The Devil (13 page)

Fd see what spoke to me.

Seamus Smyth, his second great novel.
Red Dock.

W h a t the nuns did to the poor M a g d a l e n girls, the

Christian Brothers did to the boys, in the so termed

'Industrial Schools'. Translate as 'Concentration Camps'.

W i t h total C h u r c h approval.

The opening lines had me spitting iron.

Stewart appeared in the doorway and I came as close to

shooting h i m as I don't want to dwell upon.

He was wearing a T-shirt w i t h the logo 'Above the saddle,

no rider. Below the saddle, no rider.'

Was he fucking kidding me?

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3

THE DEVIL

He Stared i n , disbelief writ neon, muttered in very un-

Stewart fashion,

' H o l y shite.'

I said languidly,

'Don't be shy, come i n . It gets, if not better, a whole lot

more interesting.'

He advanced cautiously, as if something was going to bite

him.

W e l l , he was safe enough from the dog, I reckoned.

H i s eyes remained on my gun till he saw the coffee table,

and it looked like he was going to throw up.

Guess Z e n didn't cover that.

I asked,

' A n y thoughts on where a sick bollix would stash the head?'

He managed to compose himself, asked,

'What the fuck happened?'

In nigh most of the years I'd k n o w n h i m , through

dope-dealer,

convict,

businessman,

Z e n pain in the arse,

that's if anyone ever
knew
h i m ,

he never swore.

Perhaps he felt no need, but n o w he was effing and

blinding like the rest of the country. Like a priest counting

the takings after Sunday Mass.

I laid out the whole gig, even the pictures that hadn't

developed.

He seemed mesmerized by the array of black candles.

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KEN BRUEN

W h e n I'd finished, I asked,

'Is there a Z e n message to explain this?'

He said,

'Shit happens.'

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16

7
smoked too much and had a sore chest. I had a host of

companion symptoms as well, niggly physical things that

showed up occasionally, weird aches, possible lumps,

rashes, symptoms of a condition maybe, or a network

of conditions. What if they all held hands one

day and lit up?'

A l a n Glynn,
The Dark Fields

We didn't find the head.

I had a horrible feeling it w o u l d turn up in the most

appalling manner.
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia.

Where was Warren Oates when y o u needed him?

I did find the crumpled napkin that C a r l had written o n .

Smoothed it out and read:

1. Sarah Goode.

2. Sarah Osborn.

3. Tibuta.

Handed it to Stewart, said,

' Z e n this.'

He went to my laptop, began to Google furiously.

My eyes strayed to the bookcase, to E d w a r d Wright's

superb novel.
Damnation Falls.
I thought,

' E d , buddy, you got that bang to rights.'

Stewart was making odd noises, maybe his mantra. Finally

he sat back and said.

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KEN BRUEN

'Jack, you'd better take a look at this.'

It showed that on M a r c h 1st 1692, those three people

were arrested for witchcraft in Salem.

Stewart said,

'The night we went to Ridge's, C a r l was smoking some

k i n d of cheroots, but later, I saw him outside, smoking

cigarettes.'

I said,

'Fascinating as that is, what the fuck does it have to do

w i t h this?'

Fie gave me that patient look, said,

'Fie smoked maybe five cigarettes, one after another, and

then crumpled the packet and threw it on the ground. Y o u

k n o w I hate litter and I went to pick it up.'

Jesus, w o u l d he ever get to the frigging point? I said,

'Flooray, you get the G o o d Citizen of the M o n t h award.'

Fie ignored that, said,

'Green packet, American . . . Salem's.'

'I've no idea what this means.'

Fie shrugged, said,

'Except that something seriously weird is happening here.'

'Yah think?'

W h i l e he was Googling so well, I handed h i m the red

card, said,

'Track this, genius.'

D i d n ' t take long. He let out a breath, said,

'It's an invitation to a black M a s s . '

I asked,

' A n y R S V P ? '

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THE DEVIL

He closed the laptop, sweat visible on his forehead.

I figured to cut him some slack. Told him he should be

getting back to his lady and said,

' M a r y . . . h o w was it?'

'It's A i n e , and it was great till you called.'

I apologized and thanked h i m for coming over.

He nodded, asked,

'What w i l l you do now?'

' B l o w out the candles.'

At the door, he cautioned,

'This is very bad karma, Jack. Y o u should walk - no, run

away, right now.'

Running has never been me strong point. The limp didn't

help.

I bundled the carcass in a bin liner, dropped another

X a n a x , washed it d o w n w i t h a shot of Jay, put my gun in

my Garda coat.

I had a concert to attend.

The Devil's M i n i o n s were ending their set when I got to the

Roisin D u b h .

The guy w h o ' d acided me was the lead singer, and fuck-

ing bad he was.

I knew the barman, pushed a fifty note across to him,

said,

'Seamus, tell the lead singer there's some hot babe in the

alley panting for h i m . '

He asked,

'This going to come back on me?'

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KEN BRUEN

I let go of the fifty and he took it.

The back of Roisin's borders the canal. D a r k and ominous

at that hour.

I hadn't long to wait.

The side door opened and he emerged, the sweat on his

face gleaming in the d i m streetlight, his gig or the promise

of a blow job lighting him up.

I shot h i m in both knees, from behind, then caught him as

he fell, picked him up and threw him in the canal.

I hefted the bin liner, threw it in too.

Like the very last lines of
Under the Volcano.
They'd

thrown a dead dog into a hole after the consul's body. It

gave, I felt, a nice literary touch to the proceedings.

On my way home, I found a phone box that hadn't been

vandalized.

R a n g the Guards, said a man was drowning in the canal.

