Purgatory (18 page)

The guy who’d made the Joan Rivers joke leaned over, asked,

“That your wife?”

Shocking the be-Jaysus out of us equally, I said,

“God forbid.”

Said,

“Maybe a bit of mirror fasting, eh?”

Her face was a blend of bile and reined violence.

I did the real smart thing. I began to leave. Ridge in that bitch mode, head for the street, fast. She snapped,

“Where are
you
going?”

I turned, stared, said,

“The hell away from you, Sergeant.”

“Superintendent Clancy wants to talk to you, and I mean
now
.”

“Tell him I was doing my usual solving.”

“What?”

“You know, drinking.”

She grabbed my arm. I looked at that, said,

“Bad idea.”

She let go, asked,

“Please?”

Ground it out between her teeth. I smiled, said,

“See, not so hard. Let’s go see the super.”

Clancy and I had such bad history, we nigh forgot most of the reasons he hated me. Dressed in his full True Blues, he cut an impressive figure, at least he thought so. I asked,

“Been watching Tom Selleck, I guess.”

He surveyed me, not much liking a single thing he saw, said,

“This C33 nonsense you’re spreading has got to stop.”

I sighed, then,

“Best tell that to C33 is my shot.”

He shuffled some papers, said,

“You might remember I told you we were investigating some cold cases.”

Let me savor that. He’d threatened to show my beloved dad had stolen funds from the railway pension fund. Destroy any decency our fragmented family weakly held. Now he let me see which way I wanted to jump.

As if I’d a whole load of choice. I asked,

“And for . . . the . . . um . . . railway case not to be a priority, so to speak?”

He smiled, a thing of pure ugliness, said,

“I’m surmising your interest in C33 is . . . waning.”

I asked,

“Who’s C33?”

He leaned back in his full leather chair, said,

“Run along, there’s a good lad.”

The Irish shit sandwich, pat your head as they kick your arse.

28

“Wasn’t it an awful thing that we were lost in the woods last night?”

Rudolph Valentino to his manager as he drew his last breath. The manager said something trite and Valentino answered,

“I don’t think you appreciate the humor of that, do you?”

There was a school of thought that felt the world was made up of those who
got this
and those who
didn’t
.

And I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word I’m saying.

—Oscar Wilde,
“The Remarkable Rocket”

I met with Westbury in his office. If any of the deaths had affected him in any way, he wasn’t showing it. Dressed in a suit that must have cost three fortunes, he asked,

“How exactly can I help you, Mr. Taylor?”

A lawyer calls you mister, lose your wallet as he already owns it. I said,

“Call me Jack.”

Got an enigmatic smile that gave away precisely zero. He didn’t extend the courtesy so I figured we were still definitely not on first-name territory. I said,

“Just a strange coincidence. Five of the people you represented are dead. Worse, murdered.”

He looked at me, then,

“Is there a question in there . . . Jack?”

Leaning, oh so slightly, on my name. No fucking with this guy. I said,

“I wondered if you’d an opinion on that?”

His smile spread, a joke he’d written the punch line for many times. He said,

“Jack, my opinion is very, very measured. You can read that as expensive.”

Before I could answer, he asked,

“You are here in any, how shall I put it, legal capacity?”

Like he didn’t know. I said,

“Stewart was my best friend. I don’t know what
legal
weight that carries.”

He shot back,

“Well, I can answer that easily and, better, not charge you. Its weight is zilch, nada, and, as they say in our native tongue,

Níl rud ar bith agat.”

That last bit nicely translates as,

“You’ve fuck all, Jack.”

Kelly was sipping a Bloody Mary in the bar at Jury’s, bottom of Quay Street. I hadn’t arranged to meet her. It was one of those bars where you could see the interior from the street. I’d been fuming along, simmering after leaving Westbury, when I glanced to my right, saw her. Turned and went in. If she was glad to see me, she was hiding it well. Lunch hour was looming and I asked,

“Getting an early start?”

She was wearing a dazzling white tracksuit, her hair tied up in that
no nonsense
bun that women do effortlessly. A hardcover of
The Importance of Being Oscar
was open before her. She stared at me, mused,

“Taylor or Wilde?”

Then, deciding, shut the book. A waitress approached and I ordered a Galway sparkling water. Kelly said,

“Another of those.”

Indicating her own now-finished drink, the girl asked,

“Tomato juice?”

Kelly sighed, said,

“Yeah, with a shipload of Grey Goose.”

Kelly asked,

“And how are you, Jacques?”

Like a damn fool I began to tell her. During the telling, her drink arrived and finally she did that

. . .
wind it up fellah
motion.

Said,

“Jesus, Taylor, when I asked you, I didn’t really care and guess what? I care even fucking less now.”

I physically moved back, said,

“Phew, you really are not in a good place.”

She looked at her empty glass, like,

“How’d that happen?”

Said,

“I’m sorry, Jack, it’s just Stewart.”

And trailed off.

WTF?

I echoed,

“Stewart?”

