Mermaid in a Bowl of Tears (Exit Unicorns Series) (56 page)

The front door, painted a vivid red, opened as he placed a foot on the bottom stair leading up to it. Staring at him with a fierce silver glare was a tiny woman, with a head of hair the color of new pennies. She sat, crook-shouldered, hands laid lightly round the grip of a bat. Minus the armor of her chair she was no more substantial than an eight-year-old child.

“Joan,” Jamie said, nerves flickering along his hands despite his exhaustion.

“Remember my name, do ye? Thought it had slipped yer mind completely.” The voice was pure Protestant Belfast, tough as nails and about as subtle as a sharp cuff to the ear. Jamie held to the first step, neither retreating nor advancing.

“Well are ye goin’ to stand in the stair all day?” she asked. “Sure an’ the rumors’ll be flyin’ up an’ down the street as it is.” She nipped her head to the side sharply, where a suspicious face had poked out through the curtains next door. “Can I do somethin’ for ye, Mrs. Mac?” Her voice was all ironclad politeness.

The head popped back in and a window was heard to shut with an irritated snap.

“Bloody old gossip, told ye to get yer arse inside quick-like. Come on then, man,” she backed her chair deftly into the wide entryway, the bat balanced across her knees.

“Will it cause you trouble?” Jamie asked, slipping in behind her and shutting the door.

“Ah, that one’s tongue flaps like a sheet in the wind, people don’t pay her a great deal of mind. Ye know I’m not one to care what others say, Jamie.”

The chair swiveled about abruptly, the sharp silvery eyes piercing him across the expanse of well-scrubbed flooring and gleaming furniture.

“How are you, Joan?” he asked gently, meeting her gaze with one of his own.

“As well as can be expected an’ no better than I ought to be,” she replied tartly. “Twasn’t for the papers an’ the telly I’d have thought ye’d died an’ been buried without notice years ago,” she said without preamble. Joan had never held with small talk or the protocol of polite conversation. Even if she hadn’t seen you for over a year.

“When did you take to answering the door with a bat in your hands?” Jamie asked.

“Since my brother has been keepin’ the sort of company he holds truck with these days. I imagine it’s him ye’ve come to see.”

Jamie nodded. “I do need to speak with Thrawny, do you know when he’ll be back?”

“How’s yer memory Jamie? Tis only the two days past his pay. He’ll not be sober ‘til Sunday. An’ then he’ll come creepin’ in, tail tucked ‘tween his legs an’ crawl into a corner, not fit for the cat to chew on.”

“Where is he?” Jamie persisted, fixing her with his prettiest smile.

He got a cocked brow and a silver glare in return, then unable to help herself she smiled in return. “Ach, ye fair-faced devil, ye’ll be the ruin of the women yet, won’t ye? He’s up Little Bombay way, Black Mary’s,” she smiled, less civilly, “ye’ll know the address, I believe?”

“I’ll know it,” Jamie said, then with a wink he knelt down in front of the wheelchair, reached inside his coat and then held forth his cupped hands. Joan edged forward almost gingerly, from long experience she knew the man was never predictable. She held her breath and then let it out all at once.

“Do ye never forget a woman’s weaknesses?”

“I’d never be so foolish,” he said and opened his hands into her own. In her work-rough palms, frilled and lucent as a new lime, head tucked under a ruffled wing, was a baby myna bird.

“An’ wee Mountbatten dead the month only, damned bird, I’ve missed him sorely. Ah, but who’s a duck then, darlin’,” she said cooing to the shivering ball of feathers in her palm. “Wherever did ye find him?”

“A certain Mr. Sukhar in Dublin,” Jamie said, happy in Joan’s obvious pleasure. “There’s a bag of food on the steps for him.”

“Can ye spare the time for a cup of tea?” Joan asked, surreptitiously swiping her eyes across her shoulder.

Jamie shook his head regretfully. “Not this time, I’m sorry. I’ve got business to attend to that cannot wait.”

“Is it bad trouble then?”

Jamie glanced up sharply, finger stilled on one downy wing of the tiny bird. “Trouble?”

