Plugged

CHAPTER 5

I had a whole six months of sessions with Simon Moriarty before the medical discharge finally came through after my second tour. Twice a week I took a bus to his Dalkey practice and waved a cup of coffee under his nose until he rolled out of bed.

‘Come on, Sergeant,’ Moriarty said to me one day, with a grin that told me he knew a whole lot more about the world than I did. ‘Make it difficult for me. This is too easy, textbook stuff.’

I was lying on an oxblood leather sofa, feeling about as comfortable as a cat in the doghouse. Usually Simon lay on the sofa, but this was our last session and he was taking me to task.

‘I’m an open book, huh?’

‘A pane of glass, Sergeant. Trans-parent.’

‘Let me in on the secret, Doc. What’s my problem?’

Simon lit a thin cigar. ‘With Irish and Jews usually it’s the mother; with you it’s daddy dearest.’

I sat up, gave him a serious look. ‘Are you trying to tell me that having an abusive father leads to problems in later life? You must be some kind of genius.’

‘Hilarious, Sergeant. Hiding behind humour. Good tactic. How’s that been working out for you?’

Simon could be a pain in the arse, but he generally hit the nail on the head.

I lay down. ‘Not so good. Listen, Doc, everyone’s got problems, issues, whatever. You just get on with it, try to stay as calm as possible.’

Moriarty flicked ash from the front of his Ramones T-shirt. ‘That’s what we’re here to as-certain, Daniel. Can you stay calm? We can’t go releasing a trained murder machine into the big city if he can’t keep his talents to himself.’

‘Don’t worry about that. I’ve seen enough bloodshed.’

‘You have plans?’

‘I’m free on Tuesday and I know a nice bar.’

More ash-flicking. ‘Life plans, smartarse. With your tendencies, you need to be careful what kind of situations you put yourself in.’

‘Tendencies? You make me sound like a pervert.’

‘Here’s my theory, Daniel. You had a violent father who beat up on your mother, yourself and your baby brother, got the entire family, except you, killed drunk driving. So now you feel like you have to protect the defenceless. That’s why you joined up. Not to kill, to protect. The problem is that you also have difficulties with authority, father figures. So, you felt compelled to join the army, and you also felt compelled to clock your superiors. Do you see the conflict?’

I felt I had to defend myself. ‘My superior officer left three of his own men pinned down between Israeli troops and the militia and he refused to order any covering fire. Some people need to be clocked.’

Simon pretended to write something. ‘There are protocols for these things, Dan.’

‘I know. Fired upon twice, blah-blah-blah.’

‘So you broke protocol and once again drew fire on your own twenty by deciding to ignore the chain of command and providing some covering fire of your own.’

‘Twenty? That’s CB, not military.’

‘I’m reaching out; cut me some slack. So you break protocol, this time getting half a mortar shell up yer hole.’

‘It was a whole shell.’

Simon frowned. ‘A shell made specifically for holes?’

‘Whole with a silent w.’

‘Oh, I see. But my point stands: you felt compelled to protect.’

‘Compelled to protect. Got it. Where were you when I was signing up?’

‘Also you have the gambling addiction.’

This was a new one. ‘Addiction? Come on. Who told you that? I like a hand of poker, it’s true, but no more than the next man. It’s hardly a problem.’

‘Wishful thinking,’ Simon admitted. ‘I grow weary of this analysis, plus I like a game of poker myself.’

‘I don’t think you’re a man to be bluffed.’

Simon closed his notebook with a snap. ‘All in all, I think the medical discharge is the best thing for you.’

‘Medical discharge? Sounds disgusting.’

‘Find yourself a nice conflict-free position,’ continued Moriarty, ignoring my attempt to hide behind humour. ‘Somewhere you don’t have to protect anyone.’

I can’t help it. ‘Don’t you mean protect?’

Simon ha-ha’ed drily. ‘Very good. Wisecracks, the fast track to mental health. Seriously, Dan, find yourself a stress-free position. No cards, no boss and no one depending on you for their well-being.’

So now I’m a doorman at a casino. But it’s not my fault; I’m compelled.

The town is busy tonight, but I don’t feel connected. It’s like I’m watching everything through a dirty window. The world I’ve been holding together with spit and dreams is finally coming apart. The cops toss us out on the street like we’re trespassers and tell us to get lost. There won’t be any rickety roulette or polka-dot bikinis tonight.

Connie is dead, Zeb is missing. I killed a person with a key, for Christ’s sake.

I know that really the key part of it is not important, but there seems to be some kind of irony in it.

Instead of locking the door, I opened Barrett’s doorway to the next life.

Forced. Laboured.

There is no key to life, just a key to death.

Better, but I won’t be writing slim volumes of poetry any time soon.

