In the Galway Silence

27

Trump fired his sixth top guy in so many weeks. The lunatic in North Korea daily upped his threat to fire nuclear missiles at the island of Guam. An ISIS cell led by a seventeen-year-old committed another atrocity, in Barcelona, eighteen killed, hundreds injured.

The Irish women’s rugby team was beaten by France in the World Cup series, and Galway’s hurling team geared up for the All-Ireland final; tickets were like gold dust.

Pat Hickey, the erstwhile head of the Irish Olympic Council, enmeshed in a ticket scandal, briefly jailed in Brazil, was now back in Ireland and declaring his aim to be reelected. You had to kind of whistle at the sheer nerve of the guy. Pictures of him in the papers told you everything you needed to understand about smugness and utter entitlement.

Our new leader, Leo Varadkar, fronted up to the UK about borders in the forthcoming Brexit negotiations. The Tories screamed,

“How dare he?”

The country said,

“Way to go, Leo.”

Well, the Church, which was keeping quiet on just about every topic, reckoned a low profile might be wise, especially as one of the pope’s top cardinals in Australia was arrested on child molestation allegations. His face on TV had a lot in common with the one worn by Hickey.

A book of short stories on my table had the title

How to Be a Goth in the Country.

How to resist that?

Netflix had a terrific new series, Ozark.

I revisited

Witnesses

The Divide

Nobel

The kind of TV that had little exposure but was true gold.

Tevis was true to his word and simply disappeared, which left me versus Michael Allen. My previous case I had with malice afterthought immersed in utter darkness, embraced revenge with total focus. If, as they say, for revenge dig two graves, then I nigh Olympic dug.

Resolved after to be done with violence, so far I hadn’t as much as raised a mutilated finger in aggression.

Would it last?

Fuck knew.

When / if Michael Allen came for me, I’d react on the day and, bizarre as it seems, I didn’t lose a whole lot of sleep over the prospect.

Not so much fatalistic as deep fatigued, I only knew that me and plans never met with anything like joy.

Then, life as it goes on its muddled path decided to switch from the murderous to the ridiculous. The first manifestation of this was, of course, a priest.

A very young priest.

He found me sitting on the square, watching the various encampments that sprang up overnight with a blend of refugees and homeless and stranded tourists.

The priest looked barely out of his teens and his clerical collar was blinding in its whiteness. He approached me with,

“Mr. Taylor?”

I stared at him with a mild contempt, born of years of clerical debacle. I said,

“Yeah?”

He asked,

“May I sit?”

“Kneeling would be better.”

That shocked and bewildered him. He tried,

“I beg your pardon?”

I said,

“Kidding. You guys need to lighten up but, then, you don’t really have a whole lot of stuff to laugh about.”

He stood in a cloud of unknowing, so I said,

“Spit it out.”

He composed himself as if he was about to recite a rosary, said,

“I come on behalf of the bishop-elect, Father Malachi.”

I laughed, said,

“Jeez, what a mouthful.”

He ventured on.

“As a mark of respect to your late mother, he would like to grace you with some assistance.”

I asked,

“Money would be good, I don’t have any scruples.”

He faltered, then,

“His eminence would be open to offer you the position of general groundsman.”

I marveled at the sheer audacity, said,

“Like the janitor.”

He searched for a description, said,

“Groundskeeper would be the title.”

I asked,

“Shouldn’t you be saying, His preeminence? I mean, he hasn’t got the gig yet.”

He made a show of checking his watch, an impressive slim gold job, said,

“I presume you do not wish to avail yourself of this opportunity.”

A hint of hard seeped into his tone and I could picture him in later years, lording it over some lofty parish. I said,

“You’re in the right job, fella.”

He turned to go, said,

“I shall convey your best wishes to his eminence.”

I went,

“Whoa, don’t do that. I didn’t ask you to say it so... don’t.”

He shook his head in frustration, said,

“You’re a very disagreeable man.”

And I liked him a little better, said,

“Go preach the good word, lad.”

As I watched him stride away, not a single person greeted him. In my youth, a priest took a walk, everybody saluted him.

So much had changed and utterly. I wondered how much had been lost in the new brash Ireland. A homeless guy approached and before he could ask I handed him a few notes. He was taken aback, muttered,

“You should have been a priest.”

I was feeding the swans, trying not to think of my beloved dog who would always accompany me. The memory still burned hot and blistered.

The black swan glided across the basin like a sleek ballerina. I sat on the bench, which gave a view clear across the bay. You could imagine you saw the Aran Islands resting on the horizon. As America to the west wondered who Trump would rant at this day, my own day was now about to move into the realm of the absurd.

A woman in her forties sat beside me, well dressed and with a fragrance of patchouli. Not unpleasant.

She asked,

“Mr. Taylor?”

“Jack.”

Got a lovely smile for that and it’s amazing how such a tiny gesture can lift your deadened heart. She said,

“I’ve been told you have a great fondness for dogs.”

What the fuck?

I said,

“I do, I did.”

She pursed her lips, took a breath, said,

“Someone has been poisoning the dogs in our street.”

I said,

“We can safely rule me out.”

Not what she was expecting but she continued.

“I’d like to engage your services to catch the culprit.”

I felt tired. A psycho was out there who waited to see if I’d kill Tevis, the two women in my life were seriously pissed at me, and now I could be a pet detective. When I didn’t answer, she said,

“I can pay.”

I said,

“Tell me what’s been happening.”

She explained how she lived in the small residential street just off Newcastle Avenue. Three of the neighbors’ dogs had been poisoned, and now only four dogs remained in the neighborhood. The dogs had all been in their gardens late evening when they were hit.

I thought about that, asked,

“Any suspicions on who might be responsible?”

“No, no one has complained about dogs or anything like that.”

Her name was Rita Coyne, a widow, her children grown, which was one reason her dog was so vital to her. She said,

“It’s hard to be lonely when a little dog is with you.”

I suggested I use her home as a base for a few days to see if I could figure out the culprit. She clapped her hands in glee, said,

“Oh, perfect. I want to visit my sister and was worried about leaving the house. Here, a spare key. I’ll leave provisions for you.”

I said,

“I won’t need much. A chair by the window really is all.”

She laughed, said,

“I think I can get you a chair.”

Then gave me that look, an Irishwoman one, of What’s up with you?”

She said,

“You strike me as a man who has simple needs.”

I could have said,

Apart from

Supply of Xanax

Coke

Booze

Cigs.

But I went with,

“I’ll take real good care of your home.”

I asked,

“I presume you told the Guards?”

She gave a fleeting smile, said,

“They said they had more to be doing than worrying about dogs.”

I nodded, not surprised, said,

“I’ll see what I can do.”

And, oh, fuck, she hugged me.

As I made my way back to my apartment I met Jimmy Norman, the DJ / pilot, chef extraordinaire, chatted to him about drones, which he used in his media business. Then, as I headed off, he gave me an odd look. I asked,

“What?”

He said, cautiously,

“You smell.”

Very hesitant pause.

“Patchouli?”

I said,

“Old hippies never die.”

He said,

“No, they usually write books about it.”

Michael Allen was sitting outside the cottage he’d been allowed to use by Pierre Renaud. If he were capable of missing anyone, he might have missed the Frenchman. It was with a certain reluctance he’d taken Renaud off the board.

