Purgatory. Ken Bruen

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СКАЧАТЬ with me. The driver glanced at the hurley, muttered,

      “A concealed weapon.”

      Lee said,

      “Super needs a word.”

      Clancy.

      My onetime close friend, brother Guards on the force until I got bounced and he got promoted all the way. Recently, he’d been honored by the university: honorary doctorate, flash dinner, photo on front page of The Galway Advertiser, all the glittering prizes. We’d clashed many times over the befuddled years, his loathing of me growing in proportion to my defects.

      At Mill Street, I was marched before him, in his new spacious office, a riot of photo opportunity, mostly golf shots of him with the rich and crooked. The odd bishop to add color if not dignity to the montage. He was in full uniform, a large oak desk with orderly files at his left. I said,

      “Dr. Clancy.”

      Lee was behind me, barely restrained.

      Clancy looked up, distaste writ huge, said,

      “Always the smart mouth, Taylor.”

      Before I could summon up something smart, he added,

      “So, they cut off your fingers a time ago.”

      Indeed.

      Lee said,

      “Pity it wasn’t his balls.”

      Clancy indicated the holdall, the hurley, said,

      “Should be good for six months.”

      I said,

      “Not to mention good PR. Guards bust man for love of the national sport.”

      Clancy got to his feet, shoulders back, potbelly well concealed beneath expensive tailoring but there. He said,

      “Sergeant Ní Iomaire was hurt in an incident. The wrath of Jesus will descend on you if your name comes up in the investigation.”

      Not the time to mention Ridge was seeking . . . the Virgin Mary. Christ, it would sound like a deranged spiritual odyssey. I could have brought up the weird photos, C33, but he’d just ridicule it. He rasped,

      “Get out of my sight.”

      They confiscated the holdall, bad bastards. Outside, I nearly reached for a cigarette, did the deep-breath gig instead. Turned toward the hospital, frustration dancing with anger in my daily reel of reproach. I bought the paper, the shop guy asking,

      “Cigs, Jack?”

      I said no and he ventured,

      “Rolling your own, eh?”

      No answer to that.

      Athens was burning anew as the Greeks faced further medieval measures to offset the massive bailout. Dire predictions on every financial front and still, get this, the bank directors awarded themselves massive bonuses.

      No wonder the Virgin Mary was MIA.

      The Artist won five Oscars. Some deep message in that a silent movie was top of the heap but I was fucked if I knew it. Ridge was still in intensive care. Stewart was pacing the corridor, he snapped at me,

      “Didn’t break your neck getting here.”

      I let that slide, asked what the doctor said.

      The next forty hours would be critical. I said,

      “I’m going to try to track down Brennan. If he attacked Ridge, he better hope I don’t find him.” Stewart said,

      “You and C33 make a fine team.”

      8

      You’d lose a farm in one bet, take you twenty years to drink it.

      —Old Irish saying

      Peg Ramsay thought no more of Jack Taylor, his bizarre account of some lunatic maybe posing a threat. She’d laughed.

      Jesus wept. She had more enemies than the church had excuses.

      She stood in the foyer of her new home. A magnificent seven-bedroom house, built in the boom by a property whiz who was now in jail. She’d bought it for a quarter of the asking price, the market being now more a turkey shoot than a business. Her minders/collectors, FX, Francis, Xavier, were four rooms away, chowing down in the vast kitchen. Rottweilers, she thought, loyal as long as she fed them.

      She climbed the wide ornate stairway to the third floor, muttered,

      “Third floor! Phew, count ’em and weep, yah bad bastards.”

      Pride in her achievements was a rush, a sheer jolt of energy that propelled her up the stairs. Stopped, leaned on the balustrade, and wondered,

      “Maybe some paintings along the walls?”

      Buy a shitload of art. Like everything in the country, artists were on sale. She registered a sound a split second before the arm went around her throat, a knee in her back. Then a hand on her spine and she thought,

      “Over the balustrade?”

      A voice whispered,

      My heart is as some famine-murdered land

      Whence all good things have perished utterly

      And well I know my soul in hell must lie.

      One,

      Her body halfway over the rail.

      Two,

      A deep effort of breath.

      Push,

      And fly,

      The foyer rushing to smash her startled face.

      A DIY petrol bomb landed on her back and with a whoosh illuminated the marble inlay.

      9

      He always liked laundromats. They’re like waiting rooms for people who never travel.

      —Zoran Drvenkar, Sorry

      Purgatory was deceptive in its promise that you might one day be released.

      The American woman who’d given me a lift home from Reardon’s party phoned to confirm our coffee date. We arranged to meet in Griffin’s Bakery café, but you had to get there early, before the lunchtime gang. I made an effort, wore a white shirt, ironed; 501s; and my Garda-issue coat. Trying for that blend of

      I tried/don’t give a fuck

      Vibe.

      Checked the mirror, thought mainly I looked old. But good, real good, to be meeting with a woman. СКАЧАТЬ