I feel sick deep in my stomach and there’s bile in my throat. Bile and tequila. I stop and spit in the drain, and as I hawk it up, bent over with my hand on a pole, I see a glint of streetlight on a gum wrapper and remember something.

Macey Barrett’s stiletto spinning like a cheerleader’s baton, burying itself in the ceiling.

The stiletto. It’s still there.

Shit.

Shit. Shite and bollocks.

What can I do about it? What should I do?

I straighten slowly, like a very old man, and actually admonish myself aloud.

‘Okay, Daniel. Think about this calmly.’

In the third person now? Christ, things are bad.

Unfortunately my calm thinking space is out of service at the moment. I try to swat aside the waves of grief and tequila fumes, but my brain is fogged and buzzing.

It should be fine.

So the stiletto is up there; it shouldn’t lead back to me unless there’s a spy-cam in the handle.

The way my luck’s been going. .

I chuckle and spit one last time to restore my manhood after all those thoughts of irony.

Think this thing through.

Going back to the surgery would be a big mistake. Irish Mike could be keeping an eye on the place, and showing up would only put me on his radar.

What about Zeb?

I want to think something positive, I would kill for some kind of bright shining answer, but there’s nothing coming out of my brain but fog and sadness.

Connie, darlin’.

Zeb is dead.

Call him and find out. It’s a thought.

I block the ID on Barrett’s Prada cell and punch in Zeb’s number.

Couple of rings, then a man answers.

‘Yeah?’

Not Zeb. I can tell from a single syllable. Zeb’s got this asthma voice, all in the nose.

‘Dr Kronski?’ I ask, like it’s a professional call.

‘Who’s speaking?’ says the man.

‘You are,’ I say, and hang up. I should probably have invented some medical yarn and promised to call back later, but I can’t be bothered.

They’re answering his calls too. Whatever Macey Barrett was looking for, they haven’t found it yet, otherwise Zeb’s phone would be at the bottom of the reservoir, along with his body.

I shouldn’t have called. I don’t want any of this information; it’s funnelling me towards a choice.

There’s a dawn glow cupping the clouds by the time I get home. I feel like crap and probably look like week-old crap. The last thing I need is my upstairs neighbour Mrs Delano going off on an abuse bender, not to mention the fact that Mike Madden could have cottoned on to my being a fly in his ointment by now.

So with all this in mind, I use my army stealth training to creep into the apartment. There could be a cell of jittery terrorists holed up on the second floor and they wouldn’t hear Company Sergeant Daniel McEvoy slipping down the hallway to his own door.

Which is open. The busted triple-bar lock lying shamefaced on the floor.

I forget all about operation under the radar when I see the whirlwind that has rolled through my apartment.

‘Christ Almighty!’ I shout, wading through the detritus that was my life. I used to do that metaphorically with Simon; now I’m doing it for real. It’s just as painful and I don’t feel better with every step.

The place has been wrecked. Destroyed. I’ve seen bomb sites with less shredding. They pulled down the wallpaper, disembowelled the sofa, dismantled the appliances. My fridge is lying on its side, leaking mayo; looks like a dying robot. The AC unit is in pieces on the table; reminds me of a mechanic’s course I took once. Pictures on the floor. A Jack Yeats West of Ireland print I carried in a tube from Dublin, slashed for malice.

I walk around flapping my arms, kicking through the debris. Where do you start? How can you fix this?

Then Mrs Delano pipes up. She was waiting for me to come home, I’m sure of it. Probably been up all night injecting her eyeballs with caffeine. I know that sounds crazy, but when you live underneath crazy, some of it drips downwards.

‘Kee-rist almighty,’ she calls, voice wafting through the light fixture. ‘Kee-rist fucking almighty.’

I am absolutely not in the mood for this lady right now. The best tack, I know, is not to rise to the bait, because if I react she wins, and we could be at this all morning and at the end of it my stuff is still trashed.

‘You down there, Irish? Can’t you keep your monkey friends under control?’

Monkey friends? Screw it. Zeb, Barrett and sweet Connie. I need to loosen the valve, let off some steam. So I throw my head back and roar like Tarzan.

‘Shut the hell up, you crazy bat.’

She comes back with ‘Hell is shut for crazy bats.’

‘Shut up,’ I shout, and I can feel my tendons stretch. ‘Or I swear to Christ I will come up there and wring your neck.’

‘No Christ in this neck of the woods.’

This kind of carry-on is infuriating, and now that Delano has me on her hook, she could keep it up for hours.

‘Drop dead, you lunatic. Why don’t you drop bloody dead?’

My face is red and tight. I’m not just shouting at Delano, I know, but I keep shouting anyway.

‘That’s right. Drop dead. The world would be a better place.’

‘Dead is a better place? You think dead is a better place for lunatics, Irish?’

