Eightball Boogie

by Declan Burke

  “Money isn’t everything. She might have been depressed.”

  I didn’t like it, Kilfeather being so reasonable. It meant I was on the wrong track.

  “And maybe she thought Santa wouldn’t come. Who found her, Tom?”

  “No can do, Rigby.”

  “Jesus, Tom –”

  The voice came from over my shoulder, gruff, a cement mixer learning German.

  “Kilfeather?”

  He didn’t look down at me. I looked up to where a wide face was crowned with thin blonde hair. The suit was a size too small but a Big Top would have been a size too small. He had a Desperate Dan chin and you could have landed a helicopter on his chest in a gale. The smell of stale whiskey wafted across, harsh as petrol. I hoped, for his sake, he was drunk when he bought the camelhair overcoat.

  Kilfeather smartened up.

  “That’s right, yeah. Brady, isn’t it?”

  “When I’m off-duty. Right now it’s Detective Brady. Who’s this fucker?”

  “He’s a local hack. Rigby they call him.”

  “What’s he doing here?”

  “Sniffing around.”

  “No shit, Holmes. How come he’s here?”

  Kilfeather shrugged, squared his shoulders, letting Brady know, he didn’t appreciate the third degree.

  “How come any of us are here? He heard about it, thought there might be something worth seeing.”

  “He get it downtown?”

  “Probably.”

  “Who?”

  Kilfeather shrugged.

  “Who the fuck knows?”

  “Find the fuck out or I’ll cite you in the report. What’d you tell him?”

  Kilfeather seethed, cheeks flaming. Dug the word out, rough. “Nothing.”

  “You took a while doing it.”

  “He thinks she didn’t top herself. I put him straight.”

  “Straight – what’s straight?”

  “That it’s an ongoing investigation but the signs point to suicide. That much he had already.”

  Brady spat, pulled up his belt up.

  “Next time, send him to me. No – next time, bang him up.”

  “Yessir. What charge?”

  He looked at me for the first time, top to bottom in a sideways glance.

  “Cheap shoes,” he sneered. “And hey, Kilfeather?”

  “What?”

  “Get snotty again and I’ll wipe your fucking nose.”

  He went back to the Mondeo, lit a cigarette, caught Kilfeather throwing some juju eyeball. Rubbed his nose, slow and deliberate, so Kilfeather glared at me instead. I took the hint and left.

  2

  Herbie was still draped across his moped, shivering.

  “Well?”

  “It might not be suicide.”

  “You got something?”

  “Nothing you could quote in a family newspaper.”

  “Fuck.”

  He straightened up, blew on his hands, remembered he was wearing gloves. Stared out over the lake to the town sprawled across the foot of the mountain, a verruca out of control. Out across the five miles to the Atlantic, chopping up grey and white.

  “Regan tell you who found her?”

  “No.”

  “Think he might?”

  “Squeeze the sponge, Harry, it dries up.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” I dug out the makings, bummed a skin, rolled a twist. “Alright, leave it with me, I’ll make some calls. It’s already too late for the evening editions anyway.”

  “Kilfeather’s a bastard.”

  “He’s Dibble, Herb. That’s his job. Anyway, Kilfeather isn’t the problem. There’s a big lad from out of town running the show.”

  “You didn’t get anything from him?”

  “He didn’t see me, I wasn’t up a ladder. And a word to the wise. If he finds out Regan leaked you the story, Regan’ll be springing a few leaks of his own.”

  He swore, sparked up a ready-rolled from his grass-sprinkled pouch, eyeballing the garda leaning against the driveway pillar. Picked a flake of tobacco from his lower lip, flicked it in the garda’s direction, leaving the middle finger extended. The garda stared back, placid. Herbie said: “Think they’re in on it?”

  “Who – the Dibble?”

  “Who else? Fuckers’re into everything else.”

  “Herb – why would the Dibble want Imelda Sheridan dead?”