I didn't mention the dog.

H e ' d had his day.

N e x t day, I went to see the tinkers.

Once treated as the dregs of our caring society, they'd

moved up a notch since we started to resent the non-

nationals. N o t a huge leap for them, but they were getting

less abuse than before.

I'd w o r k e d a case w i t h and for them, and thus was

regarded as close to clan as an outsider is ever going to get.

As a child, I remember, every M o n d a y the skin woman

w o u l d come, collecting discarded potato skins to feed her pigs.

Little d i d she know, the fucking skins were our dinner

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THE DEVIL

most days.

She did this for years.

After her death, it was disclosed that she never had any

pigs.

I went to see her sister. Peg, w h o it was claimed had the

gift of
the sight.
Yeah, I know, H B O already have the series.

Before
Ghost Whisperer, Crossing Over, Sixth Sense,
before

all that, she was quietly dispensing such things as she

intuited.

H e r caravan was perched on the football field in the

Claddagh.

Recently, asbestos had been discovered there and house

prices had plummeted.

Guess she didn't see
that
coming.

But I was clutching at straws.

She lived alone and, unusual for a traveller, not a dog in

sight, or even a pig.

I came prepared.

Bottle of Jameson,

dozen cans of Guinness,

carton of cigs, and at nigh ten Euro a pack, I was hurting.

Plus a fresh salmon I'd bought from one of the local

'snatchers'. H o w fresh was it going to be from our n o w

perennially poisoned water?

I knocked on her door, on the E v i l Eye symbol where most

people w o u l d have their spy hole.

She opened the door slowly. If you're a tinker, you always

answer slowly. Stared at me, said,

'Jack Taylor.'

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KEN BRUEN

I handed over the booty/bribe, said,

'I need a reading. Peg
a gra:

She waved me i n .

A tall woman, had to be near eighty now, her hair neatly

styled, and those piercing blue eyes, cataracts forming but not

dulling the sheer intensity. She had that regal bearing some

women achieve no matter what shite comes down the road.

Wearing a Connemara shawl, the real deal, hand sewn

and passed from one generation to another.

L o n g skirt that swished as she moved.

H e r sole jewellery was a miraculous medal, gold of

course.

The caravan was spotless, and devoid of furniture save for

two hard-backed chairs, one wooden table and a narrow

bed, neatly made.

Z e n , in fact.

Like most of her generation, she switched from Irish to

English at w i l l . Like the song goes,

and speak a language

that the foreigner does not know.

We sat, she opened the Jay, poured liberal amounts in

heavy G a l w a y crystal tumblers, toasted,

'Dia agus a Mhathair leat:
(God and H i s H o l y M o t h e r

with you.)

I said,

'Leat fein:
(You too.)

The neat Jay burned like false hope.

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THE DEVIL

She cracked two cans of the Guinness, pushed one across.

'Ta an doireachdeas leat:
(The darkness is upon you.)

N o fucking around, then.

I told her the whole story.

She never interrupted, just sipped from the Guinness, her

eyes glued to my face.

Finished, I sat back, knackered, and took a long swig

from the Jay.

She asked,

' D i d you take money from him?'

Fuck.

Tricky ground.

I scratched the card he sent me, w o n the big one, but I

could easily have lost . . . right?

Didn't fly.

If I lied to her once, I was history.

I told her.

She nodded, said,

' H e owns yer arse.'

I asked,

'What w i l l I do?'

She reached behind her for a pack of Sweet A f t o n .

They still made those suckers?

My dad used to smoke them.

L o r d rest h i m .

I remembered the lines of the Scottish poet Burns on the

front.

Reading me expression, she said,

'Deanamh caitheamh to'bac dubthal thremous leat:

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KEN BRUEN

Sounds freaking ominous, right?

It's the current government warning on packs and tells

you that terrible things w i l l happen to you if you smoke.

N e x t , she produced an o l d box of Swan matches, offered

both to me.

R o u g h .

I hadn't smoked for three years.

Fucking quitting was just one of the many afflictions I've

endured.

But to refuse?

Couldn't.

Bolhx.

I took two out, handed her one, fired us up.

The smell of sulphur was like a bad joke.

Coarse, no filters on these babies.

The real deal.

She took a deep drag.

M e too.

Christ Almighty, they kicked like a demented G u a r d on

late-Saturday-night drunk tank.

H e r face, impossibly lined, seemed to suck into itself.

My first inhalation had me dizzy.

Delicious lethal delight.

In answer, finally, as to what I should do, she said,

'Rith:
(Run.)

Took me a moment to catch the twinkle in her eye.

She asked,

' D o you believe in the Devil?'

'I believe.'

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THE DEVIL

She extended her palm and it took me a moment to catch

up.

Cross her hand with silver.

Like all the shite I'd paid a fortune for wasn't enough?

I found a two Euro coin, not silver but jeez, w h o was

keeping count? I placed it dead centre in her palm and she

closed her hand, intoned,

'Uber,

ubris,

iosa:

A
lot of other stuff I didn't grasp, seemed a blend of Irish

and Latin.

She commanded,

' O n your knees.'

I did as she told me.

She rose, stood over me, then pulled a small phial f r o m

her pocket and began to sprinkle it over me. Said,

' H o l y water.'

O r poison.

W h o knew?

She said another long prayer and my leg was acting up.

Eventually, she took a leather thong, a miraculous medal

attached, hung it round my neck and said,

'Mhathair an losa leat:
(God's M o t h e r be with you.)

Unless the M a d o n n a was packing serious heat, I felt I was

fucked.

She motioned me to rise. We were done.

I had an envelope ready, laid it on the table.