There’s a new note in her voice. Wild, past caring. I’m a bit that way myself.

‘You heard me.’

She doesn’t respond, which is unusual. Ominous, even. Echoes of my own voice circle me like ghosts.

If this was a movie, something really bad would be just about to happen.

What is she going to do? What’s the big tease? How can Delano haunt me for ever?

There’s one sure way.

Something thumps on the ceiling overhead.

Four dead? Four in one day? Come on.

I race to the door, skirting my ruptured easy chair. The corner of my eye notices that they even took the weights off my barbells. Thorough.

Up the stairs three at a time, sick to my stomach, heart bouncing around like a lottery ball in the cage.

Please God, not too late. What the hell did she do?

Delano’s door is pretty solid, with a couple of extra bolts, but I’m running on adrenalin and take them out with a bull charge. Momentum carries me inside, and I lurch across the threshold, heaving breaths, shoulder throbbing, afraid to look and see.

I do look, in case time is of the essence, and I see Delano sitting in a straight-backed chair, a cigarette between two slim fingers. There is a large book on the floor beside her. A bible, I think.

‘Hello, hero,’ she says, smoke leaking from between her bow lips. ‘You owe me a door.’

I am such an idiot.

‘Sucker,’ Delano adds, which is a more accurate word.

My first thought is to launch into a rant, but by the time I draw breath I realise there’s no point. It’s funny; this whole thing is hilarious. Not ha-ha funny, so I don’t laugh.

‘You might cut me a break,’ I say quietly, ‘if you realised the kind of day I’ve had.’

‘I’ve been up all night listening to your friends,’ she snaps, without a shred of mercy.

This is the closest I’ve stood to Delano. She’s my age, a few years younger. Blonde hair, straight and long. Maybe a figure, hard to tell in a towelled robe. And blue eyes rimmed with kohl, staring right into me like she’s got mind powers. I notice for the first time that this lady has got cat’s eyes, like Ava Gardner or Madonna. Beautiful but dangerous.

The apartment is freaky neat, but cold. There’s a tube of wind coming in through a hole in the window.

She notices me looking. ‘I was having a moment,’ she explains. ‘Goddamn satsuma. Can you believe that? Made a helluva hole.’

Something to do, thank Christ. Take my mind off those eyes.

Get those idle hands to work, soldier, and do not even contemplate strangling this woman.

You learn to use your hands in the army. Things break down in the field and they need to be fixed; no use waiting for a requisitions crate. Ireland is a long way from the Lebanon, and even if your package makes it through the grifters on both ends of the pipeline, you’re still talking half a year. There was a guy in my squad fixed an old 77 radio with parts from a Rolf Harris stylophone he bought on Mingi Street. A real live MacGyver. I wasn’t good with electronics, but I could manage basic household repairs.

So I size up the window with a squint, then go foraging underneath the sink for something I can use.

‘Hey, Irish, what are you playing at?’

Maybe Delano thinks I’m looking for trash bags to wrap her body.

Good.

A pity she doesn’t know about my protective instinct. Perhaps I’ll tell her later.

Nothing under the sink to plug a hole, so I rifle the storage. This woman has more pills than a New York pusher and more drawers than an underwear store.

Boom-boom, chuckles Ghost Zeb. You’re a funny killer, Daniel McEvoy, yes you are.

‘Stay out of my drawers, Irish.’

I laugh. ‘No need to worry on that account, Mrs Delano.’

‘Screw you.’

‘You screw?’ I say, twisting her words. Childish I know but I need a laugh.

Most of the drawers are half empty, so I pour one into another and punch the board out of the first. The wood comes away clean, nails red with rust like they’ve been sealing a coffin.

Stay away from the imagery, Simon told me once.

Because it deepens my pain?

No. Because you are shite at it.

I’d like to read the manual that came from. Chapter Six: Shiteness At Imagery and its Effects on Latent Arseholery.

Delano doesn’t ask what I’m playing at, but she’s pulling hard on that cigarette now, tip pulsing red and white.

Showboating is what I’m doing. I could just tape over the hole, there’s a roll right there, but this board seems a more appropriate expression of the shape of my mood, as a mate of mine might say. I place it over the broken pane, then hammer the nails into the frame with a meat tenderiser from the draining board. The wind is downsized from a gale to a whistle. Not too shabby.

For once Mrs Delano is dumbstruck. She sits like a statue, smoke curling out of her fist.

‘I’ll call a buddy of mine,’ I say on my way out. ‘Twenty-four-hour lock guy, for your door and mine too. Until he gets here, I’d keep the noise down. You don’t want to attract any undesirables.’

In spite of my day, I’m smiling on the steps. There’s not a word from Delano’s apartment. Not a peep.