  “Maybe she was running a brothel, got the Inspector in a compromising position. Maybe she’s plotting a coup, Tony for president, the Dibble got wind of it.” He shrugged, matter of fact. “Could be anything.”

  I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  “Get off the weed, Herb. Seriously, man. Your head’s in a jam jar.”

  He started winding up, getting excited, tone urgent.

  “This is front-page stuff, Harry. Banner headlines. Big fuck-off shots, see them a mile off, my name at the bottom. Mine, not those Fhotoprint fuckdogs.”

  The agency took a cut of everything we cooked up, which bothered Herbie. It didn’t bother me, thirty per cent of fuck all being approximately fuck all.

  “Nail it down, Harry. I gave you this one on a plate. Coke, suicide, possible murder, the fucking lot. What more do you need?”

  “How about proof?”

  “What’re you talking about, proof?” He waggled his camera bag. “The shots’re ready to roll, beauts too, hole in her neck you could roll the black ball into. Only words these babies need are someone’s name on a cheque.”

  “What about some kind of idea of why? A detail or two?” I was stalling, watching the maroon Civic pulling up, the bodywork too fresh for it to be anything but a rental. “It needs to be done right, Herb. We do it right or we don’t do it at all.”

  He heard the Civic, turned and looked. Shrugged, the anger evaporating too quick to be healthy.

  “It’ll be done alright, but not by us. Here’s the fucking cavalry now.”

  She was petite, five-two at most, the kind of late twenties that takes years of practice. The hair a tangerine peek-a-boo bob, the lipstick apricot. The smile friendly, chasing freckles across the bridge of a snub nose. The eyes deep enough to give me vertigo, wide enough to make me want to jump.

  “Gentlemen.” Her accent had the faintest of northern drawls.

  “Around here that’s libel,” I said. I nodded towards the house. “And I’d say the pedicure’s been cancelled.”

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  She ducked under the yellow tape, flashed a card at the garda, clicked away up the tarmacadam.

  Herbie fired up the moped, the engine clattering, rattling, until the exhaust belched a tiny black cloud.

  “Want a lift?”

  “No, cheers. I’m in a hurry.”

  He half-grinned, fiddling with his helmet strap.

  “Anything I can be doing?”

  “You could be running a check on Tony Sheridan. Background material, whatever we’ll need to puff out the story.”

  “Money?”

  “Yeah, go the tragic route. All that cash and his wife slashed open. The punters love that shit.”

  “Alright. I’ll buzz you later.”

  I was halfway to town, down around the cemetery and cursing myself for not bumming more skins from Herbie, when I finally remembered where I’d left the car. Which was when the Civic purred by, indicated left and pulled up on the gravel verge. She leaned across, unlocked the passenger door and pushed it open. She didn’t speak, so I didn’t spoil the moment.

  She was a good driver. Her movements were easy, assured, and she didn’t look at me as she drove. Up close I could see that the cream two-piece was raw silk. The tiny burn scar just above her left knee whitened every time she changed gear.

  She got straight into it.

  “What’d you get?”

  “Nothing. But that’s off the record.”

  “Put your dick away, this is business.”

  “I don’t mix pleasure with business. And I don�
�t do business with strangers. Especially ones who tell me to put my dick away.”

  She suppressed a smile, not pulling any muscles doing it.

  “Sorry, I’m Katie. Katie Donnelly.”

  “And I’m Harry-Harry Rigby.”

  “I know.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. She said: “Want to grab a coffee?”

  “Always.”

  We bypassed Midtown, crawling through the one-way system of the Old Quarter, the narrow streets looming three storeys high. Gaudy shop-fronts below, flaking paint and crumbling plaster above.

  “Is the traffic always this bad?” she asked.

  “It’s Christmas week, the woolly-backs are in town for the annual exfoliation. The rest of us are here because we lack the imagination to realise the rest of the world isn’t just another TV channel. What’s your excuse?”

