“Thanks.”
Forgetting, I tried to use my right hand with the Zippo and, without a word, Vinny leant over, fired me up. I folded my right hand in a feeble fist and asked,
“Want to know?”
He reflected, then,
“On reflection, no.”
Not that he didn’t care. It was the very caring that doused his curiosity. He said,
“A friend of yours was in the other day, the Ban Garda?”
I was stunned, asked,
“In an official capacity?”
He laughed, said,
“Jack, we’re a bookshop, not a speakeasy.”
Added,
“Least not yet.”
He finished his cig, extinguished it carefully in the provided bin, said,
“She bought a stretch of James Lee Burke.”
Wonders never cease. I muttered,
“Ridge buying books.”
He corrected, gently,
“Ban Ni Iomaire Jack.”
One of the girls stuck her head out the door, shouted,
“Vin… phone.”
I smiled, said,
“Bet you have them primed to do that after five minutes.”
He laughed fully and he has one of those great ones, makes you feel good to simply hear it. He asked,
“How’d you know?”
I said,
“It’s what I’d do.”
Now he did glance at his watch, left to him by his late beloved dad. He asked,
“You living in Nun’s Island?”
Surprised me and I said in a tone heavier than I meant,
“Keeping track of the customers, that it?”
It was unwarranted and I instantly regretted it. His eyes changed, the usual merriment faded, he said,
“No, it’s called keeping track of friends.”
In a piss-poor attempt at reconciliation, I handed over a list, said,
“Any chance you got any of these?”
Ten authors on there:
Jim Nisbet
Tom Piccirilli
Craig McDonald
Megan Abbott
Adrian McKinty and
Others.
You want to truly off end authors, list them under Others.
He scanned it, said,
“ Fifty Grand was terrific, the others, apart from Print the Legend,
I’ll need some time on.”
I took out my wallet. Vinny gave me the look, said,
“I didn’t get them yet.”
Money just doesn’t buy you out of a cluster fuck; ask Tiger Woods.
One last lame salvo. I said,
“We’ll have that pint soon.”
He nodded, went back into the shop.
I stood there, mortified. Maybe Vinny’s watch, my stupid mishandling of one of my oldest and closest friends, resurrected a painful memory.
My father, Lord rest him, had all his life, over his bed, a portrait of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. After he died, I’d been spending some time with a guy I regarded as a friend. By some odd coincidence, his father was terminally ill. In what I believed to be one of the few decent acts of my befuddled life, I gave the picture to my friend. Not easily, as anything to do with my dad was beyond sacred to me.
The man lingered on for two more years, painful ones, and during that time, my erstwhile friend, like so many others, had become, if not my enemy, certainly somebody who avoided me. No surprise there; business as usual, really. My existence of alienation even then was in full flow.
Few weeks after the man’s funeral, I received a parcel. It contained the portrait and a terse note: Jack I’m returning this as my father has no further use of it. Not that it did him a whole load of good. We are never going to be friends, Jack, and you know, I doubt we ever were.
There was more, it didn’t get better.
But that’s what I recall and I remember being gutted by the gesture. To return a holy picture seemed to be an act of desecration. I gave the thing to charity. What had been holy above my father’s bed had mutated to utter malice.
I didn’t understand the act then, I don’t understand it now. For a man like me, always rapid to anger, to flare-ups, I don’t think I for one single moment felt even a twinge of anger, I felt only sadness.
Outside Charlie’s now, I stubbed my cigarette under my boot, fuck the bin, and turned up the collar of my Garda coat and went, as the very last line of Padraig Pearse’s poem goes, went my way
…Sorrowfully.
An easier exercise is to look for evidence rather than jump to conclusions.
– Detective’s Handbook
I managed a day without much booze, cut way back on the pills, and so when the morning of Ridge’s arrival came, I was, if not clear-eyed, at least mobile. You take what you get. As I waited and sipped at a strong coffee, I practiced over and over with the Mossberg. I was getting there. It began to feel like an extension of my arm. That I thought this was some sort of achievement is a fucking sad depiction of how narrow my world had become. I blamed it on the loss of a love almost reached.
Guy like me, who the hell is going to give the dancer’s choice? I felt her loss like the departure of an aspiration you’d yearned for but never seriously considered.
To try and exorcise this demon of woe, I kept glancing at the notes I’d made on Headstone.
Something. Just nagging at the edge of my mind.
Nope, couldn’t get it.
Yet.
Ridge arrived promptly as said. She was dressed in a navy tracksuit with white stripes and looked good, very. She handed over a package, said,
“This was at your door.”
No fucking around, I opened it fast, I was sick to death of bad mail. It contained a glove; flesh-colored material, with a soft gel-like substance filling two fingers. I tried it on and the gel seemed to almost solidify, yet was flexible. I held up my hand to Ridge, said, trying not to let the sheer bitterness leak over the tone, “See, good as new.”
There was a brief note:
Concealment comes in many guises.
Kosta.
Stewart would have loved the Zen echo.
Ridge, awkwardly, asked,
“Is it comfortable?”
Nothing wrong with a pun, especially when you lived in a country that was being rapidly flushed down the toilet.
I punned,
“If the glove fits.”
Ridge took a rapid look at the Mossberg and before she could start her Guard tirade, I lied,
“It’s a replica.”
Did this fly?
Did it fuck?
Her face turned melancholic then, and she said,
“Stewart told me about your lady friend, I’m truly sorry, Jack.”
Jack!
Shite, how sorry was she?
I went the full Irish, said,
“God knows, you’ve had your own troubles.”
She simply nodded, didn’t volunteer more, so I let it slide, asked,
“You want some coffee, tea?”
“No, thank you, let’s get moving.”
Her car was new, a powerful Audi. She said,
“It’s Anthony’s.”
Then added in that tone that only a woman can,
“For now.”
I kind of liked that.
I certainly never liked the Anglo-Irish prick anyway.
She was a fine driver, careful, confident, and with a force that hinted,
“Do not fuck with me.”
She asked, switching gear, literally, no automatic for good ol’
Anthony,
“How do you think Malachy will be?”
That was a given. I said,
“Like a bad bastard.”
She nearly smiled. I added,
“He’ll also be still scared so expect him to be even more feisty than usual.”
She risked a look at me, asked,
“Is that how you handle… fear?”
I shook my head, said,
“The reason God gave us hurleys.”
She pushed,
“Are you talking from personal experience? I mean, about the fear and bad temper?”
Too easy.
I told her the truth, to see how that would go,
“I’m bad tempered naturally-my mother’s legacy. Fear makes me dangerous.”
But play the game. You ask questions like that, deep stuff, the least you can do is expect a lob back and I did, asked,