And then I giggled, thinking of all the plans I’d made and if only they’d found the beads, I yelled aloud,
“Yah stupid fucks, if only you had any idea.”
I cleaned up as best as I could and finally headed for the camp bed, pulled back the blanket and there was the photo, me shaking hands with Morronni, the envelope of bills spilling out.
What they call a damning indictment.
Man, they thought they were setting me up... if only they had one iota of how they were actually helping me.
Odd thing, I dreamt of that swan in Galway, the way it struggled, and the sounds it made and how I’d tried to hush it, telling it I loved it.
One vital lesson you learn as a guard is... they threaten you, you either run like a bastard, or... you get right back in their face.
Immediately.
Brutally.
Biblically.
And I wanted to.
Shite on my floor, me beloved uniform in tatters.
Fuck that.
You go after the messenger first, the fuckhead who left the calling card, like that song... First, we take Manhattan.
Then you let that simmer and in jig time, you take after the head honcho.
Gino, I remember Morronni calling his rent-a-thug that.
And how hard would it be to find that piece of lowlife?
You’re in the NYPD... you have access, and if not to all areas, certainly where the bottom feeders dwell.
At the station I got on the computer, and he had a rap sheet as long as an Irish story, all intimidation gigs.
This guy liked to terrorize people.
Okay.
He played pool in a dive in the Village three nights a week.
I fingered the green rosary, thinking... buddy, this beads is gonna put you away... for ever.
Time to introduce him to our national sport.
Hurling.
A blend of hockey and homicide.
I put the hurley in a carryall, me police issue in the waistband of me jeans, and I was good to go.
I’d let meself get into the zone.
You replay the guy trashing your home, violating your gear, and imagine him doing it with a smirk.
You’ve entered the zone.
I’d scored some stuff from Jimmy the pizza guy and crunched a speed tab, washed it down with a shot of Jay, and headed out.
The dive was certainly that.
In the middle of a fairly prosperous part of the Village, it stood out like a Brit at an Irish wedding, defiant and sneering.
I went in, lots of bikers, lots of attitude, the bar guy, big and I bet with a baseball bat under the counter, snarled,
“Get you?”
“Coors.”
Eyeballing me but I let that slide, he wasn’t my interest.
I put a couple of bucks on the counter, moved off to the side.
The pool table was hopping, lots of action, money laid on the side, and there he was.
Gino.
Living it up.
You want to get a guy’s attention, take his knees out first with a hurley.
Nine
Dressed in what we call a waistcoat and for inex plicable reasons the Yanks call a vest. A very shiny number and tight trousers, I could see the piece against his backbone, the butt of it outlined against his vest when he bent to take a shot.
Let them know he was carrying.
His face was covered in sweat and he was downing shooters like a good un.
He’d need to piss... right.
He did.
Shouting to his opponent,
“Gotta take a goddamn leak, be right back to hand you your ass.”
And he pushed his way to the restroom.
I followed.
He was in one of the stalls and I locked the door, got out the hurley, he was grunting like a pig and finally sighed, came out, saw me, went,
“The fuck...”
Took his legs out with the hurley.
Swoosh.
I love that sound, clean, efficient, and highly effective.
He was on his knees in the piss on the floor, moaning, and I gave him another wallop to the side of the head, not to knock him out but to focus him.
Then I stood over him, the hurley resting lightly on my shoulder.
He looked up, muttered,
“You’re fucking dead, pal.”
Wallop.
Left shoulder, spread it around.
I said,
“This is the lesson of the ash, what our hurleys are made from, and the lesson teaches next time, it’s your head only that gets the walloping.”
I asked,
“Where’s the photo?”
He dredged up some phlegm, spat it at me feet, I said,
“That is a really disgusting habit.”
Gave him a tap on the nose, broke it, said,
“Have some fucking finesse.”
I reached down, shoved him against the wall, got his wallet out and said,
“Pay for the damage to my place.”
Must have been four, five hundred bucks, I took it all, flicked the wallet in the toilet, said,
“Next time you come after me, bring more than a note.”
And put his lights out.
Back in the bar, I drained the Coors and the bar guy asked,
“Another?”
I shook me head, said,
“Your restroom, it’s got shite all over the floor.”
Got out of there fast.
I hailed a cab, went uptown and found a flash-looking bar, went in, ordered a double Jay, and when it came, I had to wait a full five minutes for me hands to stop shaking before I could lift it.
It had been a while since I played hurling.
But you never quite lose the talent, and to hear that whoosh of the bat, it was like the darkest music.
Kebar had been on a six-day bender, your no-holds-barred, out-and-out blitz. Two-fisted drinking, with serious intent. You name it, he sank it, Dewar’s, Stoli, tequila... hello... tequila?... Wild Turkey, Early Times and early it wasn’t, gallons of brews, from Shiner to Sam Adams, an equal opportunity imbiber.
Food, right... if you count Kentucky Fried Chicken, Burger King Whoppers, pizza, Chinese, and whatever clogs your arteries, gives you the cholesterol jibbies, he had it.
And course, you have a hard-on for the world, and you drink like that, trouble is gonna come down the pike with a vengeance and that’s what he wanted.
To crack skulls, lash out, annihilate every fucker who even glanced at him.
And they did.
Paid the price.
Kebar was a big Springsteen fan, “The Price You Pay” unreeling in his head like a dodgy old 45.
And get this, when you have the out-on-the-precipice dementia, there’s going to be oddities thrown into the maelstrom.
Emily Dickinson, not the first name you’d have put in this cauldron but logic hadn’t a whole lot of validity in this gig.
And... in German.
He had no idea how that happened but he had a battered copy of her Guten Morgen, Mitternacht.
And add to the mystery, he could quote from it, where’d that come from?
Fuck knows.
As he brought the bar down on some skel’s head, he in-canted:
“Tod macht die Saiten krumm—
Nicht meine Schuld.”
“...Death twists the strings—
’Twasn’t my fault.”
And his mantra:
“Ein fremder Stamm, allein—”
...Wrecked, solitary, here—
He fucking loved that.
When he would finally stagger back to his crap one-room apartment in Queens, he’d throw up the food he’d bought, pour a lethal shot of Stoli, thinking,
“Mellow on down.”
He’d drag his battered suitcase from under the bed, flip it open, and his stone face would nearly smile.