Dublin Noir

PORTRAIT OF THE KILLERAS A YOUNG MANBY REED FERREL COLEMAN

Jaysus Christ, I hate feckin’ Americans! The donkeys worst among ’em. And them arse-licking cops worst of all. Them with their fifty-two paychecks and pensions, their red noses and “Danny Boy” tears. They think glen to glen is a conversation of like-named punters. Cunts, every last one. Them that sees romance in the famine and the troubles. Yah, romance in a bloody holocaust and the smell of cordite in the streets of Derry. And they ease their guilt and fancy themselves Provo men because they open their wallets and sing Pogues songs and drown themselves in pubs with a gold harp above the threshold. What a load a shite.

Oh, and how they imagine us Irish in the worst possible sense; a race of toothless spud farmers in white cableknit sweaters and black rubber boots, spouting Joyce or Yeats, herding lambs with a switch in one hand and a pint of Guinness in the other. And what of our race of red-haired colleens? Why, they’re out in lush pastures in their white blouses and green plaid skirts gathering clover and hunting for pots of gold. Bollix!

I hadn’t meant to kill the first one. I had dreamed of it, for sure. Taking one of the cheery bastards who hopped into me cab and opening him up like an Easter lamb, tossing his innards out my windows as I drove the M-road back from Shannon. But like with sex, it never quite happens the way you dream it. I s’pose if I had planned it, it would never have come off at all. I had sat patiently for a year at the wheel and listened to my American cousins affect cartoon brogues, recite bad jokes, and spew inanities at the back of me head.

“Would you like a seven-course Irish meal? A six-pack and a patata.”

“Top a the mernin’ to ya, boyo.”

“Where do you keep the leprechauns? In the trunk?”

“Hey, where’s me Lucky Charms?”

“Is it true about the Irish Curse?”

“You don’t have red hair!”

“Irish Spring. Sure it smells good on him, but I like it too.”

What eejits!

I took all of it and more; let it build up like steam in the kettle. It got so that the loathing felt warm as the shame of me Irish blood. I learned to bathe in it so that the thought of killing one of me American fares made me hard as a hurly soaked through with water and left to cure in a baking hot oven. Hate had always been a comfort to me. What’s more natural than hate, save rage? I hate Pakis, tinkers even more. But nothing I had known before compared to how I hated Americans. It was my coming of age.

Then, out of the blue, I was triggered. A blowsy Yank, all muzzy and hog-eyed, got in me cab just outside Davy Byrne’s Pub in Duke Street and asked to go to the Gresham Hotel in O’Connell Street Upper. He went quiet on me after first announcing he was ex of the NYPD. As if I gave a shite. For fuck’s sake, did he expect me to kiss his ring? So many sheets to the wind was he that he seemed to lose his voice as well as his senses. Then catching his breath, he began to rant about the weather, but that isn’t what set me off.

No-it was when he complained bitterly that us Irish drive as the Brits do, on the wrong side of the road. In America, he assured me, they would never put up with that shit. It was at that point I decided to no longer put up with his. Well, it wasn’t so much a decision as a reflex. Why, of all things that should have lit my candle, I cannot say, but light it it did.

I detoured to a section of town where, at that hour, there would likely be no foot traffic at all. Feigning illness, I pulled into an alley near dark as my heart. I got out of the cab, having already slid me sawed-off baseball bat up me trouser leg. When he came to look after me as I knelt on the cobbles pretending to retch up me lungs, I slammed the bat into his shins with such fury to snap at least one. I nearly orgasmed at the crackle of his shattering bone. He tumbled mightily, his head smacking a brick wall. Thud does not describe the sound of his skull against the stone. He was not dead, only damaged. I made sure to damage him well beyond dead. His face, what there was left of it, now red from blood and not from drink. I removed his watch, his jewelry, credit cards, the money from his wallet. I learned that from American TV.

“Was that a home run, fella?” I asked, tossing his pilfered wallet onto his body.

He was strangely silent.

There have been five more like him spread out over the last two years. I’ve made certain to alter the way in which I approach my victims, never again picking one up in me cab. They’re such suckers for the glad hand and blarney that there’s no challenge in it. They’re kittens to cream. Nor have I repeated the method I’ve used to murder them. I’ve stabbed one, poisoned another, beaten one to death with me fists, strangled one, and used a shotgun on the last. When the Gardaí seemed to be putting two and two together, not usually a skill they possess, I was forced to kill at random. Not a drop of red, white, or blue involved.

She was an Irish girl, pretty enough to interest the press. She was at Trinity studying some wanker named Kant. Had to swallow the laughter on hearing that. Dropped two rufies in her drink, diddled her every way to Sunday, and stabbed her with the same knife I used to do in the American. I cut her in just the same way as I did the Yank. I think of him as the Ugly American. Looked better when I was done with him than when I began.

I feel bad about her sometimes, like when I’m getting meself off. She’s the only one I rue. Might have been a future for me with her and Kant, but I had to confuse the Gardaí. Worked like a charm. They need a new calculator. I figure I’ll have to do the odd one every now and again. No more pretty girls, though. No philosophy students. Kants, the bunch of them. I’ll have to use that line. You think?

Shite, a fare out in front of Kavanagh’s Pub and I was having a tickle with you lot. Do me the favor of keeping your gobs shut until I rid meself of the fare. Then we can get back to our business.

“Where to, sir?”

“Just drive. I’ll tell ya when to stop.”

“American?”

“Yeah.”

Jaysus, I finally got a quiet one. No jokes nor brogues. And look at the face on him, Irish as a Galway swan and dour as a priest out of sacramental wine. I almost feel sorry for this one.

“Here on business or pleasure, you don’t mind my asking?”

“Business.”

“What kinda business you in?”

“Cop. I’m a cop.”

Fuck on a bike! An American cop, but nothing like the others. He didn’t even tell me where. Usually takes no more than a few seconds in me backseat before they show me their friggin’ shield and tell me how long till they’re vested in their bloody pensions. Then it’s to the war stories. As if I give a toss.

“Collins,” I said, reaching me right mitt across my body and over the seat.

“Jack,” he said, giving me hand a quick, uncomfortable shake.

Again, nothing like the others. All the others near crushed me hand, refusing to give it back until I pled for its release. Now as I see him in me rearview, I’d say he’s had a fair amount of drink, but he’s far from scuppered. He’s in turmoil, for sure, by the look on his face. Christ and His blessed mother, damned if I’m not concerned for the bastard.

“Is everything right by you, Jack?”

“Far from it, Collins.”

“Is there anything I can do to ease your troubles, sir?”

“Yeah, can you pull over here? I’m feeling sick.”

“It’s a rough part of the old town, Jack. Are you sure you can’t hold-”

“Pull over!”

Shite! Now he’s out of me cab and down a blind foukin’ alley. It’s been five minutes. Ah, let me go see how the poor bastard’s doing.

Thwack!

“Sorry, Collins.”

Thwack.

“It’s nothing personal, but some shanty prick beat my father to death with a baseball bat down an alley not too far from here.”

Thwack.

“I figured we owed you cocksuckers one.”

Thwack.

“Shit, Collins, if I didn’t know better, I’d swear you were smiling at me. Fuck you, asshole!”

Thwack.

Like I say, I hate Americans, arse-licking cops worst of all.

THE BEST PARTBY PETER SPIEGELMAN

For Jimmy Lowe, this was the best part-the two of them just out of the shower, wrapped in hotel terrycloth, smelling of expensive shampoo, heat clinging to their bodies like another skin, and his head in her lap. He wasn’t sober-he’d more or less given up on that-but for the moment the world wasn’t sliding away beneath him. He wasn’t rested either, but neither was he wired, or nodding out, or stupid drooling. What he was was balanced. It was all about the mix, Lowe told himself, and right now his recipe was near perfect: caffeine matched against the jet lag, pint of milk against the burning patch in his gut, reefer and John Jameson against the coke and those pills that Margot gave him. It teetered on a knife edge, and Lowe knew that it could get away fast-but not just now. Now, in the best part, he was riding an exquisite soap bubble-drifting, warm and light, through a damasked, luxury-suite landscape. He looked up and saw Margot’s hair in blue-black curls around her pale face. Her robe fell open and he saw her small, round breasts, still pink from the shower. He stretched his legs on the sofa. Sex had rubbed him raw and he settled himself gingerly and closed his eyes.

Besides the weightlessness and Margot’s slender thighs under his head, Lowe’s favorite part of the best part was the disconnection. Balanced this way, past and future held no dread and he could reflect on both with serene detachment. He reached up and dragged a lazy hand across Margot’s breasts. She batted him away and picked up a fashion magazine. Lowe smiled to himself. Floating in his bubble, even Margot didn’t scare him much. He could think about their time together calmly now, without the dizzying mash of lust and fear she’d filled him with almost from the start. Christ, was it only ten weeks since personnel had sent her?

