Purgatory (19 page)

He

Somehow

Limped on.

She wanted to kill him her own self. Stewart, who supported her difficulties with being openly gay, his nonjudgmental acceptance of her dead marriage, he was such a blessing. Jack, who fought her tooth and freaking nail over every damn thing, just smirked his way along.

And she was back dwelling on the C33 gig. Was Stewart’s murder connected to that? The Guards had his killing down as simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. In conversation with one of the detectives, she’d been told,

“We’ll solve that murder if we get lucky.”

Meaning,

“We’re not putting a whole lot of time and effort there.”

The implication,

Stewart had been a dope dealer,

So . . .

So fuck him.

And was told,

“Leave it alone, won’t do your career any good to root around in the dumb death of a dumb fuck.”

The tears on her face as she muttered,

“Get a grip, girl.”

This stern reprimand brought her father vividly to life. He’d been dead nigh ten years now.

Drink.

Cirrhosis of the liver, not helped by two packs of Major daily. He’d been such a Connemara man, he was almost the fake Irish ideal. Living in the Gaeltacht, he never spoke a word of English and rarely needed to as he refused to venture into what he termed

“
Tír na Sasanach.
”

Land of the English, and that included Galway! He made his living fishing from the legendary Galway hooker and, like the men of his area,
poitín
. Irish moonshine, brewed from generation to generation until

Ridge.

Yeah, she fucked it up.

And worse, in his eyes, joined the enemy, the bloody Garda Síochána. The Guards. Insult to simmering injury. As he lay dying, he’d lashed her with his worst weapon. He refused to speak his native tongue to her, addressed her in halting English, acting like she wouldn’t understand her native language. His last words to her, gasped out in an agonized, strangled voice,

“May God forgive thee. I can’t and won’t.”

And

Died.

Live with that. Perhaps the most enduring curse, the parental one. Of her sexual orientation, he’d rasped to her mother,

“What man would have a turncoat?”

She stood, tried to stem the flow of ferocious memories, all fierce and wounding. Ran her hand along the one shelf of books she’d collected. Jack had been educating her in crime fiction and, so far, she had seven of the James Lee Burke titles.

And, oh horror, she’d told Jack,

“I’m thinking of getting a Kindle.”

See him explode.

Like this,

“Yah dumb bitch, you’ve read what? Six books, total? And what, you’re going to have storage for thousands of books? Get fucking real, lady. You think I’ll come round your house, ask, ‘
Hey, can I browse through your
. . .
Kindle?
’”

Stewart had given her Scott Peck’s
People of the Lie
and
The Dummy’s Guide to Zen,
which, when she opened the book, had nothing but blank pages. Even now, she could clearly see Stewart’s smile at his Zen joke.

The Kindle was on . . . hold.

A call from the station, Sharkey, the super’s newest hatchet. Clancy, the boss, liked to take a cop who was a thug to begin and fine-hone him to effortless viciousness. Sharkey was proving to be the best of the bunch to date, a reptile who’d have shopped his own mother if Clancy asked. He had a quiet voice that held a whiplash of loaded threat. He liked to see the troops dance, dance to a tune they usually didn’t understand and didn’t dare contest. Sharkey had, it was said, a long-ago run-in with Jack and lost more than a few teeth. He made it his mission to destroy anyone he saw as Taylor-connected.

Meaning Ridge, big-time.

He near whispered,

“Not disturbing anything, I pray.”

The slither of his voice like a slow crawl of creepiness. Ridge, to her dismay, stammered, thought . . . Fuck.

Said,

“No . . . sir.”

A beat,

Then,

“No ladies interrupted en flagrante, I trust.”

The fuck.

She said,

“Can I be of service . . . sir?”

He gave a snort, then,

“We’re rounding up all the deadbeats.”

First she thought he meant the public, then realized he meant the cops he despised. Let that stew, then,

“Be here at midnight, we’ll tool up.”

She wanted to ask,

“What?

Tool, as in wanker?”

No.

He said,

“Body armor and, trust me, darlin’, you’re goanna need it.”

The sneer he injected into
darlin’
was almost artful.

Ice.

. . . What’s in a name, the power of TV to shape reality?

To break bad . . . slang for changing from being a citizen to being an outlaw.

Crystal meth has the names

Nazi crank

Glass

Ice

Crystal

. . . or the highly popular
trailer blow
.

It resembles, in its rock form, shards of ice. But comes, too, in

Pills

Powder

And can be

Smoked

Injected

Eaten

Snorted.

Supposedly, as in
you hope to fuck
,

It

Bumps

Alertness, energy, self-esteem,

Libido.

Any skel can make it.

Get yourself

Fertilizer, bleach, a nasal decongestant or three, a tube, and, oh, yeah, a gas stove, and if you don’t blow the sweet fuck out of your own self, you’re in biz. Welcome to the dope trade. Now, apart from selling the shit, you’ve only two things to focus on:

Staying out of jail

Staying alive.

. . . Hear the sound track

Loud

A Town Called Malice.

The Jam.

Underwrit always by

The Clash.

