by John Kelly
As he crosses into King Street South, passing the old Gaiety Theatre, now enjoying its reputation as the largest sports bar in the European Alliance, a text leaps in Schroeder’s pocket. It’s Francesca hoping he’s OK but Schroeder just swears in a whisper and turns into Clarendon Street, named for Henry Hyde, 2nd Earl of Clarendon, then along Chatham Row, named for William Pitt, son of the 1st Earl of Chatham and finally, in what seems like a jackknife into another micro-climate altogether, into the swill of the wrong end of South William, named in 1676 for William Williams, about whom I know very little. The place stinks like a desert sewer, a stench I can still remember from the last days of Bourbon Street, that flat daytime miasma of heat and disinfectant – booze, piss and puke evaporating in the Gulf sun.
He walks with feigned assurance. On either side of the street, tall purple weeds – loosestrife is it? – and wrought iron steps which lead to the basements of places barred with neon signs made up mostly of the letter X. Threatening eyes lock on him immediately. He is being assessed. Sussed out. What is his business here? His drug of choice? His proclivity of choice? Is there a long-term profit in his presence on this rancid strip or is he simply to be bludgeoned and robbed? Doomed-looking men (with knives, he is certain) begin to tug and point, urge and threaten – all trying to get him to enter whatever den they’re promoting. Cat-houses, strip clubs, massage parlours, pleasure-domes and little kiosk cinemas right on the footpath where you can watch the choice of your choosing all by yourself. Schroeder feels the Glock throb in his pocket. Walton was here yesterday. A soft target for hard tickets. The question is whether or not he got out alive.
There’s a queue outside Paradiso and people are slipping in through a narrow door half-blocked with a torn curtain of faded blue velvet. Today’s congregation is for someone called Kitty Killarney and even the thought of it makes Schroeder shudder. He’s not exactly sure what a public appearance involves in these very particular circumstances but it all seems very grim indeed. Everything is much too silent. Much too tense to be wholesome. He recognises a few shifty local fixtures, and one cokehead who used to be in a band called The Hypnic Jerks recognises him back.
– Heeeeyy bud.
Schroeder clenches his fists. He doesn’t expect to be known in a street like this. Surely he is well beyond the orbit of this sad conclave. Surely there can be no overlap here between this guy’s life and his? This is some parallel universe after all and certainly not some dirty corner of his own.
– Schroeder, says the Hypnic guy. Fucking hell man. Sweet.
– Yes. Hi. I’m looking for Walton. You remember Louis Walton? You seen him anywhere?
– Off the TV Louis Walton? Haven’t seen him in years, man.
– Were you here yesterday?
– Ooooh yezzzzz!
– Did you see him?
– Wasn’t paying much attention to the punters. Jakki’s a ledge. Know what I mean bud?
– You must have seen him. He’s in a wheelchair.
– Sorry man. Can’t help you.
– You sure? Wheelchair?
A bouncer pounds up the quivering steps like a Tongan prop. Schroeder’s throat is drying up but he gets the question out.
– Was there a guy here yesterday in a wheelchair?
– Fuckin’ right there was. Banging on about wheelchair access. Had to give the fucker a fireman’s lift. As if this gig isn’t shitty enough.
– When did you see him last?
– When I threw him out on his ear. Started shouting at yer one. Saying she was an imposter. You’re not her! You’re not her! Had to carry him out screaming and dump him back in his wheelie machine. The little bollix went ballistic.
– Where did he go after that?
– No fucking idea, pal. But he better not come back anywhere near here. Or he’ll need two fucking wheelchairs.
There’s a ripple in the queue and all heads turn to face two identical men with tattooed faces crossing the street towards them. Between them is a miniscule girl with camogie legs of titanium white. Her hair is orange and it matches her hot pants. She wears cracked, white, calf-length boots and a sparkling halter top of emerald green. The queue grows even quieter.
– Howayiz? says Kitty Killarney (an evident Dub) as she descends into Paradiso. Wit’ yis in a minute.
