Кен Бруен - The Ghosts of Galway

“Why?”

She sighed,

“If you want to be noticed these days, you have to be outrageous.”

He nodded.

Made sense.

She had introduced him to the Chinese game of Go. Said,

“Needs more skill than chess.”

He focused all his attention when they played, while she affected to be bored shitless.

Said,

“I’m bored shitless.”

And beat him every time. He once found her playing her own self. She said,

“I have enough personalities to play five times myself.”

Whatever that meant.

Nothing good.

She loathed Woody, told him,

“You make Trump seem intelligent.”

Woody was in awe of her, said,

“Pity the cunt is so gorgeous.”

Words to live by.

The temptation to have Woody finish the job and kill Emerald had its attraction.

Pure and ice cold payback.

But

A world without her in it?

No.

She made him feel that anything was possible. Even the mad notion of starting a Galway clone of Scientology. Was Ghosts even a creditable name?

He looked at his watch. It was just slightly over half an hour until he was a witness to murder.

Emily had watched

Lady Vengeance ,

And so this morning she laid out a personality starting with

Envy,

Building through

Resentment

To outright fury.

Picked up her phone, called the Garda station,

Asked,

In a Scottish accent,

“May I speak to Sergeant Ridge?”

No,

They said.

So she screamed,

“There is going to be a killing.”

Got Ridge who spat,

“What is this?”

Emily felt a warm glow, said,

“My dad, Jeremy Cooper, lives in the Mews, Taylor’s Hill, a man named Woody is holding him hostage.”

Then she screamed, primarily to put the heart sideways in Ridge.

It worked.

Not that it is easy to scream in a Scottish accent. Then to gild the rose, she said, almost offstage as it were,

“Oh, mi Gad, the wee man has a gun.”

Then crashed the phone down on the table, near deafening Ridge.

In suitable dramatic fashion the phone went dead or, as they might remark in Glasgow,

“Deed”

Ridge had been having a real bad day. Superintendent Clancy had given her a bollixing about not solving the animals’ dump and roared,

“The fuck is this I hear about Ghosts of Galway?”

She wanted to say,

“Bullshit, urban paranoia.”

But when you are

1. A female Guard

2. Gay

You, as they say in Jane Austen speak,

Demur.

Least she thought they said that but it translated as

“Shut your fucking mouth.”

She did.

Then,

“Sir, there is a report of a shooting in Taylor’s Hill.”

He misheard or maybe it was wishful thinking, barked,

“Someone shot Taylor? Thank Christ.”

She delicately rephrased.

He was not pleased, shouted,

“Why are you still here then?”

Emily then called Jeremy and, as fate would have it, Woody answered. She said,

“Compadre, we have had our differences but we are allies in our respect for Jeremy.”

Pause.

Woody wondered what a compadre was.

She continued, silk voice that never failed to entice.

“There is a woman coming right now to hurt our Jeremy and the sly bitch is posing as a Guard.”

He near shouted,

“Won’t fool me.”

Emily had to bite down, then,

“Of course not, that’s why you are Jeremy’s most trusted confidant.”

Had she overdone it?

Heard a racking sound, Woody asked,

“Hear that?”

“Yes?”

“That is the nine millimeter being racked.”

Emerald had one brief moment of doubt, then, fuck it ,

Said,

“Be careful... Woody.”

He gulped, then,

“Bring it on Guard bitch.”

Ridge had difficulty finding backup as most of the force was on duty at yet another water protest. No matter how the public howled, the government sneered.

“You will pay those charges.”

The people said,

“Screw you,”

And, hallelujah, voted them out of power.

Suck that.

She finally secured a young Guard named Murphy and, no, not nicknamed Spud. You have to have a modicum of interest to invest in a nickname and, in Murphy, there was none.

Why?

He didn’t play hurling.

Sacrilege.

He couldn’t care less. Like all the youth, as soon as he got a visa, he was off to Australia. He was what used to be called a callow youth.

It fit.

All the squad cars were at the water protest so Ridge took a battered Corolla, used by the Drug Squad. Murphy asked,

“Will I drive?”

Ridge said,

“Shut the fuck up unless you are spoken to.”

Murphy could already envision his future in Australia: barbecues and Foster’s.

Outside Jeremy Cooper’s home were a riot of bushes, small trees. Once lovingly cared for by the Poles but they had long since fucked on home, the Celtic Tiger but a dead memory.

Woody lay in wait behind a juniper, the nine in his hand like a discarded prayer, there but not yet utilized.

Madness ran wild through his head.

Muttering,

Bloody priest treating me like shite,

Cops always on my case.

Women laughing at him.

At him .

By Jesus.

Ridge parked the car and they got out. Woody watched them, thought,

Can’t be cops driving a Corolla.

They moved to the door and Ridge banged hard on it. Woody stepped out from the bushes, said,

“Don’t knock like that, have some fucking manners.”

Ridge looked at him, saw a scrawny youth with a stupid expression, and spat,

“Get over here.”

To him .

Orders.

From a damn woman.

He didn’t move and Murphy, gung ho, added,

“Get your arse in gear and I mean now .”

Now?

Woody raised the nine and for one frozen moment it could have been averted if Ridge hadn’t moved toward him.

He shot her in the face.

Murphy, in disbelief, muttered,

“What?”

Woody shot him twice in the stomach.

Woody stood over them and fired one more shot in Murphy’s head, said,

“Ghosts two,

Assholes nil.”

I was in Crowe’s pub in Bohermore when a guy burst in, said,

“Two Guards have been shot.”

Mad conversations erupted and Ollie shouted,

“Quiet, I’ll turn on the radio.”

Utter silence as we heard that two Garda had been killed, a massive manhunt was under way. The killer, or killers, were not yet identified and no one had claimed responsibility. The names of the fallen Guards were being withheld until relatives were informed.

All eyes turned to me.

Once a Guard, always a Guard .

Even a disgraced one like me might have some in .

I took out my phone, said,

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Scattered shouts of

“Good man.”

There is a kind of horrified delight in unveiling tragedy and a dark thrill at bearing witness.

I called Owen Daglish, just about the only contact I had remaining in the Guards.

Ridge had been my go-to gal for so long but she wasn’t answering my calls these days.

Owen began,

“Jesus Jack, you can’t be calling me.”

He was a piss artist of epic scale and still managed to stay on the force. He kept his head down and was a hell of a manager of the hurling squad. To manage hurlers, you needed to be ferocious and drink didn’t hurt in adding the layer of aggression.