Ken Bruen - Cross

I needed protection.

Chances were that Gail would take another pass at me and a more serious one. I better be ready, and if I was going to take on the whole family, at least Gail and her father, I'd need more than an attitude. You want to buy a gun in Galway these days, you are spoiled for opportunity. So many different nationalities here that weapons have become more and more common. You frequent the pubs, the back streets, it doesn't take long to find out where to score dope, hookers, whatever you fancy.

I went to a pub in Salthill, not a place I'd go to by desire. It's off the main strip and looks seedy. It is seedy, and has gained a new rep as the place to buy and sell… anything.

An East European named Mikhail, who depending on the day was Russian, Croatian, Romanian and other nationalities I couldn't pronounce, held court at a table by the window. In a month's time he'd move somewhere else, but by the ocean was the venue for now. I knew him, if not well, at least well enough that when I asked 'Buy you a drink?' he agreed.

He had that buzz-cut hair we used to call a crew cut, a long face pitted with scars, and eyes that held no expression at all. He was thin to the point of starvation and his age was in that zone between late forties and very bad fifties. He said a shot of vodka would be most welcome. I got that and a Diet Pepsi for meself, sat at the table.

He looked at my drink, asked, 'You no drink Coca-Cola?'

The fuck did he care?

I said, 'I'm on a diet.'

He surveyed my hands. The cuts and bruises were healing but still visible, and he asked, 'You a street-fighting man?'

When I bought the gun, maybe I'd shoot him.

'Not by choice.'

Right answer. He loved it, laughed out loud, exposing a mouth of rotten teeth with flecks of – gold? – in there. I'd ensure not to amuse him further.

'Ess a song by the Rolling Stones. You love this, yes?'

Sure, my favourite.

I said, 'My favourite.'

More laughter, fuck, and he accused, in easy fashion, 'You make joke with me, am I right?'

And I was smart enough to add, 'But not at you.'

He nodded. No doubt about it, we were made for each other.

Then he knocked back the vodka in one fell swoop, asked, 'What I can get you, Mr Street-Fighting Man?'

I leaned in close, said I needed a gun.

His mobile phone rang but he ignored it, said, 'Please, to come to my office.'

I followed him outside, and up beside Salthill church.

He'd a battered van, unlocked it, asked, 'Please to join me.'

We got in and he reached in the back, took out a heavy bundle wrapped in cloth and unfolded it to reveal a Glock, a Beretta and a Browning Automatic. Guns R Us. That his business was right beside the church seemed to make a sort of new Ireland twisted sense.

I asked, 'Aren't you afraid of the van being stolen?'

He exposed those teeth again and I swear snarled, went, 'Who is going to steal from me?'

As if I had inside information.

To distract him, I asked the price of the Glock and it was expensive.

I said, 'It's expensive.'

He shrugged, as in Tell me about it.

With a full round of ammunition, it was more than I'd expected to pay, but what the hell, it wasn't like I could use the Yellow Pages.

I asked, 'How do you know I'm not a policeman?'

Huge laugh. 'You?'

I didn't ask him to elaborate.

He indicated my earpiece.

'You no hear so good?'

'I hear what's important.'

That intrigued him.

'How you can tell the difference?'

I couldn't, but decided to shine him on.

'It's not what's being said, but how the person saying it is acting.'

A crock, right?

But he bought it big time, said, 'This I like. May I please to use this?'

Jesus.

I said, 'Knock yourself out.'

Got another mega laugh. Maybe I should go live in Eastern Europe, become a stand-up.

I said, 'Thanks for your time.'

He put out his hand and we shook.

He said, 'I like you, Meester, you make me laugh. This country, it don't make me laugh so much.'

At the risk of sounding like a Zen master, I went for 'You're looking at it the wrong way.'

He considered, then asked, 'And how is, how is to look at it?'

'As if it doesn't matter.'

Not really grasping that, he probed, 'And does it matter?'

I got out of the van, finished with, 'Soon as I find out, I'll let you know.'

I also needed somebody to talk to.

Before, I'd always just forged ahead, ignoring advice, making it up as I went along. And of course, I'd been drinking. Who needed advice? I had the booze giving me all the crazy suggestions I could handle.

Sober now, or dry, whatever, maybe it was time to get some help. Ridge was out. We were so locked in combat she wouldn't be any assistance, and if she knew I'd bought a gun, she'd probably arrest me.

Jeff, my great friend, was MIA. Since I'd caused the death of his child, he'd vanished off the face of the earth. All my efforts to locate him had failed.

And that was it. To get to my age and have no one, not one soul to confide in, it's a crying shame and testament to how much my way of life had cost me. I toyed with the idea of giving Gina a call. I definitely felt something for her. I no longer knew what love was – if I ever had – but till I sorted out the family of killers, I decided to wait.

Which left Stewart, the drug-dealer. Instead of analysing it to death, I just called him and he said, 'Come by, I've just bought some new herbal tea.'

I could only hope the tea was a joke.

I stopped in a religious shop en route. There's one near the Augustinian church: lots of relics of St Jude, spanking new books on the late Pope. I couldn't find what I was looking for, just like U2.

The woman behind the counter said, 'I know you.'

Like the theme song of me life.

And never uplifting.

She said, 'I knew your mother.'

I waited for the usual homilies, platitudes, the dirge about her being so holy, damn near a saint and all the other horseshite. I nodded, thinking, Let's get the beatification over with.

She said, 'Hard woman, your mother, but I don't suppose I have to tell you that.'

I warmed to her instantly, asked, 'Have you a St Bridget's Cross?'

She smiled, a smile of real warmth.

'By the holy, we don't get much demand for those any more.'

But said she'd check the storeroom.

I read a plaque of the Desiderata while I was waiting, and figured with that and the Glock, you were set for life's setbacks.

The woman had one cross, blew some dust off it and said, 'There's no price on it.'

I handed over a twenty-euro note and she said it was far too much. I told her to put it in the poor-box.

She allowed herself another smile.

'Oh, we don't call them that any more, we say the disadvantaged .'

I had no reply to this, thanked her for her time.

As I left, she said, 'God mind you well.'

I sure as hell hoped someone would. I was doing a bad job of it me own self.

When Stewart answered his door I didn't recognize him for a moment, then realized he'd shaved his head.

I said, 'You're really taking this Zen gig to the limit.'

He motioned me in.

'I'm losing my hair. This way, I don't have to see it happen piecemeal.'

Argue that.

It gave him a hard-arse look and, coupled with the new stone eyes, totally changed him from the bank-clerk type I'd first encountered those years ago. The whole vibe cautioned, 'Don't fuck with me.'

The flat was still spartan and held an air of vacancy.