Schroeder scans the facade of Paradiso. So Walton was here yesterday. And made a show of himself too, probably drunk or fried on painkillers. At least that’s something, although he could be anywhere now. The Liffey most likely. Gone the way of all touts, his wheelchair upended in some rat-shit alley.
– You coming to see Kitty? asks the Hypnic guy.
– Not my type.
– Not mine either but sure fuck it.
Schroeder moves, trying not to breathe, up and down off the curb as he dodges hustlers, dealers and pimps. A man with an eyepatch puts a many-ringed hand on his shoulder but he squirms out from under it and heads for the Wicklow Street barrier which marks the end of the strip. And for all the crowds both loitering and in motion, there’s barely a word said. These men who linger here, staring up at windows, have only one purpose and their focus is intense – as addicted to this squalor as much as any junkie on the DART needs his smack. He speeds up. The place, and the scenario, is starting to physically sicken him. He had never entrusted his fantasy life to the jaded imagination of others and although this souleating world is always just a curtain swish away in any man’s life, it had never yet lured him in.
– Get out of there, Schroeder. Go. Go now. Good man. And shake the dust from your feet.
Schroeder limbos underneath the barrier, takes one of the sidewalk seats at Reed’s and orders a double espresso from a wholesomelooking Australian in a yellow t-shirt. After the false disinfectant promise of what he’s just passed through, he’s glad to see something real, to witness the actual carnival of real beauty on the move. Here on Wicklow Street, so close to Paradiso and the rest, is perhaps his favourite spot in all of Dublin – the very crossroads of the city’s parading actual gorgeousness and he perches there often. A man after my own heart. I often used to sit there myself, my face tilted towards the sun.
The coffee arrives but, after South William, he’s far too wired to even look at it. He’s thinking about Walton, trying to figure out what happened. Walton carried down the steps and deposited at a table in front of Ms Jack and his expression suddenly falling away like a mudslide when he realises that it’s not her. And he leans forward to examine closer her tumbling eyes and he whispers something which nobody else can hear. And then Ms Jack’s head jerks backwards and, as if writing an urgent message in thin air, she begins to signal wildly with her magic marker. Security moves in and Walton is lifted off the table again and dragged, legs trailing, through the throbbing assembly. He is carried upstairs and planted back in his wheelchair on the street outside. His upper body is heaving and his breath is short. That’s not her! He is shouting repeatedly. That’s not her! She’s a fucking imposter! That’s not her!
And then Chantal appears. Hippy dress. Like a fortune teller and not to Schroeder’s taste.
– You must be wearing flat shoes, he says.
– You’re getting the hang of it.
– So who was following who today?
– Slumming, weren’t you?
– I went to Paradiso. Walton was there yesterday.
– He was.
– Would you have any idea where he might be now?
– Not a clue.
– There was trouble.
– There was. He got out of hand.
– Seems our Ukrainian friend is an imposter.
– He was right about that.
– I’m not really interested in that part of it. I just want to know where he is.
– That was her sister. But with all the surgery she’s had by now she’s a ringer. Does all the public appearances and soon she’ll be doing all the movies too, once the backlog is cleared.
– Not for the first t
ime Chantal, you have me bewildered.
– Seems there’s about ten features not released yet. They don’t want the word to get out until they’ve been marketed.
– What word?
– That she’s been dead for a year and a half. Remember that bomb in Frankfurt? She was caught up in that. She died. Along with lots of other people. Her real name was Aleksandra something. I forget what.
– Frankfurt? That was a UIA job.
– The UIA doesn’t exist.
– Well for people that don’t exist they’re pretty fucking lethal.
– Whatever you say, Schroeder. Anyway, she’s dead and you can appreciate the damper that sort of information would put on her latest adventures. And on the solitary pursuits of her followers.
– And these people don’t even notice?
– Walton noticed.
– She’s been sending him her underwear.
– Somebody has.