Renaud, more and more, had been plagued by conscience and that wasn’t an option. Allen realized now that his

   2

    4

     J

Had failed.

But he admired his noble enterprise. He was, in truth, a little tired. He considered the choice he’d given to the two Ts:

Taylor and Tevis.

Not that he thought for a moment they’d go for that, no way, no balls.

Tevis would run and had indeed already done so. Maybe when Allen felt more energized he’d locate him, but Taylor was a whole different animal. The dude was a drunk, no mistake, but he had something, a spark, and it might be interesting to see how that could be ignited.

He went back inside, looked at his own self in the mirror, saw mostly a blank canvas. An idea was uncurling in his fevered mind, a plan that would be not only fun but a rather beautiful mind-fuck.

Moved to a large wooden table in the center of the room, unsheathed a large knife strapped under the surface, held the blade up to the light, and for a moment was mesmerized by the way it caught the light, then suddenly he struck it firmly into the very center of the table, liked the smooth motion of the action.

Repeated the motion six times and felt his mind formulate a scheme, then stopped, held himself motionless, then said in a light tone,

“A charm offensive.”

Liked the sound of that.

Stood, then dropped to effortlessly do a hundred push-ups, never breaking a sweat.

He moved to the mirror, stared, still but a vague figure, commanded,

“Drop, gimme me a hundred sit-ups.”

Did those with a total lack of expression, counted them off in a dead tone, bounced up, back to the mirror, shouted,

“Charm offensive.”

The plank.

An excruciating exercise much favored by celebrities. He held that grueling stance for a full five minutes, stopped, took a second to orient himself, then stood again.

A local man, renowned to such an extent for making poteen that even the Guards bought their hooch from him. This morning, he had been sampling his latest batch and may have overindulged. He was now staggering close to Michael Allen’s cottage and thought he heard shouting.

Heard,

“Harm offensive”?

Could that be right?

Staggered on.

Allen now moved to the mirror, saw a handsome guy begin to take shape, and allowed himself a small smile, said,

“Charmed, indeed.”

The local stopped, listened, then said,

“Oh, it’s harm is offensive.”

Considered, then said,

“Gets my vote.”

28

How to prepare for a stakeout. In movies they have

Doughnuts

Thermos of coffee (black)

Empty plastic bottle for pee

Fedora.

The above of course depends on the era, not to mention the ego.

Beat-up inconspicuous vehicle.

Having a house at your disposal alleviates the need for most of the above.

I had a rucksack with

Xanax

Flask of coffee / Jameson

Music

  Johnny Duhan

      Marc Roberts

         Tom Russell/Gretchen Peters

Don Stiffe.

Good to go or, rather, sit.

I dressed in black, of course, and added a hurley as the weapon of choice.

The house was tidy, comfortable. I chose a hard back chair, placed it a bit back from the front window; an armchair would incline dozing and I wanted to be at least semialert.

I thought about who might want to poison dogs, muttered,

“Some sick bollix.”

Surmised an older guy, pissed at the world, too cowardly to confront people, so took it out on dogs.

I looked forward to meeting him.

A lot.

That first evening was quiet beyond belief, not a single suspicious character.

I was humming to myself and thought,

Humming is next to madness.

Not to mention extremely annoying. I took out the hurley, flexed it, took a few practice swings, thought about how Galway had reached the All-Ireland and were meeting Wexford in the final. What I most knew about that city was it produced the fine writer Eoin Colfer.

I played some mental chess, said,

Forks, pins, and skewers are some of the sneakiest tricks you can use against your opponent. These tactics can lead to winning one, maybe more, enemy pieces.

I slept most of the next day, chess pieces in the shape of dogs running riot in my head, my daughter standing at the edge of the chessboard saying,

“You will never hold my hand.”

Woke in a shower of sweat, muttered,

“Sweet Lord.”

The second night, a young couple strolled arm in arm along the street. I thought,

Young love.

They turned at the top of the street and then came back.

Hello?

I watched more closely. The girl was definitely peering into gardens and I knew it wasn’t an interest in flowers. I just knew. A car came into the street and it spooked them. They walked quickly away.

I realized I was gripping the hurley with intent.

Third night, I was bouncing with suppressed energy, waiting.

Midnight came, and I was about to put on my headphones, sink a few Jays, and call it a night when the couple appeared.

Lock and load.

The guy was on the opposite side of the street, the girl on mine, and they were throwing items into every second garden. When the girl reached my garden I was out, fast and shouting.

Scared the living shite out of her. She actually jumped. I grabbed her roughly by the arm, the guy on the other side stared at me, then ran like fuck.

I said,

“How noble.”

The girl, recovering, tried to claw at my face but I elbowed her in the gut, winding her, said,

“Now, now.”

Picked up the slab of meat she’d tossed and dragged her into the house, pushed her onto the sofa, shut the door. Took her a moment, then she screamed. I picked up the hurley, gave her a wallop on the legs, said,

“Next shot is your face.”

Shut her up.

She was maybe sixteen, pretty in a spoiled fashion, dressed in an expensive tracksuit. I thought,

It’s always the rich kids.

I asked, holding the meat up,

“Why are you poisoning the dogs?”

She was rallying, said,

“We’re giving them treats.”

I smiled, said,

“Really?”

She was now gaining in confidence. I figured I’d let her run on that for a bit, asked,

“If I cook up this bad boy, you’ll have no problem taking a bite?”

She gave a crooked evil smile, said,

“I’m vegan.”

I moved to her, reached into her jacket, got her phone. She tried to grab it, shrieked,

“That’s private, that is.”

Scrolled her photos, contacts, then put the phone in her face, a photo showing, said,

“This will be the noble lad himself.”

She said,

“He’ll kick your ass.”

I laughed, asked,

“From a distance?”

I checked the phone some more, said,

“David Lee, well, he’s left you to take the rap.”

She was still thinking she had some room, asked,

“What rap?”

I lit a cig, said,

“A young child put some of your treats in her mouth and is in the hospital so, at a guess, attempted murder.”

She gasped.

“My mum will kill me.”

I said,

“Tell me about the poison.”

She suddenly caved, began to cry, sniffed,

“Rat poison. David said it would be a bit of, you know, drama.”

I was tired of her, said,

“You can go.”

“Really?”

I waved her away, said,

“Tell Dave the Guards will be in touch.”

She was about to leave when she looked at me, said,

“I know you.”

I shook my head, said,

“I very much doubt that.”

She was certain, insisted,

“You were in the papers, saved some guy, and you’re some kind of...”

Searched for a description, then,

“Hero.”

She weighed that in her nasty little mind, then demanded,

“Give me my phone or I’ll say you raped me.”

Ah, fuck.

I moved right into her space, said,

“If you Google me, you’ll see, among other items, I killed a girl, about your age, and guess what?”

She took a step back and I moved in tandem.

She tried, shakily,

“What?”

“They never could prove it.”

She grabbed her coat, ran for the door. I shouted,

“Watch out for the dog.”

In every city there are people who will hurt anyone you wish.

For money.

Galway now being a city that had our designated hitters.

Led by a man named Tracy, who was of mixed Brit / Irish heritage, his only allegiance being to cash. I knew him from past misadventures. Best of all, he loved dogs.

