Merrick

Not easily or often but this guy, he had some moves

End of the evening, he was stacking chairs and a heavy guy who’d been acting the bollix

all night swayed over towards Merrick, I could see the bottle held down by his side.

I moved quickly, took his knees out from behind and for the hell of it, gave him a wallop

on the upside of his dumb arse head

Merrick whirled around, looked at the heap at his feet, saw the bottle and went

“Phew, the fuck would have cracked my skull.”

He gave me an appraising grin, said

“Guess I owe you one buddy.’

I went American, badly I’ll admit, said

“No biggie.”

He laughed, asked

“You wanna go see The Jets choke yet again tomorrow evening, I have some tickets, the

way they been playing, you couldn’t give the damn things away.”

I knew the Yankee’s, and that was about it, said

“Sure.”

That’s how we became friends

He lived on Long Island with his wife, two great kids

The Jets finally won a game and he bought a bottle of Jameson, said

“You and me bro, we’re going to get shitfaced.”

No argument there

Went to my hole in the wall in Brooklyn

He stared at the 1916 Proclamation on the wall, intoned the lines aloud, he had the perfect

voice for it, I put The Pogues on my cheap music set and we got stuck into the Jay

He looked round the sparse room, said

“Pretty basic buddy.”

Got that right

He was considering something, had been all evening, call it cop instinct and finally he got

to it, said

“Time was, I used to work as a P.I…….Me and a buddy named Moe Prager, then I

bought the bar and sort of drifted out of the business

He sipped the Jay then

“Moe got hurt a while back and asked me to follow up on a case he was on, a vile nasty

piece of work……….

He took a deep breath then produced a sheet of paper, handed it over, said

“This is a page from a……………….well, you’ll see”

The very first line chilled me

                          I kill children

“Fook”

I said

Handed it back to him, my stomach in turmoil, Merrick said

“I’m gonna go after this sick bastard and thing is, I wonder if you’d be willing to tag

along?’

Looking back, how easy it would have been to say no, and Jesus, all the carnage that

might have been averted

I said

“Count me in