have it, that was the week Theodore John Kaczynski, aka the Unabomber, was arrested at his shack in the mountains, just up the road near Lincoln, Montana. Three days later, Terry was back, by which time “the kid” had been given the kind of exposure that makes a career. A year later, he was picked up by Philadelphia’s number two station, and then a few years after that, Channel 8 News, New York. Then, Douglas had hit his ceiling, although he hadn’t known it for quite some time. Still, it had been a good run. Tonight, he and his wife Tina were out with the station’s owner, news director and three of the producers, ostensibly celebrating Douglas’s fifteen-year anniversary with the station. Ostensibly, because really it was about the other person at the table – Kristy Munroe. She was Harvard smart, California pretty and Tonya Harding ambitious, and she was his new co-anchor. Douglas knew that the higher-ups were making sure that Douglas felt like he was still the alpha dog in the newsroom – mainly because he wasn’t, and everybody knew that. This time yesterday, Douglas had been hunkered down with Tina, strategising his defence of the big chair. After all, there had been other Kristys. This wasn’t his first Kristy and it wouldn’t be his last. This time yesterday, that fight had been all-consuming. Now, Douglas couldn’t give two shits about Kristy. That was because today, the news had stood right in front of him and dropped its pants.

  When the first reports had come in, he’d thought that maybe it was someone else. There had to be hundreds – thousands – of dominatrixes in New York. Statistically, lots of them probably had places in Astoria. Every new titbit tossed out by the NYPD had been another hole below the waterline for the version of events Douglas had been trying to construct in his head. Then he’d sat there, on camera, reading out the news that confirmed that his world was indeed crumbling around him. The cops would be looking into the client list of Amy DeSilva, real name Amy Daniels, sooner rather than later. If she had kept a diary, any records – anything – he was done for. Up until that point, it had been easy to convince himself that he could keep his ordinary life and that other thing separate. He’d constructed a world where they could peacefully co-exist. He loved his wife. Seeing Amy had not been about that.

  Nowhere in all of that carefully constructed narrative had he considered what would happen if his dominatrix became America’s most wanted. He’d briefly considered coming clean, but he hadn’t known where to start. Tina would divorce him, Channel 8 would drop him, and Kristy would feast on his carcass while being careful not to get any on her Armani suit. So, in the absence of any form of plan, Douglas did what he did best and smiled.

  The head of news had just finished telling a story that everyone at the table had heard at least a half-dozen times. Kristy laughed so hard that the TV comedian at the next table looked over a little envious. Douglas chuckled appreciatively and then excused himself. He’d needed to pee since the first course, but he’d been holding it. He couldn’t risk going to the john twice in a meal; it’d emphasise his age. Dan Rather could sit there in a nappy if he had to, but Douglas knew that he wasn’t Dan Rather.

  He moved through the tables, nodding smiles at faces he knew or people who looked at him like they knew him. This was La Mora – everyone in this restaurant was somebody, you had to be just to get in. He headed down the hall towards the bathrooms, passing a large African American gentleman coming the other way. Douglas was ninety per cent sure he was that rapper, the one who was supposed to be leading a revolution against the fat cats. Hey, even the voices of their generation needed a little hundred-dollar lobster every now and then. As he walked towards the gents, a blonde woman in sunglasses poked her head out of the disabled bathroom on the right. Maybe that was where the rapper had just come from. Rumour had it, that very room was where the former backup quarterback for the New York Jets had managed to get a waitress pregnant between courses. The joke had gone that it was the only pass he’d completed successfully in years.

  Douglas smiled at the blonde as he walked by.

  “Douglas!” She spoke in an urgent whisper. He gave her a second look but kept moving. While it was flattering, the last thing he needed
was a quickie in the disabled bathroom. He had more than enough troubles already.

  “Douglas, get in here.”

  He froze, his foot hanging in mid-air. It couldn’t be. It could not be. There was no way it could be. “Douglas!”

  He closed his eyes. It was. He knew well what she sounded like when she was annoyed with him. For three years, he’d been paying her to be angry with him every second Thursday.

  The blonde who wasn’t a blonde slipped her head back inside as the door to the ladies’ opened and someone who used to be someone stepped out. Douglas smiled and, thinking fast, fished his phone out of his pocket.

  He could just go to the john. Maybe she’d be gone when he got back out? Being a wanted murderer surely meant you couldn’t hang around in disabled bathrooms indefinitely. How did she even get in here? It had taken him six weeks and some begging just to get a reservation for his anniversary last year.

  “Douglas! Get in here.”

  Maybe it was the fact that he was used to doing what she said, but he found himself checking the coast was clear and then stepping into the disabled bathroom. She closed the door behind him. “We don’t have much time.”

  “Much time?” Douglas said. “We have no time. You can’t be here. We don’t know each other.”

  “Relax, Douglas.”

  “Relax? My wife, my boss, my… everything is outside, and I’m in the disabled bathroom with a murderer.”

  In some part of his brain that didn’t seem to understand the severity of the situation, Douglas registered that the blonde hair was a wig. Still, she’d look pretty good if she went that way.

  “I’m being set up. A client told me something he shouldn’t, and someone wants me gone really badly. Come on, Douglas, you know me.”

  “I… I… No, I don’t. We’ve never met. How did you even find me?”

  “I followed you from your office.”

  “You’ve been to my office?” His voice rose a half octave. “What if somebody saw you?”

  “Then I’d be in handcuffs now.” She held out a piece of paper. “Here, take this.”