I met him in Crowes bar. He was sitting at the rear, nursing a pint of Smithwick’s. He looked like an accountant, one whose books listed damage and mayhem. Dressed in a lightweight gray suit, he affected an air of bland innocence. He greeted,

“Jack, my man.”

Good start.

I said,

“You look well, Trace.”

You had to know him very well to use the derivative of his name.

He smiled at that, signaled to Ollie Crowe, who brought a pint of Guinness and a Jay chaser. Tracy said,

“Took the liberty.”

We did the Sláinte bit, then I slid a fat envelope across the table. He raised an eyebrow. Asked,

“Personal or simply business?”

I said, simply,

“Guy who hurts dogs.”

The smile was gone. He said,

“So personal, then.”

I told him the saga and said I had been unable to track down David Lee. He was quiet for a while, then,

“This Lee, he poisons dogs?”

I nodded.

“Any reason why?”

I said,

“I’m guessing he’s one of those who like to hurt animals.”

Trace gave a tight smile, said,

“I’ll enjoy a chat with him.”

He stared at his relatively untouched pint, said,

“I drink maybe six of those, I get to the place, you know what I mean?”

I sure did.

He continued,

“Give me two shots, I’m there in like three minutes, so why delay?”

I said,

“I cover that with a pint and a shot.”

He liked that, said,

“You always had a way about you, Jack. Not fully nuts but circling.”

I said,

“I have something else but in the major league.”

He looked at me, said,

“The Michael Allen psycho.”

I was surprised, asked,

“You know him?”

He was quiet a bit, then,

“My trade is certainly no stranger to violence but this guy, phew. He’s a whole other gig.”

Meaning he couldn’t help. I asked,

“Any advice?”

No hesitation,

“Shoot the fucker.”

29

Galway won the All-Ireland hurling final!

The city went wild, three days of party central.

That the Irish team failed to beat Serbia in the World Cup qualifiers almost — almost — went unnoticed in our jubilation. Flush with joy and Jay, I made a last-ditch effort to salvage my relationship with Marion. I mean, if Galway took the Cup after thirty years, then surely I could win back my lady.

Met her, went

Like this.

She was dressed to dazzle, but not me, alas. We met in Jurys hotel, neutral ground, in the lounge there, surrounded by tourists asking reception why the wi-fi was on the blink. I was dressed soberly, in white shirt, funeral jacket, pressed pants, polished shoes, and massive hope.

For now.

She launched,

“I’m reconciled with my husband.”

What do you say?

“Congratulations”?

Or go with your gut, go,

“Fuck it.”

I lied.

“I’m happy for you.”

Yeah.

She near snarled,

“No, you’re not.”

Okay.

I asked,

“How is Jeff, um, Joffrey?”

She actually sneered.

“You can’t even remember my child’s name.”

Stir of echoes.

For some bizarre reason, Marion’s tone of voice recalled my late mother at her most bitter. She had accused:

“You want to put me in a home.”

“No,”

I’d shot back.

“I want to put you in an urn.”

Marion looked at my dark clothes, not seeing any aspect that appealed.

She said,

“Try and introduce some color into your appearance. You look like something died.”

Yeah, something died sure enough. Was dying and wilting right in front of her.

I said,

“Right, then, have a lovely life.”

I was already walking away when she said,

“I’m happy for your wife.”

WTF?

I turned, asked,

“What?”

“We ran into each other the other night. She introduced me to her new man.”

I said,

“But she left Galway.”

She gave what might have been a very nasty smile, said,

“Afraid not. She seemed so lit up and you know what she said was really great?”

Heavens, I couldn’t wait to hear, asked,

“Yeah?”

She said,

“He is so good with the little girl, as if she were his.”

The hits kept on coming.

I said,

“So good of you to share.”

I went to the bar, ordered a large Jay, the guy there asked,

“Ice?”

I said,

“I’ve had enough ice in the last ten minutes to last a decade.”

He placed my drink carefully before me, said,

“There’s been an explosion on the London Underground.”

I muttered to myself,

“The grief is endless.”

He asked,

“You hear about the student in Oxford?”

No.

I shook my head, so he said,

“A homeless man asked him for some change?”

I waited.

“He took out a twenty-pound note, set fire to it, said, Now it’s changed.”

I looked over at the Claddagh Basin, wondered how long it would take to walk over there and just fucking jump.

I drained the glass, set some money on the counter, said,

“Take it easy.”

He said,

“I’m taking the plane to Australia.”

I was standing outside Eason’s, huge stack of Hillary Clinton’s

What Happened

On display.

Really, she had to ask?

A girl came up to me, got right in my face. I said,

“Back it off.”

The dog poisoner said,

“David has got a broken arm, his face smashed, and said to give you a message.”

I said,

“Make it brief.”

She did back off, a vicious smile in place, said,

“He’s coming for you.”

Of course he was. I said,

“Tell him to join the queue.”

Confused her, she went,

“What?”

I shot my hand out, tapped her lightly on the head, said,

“God bless you child.”

I walked off.

She shouted some obscenity at me but it was caught on the wind, went in the other direction, much like the story of my life.

North Korea continued to launch missiles, edging closer to the U.S. mainland.

The Guards were still involved in the massive breath-analyzing scandal, where it now emerged that close to a million tests were blatantly invented. The Garda commissioner finally resigned.

You grasped for any hint of light in a world darkening by the very minute.

Took:

A homeless Irishman found dead in Manchester. Despite repeated searches, no relatives could be found.

The Met, in a compassionate move, appealed to the Irish community to attend the poor man’s funeral.

They did.

In the hundreds.

Such moments gave you that breath to keep going another day.

Finding Kiki.

Like a poor version of a Pixar movie.

My daughter.

Fuck, My daughter?

The very words filled me with a range of emotions from joy to despair.

Me, who could barely run a cigarette lighter, was a father.

Then Kiki found me.

30

Kiki stood in front of me.

Looking gorgeous.

She had called at my apartment, came in, and gave what could only be interpreted as look of disapproval, said,

“Are you moving in or out?”

She had a doctorate in metaphysics, so I drew on that, asked,

“Is that a philosophical question?”

She looked like she might give me a hug. I said,

“I thought you were headed for Berlin.”

She was dressed in light leather jacket, dark jeans, boots, and had the appearance of casual wealth. She said,

“That was the plan and then the most extraordinary man came into my life.”

Fuck.

I asked,

“How fortunate. Are you, like, collecting men?”

Her mood soured. She said,

“No need to be jealous.”

I had a hundred answers but none of them even touched on civility so I said nothing. She gathered herself together, asked,

“Would you like to come to dinner and meet him?”

Would I fuck!

I said,

“That would be just lovely.”

There are times I stand on the Salmon Weir Bridge and just stare at the salmon leaping. Not that they do much leaping since the water was poisoned. But if you focus, seriously concentrate, you may, in your ideal vision, see a massive brown-red specimen jump absolutely clear of the water, and then, with a fine lunge, clear the very weir.

That delights me to my core.

A tinker woman once told me,

“Free your mind of the narrow world amac [son], let the wild entrance you with a magic that is not of this space.”

Times I could, others I let Jameson do an artificial version, neither endured but briefly. Alongside the river are wooden seats, relatively free of graffiti and vandalism. A woman sat there, staring intently at me. I did what you do.

I stared back.

She summoned me.

