Callous

What to do with Nora?

Shop her.

Good Lord, I’d just snitched my brother to the Guards. Was I now to sell her down the river? She blew Dio’s head off and would probably get away with it if I said nothing.

I phoned her. She answered almost immediately. I asked,

“Fancy a pint?”

She was Irish, she most always was up for that.

She suggested McSwiggan’s in Woodquay.

The weather was getting very cold, so I wore the all-weather Garda coat, collar turned up, making me every inch the private investigator or the informant.

An Irish person would have been more succinct.

As in, arsehole.

I had a Galway United shirt, blue jeans that were turning white from time and faulty washing. I had recently bought a pair of Doc Martens. Docs were having a moment, with all the cool kids now purchasing them.

I had managed to get a vintage pair with — get this—

Steel toe caps rather than Steel magnolias.

As a new dog owner, I put down water and a bowl of his daily food. The past week, I had purchased

A leash.

Dog license.

Dog food.

After a hundred hours of walking him, I felt we were bonding. Soon, I would be able to take him for walks, maybe without the leash. I was more than a little delighted with him.

I had never owned a dog.

In Brooklyn, they ate them.

Our preferred romp was along the beach. You started at the end of Grattan Road, coursed along the sand of Salthill, and ended under the diving boards at Black Rock.

I’d look out across Galway Bay and yearn.

For what?

Love.

Success.

Who knew?

When you’ve been a cop and then a priest, you’re kind of running out of options. I felt tremendous guilt about selling my brother down the river.

I was sitting on a rock near the water as the dog cautiously tested his paw in the water, looked back at me, like,

Whatcha think?

I said,

“Very cold this time of the year.”

A man out jogging, stopped, wiped his brow, guzzled water, said,

“How yah?”

The warm Irish greeting, it was less a question but more a general catch-all greeting, and it was sexless, applied to all. I said,

“Doing good.”

I wasn’t.

Waited for the inevitable,

“You’re a Yank?”

He offered me his thermos and I said,

“I’m fine, but thanks.”

He said,

“It’s not water.”

He asked,

“Are you familiar with uisce bheatha?”

No.

I said,

“No.”

He was still holding the flask out, said,

“Translates as ‘holy water,’ or you might be more familiar with poitín?”

I was, said,

“Irish moonshine.”

He laughed, said,

“Aye, but I think you’ll find this more lethal.”

I took the flask and risked a sip. Fuck, paint off a gate. I coughed and he said,

“Get a good drop in yah; there’s plenty.”

I fake-drank some more, said,

“Thank you, Mr...?”

Revie had come back from the water’s edge and was now rolling in a stray patch of grass amid the sand. If I had drunk the poitín, I might have rolled there my own self.

He said,

“I don’t normally hand out my name to strangers, but we’ve split a drink so I think it’s OK.”

But he didn’t.

Give me his name.

Asked,

“Nice dog, whatcha call him?”

I said,

“Revie.”

He made a sign of the cross in mock dread, said,

“Don fucking Revie.”

Everyone knew who this Revie guy was. I asked,

“I should know who that is?”

He was incredulous, said,

“Only the best manager English soccer ever had. The glory days of Leeds.”

I whistled for the dog, put on his leash, said to the guy,

“Good chatting with you.”

He waited until I was a few yards away, then,

“Check out the movie with Michael Sheen as Revie.”

Yeah, sure.

I did know the actor from the movie

Frost vs Nixon.

But didn’t say that, and the guy shouted after me,

“Why are you Yanks always so naïve?”

For a moment I considered going back and giving him a puck in the mouth.

In Ireland, a puck was a punch with serious intent.

But he did share his drink, so there was that. I let it slide.

The heavens opened and in minutes me and the dog were drenched. I said to Revie,

“’Tis soft Irish rain.”

Truth to tell, my Irish accent was atrocious.

I was torn over what to do about Nora — the initials on the shotgun and the moral question

Should I rat her out?

I was more afraid of what the cartel would do than the cops. If, and a terrible if, she went to prison, the cartel could easily put a hit on her.

I got to my building and thought for a moment I was back in Brooklyn.

