Purgatory

31

Reardon was the original bad boy. But smart, way, way smart. His true cleverness lay in finding people of near genius and getting them to work for him. Kelly was studying psychology at Kent and met Reardon on the very day he’d been expelled. He was heading out, his thumb out, and she’d stopped in her flash new Corvette.

Why?

Because she liked to play and he had a built-in smirk. Like

“Gimme a ride, or not. Who gives a fuck?”

Her kind of thinking. He threw a battered duffel into the car, slid in, lit up a spliff, said,

“If you’re a cop, I’m way fucked.”

She studied him, asked,

“And you care?”

He slipped on a pair of ultraexpensive shades (she knew, as she’d stolen similar), then he looked at her, her pretty face reflected in the lens, said,

“Thing is, I got bounced from college today. Another bust would be. .”

Blew out smoke,

“A bummer.”

Was how they began.

As she would discover over and over, Reardon

. . knew a guy

Who’d invented an early version of the easy-fit seal that kept refrigeration turning. Reardon knew enough to go fifty-fifty in a partnership, then peddled the seal to the army. And got, he said,

“The first easy billion.”

He was a year older than Kelly and, for his twenty-first, they got married in Venice-the one in Europe. Reardon was, of course, persuading the EEC how much it needed an early form of the iPad for translators. The night he clinched the deal, he asked her,

“How much for you to fuck off?”

And she’d laughed, actually came as close to loving him as was possible. They’d reached, if not a separate peace, then a perverse understanding. He knew she was mired in some darkness but felt no compulsion to investigate. At some deep level, he knew she had his back, and that was plenty. In the lethal deals he was involved in, and the plans he had for the future, a family ally was gold.

They neither dissolved nor advertised their marriage.

It was what it was.

I’d tried to find Kelly, but she’d gone to ground. I phoned Reardon, who said,

“You’re asking me?”

Well, yeah.

Said,

“Aren’t you her some kind of half-arsed husband?”

He laughed, said,

“All the more reason I’ve no clue to where she is.”

I said,

“And sounds like you could give a fuck.”

A pause.

“Taylor, best not to be a smart mouth to me. I mean, at best, I tolerate you. You have some vague uses but don’t think you have an in to a single fucking thing that goes on in my personal life.”

I said,

“Touchy.”

Long sigh from him. It’s been my life that, sooner or later, most I know get to sigh. Like some warped theme tune to my mad existence. He said,

“Taylor, you’ve got some cockeyed notion that C33, so named by Kelly, gives you a clue to the bizarre killings that happened. Take this on trust, caballero, even if by some wild stretch you could link Kelly to any of this crap, you do not, definitely do not, want to have her put you in her gun sights.”

I laughed, kind of, said,

“Gee, sounds like some kind of threat.”

Heard him mutter to someone, then,

“One thing Kelly and I still retain from our marriage. .”

Bitterness leaking over me, I shot,

“Yeah? Like fucking people over?”

“We don’t threaten,”

Pause,

“We deliver.”

Rang off.

It’s always been my lot to be easily distracted, to be turned aside from the case before me. I believe it’s a blend of denial, cussedness, cowardice, and sheer uninterest. Plus, side trips along the roads of

Alcoholism

Xanax

Books

And, very rarely,

A woman.

I don’t know what I think I ought to know but fuck, I know my own act and it is a cocktail of sordid self-interest, self-doubt, and of course self-harm. That doesn’t make me bad so much as Irish. I fully intended focusing on Kelly, her connection to the C33 killings, but

Hurling.

The all-Ireland final

Between Galway and the maestros, Kilkenny. Christ, those cats are good. Galway hadn’t won the title in twenty-four years so we were, like,

Due?

The town was electric, wired even more than when the Volvo Ocean Race had its conclusion in our docks. The city was hopping, drinking, and anticipatory. Flags everywhere.

A draw.

A fucking draw.

Jesus, everyone hates that. You’ve to go through all the same crap again, like Tom Russell sang,

. . and go through all that shit again.

Precisely.

We had to wait three weeks with the pundits analyzing why the underdog (us) usually won on the rebound, as it were.

We didn’t.

Three fucking points and we were done for another year. Did we take it badly?

You fucking betcha.

Guy said to me,

“Great thing is, they are a young team, we’ve got time.”

What about me? Time? I can barely draw me breath.

My mobile shrilled. I snapped it up, rasped,

“Yeah?”

Heard a cultured voice.

“Hell of a way to answer your phone.”

The voice familiar but escaping me. I pushed,

“So?”

“This is Mr. Westbury, legal eagle.”

Fuck’s sake, mister.

They call themselves that and you can translate: prick.

Asked,

“Can I help you?”

He chuckled, then,

“It’s actually what I’m going to do for you.”

I sneered,

“Gee, I kind of doubt that.”

He wasn’t fazed, continued,

“Your buddy Stewart left a will.”

“You’re shitting me.”

Another chuckle, though of the incredulous variety, said,

“What a turn of phrase you have. Have you ever considered writing? They tell me mystery is the money spinner these days, and Lord knows, you talk in a disjointed fashion that might even pass for style.”

