Screwed (27 page)

“Motherfucker,” says Ninja, and shakes his head. He makes a sound like three quick shots through a silencer, maybe he’s laughing.

Ninja places the silencer’s tip between my eyes, then wags a gloved finger at me, spattering my face with blood and the meaning is clear.

Do not come after me.

He needn’t worry. I ain’t ever coming after this guy. Shoot me once, shame on you; shoot me twice, shame on me, and I got enough shame in my life already, believe me.

As he wags his finger a fourth unnecessary time, Ninja’s sleeve rides up a little and I see an inch of skin between the glove and cuff. Sallow skin with two colored string bracelets looped around the wrist.

I force myself to not think about this now. Do not show any recognition, because that could change Ninja’s mind about sparing me. I close my eyes tight and act like I’m totally and utterly ruined. It ain’t really an act.

I count to thirty trying to concentrate on the numbers. Nothing else. No conclusions drawn. Then I open my eyes, see the Ninja has gone and I think:

Pablo.

Feck me, it was Pablo. Edit’s personal trainer obviously has a couple of non–gymnasium-based talents.

Krieger and Fortz were loose ends so they had to be clipped.

Why was I spared?

Stupid question. I was spared because Ronnie warned Edit that if anything happened to me, she would come looking.

Pablo got lucky that he shot my backpack.

It’s genius really. Edit sends Krieger and Fortz to the local gangster’s house to ask for help locating me. Then Pablo takes them out. Mike don’t wanna be caught with two bent cops in his manor so he’ll probably dispose of the bodies.

Sweet and neat. Except I threw my monkey dick in the machine.

Luckily my monkey dick was wearing a Kevlar backpack.

It takes me about five minutes to get to my feet and check the party room. Plenty of abandoned champagne glasses littering the floor but no people. Zeb did what he was told for once and got Sofia the hell out of there. After another five minutes pass I feel ready to tackle climbing the wall. But before quitting this rural abattoir I make myself pee in the water bottle from the hotel. I don’t really need to go at the moment, but I carried the bottle all the way out here so damned if I ain’t gonna use it.

CHAPTER 11

I
WAKE UP IN MY HOTEL ROOM TO A TWEET FROM SIMON
.

If you aren’t sure how to interpret my words of wisdom. Please ask. The last thing I need is patients doing stuff in my name.

I think Simon is granting himself absolution from whatever his flock of patients might get up to.

Messiah complex anyone? Paging Dr. Jesus.

That phrase is a little redundant. I mean, who believes in Jesus anymore? And if you want to see teenagers crap themselves laughing, try explaining what a pager used to be. You tell ’em about cassette tapes and they think you’re one lying, old Depends-wearing motherfucker.

The following is a transcript of a conversation I had with Jason’s nephew:

Me: The songs were pressed onto a long tape. Six songs per side, then you turned it over.

Nephew: Turned what over?

Me: The tape in the machine, but you had to be careful or the machine would eat the tape and you’d have to straighten it out with a pencil.

Nephew: Fuck off, Gandalf. You’re making this shit up.

Five minutes later I get another message, this time from Mike.

Get over to the club now, laddie. We need to wrap this up. Be here by noon, or else?

Balls.

I was hoping Mike might be traumatized by last night. Also there was no need for a question mark at the end of Mike’s text. It’s not as if we don’t know what happens if I don’t do as I’m told.

I’m gonna have to whip out Tommy’s video. How much of it he watches is up to Mike.

So I’m on my merry way to get shot in the head. If I had to compile a list of possible traumatic moments in the life of an Irish male, the classic head shot would be right up there with driving test and turning Pops on his side so the puke doesn’t choke him, especially when the temptation is there to let the vomit do its work. It’s nature, right? Who’s gonna blame a ten-year-old kid?

Maybe I told you before that I’m not big on the whole flashback thing? I probably told you right before launching into a flashback thing.

But I don’t have flashbacks per sé, what I do have is a good memory for the bad times. I think of my mom and I see her weeping in a corner, dishcloth clutched to her breast masking the ripped blouse. I think on little Patrick and I see his moon face and those wonky teeth that would surely have needed braces, inkblot bruises covering his cheek, and him thinking he’s a bad kid, that everything’s his fault.