I sighed, muttered,

“What fresh hell awaits me now?”

I wasn’t far off the mark as it turned out.

As I approached, I could see she was in her mid-fifties, petite, with a very elegant coat that didn’t quite disguise that here was a person who had recently emerged from major trauma, the stain of tragedy large in her eyes. She might be moving away from whatever it was but she certainly wasn’t recovered.

I know this from bitter experience.

From such events you can put distance but, really, that’s all it will be.

Distance.

She said,

“Mr. Taylor.”

Patted the seat beside her.

Something in the gesture implied gentleness. Of course, it might be just an empty gesture. I sat.

She gave me a look of deep sorrow.

Up close, you could see she’d been a looker in her day but life had beaten the hell out of her. She said,

“I’m Loren Renaud.”

Oh, fuck, Pierre Renaud’s wife, mother of the murdered twins, and now a dead husband. The fact wasn’t that she seemed beaten but that she was still functioning on any level. What did I say?

“Sorry your old man killed the kids”?

I tried,

“I am so sorry for all your...”

Fuck, pause.

“Grief.”

She made a small sound not unlike an involuntary laugh, said,

“It seems too much for one family, n’est-ce pas?”

Of course, she was bound to have absorbed French. I asked,

“You wanted to talk to me?”

Long silence, then,

“You are yourself pursued by ghosts, I think.”

Indeed.

I said,

“Most days I outrun them, not by much but enough to keep going.”

She said,

“Une chambre sans meubles.”

Explained,

“My mother used to say grief is like a bedroom stripped of all furniture.”

She asked,

“Would you have a cigarette?”

Now that I could handle.

Her hand shook as she took the cig. She said,

“You should have seen me a week ago.”

I liked her, the bald honesty of the admission. It was simply heartbreaking.

I said,

“Been there, even my voice shook.”

And she hesitated, then laughed, echoed,

“Your voice?”

“Yeah, imagine how fucked you have to be for that.”

She didn’t have to imagine as she still had some occupancy of that dark borough. I said,

“It is a wonder you are here at all.”

And could have bitten my tongue.

She nodded, said,

“I was in a haze of booze and pills for a long time and only one thing pulled me back.”

I didn’t ask, waited.

She said,

“Cross my heart, I didn’t know Pierre killed his...”

Pause.

“Our sons. Until the animal told me.”

I had a fair idea who that was but, again, waited.

“Michael Allen. In the beginning, he was all charm and Pierre, he was in awe of him, gave him money for that ludicrous vendetta, Two for Justice, as if Allen cared a toss for that.”

She gave a deep sigh, reliving many nightmares, then,

“When Pierre died, I really believed it was suicide until Allen laid out the whole shocking series of events. He told me he’d need to keep the cottage Pierre had let him use and that he would be...”

Deep breath.

“Requiring funds from time to time.”

She gave me a look of utter outrage, said,

“In effect, I’m to support the man who destroyed my whole family.”

She shook her head at the sheer horror of that.

Crunch time. I asked,

“Why have you come to me?”

She said,

“You have to stop him.”

Right.

How do you dress to meet your ex-wife’s new man?

Carefully.

I put on the obligatory black jacket, white shirt, tie (loosely, to suggest mellow or couldn’t give a fuck), black jeans, Docs. The Docs had steel toe caps because who knows? Checked in the mirror, saw a battered undertaker’s assistant, the guy you keep in the background.

Took a deep breath, a Xanax, and good to go.

We were meeting in the Bijou, a quasi-French place run by Vietnamese. Such was the mix of Galway today.

In the foyer of the restaurant, Kiki was waiting. She was looking gorgeous. Fuck it.

She said,

“My man is parking the car, we’ll go ahead to the table.”

My man!

Stung.

I asked,

“Where is Gretchen?”

Waited a beat, added,

“My daughter?”

She smiled briefly, asked,

“You are going to behave, right, Jack?”

I smiled, said,

“Of course.”

We were at the table. I’d ordered a large Jay, Kiki an orange juice, when her face lit up. She said,

“Here he comes.”

I turned,

Michael Allen was striding toward us.

I was utterly dumbfounded.

The bollix was smiling, hand outstretched, said,

“I feel I know you already, Jack.”

Pause.

“May I call you Jack?”

He leaned over, gave Kiki a lingering kiss, said,

“You minx, you never said your ex” — leaned on that — “was one fine-looking dude. Should I be a wee bit jealous?”

His accent was now that polished mid-Atlantic shite that has spread like a disease. Kiki was behaving downright coquettish.

We sat, or rather they did, and I sort of collapsed into my chair. The waiter arrived, said,

“Good evening, folks. I’m Fanon and I’m going to be your server so anything you need, just holler. Now, how about drinks?”

They each ordered juice. I said,

“Double Jameson.”

Allen said,

“We don’t drink.”

Kiki babbled on about the ambience until the drinks came, then Allen raised his juice, proposed,

“A toast to fine company.”

And fucking winked at me.

They ordered some vegan shite. I had a sirloin, adding,

“Lots of heavy gravy.”

Kiki excused herself to go, and it mortifies me to remember, to

“The little girls’ room.”

Soon as she left Allen reached over, grabbed my glass, sank the lot, belched, said,

“Christ, I needed that.”

I asked,

“Won’t you reek of booze?”

He looked at me as if I was completely clueless.

“Dude,”

he said.

“The chick is in love, all she smells is them there roses.”

So many words there to warrant a puck in the mouth.

...dude, chick...

I seethed.

He said, dude to dude,

“Tell you, bro, I got to sneak out late evenings, after some serious fucking, grab me some carbs, like double cheeseburger, side of chili fries.”

Then he looked right at me, asked,

“Tell me, Jack, that blow job she does, you teach her that?”

I was reaching for him when Kiki returned, all aglow, asked,

“You guys getting to know each other?”

I said,

“You bet.”

Somehow the horrendous meal ended and I reached for the bill. Allen grabbed it, said,

“Your money’s no good with this family. Am I right, sweetheart?”

She preened as he pinched her bum.

Outside, Kiki was getting into a cab and Allen hung back, whispered,

“Any idea you have of, how should I say, spilling the beans, I’ll shoot the cunt of a daughter in the face.”

Then he was in the cab, already fondling Kiki.

31

I was lost, riddled with fear, anxiety, paranoia.

Edward Lear’s biographer described him as

A man who wandered hopefully

Without hope

In a desperate refusal to despair.

What in God’s name was I doing reading Lear?

Shows the fragmented state of my being, that in a mad moment I thought,

Gretchen might enjoy Edward Lear.

I mean, fuck it. I had barely spoken two words to my daughter and here I was thinking what I might read to her. Utter insanity. At least I recognized it.

Michael Allen had my family literally as hostages and I felt powerless to act.

Pathetic.

After the wholesale violence of my previous case, I had sworn to avoid violence but now it not only beckoned but had become obligatory.

Like Chandler suggested, when you’re stuck, I needed

A man to come through the window with a gun.

What I got was Tevis.

He came back.

Was waiting outside my apartment, looking tanned and healthy. I asked,

“Couldn’t stay away?”

He sighed, said,

“He found me.”

I didn’t need to ask who.

I did ask,

“So why are you still alive?”

He hesitated, then,

“I saw him first.”

