Galway Girl

Stapleton never knew that from the moment Jericho set eyes on him, he reminded her of her father and, there and then, she signed his death warrant but, first, she’d play with him.

“Play,” her daddy used to say, was so important to his girls.

Scott and Jericho were sitting in Scott’s house, and it was looking more than a little run-down. Scott was bemoaning his dwindling supply of bullets.

Jericho was rapidly losing any zeal for him.

Sure, it had been a rush with a guy who just went out and shot cops.

But he was a dour miserable bollix.

Jericho asked,

“You ever think of actually cleaning?”

He looked up, genuinely puzzled, asked,

“Why?”

God in heaven.

She said,

“It’s a kip.”

He thought about that, then,

“Why are you shacked up with that old actress?”

Jericho sighed, said,

“One, her house is clean. She’s rich, it’s the perfect hideaway, but mainly it’s like none of your fucking business.”

He stood up, holding the gun idly in his left hand. He tried to joke,

“Is it smart to diss a guy with a gun?”

She waved a hand, said,

“One less bullet, then.”

He didn’t know how to deal with her and for a moment relished the thought of just shooting her, see how the bitch registered that, but she had a hold on him and he was now afraid of being alone, alone with dwindling ammunition. He asked,

“Where is our burglar?”

Jericho brightened up, a fact not missed by Scott. She said,

“He’s out earning. Something you could think about.”

Scott was counting his few bullets, whined,

“I’m missing one.”

Jericho gave a smug smile, said,

“I, um, lent it to Stapes.”

Before he could answer, she added,

“He doesn’t know I did.”

Stapes regarded himself as an artist.

Burglar, if you wanted to be crass,

But a class act.

Okay, okay, he’d been caught but, come on, pure bad luck and, hey, he’d learned.

His first stint in prison had been traumatic but educational. He’d celled with one of the so-called master burglars.

True, he was serving a lengthy stretch so master might be a little bit of a misnomer, but he could sure talk the craft. Used to intone,

1. Work alone (like duh).

2. Prepare, prepare, prepare.

3. Don’t splash the cash.

His big talk was the...

Drumroll.

The big score.

Stapes might well have come to this conclusion his own self, but you cell with a guy, you really want to be critical, so he listened, Like this:

Pass on the usual Micky Mouse shit, wait, research, and then give your all to the one.

When Stapes was leaving, he said to the master,

“You should give one of them TED Talks.”

“Who’s Ted?”

Stapes had the new target lined up.

Meaning, he paid a guy for the info, a guy Jericho had introduced him to.

The target was

A large home behind the golf club, nicely secluded,

Rumored to have a legendary painting by Jack B. Yeats,

The Galway Tinkers.

Denied to exist by all the experts.

But if it did...

Phew-oh.

Stapes’s new source said in a hushed tone,

“You get that, I’ll give you fifty large right then and there and a percentage of the final sale.”

Fuck.

Like, really?

This particular fence owed a debt to Jericho. This was his way out of the debt, convince Stapes to burgle the house. The fence didn’t ask why. He’d seen Jericho in action and it wasn’t pretty.

Stapes had done his recon.

The occupiers, a couple in their late sixties, played bridge on Wednesday evenings, from seven to nine, so he duly prepared.

Black tracksuit,

Watch cap that pulled down neatly over the face but frigging inclined to heat up,

Large non-logo rucksack,

Surgical gloves.

No weapons.

(Caught with a weapon, add a fast ten to the sentence but, hey, who was getting caught?)

No negative waves.

Dwell on speed.

As he did a last-minute check on his gear, he was assailed by the image of Jericho shooting the barman in the face.

Fuck.

Brutal and beyond belief.

He sat transfixed as she calmly turned to him and Scott, the gun still smoking, and he was sure she was on a spree.

But something flicked across her face and she snapped back to whatever passed for normal in her bizarre world.

There and then Stapes knew:

“She will kill us all, sooner or later.”

And he was done with those crazy fucks.

Focus.

On job in hand.

When he had his cash he’d be in the wind.

Jack Taylor? Jericho had him in her sights so he could simply let her deal with him. He did two fast lines of coke, got the ambience, then moved to boogie.

Getting into the house was so easy he was almost spooked. When it was this simple, he worried.

