by Eoin Colfer
Soldiers have this mind-set that they gotta be tough as nails twenty-four seven. So we dampen down all the poison in our chests, forging a rancid cannonball to be fired at a later date, possibly at people who don’t deserve it, in a crowded restaurant shortly before our divorce. Things got a little better with The Sopranos. Those therapy sessions really helped Tony, especially in season two. And if it’s good enough for a Mafia don, then surely regular soldiers can’t be accused of weakness for booking a few sessions.
Simon Moriarty was my savior. If it hadn’t been for that guy, I don’t think I would have made it through six months of civilian life. I haven’t called him in more than six months but I think now’s the time.
I patch my phone through the Caddy’s system and dial the Irish number. The international double brrrp is comforting and a little nostalgic so I drift off for a while waiting for Simon to pick up.
I’m halfway into a dream where I’m calling a school friend of mine and hoping his mom will pick up when I realize someone is shouting at me.
“Huh?” I say, then. “What?”
“Daniel,” says a familiar voice. “Sergent McEvoy.”
I’ll be damned. That’s Simon Moriarty’s voice. “Hey, Simon. What’s up?”
“No,” he says. “That’s my line. You called me, remember?”
These shrinks are so perceptive.
“Yes. That is technically true. I did call you.”
Simon doesn’t respond to this ridiculous time waster. He just waits. He was always a bollocks for the waiting. I don’t like a sound vacuum in a conversation so I’ll generally dive in with any old shite. Not this time though. I ain’t no punk newcomer to the couch game.
Screw you, I’m gonna wait you out, Simon.
Simon hangs up.
Feck. I been played.
I redial.
“Who is it?” says Simon, making me feel like a naughty kindergarten student.
“Simon, please. I ain’t got time for this.”
I hear the clunk/rasp of a Zippo being fired up, then a long crackle as Simon lights one of his tipped cigars. This is followed by a lengthy and horrible bout of coughing as Simon dislodges a pint of smoker’s phlegm.
“Okay, Dan. I’m all yours, for ten minutes. The girls are with me this afternoon and I promised them no interruptions.”
Girls? “I didn’t know you had daughters.”
“I don’t,” says Simon, straight faced I imagine, and I hear two voices in the background singing Abba’s “Mama Mia” and I wonder if the owners of those voices are wearing the outfits. I must listen for a few seconds too long because Simon speaking jolts me out of my reverie.
“Daniel. Come on, snap to it, soldier.”
“Oh, yessir. Sorry.”
Simon likes to throw in a bit of Pavlovian military jargon to get things moving, even though with his eighties rock-star mullet, Cuban-heel boots and faded T-shirts he is about the least military person I know. In all the time he treated me, Simon never once arrived either on time or completely sober.
I’m not saying Simon Moriarty ain’t good. In fact I doubt there is anybody better. Most shrinks I’ve done time with are all about the big revelation, but Simon is great for coping strategies that are of immediate use. And oh my God that’s what I need today.
“I’m all tied up, Simon. Not really, like with ropes and stuff, but seeing as we’re on the subject, I’ve been cuffed twice already today.”
“Big deal,” says Simon. “I have one foot cuffed to the bedpost right now.” He barks a couple of times then, which I hope is not for my benefit.
I press on. “There’s a guy I work for who has me doing unsavory stuff for him, which I do to get out from underneath but it never ends. Unsavory stuff begets more unsavory stuff and before I know it, there are a bunch more guys all looking to take payment from me for something I did not start.”
Simon is silent for a long moment and I hear the girls are back around to the chorus.
“Could you be a little more vague?” he says eventually.
“I know I’m not giving you much to work with but some of these things I’m being forced to do ain’t exactly legal.”
“Okay. These unsavory things. Is there any end in sight?”
I try to imagine Mike good-naturedly canceling my debt and the picture won’t take shape in my head.
“No. No, he’s never gonna let me off the hook.”
“Okay. And do you have any roots in the community, anywhere you can turn for help?”
