Adrian McKinty - The Bloomsday Dead

But then, suddenly, with Beijing on my mind, I spotted two Chinese guys carrying a pole of pink dangling ducks. I followed them. Down one street, up another. They stopped outside a restaurant, fumbled for a set of keys, and went in.

Ahh. I stepped back. Was this the same place?

Yeah. Bloody hell.

Completely different now, of course. Before, a concrete bunker with grilles over the window and a heavy iron door. Now, tinted plate glass, plush tables, a lilac paint job, and a big new sign. Still, something about it rang a bell. And if this was the restaurant the brothel was the house immediately to the left. A three-story Georgian affair, with the blinds pulled down.

No blue plaque announcing “Brendan Behan bonked here,” but you never knew, it might still be the same establishment. Someone had sandblasted the brick front, removed the old wooden window frames, and put in air-conditioning vents. Back in the day the front door had been a low-key brown, as befitted a whorehouse. Now it was a bright blue with a gold knocker and letter box.

I went up the steps, knocked.

Waited.

Probably a firm of insurance agents in here now.

I knocked again.

The door was opened by a beautiful hard-faced blonde with vampiric eyes. Skin the color of driven snow and slightly Asiatic features. She was wearing a tight silk see-through black sweater, black miniskirt, and knee-length leather boots. Certainly not an Irish girl, and if she was in the insurance business it could only have been for Satan, fiddling the actuarial tables on potential soul sellers.

“Yes?” she said in an imperious Russian accent.

“I’m here for a little R and R, is this the right place?”

“Perhaps. Would you like to come in?” she said.

“Aye, I would at that.”

“Please, follow me.”

I went in.

There exists a school of thought which holds that madams in brothels, bordellos, and whorehouses are endowed with wisdom, taste, and a singular ability for understanding human nature. I have no idea where this notion sprang from, but in my experience madams are about as wise and sensible as the average giggly thirdgrade teacher. And as for taste, not in the brothels I’ve been in. The proprietor of the Four Courts whorehouse was no exception. Her tastes ran to cliché and old-world decadence. The blinds were drawn and the fake Tiffany lamps were exuding a dull-yellow depressing glow that made you wonder if they were trying to conceal the merchandise. Incense burning in a corner smelled of dead cat, and once you’d adjusted to the dim surroundings, you saw that the elegant blue door on the outside was in contrast to the bright reds, golds, chandeliers, paintings of eagles, and classical figurines in a look that seemed to be a cross between antebellum New Orleans and the Reich chancellory.

“My name is Lara,” the Russian girl lied.

“Aye, and I’m Doctor Zhivago. Listen, I need to speak to the woman of the house, if you don’t mind; I’ve got a couple of questions,” I said.

“We cater to all tastes.”

“Aye, I’m sure you do, but all I need is a quiet room, where I can have a shower and gather my thoughts, no fuss; I’ll pay top dollar, and if someone would be so good as to bring me a cup of tea, I would love it.”

“It is three hundred euros for one girl, for one half hour, it might be extra for, uh, your particular, uh, needs,” she said, looking at me as if I were the biggest pervert who had walked in in months, God alone knew what I wanted to do with the girl and the tea.

“Yeah, I don’t need a girl. I just need a quiet room. Tell the boss.”

The Russian motioned for me to sit down on a leather chair. An Albanian cleaning woman started vacuuming the rugs. Lara went off and came back with an older conservatively dressed Irish woman in a black wig and ivory glasses. She sat down opposite.

I offered the three hundred euros. She refused to accept it.

“Ye can’t stay here, if that’s what you’re thinking. This is a respectable house, whatever you’ve done, this isn’t a place for fugitives,” she said, blowing my whole madam-smart-as-a-third-grade-teacher theory out of the water.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

“No, of course not, that’s why you’re dripping blood on me leather seat and you’re wearing someone else’s coat.”

“Ok, there’s no need to be hasty. But you’re right, I need a place to lie low until I can figure how I can get out of town. I won’t be any trouble.”

“You won’t be any trouble cos you won’t be here. Get the fuck out, before I get the help to throw you out,” she said. “And we wouldn’t want your pretty face more beat up than it already is.”

“I’m working for Bridget Callaghan,” I said-the only card I had, and not mentioning, of course, that there was more than a possibility that lovely Bridget was trying to bloody kill me.

“Are you now?” she said, batting not an eye. “And who might that be?”

“The head of the fucking Irish mob in New York City, as if you didn’t know,” I said with menace.

She shook her head slightly. Took a small intake of breath.

“Ok, ok. Keep your voice down for one thing; this is a respectable house, so it is. And so what? Even if you do work for her, what’s that to me? You sitting there on the run from the Guards, frightening me girls.”

“I’ll tell you what it is to you, love. It’s bloody this. If Bridget hears that you wouldn’t help me, that you said there was no room at the inn when I was in a tight spot, you better fucking have fire insurance.”

She was going to say something, stopped herself, smiled, nodded. This was a hooker with a heart of brass. She knew what was what. She gave me a final once-over to see if she believed me. Apparently she did.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Michael Forsythe.”

Her eyebrows raised a fraction, but she recovered quickly and asked me another question: “You worked for Bridget Callaghan a long time?”

“We go back a long, long way.”

“And would you be able to prove that if it was necessary?”

“I would. Listen, love, I just got into town. I’ve already had a fucking lot to deal with, I just need a hour to get my bloody head straight.”

The madam sighed and got to her feet.

“It’s more or less an empty house at the moment,” she said to herself.

“You’ll let me have a room?”

“Ok, ok, we’ll see what we can do. I suppose you’re here to help with the missing wee girl?”

“You heard about that?”

“Oh aye, it’s big news in certain quarters.”

“Is it?” I asked, for information.

“It is indeed now.”

“What do you know about it?”

“Well, my first thought was that the lassie-Siobhan, is it?-must have run off, because no one in Ireland would dare to have lifted Bridget Callaghan’s wean. But I’ll tell you this, I’m not so sure now, that pop music nowadays, it’s all about drugs, one of those heroin fiends could have taken her off the street to his drug den. Let me tell you. I certainly don’t allow drug users in my establishment. Anything could happen.”

“Very wise.”

“You say your name is Michael Forsythe?” she asked a little slyly.

“That’s right. That mean anything to you?”

“No, no, not at all. Yeah, shame about the wee girl. But it happened in Belfast and, sure, Belfast is crazy like. I don’t know what’s going on up there. The lines aren’t set yet, not like down here. Dublin’s a lot more civilized, you know what’s what. Anyway, enough of the chitchat, get you a room. What do you want in your tea?”

“I’ll take milk and sugar,” I said.

The woman made a movement to a man I’d only just noticed lurking in deep shadow by the grandfather clock. He shimmered out of the foyer.