“No offense, kiddo, but you're hardly riveting company.”
He turned to me, asked,
“Jack, will I get out?”
He might get out but, judging by his appearance, he wasn't ever coming back.
In the movies, this is where the good guy reassures,
“Stay strong, we'll get you out.”
And other such shite.
I said,
“Keep your head down.”
Em added,
“But try not to give head.”
She pounded the door, shouted,
“Yo, Cruickshank, we're done.”
I didn't give Boru a comforting pat on the shoulder. He'd been touched enough.
Back in the car, I asked,
“You got a cig?”
She did.
We fired up, then she blew rubber as we got the hell out of there. Ten minutes in, she said,
“Saga Norén, in case you were wondering.”
The fuck was she on about? I asked,
“What?”
“Who I'd like to be. The icy, semi-autistic cop in
The Bridge
.”
I said,
“You're not even blondâwell, least not today.”
She shot past a BMW like a dervish, said,
“Yeah, but I got the bitch part down cold.”
We stopped in Oranmore for a drink. She ordered a toasted sandwich, like this,
“Highly grilled cheddar,
hint of mayo,
rye bread.”
The guy taking the order simply slapped a prewrapped job in the microwave, zapped it.
I took a Jameson.
No ice.
“Your treat,” she said, looking at the expensive bill.
I didn't argue. Then she asked,
“Have you plans for Christmas Day?”
“Cold turkey.”
She was interested, asked,
“You're giving up . . . what?”
“Nothing. I'll eat my turkey cold with a pack of Lone Star longnecks and watch
Breaking Ba
d
's spin-off series on Netflix.”
She had no answer to that, so I asked,
“And you?”
Thinking, “Who'll you be that day?”
No hesitation,
“I'm going to Prague with my boyfriend.”
Jesus, come on, did I feel a pang of . . . fuckin . . . jealousy?
I managed,
“What's he do?”
“He's a felon . . . and a poet. A poetic felon, you might say.”
I went with,
“Sounds like a blast.”
I paid. We were heading for the car, she said,
“He's hung like a stallion.”
Indeed.
Em's lunacy, Boru's fucked state, the shadow of the prison, led me to need some time alone but not on my own, if you catch my drift. To be among people but not part of them. Christmas eve, the city is on the piss so a quiet pub is a scarcity. Paddy Fahy's in Bohermore is a haven. It has a certain dress codeâno assholes allowed.
I sat at the counter. The owner, Paddy, is blessed with the gift of silence. Five people in total made up the clientele. I was working on my second expertly pulled pint, a large Jameson holding point. A man two stools away was working on his own solitude. I had the
Irish
Independent
books section open before me. The year's top sellers looked like this:
(1)
Padre Pio
(2)
The GAA: A People's History
(3)
Gone Girl
(4)
One Direction
(5)
Niall Horan: The Unauthorized Biography
(6)
X-Factor Encyclopaedia
(7)
Alex Ferguson: My Autobiography.
I sighed. The guy two stools down caught it, raised his pint, nodded. Now I remembered him. When I had a drink with Boru in Jury's, I'd told him about the man who odd times drank there.
Always alone.
He'd done some hard time in a South American jail. So rumor said. He certainly had the lost eyes to give it credence. I'd heard too he had a minor rap going as a crime writer.
On impulse, I asked,
“Buy you a pint?”
No answer.
Pushed,
“It being the season and all that good shite.”
Cracked the remotest smile, then,
“Yeah, what the hell.”
And he moved to stand next to me. I signaled Paddy, who reached for the Jameson. The man's movements were slow and calculated as if energy was vital and spared. He raised his glass, said,
“Slainte amach.”
His voice was neutral, not toneless but more used to silence. He nodded at the books page, said,
“Guy there, last week, he tore my book to shreds.”
I took a hefty swipe of my own Jay, asked,
“That bother you?”
He gave a short laugh, said,
“They try to wipe you off the floor of a cell containing thirty desperate inmates, what do you think?”
What did I think?
