Adrian McKinty - Hidden River

Patrick and I are both irritated. It’s hot, dry, we have the fan way at the other end of the room so the cards don’t get blown over and John and Areea are not taking the game seriously at all. John has his hand on her lap, Areea has her hand at the back of his shorts.

I look at Patrick and shake my head in disgust.

“The one thing, John, that I can’t stand is people not taking poker seriously when there’s money in the pot.”

“It’s only two dollars,” John says, and winks at Areea.

Areea giggles for no reason at all.

“It’s the principle of the thing,” I say.

I can tell Patrick feels the same way. For him in particular, whose weeks remaining on planet Earth can be counted in the few dozen, minutes are precious, seconds are bloody precious.

“Are you calling or not?” I say.

“No, then,” John says impatiently, throwing down his cards.

“Your hand, Patrick,” I say, annoyed.

He picks up his winnings.

“I think maybe we’ll take a martini break,” he says.

“Good idea,” I say, looking significantly at John, who has started snogging Areea on the lobe of her ear. It’s been two hours since I shot up and another rule I have is that ketch and spirits don’t mix, but what the hell, anything to get away from those two, who have been carrying on like this for the last few days.

I follow Patrick all the way along the corridor and into his apartment, which is minimally decorated with a few photographs of friends and a bookcase filled with art books. CD player and CDs of all descriptions but mostly classical. He puts on a piece by Stravinsky, which does nothing to soothe my mood.

It’s July 10. I’ve been going to CAW for more than a week now, making about a hundred and fifty bucks a night, commuting downtown, buying the groceries, and also attempting to look discreetly into the Victoria Patawasti murder. John, by contrast, has been hanging out on the fire escape smoking pot, eating potato chips, drinking beer, and making out with Areea when she’s off her shift. It’s starting to get on my nerves.

“It’s starting to get on my nerves,” I tell Pat.

“Me, too. You know, I was bluffing that hand, I had nothing,” Pat says.

“I know.”

This is one of Pat’s good days, in fact since we showed up, he says he’s been doing much better. He was perishing through loneliness: the lawsuit’s pissed off most of his old pals in the DFD, and his only family lives in Wyoming.

Stravinsky’s violins start screeching at one another and Pat puts ice into the martini shaker. Pat makes a dry martini, a very dry martini. He informs the Bombay Sapphire gin about the existence of a substance called vermouth before he pours it in the shaker. He takes two glasses from the freezer, adds an olive to each, and asks me to do the shaking, which I do.

We retire to the fire escape.

“She’s very pretty, isn’t she?” Pat says.

“She is, Pat, gorgeous face, great legs, honestly, I don’t know what she sees in that big ganch.”

“Well, it’ll all end in tears,” Pat predicts, as we lean forward to watch two men attempt to beat each other senseless at a brown, grassless park on the corner.

“John and Areea?” I ask, unsure if we’re still on the same subject.

“Yes,” he says.

“Because of her parents?”

“She says she’s eighteen, but I think she’s much younger,” Pat says.

“Really?”

“Yeah, really,” he says.

We sip our martinis.

“What about you, is there a special someone in your life?” Pat asks, the vowel sounds making his cheeks hollow sickeningly.

“Nope. There isn’t.”

“Back home, I mean.”

“Answer’s still no. I can’t seem to hold on to a steady relationship.”

“You leave them or they leave you?”

“They leave me, Pat.”

“You think maybe the smack doesn’t help?” Pat asks.

“I’m sure it doesn’t. I’m sure it does not,” I say.

Pat looks at me. He’s not going to lecture me or give me grief. He’s just pointing out the obvious. And it’s that question yet again. And the answer. I must release it from me. Let it go. I don’t have to do heroin now, I don’t have to. So why am I doing it?

“We all need something, Pat,” I say lamely.

“Yeah, we do,” Pat agrees.

“And what about you, Patrick, is there someone in your life you’ve been hiding away?”

“Well, actually, I was in a long-term relationship until last year. Of course, he left me when I started to get sick.”

“Shit.”

“Shit is right,” Pat says with disgust.

The sun is making its way across Colfax and the street is yawning, waking up, putting on its usual show. Guys appearing on the street corners, women walking hand in hand with little kids, other kids playing basketball. Old men talking. Big old cars playing N.W.A. and Public Enemy, bigger, newer cars blaring Tupac and Notorious B.I.G.

And as always the professional dealers, easy and unobtrusive, and the rookie dealers looking around a million times to see how much attention they can bring to themselves.

I stretch.

“Pat, it’s time I was heading,” I say.

“Not yet,” Pat says, and rubs his hand over his gaunt, unshaven face.

“Love to stay, Pat, but it’s twelve o’clock. I’m supposed to be downtown by one.”

“Don’t know why you’re working for those right-wing bastards. Strip-mining the national forests, polluting the skies. Drought all year, couple of snowstorms which did nothing, and they’re talking about the Wise Use of water to promote business, which means less conservation. I mean, Jesus, how about telling the goddamn Coors family to give some of their surplus water to Denver.”

I can’t help but suppress a smile. Pat clearly cares a lot more about this than I do. I don’t mind arguing for fewer environmental regulations, I’ll argue any point of view if I can get some dough out of it.

“Pat, I have to go.”

“Ok, mate,” Pat says, which makes me grin again. Pat’s taking on a bit of an Ulster accent and vernacular hanging out with us. And though we have screwed up our murder case and I am exiled from Belfast, at least it seems we are doing a bit of good for someone in this world.

July in Denver. Insanely hot. One hundred and one degrees says the board outside Channel 9. Drenched with sweat, I ride the elevator up to the CAW offices. Pat says Denver is livable for a few weeks in October and a few weeks in April. Winter and summer, the rest of the time. I can well believe him. People with sense leave town at this time of year for cooler places like a blast furnace or the surface of the sun.

I walk into the office.

I’m well liked now, established.

Abe says hi, he’s wearing the same Sex Pistols T-shirt he’s had on for the last week. Johnny Rotten is so coated with gook he has taken on a three-dimensional quality. Still, the place is air-conditioned and the offices are losing their chaotic feel and taking on a semblance of order.

The weird thing, the really weird thing is that apart from Abe no one has mentioned either Victoria’s or Klimmer’s death. Charles runs a tight ship and I suppose they want things upbeat for the new staffers like me. Or maybe they’re trying to be very positive in front of the camera crew, which has shown up twice more to follow Charles around.

Dozens of posters have gone up over the bare walls, nature scenes with words like “Perseverance” and “Serenity” underneath them. They’ve hired another couple of secretaries and the campaigners are coming together as a group. Aye, they’re looking to the future, not dwelling on the unpleasantness of the past.