Eoin Colfer - Plugged

I follow the cable across Vic’s desk and unearth the phone beneath a pyramid of ledgers. There’s no one at the number I’m calling. Of course not, it’s my own number. I count the rings until my answer machine cuts in, then punch in my password.

One message.

Hey, guy. Doorman guy. Listen, you probably don’t remember me, you get schmucks all the time, right? Keerist almighty, I hate machines. Okay. Anyway, listen. . Oh, this is Jaryd Faber, by the way, the lawyer you ejected last night. Deservedly so, I might add. I got your number from Vic, and the thing is that I enjoy Slotz, the club, shithole though it may be. Passing a few hours with the cards and the babes. I don’t want to give that up, so I just wanted you to know that I smoothed things over with Vic, what a prince, and I’m back in. In case you see me before you see him, no need to throw a punch. What do you say, let bygones be bygones? Live and let live. Maybe I can buy you a drink or a new suit. Okay? We straight? No hard feelings. I hate saying fucking sorry for anything, but there it is. Accept it or not, you should be fucking delighted by the way, if you knew who I was and what I could do to you. Keerist almighty .

Then the tape runs out and there’s a beep.

Keerist almighty beep.

I hold the phone at arm’s length, like it’s lied to me.

Sofia heard my answerphone. Faber was never at the apartment. I set the cops on the wrong man.

He was the right man for the cops , says Ghost Zeb. Just the wrong man for killing Connie and trashing your place .

And he’s dead now. It’s my fault.

No arguing with that .

So who did kill Connie? Who wrecked my apartment?

A shadow falls across my face and I look up.

‘Well it’s about time,’ says Irish Mike Madden. ‘I’ve been chasing your pale arse all over town.’

Irish Mike stands framed by the doorway, like it was built for the purpose. He is a big man, huge, with whiskey veins popping in his nose and cheeks. His teeth are crooked and cracked from a hundred bar fights and he smiles broadly, displaying them like medals. He sports a soft fisherman’s cap, worn rakishly to one side with a shamrock pin on the peak. And when he speaks, his accent is more Hollywood Irish than a living dialect.

Irish Mike. A Mick who has never been to Ireland. An immigrant who never emigrated. A plastic Paddy who learned all he knew about the old country from grandma’s stories and Boy’s Own .

‘Daniel McEvoy,’ he says gently, shuffling into the room, like a crooner about to break into a number. ‘A hard man to find.’

‘Not for my friends.’

Madden is all leprechaun charm. ‘Are we not friends then, Daniel?’ His eyes are dull green, and his skin reminds me of a plucked chicken.

I am too old for this.

‘Cut the shite, Mike. What do you want?’

Mike chuckles fondly. ‘Shite. I like that.’ He leans against the wall and it creaks. ‘I want the money you owe me.’

Groan. He isn’t even here for me. I’m a bonus.

‘Vic owes you money, not me. He owes me money too, but out of respect for you and your organisation, you can collect first.’

Mike is a little surprised by this backchat, but amused too. ‘Thanks, McEvoy. Very Catholic of you. But I’d rather you pay.’

‘Not the way it works, Mike. Even God can’t transfer debt. I don’t owe you a cent, and if you don’t stop weaving it into the conversation, I’ll squeeze my way through all that fat on your shoulders and break your thick neck.’

Might as well try bravado, see if it works.

If it was fear and submission I was hoping for, then my bluntness does not have the desired effect. Mike Madden looks tired and resigned, like he is so fed up of doing things the hard way and why can’t it just be easy for once.

‘Righto, laddie. I hear you. Now you listen to me. I’ve been searching for something.’

‘Why don’t you ask the universe? Seems to work for a lot of people. That’s a secret, by the way.’

Madden grinds his teeth. ‘You know what I’m talking about.’

We both know where this is going.

‘I don’t know, Mike. Believe me. But I know how you search for things.’

Mike spreads his hands wide. ‘Couldn’t be avoided. The disk could have been in your apartment.’

I am surprised. ‘A disk? A bloody disk. What do I look like to you? Jason goddamn Bourne?’

Mike Madden hooks the flap of his tweed sports coat over the revolver at his belt.

‘Any road, laddie. You’re going to have to quit work early tonight.’

He’s right. I can’t see any way out of leaving here with him.

‘I have a gun too, you know.’

‘Maybe, laddie. But I have several. One hostile move from you and the floors run with blood. Wooden floors, though, so at least the blood will wipe off, if you get to it quick.’

I place my gun on the desk. ‘No one has said laddie for a hundred bloody years, you phoney.’

‘My heart is Irish,’ objects Mike, worried more by the insult than the weapon.

‘Your heart is clogged with bacon and beer and will drop you in your tracks any day now.’

Which is an unusual thing to say to a person you just met.

Two freckle-faced potato-head types squash themselves into the doorway, fumbling guns from their pockets. I know them both from Faber’s kitchen.

‘You put that gun back in the drawer, laddie. Or my boys will execute everyone in this club.’

That’s what I thought. I glare at Madden, so the murder in my eyes is all he can see.

‘If I were like you, Mike, if I didn’t care about those people out there, then you would be dead right now. I just wanted you to know that and show a bit of respect.’

Irish Mike actually winks. ‘Point taken, laddie. Now come over here and let’s pretend we’re friends.’

Mike takes my phone, then we stroll out of the office and across the casino floor like a couple of swells, and consequently none of his four escorts are forced to shoot anyone. Jason is ready to fight, chest out, arms dangling, but I calm him with a lateral two-fingered slice, which sounds a bit complicated but is one of our door signals. Doesn’t matter how big your pecs are, bullets cut right through.

‘It’s okay, Jason. Hold the fort, I’ll be back in a few hours.’

‘You sure, boss?’

‘Yeah. Me and Mike have a little business to discuss.’

Mike has an R-Class Mercedes Benz waiting at the kerb, and we wait an embarrassing few minutes while two of his laddies squash themselves into the rear seats.

I wink at Mike, since he’s a winky guy. ‘You’re one hell of a mob boss. Two of your boys in the baby seats.’

Mike is prepared to argue that one. ‘You think I should have brought two vehicles? What about the environment? What about my carbon footprint, laddie?’

‘Laddie? You really should drop that. It is too hilarious.’

‘In the car,’ says Mike straight-faced. I can see I’m wearing him down.

We drive across town and I can’t get to grips with the fact that it’s all over for me. Once we get wherever we’re going and Mike Madden ascertains that I do not in fact have this mysterious secret-agent-type disk, then he will most likely shoot me in the heart.

A disk? This is beyond weird. What the hell is Zeb doing with a disk? All he knows about computers could be written on one of those horse pills he sells to irritable-bowel patients, or the stop-go crowd, as he sensitively refers to them.

Nearly dead, I think, trying to nail the idea home. Nearly dead now.

But no sickening feeling of dread seeps through. Even the thought of torture to come doesn’t penetrate my calm.

That’s because I don’t believe any of this. This week has been too bizarre to be real. My brain is waiting for me to wake up in a tangle of sweat-sheened sheets. You can’t go from doorman to superman in a week, not if you want to survive. I do want to survive, but I can’t see how I’m going to manage it.