A shadow fell across his notes. He looked up, a heavily built man in his fifties was staring at him. The man had a face of sheer granite, with old acne spots across his upper jaw. Heavy tissue around his eyes testified to some time as a boxer. The broken nose confirmed it. He was wearing a very smart Crumby coat, collar turned up, with a fedora perched rakishly on his head. He asked,
“Mind if I join you?”
Pause.
“Stewart.”
Stewart nodded and the man sat, his heavy bulk straining the chair. A waitress appeared, asked,
“May I get you something sir?”
He gave her a lazy look, full of total uninterest, said,
“Yeah, coffee, black.”
He unbuttoned his heavy coat to reveal an ill-fitting brown suit with a puke green waistcoat, said,
“I’m Mason. Been looking for your boss, Taylor, but he seems to have disappeared. Probably sleeping off his latest piss-up?” Took Stewart a moment to grasp the cadence of the accent, British but muted. He answered,
“He’s not my boss.”
Mason actually raised an eyebrow, then said,
“You seriously believe that?”
The coffee arrived, Mason took a sip, spat, asked,
“The fuck is that swill?”
The waitress beat a fast and faster retreat.
Mason pushed the cup aside, said,
“Trust me sonny, I’ve done my research; you’re the gofer.”
Stewart applied all his Zen mastery, tried to envisage a sunlit meadow, but the sheer bulk of Mason blotted out the light. He asked,
“Who are you?”
Mason gave a deep smoker’s laugh, full of phlegm and venom, reached in his jacket, produced a wallet with a gold badge, said,
“I’m a private investigator. The real deal. Not like your employer’s half-arsed attempt. I used to be with the Met and after retirement took full accreditation as the real deal.”
Stewart was tired of the guy, tried,
“And you want to see Jack, why?”
He fixed his flat eyes on Stewart, steel glinting on the rims, said, “I’ve no fucking interest in that has-been. I’ve been employed by the family of Ronan Wall to look into his disappearance. You’re a messenger boy so deliver this to the alkie. This is my case and he’s to keep well clear of it. You got that, son?”
Stewart was still grabbing for some serenity.
Working it wasn’t, but he managed,
“Jack has no involvement in that case.”
Mason snapped his wallet shut. You could see the slick movement had been practiced before the mirror a lot. He said,
“Good, keep it that way. There’s a world of hurt for those who fall foul of me.”
He stood up, buttoned the coat, asked,
“Ex-con, right?”
Stewart didn’t feel it warranted a reply and Mason smiled. No warmth had ever touched that smile and it certainly didn’t now.
He said,
“Good lad, you sniff around my case, I’ll have you back behind bars in coke time.”
Stewart had finally found a place, deep within, where he could trust his mouth, asked,
“Your intimidating manner get you a lot of results?”
Mason had been on the point of leaving but turned back, leant right across the table, into Stewart’s face, his breath an acrid blend of nicotine and belligerence, hissed,
“Dipshit, I eat the likes of you for breakfast. I can stitch you up in ways you’d never imagine.”
Then he patted Stewart on the head, said,
“Now run along, there’s a good lad.”
He was done, set to head for the door, when Stewart said,
“I did learn a thing or two in prison. The louder the mouth, the bigger the target.”
Mason laughed, said,
“Next time we chat, I won’t be so cordial.”
And was gone.
Stewart tried to imagine such an encounter between Mason and Jack.
Phew-oh.
The Dylan album came to mind, he’d been listening to these old guys at Jack’s probing. The album was
Blood on the Tracks.
You say to me that there is more to life than hurling. But if you want to carry on like a fella who is not interested, then there will be lots more than hurling.
But there won’t be hurling!
That’s the reality of it.
– Kilkenny hurling manager
Ridge was standing before Superintendent Clancy. His main hatchet man, O’Brien, was standing point, smirk in place. Ridge marveled that Clancy once had been Jack’s best friend and now was his sworn enemy. She’d tried to probe Jack on it, he said, “Shite happens.”
Her alliance with Jack was a permanent black mark in her file. Clancy kept her waiting, poring over papers, making odd grunts of assent.
Who knew?
He was uttering,
“Hmphh.
Mm…”
By the holy!
Finally, he removed his reading glasses, gold rimmed, of course, sat back, surveyed her. His eyes were slabs of pure slate. He said,
“You were arrested by two citizens.”
She started to say,
“Sir, it was a…”
“Shut the fuck up. Did I ask you to speak?”
O’Brien gave a wide grin. She took some solace in knowing that Jack had once beaten the living daylights out of him. Clancy continued,
“If the media got hold of this, we’d have a cluster fuck on our hands.”
She longed to say something but bit down.
Hard.
Clancy said,
“As a favor to your husband, I’m not going to launch an official investigation.”
He stared at her.
What?
Was she, like, to say, “Golly gee, thank you so much yah prick?”
He continued,
“You’re suspended without pay for a month, confined to desk duty, you can handle a phone, I presume, without aggravation?” He returned his reading glasses to his burst-veined nose, said,
“Now get the fuck out of my sight.”
As she slunk out, she began to better understand Jack’s loathing of the man.
Anthony was waiting outside, dressed like the country squire, all pomp and damn little circumstance, and was that a cravat… with the emblem of the Galway Hunt? He barked,
“Get in the car.”
Ridge, never the most tolerant of individuals, already way past her simmer date, asked,
“What?”
To her horror, she noticed he was wearing his riding breeches as he strode to the BMW. He stopped, said,
“We’ll discuss this at home. I had to pull a lot of strings to save your pathetic career.”
She almost ran up to him, got right in his aristocratic face, said,
“Pull this.”
Instead yanked the cravat from his neck.
He was about to protest when she said,
“One fucking word, just one, and I’ll make you eat this piece of rubbish.”
Turned on her heel and walked towards the city center.
She had to stop at the Wolfe Tone Bridge as she realized her whole world was going down the toilet.
She fumbled for her mobile, her hands shaking, called Stewart.
No frills, she begged,
“Can I stay with you for a few days?”
If he was fazed, he didn’t sound it. Then, nothing ever seemed to get to him. He said,
“A Garda in my house, fantastic.”
One of the reasons she loved him, he never, never asked,
“Why?”
You find a friend like that, you’re freaking gold.
That a convicted drug dealer and a Garda were tight was a conundrum neither analyzed. Jack had brought them together but even he never expected they would form a separate peace. They did share one quality, an indefinable regard for the train wreck he was. Both, in their separate ways, felt they might yet save him. When Ridge had begun her martial arts program, Stewart had encouraged her, offering Zen wisdom to beat the wall of pain. Jack, of course, true to form, on hearing of her enterprise, muttered,
“I’ll rely on my hurley.”
When Ridge arrived at Stewart’s house, he already had a room prepared. His home was on the edge of Cooke’s Corner. But a postmortem away from the fish shop where a body had been found in the freezer, and had been there for many years. Of course, the local wits had a field day, the very least of which was, “…Ah, he was always a cold fish.”