Ken Bruen - Purgatory

Said,

“Jesus, Taylor, when I asked you, I didn’t really care and guess what? I care even fucking less now.”

I physically moved back, said,

“Phew, you really are not in a good place.”

She looked at her empty glass, like,

“How’d that happen?”

Said,

“I’m sorry, Jack, it’s just Stewart.”

And trailed off.

WTF?

I echoed,

“Stewart?”

She seemed to be tearing up, said,

“We’d become close. Well, Zen proximity.”

Christ, she sounded like him. I asked,

“You and Stewart?”

She said,

“Not sure you were the friend to him you could have been.”

And, with that blow, stood, touched my face with her hand, said,

“I need to grieve.”

And was gone.

Leaving me the bill and the Wilde book.

Trust me,

1. Bloody Marys and, yeah, a sparkling water

2. Are not cheap.

I left the book as a cheap tip and got out of there before I had to face the waitress. I was out of cash and definitely out of options.

I went after her, determined to ask about her husband, Reardon, the new drug named C33. But, on Quay Street, there was no sign.

Back at my flat, I cracked a beer, sat down to watch the last four episodes of Life (Season 2) with Damian Lewis. And you guessed it, another canceled show. A crime. The final episode had writing and drama the equal of anything on HBO.

All of this to distract my mind, the reeling conflicting notions:

Stewart and Kelly?

Reardon and C33.

Ridge and extreme annoyance.

The brew was good, a batch of Sam Adams I found in McCambridge’s. All I needed was an NFL game, shout,

“Go Giants. .”

And I’d have the U.S. to me.

Without leaning on the metaphor too much, but a drink-fucked PI, with mutilated fingers, bad hearing, watching shows that got canceled, yeah, that’s about right.

My phone shrilled. It had that whine that cautioned,

“This is nothing good.”

Said,

“Better be good.”

Got,

“Taylor, Reardon here.”

I took a breath, spat,

“You son of a bitch, you’ve been Mickey Finning me.”

Pause.

“Mickey what the fuck?”

“Doping me, with some untested shite that could kill me or worse.”

He laughed, asked,

“You’ve been free from hangovers, am I right?”

“At what price, can you tell me that, you bollix?”

More snickering, then,

“It’s life, Jack. We’re all fucked.”

Maybe we’d been watching the same TV series.

“Jack, you need to rein it in. You’ll be suitably rewarded.”

“Not in heaven, I hope.”

“You’re a funny guy, Jack.”

“So assholes keep telling me.”

“I’ll drop by this evening. We can. . chat.”

When I didn’t answer, he said,

“One more thing, buddy.”

“Yeah?”

“That sense of humor. Keep it honed. You’re goanna fucking need it.”

He rang off. I cracked another Sam, idled on shooting the bastard the minute he walked in the door. No prelim, no chat .

Just blow his shit away.

Made the beer taste even better than it had, gave it an edge.

I was half in the bag when he eventually showed. He was still sporting the grunge look, like a reanimated Cobain.

A pair of combat pants that had designer stains or not. A T-shirt with the logo I’d kill for a hit.

Cute.

He said,

“Yo, bro.”

Jesus.

Flopped in the sofa, asked,

“I could go a brew, my man.”

Went to the fridge, lobbed a Sam, and he caught it expertly. Looked at the label, said,

“Class.”

My desire to wallop him had waned as I’d downed enough booze. Normally it fueled my murderous compulsion but not this time. I asked,

“This dope you’re feeding me, the name, is it, like, C. . for chemical?”

He drained the bottle, belched, said,

“C33?”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t know?”

He seemed genuinely surprised. I said,

“Like I’d be fucking asking?”

He stood, danced to the fridge, grabbed a brew, flicked the top off, said,

“But, correct me if I’m wrong, you were in the bookstore together, right?”

I was lost, gestured with my shoulders. He said,

“Kelly. She got the Wilde book that day, I think. Shit, you paid for it, she said.”

I stood in front of him, said,

“For fuck’s sake, just tell me and quit the fucking riddles.”

Unfazed, he said,

“Kelly had a thing for Wilde, so, C33, the number of his cell in Reading Gaol.”

Philip Larkin in the last year of his life would start the morning with three glasses of cheap wine, bought in bulk from the supermarket, said, “You’ve got to have some fucking reason for getting up in the morning.”

Ridge was reeling between ferocious grief over Stewart and anger at Jack. Somehow, it had to be Jack’s fault, then at least it made some sort of bewildering sense. Jack was nearly always to blame. The whole C33 scenario of Jack’s made her boil. Jesus, if there was a conspiracy to be hatched, Jack would be right there, fueling it. She raged at the cosmic unfairness of it all.

Stewart, who lived so carefully. Barely drank, didn’t smoke, practiced Zen, worked out furiously, and he dies. Jack, with his mutilated fingers, near deafness, limp, crazed drinking, intermittent chain-smoking, cocaine binges, diet of every carb known to man, many beatings, flagrant breaking of the law, bad temper, he. .

He

Somehow

Limped on.

She wanted to kill him her own self. Stewart, who supported her difficulties with being openly gay, his nonjudgmental acceptance of her dead marriage, he was such a blessing. Jack, who fought her tooth and freaking nail over every damn thing, just smirked his way along.

And she was back dwelling on the C33 gig. Was Stewart’s murder connected to that? The Guards had his killing down as simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. In conversation with one of the detectives, she’d been told,

“We’ll solve that murder if we get lucky.”

Meaning,

“We’re not putting a whole lot of time and effort there.”

The implication,

Stewart had been a dope dealer,

So. .

So fuck him.

And was told,

“Leave it alone, won’t do your career any good to root around in the dumb death of a dumb fuck.”

The tears on her face as she muttered,

“Get a grip, girl.”

This stern reprimand brought her father vividly to life. He’d been dead nigh ten years now.

Drink.

Cirrhosis of the liver, not helped by two packs of Major daily. He’d been such a Connemara man, he was almost the fake Irish ideal. Living in the Gaeltacht, he never spoke a word of English and rarely needed to as he refused to venture into what he termed

“ Tír na Sasanach. ”

Land of the English, and that included Galway! He made his living fishing from the legendary Galway hooker and, like the men of his area, poitín . Irish moonshine, brewed from generation to generation until

Ridge.

Yeah, she fucked it up.

And worse, in his eyes, joined the enemy, the bloody Garda Síochána. The Guards. Insult to simmering injury. As he lay dying, he’d lashed her with his worst weapon. He refused to speak his native tongue to her, addressed her in halting English, acting like she wouldn’t understand her native language. His last words to her, gasped out in an agonized, strangled voice,