It was January but she’d been bare-legged. Her calves were white and shiny, and the little tattoo on her ankle was penny-green. Lowe thought it was a bruise at first, but it turned out to be some kind of braided cross. She’d worn a black leather coat that day, and her black hair tumbled past the collar. Something about her 1980s do and her slanted eyes and the way she talked reminded Lowe of Sheena Easton-though he didn’t know if Sheena Easton’s eyes were blue like Margot’s, or if their accents were the same. They weren’t.

That was a hellish month in the back-office-a new computer system, the trading room churning out twice the usual number of deals, and half his staff out with flu-but Margot had pulled her weight and then some. He remembered how quick she was reconciling payments, and how accurate. The other clerks didn’t like her much but there was no question she knew her shit. After a day or two they were following her lead, and so-in his way-was Lowe.

She was like a tune stuck in his head, and all of a sudden his morning train ran too slow and the workday went too fast. Overtime was a gift and he relished every second, down even to the lousy takeout meals-anything that got him alone with her, and got him close enough to smell whatever made her smell so good.

When he was close, he couldn’t stop looking. He was cautious at first-careful not to stare-but as time went by his eyes grew hungrier. If she noticed, or minded, Margot gave no sign, and after a while Lowe didn’t give a damn. He pored over her from follicles to fingernails, and memorized every inch. Once, late on a Thursday, he’d had to stop himself from touching. He left her in his office and walked the halls and wondered what his forty-eight-year-old brain was thinking. Looking was one thing, he told himself, but his palm on that white calf… By comparison, the talking seemed so harmless.

Drifting, Lowe smiled at the thought. How long before she’d known all about him-ten days, maybe? Two weeks? From his high school varsity letters and his dropping out of b-school, to his twenty years at the bank and his promotion, five years ago, to manager of the back-office-he’d told her everything. To which she’d nodded and looked into his eyes and said next to nothing about herself.

Not that Margot was the silent type. When it came to crude humor she held her own with the other clerks. She toned it down a little for him: some deferential teasing- subtle flattery, really; jokes about the size of the trades they were processing-how any one of them would make a nice lottery prize; and, inevitably, her favorite game-what if. What if you could go anywhere… do anything… start all over again? What if you knew then what you know now? What if you won the lottery?

Her daydreams were of travel-first class all the way. “And none of this nature shite, thank you-it’s cities only. Trees are fer parks, and animals fer zoos or eating.”

Lowe’s fantasies were more modest, but Margot coaxed him along.

“Would’ve gone easy on the pitching in middle school- saved my arm for later.

“Wouldn’t have majored in accounting.

“Would’ve traveled more-London maybe, or Paris.”

And then, on another Thursday, she’d coaxed him farther. Even as the words left his mouth, Lowe knew there was no going back.

“I wouldn’t have married so young, I guess… or maybe not at all.” His face burned and his eyes bored into the carpet. Margot didn’t answer, but when he looked up she was staring at him.

From his bubble, Lowe could see that sex was inevitable after that. Which isn’t to say that he wasn’t surprised when it happened, or that he didn’t nearly burst an artery when he saw that hard white body for the first time. A word had popped into his head then, something from high school English-what was it?

It was a Tuesday and there were accounts to balance and Lowe thought she’d be working late. He was surprised when she appeared in his doorway at 5:00, coat on her arm.

“I’m through those accounts and if there’s nothing else, I’m off,” she said. Disappointment hit him like a sandbag. Margot looked at him and at her watch. “You want a coffee before I go?” she asked. It blunted his upset a little and he nodded. But when they got to Water Street, Margot headed not for Starbucks but for a taxi. Lowe followed.

“There’s a place uptown you’ll like,” she said, and she said nothing else for the rest of the ride. The place was a sleek hotel in Murray Hill, where the desk clerks dressed better than Lowe. They nodded at Margot as she crossed the lobby. The room was large, and Margot kept the lamps off and opened the drapes and let the city light in. She pulled her shirt over her head and stepped out of her shoes and skirt.

“Look all you like now, Jimmy,” she whispered. “Fer as long as you like.” Alabaster. That was the word.

Her body was limber and smooth in a way that his wife’s had never been, even before the kids. Every time was better than the time before, and every time left him gasping and starving for more. The mattress was on the floor when they came up for air. Margot hit the minibar and brought back tumblers of John Jamesons. Lowe hadn’t been quite sober since.

Things moved quickly after that. Margot whispered in his ear-talk of what if and lottery tickets. She had it all worked out, and she had a friend in Europe-a Mr. Flynn-who knew useful things like how to launder money and how to get new passports. She made it sound so simple. One trade, identical to thousands of others in the system, except that it was fake. But there’d be nothing fake about the payment the system would wire out.

“Dead simple,” she’d said, and she was right.

Leaving his family was easier than he’d expected, too-at least at first. As images of Margot filled his head, his wife and daughters had faded to grainy silhouettes. Audrey was barely a shadow when he told her about his business trip. So was his boss when he put in for vacation. Dead simple.

Margot had booked the flights. They’d gone first class to Brussels. She told Lowe to lay off the booze and drink lots of water but he didn’t listen. His head was splitting when they arrived and things had been hazy ever since-a blur of swank hotel rooms and rainy cityscapes and never quite knowing the time. Zurich, Amsterdam, Luxembourg, Frankfurt-and in each, a friend of the unseen Mr. Flynn, with papers to be signed. They all knew Margot, but it was Lowe’s signature they needed. Lowe had worried about the documents, and the nameless men, and Flynn-wherever he was-and he’d wondered about Margot’s hotel room in New York, and the other hotels, and who was paying. But the questions always stumbled from his head before he could ask them, and Margot was there to put a pen in his hand, and afterward a drink and her hard white body.

Somewhere-Amsterdam maybe-Lowe’s stomach had started to burn, and he found himself thinking of his family. It was incoherent stuff-vague worry about… he wasn’t sure what-but the thoughts left him empty and aching. Three times he’d mentioned them to Margot, and not again.

The first time, her lower lip had trembled. “I thought I made you happy,” she’d said softly. Then they fucked until the sheets were drenched.

The second time went less well. “I’m not yer feckin’ priest,” she’d snapped.

The third time was in Frankfurt and her voice made him jump. “Jaysus-enough with yer feckin’ regrets! It’s over and done but you poke at it like a bad tooth.” She shook her head. “Yer pretty feckin’ Irish for a New York Jew, Jimmy-you’ll fit right in in Dublin.” Ten days in the city now and he still didn’t know what she’d meant.

Not that he’d seen much of Dublin besides their hotel room. Waiting for Flynn and their passports, Margot grew steadily edgier. She was restless and paranoid-stir-crazy, but reluctant to leave the hotel. It was only because he had started to annoy her, Lowe knew, that she allowed him his walks each day, to the park and back. He wondered what she was worried about, and what would happen when they got the passports. Would Margot go with him to another city? Did he care? The thought of not having sex with her made Lowe sad, and the thought of traveling alone scared him, but in his bubble he didn’t dwell on these things long. Margot leafed through her magazine and perfume fell from the pages onto him. She shifted her hips and Lowe thought about the body beneath her robe and reached for her again. She was having none of it.

“Yer head’s too heavy,” she said, and slid off the sofa. She went to the window and looked down on the gray city and the gray Liffey. Lowe felt his tranquil bubble burst and his balance slip away. He opened his unwilling eyes.

“What time is it?” he asked.

“Time fer yer walk.”

He nodded and a large liquid weight shifted in his skull. She was right, he thought, his head was too heavy, and overfull with booze and static-a pail of mud on a rickety perch. Lowe rubbed his eyes. He pulled on clothes and slipped two midget whiskey bottles into his raincoat pocket. He looked at Margot. She was still by the window with her head against the glass.

Though Margot had told him not to, he took the same route to the park each day. The buildings he passed were mostly low and old, which made the new ones look even taller and glossier. The streets were full of young people who looked like bankers and accountants and computer guys, and looked like they’d come from someplace else. It reminded Lowe of Wall Street that way. Maybe that’s what Margot meant about fitting in.

He took a wide, tree-lined avenue deep into Phoenix Park, to a bench by the pond he’d been staring at all week. The air was damp and burrowing cold, and he shivered when he sat. The park was mostly empty now-old people, dog walkers, a couple strolling down the path. The woman had thick red hair and an umbrella. The man was tall and pale and his hair was pitch black. Lowe had seen them in the park before and wondered if they worked nearby. He closed his eyes and listened to birds and distant cars and the crunch of footsteps on the gravel. He opened his eyes when the footsteps stopped.

It was the couple, looking down at him. They were handsome, Lowe thought, though there was something cold in the man’s lean face, and something angry in the woman’s eyes.

“May I?” the man asked. American.