Wasn’t entirely sure that was the whole story. He said,

“I was in Cork.”

I echoed,

“Cork? Who hides out in Cork?”

He smiled, said,

“Exactly.”

His whole demeanor was off. I asked,

“Your tan, in Cork?”

He said,

“See, thing is, Jack, not sure I fully trust you now.”

I was more curious than angry, asked,

“So why are you in my place?”

He thought about that, then,

“Harley asked me to contact you.”

The name struck a vague chord but evaded me. I asked,

“Who is Harley?”

“The filmmaker. He had Allen on film actually killing the pedophile.”

“Had? The fuck use is had?”

Tevis took a deep breath as if patience was necessary, said,

“He felt that if we joined forces we could finally rid all of us of Allen.”

I shook my head, said,

“Tell him to bring his story to the Guards.”

Got the look. He said,

“We’re fucked if you don’t help us.”

I thought about that, then,

“Tell you what. I’ll meet you guys tomorrow, see what Harley says.”

If I only knew, they wouldn’t be there.

In less than twelve hours they would both be dead.

I tried to ring Kiki. She had given me her mobile number. The call was answered

By

Michael Allen.

Fuck.

I asked, with more than a spread of rage,

“The fuck are you doing answering her phone?”

He made a sound I thought existed only in novels of soft porn.

“Tut-tut. Language, fella.”

I tried to rein in the anger, asked,

“Can you put her on the phone?”

Long pause, then,

“Anything you wish to say to her, say to me, we share...”

Beat.

“Everything.”

I wanted to hurl the phone across the room, asked,

“Just how far do you think you can goad me?”

I heard a slight snigger, then,

“I need to ask you a biggie, my man.”

“What?”

He was definitely having a high old time, said,

“I mean, old chum, I want a favor, if that’s not a heavy burden on our blossoming friendship.”

Yet again he blindsided me. I asked,

“You’re asking me for a favor?”

“Indeedy.”

I was already exhausted trying to keep pace, said,

“What.”

“Would you do me, actually us...”

He managed to imbue us with a sinister lewdness.

“The honor of being my best man?”

Sweet Jesus.

I went,

“You’re getting married?”

He gave what was meant to be a shy chuckle, a gee shucks sound, said,

“Why wait, when you’ve met your soul mate. Go for it, am I right?”

God almighty.

I said nothing.

He continued,

“Need one last teeny bit of advice, bro, and I swear I’ll let you get back to your drinking or whatever it is you waste your days with.”

I said,

“Let’s hear it.”

“It is a wee tad delicate but who better to ask than the previous daddy.”

I said with absolute granite,

“Be real careful now, asshole.”

“Righty-ho. Gretchen is acting more than a little flirtatious.”

The sheer obscenity of that. I said,

“You are going to die slowly, I swear.”

“So anyway, Jack. I’m no kiddie fiddler but it is a little awkward to keep rejecting her, um, advances.”

He now sounded like a stand-up guy, bewildered by feminine wiles. I near screamed,

“She’s nine years old.”

That evil chuckle again, with,

“I’ll do my best to end her off.”

Before I could reply, he said,

“Two for Justice.”

“What?”

Now he laughed loudly, said,

“The two deadbeats you sent to, um, deal with me? Had some car trouble, I hear.”

I could hear voices behind him and he said,

“Got to run, woman to satisfy and, speaking of women, shame about the widow.”

Pierre Renaud’s wife?

I asked,

“You hurt that woman?”

Long beat, then,

“Grief, they say, is a bitch, am I right?”

And he clicked off.

Leaving me in a hundred different tones of dread.

I headed for O’Connell’s pub on Eyre Square.

When the original owner died, she left the property to Saint Vincent de Paul. The estimated value of this was conservatively

Twelve million.

Needless to say, an intricate messy legal war ensued.

I had a great affection for this bar. It was where my dad drank. Not that he ever drank anything like I did. He’d go on a Friday evening with his mates, have, at most, three pints.

He’d bring home fish and chips, in newspaper, smelling like heaven. My mother, the bitch, would cause unholy hell, roaring,

“How dare you come into this house smelling like a brewery?”

Fucking rich.

She’d have been home, sipping sweet sherry like a banshee, three sheets to the quasi-religious wind. Most times, she’d snatch the fish supper, fling it in the bin. She’d turn on me, snarl,

“What are you looking at?”

Once, I’d answered,

“Not much.”

And meant it.

She’d beaten me to an inch of my life and not for the first time.

But the pub was reopened and still retained most of the character of the original, plus they drew the almost perfect pint, one that was a joy to behold, the cream top, the sheer blackness in all its pristine glory.

I was sitting on a high stool, savoring my first pint, when a guy slipped onto the stool beside me. He greeted,

“How ya, Jack?”

I nodded, noncommittal. Chat was not on my menu.

I had made a decision.

To kill Michael Allen and real soon.

The guy said,

“Not sure if you remember me. We played hurling together?”

I said,

“Oh, yeah?”

Weighing it with enough indifference to halt a Sunday Mass. Undeterred, he plowed on.

“I’m Tommy, Tommy Foyle.”

I was about to shut him down when he asked,

“You ever were anointed, Jack?”

WTF?

I asked,

“You mean like the last rites?”

When I was a kid, if you heard,

“Call for the priest,”

You knew the poor fucker was a goner — not the priest, the patient.

He said,

“Yeah. I was on my last legs, and the priest came. I was never, like, real religious but when he put the holy oils on me I had such peace like you’d not believe.”

I stated the obvious.

“You recovered, I see.”

He laughed, said,

“I’m like a young lad now.”

For a horrendous moment, I thought he said,

“I’d like a young lad.”

I said,

“That’s great.”

I half meant it.

What the hell, I bought him a pint. He asked,

“Do a chaser with it?”

Yeah, he was better.

Behind me I heard a man speaking Irish, a rare to rarest thing.

He was saying,

“Bhi fachtious orm” (I was afraid).

I thought,

Me, too.

The other speaker said,

“Och, no bac leat.”

The literal translation is, “Ah, never mind him.”

But you get grit behind the words, utter it with force, it’s,

“Fuck him.”

Needless to say, I prefer the latter usage.

I left the pub, stood on Eyre Square for a while, watching the skateboarders, and, hands down, we have the worst, the very fucking worst, boarders on the planet. Maybe it’s just not an Irish thing and constant rain would deter the most ardent skater, but it was almost painful to see how downright awful they were.

Almost.

I shook myself. I had a rifle to steal.

32

A sixty-four-year-old accountant booked a room on the thirteenth floor of the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. He somehow managed to bring over thirty weapons along.

An open-air country and western festival was taking place below him.

He shot fifty-six dead and injured over two hundred others before turning the gun on himself. He had planned to hit fuel canisters alongside other hotels and create a fireball of epic size.

A woman in the UK used her dead husband’s ashes to have a ring made so she could literally wear him.

Harvey Weinstein fled to Europe after numerous women accused him of all kinds of sexual harassment.

Catalonia attempted to declare independence and the Spanish government reacted with violence to a peaceful demonstration.

The above is just part of a daily litany of horror we were witness to in this year of our Lord 2017.

Stephen King turned seventy and had half a dozen TV and film adaptions on release.

James Lee Burke at eighty had a new Robicheaux novel published.