Moved along the ground floor to the main room and stood back, let out a

Whoosh.

The whole back wall was a mass of paintings, must be close to a hundred.

All framed but not, alas, labeled. He stood for a moment before what seemed a tornado of color, thought,

“Who the fuck is Yeats?”

Took a deep breath, muttered,

“Chill, chill, dude.”

And thanked God for iPhones.

Used the phone to view the picture his source had provided, the source insisting,

“This is from a facsimile as no one has ever seen the actual painting.”

Stapes had wondered,

“The fuck is a facsimile?”

Phone in one hand, he moved along the rows and lines of paintings, the colors starting to blend and whirl, giving him the beginnings of a hard-core headache. He paused.

“Step back, focus.”

And did a wee bit more coke.

The icy dribble down his throat, then he exclaimed,

“Hold the bloody phones.”

Bent down and, there in the left-hand corner, bingo.

His first thought was,

“Are they fucking kidding?”

To him it seemed like a kid’s first attempt at stick figures. He rechecked the phone image, shrugged, muttered,

“The fuck do I know?”

Ripped it from the wall, the coke adding a degree of ferocity that brought plaster and noise.

“Whoops,”

He cried,

Now beginning to have himself a time.

He shoved it into his ruck, then considered snatching half a dozen at random but the weight alone might make it just a tired exercise in futility.

His innate greed wanted to ransack the house but, if his source was right, he already had the prize.

He was well pleased as he headed for the back door, hummed a Pogues tune, no easy feat, and opened the door.

To a sea of blue.

Stapes sat in the interrogation room of the Garda station,

His head still reeling from the utter shock of the wave of Guards waiting outside for him.

He could make no sense of it at all.

He was let stew for hours until the door opened and a plainclothes cop walked in, a shit-eating grin on display. He said,

“I’m Sheridan. That’s like the top honcho around here.”

Stapes was further unnerved by the sheer confidence of the guy. This was not going to be one of those get to spill gigs.

This was done and dusted. He was fucked and they weren’t making any attempt to hide their glee. For some bizarre reason, Stapes tried to summon up what he could of legal dramas on TV. Yeah, that desperate. He asked,

“I want a drink, a phone call, and a lawyer.”

Felt he showed a small amount of hard in there.

Sheridan laughed, said,

“That’s priceless, love it.”

He leaned across the chair, whispered,

“Tell you what, even though it’s a huge breach of protocol, I feel today I can risk it.”

Stapes felt a mad stirring of unholy hope and it increased as Sheridan produced a pack of Marlboros. Stapes near wept. A cig would be just freaking near perfect now. He muttered,

“Oh, thank you.”

Sheridan looked puzzled as he withdrew a cig, lit up, inhaled deeply, asked,

“For what?”

Stapes indicated the cigs with what was now a trembling hand.

Sheridan laughed again, a laugh deepened by the nicotine, exclaimed,

“For you, your days of getting anything, any fucking thing, are so over.”

Stapes whined.

“Why?”

Sheridan leaned back, blew a smoke ring at the ceiling, said,

“Shite, you really don’t get it.”

Stapes, in a state of near collapse, screamed,

“Get what?”

Sheridan sat up straight, said,

“We got a call that the Guard killer was hiding out where we found you and there you were.”

Stapes was incredulous, screeched,

“But that’s insane.”

Sheridan gave him a smile of faux warmth, said,

“Bottom of your bag, we found a bullet and, for your sake, we did a rush forensics, and guess what?”

Stapes was truly lost for a reply, so Sheridan said,

“’Tis a match.”

Waited.

Then,

“So, every which way, you are absolutely fucked.”

Stapes tried,

“I was there to get a Jack B. Yeats. You can check, it’s in the bag.”

Sheridan sneered.

“That piece of shite? It’s not even close to a decent copy.”

As a last resort, Stapes tried,

“It’s a setup. The bullet was planted.”

Sheridan stood, stretched, said,

“Cop killers, phew, they get the very special treatment, so get ready for suck city.”

When Jericho heard that Stapes was in custody she sighed. She would have really loved to see his face when he walked out to the sea of blue.

Now just Taylor remained.

As for Scott, she had such little regard for him that she didn’t even bother setting him up.

The grand theatrical event she was planning was almost ready.