I got a head-shot memory too. From guess where? The Lebanon, big surprise, right.

Zeb says to me: What’s all this THE Lebanon shit? It’s Lebanon, okay? You don’t say THE Ireland or THE Israel.

So I come back with: You say THE United States.

It went on like that for a coupla hours until Zeb got one of his periodic boners and had to excuse himself for twenty minutes. That guy is like Old Faithful, when is he gonna slacken off? He’s in his forties now for feck sake.

Anyway, my head-shot memory. The UN trucked us over to Damour to throw stern looks at the locals, who were hell-bent on revenge on PFLP and DFLP militiamen who had just defiled a cemetery, dragging coffins out of their neat rows, executed a stack of Christians and painted a mural of Fatah guerrillas holding AK-47 rifles on the church wall.

A quick aside: revolutionary groups all got their go-to mural guys. A good inspiring mural can swing 10 percent of the don’t-knows, not to mention make the revolutionaries feel validated. These guys are not just slopping paint onto walls, it’s at least as legitimate an art form as graffiti. Banksy was never darkly satirical with automatic fire knocking chunks out of his canvas. It’s the worst-kept secret in Irish republican circles that the artist who did a lot of the good stuff on the Falls Road was actually an Ulster Unionist who strapped on his orange sash on march day. I guess you get a pass if you provide a valuable service.

Anyway, back to the Lebanon. There we were, in the rear of a truck driving straight into the aftermath of a massacre. I know for a fact, because we took a poll in the truck, that twelve point five men out of sixteen had no clue what PFLP or DFLP stood for, never mind the difference between the groups. I don’t know how we arrived at point five of a guy in those calculations.

In the course of our sweep we happened on a Phalangist militiaman inside the gutted church with half a dozen Japanese Red Army terrorists trussed up in the aisle. There had been talk of Red Army guys helping out with the Popular Front but I always thought that was barracks’ bullshit. But here these guys were, Japanese no doubt about it, down on their knees being all stoic for the most part, about to pay the ultimate price for their roles in the recent massacre. I don’t know how a lone Phalangist managed the logistics of wrapping six enemy soldiers in restraints but it was pretty clear that he to take advantage of their immobility to speed the Red Army boyos directly to whichever pearly gates they believed in, fervently hoping there would be a distinct absence of virgin hosts there to greet them.

We just kinda looked on for a second, a little perplexed to be honest. Intrigued too, like we were watching the whole show on TV. Peacekeepers aren’t on anyone’s side as such, so plugging this super-soldier would lead to one clusterball of a debriefing. Tommy Fletcher let his trademarked cow-scaring roar at the guy, followed by:

“Hey, gobshite. Step away from the prisoners.”

The Phalangist responded by shrieking in shock, then shooting the first Red Army guy in the head. The guy looked minorly disappointed for a second, like his car wouldn’t start, then keeled over.

“Balls!” exclaimed Tommy and rushed the gunman. We all followed suit and there ensued a macabre version of Duck Duck Goose with us jabbering while the Phalangist dodged between the Red Army lads plugging as many as he could before we subdued him.

By the time we piled on, the guy had a score of five and he would have completed the set had his frankly ancient Luger not blown up in his hand and shredded his fingers.

Is that a funny story in retrospect? Is there a touch of humor to be gleaned from a domino line of Japanese terrorists?

Not for me.

I think on it too long and the strength of the images really drags me under. The guy with the gun staring in shock at his own mangled hand. The last Japanese soldier singing a simple melody high and clear. I’ve been trying to find that song ever since. Don’t know why. It sounded like he was repeating the phrase abandon we but that can’t have been it. Wrong language. The air in the church was baked orange and heavy with moisture, a miasma that clung to our uniforms. And Tommy squatting on the Phalangist, who was maybe eighteen, taking a poll as to whether we should report all of this or just go on our merry way and pretend nothing had ever happened.

So we took the path of no resistance. We cut the surviving prisoner loose, used the bonds to tie up the Phalangist, which must have earned us a grudging nod from the gods of irony and got ourselves the hell away from that bloodbath, because there is no way to come out of a three-way balls up like that smelling of anything but fear and death.

