The Emerald Lie (14 page)

They used to say that you came to a full stop when you died. I’ve had many beatings in my time, with

Hurleys

Steel-capped boots (courtesy of two rogue Guards)

Baseball bats

Blunt instruments of various hues, including whiskey bottles and KA-BARs.

But this hiding in the toilet of the ferry was close to being the worst.

In the movies, the hero takes a beat-down, he rises with designer bruises and gung ho attitude. They don’t show you soiling yourself to add shame to the hurt. Lying there, in piss and blood, you do your damnedest not to cry.

Doesn’t work.

This blubbering mess of myself was airlifted to the Beaumont hospital. And another month lost as I rallied, relapsed, suffered, and withered. But they persevered and a few days before my release Sergeant Ridge traveled all the way from Galway to interrogate me.

Sweet girl.

Ridge looked tired and old. She stood at the end of my bed, disapproval writ large and largest. As I struggled to sit upright
and face the shitstorm, the lyrics of Nine Inch Nails, “Somewhat Damaged,” riffed in my head. I asked,

“What kept you?”

She shook her head, said,

“Always the mouth.”

I’d have murdered somebody for a drink, a cig, asked,

“You bring any tidings of good cheer, or refreshments?”

Her face was locked in distaste, she was not going to bend an inch. Said,

“You disappear. For months, not even your wacko bitch friend, the Emily cow, knew where you were. Couldn’t find her or even a trace of her, as if she was a figment of your deranged imagination.

“I’ve been told you were paid by Parker Wilson’s niece to prove his innocence. I’m simply here to see if you have any information to move the whole mess forward, though from your appearance I’d guess it was just your usual piss-up, disguised as an investigation.”

The guy on the ferry beat me up professionally. Now Ridge was going to beat me down with guilt. I said,

“There’s a man, a pedophile, traveling with a young boy, heading I think for the Aran Islands. You need to find them.”

She sighed, a sigh my cursed mother would have owned, said,

“And I’m your messenger boy? Am I to gather this guy beat the holy crap out of you?”

I tried,

“Put your personal feelings for me aside. A boy is in serious danger.”

She nearly smiled, a smile of utter joylessness, said,

“I put everything about you aside a long time ago.”

We traded a few more insults but, truly, they were halfhearted, we had kind of lost the ability to really wound each other after Stewart died. I gave her the description of the man and boy, asked,

“How is the case on the grammar guy progressing?”

She was going to ignore that but veered, said,

“Another murder and we still can’t pin it on him.”

She took out a notebook, wrote down the details of the man and boy, said,

“I’ll do background on the man, see if we get a red flag.”

I wanted to say thank you but knew she’d blow that down so settled for,

“Well, mind yourself.”

Lame as fuck but in Ireland we say it when we don’t really want to go with

“Go fuck yourself.”

She did that long searching look, the one that implies,

“Surely there is something of merit in you …”

But

“Fucked if I can see it.”

She said,

“No point, Jack, in wishing you luck, you are so far out on borrowed time, it’s beyond comprehension.”

And she was gone.

Leaving a blank space that whispered,

“All is ashes.”

The nurse came in, did the annoying fluffing pillows gig, said,

“I thought you were going to be arrested.”

I settled down in the bed, said,

“Not too late.”

She slammed a thermometer into my mouth, said,

“You need to get a positive attitude.”

Yes, that was really what was missing with my life.

Emily was raising a frozen margarita to her lips, seated in the bar of the newest cocktail club off Shop Street. Time back, this had been a lap dancing club but the Church, with its dwindling power, managed to get the place closed. Cocktail bars weren’t really a Galway thing but some poor fool forever kept trying. The locals gave it, tops, a month before it shut. Meanwhile, it was thriving, if briefly.

Doc came storming in, dressed in what ex-army guys thought of as casual. Cords, topped off with the fucked worn wax jackets, like a royal who wandered off from a pheasant shoot.

Took him a minute to find his bearings. He looked like someone who’d stumbled into the wrong scene in the wrong movie. Then he saw her, glared, and marched over. She raised her glass in mock salute.

He plunged,

“Where the hell have you been? Three days you don’t come home?”

She took a long hit of the margarita, then spoke very quietly.

“Home? Are you seriously calling the rabbit hole you have …”

Pause.

“Home?”

Got him.

Good.

Before he could stammer a reply, she said,

“I was using you as a way to be close to Jack and, hey, guess what, it didn’t, like, work.”

He moved to sit down, weakness hurling at his knees, and she hissed in that same lethal quiet tone,

“Don’t sit.”

He had served two terms in NI, did a stint in Bosnia, and very little fazed him anymore but now he was, well, fucked. He tried,

“What am I supposed to do, darling?”

She seemed to be seriously contemplating this, then,

“Hop on over there, get me another one of these babes.”

He looked forlornly toward the bar and she added,

“One more thing, macchiato.”

“Yes?”

“Don’t ever call me darling again.”

Tail between your legs. Doc had heard it many times but now knew what it truly felt like. He stood outside the bar, no idea where to go, when he heard,

“Doc. Is it Doc?”

The woman seemed vaguely familiar and, like most people in this damned city, in some way connected to Taylor. She said,

“I’m Sergeant Ridge. We met briefly last year.”

He didn’t remember and could care less. He said,

“Shouldn’t you be off catching the grammar lunatic?”

She gave a tight forced smile, said,

“I see being friends with Mr. Taylor has rubbed off on your attitude.”

He looked up at the sky and, as always, it seemed on the verge of storm, and how fucking fitting that was. He said,

“Unless you wanted me for anything, why don’t you just, in the idiom of this lovely town, fuck right off?”

