Slide

Eleven

Angela was fuming, not from the cigs she was chain smoking but from waiting for Slide again. Where the fook was he? He’d said he was going to kidnap the Rolling Stones. It seemed like a great idea at the time, but only because she’d been three sheets to the Jameson wind. Yeah, bring back the Stones, way to go, Slide, good on yah. Bloody Jameson, it was worse than any drug. Not only did it tell you you could do anything, it downright persuaded you that the maddest, most insane scenario would work. How else can you explain Riverdance?

But he seemed gung ho on the idea and she knew men well enough to let them do all kinds of crazy shite and then she’d reap the reward. She heard the car pull up and then Slide was running towards the house-alone. What, no Jagger? No Richards? Not even Charlie Fookin’ Watts?

Slide came bursting in, going, “Gotta have me big drink.”

She wondered what happened to, And how was your day, sweetheart? Fucking men-me, me, me. But she got a glass, poured a large Jameson, then asked in a cold tone, “Ice with that, sweetheart?” Leaning on the endearment, like they even had a fucking refrigerator.

Then she noticed Slide was dripping with sweat. And was that blood?

He gulped the drink, belched, said, “Sweet Jaysus.” Then he said, “We gotta get out of here, now, and I mean not just outa here but, but outa the country.”

She had to know, asked, “What happened?”

The booze seemed to calm him a bit. He took a deep breath, said, “I took the wrong guy, all right? A fookin writer, and turns out he’s related to one of the Boyos, you know, the IRA?”

Was he kidding? She knew who they were. More important, she knew you don’t, like, ever fuck with them. There wasn’t much that scared Angela. Growing up in New Jersey, her friends used to worry about the Mob. Like if Angela picked up some Soprano at a bar her friends would tell her she was crazy, she didn’t know what she was getting into. But Angela would just laugh, knowing a Soprano was a kitten compared to a Boyo.

She nearly shrieked, “Are you sure?”

If Slide had really kidnapped one of their relatives, oh Sweet Jesus, that was like fookin’ suicide.

Slide gave her the look, said, “No, I’m making it up.” Then went, “Of course I’m sure. He even had a Belfast accent and he said they’d cut me balls off.”

That convinced her. She knew, alas, that was exactly what they’d do.

She asked, “Did you give him back?”

He seemed stunned, said, “Are you stone mad? It’s not like a pair of jeans that didn’t fit, I couldn’t return him. I didn’t, like, keep the receipt. Oh, and here’s the worst part.”

Christ, what could be worse, unless he killed him? The blood, she realized with a sinking heart.

She said, “You didn’t-”

Slide interrupted, went, “I was seen, all right? Well, at least the car was and they got me number, they’ll be able to track us in jig time.”

She wanted to scream, Us? You stupid prick, it’s you.

He read her mind, asked in a chilling voice, “You wouldn’t run out on me, would you?”

Angela shuddered as the past danced before her eyes. She mostly suppressed her past, kept it locked nice and tight. Like they said on Seinfeld, It was in the vault. But sometimes it came out to play.

Her mother had had connections to the Boyos. Time to time, some shadowy figure would arrive, literally off the boat, with that thick Belfast accent and thicker manners. Her mother would feed him and he’d get Angela’s room.

One freezing February night, before Angela left home for good, one of these guys arrived. Had that Marine Corps look about him, ramrod straight, shaved head, menace oozing from him.

Angela’s mother was at work-she worked with a cleaning crew that serviced the Flatiron Building, supplemented her income by stealing books from a publisher who had offices there and returning them to various bookstores around the city for credit. Angela arrived home to find this guy in the kitchen, dressed in just a string vest and combat trousers and reading An Poblacht, some paper Sinn Fein sold in the Irish pubs. Her mother had warned her, severely, Don’t ever, ever talk to these men.

Like hello. You tell a woman like Angela to stay away from a certain man and, gee, guess what?

Angela was in man-eater attire, the mini, the sheer hose, heels. The wanna fuck? jobs. They were killing her, naturally-did men actually believe women enjoyed wearing these things? — and was heading out when he spoke, startling her.

