Fat Pink took the chair to his left. The flickering gaslight made his features quaver and dance.
Leaning against the slate mantle, Pug twisted his head until his neck cracked.
As if anticipating the question, Little Pink said, “Hours, minutes. You never can tell.” He took out his silver machine, set it on the table.
“That’s what you’re using? No microphones? You’ve got no facilities?”
Pug grunted and Fat Pink pushed down a laugh.
“It’s what we use.”
Dumb bastards, the trader thought. You get the ghost in a recording studio and you’re John Dorrences, you are.
He folded his hands on the table, and Fat Pink turned round to Pug, but neither man spoke.
Skeleton key in hand, Little Pink locked the door.
Five minutes later, felt like five hours, the trader sat tall when he heard the snap-squeal of an electric guitar going into its amp, and a quick punch on the strings to make sure it was in tune.
“Calm yerself,” Fat Pink said.
Little Pink nodded toward the machine.
And soon the sound of a Fender Stratocaster filled the room, and the ghost was running his blues scales, warming up, and soon he was toying with some old Muddy Waters lick, and the trader knew his man was working his way to something brilliant. And then the guitar let out a cry and a hole in the sky opened and here it came, lightning and molten gold and, God in heaven, it was glorious.
The trader shut his eyes in bliss.
And Fat Pink grabbed him by the left forearm and wrist, pressing the man’s hand flat on the table, and with one brutal swoop of a hatchet, Pug took off the trader’s thumb.
Blood spurted, and it ran in a river toward the machine.
The trader howled and the trader howled, and he was almost as loud as the guitar, the blizzard of blues notes, the screeching feedback, the beauty.
Pug took off his belt, wrapped it around the trader’s left arm, cutting the flow.
Standing, Fat Pink put his hands on his shoulders, pressed the trader deep and hard into the chair.
Little Pink, off the door and tapped the machine. Silence. Absolute silence, save a man’s agony cry.
“And you had to name it after him, didn’t ya?” Little Pink said, glaring at the trader, his eyes colder than cold.
Pug was digging in the trader’s pocket for the Audi’s keys.
“Desmond’s,” Little Pink went on. “That’s your idea of a joke?”
The trader’s thumb lay on the table, pointing with recrimination at its former host.
“I don’t-Jaysus, my hand. Look at my-”
Little Pink smacked him, and then Little Pink smacked him again.
“My name is Chick,” he said through grit teeth. “His name is Chick, and the man going to your car is named Chick. We’re from Limerick, and we don’t forget.”
“I don’t know…” Near shock, the trader blubbered and whimpered. “My thumb…”
“Our father was a good and decent man who didn’t deserve to die ’cause of the likes of you.”
Despite the searing pain, the trader was starting to get it. Ravenscroft, and some people won and some lost, but who the fuck is Chick?
Little Pink stepped back and he smiled, and when he smiled, Fat Pink smiled too.
It was Fat Pink-Larry Chick being his real name-who came across Trudi in Bristol, and it was Bernie Chick-him the one the trader dubbed Pug-who heard about the guitar player over in the States in Red Bank, New Jersey, who could play it like Rory done. Little Pink, who was Paul but went by the name Des to honor his father, put it together. The club off the Royal Canal was a gift, it was. The crystal meth situation too, meaning the trader didn’t think to see if Bernie was behind him when he finally stumbled back to his ratty flat.
“We’re going to take your teeth too,” Des Chick said.
“And the nose,” Larry nodded.
“And the nose,” Des agreed, “if Bernie comes back empty-handed.”
The trader could not believe he had been duped. Better than them all, and smarter, and yet he’d been duped.
Des said, “And then we’ll talk about regret.”
The trader looked at his thumb on the table, and he heard the one he called Pug trudging up the creaking stairs.
LOST IN DUBLINBY JASON STARR
Kathy had come to Dublin to forget about her fiancé, Jim, or to at least reassess the relationship, but so far she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him. She’d called him twice-once, minutes after her flight landed, under the pretense of wanting to find out how Sammy, their year-old Labrador, was doing, but it was really to hear his voice; and again when she arrived at the hotel to admit that she missed him. He said he missed her too and told her that this was crazy, to get on the next plane back to New York, but she told him no, she had to stay, to try to “work this thing out once and for all.”
Now, as she lay in bed in the curtain-darkened hotel room, trying to sleep off her jet lag, she wondered what the hell she was doing with her life. For years, all her friends had been trying to convince her to dump Jim, and part of her wanted to do it. She knew she’d never be able to trust him again-for all she knew, he was back in bed with that bitch right now-so what was the point in even thinking about staying with him? But it had never been easy for her to let go of things and she’d been with Jim for six years, and although things had been stormy, to say the least, she felt she had to at least give it a chance-see if there was still something there.
She stirred for a couple of hours and then got up, not sure if she had slept or not. She still had a bad headache and felt out of it, and a shower and a whole small bottle of Killarney sparkling from the minibar didn’t help. But she was excited to go out exploring and she figured a good cup of coffee would perk her up.
She picked up a tourist map and went down Chatham Street to a pleasant-looking café and sat at one of the tables outside. A waitress came out and asked her what she was having.
“Just a coffee,” Kathy said.
The waitress left and Kathy opened the map and was very confused. Dublin was a maze of streets with Irish names and she had no idea where she was. It didn’t help that she had a lousy sense of direction. Normally when she traveled she relied on Jim to take her from place to place. Jim was one of those guys who seemed to have a compass implanted in his brain and always got a handle on a city instantly, even if he’d never been there before. The last trip they’d taken together was to Paris, two years ago, and she never looked at a map the entire ten days. Jim whisked her around the city, from arrondissement to arrondissement-walking to some places, taking the Metro to others-and she never had to worry about anything.
The waitress brought the coffee. Kathy had a sip, then noticed a guy at the table next to hers smiling at her. She hadn’t noticed him before and she figured he must’ve sat down while she was looking at the map. He was working on a laptop and was kind of cute.
She smiled back at him and then he said, “You’re American, are you?”
Kathy felt a wave of guilt she experienced whenever she was traveling and was outed for being American, as if her nationality was something to be ashamed of and kept hidden when abroad.
“I guess that’s pretty obvious, huh?”
“The map and the accent were sort of giveaways, I suppose. Hi, I’m Patrick, by the way.”
“Hi, I’m Kathy.”
He asked her if it was her first time in Dublin. She told him it was, and that she’d come because her father was born here and she’d always wanted to see it. When she told him she was from New York he said, “Ah, love New York. I was there once when I was at university, but I want to go again. I’m a playwright, you see.”
“Really?”
“Well, aspiring. Had one play produced last year, at a small theater here in Dublin.”
“That’s great.”