By the way, we worked out what fear smells like one night in the barracks and I still stick by the formula: 50 percent stale sweat, 30 percent gas and 20 percent stink of your own private hellhole. Wherever what bad thing happened to you happened.

When fear creeps up on me, my first sensory clue is the stink of that church with trussed corpses clogging up the aisle trumping the ghosts of brides being escorted by their proud fathers.

I voted the same as everybody else. Get the hell out.

Abandon we.

I know. Sounds a lot like a flashback, but I don’t get flashbacks.

There’s only one iron left in the fire now. It ain’t my iron and I didn’t light the fire but I gotta put it out before this metaphor gets away from me and no one has a clue what the hell I’m talking about.

Writ simple: Irish Mike Madden reckons I still owe him. After all the shit that happened, Mike still reckons I got a tab to settle. I am starting to think it’s never gonna be enough with this guy.

Also I know damning stuff like how he rolled me into the whole Shea/Freckles thing like some kind of Trojan horse: shiny on the outside, deadly on the inside. And then when you open a door to the inside the deadly comes out through the hole, like Achilles. I guess if you have to explain the imagery, then the imagery is kind of redundant. Still, I think the Trojan horse thing would have worked if I’d left it alone.

Anyways, now I gotta swing by his place and hope he’s feeling magnanimous on account of how things turned out with the Shea situation. Not only is Mike out from under New York’s shadow but there’s talk of him picking up the Shea slack, making him a genuine player, which could come in handy if any of the Jersey Boys get fed up listening to stories about a Mick operating locally.

So, it is possible that Mike will call it evens and we can all get back to business.

Possible, but about as likely as a hyena spitting out a hunk of red meat, which is then eaten by a supermodel, which is not probable firstly because hyenas don’t ever not eat meat and supermodels hardly ever do, then there’s the obvious hygiene issue and thirdly there’s the geographical factor, as in there are not many supermodels hanging around sub-Saharan Africa.

Apart from Iman.

And Waris Dirie.

Unlikely is what I’m trying to say.

I think my shrink was right. Maybe I am too much of a deconstructionist, but I would argue that it’s undeniable at this point that watching Fashion Police can be educational.

In this spirit of optimism for the future, I do not bring any guns along. Also I know whoever’s on the door will be giving me the cavity search.

From experience I know never talk to Mike until he’s had his first blow job of the day, which is usually about eleven. Even though Mike’s blood is green, he’s big on the whole English feudal lords conjugal rights law that got Mel Gibson so riled in Braveheart. So I stroll over just after the midday deadline to give Mike a chance to let off steam. To be honest, I feel a little weird to be out on the street without anyone pointing a gun at me. Every now and then I do a little jinky sidestep just in case there’s a guy on a rooftop watching me through a Zeiss, and I make it to Mike’s block without anyone taking a potshot so either I’m just paranoid or my zigzagging actually works.

I guess I should enjoy not being a target while it lasts.

Mr. Nose Beard, Manny Booker, is outside on the door giving the world his best tough-guy face but I’m guessing he’s sweating bullets inside the navy suit Mike forces his men to wear. You put the facial hair and the suit together and you got a lot of heat bearing down on a little brain. That’s a recipe for violent disaster.

I approach Manny slow and obvious, because I reckon this guy is close to the edge with me and it’s my own damn fault. I can’t help screwing with Booker because he’s so earnest about the whole gangsta thing. He spends his days fretting over saving face or someone disrespecting him. Every little thing is end-of-days important to Manny. Just walking down the block he has to be bristling with menace. Someone should tell Manny that he just comes off as constipated. When God sends a guy that intense your way it is your duty to take the piss, as my quotable buddy Zebulon Kronski said: When you find a prick this big, you gotta play with it a little.

Never a truer word.

So I make sure Booker gets a good look at me as I come up the steps.

“Hey, Manny,” I say. “How you doing today? Beard looks good. Verdant.”

I realize that I have screwed with this boy too much and now he doesn’t recognize sincerity when he sees it.

“Ver-fucking-what? Fuck you, McEvoy. I’ll be doing good when I cut off your prick and ram it down your throat.”

I’d swear this is a line from some Godfather-lite movie.