“My roots. There’s this girl I know.”
“Ah yes, the delusional girlfriend. How is Sofia?”
I picture Sofia with a hammer in her delicate fingers, blood dripping from the claw. That picture takes shape no problem.
“Good days and bad days. She does recognize me occasionally, which has gotta mean something, right?”
“It’s progress,” says Simon. “But back to your problem. This man, who I’m guessing from our previous talks is Mike Madden, has you in a bind. All we ever talk about is this sadist Mike Madden. It seems to me that you are dealing with the symptoms rather than the root cause.”
I think Simon is trying to tell me something without telling me something.
“I don’t follow.”
“Let me tell you a story. A parable if you like. If they were good enough for Jesus, they’re good enough for me.”
“Amen, brother.”
“This guy lived in a tent beside a bush.”
This is starting off real cryptic.
“Okay. Tent-bush. Got it.”
“Only the guy is allergic to the bush.”
“Is the bush flowering?”
Simon sighs. “Stop dicking me around, Daniel. Just take it as read that I will include all relevant information. So, if I don’t say it, you don’t need to know it.”
Is the bush flowering? What the hell is happening to me? Hanging with Zeb has turned me into a pain in the ass.
“Sorry, Simon. Continue.”
“Thank you. So the guy is allergic to the bush and wakes up every morning covered in hives. So he starts taking pills to get rid of the hives. Every night a fistful of pills. These are big horse pills, so it’s a pain.”
“Okay. I’m seeing it.”
“After a while the pills aren’t so effective anymore so he’s gotta cover himself in lotion before bed. The stuff gets all over the sheets and stinks.”
“Am I the guy? Just tell me that much.”
Simon ignores the interruption. “So its pills and lotion and eventually an injection once a week. This bush is ruining the guy’s life. So one day the guy calls his good-looking, lady-killer friend who lives across the ocean.”
Aha, the mist is clearing.
“And he tells him all about the bush and the pills and rest of his increasingly complicated regimen.”
“What does the friend say?”
“First of all the friend calls him a tool, but then he tells the guy that he has two choices. Either he burns that bush right down to the roots, which is not really a practical option, is it?”
“Or?”
“Or he moves far away from that bloody bush, where its pollen can never reach him again.”
I get it. I’m the guy and Mike is the bush.
Simon thinks I should move.
Or Simon has just advised me to burn the bush.
It’s all about the interpretation I suppose.
Well, if it’s good enough for Jesus.
CHAPTER 10
COUPLA HOURS LATER I’M ALL CHECKED IN TO CLOISTERS Inn across the road from the bus station. I took a twin room with a bed for me and a second for my stash of weapons that lives in one of the station’s lockers. I find it prudent not to store a bag of illegal arms at home.
My trove of weapons and bricks of cash is laid out on the duvet and I sit staring at it, like the dollars and guns are gonna tell me what to do with them.
Spend me on shit you don’t need, says the money.
Not helpful, guys. Not helpful at all.
A Custom Sharpshooter rifle that I got in Chinatown from an Algerian, if you can believe that combo, clears its throat/barrel to speak.
Dan. All you gotta do is snap a Starlight to my back and then wait in Mike’s garden till he shows his face. Then we give that bastard a really bad case of heartburn.
“Did you hear that?” I ask the shamefaced Glock. “That’s what I call real advice. I’m so glad you’re here, Sharpshooter, because if you weren’t I’d go out of my mind.”
Five minutes later I get a text from Simon.
Daniel. I hope you are not conversing with your guns. Remember we talked about this. It is not healthy to attribute blame to a rifle.
That’s ridiculous. I would never blame Sharpie for anything. It’s those fecking bullets.
I send my jacket down for an express clean, put my boots outside for a shine, work my way through a tray of carbs and then lie down on my bed. I was considering squeezing on beside the weapons and cash, but that could seem weird if housekeeping came by unexpectedly. It takes a while to swoon into that shadowy layer of pre-slumber, but when sleep is inevitable my entire being relaxes gratefully. This is my favorite time of any day, when I’m not quite alert and can’t quite focus on my problems. To get to this place usually requires:
2.5 beers.