“Help yourself,” Lowe said. The man sat; the woman remained standing and looked up and down the path. “You from the States?” Lowe asked.

The man nodded. “From New York, Jimmy-like you.”

Lowe wasn’t conscious of trying to get up, but suddenly the man’s hand was on his shoulder, pressing him back. Lowe’s mind raced, but without traction.

“Relax, Jimmy,” the man said.

Lowe’s mouth went dry and the rest of him was bathed in sudden sweat. “Flynn?” he asked finally. The man reached into his coat pocket and pulled out five photos and laid them on the bench.

“She brought them to Dublin, Jimmy, same as you,” he said, pointing at the photos as he spoke. “And Dublin’s the last stop.” He said some names but Lowe had trouble hearing him. A roar filled his ears as he looked at the pictures of the five dead men, and suddenly he couldn’t see. He must’ve been leaving again because the man had him by the arm and the woman looked worried.

“Five, in five years,” the man said. “You make it half-a-dozen.”

Lowe slumped on the bench. “Flynn?” he said again. It was an old man’s voice.

The woman shook her head in disgust. “There’s no Flynn but herself-Kathryn Margot Flynn.”

Lowe gripped the little bottles in his pocket and looked at the ground. “You’re cops?”

“She is,” the man said, nodding at the redhead. “I’m private, working for your employers. The good news is they just want their money back. You make that happen, and keep your mouth shut, and they won’t prosecute.”

Lowe clawed at his gut. “What’s the bad news?”

The redhead looked down. “I am,” she said. “I don’t care fer yer girl leaving bodies all over my city, but I got no proof of anything. That’s where you come in.”

Lowe slumped on the bench. He opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out. He looked at his hands and saw the little whiskey bottles in them. He cracked the metal cap on one and the man took his arm.

“Let’s wait on that, Jimmy,” he said, but Lowe shook him off and drank one bottle and then another. The woman spoke, but Lowe couldn’t make out the words. His head was down and his eyes were closed. He was waiting for his balance and another bubble to ride, but in his heart he knew it was no good. The best part was over.

THE GHOST OFRORY GALLAGHERBY JIM FUSILLI

He’d left London in disgrace. A banking scandal, one of the worst. More than a half-billion pounds sterling in losses, bolloxed up every trade he made for months, going deeper and deeper. The end of days for the 230-year-old Ravenscroft Bank. Hundreds sacked. Pensions gone. Dreams shattered. Suicides, at least five of them, including Desmond Chick, for thirty-eight years the janitor at the Con Colbert Street branch in Limerick, a widower, raised three sons himself, working dusk till dawn. Sent away without so much as a plaque for comfort, he cried himself to death, they say, too old to start anew and as heartsick as if he’d lost his Minnie all over again.

The trader, meanwhile, was sentenced to four and a half years. Got out in three. Good behavior, though the arrogant shite never owned up to what he’d done. Eleven hundred days in Coldbath Fields and every one spent planning to cash in like Nick Leeson did-a book, Ewan McGregor on the silver screen, lectures-his reward for breaking the Barings Bank in ’95. Now you can play poker online with Leeson, punters thinking, Here’s yer guy, he’ll ride a bad patch straight to hell.

None of that for this trader, save a photo that went on the wires: scowling, bruised, itching, hollow eyes darting this way and that, maybe two stone lost to labor. No publishers, no producers; banking scandals old news now, a story already told. His wife gone off with an orthodontist, moved to Hamburg. Not even a word from his mot Trudi, tossed aside by the Sun after she told of their life together, all coke and cognac, laughing at regulators and the likes of Desmond Chick before they tracked him down.

Ah, Trudi, bleached-blond and beyond plump, a hostess now at the Odyssey in Bristol, and she knows her time has passed. Her fifteen minutes and all. Let the Remy warm her belly and she’ll talk the ear off a man’s head, give him something she never told them at the Sun. Ever hear about the only time he expressed regret? No? Well, Ducky, we were in that big comfy bed of his in that hotel in Tokyo, and he props up on his elbows, and he says, Trudi, they can keep it all, the bastards. Every last piece, every last shilling. But I’ll tell you, I’d give my left thumb to have back my old guitar. That being what they call a white-on-white 1961 Fender Stratocaster. Owned and played by Rory Gallagher, it was. Rory Gallagher, love. Sure, you heard of him. Rory-Rory Gallagher, for fuck’s sake…

As for the trader, the bitter prick, still thinking who he was, packed up and disappeared. Did a good job of it too. Four years gone by now, and not a word. Man barely qualifies as a bit of trivia these days.

Funny, isn’t it? Sometimes, when the world is turning and the craic is good, it almost seems as if it had never happened.

The trader, clever man, reemerged in Dublin, just another stranger brought in on the wave of the Celtic Tiger. Had a plan, he did: shaved his head, and when his auburn hair grew back he done it blond and spiked. Put 80,000 miles on the Audi, nose redone in Nice, jaw in Seville. Teeth in Milan.

Didn’t have to do much about the accent. Born in Sligo, he was, not London, as he claimed.

As for wardrobe: gone were the Spencer Hart suits, Turnbull & Asser shirts, Hermès ties, Fratelli Rossetti shoes. Would’ve run around like Kevin Rowland, scruffy Dexy himself, Come on, Eileen, if he could’ve, if it wouldn’t have drawn eyes. Instead, old jeans, T-shirts, a gray Aran sweater, and a brown knit, and he put holes in the elbows with a Biro, having tossed the Parker Duofold. (Not true: Like all else, the fountain pen was seized and sold at auction.)

Figured now he could hide in plain sight, more or less.

With all the expenses, he still had about 300,000 euros stashed here and there. No one knew, not even Trudi.

Decided to buy himself a perch and look down on the world, laugh as the rabble passed by. But then it came to him: no, he wanted his nose in it, wanted to smell the stench of ordinary life, to listen to the love song of the forlorn, revel in their petty grievances, in their miseries, watch as the bloody stasis took hold, watch as the light dimmed and died.

The trader bought himself a pub.

A dump over on the north side of the Liffey, off the Royal Canal, a regular shitehole it was, a right kip. Entrance in a stone alley beyond mounds of rubbish, and you couldn’t stumble upon it without a map. Celtic Tiger, my arse, it seemed to say. Two steps down and the rainwater flooded the drain, and that was all right too. Mold and rotten wood, the floorboards sagging.

The place reeked of failure, of resignation.

Perfect.

“Welcome home, you bastard,” the trader said as he stepped over the moat, dusted his hands, coughed.

It needed a name, didn’t it?

The trader, who by now was calling himself Eamonn or English Bill, depending, thought about it, and his first instinct was to call it “Rory’s.” No, “Ballyshannon,” after Rory’s birthplace. “The Calling Card,” that’s a good one, after Rory’s-

“I must be out of me feckin’ mind,” said English Bill to no one.

Which wasn’t far from true now, was it? Talking to shadows, the cobwebs: took more than one roundhouse to the side of the head in the community shower in Coldbath Fields, he did, though well short of what he had coming.

Pitch black now in the pub and he doesn’t know it, maybe his eyes have gone weak again. Thinking a little crank would do him good.

“The Rag and Bone,” he said, his throat feeling like he ate sand. Thinking of his childhood, and Yeats.

Yeah, and soon tour buses are parking out front and the Japs are snapping photos, thinking they’ve tripped over history.

Back to square one, and two hours later, still not a clue. And then another hour after that, come and gone.

Cheesed off, he came up with “Póg Mo Thóin,” as in “Kiss My Arse,” but he let it float, and he fell asleep on the bar, woke up to the gnawing and cheep-cheep chatter of a rat inches from his skull.

Got up, pissed in the sink when the jax was two feet away. Cupped his hand and took a mouthful of brown water, felt the rust wash over his Italian teeth.

Soon, sunrise and thin white light through the veins in the painted windows, and he can see the booths against the mud-brick walls, drunk-tilted and ready to fall in on themselves, creaking even in the shouting silence, and who’d give a shite?

And then, like inspiration, like Yeats dreaming, “Cathleen Ni Houlihan,” it comes to him: “Desmond’s.”

Brilliant.

But he don’t know why.

“Desmond’s,” and he likes the sound of it. “Desmond’s.” Likes it because it don’t mean nothing.

They started coming within minutes after the Guinness and Murphy’s trucks pulled out, smelling it as they stumbled along, squat little men, and they were the dregs and had nothing to say. The same story, again, again: never had a break, this bastard or that, she was hell on earth she was; ah, but me dear sweet mother, I’ll tell ya, and me da, Fecky the Ninth he was, but, God, I loved him. Sitting but a stool apart, three, four of them, each brutalizing the same tune. Clay faces in the flicker of cheap candles, a motley bunch straight out of Beckett, and moths flew up from under their tattered greatcoats.

The trader wanted entertainment, stories of the long, long fall, and soon he realized he had put Desmond’s at the end of the shite funnel, and who but them was going to appear?

