Кен Бруен - Galway Girl

The business he was engaged in eroded any traces of humanity that might still have lingered. If prison had fueled his rage, the escort trade added utter contempt to the mix.

The most valuable lesson he learned was to charm in full sight.

Scott rewrote the old truism on how to succeed.

Like this:

1..... Steal freely

   2..... Kill randomly

      3..... Get with a Galway girl

He stared at those lines,

Smiled, said,

“See? Sense of humor.”

Then the brain wave:

A Galway girl.

Wait for it—

“Who is a Guard!”

He had studied all the serial killer books, novels, and decided to leave a cryptic note after each kill, give a touch of mystique, and get the media hot.

Later, he’d abandon the notes he composed in Irish for the simple reason he got bored with it and, more important, he ran out of Irish; his education in his native tongue had been sporadic at best.

The shooting of Guard Nora McEntee caused a huge furor.

The city was on high alert, media screaming for the culprit to be apprehended.

He wasn’t.

As the only witness, I was dragged to the station,

Not

... to help with inquiries

But more to be bullied, intimidated, shouted at.

Sheridan, the supposedly supercop, led the interview, demanded,

“Taylor, why are you always on the scene of shootings?”

I went with a vague truth, said,

“I have no idea.”

He leaned right into my face, and I said, very quietly,

“Back the fuck off.”

He was delighted, spun back, shouted to the Guards gathered,

“Hear that? He’s threatening a Guard.”

Owen Daglish, playing good Guard, said,

“Cut him some slack.”

Sheridan fumed, snarled,

“Let’s throw him in a cell, let him stew.”

I said,

“Not a great time to be alienating the public.”

Sheridan asked,

“What does that mean?”

The Garda commissioner was up to her arse in an alleged conspiracy to discredit a whistle-blower; the media were out for more dirt on the inner workings of the top brass.

Wilson, the super, breezed in, ordered,

“Cut him loose.”

She looked at me, said,

“Try not to get in the way of the investigation.”

I gave her my sweetest look, which is a blend of guile and deranged ferocity, said,

“Yes, ma’am.”

The press were outside and Kernan Andrews of the Galway Advertiser shouted,

“In the middle of it again, Jack?”

I said,

“Buy me a pint and get an exclusive.”

Kernan was too clued in for that old play.

I headed up Shop Street, gave a homeless guy a few euros, he asked,

“What will that do?”

“Ease my conscience.”

Outside Garavan’s, a young man, blond hair, dressed in black leather jacket, stared at me. He was not unlike a young David Soul and something in his attitude said he knew that. I asked,

“Help you?”

He gave a radiant smile, asked,

“Do you know the words of ‘Galway Girl’?”

It was late when I got back to my apartment.

Something off.

All the mirrors had been smashed.

One sheet of paper, black with red letters, read

The walls of Jericho

Did

Not

Come

Tumbling down.

I asked aloud what you would.

I asked,

“The fuck is this?”

I went to the cemetery, wrapped in my Garda all-weather coat, bitter, cold, vicious wind at my heels. There were so many graves to visit and I muttered,

“I can’t, I just can’t.”

But I could visit one.

New headstone, a frenzy of soft toys and wilting flowers all around, the toys already soaked and beaten, here lay my daughter, whom I barely had time to know before she was killed. I stood there in wretched silence, unable to form words. I reached into my coat, took out the flask, chugged some Jay.

Didn’t help but, then, nothing did.

I sensed being watched and turned to my right. A priest was standing about three rows from me, raised his hand in greeting, then approached me.

I have a terrible history with priests, full of lies, evasion, and downright betrayal.

He was young, mid-thirties, but his face already had that shocked expression of each day revealing the worst of humanity.

He held out his hand, said,

“I’m Father Paul.”

I let it hang for a moment before I took it, said,

“Jack. Jack Taylor.”

He looked at the grave, asked,

“Would you like me to give a blessing?”

My mood turned nasty, well, nastier. I asked,

“How much will that cost?”

Jericho revisited her grand plan of chaos:

Recruit two dumb men; fuck ’em over in every sense,

Then kill two women.

She said aloud,

“The twos rule,”

As she fingered the two G’s on a chain around her neck.

Prison for Scott was punctuated by:

Beatings,

Assaults,

Slow gym building,

Until he was celled with a hacker.

They jelled and Scott learned the basics of the hacker’s art.

Freed, as he prepared his Guard blitzkrieg, he had the bright idea of getting a female Guard as a girlfriend. This in mind, he hacked the Garda personnel file.

Nora McEntee caught his eye. He muttered,

“You’ll do nicely.”

Stalked her slowly, then approached her in the pub one night, asked,

“May I buy you a drink?”

She gave him the measured Irish woman scan, deadly in its scrutiny, and he was found wanting. She said,

“No, don’t think so.”

Her friends tittered.

Tittered!

At him?

She was no fucking prize, he thought, and for a good-looking dude like him to throw her a crumb?

The fuck was with that?

Two days later Scott killed his first Guard.

Noel Flaherty, a close friend of his father, was, as Scott muttered,

“A prize bollix.”

He was, by sheer coincidence, an uncle of the late Garda Ridge.

Scott had found his father’s Colt.45, the authentic Old West gig, a present from law enforcement in Arizona. He had attended a conference there and made friends with the top cops.

This weapon was lovingly cleaned, oiled, and locked away again every week. Only once had Scott been allowed to hold it.

His father had said,

“If you man up, maybe someday you might be allowed to actually load it.”

Right.

A box of six bullets.

So, six Guards.

Why not?

Noel Flaherty lived in one of the old fishing cottages in Claddagh, alone since his wife died. Scott easily broke in through a piss-poor lock on the back door.

Cops were notoriously lax at home protection, thinking,

“Who’d have the balls to burgle us?”

Flaherty was watching a video of the Galway hurling team win the All Ireland, roaring and cheering as if he were at Croke Park.

Scott stepped in front of the TV screen, said,

“The match has been canceled.”

Scott was dressed in ski mask, black jeans, hoodie, his whole body alight. He slipped out the back door, left a note to give the dumb cops something to puzzle over.

The actual note meant nothing to him but he thought it added a nice air of intent.

Outside, he was coming from the back alley and not only was the damn mask itching but the fooker was hot. Sweat rolling downs his face, he whipped it off, gulping large bolts of oxygen.