Headstone (15 page)

It’s quite difficult to get beaten up in hospital. I

mean, apart from the Saturday night war zone of the

A and E. That’s open season as the skels, the

drunks, the dopers, the crazies, show up. Plus, I

don’t mean the arrogance of the consultants who

verbally cut you to shreds at every opportunity.

Despite the array of marauding infections, if you

actually have a bed, you are reasonably safe.

You’d think.

Right?

I was almost fully recovered from the virus I’d

picked up and feeling, if not exactly healthy, at

least less battered. Lord in heaven, I’d even

managed some nights’ sleep without aids. Day

before my discharge, I woke or rather was dragged

from my sleep. A burly man had a ferocious grip

on my pajamas top and was hauling me upright. It

took me a few moments to grasp this was real, not

part of the recent fever. I tried to focus and then

recognized Liam, the ex-Guard who owned the pub

in Ough-terard. I’d phoned him about Father

Loyola under the pretext of booking a table at his

restaurant and quizzed him as to the fugitive

priest’s location. He’d fallen for my story and

confirmed

that

Loyola

was

staying

near

Oughterard.

Liam was one of those old-style cops you rarely

see much anymore. Big, built like a shithouse, and

rough as bejaysus. He’d been a fierce hurler, one

of the best, and we’d played together a few times.

He took no prisoners, ever. Regular methods of

policing held no interest for him; his fists were his

investigative technique.

His face was testament to his career: bruised, the

nose broken many times, the skin mottled by

rosacea and a riot of broken veins. He drank like

he played hurling. Like a lunatic. Spittle leaked

from his lips as he shouted,

“You lying piece of shite, Taylor.”

As a wake-up call, it sure beats tea and toast. It

gets you wide-awake.

Fast.

Before I could speak, he drew back his mighty fist

and smashed it to the right side of my face. It

bounced me off the bed frame. He was about to

follow through when he noticed my emaciated

chest through my torn top. He pulled the punch.

When my head cleared a bit, I gasped,

“What the hell did I do?”

He considered that second punch, said,

“You phoned me, you treacherous bollix, got me to

confirm Loyola’s home.”

I tried to pull together the tattered top, grab, if not

dignity, at least a wee modicum of decency, asked,

“So, what’s the big deal?”

Bad, bad mistake.

He punched me in the kidneys and I’d have thrown

up the breakfast I hadn’t yet had. He spat,

“You told somebody and guess what? Guess

fucking what, Mr. Private Eye. Three days after I

talk to you, that lovely man is found floating in the

river outside his cottage.”

I muttered,

“Sweet Jesus.”

He moved back from the bed, having caught sight

of my mutilated hand, said,

“They say your fingers were sliced off .”

Delicately put.

He was spent. I guess kicking the living shit out of

a half-dead guy in a hospital bed has its

drawbacks. He said,

“You know, Jack, I used to like you. You were

always as odd as two left feet but I thought you had

some principles.”

I tried,

“What a terrible accident for that poor man.”

Jesus, he nearly blew again, roared,

“Accident! Accident my arse.”

I didn’t know what to say, my right cheek was

already swelling and I knew, from past experience,

I’d have one beauty of a black eye. I mumbled,

“I’m sorry.”

He was at the door, said,

“I’m sorry too, sorry they didn’t cut your balls off .

Two days later, finally, I was released. Ireland

was coming to the end of the freakish three-week

period of freezing ice and snow. People had

broken hips, bones, on footpaths deadly with black

ice. The government had imported salt from Spain.

Fuck, I knew we were short of most everything,

especially irony, but
salt
?

Come on.

The salt was to cover the roads.

Schools were closed, water was rationed, pipes

were burst or frozen, we’d already entered the

Apocalypse. You don’t get to leave hospital

without stern diatribes from a doctor. Mine warned

me about the phantom feelings I’d have in my lost

fingers. I nearly said,

“Rubbing salt in the wounds?”

Went with,

“All my feelings are ghosts anyway.”

He stared at my now impressive black eye. I said,

“I fell out of bed and, no, I won’t sue.”

He, God bless him, prescribed some heavy

painkillers, cautioned,

“Avoid alcohol while taking them.”

I’d have winked but my eye still hurt.

They insist on wheeling you to the door in a

wheelchair till you are safely off the premises.

Break your arse on the ice outside, they could give

a fuck. Stewart was waiting outside, dressed in a

fetching Gore-Tex coat and a Trinity scarf

wrapped round his neck. He didn’t go there but,

then, who did? I was so glad to see him but did I

show it? Did I fuck.

He said,

“I asked the hospital to notify me on your release.”

My legs were unsteady from disuse and my limp

had roared back with a vengeance. First thing, I lit

a cig, Stewart frowned and I snapped,

“Don’t fucking start.”

He sighed, said,

“The car is over here, I’ll swing it round.”

I began to walk, slowly, badly, but doing it.

Dizziness from nicotine, the cold, freedom, jostled

to land me on my arse but I stayed, if not steady, at

least moving. I said,

“I’ll be in the River Inn, and who knows, I might

even buy you lunch.”

The ice was even worse than I expected and it took

me twenty minutes to maneuver the short distance.

Getting in there—ah, bliss. The waitress who’d

served Gabriel and me like what seemed a lifetime

ago, certainly Loyola’s life, exclaimed,

“By all that’s holy, Jack, what on earth happened

to you?”