Schroeder stretches his arms skywards.
– There’s not much you don’t know, is there?
– No conspiracy too small, Schroeder. And anyway, you can’t monitor a man like Walton – or any man come to think of it – without picking up all manner of crap.
– So are you watching Walton too?
Chantal nods. Schroeder looks into her eyes.
– So where is he then? Tell me. You know. And I know you know.
– And you know what he was up to. He was a tout, Schroeder.
– Was?
Chantal flicks a crumb across the table.
– Can I ask you, Schroeder, what you were planning to do to him if you found him?
– Call him a prick, probably.
– I thought perhaps you were going to shoot him.
Schroeder folds his arms.
– So tell me then. Where is he?
Chantal reaches for Schroeder’s coffee, downs it and tells him what she knows. That sometime yesterday Walton went to the quarantined end of Sandymount Strand. That in his lap was a litre of gas and a disposable cigarette lighter and that there, on the damp sand of Dumhach Trá, he poured the gas over his head and set himself ablaze. To the folks on the Strand Road he was no more than a distant little bonfire.
And then the tide came in and put him out.
FOURTEEN
I’M ON THE SOFA, a Stoli in a highball, minding my own cheese biscuits. On Channel NB1 a panel is discussing the day’s events so far – looped images of presidential progress through the streets of Dublin City, the beetle-black Cadillac and Richard R. King slouched invisible within, tanked-up as ever on Kentucky Straight Bourbon and cookie jars full of happy pills and extra-strong mints. In a hazy longshot, the cavalcade moves like a flashing reptile and studio experts marvel at the Elite Presidential Guard, swinging their machine guns like garden strimmers – a sinister, dark cohort in helmets and shades walking, mostly backwards, up the middle of Dame Street. There’s no mention of Walton the human fireball spurting flames like a monk in a mall. There’s no mention either of Roark, rolling in a bin liner at the bottom of the Bay. Nor is there even the slightest reference to Schroeder laid out on his own sofa, agitated, and waiting for Paula Viola to do her thing live on the national airwaves.
– A logistical nightmare, says the anchor over and over again. A security headache.
Ireland is represented on this “historic” day by a screeching flock of sugared-up schoolchildren – embassy kids and army brats shaking their tiny flags at the top of Parliament Street. Green, white and orange. Red, white and blue. No actual Dubliners of course because people know the drill by now and they’re all at home with the burgers and the beer. And yet no matter how jarred and apathetic the people of Ireland become, the threat level will remain jammed at a constant orange as gangs of silhouetted men scrutinize an entire population’s absence. Perched like puffy birdwatchers, they scan the empty streets while high above them, among the swifts and buzzards and kites, half a dozen helicopters from Shannon are hung with menace and poke. Should a sudden glinting window suggest some bazooka potshot at the President, they’re all set to make smithereens of Georgian Dublin. Or what’s left of it.
The panel has long ago run out of things to say and once the State Visitor himself is sitting down to the State Dinner there’s nothing left but wild speculation about whatever comes next into the anchor’s muscular head. Does the President have a special affinity with Ireland? Did he enjoy his round of golf? Will he be feeling tired by now? Has he spoken to his daughter yet? How is she getting on at Trinity? Isn’t Princess a delightful name for a President’s daughter?
Schroeder is moaning as if his head is crammed with nails and screws. It’s as if the last few days have scooped out his insides, and so he swallows two more Presbutex and sips at a tumbler of Smirnoff. The coverage is deadly and dull and he swears at a social diarist now spoofing on about food, reacting to some desperate query about the menu. Atlantic prawns, he’s suggesting, to be followed by Wicklow lamb. The wine list, he pretends to know, will be exclusively Californian. Santa Inez and Sonoma. But then eventually with Schroeder in near despair, the longed-for newsflash arrives. Schroeder starts to tingle. And so do I.
– I’m sorry, I’ll have to stop you there …
The arrested social diarist, miffed at the interruption, begins to whimper loudly at the bad manners of it, but the anchor raises a hand as if to repel a mosquito.
