Headstone (18 page)

bitterness leak over the tone, “See, good as new.”

There was a brief note:

Concealment comes in many guises.

Kosta.

Stewart would have loved the Zen echo.

Ridge, awkwardly, asked,

“Is it comfortable?”

Nothing wrong with a pun, especially when you

lived in a country that was being rapidly flushed

down the toilet.

I punned,

“If the glove fits.”

Ridge took a rapid look at the Mossberg and

before she could start her Guard tirade, I lied,

“It’s a replica.”

Did this fly?

Did it fuck?

Her face turned melancholic then, and she said,

“Stewart told me about your lady friend, I’m truly

sorry, Jack.”

Jack!

Shite, how sorry was she?

I went the full Irish, said,

“God knows, you’ve had your own troubles.”

She simply nodded, didn’t volunteer more, so I let

it slide, asked,

“You want some coffee, tea?”

“No, thank you, let’s get moving.”

Her car was new, a powerful Audi. She said,

“It’s Anthony’s.”

Then added in that tone that only a woman can,

“For now.”

I kind of liked that.

I certainly never liked the Anglo-Irish prick

anyway.

She was a fine driver, careful, confident, and with

a force that hinted,

“Do not fuck with me.”

She asked, switching gear, literally, no automatic

for good ol’

Anthony,

“How do you think Malachy will be?”

That was a given. I said,

“Like a bad bastard.”

She nearly smiled. I added,

“He’ll also be still scared so expect him to be

even more feisty than usual.”

She risked a look at me, asked,

“Is that how you handle . . . fear?”

I shook my head, said,

“The reason God gave us hurleys.”

She pushed,

“Are you talking from personal experience? I

mean, about the fear and bad temper?”

Too easy.

I told her the truth, to see how that would go,

“I’m bad tempered naturally—my mother’s legacy.

Fear makes me dangerous.”

But play the game. You ask questions like that,

deep stuff , the least you can do is expect a lob

back and I did, asked,

“What about you, you ever afraid?”

We were nearing the hospital and she swerved

neatly to avoid a taxi, said,

“Sometimes I think I was born terrified.”

Deep.

I waited and sure enough, she added,

“Women have one trait in common with horses.”

Now there were so many easy awful bad responses

to that, I just shut the fuck up, waited, she said,

“We

both

know

early

on,

we

are………………….prey.”

Maybe I was deflecting my own answer, so I

asked,

“And how do you deal with the fear? I mean, you

personally. Horses at least can run.”

She was sliding the powerful car smoothly into a

space just vacated, seemed as if she didn’t hear

me, then as she cut the engine, she turned to me,

gave me the full blast of her wide blue eyes, said,

“Not with replicas.”

Of course, I hadn’t brought the Mossberg to the

hospital. I wasn’t intending to shoot the grouchy

priest but maybe . . .

We got out of the car. It was so reassuring to see

my right hand appear whole. Total illusion but

isn’t damn near everything? What can bear deep

scrutiny? As we walked toward the main entrance,

I veered to the right, saying,

“Hold it a moment.”

I moved towards a shed. The smokers’ latest

quarantine. Ridge scoffed,

“You can’t be bloody serious. Malachy just came

out of a coma, you can’t possibly believe?”

I gave her my best smile, part humor, mostly

malicious. Dared, “Want to bet?”

We entered the shed. The thick density of the

smoke made it nigh impossible to distinguish

anyone. It was like seeing wisps of spirits trailing

IVs, shrouded bodies on the precipice of a low-key

volcano. I said to Ridge, she of the new James Lee

Burke addiction,

“Ghosts of the nicotine mist.”

Then added,

“There’s our boy.”

Sitting on a rusty bench was a caricature of the man

we’d both known. He’d aged ten years and lost a

shitload of weight. He’d never been a poster boy

for any health board but now he looked like he was

waiting his turn to be put in the wooden box. I

hailed,

“Malachy.”

He looked up, his eyes so far back in his skull they

could only be seeing inwards. He said,

“Taylor, the devil in person.”

He was obviously intact, as far as his bitterness

went. He bellowed, “What do you want?”

Apart from hitting him upside his stubborn head?

Then he saw

Ridge, changed his tack completely, tried to stand,

said,

“Ban Ni Iomaire, conas atá tú?” (How are you?)

I wondered if he’d be so fucking cordial if he

knew she married a Prod. I tried to help him to his

feet but he shrugged it off , took Ridge’s arm.

How lucky I’m not sensitive. We got him back

inside, smoke trailing behind him like the worst of

the tabloids. He had his own room on the third

floor. In a hospital, where people lingered on

trolleys for days, it showed the Church might be

under attack but it had lost precious little of its

clout. It’s not so much the Church minding its own

as keeping them out of sight. Ridge helped him into

bed. A massive crucifix hung over it, and, with any

luck, would come crashing down, God coming to

him, so to speak. Ridge did the nurse gig of fluffing

his pillows, set them so he could be upright. The

top of his pajamas was open, exposing a thin chest,

bones protruding and covered with sparse gray

hair. A very old battered scapular was intertwined

among the dingy hair.

That got to me.

Moved me in ways I would never analyse, at least

not this side of a bottle of the Jay. I reached in my

Garda coat, handed over a 7-Up bottle. He

regarded it with withering disdain, said,

“A mineral, that’s what you brought? I hate fizzy

drinks.”

