Кен Бруен - In the Galway Silence

He ordered a black coffee and asked Ollie to bring me another of what was in my glass. I said,

“I can buy my own booze.”

He nodded, fair enough, said,

“Saves me a few quid.”

Quid .

His coffee came and he sipped delicately, said,

“Jeez, I could kill for a cig.”

Realized his remark... kill, tried to rein it in, went,

“Fuck, that was tactless.”

I stared at him, asked with a hint of snarl,

“That supposed to show you’re a decent sort and like down with the broken sad fucker?”

He gave what could only be seen as a nasty grin and for a second, behind the outward affable manner, lurked a street cop with lots of hard edge.

I liked him a little more, said,

“You have some moves.”

He relaxed, reached over for my pack of soft box Reed’s, asked,

“May I?”

I said,

“Sure, need a light?”

He did.

He sat back, assessing me, then,

“Here’s the thing...”

Pause.

“Jack.

Two young men are murdered,

Then their father hangs himself.

You save a guy from drowning,

You steal a Garda-issue coat.

A pedophile grabs your girlfriend’s boy.

You rescue him.

Then the said kiddie bollix is found in pieces in a bog in Connemara.”

I must have looked startled, so he said,

“Ah, you didn’t know that, but to continue.

A filmmaker documenting your life and the very sad sack you saved are killed under very suspicious circumstances, and the widow of the dead father meets you, then she kills herself .”

He took a deep breath, leaned over, asked,

“May I?”

And took a healthy dose of my Jay.

Continued.

“Then, for fucksakes, your ex-wife asks you to mind your young daughter and she is gunned down right in front of you — the daughter, that is — and you have to wonder: what the fuck is going down here?”

I said nothing for a solid minute. I timed it, then said,

“You have one error in your account.”

“Only one?”

“I didn’t steal item 1834, the Garda coat.”

He nearly choked, spluttered the last remnants of his coffee, gasped out,

“That’s what you’re focusing on, seriously? How so fucked is that?”

I signaled to Ollie who was getting more than a little pissed about all the table service, not to even mention the smoking.

I said,

“You want to know what I’m focusing on, where my ruined mind is as we speak, as the death of

Gretchen

Occupies every nightmare moment of my being, do you really want to hear what is in my mind this very moment?”

Ollie brought the drinks, did not speak.

I lifted my glass, said,

“This is what I use as a mantra to blind my mind.”

Took a large swallow, lit up, then intoned in a dead fashion:

“ The window in the wall is the Sacred Host, the window between two worlds, as a window belongs at once to both the room inside and the open air, so the Eucharist belongs to both time and eternity ...”

Pause as I struggled for breath, then on:

“ So just as natural light comes through a window so does supernatural light come through .”

There, I was done, madness articulated.

He looked ashen, this streetwise cop who thought he was calling some shots, and now wondered if he sat opposite a deranged individual, a man who was not only crushed and broken but had, as they say in crime novels,

Lost his marbles.

Long, tense, loaded silence, then he said,

“We arrested David Lee for shooting your girl. Seems he believed you had him near beaten to death over a dog. A dog for chrissakes ?”

The Jay was weaving its lethal dark alchemy and I asked,

“Not a dog lover then?”

He reached in his jacket, took out one of those police-issue notebooks, and for a mad moment I regretted the loss of the career I might have had with the Guards. But it was but a fleeting dead angel, never meant to fly.

I asked,

“Ever listen to Iris DeMent, ‘No Time to Cry’?”

He looked up from his notes, snarled,

“I look like a bollix who has time to listen to tunes?”

He read from the notes:

“Michael Allen, psycho extraordinary. Seems he is the root of all your, how should I say...”

Pause.

“Woes?”

I said,

“If you know him, about him, why is he still free and killing like he has a franchise?”

He grimaced.

“Time and time again, we thought we had enough to do him but witnesses always vanish.”

I said,

“And yet he seems to do exactly as he likes.”

He nodded, went,

“Even putting it to one of your old ladies.”

Waited for my reaction but I was too mutilated to rise to easy bait. I said,

“Delicate turn of phrase.”

He asked,

“That’s it? You’ve gone fucking philosophical about him?”

I stood up, drained my glass, slowly buttoned the controversial coat, said,

“Leave a tip for the barmen.”

He stood, contempt on his face, sneered,

“Just walking away. Hear from sources that is what you do best.”

I put a rake of notes on the counter for Ollie, who nodded in sympathy. He’d heard the last comment. I turned very slightly, moved my face close to supercop, whispered,

“I’m going to shoot him on Friday, at about three in the afternoon, so you can be there to make the big arrest.”

He moved back a step.

“Are you serious?”

I pondered, then,

“Maybe it’s the drink talking.”

Debated.

Added,

“Could be Thursday. I’m lousy with dates.”

The

Sagrada Família

,

Gaudí’s

temple of madness

triumph

ruin of Catholicism

monument to the greatest victory

brutal failure

breathtaking

glorious

without any semblance of order or even sanity,

but

at a certain time in the late evening,

before the revelers of Barcelona

begin to stir,

there is a profound silence

like the silence

before the bolt

on a Remington rifle is racked.

They killed the black swan.

By they, I mean, of course, Michael Allen.

He left the poor creature’s head at my door, with a note:

                “Prepare for your swan song, Taylor.”

Oh, I was preparing.

Had the Jeep and on a Wednesday drove out to Anthony’s mansion / stately pile, broke in easily, and stole the Remington rifle plus six long shiny bullets.

Studied Michael Allen’s routine in the house he shared with my ex-wife.

How utterly fucked up is that sentence.

Every Tuesday, he strolled to the local pub, careless in his arrogance and so convinced of my cowardly acceptance of every new outrage he visited on me.

Never even gave the Land Rover a second glance.

I had the back window open and, lying prone along the backseat with a pillow as sniper’s block, I watched him saunter from the house.

I think he may even have been whistling

“The River Kwai March.”

I shot him first in the right knee.

Let him fall and the actual revelation of what was happening dawn on him.

I muttered,

“Suck on that.”

But didn’t feel a whole lot. Mainly my mind was consumed by, of all things,

Gaudí .

Yeah, as I pulled the bolt on the rifle, it gave a satisfying thud, like my favorite clunk of a Zippo.

Second shot to the gut.

They say it is the most agonizing.

He certainly roared enough. I watched,

Whispered, like a blasted prayer, a crazed mantra,

Gaudí.

“I’d go to Barcelona,” I said.