“Jaysus,” he said as he rinsed a glass in foul water, “the sin of pride, my arse.”

“What’s that you say, Eamonn?” asked one of the sagging men, spider veins, rheumy eyes, fingers stained piss-yellow, paralytic before noon.

“I said, ‘Get the fuck out.’ All of you.” Shouting, bringing it from the bellows. “You and you and you!” Finger stabbing the air, and there’s the door. “Out! O. U. T.”

The men shrugged, plopped down, hitched up their trousers, and slouched out, forearms a shield from the sun.

And then the trader made a mistake.

He jammed the bolt across the door, poured himself a pint to wash the crystal meth off the back of his throat, went into a threadbare carton, and dug out Rory’s BBC Sessions, cut in ’74 but released when he was in Coldbath Fields, four years after Rory died. Whipsnap “Calling Card,” “Used to Be” like a cold knife against yer spin. The trader blasted it, oh did he blast it, and they heard it in the alley through the cracks, the ancient splinter wood, rattling bricks. The trader had every piece of music by Rory Gallagher that was ever recorded-all the officials, bootlegs too, bits of tape, third-generation copies; snatches of solos, rehearsals, sound checks, Rory turning the white Strat into a chainsaw, Rory levitating.

The bastards didn’t get the trader’s stash when they sent him up, the pricks, they let his lawyers cart it away; and he could tell you which was the solo in “Walk on Hot Coals” on Irish Tour ’74 and which was the night before, two nights hence, thanks to some boyo who smuggled in a recorder under his coat. The trader had twenty-one versions of Rory doing “Messin’ with the Kid,” one more kick-ass than the next, and he blasted every one of them, and more, for four days and nights straight, shaking Desmond’s to its foundation.

And when he opened the door, they were lined up halfway to the Liffey, shivering in the cold, shuffling, frozen fingers tucked under their arms. Hopeful eyes now. Expectations.

Word was a Rory pub was opening by the Royal Canal, and they wanted in. Rory was their man. Rory pushed the blood through their veins, and if someone was going to pay him tribute, they were going to be there, ice and snow and wind and hunger be damned.

“What the fuck?” the trader said, squinting against the silver light, suddenly wishing he hadn’t the need for more crank and something other than stale crisps.

By 8 o’clock they were three deep at the bar, totally jammers, and the snug was swollen, and Rory wailed, setting the fingerboard ablaze, and the trader had hired himself a bouncer and a lass to clear the tables. The next day he needed a man to pull the taps, and a plumber to fix the jax.

By the time he closed on Saturday night, he’d netted 1,100 euros on nothing but beer and Rory. The guy from the chipper round the block offered him a stake, saying business tripled since Desmond’s was born, thinking he’s on to the new Temple Bar. The Black Mariah pulled up, the Gardaí came in, and the trader prepared to slip them a gift, “Sinner Boy” pounding the walls and all, but they loved Rory too and as long as no one lit up a fag and the coppers got in, Desmond’s was sweet, at least for now.

“Jaysus,” the trader said as he made a neat stack of his notes, “the whole country’s full of eejits.”

He folded the bills, crammed them in his pocket, and was thinking he’d found justice. Finally, he told himself, he was getting his due.

He did the lass on the cold floor, ripping her from behind, and she went home in tears, mascara running down her baby cheeks.

A week or so later, past closing time, but the little pink man in far booth stayed glued to the wood, though the power had been cut and the votive candles gave little light.

The bouncer was in the alley, tossing them off cobblestone, so the trader, his ears ringing, went across the beer- soaked boards.

“Thinking of moving in, are ya?”

The little pink man reached into his coat and placed an ergo machine on the tabletop.

The trader blew onto his hands, the chill returning now that the crowd was gone.

Suddenly, a piercing note from a Stratocaster split the air, followed by a blinding flurry that knocked the trader to his heels.

The music continued for almost four minutes, burning ice daggers, an angel blasting pure light. Pinwheels, butterflies, blood spatter on virgin walls. Grace.

Neither moved, the little pink man starting intently at his enraptured host.

“Where’d you get it?” the stunned trader asked when silence returned.

“It” being a Rory he’d never heard.

Little Pink Man eased back toward the brick.

“Well?” the trader repeated. The crystal meth had him pumping nitro, bugs crawling on his lungs, and yet it had been Rory, beyond doubt.

In a small, eerie voice, Little Pink said, “We call him up, is what we do.”

The trader frowned, scratched the top of his head. “Listen, just what’s your game-”

“We call him up and up he comes,” Little Pink repeated. “Now, for someone like yourself, that is all and more. A mystery, true. But all and more, is it not?”

The trader couldn’t focus to study the visitor, there in his too-big hound’s tooth, his black tie pulled tight to his pink neck. Nose a ball of putty, a hint of an impish smile.

Little Pink reached with a translucent finger, popped open the machine and pointed to a silver disk much smaller than a standard CD. Candlelight skittered across its surface.

“Take it,” Little Pink said as he wriggled out of the snug. “Take it and know there’s more.”

The top of the man’s head, covered in curly red hair, sat below the chin of the trader, who had snatched up the disk as if it were the gold of Mag Sleacht.

“Who are you?” His accent slipped, revealing his years far from home.

Little Pink turned up his coat’s collar, the darkness carrying a chill. “I’m the man who’s knowing how to bring you to Rory, I am.”

The trader watched as the little man leaped the moat and vanished.

A moment later, the bouncer, whizz-wired like his boss, said he hadn’t seen a little pink man, no, Eamonn, why? And if you don’t mind, I’ll be on me way…

“Lock it behind ya,” the trader said, turning his back.

Pitch black save the light of the player, cranked to the gills he was, listening over and over and over to the guitar solo until near dawn, the hair on the back of his neck up, Rory, Rory, and the trader knew whatever the little pink man wanted he’d get. All of it, the hidden 300,000 euros, the money in the till, the money yet to be made. Desmond’s, if need be. All of it.

All. Of. It.

It took four days for Little Pink to return, four unbearable days, and he brought Fat Pink with him. They stood in the doorway on the business side of the moat, deadpan and composed.

The trader saw seraphs, and he tried to turn off the frenzy in his mind and under his skin.

The bouncer, dim bastard, held them back, being it was past midnight, and the trader had to scramble across the room to halt their dismissal, freezing the dope with an X-ray stare as he grabbed Little Pink by the forearm.

“Come,” he said, almost desperately, “come.”

They went to the little office he’d fashioned out of the storage room.

“Jaysus, where have you been?”

“It’ll cost you,” Fat Pink said, his voice a throaty growl.

“Huh?”

“What me brother is saying is that the ghost appears at no charge, but we have our expenses,” said Little Pink, collar up on the hound’s tooth.

He saw they had not a mind for charity.

“Sure,” said the trader. “Expenses.”

The Pinks kept still.

The trader took a breath. “Go on.”

“We all get what we pay for,” Little Pink said. “In the end, the accounts tally.”

And with that, the trader had found his hitching post. Negotiations had begun.

“But you’ve seen this place,” he said. “Be flattery to call it a dump.”

Big Pink looked askance at the beam an inch or so from his head. The cobwebs had cobwebs, and the wood wore moss.

“Suit yourself,” Little Pink said, with a faint shrug.

The visitors spun slowly toward the door.

“No, no. No,” said the trader, groping again for Little Pink and to hell with negotiating. “What I’m saying is I don’t know what I can raise.”

“Sure you do.” Fat Pink said it.

Little Pink dipped into his pocket: the machine, the button, and this time it was Rory on the twelve-string acoustic guitar, a slow, agonizing, gorgeous blues. No singing, not yet, but pain released from deep in the heart of Ireland filled the musty room. The sweet chirping of blackbirds too, and platinum rain, and yer ma’s tears.

“Oh,” the trader moaned. “Oh, sweet Jaysus.”

The music stopped when Little Pink popped open the device.

He held out the disk. A gift, and Fat Pink didn’t mind.

“Recorded not twenty-four hours ago,” said the little man.

The trader swallowed hard. “Name your price.”

They settled on 75,000 euros-Little Pink knowing the U.S. dollar was weak-and the Audi. In return, they’d record for as long as the ghost chose to play.

Driving in the rain through Ballsbridge toward Kill o’ the Grange, headlights sweeping across the diamonded windscreen, the trader had it figured. He’d report the Audi stolen before he left Stillorgan Road for the meeting, record Rory, glorious Rory, and then he’d double-back on foot to grab his money, putting the sight of the bouncer’s Ruger MK right between Fat Pink’s googly eyes.

He’d pick up a new set of wheels in Spain and be in Seville by tomorrow noon.

That was fair play to the boys in Coldbath Fields, and he wasn’t too far gone with the beatings and the crank to have forgotten what he’d learned in the yard. A real tutorial it was, day in and out.