A Crown Vic parked there.

Unlike the battered models we used as cops, this one was in good condition. The dog looked at me, sensing my distress. I rubbed his ear and he was quiet.

The door of the car opened and for one ghastly, or rather ghostly, moment, I half expected my dead partner to step out.

Nora B.

She tossed me the keys, said,

“Happy birthday.”

I said, lamely,

“It’s not my birthday.

She laughed, said,

“If I got a free car, I’d believe it was my birthday.”

True.

Then she bent down, took the dog’s face in both hands and muttered several soft sounds. The pup was instantly smitten.

I knew the signs.

In my apartment, I asked,

“Seriously, you’re giving me a car?”

Who does that? hung on the back of my question.

She said,

“Are we not an item, a couple, betrothed or...”

Pause.

“Just fuck buddies?”

I thought,

The mouth on her.

The thought was in Brooklynese. How’d that happen?

Oh, yeah, the Crown Vic.

She sat on the sofa in that fashion some women do, with their legs tucked under them like DIY yoga.

I asked,

“A drink?”

She said,

“A big one.”

I offered her ice with her Jameson. I didn’t have any but felt it was polite to offer. She curled up in a ball of mock horror, fake screamed,

“Ice in Jameson? The heresy of it!”

I poured large amounts, handed her a glass. She took a healthy swig of it, sighed, said,

“Better.”

I asked,

“Why on earth would you give me a car?”

She seemed confused, as if the question were insane, said,

“You spoke of Crown Vics being the cop car you preferred, so I was shopping for cars and voilà, Crown Vic.”

I echoed,

“‘Shopping for cars?’ Sounds like a Snow Patrol song.”

She held out her glass for a refill. The girl could drink, and I wasn’t far behind, as the murder of Dio was there in the room, waiting for me to say it.

But I played for time, tried,

“I can’t accept it.”

She truly was mystified, said,

“I’ve shitloads of money, you have nothing, so it balances out.”

OK. I bristled at her saying I had nothing, reined in my anger, said,

“I’ve a dog.”

And she laughed, said,

“And just the cutest thing. The dog is nice, too.”

Maybe the booze hit me too fast, or it was nerves, but I just blurted,

“I know you killed Dio.”

The words hung there, like minute particles of ice. Nora sat up straight, looked like she was going to deny it, swerved, asked,

“How do you know that?”

I said with a heavy heart,

“Your initials on the shotgun.”

She laughed, said,

“Oh, silly me.”

Then a thought hit her and she near wailed,

“You are going to turn me in?”

I was considering it, and feeling awful about even harboring the idea. I said,

“You blew his head off. I mean, it’s serious shit.”

She stared at her feet. I pushed,

“Why the hell would you risk everything to kill a drug dealer?”

Her head still down, she said,

“He was my father.”

Now that’s a showstopper. I echoed,

“Your father?”

She held out her glass with shaking hands. I poured her third drink, but who was counting?

She gulped, said,

“Years ago, he was actually married but if you deal with the cartel, a family puts you on the firing line so he walked away and for years he sent mountains of money to keep us quiet but primarily to keep us unknown. My brother...

She paused.

“My gorgeous brother, Johnny, a gentle soul, died from bad heroin supplied by my dear daddy’s crew.”

She was gasping for air, tears rolling down her cheeks, making a soft plink against her glass, like the music of utter despair.

I said quickly,

“I won’t rat you out.”

She was silent, then composed herself, drew herself up, asked,

“And what, I’m supposed to be grateful?”

Then added,

“I had a plan for us today: drive down to the Cliffs of Moher, and I got an old-style picnic basket, filled it with goodies. But now...?”

She stood up, said,

“I have to go.”

There are a hundred things I could/should have said, but I didn’t.

She picked up the keys to the Crown Vic, said,

“Guess you won’t accept a gift from a killer.”

And was gone.

It would be two days before I heard of a young woman driving over the Cliffs of Moher. It was believed she crashed through a barrier, looking for a picnic site.

Anyone with information on a Crown Vic was asked to get in touch with the Guards.

I sat in a chair and literally howled like a broken banshee.