My mind was too fucked with rage to read but if I ever got to higher ground I had a list of old / new favorites to savor:

The Redemption of Charlie McCoy by C. D. Wilsher

Caught Stealing, Charlie Huston

A Lesson in Violence, Jordan Harper

And an old favorite from way back in 1996,

My Ride with Gus by Charles Carillo.

Such idle musings floating in my head as I side-minded the fact of having to procure a rifle and got to my apartment. There was a black envelope pinned to my door.

Black!

Now that was not going to be glad tidings.

Got inside, poured a large Jay, and carefully opened the envelope, a gold-embossed card with Gothic letters

Like this:

“Await

   the

     Dead

        of

         Jericho.”

I tossed it aside, figuring I’d worry about it later.

The radio was on with the terrific Marc Roberts. He played

Don Stiffe,

Followed by as near perfect a pop song as I’ve heard, titled

“Perfect”

By Ed Sheeran.

I looked out at the bay as the song played softly behind me.

Such longing for I don’t know what suffused every part of my being.

Stir of echoes.

Back in my fledgling days as an investigator, I really had no idea what I was doing.

I achieved a limited amount of success due mainly to luck, most of it bad, and sheer chance. I became friends with a Ban Garda, Ni Iomaire. To her constant annoyance, I always used the English form of her name.

Ridge.

She was a strong gutsy lady. You needed all of that to be a woman in the Guards, not to mention gay. Would that she had lived to see a female Garda superintendent. For a few years, we had a kind of embittered friendship. She did the friend bit and I supplied the bitterness.

In spades.

The third spoke in our unlikely alliance was a former drug dealer turned Zen master who made a living as a property developer. He was much closer to Ridge than I was and they both tried to, if not stop, at least regulate my drinking.

They failed.

Stewart was the first to die.

Shotgun blast to the face.

That was the beginning of the ruin of my relationship with Ridge. She reckoned I was to blame for Stewart’s death and she might well have been correct but fuck if I was going to fess up. I had a list of deaths at my door as long as a Vatican rosary.

Then Ridge got killed.

Very nearly finished me off. I found myself at the end of Nimmo’s Pier, mulling what the American cops describe as

“Eating my gun.”

Ridge at one low point in her personal life and career decided that a straight marriage might if not improve at least enhance both.

And what a beau she chose.

Anthony Hyphen Hemple.

I put the hyphen in there for badness.

His actual name was

Anthony Bradford-Hemple.

He was the essence of Anglo-Irish, had inherited a seat in the House of Lords,

And I think actually sat there on two occasions.

Two!

Count ’em.

Needless to say, I gave Ridge a ferocious time about all of this, calling her Lady Ridge. Fuck, she hated that and, in time, of course, hated me. He liked to play to the image:

Old cords, very very battered Barbour wax jacket, unkempt hair, a cloth cap, and tweeds of everything else, even his undies I’d say.

He loved the hunt.

Vicious fuckers on horseback chasing a poor fox.

His favorite tipple was the old G and T, Gordon’s by divine right.

He’d said,

“When one is going to hounds, one fortifies with port and brandy.”

Despite the above, I didn’t mind him.

How Irish is that?

I tear him to shreds (much like his lot did the fox) then say I quite liked him.

He was bemused by me, utterly.

Called me

“A surprisingly well-read peasant.”

For a wedding present I’d given him the collected works of Siegfried Sassoon.

Including,

Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man.

The one time I’d been to his manor — and I mean that in the literal sense,

Manor—

Like those of so many of the former landlords, the old house was a crumbling ruin with more ruins than people. And cold.

Perishing.

The Anglo-Irish have a thing about heating, probably due to rising costs but they seem to believe one big motherfucking log and turf fire is sufficient.

Anthony had inspected me at the door and I said,

“No butler?”

He ran with it as opposed to against me, quipped,

“When we have the poor folk over, we give the staff the night off.”

Ridge had the grace to cringe.

I’d given her the full James Lee Burke set, signed first editions.

It was a time when I’d been dipping her dainty foot in the world of mystery fiction. JLB was her favorite.

Anthony took my all-weather Garda coat, sniffed at it, asked,

“Isn’t this government issue?”

I gave him the look, said,

“Don’t tell your wife, she’s one of them.”

He gave me a shocked look, thinking I meant the verboten lesbian.

Whisper.

I quickly added,

“One of the Guards.”

Relief flooded his face, spattered with rosacea. He offered,

“Bushmills okay?”

My turn to quip.

“That’s the Protestant one, give us a Jay.”

I’d made a small effort, put on a Rotary tie I’d stolen from a drunk, and Anthony, surprised, asked,

“You’re a Rotarian?”

Disbelief leaked all over his tone. I said,

“’Twas that or the Masons.”

He let that slide, raised his glass, toasted,

“Tootle pip.”

At least I think that was it, or in the neighborhood. He asked,

“You shoot?”

Like seriously?

I said,

“Only when the hurley isn’t enough.”

He grimaced more than smiled, said,

“Let me show you the gun cabinet.”

And cabinet it was.

Stocked with enough to quell a minor peasant revolt. He picked one out, said,

“This is a beauty.”

It was.

Made by Winchester, with the old bolt action. You pull that back as the bullet slides into the breech, the bolt action making a satisfying sound like the comforting clunk of your favorite old Zippo.

It smelled of oil and much usage.

I liked it a lot.

He said,

“You can fit a scope but I think that is a tad unfair to the game.”

There is no answer to this that even approaches civility so I made the indifferent,

“Uh-huh.”

I remember clearly holding the rifle and that freakish sense of power it falsely imparts. No wonder they talk of

“Gun nuts.”

Anthony was impressed, said,

“Looks good on you, my man.”

I reluctantly handed it back. He said,

“We must spend a day shooting pheasant.”

Later, I was outside, staring at the hill opposite the house. Ridge joined me, bummed a cig, asked,

“Don’t tell Anthony.”

As I lit her up, I asked,

“He’d disapprove?”

I should have paid more heed to her answer. She said,

“He disapproves of me.”

She pointed at the hill, said,

“There’s a fairy mound on that.”

I near sneered, went,

“You believe in fairies?”

Crushing her cig underfoot, she snarled,

“I am a fucking fairy.”

33

I needed transport if I was going to burgle Anthony’s gaff.

Gaff!

Christ, I had been watching too much Brit TV. I knew he had the Masonic lodge on Wednesday, and the staff (diminished as they were due to the economy) had the night off.

So it had to be a Wednesday.

I could hardly take a cab or risk stealing a vehicle. I still had plenty of cash due to Emily’s legacy and the fee Pierre Renaud had given me. I went to a car rental and, fuck it, got a stuck-up gobshite in attendance who began,

“How may we be of service to sir this fine morning?”

Fuck, I was tired already. I said,

“For openers, don’t call me sir.”

That softened his cough.

A bit.

He pulled out a load of forms, said,

“If s... you would be kind enough to fill out these.”

A rake of them.

I said,

“I’m here for a damn car, not a job application.”

He smirked, said,

“Data protection.”

Since the banks robbed us blind, data protection was the excuse of choice for laziness. But I did fill out the bloody things. Handed them over.

He scrutinized them as if they were WikiLeaks, said,

“No bank details?”

I said, tersely,

“I’m not looking for a loan, just a car.”

The smirk again.

