Ken Bruen - Green Hell

The Ruger was delivered that evening. I paid over the odds; helps the discretion. I was sitting at the table, cleaning the gun as Jimmy Norman’s show played on Galway Bay FM. A song rooted me to the chair,

“Mary”

by Patty Griffin.

My memory kicked in, sometimes supplying arcane and, in truth, useless information. She’d been married briefly to Robert Plant. The lyrics of the song touched me in all the broken places. Heaving the gun amid a mess of bullets, I stood, poured a liberal Jay, toasted Patty, said,

“Your voice is the perfect bridge between Emmylou Harris and Nancy Griffiths.”

I tried to get my head around the notion of Boru being a killer. Wouldn’t fly. I’d spent enough time with the kid to get his measure. Then a thought hit. I grabbed my mobile, got Owen, said,

“I’m sorry to be bothering you so soon.”

“That’s OK, Jack. I enjoyed the pints, we should do it more often.”

That hovered for a moment but we knew it was never going to happen. I asked,

“The murdered girl, you said she was a part-time student?”

“Yeah.”

“Literature, by any chance?”

“Yes. In fact I heard the professor told the investigating officers that Kennedy had been stalking the girl. A college security guard even remembered moving him along.”

Fuck, this wasn’t good.

He said,

“Leave it alone, Jack. It’s cut-and-dried.”

I had one last question,

“Who is in charge of the case?”

“A hotshot named Raylan. A man going places, they say.”

I didn’t know him, said,

“I don’t know him.”

“You might know his assistant?”

“Yeah?”

“A certain Sergeant Ridge.”

Over many turbulent years I have returned to my variety of apartments/flats to find

Ransacking,

Burglary,

Fires,

but never a. .

Goth.

Sitting on my sofa, apparently at ease, was a young woman in full Goth regalia. The white makeup, black mascara, spiked black hair, and, of course, all-black gear. I said what you’d expect me to say,

“What the fuck?”

She’d helped herself to the Jameson, raised it, said,

“Slainte.”

Her utter composure suggested she was one cool lady or on heavy medication. I stayed by the door, asked,

“You want to tell me what’s going on?”

“I’m Emerald, like the isle, I suppose, but mostly I prefer Em, less formal.”

I said,

“Before I sling you out, you want to tell me why you’re here, stealing my booze?”

She stood up, I tensed. A moment, then she said,

“Relax, if I was going to hurt you, would I have sat waiting?”

“Been known to go down exactly like that.”

For this I got a brilliant smile, sheer fucking radiance. It warmed something deep in my core that had been dead a long time. Whatever else, I felt she wasn’t a threat, leastways not a physical one. She was small but moved with that grace given only to dancers and felines. She said,

“See, you’re lightening up already. OK if I call you Jack?”

Before I could answer, she continued,

“Need to alert you, hombre, that I have a form of accent Tourette’s. Means I flip from down-home through posh to ni-gg-ah. .”

She stretched out the final word provocatively. Almost but not quite wetting her lips. She was a piece of work. I tried again,

“Before I knock your multiethnic arse out, you want to give me a hint as to what this is?”

She mimed a gunslinger stance, said,

“It’s all about the love, Pilgrim. . well, no. . revenge, actually, and that gig is cold, dude.”

Jesus!

I went and poured myself a drink, a large one, didn’t offer her. She had more than enough of whatever it was drove her batmobile. Was she finished?

Was she fucked.

More.

“So, Jacques, it’s all about the endgame and I’m your wingman.

“You wanna know who’re we’re taking DOWN?”

She pronounced it thus, dropping in register to the last syllable.

I said,

“Maybe before the new year, you’ll actually tell me?”

She threw open her arms in a grand salute, exclaimed,

“El Jefe, the professor, Señor de Burgo, his own badass self.”

Got my attention.

As she headed for the door, she stopped, listened, said,

“That wind they’ve been threatening is finally gathering force.”

As to whether this was a metaphor or a weather forecast, who knew? She gave another blast of the wattage smile, said,

“We’ll go biblical on the prof’s ass, right?”

She looked up at the sky, said,

“Goth in the wind.”

The death of Nelson Mandela met with a profound sadness not seen since the death of John F. Kennedy. Alas, the cash vultures were already swooping. Mandela’s famous handprint being sold for upwards of twenty thousand euros. It made you want to seriously vomit.

The week before, the incredibly affable, apparently full-blessed Paul Walker, only forty, star of the hugely successful movie franchise Fast amp; Furious , was killed instantly when the Porsche he was a passenger in was wrapped around a tree.

Some weeks it seemed only funerals marked the successive days.

December 12: the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

The Health Department, in one week, finally admitted liability in three separate cases of babies being neglected by the very medics charged with their care. All three of the little mites, as a result, had:

Massive brain damage,

Cerebral palsy,

Total paralysis.

And a very basic lack of oxygen for a few vital moments had occurred. The HSE took twelve years to admit liability in Case 1, and seven and five years in the other two cases.

The families were utterly exhausted and destroyed but they fought all those years for the most basic human right.

An apology.

The minister for health, fat-jowled and combative, muttered platitudes like,

Regret

and

Investigation.

Dare one curse-

Don’t hold your breath.

All the major charities were exposed as paying their top executives “top-ups” in the hundreds of thousands and they even sneered,

“If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.”

And still they ran long, harrowing advertisements of dying black children with Eva Cassidy singing in the background. Shaming, bullying, and cajoling a bankrupt people into donating what few euros they retained. If the people hated any song, they now hated “Fields of Gold.”

Em had agreed to actually tell me who/what she was, if

I got wasted with her.

Her words.

Meaning, go on the piss. Twist my arm.

She insisted we go to the G Hotel. Already noted for its theme rooms, as in: you wanted peace, you opted for the purple room. Em said,

“Guy in the bar there shakes one mean, multifucking cocktail.”

I said,

“I don’t do fancy.”

She got the look, she asked,

“You want the gen on me or not?”

“Guess I could go for a frozen margarita.”

She laughed, said,

“Dress to impress, slick.”

Been a time since I hit the charity shops. With the recession, the new scandal about top executives of the leading charities on massive salaries, the people on the ground, the actual working staff, were bearing the brunt at the Vincent de Paul shop. Rita greeted me,

“Jack, we thought you’d brought your business to T.J. Maxx.”

And swear to God, she gave that Galway hug:

Real,

Warm,

Felt.

And fitted me out with a dark suit that hung a little loose but I can do loose. A Van Heusen shirt and brand new Dr. Martens. The cost-

fifteen euros.

I kid you fucking not.

Heading for the G in my splendor, I shucked into my Garda all-weather coat and was, if not hot to trot, at least ready to limp with attitude.