Ken Bruen - Dublin Noir

Then, out of the blue, I was triggered. A blowsy Yank, all muzzy and hog-eyed, got in me cab just outside Davy Byrne’s Pub in Duke Street and asked to go to the Gresham Hotel in O’Connell Street Upper. He went quiet on me after first announcing he was ex of the NYPD. As if I gave a shite. For fuck’s sake, did he expect me to kiss his ring? So many sheets to the wind was he that he seemed to lose his voice as well as his senses. Then catching his breath, he began to rant about the weather, but that isn’t what set me off.

No-it was when he complained bitterly that us Irish drive as the Brits do, on the wrong side of the road. In America, he assured me, they would never put up with that shit. It was at that point I decided to no longer put up with his. Well, it wasn’t so much a decision as a reflex. Why, of all things that should have lit my candle, I cannot say, but light it it did.

I detoured to a section of town where, at that hour, there would likely be no foot traffic at all. Feigning illness, I pulled into an alley near dark as my heart. I got out of the cab, having already slid me sawed-off baseball bat up me trouser leg. When he came to look after me as I knelt on the cobbles pretending to retch up me lungs, I slammed the bat into his shins with such fury to snap at least one. I nearly orgasmed at the crackle of his shattering bone. He tumbled mightily, his head smacking a brick wall. Thud does not describe the sound of his skull against the stone. He was not dead, only damaged. I made sure to damage him well beyond dead. His face, what there was left of it, now red from blood and not from drink. I removed his watch, his jewelry, credit cards, the money from his wallet. I learned that from American TV.

“Was that a home run, fella?” I asked, tossing his pilfered wallet onto his body.

He was strangely silent.

There have been five more like him spread out over the last two years. I’ve made certain to alter the way in which I approach my victims, never again picking one up in me cab. They’re such suckers for the glad hand and blarney that there’s no challenge in it. They’re kittens to cream. Nor have I repeated the method I’ve used to murder them. I’ve stabbed one, poisoned another, beaten one to death with me fists, strangled one, and used a shotgun on the last. When the Gardaí seemed to be putting two and two together, not usually a skill they possess, I was forced to kill at random. Not a drop of red, white, or blue involved.

She was an Irish girl, pretty enough to interest the press. She was at Trinity studying some wanker named Kant. Had to swallow the laughter on hearing that. Dropped two rufies in her drink, diddled her every way to Sunday, and stabbed her with the same knife I used to do in the American. I cut her in just the same way as I did the Yank. I think of him as the Ugly American. Looked better when I was done with him than when I began.

I feel bad about her sometimes, like when I’m getting meself off. She’s the only one I rue. Might have been a future for me with her and Kant, but I had to confuse the Gardaí. Worked like a charm. They need a new calculator. I figure I’ll have to do the odd one every now and again. No more pretty girls, though. No philosophy students. Kants, the bunch of them. I’ll have to use that line. You think?

Shite, a fare out in front of Kavanagh’s Pub and I was having a tickle with you lot. Do me the favor of keeping your gobs shut until I rid meself of the fare. Then we can get back to our business.

“Where to, sir?”

“Just drive. I’ll tell ya when to stop.”

“American?”

“Yeah.”

Jaysus, I finally got a quiet one. No jokes nor brogues. And look at the face on him, Irish as a Galway swan and dour as a priest out of sacramental wine. I almost feel sorry for this one.

“Here on business or pleasure, you don’t mind my asking?”

“Business.”

“What kinda business you in?”

“Cop. I’m a cop.”

Fuck on a bike! An American cop, but nothing like the others. He didn’t even tell me where. Usually takes no more than a few seconds in me backseat before they show me their friggin’ shield and tell me how long till they’re vested in their bloody pensions. Then it’s to the war stories. As if I give a toss.

“Collins,” I said, reaching me right mitt across my body and over the seat.

“Jack,” he said, giving me hand a quick, uncomfortable shake.

Again, nothing like the others. All the others near crushed me hand, refusing to give it back until I pled for its release. Now as I see him in me rearview, I’d say he’s had a fair amount of drink, but he’s far from scuppered. He’s in turmoil, for sure, by the look on his face. Christ and His blessed mother, damned if I’m not concerned for the bastard.

“Is everything right by you, Jack?”

“Far from it, Collins.”

“Is there anything I can do to ease your troubles, sir?”

“Yeah, can you pull over here? I’m feeling sick.”

“It’s a rough part of the old town, Jack. Are you sure you can’t hold-”

“Pull over!”

Shite! Now he’s out of me cab and down a blind foukin’ alley. It’s been five minutes. Ah, let me go see how the poor bastard’s doing.

Thwack!

“Sorry, Collins.”

Thwack.

“It’s nothing personal, but some shanty prick beat my father to death with a baseball bat down an alley not too far from here.”

Thwack.

“I figured we owed you cocksuckers one.”

Thwack.

“Shit, Collins, if I didn’t know better, I’d swear you were smiling at me. Fuck you, asshole!”

Thwack.

Like I say, I hate Americans, arse-licking cops worst of all.

For Jimmy Lowe, this was the best part-the two of them just out of the shower, wrapped in hotel terrycloth, smelling of expensive shampoo, heat clinging to their bodies like another skin, and his head in her lap. He wasn’t sober-he’d more or less given up on that-but for the moment the world wasn’t sliding away beneath him. He wasn’t rested either, but neither was he wired, or nodding out, or stupid drooling. What he was was balanced. It was all about the mix, Lowe told himself, and right now his recipe was near perfect: caffeine matched against the jet lag, pint of milk against the burning patch in his gut, reefer and John Jameson against the coke and those pills that Margot gave him. It teetered on a knife edge, and Lowe knew that it could get away fast-but not just now. Now, in the best part, he was riding an exquisite soap bubble-drifting, warm and light, through a damasked, luxury-suite landscape. He looked up and saw Margot’s hair in blue-black curls around her pale face. Her robe fell open and he saw her small, round breasts, still pink from the shower. He stretched his legs on the sofa. Sex had rubbed him raw and he settled himself gingerly and closed his eyes.

Besides the weightlessness and Margot’s slender thighs under his head, Lowe’s favorite part of the best part was the disconnection. Balanced this way, past and future held no dread and he could reflect on both with serene detachment. He reached up and dragged a lazy hand across Margot’s breasts. She batted him away and picked up a fashion magazine. Lowe smiled to himself. Floating in his bubble, even Margot didn’t scare him much. He could think about their time together calmly now, without the dizzying mash of lust and fear she’d filled him with almost from the start. Christ, was it only ten weeks since personnel had sent her?

It was January but she’d been bare-legged. Her calves were white and shiny, and the little tattoo on her ankle was penny-green. Lowe thought it was a bruise at first, but it turned out to be some kind of braided cross. She’d worn a black leather coat that day, and her black hair tumbled past the collar. Something about her 1980s do and her slanted eyes and the way she talked reminded Lowe of Sheena Easton-though he didn’t know if Sheena Easton’s eyes were blue like Margot’s, or if their accents were the same. They weren’t.