Adrian McKinty - Dead I Well May Be

You’re a very negative presence, Andy said, fuming.

But it had worked. I’d distracted him, and for the rest of the trip he huffed and calmed down.

We went over the bridge onto the mainland of North America and up Broadway and out of that weird cut-off bit of Manhattan, and we were safely back at the Four Provinces before Pat even heard the first of the reports on the police radio.

My hand hurt, and it woke me. Mrs. Callaghan had bandaged it because bloody Bridget Nightingale had been off with dickhead Darkey at some poxy place in Long Island. I hadn’t seen her in a few days, and it made me wonder if the ardor was fading or whether Darkey was getting more protective.

It was a pisser. Andy’s party had had to be postponed. Everyone getting shot at had spoiled the mood a bit. It was rescheduled for tonight.

I’d got the 1 train back, gone to the apartment, slunk to the sofa, slept. I felt awake now and in pain and dirty. Fucking shooting people for a living. What kind of a life was that? Bloody ridiculous. Jesus, I wasn’t fourteen anymore. I was practically twenty. In a couple of weeks, in point of fact. Maybe it was time to turn over a new leaf. I wondered if I’d paid off my plane ticket yet. Jesus, but what would I be going back to? Nothing. Bloody nothing. Fucking rain.

It was late afternoon now, so I dialed the number, put on an accent that I hoped was Jersey Shore.

Is Bridget there?

Hold on, Mrs. Pat said.

A long pause and then that voice:

Yes?

I haven’t seen you in forever, I said.

It’s been impossible. Our schedule has been so busy, but, uh, don’t think I haven’t been thinking about you, Bridget said.

I want to believe you.

It’s true. Listen, M-, listen, I can’t really talk here. I’ll call you, ok?

Ok.

She hung up.

I looked at the phone for a half a minute.

I stripped and went into the shower.

I felt filthy. I scrubbed and soaped myself and scrubbed again. I sat down on the floor and let the water come over me. I banged the floor and cursed for a minute or two. I remembered what I’d said to Sunshine about my chi and laughed. I washed my hair and got out. I was absolutely bloody famished, so I decided to go down into Harlem to get some Chinese. It was hot now, so I dressed in shorts and a cotton T-shirt and desert boots. I still had the.38 and there were slugs out of it, probably in some crime lab right now being looked at by some bespectacled fuckwit. Somehow, I’d have to get rid of it. I wiped it and washed it and put it in a plastic bag. I got my backpack and put the gun inside with a book and a water bottle. I went downstairs. In the hall, steam was again escaping from the heating. I dodged the jets, put on my sunglasses and Yankees hat, and turned right towards Amsterdam.

There was a building Dumpster on the corner. The street was empty, so I took out the bag with the gun and threw it in. It was as dumb a place as any, but whoever found it around here would probably keep it.

I went by the projects, crossed 125th, buzzed the Chinky door, and Simon let me in.

I told him I’d waved to him last week but he hadn’t seen me. He apologized. The place was clean, and there was a new calendar with views of Hong Kong Harbour. Simon looked well. He stared at me from behind the bulletproof glass.

Wha happ your han? he asked.

I cut it, banged into something, hurts like a bastard, I said.

You gey stiches?

No, I didn’t. I bandaged it up myself.

Go to emergence room Sin Luke, no quessions. They do it, quick, no quessions.

I thought you had to fill in lots of forms and stuff.

Do, fill in fake name, Simon said, as if he knew all about it, but really, someone must have told him and he was just passing it on.

I’ll think about it, I said, knowing full well I would never be so stupid as to go to the emergency room with a heavy-caliber gunshot wound the same bloody day as a major shooting involving heavy-caliber weapons. Besides, it would be a cool scar.

When, much later, I had been betrayed twice, lamed, severely traumatized, and had a.22 slug in the gut, and I thought I was fucking dying, my scruples, however, somewhat lessened and I actually did take myself to trusty old Saint Luke, painter, Greek, bit of a fabulist, and, of course, doc.

But that was still to come, and for now I could afford bravado.

Fuck it, Simon. Useless quacks will take your bloody hand off by accident or something, I said.

Simon laughed, and I could sense his brain filing away the word quack for later use.

I ordered curried pork with fried rice and sat in the corner with the three tabloids I’d bought. I’d already read the Times , so these would do for lunch. I ate some pork and rice and drank some of my Coke. It was another hot one.

The air-con above the door was hardly making a difference.

Hey, Simon, you wouldn’t put the air up a wee notch, would ya? I asked, but he wasn’t coming out from behind that bulletproof glass if it was World Peace Day and it was the pope and the Dalai Lama asking him. He nodded and went back to watching a Bob Ross painting show on his black-and-white TV. Bob’s stoner voice relaxed me.

Before I could open the papers, the door opened and Freddie, our mailman, came in. I knew him quite well, because we’d talked about getting me into the postal service as a casual when I’d first arrived. Bureaucratically, it was impossible, but we’d talked and he’d helped get me a bar job. He was a huge black man in his forties, three hundred pounds at least, stereotypically jolly, and seemingly happy with his lot. Even on a day like today when the heat must be murder for him.

Michael, he said, shaking my hand, I haven’t seen you around.

No, I’ve been working, Freddie.

Shit, man, where you working? At Carl’s?

No, Freddie. Don’t you pay any attention? I was only there for a week, just until they fixed me up, up in the Bronx.

Freddie grinned and ordered an egg fried rice and a sweet-and-sour chicken and spring rolls and sat down beside me. His mail cart was outside, and on 125th Street you’d think that someone would have wheeled it off, but no one did.

That was some funny shit, you working in Carl’s, you know, the only white dude in the whole joint. You musta taken some.

I did, I agreed, but I still go in there sometimes, Freddie, not regular, but I go.

Carl’s was a bar a few blocks east of here. I’d worked there while Scotchy checked me out and passed me up to Sunshine for final approval. It wasn’t called Carl’s anymore, and I didn’t go in there ever, but I wanted Freddie to think I was a cool customer.

Freddie, though, didn’t give a shit whether I was a cool customer or not. His grub was up. He ate his food with gusto and we chitchatted about this and that, mainly sports. We ate and talked, and Freddie finally had to leave. I was sorry to see him go. He was a good presence in people’s lives. A horrible, lazy mail carrier, but a good man and about the only black guy I knew in the city. He was a steady bloke and knew a bit, and I would have liked to get his perspective on one or two things, but daylight wasn’t the time and we were both sober and it was too soon after recent events to be levelheaded about them.

Listen, if I’m at Carl’s this Friday, will you be around? I asked him as he was going out.

No man. Apollo. Monday, Tuesday maybe, he said.

Really, Tuesday? I don’t want to go down there and stick out like a sore thumb and you not show up.

Michael, what’s on your mind? Women, huh? Freddie asked with a huge grin.

I nodded and said I’d see him, but of course by Tuesday I was in fucking Mexico and not destined to be back in Harlem for quite some time.