She seemed to be tearing up, said,

“We’d become close. Well, Zen proximity.”

Christ, she sounded like him. I asked,

“You and Stewart?”

She said,

“Not sure you were the friend to him you could have been.”

And, with that blow, stood, touched my face with her hand, said,

“I need to grieve.”

And was gone.

Leaving me the bill and the Wilde book.

Trust me,

1. Bloody Marys and, yeah, a sparkling water

2. Are not cheap.

I left the book as a cheap tip and got out of there before I had to face the waitress. I was out of cash and definitely out of options.

I went after her, determined to ask about her husband, Reardon, the new drug named C33. But, on Quay Street, there was no sign.

Back at my flat, I cracked a beer, sat down to watch the last four episodes of
Life
(Season 2) with Damian Lewis. And you guessed it, another canceled show. A crime. The final episode had writing and drama the equal of anything on HBO.

All of this to distract my mind, the reeling conflicting notions:

Stewart and Kelly?

Reardon and C33.

Ridge and extreme annoyance.

The brew was good, a batch of Sam Adams I found in McCambridge’s. All I needed was an NFL game, shout,

“Go Giants . . .”

And I’d have the U.S. to me.

Without leaning on the metaphor too much, but a drink-fucked PI, with mutilated fingers, bad hearing, watching shows that got canceled, yeah, that’s about right.

My phone shrilled. It had that whine that cautioned,

“This is nothing good.”

Said,

“Better be good.”

Got,

“Taylor, Reardon here.”

I took a breath, spat,

“You son of a bitch, you’ve been Mickey Finning me.”

Pause.

“Mickey what the fuck?”

“Doping me, with some untested shite that could kill me or worse.”

He laughed, asked,

“You’ve been free from hangovers, am I right?”

“At what price, can you tell me that, you bollix?”

More snickering, then,

“It’s life, Jack. We’re all fucked.”

Maybe we’d been watching the same TV series.

“Jack, you need to rein it in. You’ll be suitably rewarded.”

“Not in heaven, I hope.”

“You’re a funny guy, Jack.”

“So assholes keep telling me.”

“I’ll drop by this evening. We can . . . chat.”

When I didn’t answer, he said,

“One more thing, buddy.”

“Yeah?”

“That sense of humor. Keep it honed. You’re goanna fucking need it.”

He rang off. I cracked another Sam, idled on shooting the bastard the minute he walked in the door. No prelim, no
chat
.

Just blow his shit away.

Made the beer taste even better than it had, gave it an edge.

I was half in the bag when he eventually showed. He was still sporting the grunge look, like a reanimated Cobain.

A pair of combat pants that had designer stains or not. A T-shirt with the logo
I’d kill for a hit.

Cute.

He said,

“Yo, bro.”

Jesus.

Flopped in the sofa, asked,

“I could go a brew, my man.”

Went to the fridge, lobbed a Sam, and he caught it expertly. Looked at the label, said,

“Class.”

My desire to wallop him had waned as I’d downed enough booze. Normally it fueled my murderous compulsion but not this time. I asked,

“This dope you’re feeding me, the name, is it, like, C . . . for chemical?”

He drained the bottle, belched, said,

“C33?”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t know?”

He seemed genuinely surprised. I said,

“Like I’d be fucking asking?”

He stood, danced to the fridge, grabbed a brew, flicked the top off, said,

“But, correct me if I’m wrong, you were in the bookstore together, right?”

I was lost, gestured with my shoulders. He said,

“Kelly. She got the Wilde book that day, I think. Shit, you paid for it, she said.”

I stood in front of him, said,

“For fuck’s sake, just tell me and quit the fucking riddles.”

Unfazed, he said,

“Kelly had a thing for Wilde, so, C33, the number of his cell in Reading Gaol.”

Part 2

Purgatory Looms

29

He wanted to be a priest and, at the same time, he was prepared to beat people up and shoot them and kill them. That’s not about conflicting goals; that’s about
The Three Faces of Eve
.

—Edward Dolnick,
The Rescue Artist

Scepticism is the beginning of faith.

—Wilde,
The Picture of Dorian Gray

Philip Larkin in the last year of his life would start the morning with three glasses of cheap wine, bought in bulk from the supermarket, said, “You’ve got to have some fucking reason for getting up in the morning.”

Ridge was reeling between ferocious grief over Stewart and anger at Jack. Somehow, it had to be Jack’s fault, then at least it made some sort of bewildering sense. Jack was nearly always to blame. The whole C33 scenario of Jack’s made her boil. Jesus, if there was a conspiracy to be hatched, Jack would be right there, fueling it. She raged at the cosmic unfairness of it all.

Stewart, who lived so
carefully.
Barely drank, didn’t smoke, practiced Zen, worked out furiously, and he
dies.
Jack, with his mutilated fingers, near deafness, limp, crazed drinking, intermittent chain-smoking, cocaine binges, diet of every carb known to man, many beatings, flagrant breaking of the law, bad temper, he . . .