Callous

Keegan was the enforcer for Dio.

His current job was to procure houses to use as meth labs. The thinking was,

Get up to a dozen houses, then if one or more was busted, production still continued. The murder of Mary Casey was just — fuckit — collateral damage.

In a stupendous lack of research, Keegan didn’t know Mary Casey was the aunt of Kate Mitchell, the obsession of Dio, but Keegan was nothing if not resourceful. He’d spin it as a dastardly scheme to lure Kate into Dio’s orbit.

Keegan was a master of spin — how he’d managed to leave the Zetas alive.

No one walked away from a cartel.

Keegan was blond to his boss’s black. He had shaggy hair, a face blasted by sun, a surfer’s lean, knotty physique, and could go full minutes without blinking, a vital asset in a man to whom intimidation was survival.

He’d never been on a surfboard but cultivated the dopey surfer-dude persona, even to the point of having a battered, shark-bitten surfboard as center point in his office.

His only reading material was Savages by Don Winslow. It had the ultimate surfer dudes, dope, and cartels.

He had a total, almost psychotic, devotion to his boss. Dio had rescued him from a hellhole of a prison cell in Nogales.

His only concern regarding Dio was the lunatic fixation Dio had for Maria Callas, and now Kate Mitchell.

Something in the whole scenario spoke to him of weakness.

Keegan was a heavy-rock headbanger, Guns N’ Roses being his go-to band.

He’s played their version of

“Sympathy for the Devil”

As he said, with fake mockery,

“To death.”

Keegan had been in Galway for a year before Dio arrived, laying the groundwork, recruiting foot soldiers. He especially favored ex-paramilitaries; they shared his ruthlessness.

He focused on acquiring houses close to the water, to the ocean, for shipments to be brought by cargo freighters. He was surprised how many householders sold up without too much of a struggle, maybe as he was prepared to pay over the odds.

Mary Casey was one of the holdouts, so she got murdered.

No biggie.

One other man, named Charlie Fox, proved difficult, told Keegan,

“Go fuck yourself.”

OK.

So Keegan set the troops to implement a brief campaign of intimidation: kill his dogs and leave his cat strung up outside the front door.

Basic stuff.

Didn’t work.

So then, a mild beating.

Nope.

Wouldn’t budge, said,

“Over my dead body.” Seriously?

Keegan could arrange that but decided to handle it his own self.

Because

   Because

     He liked it.

Didn’t use the water method but opted for mano a mano.

To keep his reflexes sharp.

Did misjudge his opponent

Badly.

And.

Got the shite kicked out of him.

Fox had been a pro boxer.

Four thundering punches laid Keegan flat, ribs definitely broken, the nose too (again!), an eye that was going to be hard black, but, apart from the agony — which was, it must be said, a bastard — it was the shame and anger at having so badly miscalculated.

He put up a hand, trembling, managed,

“Enough, you got me beat.”

Fox, triumphant in victory, sneered,

“Limp away, you worthless piece of shite.”

Keegan got unsteadily to his feet, woozy, put out his hand, said,

“No hard feelings?”

Fox spat in his face.

Keegan didn’t wipe the spittle, let his head hang down as if totally ruined, moved his hand to his back, extracted the long Bowie knife favored by the Zetas, and in one rapid move, gutted Fox like a fish, stood back to escape the torrent of blood, said,

“Nobody, no bollix, spits at me.”

Then kicked Fox in the face, said,

“Like I said, no hard feelings.”