Galway Girl

Jericho revisited her grand plan of chaos:

Recruit two dumb men; fuck ’em over in every sense,

Then kill two women.

She said aloud,

“The twos rule,”

As she fingered the two G’s on a chain around her neck.

Prison for Scott was punctuated by:

Beatings,

Assaults,

Slow gym building,

Until he was celled with a hacker.

They jelled and Scott learned the basics of the hacker’s art.

Freed, as he prepared his Guard blitzkrieg, he had the bright idea of getting a female Guard as a girlfriend. This in mind, he hacked the Garda personnel file.

Nora McEntee caught his eye. He muttered,

“You’ll do nicely.”

Stalked her slowly, then approached her in the pub one night, asked,

“May I buy you a drink?”

She gave him the measured Irish woman scan, deadly in its scrutiny, and he was found wanting. She said,

“No, don’t think so.”

Her friends tittered.

Tittered!

At him?

She was no fucking prize, he thought, and for a good-looking dude like him to throw her a crumb?

The fuck was with that?

Two days later Scott killed his first Guard.

Noel Flaherty, a close friend of his father, was, as Scott muttered,

“A prize bollix.”

He was, by sheer coincidence, an uncle of the late Garda Ridge.

Scott had found his father’s Colt.45, the authentic Old West gig, a present from law enforcement in Arizona. He had attended a conference there and made friends with the top cops.

This weapon was lovingly cleaned, oiled, and locked away again every week. Only once had Scott been allowed to hold it.

His father had said,

“If you man up, maybe someday you might be allowed to actually load it.”

Right.

A box of six bullets.

So, six Guards.

Why not?

Noel Flaherty lived in one of the old fishing cottages in Claddagh, alone since his wife died. Scott easily broke in through a piss-poor lock on the back door.

Cops were notoriously lax at home protection, thinking,

“Who’d have the balls to burgle us?”

Flaherty was watching a video of the Galway hurling team win the All Ireland, roaring and cheering as if he were at Croke Park.

Scott stepped in front of the TV screen, said,

“The match has been canceled.”

Scott was dressed in ski mask, black jeans, hoodie, his whole body alight. He slipped out the back door, left a note to give the dumb cops something to puzzle over.

The actual note meant nothing to him but he thought it added a nice air of intent.

Outside, he was coming from the back alley and not only was the damn mask itching but the fooker was hot. Sweat rolling downs his face, he whipped it off, gulping large bolts of oxygen.

Realized the gun was still in his hand.

Fuck.

Careless.

Then noticed a girl leaning against the far wall, smoking a cig, dressed like a Goth punk. He raised the gun, thought,

“Shite, only five bullets left.”

The girl pushed away from the wall, gave a malicious smile, said,

“Gotcha.”

On her second line of coke, Jericho said aloud,

“First dumb fuck selected.”