The call made, he put the mobile back in his pocket, and rolled down the window, searching for a sniff of Dublin Bay. None, his nose as numb as stone.

“Eejits,” he said to the night air. “Eejits and wankers. Come to rip off Eamonn the barkeep, and look who’s here. The man who broke the Ravenscroft.”

He was still chattering when Fat Pink opened the door to the cottage on a grainy road two rights and a left off Kill Avenue, and there’s yer open field and the black tree branches groping for the indigo sky.

“You’re early,” Fat Pink said, filling the door frame, all but blocking out the light.

“I got the money.”

The rustle of wings, or his imagination, all too alive.

“Well?” said the trader, who’d left the Ruger in the glove box.

Fat Pink stepped aside.

The wobbly stairwell was his only choice, and he all but leapt from his head when Fat Pink killed the lights.

“What the-”

“Whisht now,” Fat Pink warned as he joined him on the creaking stairs. “Remember what we’re on about.”

“I can’t see,” the trader mumbled. He stopped at the landing, wondering where to go. As his eyes began to adjust, he saw a white knob and started for the door in front of him, but Fat Pink grabbed his shoulder and led him along the banister.

The floor creaked too. The house 200 years old if a day.

And in the room, gaslight.

Little Pink and another guy, bulldog snarl, neck as thick as a post, his melon flat on top.

“This him?” Pug asked.

Little Pink nodded.

The trader squinted and he saw an old table, longer than it was wide, and two chairs. The fireplace had been shuttered awhile ago, and the green shades on the windows were drawn.

Fat Pink nudged him in.

“How do we do this?” the trader said, his voice cracking. Darting bees xylophoned his ribs, the march of wind-up ants, barbed wire made of licorice and lace.

Pug took a sip from a half-pint, offered it to no one.

“We wait,” Little Pink replied. He pointed to a chair.

The trader walked in, and the trader sat down.

Fat Pink took the chair to his left. The flickering gaslight made his features quaver and dance.

Leaning against the slate mantle, Pug twisted his head until his neck cracked.

As if anticipating the question, Little Pink said, “Hours, minutes. You never can tell.” He took out his silver machine, set it on the table.

“That’s what you’re using? No microphones? You’ve got no facilities?”

Pug grunted and Fat Pink pushed down a laugh.

“It’s what we use.”

Dumb bastards, the trader thought. You get the ghost in a recording studio and you’re John Dorrences, you are.

He folded his hands on the table, and Fat Pink turned round to Pug, but neither man spoke.

Skeleton key in hand, Little Pink locked the door.

Five minutes later, felt like five hours, the trader sat tall when he heard the snap-squeal of an electric guitar going into its amp, and a quick punch on the strings to make sure it was in tune.

“Calm yerself,” Fat Pink said.

Little Pink nodded toward the machine.

And soon the sound of a Fender Stratocaster filled the room, and the ghost was running his blues scales, warming up, and soon he was toying with some old Muddy Waters lick, and the trader knew his man was working his way to something brilliant. And then the guitar let out a cry and a hole in the sky opened and here it came, lightning and molten gold and, God in heaven, it was glorious.

The trader shut his eyes in bliss.

And Fat Pink grabbed him by the left forearm and wrist, pressing the man’s hand flat on the table, and with one brutal swoop of a hatchet, Pug took off the trader’s thumb.

Blood spurted, and it ran in a river toward the machine.

The trader howled and the trader howled, and he was almost as loud as the guitar, the blizzard of blues notes, the screeching feedback, the beauty.

Pug took off his belt, wrapped it around the trader’s left arm, cutting the flow.

Standing, Fat Pink put his hands on his shoulders, pressed the trader deep and hard into the chair.

Little Pink, off the door and tapped the machine. Silence. Absolute silence, save a man’s agony cry.

“And you had to name it after him, didn’t ya?” Little Pink said, glaring at the trader, his eyes colder than cold.

Pug was digging in the trader’s pocket for the Audi’s keys.

“Desmond’s,” Little Pink went on. “That’s your idea of a joke?”

The trader’s thumb lay on the table, pointing with recrimination at its former host.

“I don’t-Jaysus, my hand. Look at my-”

Little Pink smacked him, and then Little Pink smacked him again.

“My name is Chick,” he said through grit teeth. “His name is Chick, and the man going to your car is named Chick. We’re from Limerick, and we don’t forget.”

“I don’t know…” Near shock, the trader blubbered and whimpered. “My thumb…”

“Our father was a good and decent man who didn’t deserve to die ’cause of the likes of you.”

Despite the searing pain, the trader was starting to get it. Ravenscroft, and some people won and some lost, but who the fuck is Chick?

Little Pink stepped back and he smiled, and when he smiled, Fat Pink smiled too.

It was Fat Pink-Larry Chick being his real name-who came across Trudi in Bristol, and it was Bernie Chick-him the one the trader dubbed Pug-who heard about the guitar player over in the States in Red Bank, New Jersey, who could play it like Rory done. Little Pink, who was Paul but went by the name Des to honor his father, put it together. The club off the Royal Canal was a gift, it was. The crystal meth situation too, meaning the trader didn’t think to see if Bernie was behind him when he finally stumbled back to his ratty flat.

“We’re going to take your teeth too,” Des Chick said.

“And the nose,” Larry nodded.

“And the nose,” Des agreed, “if Bernie comes back empty-handed.”

The trader could not believe he had been duped. Better than them all, and smarter, and yet he’d been duped.

Des said, “And then we’ll talk about regret.”

The trader looked at his thumb on the table, and he heard the one he called Pug trudging up the creaking stairs.

LOST IN DUBLINBY JASON STARR

Kathy had come to Dublin to forget about her fiancé, Jim, or to at least reassess the relationship, but so far she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him. She’d called him twice-once, minutes after her flight landed, under the pretense of wanting to find out how Sammy, their year-old Labrador, was doing, but it was really to hear his voice; and again when she arrived at the hotel to admit that she missed him. He said he missed her too and told her that this was crazy, to get on the next plane back to New York, but she told him no, she had to stay, to try to “work this thing out once and for all.”

Now, as she lay in bed in the curtain-darkened hotel room, trying to sleep off her jet lag, she wondered what the hell she was doing with her life. For years, all her friends had been trying to convince her to dump Jim, and part of her wanted to do it. She knew she’d never be able to trust him again-for all she knew, he was back in bed with that bitch right now-so what was the point in even thinking about staying with him? But it had never been easy for her to let go of things and she’d been with Jim for six years, and although things had been stormy, to say the least, she felt she had to at least give it a chance-see if there was still something there.

She stirred for a couple of hours and then got up, not sure if she had slept or not. She still had a bad headache and felt out of it, and a shower and a whole small bottle of Killarney sparkling from the minibar didn’t help. But she was excited to go out exploring and she figured a good cup of coffee would perk her up.

She picked up a tourist map and went down Chatham Street to a pleasant-looking café and sat at one of the tables outside. A waitress came out and asked her what she was having.

“Just a coffee,” Kathy said.

The waitress left and Kathy opened the map and was very confused. Dublin was a maze of streets with Irish names and she had no idea where she was. It didn’t help that she had a lousy sense of direction. Normally when she traveled she relied on Jim to take her from place to place. Jim was one of those guys who seemed to have a compass implanted in his brain and always got a handle on a city instantly, even if he’d never been there before. The last trip they’d taken together was to Paris, two years ago, and she never looked at a map the entire ten days. Jim whisked her around the city, from arrondissement to arrondissement-walking to some places, taking the Metro to others-and she never had to worry about anything.

The waitress brought the coffee. Kathy had a sip, then noticed a guy at the table next to hers smiling at her. She hadn’t noticed him before and she figured he must’ve sat down while she was looking at the map. He was working on a laptop and was kind of cute.

She smiled back at him and then he said, “You’re American, are you?”

Kathy felt a wave of guilt she experienced whenever she was traveling and was outed for being American, as if her nationality was something to be ashamed of and kept hidden when abroad.

“I guess that’s pretty obvious, huh?”

“The map and the accent were sort of giveaways, I suppose. Hi, I’m Patrick, by the way.”

“Hi, I’m Kathy.”

He asked her if it was her first time in Dublin. She told him it was, and that she’d come because her father was born here and she’d always wanted to see it. When she told him she was from New York he said, “Ah, love New York. I was there once when I was at university, but I want to go again. I’m a playwright, you see.”

“Really?”

“Well, aspiring. Had one play produced last year, at a small theater here in Dublin.”

“That’s great.”

“Believe me-it sounds more impressive than it is. The theater’s a twenty-five-seater and it was empty half the run… Are you on holiday with your husband?”

Kathy saw Patrick looking at her engagement ring.

“Oh, no,” Kathy said. “I’m not married… I’m not even sure I’m engaged anymore, actually.”

“So you’re here with friends, are you?”