Hilary Mantel had just won the Man Booker for the second time with, would you believe,

Bringing Up the Bodies.

Serendipity?

The fuck cares?

I asked,

“Surely Stewart was too young to have made a will?”

He tut-tutted.

I swear to God. That an adult can actually do this is a source of constant astonishment to me. He said,

“Stewart was a conscientious young man and a shrewd entrepreneur. One feels making such a wise move would not have been a choice of yours, Mr. Taylor.”

Bollix.

I said,

“It’s the dilemma of who to leave my Zippo to that’s held me back.”

“Very droll I’m sure.”

I said,

“Much as I love schmoozing with you, is there a point?”

“Indeed, Stewart left you a considerable sum.”

I muttered,

“Jesus H. Really?”

He said, in the driest tone,

“Would I be. . shitting you?”

En route to Westbury’s office, I walked along Shop Street, the buskers and mimes in full and silent roar, respectively. One was attracting a lot of attention, made up like Mitt Romney. He’d a sign around his neck which read,

. . I pledge to nuke Iran.

One felt he’d keep his awful promise.

A band was playing The Fields of Athenry and, for any decent Irish person, the song has resonance but, when it’s their sole repertoire and you’ve heard it for the tenth time, you’re prepared to lay waste the bloody fields. I was not alone in my thinking, The government was introducing legislation that required buskers to have, and I kid you not,

At least twenty songs!

Like, who the fuck was going to enforce this? Some lone dumb Guard would have to stand there and, like,

Hear

Twenty awful Irish ballads.

He’d run screaming for duty in Lebanon.

Then I did a double take. Was I finally succumbing to all my excesses and hallucinating in broad daylight? I saw,

A Segway.

Those stand-up, slow mobile things that somebody thought were a grand idea. A lone Guard, self-conscious and mortified was. . cruising?. . along by Griffin’s Bakery to jeers and mockery from just about everyone, even, God help us, tourists.

The Guard said,

“Those are to be the latest weapon in the war against street crime.”

I mean, fucking seriously.

The street thugs are carrying everything from freaking Uzis to grenades and this lone eejit on his trusty Segway appears and does what? Shouts,

“Halt, or I shall pursue.”

Jesus.

A woman, not young, was outside Boots, singing One Day at a Time.

But almost inaudibly until

Until she hit the refrain, Lord help me Jesus,

And, man, she hit that sucker with all she’d got.

This was, collectively, Dante’s Irish edition of the Seventh Circle.

I got that sudden thirst that knows naught of rhyme nor race, stepped into Garavan’s. The owner was there, a good guy. He knew to leave you be until you got the first drink down.

He offered The Irish Independent with the pint; news and stout, the staples. Got half the black away and sat back, wished for a smoke, and, I swear, the guy beside me asked,

“Wanna fag?”

Not a question you’d ask an American.

I’d been yet again, on,

Then off,

And yada yada.

But, what the hell. I said,

“Yeah.”

We didn’t go to the smokers’ shed-too much like a leper colony-but took it out on the street. He offered a pack of Major, the original ferocious-strength one. He produced a battered Zippo, clicked. One of my favorite sounds. Fired us up.

Jesus, that pure poison is pure heaven. The guy was in his early twenties, dressed in good top-of-the-range clothes. His face had that ravaged look of hellish teenage acne but he had good eyes, those gentle ones you see rare to rarest in either a child or a Labrador, a sort of beguiling innocence. He said,

“I was thinking of going to Australia.”

The sarcasm in me nearly said,

“Finish the fag first.”

But bit down, said,

“Lots of work there.”

We’d fallen instantly into the camaraderie of smokers. He said,

“My girl, you know, she’s a nurse, she doesn’t want to leave Galway.”

Jesus, why not, to live in the sun, where the buskers might play another tune?

I said,

“Tough choice.”

He drew deep on the filter, then,

“What’s tough is she’s reading Fifty Shades of Grey.”

Is there a sane reply?

Berryman in The Paris Review,

“. . The artist is extremely lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually kill him. At that point he’s in business.”

I’d finished my pint, forwent another or I’d be there until closing, and headed for Westbury’s office. Kept me waiting an hour, old Reader’s Digests on the table. I increased my word power by

Two.

Butyraceous: of the nature or consistency of butter.

Caesious: bluish or greenish gray.

Not sure how to drop those babes into conversation.

When I finally got to sit opposite Westbury, his fabulously expensive suit was the color of

Caesious?

And, certainly, fine food, lots of the best wine, had given his jowls a butyraceous sheen. He shuffled papers in that important fashion they teach at law school. He was peering over his pince-nez (made me feel warm and literary to say that instead of cheap glasses), his expression sour, as if I were something the cat not only sneaked in but then denied.

He said,

“You’ll find all is in order and, may I say, congrats on your little windfall.”

He passed me over some papers. I scanned them, then said,

“Holy fuck.”

It was a lot.

He asked,

“Might you be needing some expert advice on how to best manage those substantial assets?”

I laughed, let out,

“Like fuck.”

He said,

“One takes that as a no.”