  “I’m freelance, doing a piece on Imelda Sheridan for Woman Now! Full colour glossy, you know the score, she’s the overachieving charity hound for the February issue. I did the interview yesterday, got shots of the house, her in the glad rags looking out over the lake, the full nine yards.” She sighed. “And now this.”

  “This didn’t happen until this morning. How come you’re still around?”

  She nudged the car forward, knocked it out of gear. Fiddled with the thermostat, the windows misting up.

  “It’s a nice town,” she said. “It’s Christmas. I thought I’d stick around and pick up some local colour.”

  “Try grey, we have forty shades.”

  We edged around the corner and discovered the source of the traffic jam. He was short and squat, pushing seventy, the curly white hair topped by a WW1 leather flying helmet, complete with goggles. His face was full, moon-shaped and flushed. Standing in the middle of the road, windmilling arms issuing contradictory orders every time he turned around. His shabby overcoat billowed in the breeze.

  “You should do a piece on him. He’s local, he’s colour.”

  “He’s not really what our focus groups tell us our demographic wants. Mind you, that changes every week. Who is he?”

  “The local nutcase, Baluba Joe. They say he hasn’t been sober in living memory. Directs the traffic when the mood takes him and then goes and gets rattlers when everything’s snarled up. Harmless bugger, though.”

  “I can see how our readers would be fascinated.”

  She sounded smug. The car was too warm. I needed a smoke, coffee and fresh air, in that order.

  “He’s an old soldier.” She heard the edge in my voice, looked across for the first time since I’d sat into the car. “He’s mad, clinically insane. You can see it in his eyes but if you miss it he’ll tell you himself. Says he spent three days wandering the Congo jungle after his platoon was wiped out in a Baluba ambush. Jungle’s no place to be at the best of times, he reckons. But when you’re eighteen years old, and your mates have been butchered with machetes and you’re still wearing the spray, the screeching of a jungle at night is as close to hell as makes no odds.”

  We inched past Joe. Froth flecked his lips. Horns tooted, engines revved. His eyes were haunted.

  “Hold on a minute,” she said. “I wasn’t –”

  “That was back in the sixties, so he’s been forty years drinking anything that won’t kill him outright and not really giving a fuck if it does. He told me, one night, that he knows everyone pities him. Asked me if I knew why.”

  She parked with the minimum of fuss, turned off the engine.

  “Harry –”

  “They gave him a medal a couple of years back but he handed it back when the top brass wouldn’t look him in the eye. Kind of took the gloss off it, he said. I told him he should have taken the medal, just to piss the brass off. Know what he said? ‘No one ever made officer got pissed off that easy.’”

  She stared straight ahead, stony-faced. I said: “I’d never have made officer material. You didn’t need that grief.”

  She peeked at me from under an angled eyebrow.

  “Was that an apology?”

  “Women apologise. Men explain.”

  “But we’re finished now?”

  “Yeah. Who gets to keep the Barry White CDs?”

  The coffee shop, Early ‘Til Latte, was run by a couple of gay hippies and sold more grass under the counter than coffee over it. We ducked through an archway into the tiny back room. Second-hand books lined the shelves. Posters on the wall advertised Feng Shui courses, Feiseanna, rummage sales. She sat on an old barstool with her back to the arch, crossing her legs at the knee. I squeezed behind the high, rickety table but not so far back I might need a telescope to see the pins. We looked at one another expectantly but I could tell I was the only one enjoying the view.

  “So what can I get you?” I asked.

  “Tony Sheridan.”

  “You want cream with that?”

  I ordered a couple of cappuccinos that didn’t take long enough to arrive and bummed some skins from Andrea, the waitress. Katie took a sip and grimaced. I poured three sugars, made a wish and said, stirring and not looking at her: “What makes you think I can get you Tony Sheridan?”

  “Detective…” She dug a little black notebook out of her shoulder bag, flipped it open. “Brady?”

  “Big lad?”

  “That’s him.”