“No, I’m here by myself, actually.”

“Oh, that’s very nice. If you need any suggestions on places to go, I’d be delighted to help out.”

“Actually, if you could tell me how to get to the O’Connell Street area that would be great.”

Patrick came over and circled O’Connell on Kathy’s map, and marked several other spots, writing in the names of his favorite restaurants and pubs. Kathy liked smelling Patrick’s cologne and it felt good with him close to her.

After a few more minutes of pleasant small talk, Kathy looked at her watch and said, “I better ask for my check and get going.”

“Would you mind doing me a small favor?” Patrick said. “Could you watch my laptop for just one minute?”

“Oh, yeah,” Kathy said. “Sure.”

Patrick smiled-he had nice dimples-then went into the café. Kathy caught the waitress’ attention and made a scribbling motion with her hand. The waitress nodded but was busy taking another order.

Kathy looked at the map, at the markings Patrick had made, thinking how nice he was for doing that. He was kind of cute and he had a sexy accent. Too bad he was too young for her-he seemed to be about twenty-two or twenty-three- and she never really liked artsy-type guys.

She was looking closely at the map, at the location of a good produce market which Patrick had circled, when it happened. She was aware of someone moving quickly next to her and then she looked back and saw the guy with dark wavy hair sprinting away down the block. Instinctively, she grabbed her purse, relieved that it was still there. Then she looked back at the guy who was running away and realized he was holding Patrick’s laptop.

Kathy hesitated and didn’t say anything for a few seconds, until the thief had already turned the corner, and then she screamed, “Stop him! Somebody stop him!”

The waitress and a customer-a man in a business suit-came out of the café.

“What happened?” the waitress asked.

“Somebody stole a laptop,” Kathy said.

“Where’d he go?” the man asked.

“He just ran away… around the corner,” Kathy said. “Can’t you call the police or something?”

Then Patrick came out and seemed confused. “What happened?”

“Your laptop was stolen,” Kathy said.

Patrick peered at his empty table with a look of horror, shock, and disbelief.

“I’m so sorry,” Kathy said. “This guy just came down the block and grabbed it.”

“Did you see what he looked like?” the man in the suit asked.

“No,” Kathy said. “I just saw him from the back… He had wavy hair. He was wearing jeans.”

“I don’t think that’ll help the Gardaí very much,” the waitress said.

“Go ahead and call,” Kathy said. “Maybe they can catch the guy.”

“I’ll call,” the man in the suit said, and he took out his cell phone and walked away.

Patrick was sitting, devastated, with his forehead against the table.

“I’m so sorry,” Kathy repeated. “I don’t know what to say.”

“I had everything on that machine and it wasn’t backed up,” Patrick said. “My whole new play-it’s gone.”

“I feel so awful,” Kathy said. “I mean, the guy came up so quickly. I didn’t even see him.”

“Maybe they’ll catch him,” the waitress said.

“Bollocks they will,” Patrick said, looking up. His eyes were red and teary. “The cops never catch those fuckers.”

“It’s my fault,” Kathy said.

“Why’s it your fault?” Patrick said. “This city’s going to shit, I’m telling you. Bastards.”

The man in the suit returned and said, “The Gardaí will be here soon.”

“Not soon enough, I’m afraid,” Patrick said.

“You never know,” Kathy said. “Maybe they’ll catch the guy.”

“Yeah, I’m sure they’ll try really hard to find a laptop,” Patrick said.

“Yeah, it’s doubtful they’ll catch him,” the waitress said.

“I don’t know what to say,” Kathy said. “I feel responsible.”

“What do you mean?” Patrick said.

“You asked me to watch it and I didn’t. I got distracted. It’s my fault, I guess.”

“I don’t know what I’ll do,” Patrick said. “It took me a year to save up for that computer. And they cost a lot here-much more than in America.”

“I’m really sorry,” Kathy said. “Wait, I know.” She reached into her purse. “Let me give you some money.”

“Don’t bother,” Patrick said.

“No, it was my fault-here.” She dug into her purse. “This is all the cash I have-here, take it.” She handed Patrick some bills. She wasn’t sure exactly how much was there, but she’d exchanged $200 into euros at the airport.

“Really, I appreciate the offer,” Patrick said, “but it’s not necessary.”

“Please, you have to,” Kathy said. “I feel awful.”

“I’m not taking your money.”

“You have to. Come on, I know it’s not enough for a new laptop, but it’ll have to help. It’ll make me feel so much better if you took it.”

“It’s really not necessary,” Patrick said. “It took me two years to save up for this and I can save up again. Until then, it’s back to pen and paper, I suppose.”

The waitress shook her head and went away to take someone’s order.

“Good luck,” the man in the suit said, and he went back into the café.

“I guess the Gardaí’ll be here soon,” Patrick said to Kathy. “You don’t have to wait.”

Kathy was still holding the money. She was starting to cry. “You have to take the money,” she said. “If you don’t, I won’t be able to stop thinking about it my whole trip and I’ll have a horrible time. Please, just take it.”

Patrick looked away for a few moments then turned back and said, “I suppose if you’re insisting…”

Kathy gave Patrick the money. She apologized a few more times then just wanted to get away. She took her map, then went into the café to charge the bill on her AmEx since she didn’t have any more cash. When she returned Patrick was still waiting for the police, wiping tears from his cheeks.

“I really am sorry,” Kathy said.

“It’s all right,” Patrick replied. “Have a great time in Dublin, all right?”

“I’ll try to.”

Kathy walked away, relieved. Following Patrick’s instructions, she ambled along Grafton Street and across the Hapenny Bridge. Still shaken up, she wasn’t able to absorb much of the city. For a couple of hours, she just wandered around, window shopping, figuring she’d do the real touristy stuff tomorrow. She was hungry and went to one of the restaurants that Patrick had suggested-an excellent Thai place on Andrew Street. Surprisingly, she didn’t feel at all awkward or self-conscious sitting at a table alone and she didn’t miss Jim at all. She had a couple of glasses of wine with dinner and got a little drunk. When she left the restaurant, she passed a cyber café and decided to just get it the hell over with already. She logged onto her e-mail account and wrote Jim a note.

Jim,

I’m sick of this bullshit. You’re a liar and you hurt me so bad and I just can’t pretend anymore. You can keep the apartment-I don’t care anymore. But I’m taking Sammy and the leather love seat. I’ll pick up the rest of my stuff when I get back to the city. And don’t forget, YOU caused this, not me. YOU fucked up!!

Goodbye (for good this time!!!!!)

Kathy

She clicked send, logged off, and left the café. She felt great, like she’d definitely done the right thing. She’d taken too much of Jim’s crap for too long and it was time to move on. She knew her friends would be proud of her.

On her way back to her hotel, she was tempted to stop for a drink at a trendy-, fun-looking pub, but figured she’d be better off getting a good night’s sleep and a fresh start tomorrow.

A friendly older man was working at the hotel’s front desk. When he gave Kathy the key to her room, he asked her how she was enjoying her stay in Dublin. Kathy told him she liked the city and then told him about the incident with the stolen laptop. When she got to the part about how awful she’d felt and how she’d offered to give Patrick money, the man at the desk said, “Jaysus, you didn’t give him the money, did you?”

“Yeah,” Kathy said. “Actually, I did.”

“I was afraid of that. You fell for a scam, I’m afraid.”

“A scam?” She had no idea what he was talking about.

“Was there another man there, besides the one who lost the laptop?”

“What do you mean?”

“They work in a team of three. One has the laptop, one steals it, and one comes over to help. Is that what happened?”

Remembering the guy in the suit who’d offered to call the police, Kathy said, “Yeah, there were three guys, I guess. But I really think you have it all wrong. This guy’s laptop really was stolen.”

Kathy went on, explaining what had happened, but the man at the desk cut her off and said, “I’m telling you, love, it’s happened before and we were even talking about warning our guests about it.”

“I don’t think you understand,” Kathy said, recognizing the anger and frustration in her voice because she was starting to realize what had happened but didn’t want to admit it to herself yet. “This guy went to the bathroom and someone else-a stranger-came running down the block and-”

“It wasn’t a stranger,” the man at the desk said. “They were working a scam. They must’ve picked you out as a tourist. Were you holding a camera or a map or something that made you stand out as a foreigner?”

Kathy couldn’t believe she’d let this happen to her.

“Yeah, actually, I was.”

“Jaysus, it’s awful this happened to you. You didn’t give him a lot of money, did you?”

“No,” Kathy lied. “Just ten dollars… I mean euros.”

“Well, that’s a blessing,” the man said. “This retired couple from Florida gave them a thousand euros because they felt bad for the guy. I’ll tell you one thing, though-that guy must be a good actor. I mean, to get people to believe him-that takes some talent.”

“Well, good night,” Kathy said, and started away.

“Should I call the Gardaí?”

