armed and dangerous.
“Salt and pepper faggots,” Larkin muttered.
“I’ve said it all along. All Green Berets have the extra male chromosome.
“Violence queers.”
33
I needed transport if I was going to burgle Anthony’s gaff.
Gaff!
Christ, I had been watching too much Brit TV. I knew he had the Masonic lodge on Wednesday, and the staff (diminished as they were due to the economy) had the night off.
So it had to be a Wednesday.
I could hardly take a cab or risk stealing a vehicle. I still had plenty of cash due to Emily’s legacy and the fee Pierre Renaud had given me. I went to a car rental and, fuck it, got a stuck-up gobshite in attendance who began,
“How may we be of service to sir this fine morning?”
Fuck, I was tired already. I said,
“For openers, don’t call me sir.”
That softened his cough.
A bit.
He pulled out a load of forms, said,
“If s... you would be kind enough to fill out these.”
A rake of them.
I said,
“I’m here for a damn car, not a job application.”
He smirked, said,
“Data protection.”
Since the banks robbed us blind, data protection was the excuse of choice for laziness. But I did fill out the bloody things. Handed them over.
He scrutinized them as if they were WikiLeaks, said,
“No bank details?”
I said, tersely,
“I’m not looking for a loan, just a car.”
The smirk again.
He asked, with total incredulity,
“You want to pay cash?”
His face registered that I seemed a tad old for a drug dealer. He asked,
“What size and model did sir...”
Pause.
“Have in mind?”
All my battered life I wanted one time to drive a big fucking Jeep, let out all my macho bullshit in one dizzy flourish. I said,
“Something big, like a Land Rover.”
Cross my unholy heart but he actually tittered, did risk,
“You know what they say about men and big cars?”
God on a bike.
I leaned over the counter, got right up in his shit, as they say in the hood, snarled,
“You in the business of renting cars or just fucking with people?”
Frightened him. He stammered,
“No call for that,” and looked around for help. There was none.
Just me.
He said,
“The Mazda is a standout in the crossover SUV class. The CX-5 is a joy to drive.”
I cut him off, asked,
“Is it stick shift?”
I meant, had it gears that you manually handled so you actually knew you were doing the driving and not the automatic shite they peddled, ad nauseam, and don’t even get me started on hybrids / electric crap.
He dismissed me with a shrug, said,
“Perhaps sir would do better somewhere else.”
The contempt dripped from every italicized word.
For a moment, I considered pucking him on the upside of his arrogant head but went with,
“You should think about working in a pharmacy. They seem to specialize in employing cunts who read you the riot act if you ask for Solpadeine.”
I went down to the car park off the Claddagh and God smiled, or maybe the devil. Sitting right there was a battered Jeep, the license plates covered in dirt.
Perfect.
Took me all of five minutes to hot-wire and drive that muthah out of there.
The back window was dirty, ideal for me perch; shoot from there.
Locked and loaded.
Now I just had to break into Anthony’s home and grab the rifle.
Adrenaline was giving me a jolt of energy that made me feel alive in a dark and glorious way.
Back at my apartment, I did a few lines of coke to smooth out the vibes of electricity, was watching Stephen King’s
Storm of the Century,
Little realizing how utterly serendipitous that would be very soon.
A knock at the door. I opened to
Michael Allen,
Holding my daughter’s hand.
He pushed the little girl toward me, snapped,
“You get her today. My love and I are having a date day.”
And the fucker winked at me.
The girl looked frightened. I said,
“Come on in love, I’ll get you a soft drink.”
The tiniest of smiles.
How that warmed my ice heart.
Allen summoned me outside with a beckoning finger, said,
“I need a freaking day free of the damn nose snot.”
Lovely.
He smirked.
“Try to keep her out of the pubs.”
And he was gone.
I closed the door and faced my daughter with deep anxiety, tried,
“Anything you want to do, ’tis done.”
She looked at me quizzically, asked,
“Are you, like, really my, like...”
Pause
“... Dad?”
Her accent veered between American Valley girl and mid-Atlantic twang.
I said,
“Yes, I am your father.”
Fuck, how weird that sounded.
She had a small satchel, made of just beautiful soft leather, Gucci on the front.
She took out a flask and a board game. I asked,
“Is that your tea?”
Thinking, with Kiki, it would of course be herbal green muck.
She said,
“It’s a smoothie.”
Right.
She looked at my overflowing untidy bookshelves, asked,
“Can I tidy that?”
OCD?
I nearly said,
“Hon, you touch my books, you lose the arm from the elbow.”
But went,
“Thank you, that would be lovely.”
She asked,
“Alphabetically or by genre?”
WTF?
Had to pinch my own self, mentally ask,
She’s only nine?
Her little face was so elfin, so heart wrenching in its earnestness, I thought of the lines of Merton,
“You will be loved
and it will
murder your heart and drive
you into the desert.”
Who knew?
We had an amazing day, chock-full of
Laughter
Food
Sodas
Chocolate
And
Hugs.
... Hugs?
Who could have foreseen that?
I went into the bathroom and down on my knees, whispered,
“Oh, thank you, Jesus!”
Meant it with every fiber of my wasted soul.
If you’ve seen series one of The Wire you might remember a young black drug dealer from the corner, teaching young bloods how to play chess.
In a truly fantastic, memorable scene, he demonstrates the chess pieces by calling them all the names the boys use for
Cops
Dealers
Soldiers
And explains the various moves in the way a young gun plots his way to the top.
I did that using nuns as pawns, and priests and cardinals, too, and, of course, we almost had a bishop.
The king was the pope
And
The queen, well, she was her very own mum.
She loved it and we played for hours with me promising to get a custom-made set for her own self.