Jimmy feels horribly self-conscious. It’s as if he has been cornered at a family gathering by a drunk uncle he hasn’t seen in years.
‘Er, I was commissioned to write a book. A biography. Of Susie Monaghan.’ He hesitates, then adds, ‘the actress.’
Bolger nods. ‘Oh, I’m aware of who Susie Monaghan is all right. Of who she was. Well aware.’
There’s something in the way he says this.
Jimmy leans forward. ‘Did you know her?’
Bolger shakes his head. ‘Not exactly, no. She was a gorgeous-looking bird, though, wasn’t she?’
Jimmy stares at him. A gorgeous-looking bird? How is he supposed to respond to that? Yeah, she was a ride. Will that do? He nods. ‘Actually, I find her very interesting,’ he says. ‘Her story, that whole crash-and-burn dynamic. She was a real product of the times.’
Bolger looks at him for a second and then bursts out laughing.
Jimmy is taken aback. He bristles. ‘What?’
‘No, no, I’m sorry,’ Bolger says, still laughing. ‘Don’t get me wrong, but I can see what you’re doing, I can see the temptation to mythologise her, to make her into some kind of an emblem. Death and the maiden sort of thing. To conflate the economy with…’ He stops and gives a firm shake to his head. ‘Because…’ Suddenly he’s not laughing any more. It’s as though a dark cloud has passed over him. ‘Because you see that isn’t what happened. I was there. Not at the crash site, of course. I was at the conference. I was at Drumcoolie Castle.’ He puffs his cheeks up and exhales loudly. ‘There’s an untold story there, my friend. Holy God.’
Jimmy doesn’t move a muscle. He waits. Bolger seems to be lost in thought now, staring into space. Every couple of seconds he gives another little shake to his head.
Jimmy isn’t sure what he should say here, but he desperately wants to say something, anything.
Just as he thinks the moment might have passed, Bolger continues. ‘And do you know what the ironic thing is?’ He picks the mug up from the arm of the sofa. Jimmy shakes his head, though Bolger isn’t even looking at him, not directly. ‘It was supposed to be a conference on corporate fucking ethics. Can you believe that?’ He tilts the mug towards him and peers into it. What does he see in there? A tiny dribble? A golden droplet of deliverance? Is it worth the effort? He goes for it, knocking his head all the way back again. The sigh that follows tells its own story. ‘Anyway,’ he says, ‘I went down on the Saturday, just to put in an appearance. Have dinner with the big guns. Ha. The Clark Rundles and the Don fucking Ribcoffs. The boys.’
Jimmy knows all about this conference from his research. It was held one July weekend over three years ago at Drumcoolie Castle in Co. Tipperary and was attended by executives from companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Shell, Nike, Dell, Paloma, Chipco, Sony and BRX. Executives from several Irish companies were also in attendance. One of these was Gary Lynch, a recent ex-fiancé of Susie Monaghan’s.
The break-up, apparently, hadn’t been Susie’s idea, and she’d tagged along to see if there might be any chance of negotiating – or indeed, of engineering – a reconciliation.
Bolger makes another puffing sound. ‘Wish to fuck I’d never gone.’
‘Why?’ Jimmy hears himself ask.
‘Because then I wouldn’t have…’ He leans forward on the sofa. ‘I wouldn’t have been present when certain conversations took place, when certain things were said.’ He looks Jimmy in the eye now. ‘I wouldn’t know what I know.’
‘Certain things,’ Jimmy says slowly, tentatively, not wanting to break the spell, ‘about Susie Monaghan?’
Bolger’s eyes widen and a pained expression comes over his face. ‘Susie Monaghan? No. Jesus Christ, have you not been listening to me? This has nothing to do with Susie Monaghan.’ He flops back onto the sofa and stretches his arm out over the side of it, the mug dangling from his hand. ‘Did you never hear the expression “collateral damage”? That’s what she was. A nice piece of misdirection is all.’
Jimmy is speechless. He scrambles in his head for the next question to ask, the right question. ‘So who does it have to do with?’
Bolger makes a loud guttural sound, somewhere between a harrumph and a belch.
‘Well, not Susie,’ he says finally. ‘That’s for sure. Not poor little Susie.’ He drops the mug. It falls silently onto the shag carpet. ‘Suzi Quatro… Sweet Sue.’ He’s gazing off into space again. ‘A boy named…’
‘Mr Bolger,’ Jimmy says. ‘Who?’
Bolger looks back, stares at him for a second. ‘Think about it. She wasn’t the only one.’
‘The only one what?’
‘The only one who died in the fucking crash, you gobshite.’
TWO
ASHES WAS ALWAYS WOUND PRETTY TIGHT but this is something else. This is insane…
Tom Szymanski shifts over to the passenger seat and puts his hand on the open door, ready to jump out if necessary.
‘Deep Six,’ Tube is whispering over the radio, ‘defcon fucking one here, man, what is going on?’
‘I don’t know… I…’
That’s all he can come up with, at least for now, though one or two theories are definitely forming in his brain.
He leans out a bit and when he sees where Ashes is aiming his weapon, he whispers loudly, ‘Kroner, Jesus, are you fucking crazy?’
Ashes glances back at him, this strange look in his eyes, no shit, but after a second he turns away and looks at the middle car, in at the package, then up ahead again.
Szymanski retreats into the SUV.
It’s not that Ashes has been acting weird lately, it occurs to him, he’s been acting weird since the day they first met, which was what, three, four months ago now? Though in this context ‘weird’ is certainly a relative term. Szymanski has seen all kinds of weird himself, been all kinds of weird, but he has also been equipped to deal with it, blessed or cursed with the kind of intelligence that can process shit, transform it, sit on it till the time is right, keeping any unpleasant consequences at bay or at least to a minimum. He knows he has this exterior, too, that he comes over all chilled-out, like nothing fazes him, but that’s a shell he’s developed down through the years and of course every shell has an interior, his being stuffed full of crazy just like anyone else’s.
And for crazy, for weird, read PTSD.
The acronym of choice among the private military companies.
The PMCs.
Because on the menu of symptoms you can just take your pick: depression, guilt, nightmares, alienation, isolation, psychic numbing, denial, fear of intimacy, dependence, abuse, startle reflex, panic attacks, compulsive behaviours, high-risk behaviours – we’re getting there, we’re getting there – suicidal ideation, homicidal ideation…
‘RAY.’
Oh God.
‘Tube… DON’T.’
So he’s not saying Ashes doesn’t fit in with the unit, or is a loner, or a loser or anything, which would actually be fine in the 3rd Infantry Division or the 82nd Airborne or whatever – you’re in with who you’re in with there, it’s not like you have a choice in the matter, the sad sacks line out with the best and the brightest, no questions asked – but in the PMCs it’s a bit different, they like you to fit in, they like you to get along, because having some freak of nature in the unit everyone can pick on is all very well, but it’s not exactly cost-effective, and Gideon Global is supposed to be a business operation, tight, well-oiled, not some toxic dumping ground for the twisted and the dispossessed.