“No, that’s okay. It was only ten euro.”

“But the Gardaí should really know about this so they can-”

“I really don’t want you to call… but thank you.”

In her room, Kathy tried to forget about the whole thing. There was nothing she could do about it now and she definitely didn’t want to get into a whole thing with the police- answering questions, maybe even having to go to a precinct or wherever. It was better just to forget about it-pretend it hadn’t happened.

She washed up and got into bed. She’d bought a few thick paperbacks to read during the trip, but she wasn’t in the mood. She turned on the TV and flipped around, but there was nothing to watch except soccer and news. She was watching the BBC News reports about the latest violence in the Middle East, though she was thinking about Patrick. He’d seemed like such a nice young guy-so charming and helpful-but that should’ve been a warning sign. The whole thing was such an obvious setup, the way the thief had appeared out of nowhere to grab the laptop and then how that guy with the business suit came right over to help, and of course it was he who’d offered to call the police. She was angry at herself for falling for that crap, for being such a victim. In New York, there was no way something like this would have happened to her. In New York, she always had her guard up and was naturally suspicious of everyone. If someone started talking to her at a Starbucks in New York she would’ve said a few words to him and ignored him. And in New York she never would’ve been so vulnerable. She was traveling alone for the first time in a foreign city and she was preoccupied with a lot of personal things. They’d probably zeroed in on her as a perfect victim.

In the glare of the BBC news, Kathy had a long, hard, self-hating cry, and when she finally recovered she missed Jim. Yeah, he’d cheated on her and, yeah, he’d treated her like shit, but he was a good guy and she loved him. She felt safe and protected and secure when they were together. Without him she was lost.

Kathy couldn’t believe she’d sent that e-mail; that had to be the stupidest thing she’d done today-much stupider than falling for the scam.

It was about 5:30, New York time. She tried Jim’s cell and their home number, but there was no answer. She kept trying, off and on, for the next few hours; he either wasn’t home or was screening calls. Then she realized that, since she’d written to Jim on their AOL account, she could “unsend” the message if he hadn’t read it yet.

She went down to the front desk, waited for the man to finish a phone conversation, and then asked him if there was a computer with Internet access she could use.

“I’m afraid the business room is closed,” he said.

“This is an emergency,” she said. “I have to e-mail my fiancé.”

“I’m terribly sorry, but the door is locked and I don’t have the key. The guy who does have the key should be back in about a half hour though.”

“What about your computer?”

“I’m afraid it’s not connected to the Internet.”

“Is there an Internet café close by?”

The man gave her instructions to one that was open twenty-four hours a day.

Kathy raced out of the hotel and, after a couple of wrong turns, found the café, which was still very active. She had to wait a few minutes for a computer to become available. It was past 9 o’clock in New York and Kathy didn’t see how Jim couldn’t be home by now. He always checked his e-mail first thing after he came into the apartment, so it seemed impossible that this would work.

It was a slow connection, but she was finally able to log onto AOL. Kathy opened her “sent mail” file, clicked “unsend” on her message to Jim, and discovered that the message hadn’t been read yet.

“Thank God,” she said aloud as she unsent it.

Later, back in her hotel room, she called Jim and he picked up on the first ring. He explained that his cell battery had died and he’d been out wining and dining a client. Kathy sensed that he was lying, that he’d really been out with that bitch from his office again, and that he might’ve even brought her back to the apartment with him. Still, it was a relief to hear his voice, to know that everything would return to normal, and she said, “God, I miss you so much, sweetie. This is the last time I go anywhere without you.”

TAINTED GOODSBY CHARLIE STELLA

Abroad tells you you’re a comfortable fit, what it means, make no mistake about it, boyos, it means you have a small dick, she’s trying not to hurt your feelings,” Jack Dugan said.

Dugan was a tall gangly man of fifty-two years. He had a thinning hairline, a long uneven nose, and dark deep-set eyes. He was dressed in a black polo shirt, black slacks, and black leather loafers. He wore thick jewelry on his wrist and around his neck. He’d been drinking since the early afternoon. Now that he’d switched to the hard stuff, he was rambling in overdrive.

“It’s the same thing, you hear about a broad has a nice personality,” he went on. “Maybe she does, maybe she doesn’t. You’re guaran-fuckin-teed, though, she has this great personality, she’s no looker. Comfortable fit is the same fuckin’ thing. It means you don’t need to stand around a locker room full of Mandingos to know you were robbed at birth. It means you’re the type has to crowd the piss stalls. Even the stalls in this place, which are like fuckin’ showers, you got a comfortable fitting dick, you don’t want nobody else to see it. Not that they can that easy, anyway.”

The two men sitting across the table were twin brothers from Ireland several years younger than Dugan. Both were stocky men of five-foot-ten; each weighed about two hundred pounds, had short blond hair, blue eyes, and thick necks. The older of the twins by a few minutes sat directly across from Dugan. He had grown a fuzzy blond mustache. He played with it from time to time.

“Now, take that missy over there, the kid from Dublin,” Dugan continued. He pointed to a slender waitress carrying a tray of drinks away from the bar. “Nice bright smile, the red hair, the freckles, the green eyes. Pretty girl, no? Not the type you’d turn away it comes to bedding down for the night. Her, you don’t give a fuck about her personality. It isn’t the thing. Her, you feed her whatever it takes to get her pants down. She’s a looker, plain and simple. No feelings to hurt, once you’ve done the deed.”

Dugan belched into a fist before downing a shot of Jameson. He slapped the glass down and reached for the half-filled Bud bottle on the table. He took a quick drink from the bottle and belched again, this time loudly.

“Excuse,” he said.

Dugan wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his right hand and then pointed at the twins, one at a time.

“You want a shot, just say so. Don’t be shy, boyos.”

The twins had pints in front of them. They waved the offer off. Dugan poured himself another shot of Jameson.

“Here’s a little tidbit about that one, the missy I just mentioned,” he said, and then pointed at the same waitress again. She was setting drinks on coasters at a round table with a party of six. “She likes it in the ass, that one. Purrs like a fuckin’ cat, you set the anchor there.”

The twins turned to take a better look at the waitress. They were both smiling when they faced Dugan again.

“And the thing is,” he continued, “the best thing, she’s a little off in the head, if you understand what I’m saying.” He wiggled a thumb alongside his right ear. “Some kind of condition from shock, the poor thing was taken by a crew busted out of Mountjoy, took turns with her until she was soft as shite. Gangbanged for two days until the Gardaí found them. Her head’s fucked ever since.”

Dugan stopped as the twins turned again to look at the girl.

“Catherine, her name is,” Dugan said. “Catherine Collins.” He leaned forward to whisper. “Call her Cathy, you’re petting her head while she polishes your knob. She likes that. Purrs, I swear to God.”

He stopped to take another drink from the Bud bottle.

“Comes across a little retarded, like she can’t think for herself, but she can, don’t kid yourself. She asked for it there, her brown spot. Turned and pointed.”

The twins smiled at one another.

“She was tainted goods, why they shipped her here,” Dugan went on. “Whatever those cons did to her, she’s taken a shine to being a pin cushion. Auntie Mary back home can’t keep watch while she’s running her bar on the north side. Catherine come over under the eye of the ape bouncer here, Rusty. Have you met him yet? He’s not here tonight, but he’ll pick her up after closing. Big fucker. Him you don’t wanna mess with. Not even the two a’you.”

Dugan yawned before he continued, “He’s some kind of relative, Rusty is. Her cousin, I think. He’s a cunt hair less daft than the girl, but he can lift trees out the fuckin’ ground, he gets angry enough. Snapped an Italian’s arm off the end of the bar one night for giving the same missy some shit and grabbing her ass.”

Dugan was watching the girl now.

“Shame it is, too,” he said, “an ass like that going to waste.”

He wiped one side of his mouth on his shoulder. The waitress Dugan was talking about stopped at their table to pick up an empty bottle.

“Thanks, hon,” Dugan said. “You’re looking very pretty tonight.”

The waitress smiled at all three men and moved on.

Dugan was about to go on when a well-dressed couple distracted him across the room. He stopped to watch a fat, middle-aged man with an attractive, well-dressed older woman. They were seated at a table and immediately attended to by another waitress.

“There he is,” Dugan told the twins. “Don’t look. He’s directly behind the two of you. First table off the stairway.”

The twins looked down at the table.

“I’d like to take the fat fuck and throw him down the stairs,” Dugan said. “Take his wife downstairs to the kitchen and fuck her in the ass on the chopping board, make him watch.”

“How do you want us to handle it?” the older brother asked. His accent was thick.