I said,

“I got religion.”

She was well used to not understanding a word I

said but she liked me anyway. Led me to a corner

table and I ordered a large toddy. She said,

“And why wouldn’t you? And this is on me.”

Such people kill me. Give me the arseholes, the

head fucking bangers, the predators, and I can

function, but a truly nice person . . . it makes me

want to weep.

I was settled in a comfortable chair, watching the

wind rage outside, the hot Jay before me, trying to

prise the top off the painkiller tube, when Stewart

arrived. He took it all in but said nothing. On the

good side of the hot spirit, the pills doing their

alchemy, I let out my breath. Stewart watching me,

like a dejected Siamese cat, asked,

“How’d you get the black eye?”

“The nurses didn’t like me.”

He nearly smiled, then told me, without emotion, of

Ridge receiving my fingers in the mail and the

continual apparently random attacks on the frail

and vulnerable. I said,

“Let me guess, the victims are all different from the

so-called
ordinary
citizens?”

Those Zen eyes allowed a small surprise. He

asked,

“Go on.”

I told him of the speech the bastard had given me

before he used the knife. He stared at me, asked,

“Close your eyes for a second, visualize the

scene.”

I finished my drink, my stomach already warm and

fuzzy, asked,

“Are you out of your fucking mind? I’m trying like

a banker to blank out the whole thing.”

He persisted,

“Do you trust me Jack?”

Jesus, what a question.

I didn’t trust me own self, never mind anybody

else.

Fuck.

Before I could utter some lame shite like

“Sure…………..but . . .”

he held up his index finger, said,

“This will be brief, I promise. Focus on my finger

and then hear me count from ten.”

I thought,

“Bollocks.”

And then—whiteout.

Literally.

Where did I go?

What happened?

To this bloody day, I’ve no idea. One of those

terrible ironies of alcoholism, striving for

numbness and terrified of losing control.

What the Brits call a
conundrum
.

Great word and I might actually understand what it

means someday.

Stewart was tapping my shoulder, saying,

“You did great; it’s done.”

Took me a moment to refocus. I wasn’t in hospital,

unless they’d installed a bar on the wards and

don’t rule out the possibility. I wasn’t being

tortured, I think, and I felt pretty OK. I asked,

“What did you do?”

He shrugged, no biggie, said,

“Just a mild hypnosis.”

I asked,

“Did I give up my ATM number?”

He nearly smiled, said,

“You remembered a name, the name of the guy who

gave the ethnic cleansing speech.”

I was impressed, asked,

“Who is he?”

“Bine.”

I nearly choked, spluttered,

“Bine, that’s it? The fuck kind of name is that?”

He was deep in thought, held up a hand, the

equivalent of “Sh-issh.”

Which I love.

He said,

“It triggers something. I’m not quite there yet but

I’m so close.”

My waitress brought us over two toasted

sandwiches, said,

“You’re skin and bone Jack.”

Looked at Stewart, with a blend of interest and

amusement, said,

“Don’t worry—yours is vegan.”

He gave her his rare smile and when he did, smile

that is, he looked like a kid, a nice one, and it lit

her up. He said,

“Thank you so very much.”

I swear to God, I knew her a long time and now

she……………

blushed.

She said,

“Ah, ’tis nothing.”

The winning smile again from my Zen maestro and

“Generosity without expectation of recompense is

true spirit.” I could tell, like meself, she wasn’t

entirely sure what the hell he meant but she loved

it; me, not so much. Seeing him revealed, at least a

bit, prompted me to tell him about Laura, or maybe

I was simply maudlin. He seemed truly sorry, said,

“Isn’t there any way you can fix it? I’ll go to bat

for you, tell her what happened.”

I shook my head. Some things you can’t fix. I

switched channels, asked about Malachy, he said,

“Still comatose.”

For all his Zen masks, I knew him—knew there

was something.

I pushed,

“What else, Stewart?”

He tried a bite of the sandwich, liked it, wiped his

mouth, then took a deep breath, told me about

Ridge receiving the fingers. I had no answer. None

that didn’t involve deep obscenities, profound

insanity. I desperately wanted to have another

drink but in deference to him, I didn’t. He

described the attack on Ridge, too, then he

suddenly sat bolt upright, asked,

“The girl. The girl who asked you to find her

brother, . . . what’s his name?”

“Ronan Wall.”

He was cruising into it, asked,

“Describe her.”

I did.

He digested that and whatever wheels were turning

in that eerie head of his were at full speed. He

said, almost to himself, the sandwich forgotten,

“Bine………..abbreviation for . . . ?”

I took a bite of mine; it was good, hint of garlic on

the meat and my favorite, mayo, and I told myself,

soaks up the booze, so got to be good.

He said,

“When they made the attempt on Ridge, there was a

girl, a Goth type, and she sounds a whole lot like

the girl you just described under hypnosis.”

Time for me to add something. I said,

“This group, I figure, four core members. Worse,

these attacks, I think they are only a foretaste of the

main event.”

“Like what?”

I didn’t know, said,

“I don’t know. They could easily have killed me

when they had the chance. But, let me think, OK,

it’s like they’re holding me for the main event. That

make any sense to you?”

It didn’t.

So I blundered on,

“The girl, always the girl. I have a gut feeling, we

find her, we bust this maelstrom wide open.”

The pills, the booze, the food, being out of

hospital, suddenly ganged up on me. I gasped,