The booze or the craziness of the past year made me pushy or thoughtless. I asked,
“How does a person . . . you know, handle that, I mean, after, when you're out?”
He studied the top shelf, scanning the variety of lethal spirits, then,
“You get a shitty bed-sit in Brixton, then you get an old-fashioned revolver, with the spin chamber. Every Wednesday, seven in the evening, you sit and spin that sucker.”
Christ!
Reckless now, I asked,
“Why Wednesday?”
He put twenty euros on the counter, turned up his coat collar, said,
“Never liked midweek much.”
He nodded to Paddy, indicating a drink for me. I put out my hand, said,
“I'm Jack Taylor.”
He gave me a long hard look, not threatening, just resolute, said,
“Oh, I know who you are.”
And he was gone.
* * *
Professor de Burgo had his feet up on his desk, the lion in the lair. Books scattered everywhere, potpourri overriding the smell of pot. De Burgo was on his third Americano, anticipating the young female undergraduate due in . . .
He extracted his gold pocket watch from his tartan waistcoat, a theatrical, well-rehearsed gesture. Even alone, he repeated the rituals necessary to re-inform the whole
“old-fashioned, John Cheeverâtype
professor of English literature.”
She was due in twenty minutes. In twenty days she'd be history. He suppressed a giggle at his own wit, popped half a Valium, get the mellow gig cooking. Began to sift through his in-box. A small padded envelope called. He sliced it open with a heavy silver Moroccan letter opener and the color drained from his sunlamped face.
A six-inch nailâ
The lettersâed.
Nailed!
Badly shaken, de Burgo pulled another envelope from the pile. A bright pink envelope and . . . hold a moâ
Perfumed!
Fuck, yes, actually scented! He chuckled (this is a parched sound as he'd been told it made him
lovable
).
Figuring it to be from one of the many moonfaced cunts who adored his lectures, he opened it with a flourish and
out
tumbled
tiny white and black paper figures wearing? Mortarboards. A note on lilac paper read,
This is Sancta Muerta,
the Death Curse . . . on you.
The figures amount to the number
of days until you burn in hell.
Xxxxxxxxx
Kalinda
P.S. Kalinda is PI/vengeance chick from
the series
The Good Wife
.
Feverishly, he counted the fragile figures.
Six!
He crumpled them in a rage-fueled dread. Reached into his desk, took out a bottle of Grey Goose, lashed into it.
A knock on the door, then a pretty girl's head peered around the door, asked,
“Am I on time, professor?”
He flung a copy of the collected Blake at her, shouted,
“Get the fuck!”
Cambridge's Hampers, a Galway Christmas tradition. Not cheap, but oh, so fabulous. Chockablock with every goody you could yearn for. One was delivered to my apartment on Christmas eve.
A note:
Knock yourself out Jack.
Your very own dark
Emerald
Xxxxxxx
What I remember of Christmas Day is the wild storms, not only in my head but in the weather. A falling tree killed a twenty-three-year-old who'd just passed her driving test. It came right through the windscreen.
The racing ace Schumacher was preparing his ski gear for a week of exhilaration.
I watched the original BBC series of
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.
Alec Guinness was, as always, riveting. I spaced the day between
Snacks of cold turkey
Xanax, 2.5 mg
Single hot whiskeys
no cloves.
The mobile rang once.
Ridge.
A flood of relief that she was prepared to wish me,
“Nollaig Sona Duit” (Happy December).
She wasn't.
Lashed,
“Taylor, you want to explain to me who that mad bitch was?”
My bile in check, I said gently,
“Need a bit more to go on. I know quite a few bitches, but mad? That's relative.”
Heard her angry rasp in a deep breath, then,
“Don't play the cute hoor, the supposed lawyer who showed up at our last meet.”
I had a choice. It being the season of goodwill, would I goodwill it?
No.
Went for annoyance.
“Gotta plead the Fifth.”
A beat, then,
“Don't suppose she knows anything about the disappearance of the underwear, vital to the Boru Kennedy case?”
My heart soared.
“Good fuck, really? So you've no case now.”