Dugan suddenly smiled in the direction of the couple. He spoke without moving his lips. “She’s a flirt, the cunt he’s with. Nancy, her name is. Likes to cock tease. Likes to do the halfway thing. I’ve had her down in the card room more than a couple times. She seems to think it’s okay I jam three fingers up her twat, she gives me a blowjob afterward. That isn’t cheating to her. Never let me fuck her, though. Not yet. She’ll suck your dick till you’re dry, but she won’t let you between her legs with it. I guess that’s keeping the marriage vows sacred enough. Who’m I to argue?”

He waved at the woman.

“The cigar nights they have in this place,” he continued. “Our man brings her along for sport. She flirts with every guy in the joint while he’s getting tanked. Then she takes a few too many trips to the bathroom, if you know what I mean. Likes to reaffirm herself, I think.”

The twins were eyeing her husband.

“I’m here, I find my way downstairs with her myself,” Dugan said. “I don’t know that he knows or not, what she’s doing down there all that time, but he doesn’t show it up here. Up here, most the time, he watches her like a hawk. Unless, of course, he’s on the hustle, which he is a lot more often lately, he can’t pay his bets.”

Dugan took a long, deep breath. He seemed to forget where he was in the story. The eldest twin leaned forward, motioning toward the man Dugan had been talking about.

Dugan pointed a finger between both twins and picked up where he had left off. “Then, when he’s trying to squeeze somebody for some bullshit investment in his government contract bullshit, his attention is focused on whoever the mark is. Usually, another well-dressed guy can’t hold his liquor. Like the sucker owns the Irish joint on First Avenue, Donahue’s. A nice guy, Alex. He took it up the ass for thirty grand from this fat fuck. I heard, I told the guy, gimme half the note. I’ll hang that fat slob out a window until he scams somebody else for the thirty grand he owes. I’ll hang him an extra few minutes for a few more on top of the thirty, teach the deadbeat a lesson. Or I’ll take my cut and be very happy with that, fifteen dimes. That’s the only time this slob is focused, though, when he’s on the make for new money to bet with. Otherwise, he’s a very jealous fat slob cock-sucker.”

Dugan held up his beer to toast the couple across the room. “I don’t get her angle, though,” he whispered. “Tell you the truth, why she’s with him, I don’t get that at all. She’s up there herself and all, maybe fifty, fifty-five or so, but she can do better than him. She has to know his story. He’s on the edge of the cliff with more than one office taking bets.”

Dugan returned his attention to the twins. “Ryan no longer has the patience to wait this prick out. And I need the scratch now so I can bring it to Dublin and keep the boyos off my back. There’s five hundred in it for you two, to make an example of this scam artist. His number has come and gone, far as I’m concerned.”

The brothers nodded.

“I heard you,” Dugan said. He was smiling at the woman across the room again. “How do I want you to handle this? I’ll follow herself down when she goes to the powder room. I’ll keep her down there longer than usual. I’ll hold her fuckin’ head in the toilet, I gotta. He’ll eventually go down to see what’s the problem. You’ll follow him. The card room is straight ahead once you’re in the hall with the ladies’ room. Take him in there, deadbolt the door behind you, gag him, and break his face. Leave him tied so he can’t move until somebody from the place finds him after hours.”

The brothers nodded in unison.

“And make it ugly,” Dugan said.

Six days later, Dugan woke up in a damp basement on the north side of Dublin. A hard-looking slender woman in her late forties put fire to a cigarette across the room. She wore a stained kitchen apron and boots. A stocky man puffing on a pipe sat at a table off to the right. His face was unfamiliar to Dugan.

“He’s coming around,” the woman said.

Dugan strained to see her. He’d been drugged upstairs in the bar the night before after passing off money from Marty Ryan to three IRA soldiers. They kept him drinking from a Jameson bottle spiked with poteen. Dugan had nearly poisoned himself from drinking.

The woman was sharpening a boning knife at a table near the stairway. Dugan struggled to see clearly. It hurt to hold his head up for long.

He remembered drinking in the men’s room with the soldiers. He remembered them slapping his back and telling him jokes. He remembered laughing out loud and passing the bottle.

Now he couldn’t remember much of anything else.

He had come to Ireland with the twins because Marty Ryan had told him it was important they travel together. Dugan remembered sitting next to them on the flight over. He remembered joking with them. He remembered going through customs together and taking the cab from the airport.

They had separated once they were in the bar, Dugan going off to the men’s room with the soldiers while the twins drank at a table. Dugan couldn’t remember when they had left or where they had gone. He couldn’t remember leaving the men’s room.

He knew he was on Gardiner Street because the cab had dropped them off in front of the bar. Dugan remembered thinking the old neighborhood always looked the same and that he was glad to be done with it.

A door slammed shut somewhere upstairs. “That’ll be him,” the woman said.

Dugan was feeling cramped in the shoulders. He tried to move from the chair and realized his hands were tied behind his back.

“What’s this?” he muttered.

A door opened at the top of the stairs. The woman gave a nod at the stocky man.

Dugan thought he recognized the woman. “Mary?” he said.

She didn’t flinch.

Dugan looked to his left and saw a blue plastic tarpaulin covering something on the floor. He belched and could taste vomit. He gagged from the taste.

There were heavy footsteps on the stairs. Dugan looked up toward the sound. The woman pulled a string cord and a bright light filled the room. Dugan turned his head from the light.

He heard whispers. He tried to open his eyes and felt himself slipping back into unconsciousness.

He was back on the flight with the twins. They were joking about being with the girl, Catherine, the night after Dugan had told them about her. They had stopped by to chat her up and learned her cousin had left early. She had cab fare to get home, but they gave her a lift instead.

“She went without question,” one of the twins had told Dugan. “Like we were sent from heaven saving her six bucks.”

“We spent the night taking turns,” the other twin had bragged. “First me, then Sean, then me again. This way, that way. She finally cried when she was fecked raw around sun-up. We did save her the cab fare, though. And you were right, until she cried, she purred like a feckin’ kitty cat.”

Dugan remembered telling them, “I told you so.”

“Sorry I’m late,” Dugan heard a deep voice say. He opened his eyes and saw a hulking shadow at the foot of the stairs.

The huge man had a thick red beard and looked familiar. He leaned over the woman and kissed her forehead.

“Rusty?” Dugan said. “What’s going on? Why am I tied?”

“You’re to answer for Catherine,” the woman said.

Dugan was confused. “Catherine?”

“My niece.”

“Mary?” Dugan said. “Mary Collins.”

The woman took a drag from her cigarette.

“I’d’ve liked to be here earlier,” the big man said.

“The soldier boyos took care of it,” the woman said. “They were happy to help.”

Dugan saw she was still holding the long sleek boning knife. “What’s the knife for, Mary?”

“You,” the big man replied.

“But it’s easier when the bones are popped from their joints first,” the woman said. “Why I waited for Rusty here. He caught a late flight.”

Dugan turned to the big man. “Rusty, what the hell is this? What’s going on?”

“The other two had something to offer, the boyos took mercy and shot them in the head,” the woman said. “Cutting them up afterwards isn’t a problem. It’s only when you’re keeping them alive so they can feel it does it make a difference. That’s when it helps, the bones are popped or pulled from their joints first.”

The big man grabbed one end of the blue tarpaulin and whipped it off of two dead bodies. Dugan saw it was the twins laying across one another. He saw a hole in the back of one head before he saw the one with the mustache had been shot through the eyes. Dugan gagged twice before he was sick on himself.

The woman was standing now, holding the boning knife in one hand. She held a pint of Guinness in the other. She sipped from the pint before handing it off to the big man.

“Oh, God have mercy!” Dugan whimpered. “God have mercy.”

“Those two talked about what they did to my niece after they had too much to drink,” the woman said. “The wankers went back to the bar and told it to the wife of the man they beat for you and Marty Ryan, thought they could double-team her, too, from the shite you’d said about her. They tried to feck with her head, told her they’d beat her husband again unless she did what they wanted. They weren’t very bright, the twins. It all got back to Rusty here. From the woman herself. Nancy, is it?”

Dugan was shaking his head.

“The boyos here saw the knife and gave you up in a flat second,” she added. “Everything you told them, how we sent her off because she was tainted, you fucking shite. You didn’t have a clue, but you felt like talking, eh?”

“It’s what I was told,” Dugan said. “I swear it, Mary. I was told she’d been raped by felons from Mountjoy and lost her mind from it.”

“She was,” the woman said. “And she was affected, but we sent her away so she’d never have to hear the name of the place again. Never have to see it.”

“I’m sorry,” Dugan cried. “I’m sorry, Mary.”

“Herself asked for permission to bring you back here,” the big man said. “Or you’d’ve been killed in New York. Marty Ryan offered to take you out himself.”

“It was only once,” Dugan pleaded. “Just the one time, I swear. I was pissed. I was fuckin’ berco.”

“Well, you’re tainted now,” the big man responded.

The woman said, “The question is, you feckin’ piece of shite, is will you purr like a cat when Rusty pulls your bones from their joints, or will you wait until I cut you to feckin’ pieces?”