Lisa McInerney - The Glorious Heresies

She was a poisonous runt, Duane. She drifted on the edges of the city’s real meat, feeding on its carcasses for a kind of sustenance he couldn’t get his head around. Villains he could harness, but this one… He’d never met a villain so convinced of its own virtue.

She’d fancied herself a madam once, and approached one of his underlings for collaboration. The ugliness of the work had stunned her, and she’d spent more time wringing her hands over the ashes of her Munster Moulin Rouge than exerting herself, so she’d been deposed, and the collaborating subordinate given a slap around the chops. Since then she’d learned conversational Russian and had assumed a position as a kind of guide for girls whose penury pointed them towards sex work. She still fancied herself a madam, only now she believed her freelance status allowed her an attractive impartiality and an air of great benevolence. A whore had once told Jimmy that Tara kept unhealthy hours online, employing sockpuppet accounts to argue with anti-prostitution campaigners and cribbing about Catholic Ireland. That had tickled him. He was happy to give her delusions free rein; his managers used her on occasion as a finder or a go-between.

Her front room was poky. There were magazines stacked on the shelves, clashing art on the walls. Beside the laptop on the coffee table was a mug with a delicate paper label hanging down the side. There was a chat window open on the laptop screen.

Of course hunni xxx Dont worry. My mom’s just come home brb. Don’t start without me plz luv u.

Don let her get to u baby. B strong.

‘Online chat?’ he said. ‘I thought your daughter was in bed?’

‘She was up a while ago, like.’

He grinned and leaned forward. ‘Her “mom” just came home and sent her to bed, was it? Was she up all night talking to nobbers? And drinking tea with labels on it; ah, she’s pure sophisticated.’

‘Can I help you with something, Jimmy?’

‘Probably,’ he said.

She went to fold her arms and changed her mind, for one brief moment falling into the chicken dance.

‘Tara,’ he said.

‘Yes?’

‘I’m obviously looking for someone.’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you know where the fuck he is?’

‘Tony Cusack?’

‘That’d be the man. I have the right house so.’

‘Why are you looking for Tony Cusack?’

‘Why are you asking me?’

Her hands made fists. She tucked each into its opposite armpit.

‘Seriously, Tara? Trying to ascertain what I know before choosing your best answer is only going to make me very pissy.’

She pouted. ‘He’s drying out.’

‘He’s what?’

‘Drying out. You know. Some residential programme. The kids are with his sisters and he hasn’t been home in weeks.’

‘I didn’t see Cusack as the health-conscious type,’ he said.

‘He’s not,’ she said. ‘It was court-ordered.’

‘Court-ordered? Fuck me — what did he do to deserve that?’

‘What didn’t he do to deserve it?’

‘Seems a harmless sort, is all.’

She seethed. ‘He’s not harmless. He’s a horrible man. Violent. Very violent.’

‘We are talking about the right Tony Cusack, aren’t we? Scruffy fella, big brown peepers, married a dago lasher with knockers out to here?’

‘Some people are just bad,’ she said. ‘No matter how often you get lost in their eyes.’

Her peevishness tickled him. ‘That doesn’t sound like the bleeding-heart Tara Duane I know.’

‘He’s a child abuser.’

‘Holy fuck, anything else?’

‘Yeah, actually. He put my front window in. With a hurley. Beat the glass through. And I have to live beside him after all that and I frightened of me life of him.’

‘Tony Cusack put your front window in.’

‘Yeah. So I’d advise you to have nothing to do with him.’

‘Why’d he put your window in?’

‘Why do you care?’ she said.

‘I don’t.’ He leaned forward, elbows on knees. ‘Lovers’ tiff?’ he asked. ‘Were you fucking him, Tara?’

‘Excuse me, I was not.’

‘Why else would a man blow your house down? Did you put the wrong tags on the bins? Stay up too late bawling along to ABBA? Come on, Tara. Why’d you fall out with him?’

‘Are you looking for him or questioning me?’

‘First one, then the other.’

The light from the laptop screen dimmed as it switched to screensaver. Jimmy stretched and shifted back on the couch.

‘His oldest is a boy,’ Tara said. ‘Sixteen. He thought I was…’

It was pause enough to draw out his laughter.

‘Jesus Christ, Tara. You’re fucking children now?’

‘I am not,’ she hissed. ‘He’s paranoid with the drink and the drugs. You’d want to be, wouldn’t you, to accuse a young mum of something like that? Especially one like me.’

‘One like you?’

‘I’m a good person!’ she snapped. ‘And that man is a nutjob.’

‘If he caught you with your legs round his young fella’s ears I’d say he had good reason.’

‘Don’t be disgusting.’

He was close to paroxysms. ‘Oh come on, Tara. I work at a conveyer belt of deviants and I know for a fact you failed quality control. The man knocked your window in because you’ve been playing Hide the Underage Sausage.’

‘I didn’t! I did not! I tried offering the kid a friendly ear and he obviously took it the wrong way, all right? And I had to offer that friendly ear because his father’s a lunatic and living beside him has lopped years off my life.’

‘If only living with him put years on , eh?’

‘Yeah, getting back to it, OK? I don’t know where he is,’ she said. ‘Drying out. Court-ordered.’

‘For what?’

‘Drunk and disorderly. So taking into account his unprovoked attack on my glazing, that was enough for a judge to decide he had a problem. He’s got too many kids for gaol, I guess.’

‘That part sounds like Cusack,’ he said.

‘It all sounds like Cusack. You obviously don’t know him very well.’

‘I don’t,’ Jimmy said, and clucked his tongue, and put his hands on the couch, readying himself to get up again. Tara thought to exhale. He laughed.

‘Christ, Tara. You’d swear you were the one up to no good.’

She sucked her lips in.

‘I’ll be on my way,’ he said. ‘You’ve been useless. Still, I get you have more important things to be doing, like pretending to Mr Internet there that you’re his little wet dream soulmate. Sorry I haven’t been a better mom to you.’

She followed him to the front door.

The pavement glistened under a sky indigo and low. Jimmy rolled his shoulders.

‘One more question,’ he said. ‘Do you know a fella by the name of Robbie O’Donovan?’

Her eyes widened. ‘No.’

‘Think now. He’d know Cusack.’

She shook her head.

‘Maybe thirty. Foxy hair. A right hand-me-down-the-moon. You couldn’t miss him, but that’s of no benefit to sore eyes.’

‘I guess that’s what you want Tony for?’

Jimmy stepped out the door and onto the driveway.

‘So much guesswork, Tara. I’ll take my leave of you. Stay weird.’

He walked towards the front gate. Wasted journeys tended to put him in bad form, and he could see that mass ahead of him, maybe five minutes into his future, maybe ten, a private tantrum that would fuck the rest of his afternoon. He had things to be doing. Much bigger things than chasing Tony Cusack around the city.

Behind him, Tara Duane called ‘Wait!’

He turned.

She was nodding. ‘Robbie O’Donovan. A tall ginger guy, whippet-thin, no great shakes, yeah, yeah.’

‘Oh, it’s come to you! Tell me: what do you know about him?’