Ли Чайлд - Belfast Noir

That was all you could do, show the fuckers you weren’t beat.

Milky asked around—quietly, for once—and found out where the top man lived. He took the bus out and—holy fuck—let’s just say he hadn’t done too badly doing what he hadn’t been asked to do all these years. Reminded Milky of when he was a kid (Milky was a kid once), a house— mansion , him and his brothers called it (Milky was a kid with brothers)—big orchard out the back. They used to take a tree each in apple season, climb up into it, and strip it from the inside.

There were three cars in the top man’s drive, an Audi, a—actually, Milky had no idea what the second was, but like an Audi, and like an Audi expensive—and a Land Rover, or Range Rover, with a couple of guys sitting in it. They were too far away for him to see if they were two of the ones who had used his face as an eraser.

He took the bus up twice more before he worked out how to get in: a tree overhanging the railings at one end of the long garden. Whoever did the gardening needed sacked.

The fourth time he caught the bus it was night. The Land Rover or Range Rover was in the driveway again when he passed on the far side on the street, the two guys in it both, by the looks of them, asleep. Fifty yards up the road he doubled back and crossed to the other side. The tree was wee buns compared to the apple trees Milky had used to climb in and out of as a wee lad.

He let a couple of hours go by, time enough for his eyes to adjust, get the lie of the land. An extension ran right along the back of the house, about twenty feet away, flat roof, spotlight mounted on the wall above it. Milky chose a twig within easy reach: one hand to yank, one hand to muffle the snap. He wedged his back against the trunk and threw. It didn’t have to be especially accurate to break the spotlight’s beam. The guys from the Land Rover or Range Rover came round and thrashed about a bit below him in the garish light. As soon as they were gone Milky did it again. They came back again.

The third time they started saying maybe it was the light. They got a ladder, one of them climbed up. He took out the bulb, put it back in. Must be the wiring! he shouted down. We’ll check it in the morning.

So when Milky climbed out of the tree and up there and the light came on, they moved so slowly that he had the bulb out before they arrived.

I told you it was the wiring.

Milky leaned across the table. You see, just because I act the prick, people think I’m stupid. I’m not stupid.

Not stupid, but tired all the same. He fell asleep up there. When he woke there were voices, far off. It was the middle of the morning. He could see someone down in the garden. He climbed off the roof and stood in the open doorway. Whoever was down there had no idea he was behind them. He walked inside. Black-and-white floor tiles, chrome. Like an abattoir. He took a bite of an apple he found in a crystal fruit bowl and spat it out. He picked up a little paring knife. He turned with it in his hand. There was a teenage boy standing there. Son, grandson, Milky couldn’t have worked it out. His hair was bleached. He had a stud in his ear, another in his nose.

He looked at Milky a long moment. Who the fuck are you?

I’m Milky.

The boy’s lip curled. Well, you’re fucking dead, he said.

I don’t think so, Milky told me he said to him, then: It doesn’t sound like much, does it, a paring knife?

I stopped writing, dropped the pencil in fact. I didn’t pick it up.

Tell me you’re spoofing.

He shook his head, reached for the cigarette box again.

I pulled it back out of his way. What were you thinking?

For a moment his forefinger and thumb went toward his ear, or to a point a front tooth’s drop below it.

He had a nasty mouth on him, he said. Speaking to me like that.

I kept my hand on the cigarettes then pushed them back across the table.

Milky had his arms folded. His lips were drawn tight.

You can keep the rest of the box, I said.

You know, if yon boy ever gets out they’ll kill him, the guard told me on my way back to reception. Safest place for him is in here, you know that, don’t you?

His mate gave me back the fanzine in its Ziploc bag. My wee brother was a goth, he said.

Good for him, I replied.

He raised an eyebrow and the other guard told him there was no use bothering with some people.

* * *

I had a couple of hours still before getting my plane out of City Airport.

I got the taxi to drop me in town and went down to the subway. The useable city was spreading down toward the docks, or where the docks used to be. It was all trendy pubs and boutique hotels now. Soon they’d do something with this too, turn it into an arcade, a bar maybe.

I walked from one end of it to the other, three, four times, but there was twenty-odd years’ worth of other shit scrawled and sprayed up there, even supposing Milky’s story was true.

Even supposing.

THE RESERVOIR

BY IAN MCDONALD

Holywood

He wears the suit like a man who does not wear suits. It falls badly around him, ill-fitted, too short in the sleeve, too long in the leg, too low in the crotch, too tight around the thighs. A grey suit. A supermarket suit. An F&F suit. He is a short, thickset man, carrying weight on his upper belly, heart-attack fat, uncomfortable not just in the suit but in the skin beneath.

He slips into the church. The bride has processed. Every eye is on her. An usher cuts him off as he heads for the side aisle. Hand on his chest.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Whispering, because you don’t say fuck in church. Whispering, because you don’t want the bride to look around.

“Come to see my daughter get wed. What else?”

“You’re not coming in here.”

“You going to try and stop me, and wreck her day?”

“If she sees you, her day’s already wrecked.”

“My Emma loves her da. Which is more than she ever did you, when she had that weekend with you when Ross was away at the Everton game.”

The usher’s mouth works like he’s catching flies. Snatch an order of service, slide past. A wave of consternation moves down the church. Heads turn in each row he passes. Whispers. It’s him. Can’t be. It is. Fuck, aye, it is. In a suit. Where’d he come from? I thought he was gone for good. I thought he was in England. I thought he was in Spain, I thought he was dead.

But it’s true. He’s back. In a suit.

In the front row: Karen. She hears the whispers and he sees her freeze, knowing she has to look round, knowing what she will see if she does. Dreading that. Then she freezes, and so he can study her. The line of her jaw, the set of her cheekbones, the corners of her eyes, lifted and frozen with Botox. Good toxins, friendly poisons. The Botox battles the ultraviolet: her skin brown and crackled as parchment from the tanning salon. Still the Sunbed Queen of Lord Street. Still firm-skinned, firm-bodied. Still a toned bird. Pilates Monday, Body-pump Tuesday, Hot Yoga Wednesday, ’80s Retro-Aerobics Thursday, Beach Body Friday, nails and hair with Lee Saturday, Sunday sweat out the Saturday hangover in the sauna. Saturday night was always going-out night on the road. To be so deeply into yourself; to be so knowledgeable and careful of every part of your body that you know what’s right with it and what’s wrong with it and what needs doing to it. He still can’t understand that. There had been lads in jail deep, deep into gym, so obsessed with their bodies, and those of their gym buddies, it had almost been sexual. He could never understand that either.

That white suit shows off the tan. Skirt still way too short. And that ape Jim with her. He’d been that ape once. She went for a type. But he never had the neck tattoo. That’s never classy. At least it’s not a spiderweb. Psychos get the spiderweb.