Ken Bruen - Dublin Noir

Humor me. Tell me you can see it.

Yeah, that spinning silver ball. The foukin’ satellite.

Use your imagination, Jason, for fuck’s sake. That’s why God gave it to you.

Okay. You see it. Now picture this: biochemical triggers in my blood. You can make them silver, too, if you want. Little silver balls, swimming round my red and white cells. AIDS? I’d welcome AIDS. There’s shit we can do ’bout AIDS. We can’t do anything ’bout this. These little silver balls. Can you see them?

Good. Now imagine the big silver ball in the sky.

Yeah, the satellite, Jaybird.

That’s the big silver ball that’s fixed on the tiny silver balls in my blood. It needs six feet circumference to do its job, otherwise the big silver ball could kill innocent people. Besides me, hah hah.

Star wars.

Yeah. My lab’s been busy the past twenty years.

So yeah, okay, if I were to get up from this bar stool and walk across Dame Court? You’d see me lovely body fall to the ground. Dead. Those silver balls are brutal. They grow spikes. In my heart. In my brain.

Jesus can’t help me, but thanks for the sentiment anyway.

Who? Beats the royal fuck out of me. Maybe some jealous foukin’ bastard in the lab. A jilted lover. A bored and horny bureaucrat. Fucked if I know. Maybe I should have given a ride. Suck some dick for science, right?

You can help me by staying with me. For at least eleven hours. That’s when help will arrive, le cúnamh Dé. And the big silver ball won’t be able to say shite about it. As long as you stay within six feet of me.

Oh, my hotel room? Just a few blocks away. I’m at the Westbury. When I’m in Dublin, I make it a point to stay five-star. You’ve gotta see the bathroom.

Yes, that’s where I have the antidote.

Aren’t you going to hold my arm, mo ghrá?

Of course it’s nice. What did you expect? We’re in central Dublin, not foukin’ Galway.

Stop asking. It’s not important. What’s important is you and me. Together. Tonight. Within six feet of each other, at all times.

You don’t mind if I handcuff you to the bed, do you?

No, I wasn’t exactly joking.

Mm!

Mmmmmm.

Well.

This is an unexpected development.

The handcuffs, wasn’t it?

I do have them, swear to Christ. Right here in my bag. See?

Oh.

Mmmmm.

These turn you on, do they?

Oh, we’re almost there.

It is a beautiful lobby, isn’t it? Almost as beautiful as my lips, wouldn’t you say?

Oh, the mouth on you.

Here we are. Push the up arrow, boyo.

What?

I wouldn’t worry about that. The antidote doesn’t matter. What matters is us. Together. Tonight. You, here with me. For… yeah, looks like eleven hours.

Ding.

Yes, Jason?

625. Why?

What are you-

You snap the one cuff around her wrist and the other around the car rail. You watch her eyes widen as you step back.

And the doors close.

The frantic pounding and clanging. The wail of betrayal.

Then you swear you can sense it: the faint tremor just beyond the range of human hearing.

Because the wail has stopped.

No need to worry about that antidote. You knew she’d made it up. Her security clearance doesn’t give her access to the hard stuff.

You unflip your cell. Dial the number that after a few security switches will connect you with a basement somewhere in Virginia.

All you have to do is make this phone call and you can hop your plane home to Philadelphia. Just two words, and you’ve earned your paycheck.

“It works,” you say.

Harcourt Street, a raucous downstairs bar: über meat market.

George has his eye on a woman-out of his league, but worst she can say is no.

And he knows this: Lonely women fear lonely weekends like death.

Friday, just after work. This, in his too-successful experience, is every lonely woman’s hour of least resistance.

Pints are guzzled by lookers in little black dresses who’ve spent their days skirting the boundaries of “casual Friday” good taste-sweaters or jackets between them and stern warnings from sundry Human Resources Nazis.

George signals the gaffer, points at the woman alone at the table near the door.

The keep nods and half-smiles, says, “Russian Quaalude.”

George Lipsanos scowls. “What the fuck kind of drink is that?”

The barkeep smiles and shrugs. “Obscure one: Frangelico, Bailey’s, and vodka. Honestly? Had to look it up.”

Impatient, George nods. “Send her a double.”

Lipsanos watches. The bartender serves the sleek stranger the drink. Questioned, he stabs a thumb at George.

The woman raises an eyebrow, lifts her glass, and nods at George.

Lipsanos is headed her way before her first sip.

As he approaches, she shifts her legs-long legs, already crossed. Her right foot now slips behind her left leg’s calf.

This woman was striking at thirty yards in dim light through a haze of cigarette smoke. At five feet, she’s a leggy wet dream: mocking green eyes, dark hair… chiseled chin… natural rack, and good thighs on full display in her tight-black, fuck-me-now-and-hard! dress.

George thinks… righteous, compliant sports fuck.

Or she soon will be.

She smiles at him-a sultry, mocking mouth. She sips her freaky cocktail, says: “’Tis himself. Ah, but he didn’t know my drink. Maybe doesn’t bode well.” Another sip, then, “You’re not Irish.”

George scowls, shakes his head: “No… I’m Greek.” He shrugs. “Came to ride the Celtic Tiger. Get some of that Y-2K paranoia action.” He omits the latest nuance: a lucrative leap to cyber-porn. Instead, George hefts his glass, butchering the pronunciation: “Sláinte!”

A husky chuckle. The woman smiles-deep dimples- and winks. “My father’s from Glencoe. You know… the Highlands? He’d a toast, ‘Here’s to you, as good as you are. Here’s to me, as bad as I am. And as bad as I am, and as good as you are, I’m as good as you are, as bad as I am.’”

George has trouble tracking that one. She drains her Russian Quaalude. She signals the bartender, raises her glass, and points at George.

She leans across the table, fingers tented, drawing elbows closer and deepening the dark, enticing valley between her high-riding breasts. “Guess I won’t hold it against you, then… not knowing my drink.”

“Yeah,” George says, “that’s good.” He puts out his hand. “I’m George.”

She squeezes his hand and sits back, breasts shifting under her dress. She tips her head to the side, dark hair slanting. “My name is the last thing on your mind. Let’s be honest, huh, George? Names truly important?”

He feels some sense of firm footing returning. Cocky, he says, “Called out at the right moment? Yeah… means more than Oh baby .”

Those dimples again. She sips her drink, points. “Gutsy, George. Joking about sex this early. Okay: You can call me Mell. Mell Mulloy.”

He puts out his hand again, squeezes hers and doesn’t let go-his thumb stroking the inside of her palm.

She says, “ George . Hmm. Like the monkey, huh?”

“Say what?”

“The monkey… my favorite book as a kid, ya know? Curious George? The little chimp… man with the yellow hat?”

“Gotcha.” George bites his lip… sips his drink. Jesus: Best steer clear of books with this woman… literature-not his territory. The last one went on and on about “Joyce”… guaranteeing he’d never read that bitch.

But the woman pushes: “Are ya, you know, curious… George?”