One sleeping tablet.
A transatlantic flight.
Or a marathon TV session. Me and Zeb once watched 24, season three, in one sitting. I think I got bedsores.
Just before sleep descends, I realize that the strongest emotion in the McEvoy heart right now is loneliness.
Shit.
I thought fear would be number one. Or anger at all the people who are throwing a monkey wrench into my survival engine.
Loneliness.
Huh.
“Loneliness.” I say to Sharpie. “Who’da thunk it?”
I have a few of recurring dreams on my list, which account for about four out of seven nights. Three involve Dad and Dublin and I wake up scared because most of the crap in there actually happened. The fourth nightmare is my subconscious trying to be subtle.
It’s just me, as an adult, seated at a school desk drawing up a family tree for everyone I ever harmed. By the time I’m done, the family tree has spread off the paper and is covering the walls, and my teacher, Brother Campion, is fondling my friend’s Nash’s buttocks and saying, Daniel will go far, boys and girls. He will go far because he puts in the work. Dedication is the key.
I wake up from this and I have somehow moved across into the other bed and the Glock is lying on my chest.
Which is why, ladies and gentlemen, I generally take sleeping pills.
Also, subtle? I don’t think so. You don’t really need a degree to interpret this vision.
I sit up and gulp down an entire bottle of ten-dollar Hawaiian water. It’s expensive but at least I’ll get a second use from the bottle.
I wipe the Sharpshooter and break it down so it fits in a Kevlar backpack. Sharpie doesn’t mind being broken down, he’s used to it. I pack the Glock too, and a couple of smoke grenades, which I always bring just in case but hardly ever get the chance to actually use. I love the feel of those smooth cylinders and just handling them helps me get into the soldier mind-set, which is where I need to be. Most of my clothes are black and the leather jacket is such a deep brown that it would be hard to tell the difference without a swatch card. Luckily, thanks to Johnny Cash, the all black look is cool for middle-aged men, so no one in the hotel bats an eye when I stroll out through the lobby wearing a backpack and dressed like I’m gonna jump out of a plane seven thousand feet over Kabul.
Mike’s house is predictably showy with honest-to-God Irish red setter statues sitting atop the gate pillars, and a garden wall that he often claims to have shipped over from Ireland, where it used to be part of a Norman round tower. I believe this to be true, because this is exactly the type of ridiculously over-the-top faux Paddy bullshit that Mike mistakes for patriotism.
However, grand as it surely is, we are not taking about Skywalker Ranch here. Mike ain’t pulling down that kind of moolah, so the Madden residence is the third house down on a swanky cul-de-sac. If you’re ever looking for it, it’s the one with the postbox in the shape of a leprechaun’s head and the letters go in his mouth.
I bet the neighbors love Mikey.
Mike’s Benz is in the drive along with a Prius and a pink stretch limo. I hope the limo is something to do with one of the hooker-mobiles that Mike has roaming all over Jersey, otherwise there could be some kind of party going on in there and I ain’t trying to thread a bullet between the heaving bodies on a dance floor.
Mike could have unknowingly bought himself a reprieve from the reaper.
But seeing as I came out here, I might as well take a look.
I have parked down the leafy avenue that opens onto the dead end. It’s dark now but there are enough streetlights for me to be seen, so as soon as I get out of the car, the plan is to blend with the shadows of mature oak trees and work my way around the back of Mike’s leprechaun lair.
Getting around back of Mike’s house actually turns out to be a breeze. I was expecting the whole nine yards as regards security: external cameras with infrared motion sensors, or failing that, maybe a big goddamn dog. But there’s nothing. I imagine the house itself is alarmed up the wazoo but the building and grounds are actually pretty helpful for an intruder. Plenty of shrubs and trees to lurk behind, and two big California-style floor-to-ceiling glass walls that run the entire length of the house.