Ridge watched him slump away. She had heard he’d been in the army but any trace of military bearing seemed to have been sucked right out of him. One thing she knew from being a Guard, a man looks that downbeat, there is usually a woman involved. On instinct, she headed into the bar. It was her evening off but maybe she could combine a few cocktails and work. Saw Emily immediately. All the energy in the room seemed to gravitate toward her. She thought,

“Bloody bitch.”

With an enigmatic smile, Emily watched her approach. As Ridge reached for a seat, she said,

“Don’t join me.”

Ridge smiled. Nothing she liked better than a confrontation.

She sat.

Emily studied her, said,

“See the clothes budget is a bit stretched, or is that a gay thing? You know, looking cheap?”

Ridge signaled a waiter, ordered a rum and Coke. The waitress protested,

“We have a full range of cocktails, I could provide the menu …”

Ridge didn’t even look at her, said,

“Just get the bloody drink.”

Emily curled up into herself, not from defense but from utter delight, said,

“Oh, that is so forceful. I’m guessing you’re the bull dyke in the gig.”

Ridge continued to watch her, but Emily didn’t blink, which gained a tiny measure of grudging respect. She said,

“In your somewhat colorful history and indeed brief one, you have managed to be around the scene of three murders.”

Emily put her glass on the table, said,

“Four.”

Ridge’s drink came and the waitress asked,

“Ice?”

Ridge with a tight smile said,

“No need, the atmosphere here is more than arctic.”

Then she took a slow sip of the drink, savored, said,

“Your friend Taylor has surfaced.”

Emily tried to mask her surprise and Ridge continued,

“Ah, so something you didn’t know.”

Emily suppressed the urge to inquire and stayed immobile. Her heart was pounding, damn it. Ridge let her stew for a bit, then,

“He is in hospital and it crossed my mind that maybe you put him there.”

Emily hid her distress and continued to work on her drink. Ridge switched tracks, said,

“Your paper trail is interesting, if not yet downright criminal, but I have the feeling you are on the verge of serious fuckup.”

Pause.

“And I will so enjoy that moment, the moment you are completely done.”

Emily waited a full five minutes and few things are longer than minutes when you are playing verbal chess, said,

“I have to wonder if your obsession with me is professional or if it’s some kind of gay twisted mind-fuck?”

Ridge kept her cool, surprising even herself, said,

“I do like a bad girl but no one likes a sick cow.”

Stood, felt she had gotten the last word, was near the door when Emily said, very quietly,

“Blowback’s a bitch.”

I woke, the meeting between Ridge and Emily so real in my mind it was hard to credit it was but a dream.

Jesus, when did dreams have such accurate, if loaded, narrative and dialogue? I could taste the margarita on my tongue but, dream notwithstanding, I was glad that Doc got a shoe in his arse, even if wish fulfillment was all it was.

Some people are haunted by memories; me, it’s priests. Can’t seem to shake them. The day before I was released from hospital, I was sitting up in bed, reading,

A Rumor of Ghosts.

Three sisters who decide to commit suicide on the same night. Hooked me by the line,

“First thing you need to know about our family is we’re quitters.”

I was engrossed in this when a shadow fell across the bed, looked up to see a priest. He was dressed clerical casual. Black V-neck sweater, black slacks, and tiny gold cross on a chain around his neck. Discreet if not showy. He had that new humble shit-eating smile they’ve adopted since they went on the endangered list. He opened,

“Hope I’m not disturbing you.”

He wasn’t … hoping. Just trotting out the line in mock servitude. I said,

“The clergy have been disturbing us for centuries so why worry?”

He gave a tentative smile, wanted to look back to gauge the distance to the door. He said,

“You’re Catholic.”

Infuriating me. I snapped,

“What gave that away, the guilt, the fucked-up look?”

Staggered him, the venom almost tangible in the very air. He rallied, as they do, centuries of
making this shit up as you go
training kicking in. He said,

“The miraculous medal might have been a clue?”

I nearly smiled, said,

“Madonna has seven of them and not even her taste could be described as catholic.”

He went with,

“Touché.”

He held out his hand, said,

“I’m Paul.”

He near recoiled at the sight of my mutilated fingers. Normally I keep them well disguised but lately I was real bad at hiding anything. I shook his hand and felt a slight tremor, and thought,

“Ah, a drinker.”

Explained the high color. I said,

“Jack Taylor.”

Then I began to get out of bed, said,

“Jesus, don’t just stand there, help me.”

He didn’t, asked,

“You want to go to the bathroom?”

“Fuck no. I want to get a few pints in before they start the rigmarole of discharging me.”

Took me a time to get dressed and he asked,

“Is it wise? I mean, to leave the hospital?”

I gave my bitter laugh, more in use these days, said,

“Wise? Fuck, if I were wise I’d have bought shares in Irish Water.”

I felt a spasm of weakness and leaned on the jamb of the door to get right, said,

“I might for the first time in my life have to lean on the clergy.”

He took my arm and asked,

“You want me to assist you to a pub?”

“I want you to buy me a few drinks and tell me the nature of evil.”

I am sure we made a bizarre pair, a wounded beaten man, being aided reluctantly by a priest. Like all Irish hospitals, it was but a rosary away from the pub.

There’s a different vibe from Galway pubs. You feel they don’t want you but a sly cunning keeps them from saying so. No wonder the poet Patrick Kavanagh felt so comfortable in them. We got seated, near the back, at my choosing, the priest observing,

“You need to watch your back?”

I snarled,

“If I did I wouldn’t be with you.”

Landed.

He said,

“You are a very bitter, cynical man.”

“Thank you.”

I ordered a pint and Jay, him a Britvic orange. I said,

“Man up, have a fucking drink. You’re paying, might as well get a blast out of it.”

He took a gin and tonic and seemed relieved to have the decision made for him, judging by the way he gulped it. I didn’t comment, asked,

“So you’re on the hospital beat?”