As she relished the sheer audacity and cold-bloodedness of what

Was coming, she let out a mighty cry of,

“Shock and awe.”

Did glance at the window and recoiled in terror.

A large black crow was pecking at the glass, its dead eyes riveted on her.

In the dying weeks of May 2018,

Ireland voted by 70 percent to 30 percent in favor of legalizing abortion,

One of the few remaining countries where it had been illegal.

Wild celebrations with women sporting Repeal

On sweatshirts.

A man with a Down syndrome child wore his own sweatshirt.

It read,

Repent.

Not even sure why I agreed to help Father Malachy with the issue of his sister.

Curiosity, mostly, to see what on earth a sister of his was like. She lived in a huge house off Grattan Road. No trouble identifying her home as a large plaque proclaimed

            Duchess

                Jessica

                    Selwyn

                        Rose

Obviously, modesty wasn’t a problem for her.

I said to myself,

“All you have to do is persuade her young companion to leave.”

Piece of cake.

Rang the doorbell and fuck, it sounded like the gong used back in the day by the Rank Organisation. The door swung open and a young woman in cut-off denim shorts, black T, bare feet, asked,

“Yeah?”

She was pretty in a haphazard way but something in her look suggested ugliness, plus she seemed to have a smirk.

I said,

“I’m here to see Ms. Rose.”

She considered that, then said,

“No.”

And slammed the door.

I banged the door, the fucking gong again, and the door opened. She asked,

“What?”

As if she’d never seen me before.

I put my foot in the door, snarled,

“You look familiar.”

She was saved from answering by a cry from inside.

“Who is it, dear?”

I pushed by, entered a marble hall, saw a large sitting room to my left, and turned in there.

An elderly woman, dressed in what appeared to be a Barbara Cartland / Shirley MacLaine / Fionnula Flanagan medley outfit, i.e.,

Swaths of scarves,

Bangles,

Big hair,

Gold kimono / dressing gown.

Her face had been lifted so she appeared expressionless. She purred,

“Who have we here?”

A wave of patchouli engulfed me. I said,

“Jack Taylor, a friend of your brother’s.”

She gave a massive roar, which I realized was actually a laugh, but her face didn’t move. She said,

“Don’t be ridiculous. My brother has no friends.”

Argue that.

The girl had moved in to stand too close to my back. I turned, said,

“Rein it in.”

The woman said,

“You may call me Jess.”

Fuck, lucky me.

I said,

“Jess, Malachy was concerned about your welfare.”

The girl snorted.

Jess said,

“My intern PA with the intriguing name Jericho is very protective of me.”

I said,

“That’s sweet but I need a word in private.”

Jericho moved next to Jess. Didn’t quite sit in her lap but was in the neighborhood. Jess said,

“We have no secrets in this house. That’s the sort of thing Malachy and his cronies indulge in.”

Dilemma.

How to delicately say,

Get shot of the girl,

Fire her,

Kick her arse out.

I said,

“Get rid of the girl.”

They both gasped as if they had rehearsed and maybe they had. Jericho said,

“Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.”

I tried,

“I’ll leave my number, if you want to talk.”

Jericho moved up real close to me, said,

“Fuck off.”

I gave her my benign face, said,

“We’ll meet again.”

She sneered, said,

“Count on it.”

It is said that childhood forms utterly who we are.

There is no escape.

In Jericho’s home, one room at the top of the house was off-limits to Jericho and her young sister, Gina; it supposedly held a priceless picture by Jack B. Yeats.

Jericho, despite dire warnings, went into the room. A huge skylight illuminated a portrait on the wall.

Jericho was startled when a raven came through the window and was trapped. It flew crazily,

Crashing into walls.

Jericho was screaming when Gina turned the key in the door, locking her in with the raven.

Hours later, her father managed to open the door. He found Jericho unconscious on the floor, the painting ripped from the wall and in shreds,

And the savagely torn remains of a raven.

Pieces of the bird were lodged in the girl’s teeth and a piece of the frame was shoved through the raven’s eyes.

Jericho absolutely blanked this event from her memory; she never connected it to the push she gave to Gina into traffic.

Nor did her intermittent shudder at the sight of a raven dredge up the memory, so deeply was it buried.

She did develop a fixation on the painter Jack B. Yeats.