Yo, I’m down homes.
He was dressed in cargo shorts, a T that yelled
Ashes to Ashes
And flip-flops.
Me, in my strangulation tie, sports jacket, Farah creased pants, like some latter-day consigliere to these precocious kids. Reardon was slurping on a slush, I kid thee fucking not at all, and very loudly.
Teeth clenched, I asked,
“The fuck am I wearing a tie and generally coming off like a horse’s arse?”
He flipped the drink container at the basket and to my delight, missed, said,
“Cos, dude, like, you’re, you know, old.”
Crossed my mind to finally say,
“Fuck it.”
Stride out of there, dignity walking point.
But in truth, I don’t really do dignity. Not in any way anyone ever noticed. Something about Reardon rubbed a primeval urge, a desire to wipe that smug smirk in the plush carpets of his state-of-the-art office. He’d reiterated over and over his wish to use me, to employ me in some capacity, so I could swallow some humiliation, asked,
“You want to get to the point or just waffle your hippie bullshite?”
Got him.
In the face, for one brief moment, I saw the empty man, the ego that can never be stroked, the fallow ground that is forever barren and that power sheens but briefly. He rallied.
“We’re developing an app that will wipe the floor with
iPads
iPhones
i. . what the fuck ever. But there is a leak. Someone in this here office, my man, is leaking to either Google or Amazon.”
I laughed, said,
“I love it. You want me to catch a techie, a nerd? I wouldn’t even know how to talk to them, let alone know if they were stealing the family silver.”
He stood up, stretched, looked out at his crew with what could only be pride and loathing, said,
“It’s Skylar or Stan, my two best people. You, my errant private eye, are going to take them for drinks, show them some of unknown Galway, and, in your wily way, tell which of the. .”
He paused, a look of affection, certainly as close to love as a megalomaniac might ever get, then,
“Cunts
. . is betraying me.”
Then he turned to me, his face a frozen mask, said,
“And you’ll do this, not only because I’ll pay you to the point of orgasmic ridicule but, if you don’t, I’ll burn Stewart.”
I was lost, groped for an answer. He smiled, brittle spite leaking from the corners of his mouth, said,
“People of interest
You
The dyke Guard
Stewie
I have shadowed from day one. How I get to own cities and the likes of you can barely rent.”
I was so angry I could spit, asked,
“What did Stewart do?”
He was now twisting a rubber band, doing that irritating thing as if he had gum in his hands, extending and letting it blow. I wanted to kill him with the freaking band. He said,
“Ask him. I mean, you guys, tight, right? No secrets, am I right, dawg?”
I looked out at the office, asked,
“These kids, I bring them out, show them the sights, and they’ll just fess up?”
He shrugged.
“Those two are my token Americans, naive is their genetic code, they’re in a foreign country, you’re like a legend, a Waylon Jennings, not that they ever the fuck heard of him, but you get my drift. Get ’em wasted, they’ll want to impress you.”
I moved to go, stopped, asked,
“Saying it plays like you figure, one of those kids gives it up, what will you do?”
He seemed to be actually considering his answer, then,
“I’ll fucking butcher him.”
On the way out, the girl, looking like an escapee from The Brady Bunch, said to me,
“Mr. Taylor, I’m Skylar, I’m so buzzed.”
A guy appeared alongside, looking like he was maybe twelve. I guessed Stan. He joined the chorus, blew,
“We’ll have us a blast, way cool.”
I thought,
“Fucking shoot me now.”
21
“The comic spirit is a necessity of life, as a purge to all human vanity.”
— Oscar Wilde
Stewart had gotten an appointment with Westbury. Dressed to legal impress: the Armani suit, muted tie, Italian shoes. It sure impressed the receptionist, who asked,
“And where have you been, ducks?”
That she was close to seventy seemed not to have dented her spirit. The office managed to combine the old school aura of dusty desks without the desks and a bright bay window that gave a miraculous view of Lough Corrib.
As Stewart waited, she asked,
“Like a whiskey and soda while you’re waiting?”
He half-thought she might be serious and was sure she’d done two of said number her own self. The magazines on the table continued the dual theme. There were
Galway Now
Loaded
Horse amp; Hound.
All species covered there. Stewart was working on his story, if indeed story he decided he’d go with. Maybe just flush with,
“Why have four of your clients been targeted by a lunatic vigilante?”
And get turfed out on his arse. The old dear was still staring at him, asked,
“Know how long I’ve been working here?”
Like he gave a shit?
Said,
“No.”
“Have a guess, go on, go on.”
Sounding like Pauline McLynn in Father Ted. He demurred with,
“Really, I have no idea.”
His tone suggesting he had zero to zilch interest. She sniffed, said,
“You’re gorgeous but, God, you’re boring.”
A beat,
“You lovely people, you don’t have to work at personality, just sit and be admired, you ungrateful. . pricks.”
Stewart had done as much research on Westbury as he could and, after Google, Wikipedia, both U.K. and Irish entries, had amassed a picture of a blend of Brit Atticus Finch and the total headbanger of a counsel in Breaking Bad. The receptionist, whose name he saw was Ms. Davis, said,
“You can go in now. Roy is expecting you.”
Roy!
Roy’s office was a Hollywood lawyer’s space as envisaged by Kenneth Anger. Chaos fueled by adrenaline. Westbury was a barrel of a man, in his fifties, all the years compressed into a tight ball of ferocious energy. Wearing a striped shirt, loud tie, and-get this-braces, like Gekko had never gone to prison. Bald, brute head, and a face that was not lived in but downright occupied. By very bad events.
He emerged from behind a desk laden with documents, hand extended, greeted,
“Mr. Sandler”
“It’s Stewart.”
Westbury’s grip was one of those duels but Stewart from years of martial arts could hand-fuck all day. Westbury said,
“Ms. Davis said you were Sandler.”
Feeling like Jack, he said,
“She was wrong.”
Let it hang there, their play. Westbury cleared a mess of files off a chair, said,
“Grab a pew, lad. Anything to drink?”
Stewart said,
“I’m not a lad and Mrs. Davis already gave me a whiskey and soda.”
Got him.
Then he laughed, said,
“Touché, a sense of humor never goes astray. What can I do for you?”
Stewart debated for all of a minute, then,
“I beat a man half to death, might need representation if the Guards trace the beating.”
Be a perpetrator, like the dead four, and if Westbury was taking out his own clients, in some perverted guise of bent justice, then bring it on. Westbury, displaying why he got the big bucks, countered instantly with
“Alleged. Allegedly beat.”
Stewart nodded, liked it a lot.
Westbury handed over a sheet of paper, said,
“Fill out the personal stuff, keep it vague, paper trails have a tendency to bite you in the arse.”