“Fuck you, Taylor.”
Slammed the phone down.
In the early hours of Christmas morning, Boru had used a sheet to hang himself.
The case was truly CLOSED.
Late Christmas night, my mind was crawling with snakes. Desperate to distract, I had a mini Ben Wheatley fest.
Down Terrace
Kill List
Sightseers
âwith the line after the main character beats a guy to death and says,
“Not a human, a
Daily Mail
reader.”
Doesn't come any darker or more blackly humorous. My life in disjointed glances really. Saint Stephen's morning, my hangover was what you'd expect.
Rough.
The doorbell rang.
A group of disheveled singers, I kid thee fucking not.
Either the Wren (and do they still continue this tradition?) or the remnants of a soused hen party. I gave them a few notes on condition they stopped singing!
Two kick-ass coffees,
Solpadine,
Xanax,
And, God help me, one sick cigarette. My mind began to twist.
I phoned Ridge.
She answered with a terse,
“Taylor?”
“You know Boru Kennedy was innocent on Christmas eve?”
Sigh.
“Yes.”
“Did you tell him or did his lawyer?”
“Not my job, Taylor.”
“You cunt.”
Stunned gasp,
“What did you call me?”
“He spent Christmas eve not knowing he was clear. Terrorized, terrified . . . what was he anticipating, Christmas dinner? That some big bastard would take off him. This was a kid who'd spent every Christmas safe, warm, and with a family!”
She spat her words,
“Don't . . . you . . . dare put this on me, Taylor.”
“You got your wish, sergeant. You've become a real Guard.”
“How dare you.”
“Have a nice New Year, see the sheets you helped strangle that poor, lost kid in a dark cell.”
I slammed down the phone.
Days blundered through the post-Christmas gloom. Sales, despite the recession, had people sleeping outside Brown Thomas for thirty-six hours to secure
Gucci handbags!
The homeless just slept outside anywhere and for longer. Covered in piss, despair, and degradation.
Recession my arse, as a woman got lead story on RTE six o'clock news for buying a Stella McCartney dress for only fifteen hundred euros!
The New Year galloped toward us. Em hadn't returned nor phoned. Maybe she'd fucked off permanently.
Did I care?
Not a whole bunch.
I was too broken, heartsick over the needless waste of Boru's suicide. Was I to blame? I was certainly in the mix. A horrible irony wasn't lost on me that the coveted number one song was by a prison guard.
Hang your guilt on that.
Ken Dodd on the first
sign of agingâ
“
When you wake up and find you've a bald-headed son.”
January 3, 2013.
My birthday.
Fuck
and
Fuck
Again.
I got over thirty cards. Yeah, right!
I dragged my aging body to the shower, avoided the mirror, not a mix. I was growing a beard. At that stage of weary wino, not to mention leery. I had a serious adrenalized coffee and an extra Xanax for the day that was in it.
My head was scrambled for a blitz night of TV.
A highly anticipated return of Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes on BBC. Then, mid-Jameson, I switched to Sky Living to catch Jonny Lee Miller as Sherlock. After midnight, on cable, I stumbled across . . . you guessed it . . . Sherlock with Robert Downey Jr. in the role. I fell into bed with Basil Rathbone striding through my dreams uttering,
“I'm the real deal.”
Come morning,
I dressed like a winner.
Sort of.
Old Garda sweatshirt under a weird fish comfortable wool shirt. Black 500s over Dr. Martens. Shucked into my all-weather item 1834, looked out the window, said,
“Bring it on.”
Guilt-free for once to hit Garavan's at opening time. Sean the barman said,
“Blian Nua go maith.”
Indeed.
Two drinks in, a guy took the stool beside me. I tried for his name,
“Tom?”
He nodded, ordered a large Paddy, no ice. Got my vote.
I knew his backstory. A rough one. His son had been killed by a nineteen-year-old drunk driver. Worse, if possible, the guy walked, on a technicality. Tom then had the horror of running into this pup fairly regularly. Galway is still a village in the worst way.