“What’s yer hurray, cailin?”

He put the paper aside and she saw the gun. He’d taken it apart and was cleaning it. It looked sleek and ugly. He was wearing Doc Martens and used his boot to push a chair aside.

He ordered, “Take a pew.”

Mainly, she wanted to take her goddamn heels off but his whole languid lethal attitude was strangely exciting.

He said, “You’ll be knowing why I’m here.”

She didn’t, said, “I don’t.”

He snapped the barrel of the weapon in one fluid motion and the gun was assembled. He laid it on the table and said, “I’ve a bit of business in Arizona. A bollix stole from us and I’m going to recover it.”

He was smiling, but no warmth or humor came from it. She felt sorry for the poor bastard in Arizona.

“They tell me tis fierce hot out that way,” he said, and she said, “Dry heat.”

He laughed, more like the sound of an animal’s grunt, and said, “Only in America. Back home, you could say we have wet rain…lashings of it.”

She was tempted to say, “How utterly fascinating.”

Now he rolled a cigarette, expertly, like Bogart in the old movies, with one hand. He licked the paper and produced a Zippo with a logo on the side, Fifth of…something. She couldn’t see the rest.

One flick and he was lit. He drew deep, then exhaled right into her face and said,

“Afore I go, I have a wee job to do for yer Mammie.”

She knew better than to ask.

He seemed to know she wouldn’t and said, “Yer Uncle Billy, he used yer Mammie’s name to get a loan and the fooker, he’s welshed on the repayment, left her in a right old mess, and old Billy, he supports the English Team.”

The latter seemed to be the greater crime, if his expression was any indication. He offered her the cig, the butt wet from his lips, and she was too rattled not to accept.

As she took a full pull he grinned and said, “You like it unfiltered, don’t you, gra?” Then he took it back, mashed it on the floor, and went, “I’m going to tell you what’s coming down the pike for our Billy, so you know…never…fooking never…piss on the Movement or yer own kind. We never forget and we never fooking forgive, you got that?”

Hard not to.

She nodded slowly, hoping the wetness between her legs didn’t show in her face, though she felt a burn on her cheeks.

“First I kneecap him,” he explained, “and then, as he called yer mammie a toerag-see, the hoor’s ghost is using Brit words-I’ll cut off two of his toes and shove them down his gullet. Make him eat his words, and every time he hobbles around, he’ll remember…” Then he sat straight up, asked, “Don’t you have work to do?”

She tried to stand but her knees were shaking.

He went, “Any chance you could make a fellah a decent cup of tea?”

She never saw him again, though she did see Uncle Billy, with a cane and about twenty added years in his face. She couldn’t help wondering if he’d been able to pass the toes, though she imagined that looking in the toilet bowl must have been a fascinating adventure for him from then on.

Now, looking at Slide in horror, she couldn’t believe he’d screwed with the lads. Oh sweet Jesus, they’d make him eat both legs-and as for her, she was, in their eyes, one of their own.

She wanted to scream. “You crazy bastard, you’ve really put your foot in it. Where are we supposed to go?”

“America,” Slide said.

And so they sat down, hatched out a plan to get some serious money and fast. In spite of all the fear, all the anger she felt toward Slide, Angela was excited about the thought of returning to New York. Oh God, she realized how much she missed it.

She gave Slide her full look, drilled her eyes into his, and she couldn’t help marveling at the piercing blue. His expression, as usual, was impossible to read, though. You never knew if he was planning murder, mayhem and general madness, thinking about sex, or some of each.

“Okay,” she said. “Here’s what we’re going to do and this is how we’re going to do it.”

The plan: They’d hit the bars, the posh ones where the suits and the money hung. She’d lure some schmuck outside and then Slide would do his gig. She was estimating if they hit maybe ten pubs, they’d score, say, in six, and have the run-like-fook-away money.

Slide was game, said, “Game on.”

As long as violence was in the mix, he was up for it.

She cautioned, “And try not to kill anyone, can you fucking do that?”

He smiled, said, “I love it when you talk dirty to me.”