Purgatory (16 page)

Mark Kennedy had

Cajoled

Struggled

Fought

To raise the funds for this memorial and, close to his seventy-sixth birthday, he saw his dream fulfilled. How fitting that the unveiling was attended by Brian Sheridan, the harbormaster, as he juggled with the logistics of the Volvo Ocean Race.

Truly, a shard of sunshine amid so much darkness.

Don Stiffe had composed a song for the occasion, titled

Celia Griffin
.

And there, in the sunshine, he sang it as the spectators, their eyes wet, turned out toward Galway Bay. Kelly had come along with me. I had promised to show her a slice of the real Galway and she went,

“Dead kid, huh?”

I wanted to wallop her.

Len Waters’s apartment was beyond basic. Someone with money and spare time had attacked it with clichés. The mega–flat screen, heavy leather sofa, kitchen outfitted with every expensive gadget, never used. Lads’ mags scattered on the glass coffee table and obligatory ashtray with butts and spliff ends. The fridge had simply six-packs and a half bottle of Grey Goose.

C33 was partial to a chilled vodka, found new Waterford crystal in a cupboard, and poured a decent measure. Sat on the couch, feet up on the table, and wondered what anxiety was like, having recently read about it in a medical column. It seemed like a useful vibe to imitate.

Too, it could double up with stress and have a whole concerned presentation running. C33 placed the shotgun on the sofa, double O ammunition. Bought in that fish and tackle shop without any fuss. Even exchanged pleasantries,

“Shame about the weather.”

“Indeed.”

And, on leaving, heard,

“God bless the hunting.”

Gotta love that.

C33 thought about Waters, wondered if there was any point in a chat before offing the little bastard. The guy terrorized old women, working his twisted path toward the main event. What was there to talk about?

The vodka was slipping down easy, a nice glow building. C33 thought about Jack Taylor and knew now that he was not going to be an adversary. Had seemed like an idea to play with him, him being such a book fiend. But he had failed to follow up on the clues and now seemed more interested in his limp romance.

C33 sighed.

Stewart. Now maybe that’s the way the game should have gone. Stewart was definitely willing to rap but,

C33

Shouted,

“So goddamn freaking slow.”

Needed everything spelled out?

Fucksake!

A key turned in the door, C33 breathed,

“Showtime.”

Len Waters had been on the piss, big-time. A fairly average evening for him.

Barred from three pubs

Thrown out of two clubs

One fistfight outside Supermac’s

And threw up twice near the canal. Whatever company he’d been in had abandoned him, nothing new there. He was just trouble without the humor. Now Waters was hit by the late-night fake appetite, for something

Greasy

Full of fat

Cheap

And had no money.

Fuck.

He roared.

Thought, back in his kip of a flat, he had some stashed coke. Yeah, get some lines done, then he’d see. Maybe head back out, smash some old bitch up, yeah, get right in her old face, crush it. That never got . . . old.

Took him a few minutes to get his key aligned to the lock and involved a stream of obscenities, then literally fell in. He lay on the floor, unable to get up for a moment, and started to laugh for no reason other than simple derangement.

A voice cut through his mirth.

“Care to share the joke?”

C33 had decided to go with one barrel. Mainly as one was more than sufficient to wipe Waters off the map. All the talk C33 had planned on giving had just evaporated and C33 had thought,

“Who the fuck can be bothered?”

Too, what could Waters have possibly said of vague interest? Standing over the body, nudged the head with a boot, dead as a doornail. The smell of cordite was intoxicating. C33 looked around the flat, shrugged, opened the door, the shotgun cradled on the right arm.

A man was standing outside, stared at C33, struggling to place the face, said,

“I know you.”

The movement

Shotgun

One

Moved fast to the right hand

Two

Finger on the trigger

Three

Second barrel goes

Into Stewart’s face.

25

“Artists certainly aren’t easy people.”

“No,” Eva giggled, “but somebody’s got to take the trouble to emphasize the depths of existence so that the rest of you have a surface to skate over.”

—Karin Fossum,
In the Darkness

Purgatory is the backup plan the church has for hell.

I was watching Season 5 of
Breaking Bad
when I heard the knock at the door. Expecting Kelly, I ran my fingers through my hair. Make an effort, right? Smile in place, I opened the door to Ridge.

A very distressed Ridge. Could see her red eyes, knew it must be bad. If Ridge was crying it was hard-core. I ushered her in, got her sitting down, waited.

She said,

“Stewart’s been shot.”

That didn’t make any sense. Not Stewart, the guy was too fast, too aware. I muttered,

“What?”

“He was found at the home of a young guy who’d been killed and we think he may have disturbed the killer.”

I couldn’t get a handle, tried,

“What young guy? Jesus, where, I mean, how is he, Stewart?”

She stared down at the floor. I grabbed her shoulder, rougher than I intended, shouted,

“Ridge?”

“He’s dead, Jack.”

