Ken Bruen: Dublin Noir

Calling out Marty’s name, he inched his way down the stairs to the living room, found the light switch, and turned it on. He saw the blood first. Pooled around Marty’s head where he lay on his side in the middle of the room. A huge open gash crossed his forehead. Burke knelt down and took his pulse. No sign of life. He turned him over to try CPR, and that’s when he found that this had been no accident. Marty’s throat had been cut.

Burke waited till the ambulance and the Gardaí arrived and sealed off the house. As it was a crime scene, Marty would stay right where he lay until the state pathologist arrived. The Gardaí took a statement from Burke and he left.

Burke made it back to his apartment by 4:30 a.m. Too wired to sleep, he headed for the whiskey. Half a bottle later, he sank into a deep stupor.

Pia! Pia! Ed Burke agonized about what to do. In days the scandal would break. The Minister’s career would crash. In public. And Pia would crash too. Every tabloid would exploit the story. Exploit her!

Thoughts bounced wildly around his head: I’ve got to do something. Got to protect her. But how? I could leave again. Go back to the States. Take her with me. Start a new life with her.Agh, wishful thinking! It’s too late for us. Pia won’t leave Dublin.It’s the center of her world. All the world comes to Dublin now.So what’s the incentive to leave? Why should I leave again? Got to brave this thing out.

Still, Pia had to be warned. He had to tell her what was coming. Get her to leave the Minister. Get out first. Make the first move. Yes, that’s what she had to do. And he’d help her. Once he had decided, Burke took action. Dialed her mobile. She picked up immediately.

“Edmund, it’s only 9 a.m.”

“Pia, let’s run away together. Now.”

“Oh, Edmund. How I wish.”

“Look, it’s Friday. I’m off today. Let’s go somewhere. Get away from it all. Can you break all your social commitments?”

“Yes! Yes! Yes!”

“Okay, great. I’ll make the arrangements. Pick you up by noon.”

Murphy met the Minister in Buswells Bar, where all the members of the Dail went for their regular tipple. The Minister asked, “What’ll it be, the usual?” and ordered two Jamesons with water chasers.

No preamble for the Minister, he went right for the jugular: “If he brings me down, you go too.”

Murphy said nothing.

“Did you hear me? You go too.”

“Goddamnit, he’s my friend. Isn’t there any other way? We could persuade him to lay off.”

“Persuade, my ass. Do you realize he’s been fucking Pia since he got back?”

“I hate to say it, but…”

“Yeah, do you think I’m dumb? I know she’s been screwing the world for the past five years. Well, it’s over. She won’t be making a fool of me anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“Killing two birds with one stone. That’s what I mean.”

“Jesus, you’re crazy. I want no part of it.”

“In for a penny, in for a pound. You knew that. Do you really want to lose the mansion in Howth, the little hideaway in Shady Lane where you entertain your Caribbean beauties, your yacht and your membership in the Royal Cork…? Fuck no, you don’t want to lose any of it. And you don’t want a tribunal looking into everything while you rot your arse in Mountjoy.”

Murphy shut up and gulped down his Jameson. Just as quickly another, a double, appeared in front of him. He had to admit to himself that there was no way out. Ed Burke was an investment that he couldn’t afford.

Burke chose well. Get the hell out of Dublin- the first command he issued to himself. Go west, young man, said Horace Greeley in America. And that’s what Burke did. Go west to Galway. He knew exactly where. St. Cleran’s. Once the Galway home of film director John Huston, the place where Angelica spent her childhood. Been turned into a most exclusive guesthouse by another famous Irish-American, Merv Griffin. Just the place for them, away from their Dublin 4 crowd. Time to tell Pia, time to hold her, time to decide.

At St. Cleran’s Ed told Pia about the scandal that would break in the days ahead. He teased out all their options, all their choices. And Pia agreed to leave the Minister as soon as they returned to Dublin. Brave out the turbulence ahead. They retired early, Pia reminding him that they had run away together.

Much later they noticed the bottle of Chablis, sitting invitingly in a crystal cooler. Into their second glass, Ed began to feel drowsy and saw that Pia had already closed her eyes and sunk into the pillow beside him. Moments later, he followed her.

Burke’s eyes hurt. Bad. His head hurt too. Worse. He tried to open his eyes. Couldn’t. Sunlight grilled him through the open blinds. Eyes closed, fighting to stay awake, he slid out of bed, stood up, and felt his way to the window. Gripping the blinds, he yanked them closed and then risked opening his eyes. They still hurt but he could see. Turning around, he stopped dead, halfway between the window and the bed. Pia lay there, naked, one leg dangling on the floor, a trickle of blood from her lips forming a small red pond between her breasts.

Jaysus Christ, I hate feckin’ Americans! The donkeys worst among ’em. And them arse-licking cops worst of all. Them with their fifty-two paychecks and pensions, their red noses and “Danny Boy” tears. They think glen to glen is a conversation of like-named punters. Cunts, every last one. Them that sees romance in the famine and the troubles. Yah, romance in a bloody holocaust and the smell of cordite in the streets of Derry. And they ease their guilt and fancy themselves Provo men because they open their wallets and sing Pogues songs and drown themselves in pubs with a gold harp above the threshold. What a load a shite.

Oh, and how they imagine us Irish in the worst possible sense; a race of toothless spud farmers in white cableknit sweaters and black rubber boots, spouting Joyce or Yeats, herding lambs with a switch in one hand and a pint of Guinness in the other. And what of our race of red-haired colleens? Why, they’re out in lush pastures in their white blouses and green plaid skirts gathering clover and hunting for pots of gold. Bollix!

I hadn’t meant to kill the first one. I had dreamed of it, for sure. Taking one of the cheery bastards who hopped into me cab and opening him up like an Easter lamb, tossing his innards out my windows as I drove the M-road back from Shannon. But like with sex, it never quite happens the way you dream it. I s’pose if I had planned it, it would never have come off at all. I had sat patiently for a year at the wheel and listened to my American cousins affect cartoon brogues, recite bad jokes, and spew inanities at the back of me head.

“Would you like a seven-course Irish meal? A six-pack and a patata.”

“Top a the mernin’ to ya, boyo.”

“Where do you keep the leprechauns? In the trunk?”

“Hey, where’s me Lucky Charms?”

“Is it true about the Irish Curse?”

“You don’t have red hair!”

“Irish Spring. Sure it smells good on him, but I like it too.”

What eejits!

I took all of it and more; let it build up like steam in the kettle. It got so that the loathing felt warm as the shame of me Irish blood. I learned to bathe in it so that the thought of killing one of me American fares made me hard as a hurly soaked through with water and left to cure in a baking hot oven. Hate had always been a comfort to me. What’s more natural than hate, save rage? I hate Pakis, tinkers even more. But nothing I had known before compared to how I hated Americans. It was my coming of age.