I brought some AP rounds in case the glass turned out to be bulletproof but it seems like I won’t need them. Frankly, I’m a bit disappointed in Irish Mike. What kind of self-respecting gangster doesn’t have a dog on the grounds?
I find myself a nice perch in the low crook of a horse chestnut tree and set up camp. I whisper nice things to Sharpie so he will not screw around while I’m assembling him, snap a Starlight to his back and then take a look at the evening’s entertainment.
The first room is an office or study with a large wooden desk and one of those gas fireplaces built to look like an old-fashioned range. Mike is sitting at the desk reading the cartoons from the day’s paper.
Perfect. Just check the other room and away we go. I could be home in time for the late-late showing of eighties comedy Sledge Hammer! which is hilarious. You will give yourself a pain laughing, trust me and seek it out.
As you can see, I am trying to appear nonchalant about this entire mission, but I ain’t fooling anyone, not even myself. I am planning to gun down a guy in his own house, possibly a couple of rooms away from his wife and daughter. It doesn’t matter who the guy is, my actions tonight are gonna weigh heavily for a long time and will possibly be the straw that busted the horse’s arse vis-a-vis Daniel McEvoy getting into heaven.
Do it, says Sharpie. Take the shot.
I should. It’s all set up. No witnesses in the room.
Pull the trigger.
My finger hovers over the trigger and I try to make my brain send the command, but nothing happens.
Tell yourself again how there’s no other way.
With Mike gone my problems disappear.
Oh, yeah? What about Mike’s number two, Calvin? You think he won’t come looking?
At least I’ll buy myself some time.
You are shooting a guy in the head in order to buy some time?
It will take Calvin a while to gets his ducks in a row.
I refer you to my last point re shooting a guy in the head.
Mike would do it to me.
You are not Mike. Do you wanna be Mike?
No. I don’t.
I do not want to be Mike but I have no choice.
I feel blood throb in my forehead and my eyes water. Why will my finger not do what it’s told?
Mike is right there, seemingly close enough to to
uch. If I pull the trigger, a hundred things have to happen in the right order for the bullet in this gun to end up in Mike’s brain. The odds against all these things occurring in the right order must be pretty good. My pulling the trigger is barely even the cause of that effect. The actual cause goes way back. Generations. To the forces that brought Mike and I here today.
But do you wanna be Mike?
That’s the clincher. I was never going to shoot Mike even if I thought I might.
“Balls,” I whisper.
You said it, brother, says Sharpie.
I say balls because there is no plan B.
I hear the muted tinkles of ladies’ laughter and champagne flutes and swing the scope across to the second room.
There is a party going on.
Ladies are getting injected in the face.
Prius.
Zeb, you prick. What the hell were you thinking?
When Zeb volunteered to take Sofia with him on his rounds, he neglected to mention that one of the stops on the route was Irish Mike Madden’s house. Mrs. Madden must have a dozen of her lady friends in there, all sipping champagne and dancing around until it is their turn to sit in a reclined La-Z-Boy and have Zeb or his beautiful assistant inject a shot of Botox into their foreheads. Both Zeb and Sofia are swilling down booze too, which I am pretty sure is not best practice, medically speaking.
One of the ladies slides into the chair, and Sofia straddles her, closes one eye and, urged on by the whoops of the other ladies, sticks the syringe into a wrinkle on the lady’s forehead.
This is insane. Lunacy. How are we supposed to survive when Zeb continues to fuck up faster than I can fix things?
My phone vibrates and I check to find a text from the man himself.
You will never guess where I am.
I text him back.
I know where you are. I’m looking at you. Get the hell out.
I watch him read the text and grin. He looks into the blackness of the garden and flips me the bird.
A minute later I get: Chill. Mike will never think to look for Sofia here. As far as he knows she is my nurse.
This is all about Zeb showing me what a tactical genius he is. In Zeb’s mind it is more fun to parade Sofia into Mike’s house for him to have the opportunity to not recognize than it is for him to put her somewhere Mike will never look in the first place.