– We are getting reports that … We are hearing … I’m told we are now going live to our reporter Paula Viola who’s at Dublin Castle …
A flick of a switch and there she is, the colonial cobbles shining all around her. Schroeder flares and crouches forward as Paula’s face is suddenly blanched by a spotlight which leaves her blinking. She’s unsteady and not like herself at all. There’s something seriously wrong and she seems to be struggling to arrange the words she’s about to say. And then she sighs and swallows and Schroeder stops breathing, both of them now caught in the very same flash flood of adrenalin – both of them focussing on the silence in front of her lips.
– A major incident has occurred tonight here at Dublin Castle. Only moments ago we witnessed chaotic scenes and it appears that President King has been shot.
She pauses. Her swimmer’s shoulders heave.
– The incident happened just moments ago at the conclusion of tonight’s State Dinner. It appears the President was in a side room, preparing to leave the building, when he was shot. It would seem fatally. Or quite probably fatally.
The anchor butts in.
– Fatally or quite probably?
Paula’s fists tighten. She begins to speak very slowly.
– It has not yet been confirmed but I can tell you that I witnessed the body being stretchered out of the Castle. And yes, President King appears to be deceased. I can confirm that his head was covered. And that there was a lot of blood.
I go upstairs immediately and start herding information from every source available. Schroeder leans even closer to the screen.
– Early reports are suggesting an Irish national although this is unconfirmed. And again, according to initial reports, it is my understanding that the assassin is dead at the scene.
– Paula, for the moment, thank you.
Paula’s image snaps from the screen and Schroeder pours himself several large drinks. As newsflashes go, this is a big one. He can tell that Paula is deeply aroused just to be there, breathing in the sheer drama of the deadly. And he knows exactly what she’s thinking. That some American network will snap her up in the morning. That she’s a made woman now. That she’ll go global after this. And that fuckwit anchor is thinking the very same thing as he swings towards his audience, slides his glasses on, then slides them off again.
– Dramatic and distressing news from Dublin tonight. If you’ve just joined us, it would seem that President Richard King has, this evening, been assassinated while leaving a State Dinner in his honour at Dublin Castle. It would appear that …
Then the roar of
fighter planes carving through the salty heat above Dún Laoghaire. I move to my skylight and I can tell that they’re heading for the Park – still the largest park in the European Alliance, once home to a strung-out herd of fallow deer that nibbled the clover from 1662 until St. Patrick’s Day five years ago when every last one of them was taken out by an off-duty marine off his head on mushrooms. And as I watch I remember how Schroeder used to visit that zoo with his mother. And how she would hold his hand as he threw bits of apple to the last surviving rhinoceros in what was then called the EU. That old boilerplate rhino had always seemed to him so monumental and solitary, always so invincible in his African daydream, but now all that can be said is that it is utterly extinct. No more than matter and mush. Like beech leaves in a bin liner, as Schroeder once wrote in his school magazine.
And then Paula is live again. And there are pictures of King under a sheet and most of the blood is where his head is supposed to be. So Wicklow or not, Santa Inez or Sonoma, what is certain is that unless a Dublin Bay prawn has exploded like a pink grenade in the Presidential mouth, it isn’t the dinner that killed him. And whatever it is, whoever it was – King’s casket is sure to be a closed one.
And then more breaking news.
Deep in the stainless steel kitchen of a Georgetown restaurant, Vice-President Delmore Flame is sworn in. A still appears simultaneously on screens from Baghdad to Bogotá – the vital signs of continuity. And barely ten minutes later he’s live from the Oval Office swearing to bring to justice whoever is responsible. Yes, the assailant is dead. Yes, he’s possibly an Irish national but all options are being kept open. Every avenue will be explored. Freedom has many enemies, and until he better knows the facts of the case, all of freedom’s enemies are prime suspects and will be given no quarter. There will be no hiding place, etc. etc.