“Jamie, I’m neither deaf nor a fool,” Joan replied tartly, drawing her twisted frame as upright as she could. “I know what my brother is, an’ I know how many times ye’ve pulled his irons out of the fire. I’m thinkin’ maybe the time for collection on those debts has come. Am I right?”

The green eyes that she’d always found so disarming never faltered under the sharp question of her own. “In a manner of speaking.”

“It’s alright Jamie. Ye don’t need to spare my delicate sensibilities; sittin’ in this chair half my life has left me plenty of time for thinkin’ and questionin’ situations that don’t seem right.”

“I’m sorry Joan,” he said simply, but she understood the wealth of feeling that was disguised in the three short words.

“How’s Colleen?” he asked, eyes averted for the first time in the conversation.

“She was up this Easter past,” Joan said reluctantly.

“It’s alright Joan,” Jamie said quietly, “I never expected that she would cut all ties. You’re her family.”

“An’ what of yerself man, what do you do for family?”

“I manage.”

“Which means ye go it alone, an’ ye drink when ye canna stand the pain no more. Am I right?”

“Roughly speaking.”

“She asks about ye, always, but I never have an answer for her. I tell her that ye don’t come around anymore an’ she says she thought ye were wise enough to understand that we were still yer family too.”

In answer Jamie merely touched the side of her face lightly. “I see Michael when I look at you Joan. He’d the gray eyes and the ha’ penny hair.”

“Do ye think I don’t remember?” she said roughly. “I bathed the wee laddie afore ye put him in his lace.”

“I was always grateful that he only knew loving hands, even if he wasn’t alive to feel them.”

Joan shook her head, lips in a tight line that spoke eloquently of dammed tears. “He was family.”

Jamie bowed his head, fighting the desire to fall asleep where he was. Joan put a hand to the sun-bright hair, stroking it with a tenderness she usually reserved only for her beloved birds.

“I know it’s hard, but do ye think once in a rare while ye might stop by an’ say hello?”

“I will,” he said, head coming up with the mercurial smile firmly in place. It only served to highlight the exhaustion that hung about his edges like a smoky aura.

“If it were anyone else I’d know that for a lie, but I know ye always keep yer word, man.” She grasped his hand in one of her own cracked, red ones, “Make certain it doesn’t get ye killed.”

“I’ll do my best.” He stood on legs that trembled with exhaustion, knowing he didn’t fool her for a second. It was a relief somehow.

In the street he paused for a moment, thinking he felt the skin brush of eyes on the back of his neck. He took a deep breath, shrugged it off, and got in his car.

Behind him a curtain twitched shut, the person behind it smiling grimly to themselves.

BLACK MARY’S ESTABLISHMENT took up a block of six row houses just beyond the fringes of the Little Bombay area of Belfast. The outside of the two-up-two-downs looked pretty much the same as every other building of the type. Inside, though, it was a revelation of silk walls that rose two stories high, a great cavern of a kitchen where some of the best meals in Belfast were known to be partaken of—for the freshest vegetables and choicest cuts of meat always made their way to Mary’s kitchen. Upstairs narrow hallways led to equally discreet and well-appointed rooms. For those weary in spirit, in body, in mind, Black Mary’s provided succor and rest, as well as other activities designed to fill the soft hours when the planet turned its face from the sun. No one really knew where Black Mary originated from, it just seemed that she’d always been there. Olive-skinned and raven-haired as an Indian princess and just as regal, she was a fixture to the environs. Whether one approved of her sort or not was irrelevant.

Jamie’s polite knock at the back door which led, as he well knew, into the kitchen, was answered by a woman of indefinable years, who’d the face of a cherub and the body of the Venus Willendorf. Surprise re-aligned her features from boredom to unfeigned delight. “Well ye pretty golden bastard, we thought ye’d gone an’ left us for good.”

Before Jamie could get his mouth open to make protestations, he was engulfed by dimpled pink arms smelling sweetly of talc, and kissed soundly on the mouth.

“What,” she asked, blue eyes sparkling like aquamarine, “have ye no pearls in yer mouth this time?”

“Pearls?” Jamie queried, with a look of innocence. He stepped into the kitchen to the homey smells of frying sausage and eggs, toast browning lightly and fresh squeezed oranges. Around the kitchen women stood in various states of morning
deshabille
. Some faces he was familiar with, some not. It had been a time since he’d visited Mary’s premises. Suddenly the troubled streets seemed a world away and he could feel a little of the tension leave his neck and shoulders.