He asked, with total incredulity,

“You want to pay cash?”

His face registered that I seemed a tad old for a drug dealer. He asked,

“What size and model did sir...”

Pause.

“Have in mind?”

All my battered life I wanted one time to drive a big fucking Jeep, let out all my macho bullshit in one dizzy flourish. I said,

“Something big, like a Land Rover.”

Cross my unholy heart but he actually tittered, did risk,

“You know what they say about men and big cars?”

God on a bike.

I leaned over the counter, got right up in his shit, as they say in the hood, snarled,

“You in the business of renting cars or just fucking with people?”

Frightened him. He stammered,

“No call for that,” and looked around for help. There was none.

Just me.

He said,

“The Mazda is a standout in the crossover SUV class. The CX-5 is a joy to drive.”

I cut him off, asked,

“Is it stick shift?”

I meant, had it gears that you manually handled so you actually knew you were doing the driving and not the automatic shite they peddled, ad nauseam, and don’t even get me started on hybrids / electric crap.

He dismissed me with a shrug, said,

“Perhaps sir would do better somewhere else.”

The contempt dripped from every italicized word.

For a moment, I considered pucking him on the upside of his arrogant head but went with,

“You should think about working in a pharmacy. They seem to specialize in employing cunts who read you the riot act if you ask for Solpadeine.”

I went down to the car park off the Claddagh and God smiled, or maybe the devil. Sitting right there was a battered Jeep, the license plates covered in dirt.

Perfect.

Took me all of five minutes to hot-wire and drive that muthah out of there.

The back window was dirty, ideal for me perch; shoot from there.

Locked and loaded.

Now I just had to break into Anthony’s home and grab the rifle.

Adrenaline was giving me a jolt of energy that made me feel alive in a dark and glorious way.

Back at my apartment, I did a few lines of coke to smooth out the vibes of electricity, was watching Stephen King’s

Storm of the Century,

Little realizing how utterly serendipitous that would be very soon.

A knock at the door. I opened to

Michael Allen,

Holding my daughter’s hand.

He pushed the little girl toward me, snapped,

“You get her today. My love and I are having a date day.”

And the fucker winked at me.

The girl looked frightened. I said,

“Come on in love, I’ll get you a soft drink.”

The tiniest of smiles.

How that warmed my ice heart.

Allen summoned me outside with a beckoning finger, said,

“I need a freaking day free of the damn nose snot.”

Lovely.

He smirked.

“Try to keep her out of the pubs.”

And he was gone.

I closed the door and faced my daughter with deep anxiety, tried,

“Anything you want to do, ’tis done.”

She looked at me quizzically, asked,

“Are you, like, really my, like...”

Pause

“... Dad?”

Her accent veered between American Valley girl and mid-Atlantic twang.

I said,

“Yes, I am your father.”

Fuck, how weird that sounded.

She had a small satchel, made of just beautiful soft leather, Gucci on the front.

She took out a flask and a board game. I asked,

“Is that your tea?”

Thinking, with Kiki, it would of course be herbal green muck.

She said,

“It’s a smoothie.”

Right.

She looked at my overflowing untidy bookshelves, asked,

“Can I tidy that?”

OCD?

I nearly said,

“Hon, you touch my books, you lose the arm from the elbow.”

But went,

“Thank you, that would be lovely.”

She asked,

“Alphabetically or by genre?”

WTF?

Had to pinch my own self, mentally ask,

She’s only nine?

Her little face was so elfin, so heart wrenching in its earnestness, I thought of the lines of Merton,

    “You will be loved

         and it will

           murder your heart and drive

                  you into the desert.”

Who knew?

We had an amazing day, chock-full of

Laughter

Food

Sodas

Chocolate

And

Hugs.

... Hugs?

Who could have foreseen that?

I went into the bathroom and down on my knees, whispered,

“Oh, thank you, Jesus!”

Meant it with every fiber of my wasted soul.

If you’ve seen series one of The Wire you might remember a young black drug dealer from the corner, teaching young bloods how to play chess.

In a truly fantastic, memorable scene, he demonstrates the chess pieces by calling them all the names the boys use for

Cops

Dealers

Soldiers

And explains the various moves in the way a young gun plots his way to the top.

I did that using nuns as pawns, and priests and cardinals, too, and, of course, we almost had a bishop.

The king was the pope

And

The queen, well, she was her very own mum.

She loved it and we played for hours with me promising to get a custom-made set for her own self.

A beautiful perfect day.

End of watch.

I took her hand and we stood outside my apartment, looking out across Galway Bay, my joy near boundless.

A motorbike roared behind me and I turned

Too slow.

The first bullet took Gretchen in the throat.

The second blasted through her tiny heart.

She

  emitted

      the

        tiniest

           soft

             sigh.

And was gone.

34

They have a new barman

in Garavan’s, but I don’t talk to him at all.

In fact, most days, I stay home,

pretend to read,

the bottle at my hand

and the smashed, crushed chess pieces

at my feet. If you were to look in the window you’d

probably be struck by the utter stillness.

The absolute quiet.

You might even comment,

Jesus, a room of the dead,

but, then, you might say nothing.

Nothing at all.

35

Marvin Minkler was the old-school type of detective. He’d been in the army, served overseas, and then joined the Guards, progressing rapidly up the ranks by sheer smarts and that ancient concept of being good at his job.

Maybe best of all, he evaded office politics and was beholden to no one person. He’d been sent down from Dublin to investigate the highly suspicious deaths of

Tevis

Harley

Mrs. Renaud’s apparent suicide

Plus the horrific shooting of a nine-year-old girl on the Salthill Promenade — the death of my beloved Gretchen. He arranged to meet me in Crowes pub, not the police station. Like I said,

Old school.

I was seated at the back of the pub where Ollie Crowe ignored my smoking as did the customers. No one approached me. Word was out about the killing of my daughter and I was best described as armed and maniacal.

True that.

Ollie had set up a fresh shot of Jameson before me, then withdrew quietly. The front door of the pub opened and a bitter November wind made a fast attempt to freeze the lounge. The man who walked toward me could only be a cop — the walk, half strut, mostly caution.

Head of snow-white hair and not because white was the new option. Tall, in his vaguely maintained late forties. His face was of the sort you hear called craggy.

Basically, no one wants to come right out and say you’re an ugly cunt.

Wearing a gray suit that was so nondescript it meant money or poverty in that you noticed it without actually knowing why. He held out a large worn hand, offered,

“I’m Detective Minkler. Most call me Marv. I am sorry for your shocking loss.”

I was too weary to be insulting, said,

“Jack Taylor.”

He gave the hint of a smile, said,

“That much I do know.”

He didn’t ask,

“Is this a bad time?”

Every time now was a very bad time.

I kind of appreciated that.

He ordered a black coffee and asked Ollie to bring me another of what was in my glass. I said,

“I can buy my own booze.”

He nodded, fair enough, said,

“Saves me a few quid.”

Quid.

His coffee came and he sipped delicately, said,

“Jeez, I could kill for a cig.”

Realized his remark... kill, tried to rein it in, went,

“Fuck, that was tactless.”

I stared at him, asked with a hint of snarl,

“That supposed to show you’re a decent sort and like down with the broken sad fucker?”

He gave what could only be seen as a nasty grin and for a second, behind the outward affable manner, lurked a street cop with lots of hard edge.