The next few days were a flurry of dazed and utter confusion. I was there, present, but only barely. For some fucked-up reason, Stewart had named me as his next of kin in his papers. He had to be kidding but kidding wasn’t anything he’d be doing again. I knew he lost all contact with his family after his jail time, but to name me, Jesus, what was he thinking?

Like everything else, he’d arranged his disposal, as he termed it in his will.

Cremation.

“He was afraid of small spaces,”

Ridge told me.

How’d she get told and not me?

You want cremation in Galway, it makes perfect Irish sense, you have to travel to Dublin. Fuck. In my anger, I’d spat,

“Hey, give me a can of petrol and a Zippo, we can stay home.”

Ridge let that slide.

Kelly had said,

“Anything you need?”

Yeah, my friend back.

She got Reardon to arrange a flight to Dublin and Ridge, Stewart, and I made the trip early on the Monday morning before the races. We were back that evening, with Stewart in an urn. All of that is only vaguely recallable, brief vignettes of pain and anger. I was drinking but not drunk, not sober, and certainly not in any sane state of mind.

Phew-oh.

I do remember the plane ride back, Stewart on the seat beside me. I asked Ridge, who was as shell-shocked as my own self,

“What do we do with the urn? Put it on our mantelpieces, take it alternate weekends?”

She shook her head, said,

“He left instructions.”

Of course.

Ridge and I were waiting close to Nimmo’s Pier, a boat due to take us out on the bay, to scatter Stewart. I’d handed the urn to Ridge, felt weird holding my friend thus. Ridge looked down at it, said,

“And I’ve held you in the palm of my hand.”

It was shortly before noon, the Claddagh church would soon be ringing the bell for the Angelus. I was burning with bitterness, bile, and bewilderment.

I said,

“Who’d ever think I’d outlive Stewart?”

Ridge gave me an unknowable look, said,

“You shouldn’t have, no way.”

Jesus, steady.

A lone swan came gliding along. Ridge watched it with longing, said,

“They say a swan is the reincarnation of a Claddagh fisherman who drowned.”

Fuck.

I said,

“Jesus, I’m so tired of Irish

Piseógs

Stories

Omens

Superstitions

Fairy fucking tales.

Stewart is fucking dead and he ain’t coming back as a swan or any other freaking thing.”

Like I said,

“Bitterness oozing.”

I’d checked out Lee Waters, he’d fit the bill for the C33 agenda, but the Guards were no way going the way of a vigilante and, anyway, Stewart had been a dope dealer. Never no fucking mind it was years ago, he was dirty, end of story. Waters,
and Stewart
, had been clients of Westbury and Stewart had told me he was trying to find a link with Westbury and former victims, and I’d

. . . blown him off.

I said to Ridge,

“Stewart thought the lawyer, Westbury, was worth investigating, maybe even built a case for him being the C33 character.”

Ridge shook her head.

“It’s nothing. The Guards checked out all this nonsense, there is no link between the killings.”

Fuck sake.

I said,

“What about the notes?”

She gave me the look, then,

“There’s a school of thought, um . . . that suggests . . .you . . . you might have written those.”

“Are you fucking kidding? Why? Why on earth would I do that?”

The boat was approaching, I moved back from the pier, asked,

“And you, Ridge, what
school
do you favor?”

Said,

“You’ve been under lots of pressure and maybe, you know, a desire to look, um . . . significant, in front of your American buddies.”

She put a lean of condescension on
buddies.

I started to move away, she asked,

“Where are you going? We have to scatter Stewart’s ashes.”

I fixed my eyes on her, tried to keep my voice low, said,

“You’re smart, just take the top off and . . .
scatter.
”

* * *

My mind was in free fall.

A line from Scott Walker, he’d said something like this is how you disappear.

To a torrent of self-recrimination, the chorus of not disapproval but downright bile, thinking,

“I always knew when the joke was over, but my dilemma?

Never being quite sure when it began”

Toward David Mamet describing his childhood,

. . . In the days prior to television, we liked to while away the evenings by making ourselves miserable, solely based on our ability to speak the language viciously.

Pause.

Stopped to catch my breath, reach for my cigarettes,

And,

“Fuck, don’t smoke no more.”

Fume, yes, freely and with intent. The director Mike Nichols declaring,

I do well with the fundamentally inconsolable
.

Fucking A.

A homeless person asked me for something and I shouted,

“You want something? Here, a word of consolation, fuck off.”

Repented.

Went back.

Gave him fifty euros, heard him mutter,

“Bloody eejit.”

26

“It’s over for you, motherfucker.”

—the voice Brian Wilson heard in his head, over and over, for twenty years

I went down into the abyss,

Spiral

Screaming

Burning

Hot

To

Freakish

Cold

Fucked.

Snatches of Stewart’s friendship flashing through my mind like a dire recrimination of what would never be again. Five days before I surfaced, kind of, sick through sickness like I’d rare to rarer experienced.

I came to in my own apartment, a large man sitting opposite, lounging in a chair, drinking from one of my coffee mugs, a slight smile playing on his lips. I didn’t know if he was real or part of the previous day’s horrors and hallucinations. I croaked,