The cherub-faced Venus, who went by the rather prosaic moniker of Winnie, led him into the kitchen by the hand, seating him at one of the baronial chairs around the big wooden table. Then she sat in his lap, surrounding him in sweet, silk-wrapped flesh and put her arms comfortably around his neck.

“Don’t tell me ye’ve forgotten the pearls, Jamie?” She ruffled his hair with one plump, be-ringed hand. The other women in the kitchen were staring with undisguised interest now. Winnie made a mock moue of protest. “Ye used to put them in that flowered vodka ye liked so well back then—the one that sounded like a sneeze?”

“Hyacinth,” Jamie supplied.

“Aye, that’ll be the one,” Winnie agreed, “then ye’d drink off the vodka an’ store the pearls in your mouth.”

“An’ then what did he do?” asked a fresh-faced girl, with a mop of red ringlets and a smattering of ginger freckles across her nose, her rosebud mouth an ‘O’ of fascination.

“An’ then,” Winnie said with obvious pleasure, “he’d take his tongue an’—”

This intriguing tale was brought to an end by the appearance in the kitchen doorway of a tall, elegantly-boned lady, with one jet braid flowing down the front of her white silk robe.

“Despite your obvious charms, Winnie, I don’t think our friend is here to see you. Jenny, you’re dripping bacon grease on the floor; there’s a small bucket of sand under the sink, sprinkle some on it.” Having dispatched her orders with a firm tongue, she turned her gaze on Jamie and smiled, the mere act transforming her face into that of a young girl.

“It’s been a very long time, Jamie.”

“It has,” he agreed, as Winnie, flushed with pique, delivered her pretty pink self from his lap.

“Have you come looking for himself?” Mary asked, and Jamie remembered suddenly why she was so good at her chosen profession. She anticipated a man’s requests and wants often before he was aware of having them.

“He’s here?” Jamie asked, rising to his feet and flashing a smile of regret in Winnie’s direction.

“Where else would he be, two days past pay? He’s still halfway down the bottle neck though and not inclined towards company. Come on,” she turned on bare elegant feet, “I’ll lead you to him, but then you’re on your own.”

Jamie followed in Mary’s wake, the clean smell of shampoo and soap wafting back to him.

“He’s going to be sore-headed and miserable as a bear.”

“It won’t be the first time I’ve had to sober him up.”

“Why today?” Mary asked and stopped abruptly in front of a door painted a bright red, which stood in harsh contrast to the other muted tones that graced the hallway. “It’s the only way he can find the right door at night,” she said noting Jamie’s enquiring look. “Why Jamie?” she asked. “I’d think you’d have more important business than this today.”

Jamie smiled, gracefully avoiding the question. “Do I need to sign a waiver for damages before I go in?”

Mary gave him a hard look then opened the door and waved him in. “It’s your neck you’re risking; I’ll not take responsibility for what happens to you in there.”

Jamie nodded. “I’ll take my chances.”

“If you can sober him up you’re a better man than I am,” Mary said, flicking the end of her black braid over her shoulder as she turned on her heel. “I wish you the joy of him.”

The room was dark as the bowels of purgatory and Jamie took a moment to adjust his vision. The furniture was much the same as he remembered; heavy, ornate Victorian, the centerpiece being a monstrous four-poster that would have looked more at home in Buckingham Palace than a Belfast brothel.

On the bed something stirred, emitting a series of loud popping farts before settling itself back into paralytic sleep. Jamie stepped forward and surveyed the smelly heap on the bed with a bemused look. He then retraced his steps down the hall to the bathroom. The taps were cast in bronze and depicted two of the more acrobatic positions from the
Kama Sutra.
He only had need of the one on the right though. He set the plug in the drain and turned the tap to its furthest reaches, rolled up his sleeves and bracing his shoulders, returned to the dark room.

He took hold of the extremely grubby collar of the heap and twisted it, yanking the heap onto its feet. The heap exploded into vociferous cursing, limbs flailing in all directions, even as it was dragged, ungently, down the hall.