I liked him a little more, said,

“You have some moves.”

He relaxed, reached over for my pack of soft box Reed’s, asked,

“May I?”

I said,

“Sure, need a light?”

He did.

He sat back, assessing me, then,

“Here’s the thing...”

Pause.

“Jack.

Two young men are murdered,

Then their father hangs himself.

You save a guy from drowning,

You steal a Garda-issue coat.

A pedophile grabs your girlfriend’s boy.

You rescue him.

Then the said kiddie bollix is found in pieces in a bog in Connemara.”

I must have looked startled, so he said,

“Ah, you didn’t know that, but to continue.

A filmmaker documenting your life and the very sad sack you saved are killed under very suspicious circumstances, and the widow of the dead father meets you, then she kills herself.”

He took a deep breath, leaned over, asked,

“May I?”

And took a healthy dose of my Jay.

Continued.

“Then, for fucksakes, your ex-wife asks you to mind your young daughter and she is gunned down right in front of you — the daughter, that is — and you have to wonder: what the fuck is going down here?”

I said nothing for a solid minute. I timed it, then said,

“You have one error in your account.”

“Only one?”

“I didn’t steal item 1834, the Garda coat.”

He nearly choked, spluttered the last remnants of his coffee, gasped out,

“That’s what you’re focusing on, seriously? How so fucked is that?”

I signaled to Ollie who was getting more than a little pissed about all the table service, not to even mention the smoking.

I said,

“You want to know what I’m focusing on, where my ruined mind is as we speak, as the death of

Gretchen

Occupies every nightmare moment of my being, do you really want to hear what is in my mind this very moment?”

Ollie brought the drinks, did not speak.

I lifted my glass, said,

“This is what I use as a mantra to blind my mind.”

Took a large swallow, lit up, then intoned in a dead fashion:

“The window in the wall is the Sacred Host, the window between two worlds, as a window belongs at once to both the room inside and the open air, so the Eucharist belongs to both time and eternity...”

Pause as I struggled for breath, then on:

“So just as natural light comes through a window so does supernatural light come through.”

There, I was done, madness articulated.

He looked ashen, this streetwise cop who thought he was calling some shots, and now wondered if he sat opposite a deranged individual, a man who was not only crushed and broken but had, as they say in crime novels,

Lost his marbles.

Long, tense, loaded silence, then he said,

“We arrested David Lee for shooting your girl. Seems he believed you had him near beaten to death over a dog. A dog for chrissakes?”

The Jay was weaving its lethal dark alchemy and I asked,

“Not a dog lover then?”

He reached in his jacket, took out one of those police-issue notebooks, and for a mad moment I regretted the loss of the career I might have had with the Guards. But it was but a fleeting dead angel, never meant to fly.

I asked,

“Ever listen to Iris DeMent, ‘No Time to Cry’?”

He looked up from his notes, snarled,

“I look like a bollix who has time to listen to tunes?”

He read from the notes:

“Michael Allen, psycho extraordinary. Seems he is the root of all your, how should I say...”

Pause.

“Woes?”

I said,

“If you know him, about him, why is he still free and killing like he has a franchise?”

He grimaced.

“Time and time again, we thought we had enough to do him but witnesses always vanish.”

I said,

“And yet he seems to do exactly as he likes.”

He nodded, went,

“Even putting it to one of your old ladies.”

Waited for my reaction but I was too mutilated to rise to easy bait. I said,

“Delicate turn of phrase.”

He asked,

“That’s it? You’ve gone fucking philosophical about him?”

I stood up, drained my glass, slowly buttoned the controversial coat, said,

“Leave a tip for the barmen.”

He stood, contempt on his face, sneered,

“Just walking away. Hear from sources that is what you do best.”

I put a rake of notes on the counter for Ollie, who nodded in sympathy. He’d heard the last comment. I turned very slightly, moved my face close to supercop, whispered,

“I’m going to shoot him on Friday, at about three in the afternoon, so you can be there to make the big arrest.”

He moved back a step.

“Are you serious?”

I pondered, then,

“Maybe it’s the drink talking.”

Debated.

Added,

“Could be Thursday. I’m lousy with dates.”

36

The

Sagrada Família

,

Gaudí’s

temple of madness

triumph

ruin of Catholicism

monument to the greatest victory

brutal failure

breathtaking

glorious

without any semblance of order or even sanity,

but

at a certain time in the late evening,

before the revelers of Barcelona

begin to stir,

there is a profound silence

like the silence

before the bolt

on a Remington rifle is racked.

37

They killed the black swan.

By they, I mean, of course, Michael Allen.

He left the poor creature’s head at my door, with a note:

                “Prepare for your swan song, Taylor.”

Oh, I was preparing.

Had the Jeep and on a Wednesday drove out to Anthony’s mansion / stately pile, broke in easily, and stole the Remington rifle plus six long shiny bullets.

Studied Michael Allen’s routine in the house he shared with my ex-wife.

How utterly fucked up is that sentence.

Every Tuesday, he strolled to the local pub, careless in his arrogance and so convinced of my cowardly acceptance of every new outrage he visited on me.

Never even gave the Land Rover a second glance.

I had the back window open and, lying prone along the backseat with a pillow as sniper’s block, I watched him saunter from the house.

I think he may even have been whistling

“The River Kwai March.”

I shot him first in the right knee.

Let him fall and the actual revelation of what was happening dawn on him.

I muttered,

“Suck on that.”

But didn’t feel a whole lot. Mainly my mind was consumed by, of all things,

Gaudí.

Yeah, as I pulled the bolt on the rifle, it gave a satisfying thud, like my favorite clunk of a Zippo.

Second shot to the gut.

They say it is the most agonizing.

He certainly roared enough. I watched,

Whispered, like a blasted prayer, a crazed mantra,

Gaudí.

“I’d go to Barcelona,” I said.

Then a third shot right between the eyes.

Lit a cig with, of course, the Zip.

The door of the house pulled open and I saw Kiki run shrieking down to the piece of garbage, got in the driver’s seat, and pulled away, no hurry.

I even turned on the battered radio and Jimmy Norman was reporting from, get this,

Catalonia!

If you believe in omens,

Or such drivel,

You might think it was auspicious.

I thought of Barca and Messi and the most glorious football club in the world.

Left the Jeep back where I found it, dumped the rifle in the Corrib.

Thought of the black swan, her beautiful plumage black as my heart.

I went home, made a hot toddy, it being November and the Feast of the Holy Souls.

Waited for the supercop to come get me.

He didn’t.

Nobody did.

Go figure.

Mainly, I couldn’t give a toss.

Next morning, I went to Annette Hynes in Corrib Travel, booked an all-expenses trip to Barcelona.

On my way home, ticket secured, I went to Dubray’s bookshop, looked at an art book featuring Gaudí.

I heard a female voice say,

“Dude, you down with Gaudí?”

Turned to face a young goth woman with all that kohl eyeliner.

Jet white face, serpent sleeve tattoo, and for a mad moment I thought Em / Emily / Emerald had come back from the dead.

Shook my head, went,

“And you are?”

She said in a very Brit, upper-class accent,

“Jericho.”

I nearly laughed, said,

“But of course you are.”

The Jericho saga would have to hold until I had my vacation.

Don’t you think?