Ridge putting on the body armor and helmet with the visor shield. Combat pants and the side pocket holding pepper spray. The modern version of mother’s little helper. Not quite in the range of the warmth of a Glock but, fuck, take what you get.

Sharkey stood before the assembled crew, snapped,

“Listen up.”

Like they’d a choice. He ranted,

“The Brennans fancy themselves as the new kids on the block. The old man, well, someone took a bat to the geezer so he’s out of the picture and we have the young blood figuring to play
Game of Thrones
. He is the wee bollix who may have, allegedly, beat the living shite out of our cherished Sergeant Ridge.”

Ripple of smirks and near laughter quelled as Sharkey says,

“But that ain’t gonna happen this fine evening, am I right?”

Damn straight.

“Young Brennan got himself a college boy [sneer enclosed]who fancies himself a chemist. They’ve been brewing up a type of crystal, laced with cough medicine, floor cleaner . . .”

Let this sink in,

“And, word is, rat poison.”

He paused to swig from a flask. The flask had the crest of Galway United on it, and as he swallowed, his face flushed, and, Ridge figured,
uisce bheatha,
maybe even from her own father’s batch. Supplying the Guards had been one of the mainstays of his business.

He continued, fortified,

“Young Brennan got a hard-on with the amount of product they’ve got, and got a warehouse off the canal, named his version of this lethal crap Tribe. A true Galwegian, you might say, save we are going to go fucking Cromwell on his arse, right?”

He was expecting cries of the Marine type,

“Huh! Huh!”

But they were Irish cops, so he got,

“Okay.”

Not exactly gung ho, but there it was. Including Sharkey, they numbered seven. Less the magnificent than the mediocre. Sharkey added as they piled into the Black Maria,

“These shitheads have been buying up replica guns, makes them feel like gangstas, and we’ve had a whisper that a guy in Shantalla adapts those to real firepower. You’ve been warned.”

A young guy, wannabe jarhead with the mandatory buzz cut, Iraq-style pants, and desert boots, asked,

“Sarge, how many of these cunts are there?”

Ridge dug him hard in the ribs, said,

“Watch your mouth.”

The sergeant said,

“Perhaps six, but who knows? If they’re having a
rave
” (Jesus, no one told him how redundant that was), “could be a full deck.”

Arriving at the canal, they parked a few yards down from the said warehouse. The top floor of the building was lit up, presumably like the occupants.

They were out of the van, shields ready, a battering ram held by the cess mouth. Up the stairs, and they could hear consternation as the alarm hit. Ridge tried the door. Locked. The ram took it down in two goes.

They were in, pulled on gas masks as three canisters hit the floor, the sarge shouting,

“Everyone down, this is a raid.”

Like, what, they thought it was a gate-crasher?

Ridge could see lines of table with scientific gear assembled and cauldrons brewing; the cook was in full swing. Guys were attempting to climb out windows. Batons out, the cops were taking no chances, dropping the party like good uns. A young woman, her face streaming from the gas, stood in front of Ridge and leveled a sawed-off. Ridge shouted,

“Don’t be freaking daft.”

Behind the mask, it sounded like,

“You’re flaking gas.”

The girl, eyes streaming, muttered,

“Fucking bitch.”

And fired.

Ridge had a frozen moment, registered that the girl had braces on her teeth. Like that was relevant? Heard, as if in echo,

The Cocteau Twins

and, for fucksake, she hated their music.

Go figure.

And the ice white clarity of what Stewart must have felt as he faced those lethal barrels.

The gun jammed.

And Ridge’s baton was coming up, lashing into the girl’s mouth, smashing the braces and the ultraexpensive dental work. A guy beside her yelling,

“Yah stupid cow, this is Mr. Westbury’s daughter.”

Sharkey, beside her, pulling her back, then turning to the guy, kicked him in the balls, said,

“You are nicked, mate.”

Back at the station, debriefing done, Ridge was summoned to the superintendent’s office. She was coming off the surge of adrenaline, fear, euphoria, and the realization she could have been killed. Heady stuff as the posh papers would have it. Clancy’s office was packed with cops and a slew of booze lining the desk. A cheer went up as she entered. Clancy moved to her, took her arm, raised it, declared,

“Now this is a Guard!”

She was handed a mug full of Jameson and took a lethal swipe for her nerves. Her eyes watered. Clancy was beaming, his eyes bright with cunning and glee. He said,

“Not only have we brought down a major drug gang but the shotgun murders are solved.

And”

Long pause

“We get to nail the daughter of that fucking showboat Westbury. Girl, you have made us fucking golden.”

She wanted to go back at least two sentences, and go,

“What?”

. . . The shotgun murders. But the gun was never found. Was he saying Westbury’s daughter killed Stewart?

. . . It didn’t add.

No.

No way.

30

There’d been a recent rift between academics who lined up on opposing sides. The first, who affirmed Wilde as more relevant now than Joyce. The rivals, who believed, as always, that Joyce was golden, beyond criticism.

Then there were those who thought that, in an age of
Fifty Shades of Grey,
it was all just so much fucking literary roadkill and who gave a fuck?

Kelly had tried to replicate the meal as laid out in Joyce’s “The Dead.”