Ken Bruen - Purgatory

As my mind jumped through a maze, Moore stood up, said,

“Gotta go jam my head under some real cold water.”

The bill was on the table. I said,

“You picking up the tab?”

He grimaced, said,

“Been picking up the freight on you for five days, hoss. Time you paid some dues.”

He was heading out. I said,

“Moore?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t call me hoss again.”

Rumor is always more exciting than truth.

I was in Crowe’s pub on Prospect Hill, the borderline between that and Bohermore, probably the only true neighborhoods remaining in the city. Like in the awful theme from Cheers, people here did know your name.

Ollie Crowe was arranging a post party for the crowds attending Eamonn Deacy’s testimonial and a young guy near me was regaling his girl with a line from the new Joan Rivers biography.

Like this:

Joan Rivers’s mother asked the doctor, “Will the baby live?”

Meaning Joan.

“Not unless you take your foot off her throat.”

His girl looked at him, asked,

“Joan who?”

A guy staring at a pint of Guinness, as if he might find some answer, then looked at me, said,

“You hear about the new trend?”

Jesus, kidding or what?

Could be anything from The Rose of Tralee being fixed to Galway losing the minor semifinal.

It wasn’t.

He said,

“Mirror fasting.”

WTF?

I asked,

“What the fuck are you on about?”

He smirked, delighted to have that Irish prized possession, knowledge, especially knowledge you don’t have, said,

“Women are trying not to look in mirrors for certain amounts of time, as it only pressures them if they do it daily.”

I’d have laughed if my spirit wasn’t so overladen.

Ridge arrived looking. . forlorn. . but gorgeous. Dressed in black leather jacket, black jeans, boots, she could have passed for a mild dominatrix. I kept that to myself, asked,

“Get you something?”

Her eyes were on fire. I knew I’d be catching some sparks. She said,

“Your answer to everything, a drink.”

Spurred,

“Not really. I was just trying to inject some civility.”

She gave a bitter smile, said,

“Make a nice change.”

The guy who’d made the Joan Rivers joke leaned over, asked,

“That your wife?”

Shocking the be-Jaysus out of us equally, I said,

“God forbid.”

Said,

“Maybe a bit of mirror fasting, eh?”

Her face was a blend of bile and reined violence.

I did the real smart thing. I began to leave. Ridge in that bitch mode, head for the street, fast. She snapped,

“Where are you going?”

I turned, stared, said,

“The hell away from you, Sergeant.”

“Superintendent Clancy wants to talk to you, and I mean now .”

“Tell him I was doing my usual solving.”

“What?”

“You know, drinking.”

She grabbed my arm. I looked at that, said,

“Bad idea.”

She let go, asked,

“Please?”

Ground it out between her teeth. I smiled, said,

“See, not so hard. Let’s go see the super.”

Clancy and I had such bad history, we nigh forgot most of the reasons he hated me. Dressed in his full True Blues, he cut an impressive figure, at least he thought so. I asked,

“Been watching Tom Selleck, I guess.”

He surveyed me, not much liking a single thing he saw, said,

“This C33 nonsense you’re spreading has got to stop.”

I sighed, then,

“Best tell that to C33 is my shot.”

He shuffled some papers, said,

“You might remember I told you we were investigating some cold cases.”

Let me savor that. He’d threatened to show my beloved dad had stolen funds from the railway pension fund. Destroy any decency our fragmented family weakly held. Now he let me see which way I wanted to jump.

As if I’d a whole load of choice. I asked,

“And for. . the. . um. . railway case not to be a priority, so to speak?”

He smiled, a thing of pure ugliness, said,

“I’m surmising your interest in C33 is. . waning.”

I asked,

“Who’s C33?”

He leaned back in his full leather chair, said,

“Run along, there’s a good lad.”

The Irish shit sandwich, pat your head as they kick your arse.

I met with Westbury in his office. If any of the deaths had affected him in any way, he wasn’t showing it. Dressed in a suit that must have cost three fortunes, he asked,

“How exactly can I help you, Mr. Taylor?”

A lawyer calls you mister, lose your wallet as he already owns it. I said,

“Call me Jack.”

Got an enigmatic smile that gave away precisely zero. He didn’t extend the courtesy so I figured we were still definitely not on first-name territory. I said,

“Just a strange coincidence. Five of the people you represented are dead. Worse, murdered.”

He looked at me, then,

“Is there a question in there. . Jack?”

Leaning, oh so slightly, on my name. No fucking with this guy. I said,

“I wondered if you’d an opinion on that?”

His smile spread, a joke he’d written the punch line for many times. He said,

“Jack, my opinion is very, very measured. You can read that as expensive.”

Before I could answer, he asked,

“You are here in any, how shall I put it, legal capacity?”

Like he didn’t know. I said,

“Stewart was my best friend. I don’t know what legal weight that carries.”

He shot back,

“Well, I can answer that easily and, better, not charge you. Its weight is zilch, nada, and, as they say in our native tongue,

Níl rud ar bith agat.”

That last bit nicely translates as,

“You’ve fuck all, Jack.”

Kelly was sipping a Bloody Mary in the bar at Jury’s, bottom of Quay Street. I hadn’t arranged to meet her. It was one of those bars where you could see the interior from the street. I’d been fuming along, simmering after leaving Westbury, when I glanced to my right, saw her. Turned and went in. If she was glad to see me, she was hiding it well. Lunch hour was looming and I asked,

“Getting an early start?”

She was wearing a dazzling white tracksuit, her hair tied up in that no nonsense bun that women do effortlessly. A hardcover of The Importance of Being Oscar was open before her. She stared at me, mused,

“Taylor or Wilde?”

Then, deciding, shut the book. A waitress approached and I ordered a Galway sparkling water. Kelly said,

“Another of those.”

Indicating her own now-finished drink, the girl asked,

“Tomato juice?”

Kelly sighed, said,

“Yeah, with a shipload of Grey Goose.”

Kelly asked,

“And how are you, Jacques?”

Like a damn fool I began to tell her. During the telling, her drink arrived and finally she did that

. . wind it up fellah motion.