Eoin Colfer - Plugged

Goran is one cold customer. I had these two figured all wrong.

Deacon’s head nods; maybe she’s praying, or maybe she’s reacting to the gun barrel pressed to the crown of her skull.

Through the eerie glow of the Starlight, I see that Goran’s face is almost blank except for a little shadow of pain, like she’s lost her keys. The dirty detective cocks her revolver.

I pull my trigger. .

. . And surprise the hell out of myself by actually hitting what I was aiming for. Up high, right shoulder. Goran spins like a gyroscope and pitches face down into a bum-shack. Looks like the mayor missed one.

Detective Goran will live, but she won’t be aiming any guns with that arm for a while.

I am midway through breaking down my rifle and rehearsing a smug little Clint Eastwood movie reference for Ghost Zeb when Deacon realises that she hasn’t been shot. And after a little white-hot pain and a bout of coughing that would pull a couple of lungs free from their moorings, Goran is alive enough to realise that she is not dead.

Nice move, idiota , says GZ. Now we got a shootout situation .

Idiota . One of four Spanish words Zeb bandies about. The second is puta , the third is amigo and finally there’s gringo , which he loves to throw at me even though Zeb himself has a complexion like cottage cheese dropped on to a pavement from a tall building.

Deacon sees her partner roll over, coming face-up with her police special cocked, spluttering blood-bubbled curses. Deacon ducks under a wild shot, scrabbles in the trash for Goran’s throwdown and puts half a dozen shots into her partner’s upper body.

Ex-partner, I guess.

It takes me a moment to process. Someone who was supposed to be winged is now dead, and approximately fourteen per cent of the bullets in the corpse belong to me.

That was self-defence, I tell Zeb. It’s a tough report for Deacon to write up, but self-defence all the same.

Go now , says Ghost Zeb. You don’t get to write up a report .

This time I listen.

Zeb waited around Queers that night until I knocked off. I say waited , but a more accurate description would be passed out in the all-night pharmacy across the street. He was more or less hurled into my path by the proprietor as I walked home.

‘And keep your prick away from my customers!’ was the farewell comment.

Obviously Zeb had been up to no good just before passing out. Perhaps the two were connected.

I was in a pretty crappy mood, having just told my boss where he could shove his mascara pencil, but something about the sheer wretchedness of this figure at my feet dissolved my gloom, and I picked the little guy off the ground and frogmarched him a couple of blocks to Kellogg’s diner on Metropolitan.

He came to a little after a jug of coffee, and greeted me like a lost comrade.

‘Hey, Paddy O’Mickster. Where are we? What happened?’

‘You were trying to inject some dick fat into a customer, apparently.’

It took Zeb a minute to process this, then a slow grin lit his features. ‘Funny. You’re a funny guy, Irish. I didn’t get that sense when you were in uniform.’

‘The name is Daniel McEvoy,’ I say without extending my hand. ‘Paddy O’Mickster was my mother’s second choice.’

Zeb actually slapped the table. ‘More with the funny. I love this guy,’ he announced to the diner’s five patrons. ‘So, Daniel McEvoy, you gonna admit me to Queers tomorrow night? Now that we’ve broken the ice?’

In response to this, I explained how I was off the Queers door because of a make-up disagreement.

‘I am surprised,’ said Zeb. ‘Why would anyone quit over a little mascara? Hell, I’m wearing women’s panties right now. You never know, right?’

At this point I was half amused, half thinking of leaving. This guy was despicable, but he had a certain sleazy charm.

‘So, anyways, Daniel O’McEvoy. You’re out of a job and I got a job with no one in it, so what do you say? You wanna work for Zeb Kronski?’

This was about the vaguest employment offer I had ever heard, and considering the man before me was wearing women’s panties, I thought I should ask for a couple more details.

It turned out that since Zeb didn’t have a licence to practise in the US, he was doing the Botox party rounds on a cash-only basis and had already been ripped off twice. He could do with someone to hump the wad, as he put it.

Once he explained, I signed on for a week. Provisionally. See how things panned out.

‘Provisionally,’ said Zeb, rolling the word around in his mouth. ‘Yeah, I like the sound of that.’ He pointed at my forehead. ‘Say, you’re getting a little thin on top, my Paddy friend. I got a procedure make you look like Mister Tom Cruise. What do you think of that?’

I thanked my new boss politely but told him no. No needles in the head for me. I held out for six years before he persuaded me otherwise.

I’m gone before Deacon has time to wonder who gifted her a second shot at life. Not that I’m expecting roses and a sloppy hug. A person with her disposition might not even be grateful. I’ve seen it before. Some blues are so butch that needing to be saved is a sign of weakness. Deacon is pretty butch.

It’s a pity to say goodbye to my beautiful custom rifle, but holding on to it is akin to leaving a trail of crumbs from my backpack to the crime scene. No doubt there are already a forest of fibres on the Chinese knoll; no need to give the forensics boys my identity tied in a velvet ribbon. I break down the weapon and pedal around the west side, dropping off pieces into various drains. The bullets go too, plinking through the bars. I hear there’s some test that can match one slug to a batch, but Jason informed me of this fact, so it could be standard doorman bullshit. Jason once swore to me that his daddy had eyes in the back of his head, actual fucking eyes in the back of his actual fucking head , so not everything my comrade says can be taken as hundred per cent gospel.

I drop the bike at the bus station and deposit my backpack in a locker. Whatever investigation is coming, you can bet your last pair of shorts that I’m going to be pulled in for questioning. Being in possession of a big bag of weapons is not going to swing any votes my way. I hold on to a little Glock 26, though, in case of an emergency, which seems pretty likely the way things have been going. It’s not a question of if. It’s a question of when, who and how many. Three questions really.

It doesn’t take a Napoleon to figure out my next move. A quick trip home to gather a few necessities, then up sticks to some cheap motel where I can figure my next move but one.

You’re leaving me to die , says Ghost Zeb accusingly.

You are dead, most likely. And I’m not leaving you; I’m moving a little further away from Irish Mike and the po-lice, that’s all.

You’re leaving me. Some goddamn friend. Irish prick .

A sulking ghost, that’s all I need.

My street seems pretty quiet, exactly the way it would seem if a couple of experienced gangsters were staking it out. Could be the blues are here too. Maybe the interested parties will stumble across each other and spark off a bloodbath.

Fingers crossed.

I start three blocks out and work in decreasing circles, sweeping every street. Checking parked cars, searching for the telltale bulletproof symbol on the windscreen. You find that little triangle and you know it’s good guys, bad guys or maybe a rapper praying someone will shoot at him.

Nothing. No sign of anyone watching my apartment. I try to kid myself that it makes sense. Goran wasn’t killed with my bullets and Faber has no need to keep the cat in the bag any more. He’s already under investigation.