  “He was having a laugh. Besides – what would I be getting Tony Sheridan for?”

  She pushed the coffee away, lit a Silk Cut, exhaled. Crossed her legs again.

  “Let’s start over, Harry.”

  “It’s okay with you, I’d rather keep going with the legs.”

  She smiled a thin one.

  “Sorry, you’re not my type.”

  “Types are based on previous failures. You should think more about your future.”

  “Look, Harry –”

  “Alright, Jesus, don’t get sour. If I had cleavage you’d be hearing echoes. Everyone does what they have to do.”

  “My sentiments exactly.”

  “And you want to do Tony Sheridan.”

  “Correct.”

  I let it hang, rolled a cigarette. It was her move. She pulled a manila folder from her bag, leafed through a file of newspaper cuttings, handed me a clipping. It had a modest headline: Controversial Development Officially Opened. There was a photograph of mostly men in their Sunday best, smiling their Sunday smiles, standing on the forecourt of a hotel. The dude holding the scissors was tall, well preserved and answered to Tony Sheridan if you had a homeless vote. The rest were a supporting cast of investors, councillors and the usual pick-n-mix of wives, fools, flutes and thrill-seekers, some credited, most not.

  “So – what?”

  “I presume you know the backdrop?”

  “Sure, it’s about a mile east of town, just where the river empties out of the lake. Used to get a lot of kingfishers up there. Good salmon fishing too.”

  She stared. Then, patient: “This is front page anywhere we put it. With the right spin, everywhere.”

  “If, say, we turn up a steak knife in Tony’s glove compartment.”

  “Steak knife?”

  “Forget it. I’m kidding.”

  She looked over both shoulders and leaned in over the table, which caused the front of her blouse to drop a good six inches. I stayed where I was, losing my balance anyway.

  “This could be big, Harry. There’s a lot of typists out there calling themselves journalists, still trading on that one story, still hitting the front page, pic by-lines, the works. This is my one story, Harry.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short. Besides, there’s other people want the story.”

  “Who – pizza-face on the moped? Come on.”

  “He doesn’t flash me cleavage but he’s a good bloke. More to the point, he has the shots.”

  “So he opens a gallery, big fucking deal. The shots are useless without the story and a place to put it.”

  “Say I humour you – what’s the split?”

  She waste
d some time trying not to look shrewd.

  “We take a joint credit. The money we cut fifty-fifty. You can share yours with moped boy.”

  “Fair go. What do you want to know about Tony?”

  “What do you know?”

  I nodded at the clipping on the table.

  “That hotel, it happened maybe five years ago. It was a total fucking mess.”

  “Sheridan rushed the planning process through?”

  “Not so fast. He turned up in the locals’ corner, it’s his ward and he lives up there. He made speeches about the environment, his grandchildren, endangered species. Couldn’t have been greener if he was about to puke.”

  “So?”

  “So he got backing from the Greens up in Dublin, did a deal with some bog-trotting Independents who were looking for an abortion referendum. Went over the county manager’s head, got an injunction. Happy days.”

  “But the hotel was built.”

  “Yeah, but two years later. Fianna Fail were back in power, holding a majority, they didn’t need Tony’s vote. No one’s happy up at the lake, especially Tony, his place overlooks the site. But the deal’s done.”

  “You said the whole thing was a mess.”

  “It was. Tony wasn’t happy, but if the hotel was being built he wanted his cut. So he invested, same as a lot of people around here did. Other people, people who don’t usually have a hundred large lying around, were cheesed off. Tony told them there’d be jobs going, gave them the spiel about tourism potential, locally generated revenue, the works. And when the big day arrives, Tony’s out front cutting the ribbon. Three months later the first salmon goes belly-up, the hotel’s pumping shit into the lake, quelle fucking surprise. The way it’s going, you’ll be able walk across the river in another year or two. Give it long enough and you’ll have the foundations for another bridge, and they’ll probably name it after Tony.”