I stared at him, said,

“It’s not soda.”

Ridge threw me a look of pure hatred. Malachy

took the top off, downed a hearty swig, gasped as

the raw alcohol bit, and came as close to a smile

as he ever would. A red flush already spreading

across his mottled old face, he uttered,

“Sin and fear.”

Means, that’s my man, in total delight. Took

another blast, blessed himself, said,

“Sweet Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.”

No mention of the bollix who brought the stuff . We

couldn’t stay long as the doctors were doing their

rounds and I didn’t want to be there when they

smelled the sheer potency of his breath. We had a

lot of questions but they could wait. Ridge gave

him a gentle warm hug, lest she break one of those

brittle bones. I didn’t . . . give him a hug.

The soda had definitely enlivened him and he

spotted my hand,

asked,

“What’s with the glove, some sort of Michael

Jackson commutations?”

I could have mentioned the item doing the rounds,

Saint Padre

Pio’s healing glove, but went mundane, said,

“Caught my fingers in a door.”

He stared at me, muttered,

“Drunk no doubt.”

I fucking wish.

Ridge was silent and tight-lipped as we took the

elevator down.

She marched, and I mean marched, to the car, said,

“Get in.”

She had to be fucking kidding?

Right?

She of all the people on the planet knew how I

responded to orders.

I asked,

“What’s the bug up your arse?”

Not exactly PC but then what was anymore? Keys

in her hand, she turned, venom jumping from her

eyes, said,

“You brought spirits to a man out of a coma?”

I tried for levity, said,

“Better than the usual, drink putting half the country

into a coma.”

Didn’t fly, oddly enough. She said,

“Every time I try to cut you some slack

you…………”

She paused, fighting for some semblance of control

but losing, continued,

“And you just…….just…………piss all over it.”

It was direct, I’ll give her that. She indicated the

car, meaning the car, and I said,

“Thanks officer, I’d prefer to walk.”

Was she finished?

Was she fuck.

Near screamed,

“I keep thinking you might change and then you

descend to a new level of . . . of . . . depravity.”

I began to walk away, said,

“Least I raised his spirits.”

I didn’t look back but the screech of tires told me

how she liked that.

The walk to town was treacherous, icy paths

making a slip almost inevitable. An old woman

ahead of me, walking as if her life depended on it

(and it probably did), was making slow uneasy

progress. I was right behind her as she lost it,

caught her just in time and managed to steady her.

She began to weep, said,

“I have to do the shopping, we haven’t a thing in

the house.”

I hailed a passing taxi. The driver rolled down the

window, said,

“Taylor, I heard you were dead.”

I handed over some notes, said,

“Will you take this lady to the supermarket, wait

for her, and then bring her home?”

He shrugged, sure, no biggie.

I helped her into the backseat and she dried her

eyes with a spotless white hanky, looked at me,

said,

“You’re an angel.”

The driver snorted.

I closed the door, nearly slipped doing it, and the

cab eased away, like a gentle ghost into the black

city.

Not a story that I’d share with Ridge. She wouldn’t

believe it anyway. As I continued my careful walk,

I thought,

“What does that buy you?”

And knew.

Nothing, nothing at all.

Pawnshops, under the guise of buying used gold or

any item like laptops, musical instruments, or

DVDs, had sprung up almost overnight. They had

fancy names but they were pawnshops, like the

ones of my youth, where women pawned their

husband’s suit to put food on the table, and

redeemed it if a wedding or funeral arose. Hoping

for a funeral—mainly the husband’s. I stopped in

the newest one in Mary Street, beside the

vegetable outlet, and lo and wondrous, found the

whole of the first season of
Breaking Bad
. For

three euros and ninety-nine cents.

I was seriously delighted.

Belief in nothing is at least

a belief.

—Jack Taylor

I finally got to Garavan’s in little under an hour.

All along the route, I’d heard people bemoaning

the

burst pipes,

homes without water,

government threatening a water rationing scheme.

Just deepened the gloom of a nation already

desperately despairing. I stood at the counter,

relishing the heat. The barman said,

“’Tis like a biblical plague, wave after wave of

chaos.”

He let my pint sit before he topped and creamed it

off , asked, “Did you ever see the likes of it,

Jack?”

No.

He handed me the
Irish Independent
and I took a

corner table. I was looking at all the sporting

fixtures cancelled when he brought over my pint

and Jay outrider. I was working on the pint when a

large, barrel-chested man approached, sat down on

the stool across from me. He had a sparkling water

with a slice of lemon, placed it neatly on the table.

I asked,

“Help you?”

He gave a bitter smile, said,

“I’m the new sheriff in town.”

I raised my pint, said,

“Good luck with that.”

Didn’t faze him. He said,

“I’m a professional, a fully qualified investigator,

so I’m here to tell you that you can officially

retire.”

I took a swing of the Jameson, let it warm my gut,

asked,

“Do I get a gold watch?”

He leant across the table, said,

“Wise up Taylor, you’re done. The fucking state of

you, hearing aid, limp, missing fingers, drinking

before lunch. You’re like a mangy alley cat, the

nine lives fucked and gone, but no one told the

poor bastard.”

I sat back, asked,

“You a Brit?”

Flash of anger, his fists actually bunched, he asked,

“What the fuck does that matter?”

I smiled, said,

“More than you think, Sheriff .”

He shook his head in disgust, said,