Eight Ball Boogie Part 1

EIGHTBALL BOOGIE.

by Declan Burke.

The doorbell rings at five in the morning, it's bad news, someone's dead or dying. Which was why Imelda got downstairs so quick, still in her nightdress, padding across the cold tiles of the porch. Fl.u.s.tered, thinking someone might be dying.

Which allowed the blademan to get in close, inside the elbows, driving the shank up hard under the chin. Blowing the artery, spattering the porch. Blood, gla.s.s, chrome Christ, you could've hung it in a gallery.

These things happen, although not usually in s.h.i.+ny new towns on the Atlantic seaboard, and rarely to the middle-aged wife of an independent politician that's keeping the government in clover. But they happen. It's a crying shame, yeah, so have a cry, feel ashamed and get over it. The rest of the week is coming on hard and its brakes are shot to h.e.l.l.

My job was to find out who and why, at twelve cent per word for the right facts in the right order. Enough facts, a decent hook, they might even add up to a front-page clipping for the dusty folder under my bed. Imelda Sheridan was dead, which was tough cookies on Imelda, but then every silver lining has its cloud.

Which was how it all started out, anyway.

It was early Monday, three days to Christmas, the morning not trying anything it couldn't handle itself. I stuck a pillow behind my back, rolled a one-skin, lacing it light, just to take the edge off. Sand in my eyes, a jellyfish in my gut, skull humming like a taut rope. The room stinking of stale breath, bored s.e.x, cold cigarettes.

I sparked the jay, watched Denise sleep. Hadn't watched her sleep in a while, hadn't had the chance, on a second bite of the cherry and still trying to remember if I liked the taste of cherries. Asleep, relaxed, she looked her age, sneaking up slow on the right side of thirty. Dark hairs at the corners of her mouth, a nose that might have been too big if her ears were any smaller. The lips full, salmon pale, the hair chestnut with auburn streaks, shoulder-length. When they were open, the eyes were round and brown. She thought she could have lost half a stone around the hips but I liked the curves, liked that there was more of her rather than less.

She smelled the dope and her eyes flickered, focusing slow. She knuckled one eye, yawning. Then, sounding resigned, she muttered: "Out."

"No way, I saw chalk-dust."

Buzzing on the jay, kidding her on.

"Out, Harry. Go home."

"You know what time it is?"

"No, but I'd say it's about half past f.u.c.k off." She smiled me a tired one that was half regret and half something I'd never seen before. "C'mon, Harry. You know you have to go."

"Alright. Jesus."

I stubbed the jay, scrabbled for my tee s.h.i.+rt, s.h.i.+vering, sleet spattering the window.

"Want to join me in the shower?"

"No shower, Harry. There's no hot water."

"f.u.c.k's sakes, Dee."

Officially, we were on a break. Officially, I was sleeping in the back room of my office over in the Old Quarter, the constant verbals costing a fortune in replacing Ben's toys.

Off the record, Denise was trying to work out if anyone would take her on with another man's kid in tow.

I pretended not to notice, the truth is a scab you don't want to pick at too often. Last night we'd been in the same place at the same time with the same amount of booze on board. That was all and that's never enough.

She sat up, draped a thin white cotton dressing gown around her shoulders. Said, her voice thin and tired: "Just get dressed and go, Harry. Please?"

Then left, showing me how.

I got dressed, went downstairs. She was still standing in the hall, looking at the phone like it was primed, ticking. Ben lying on the living room floor, cartoons blaring from the TV, wearing dinosaur slippers, Action Man goggles around his neck. I was rapping about building a snowman if the snow stuck, how we could put mum's coat on it, Ben not paying attention, when she called me into the kitchen. She put the kettle on and didn't turn around.

"Gonzo left a message. Said he'd be home for Christmas."

Sounding calm, like Gonzo rang every week, not excited and nauseous, like we hadn't heard from him in nearly four years.

"He say what Christmas?"

She turned, pulling the dressing gown tight. Her face was pale, her eyes huge, dark panda eyes.

"He is your brother, Harry."

"Not my fault, Dee. No one's pinning that one on me."

She shook her head, disappointed at herself for not knowing better.

"You'd better go."

She pushed me down the hallway and stood in the doorway, s.h.i.+vering, not looking at me, arms folded. I stood two steps below, hanging in, postponing the moment when I'd have to admit I left the car in town.

"Ben should be dressed. He'll be late for school."

"Christmas holidays, Harry. Kids get holidays at Christmas. Not like adults, who get holidays at f.u.c.kallmas. It's Christmas, by the way."

"I know it's Christmas. Jesus." I scuffed at the doorstep, the hangover thick and dull, the dope not helping. The wind gusting sleet. She tucked a rat's tail tidy behind an ear, said: "Harry "

"What?"

"Don't think that what happened "

"Don't flatter yourself."

"No need," she taunted, stung. "Not after all you said last night."

I fumbled for a comeback but she was already closing the door, not slamming it. I faced into the sleet and decided to shave at the office, dug out the smoke box and realised I was all out of skins. That was the shape of my week and it was only Monday morning, nine-thirty.

They reckoned the population around ninety thousand, and even if you discount all the s.h.i.+nners who voted twice that's still a fair sized burg. Which was the plan. They took a town, just sitting there minding its own business, there not being too much of it to mind, and ripped out its guts. Relocated the locals to breeze-block suburbs that sprawled out both sides of the river, south behind the lake, halfway up the mountains, and they'd have poldered the bay if they'd thought anyone was dumb enough to enjoy wet sand between their toes. Threw up a new inner town, a high-rise jungle of credit finance depots, international call-centres, multi-storey shopping malls, a software research plant masquerading as a university, most of which was financed by American corporates, most of which was offset by indigenous grants, lo-interest loans, repatriated profits. Midtown was all wide streets, tree-lined, Norman Rockwell's wet dream parachuted in to the Atlantic seaboard. It all took about five years to finish and no one laughed, not once.

My office was over in the Old Quarter, where Midtown bled into the docks, north of the river heading west. Five or six bustling blocks bisected by railway lines, pot-holed streets and alleyways that always seemed to wind back to the quays. Too noisy to be residential, the pa.s.sing trade too random to make it worthwhile for shopping centre malls, the Quarter got to keep all its crumbling buildings, cracked pavements and old sewers.

The Quarter drew a volatile crew. Crusties laughed at the skate-kids, who went by sn.i.g.g.e.ring. Winos, b.u.ms and buskers worked the crowds for the same chump change. College kids slumming it got a thrill rubbing shoulders with fairies, dips and wide-boys on the make.

I'd been sleeping on a couch in the back room of the office for a couple of months by then, getting used to the idea, starting to fit in with the faces on the streets. Mostly I liked them, respected their lack of ambition, their social inhibition. The kind that lived around the Quarter, they needed to know there was a p.a.w.nshop in the vicinity, an Army Surplus Store, a tattoo parlour. The bars had tinted windows, the p.o.r.n shop didn't and the greasy spoon cafes should have at least thought about it. There were antique shops, a joint that sold organic Thai food and way too many second-hand bookstores. Out in the back lots that sloped down to the river, a couple of auto repair outfits kept things black and oily. The bars played jazz, trad and drum 'n' ba.s.s, and in the summer the air hummed with the thick smell of patchouli oil and melting tar. At night you could get stoned just driving around with the window down.

The Quarter was a good place to live, a good place to work, if your girlfriend was blind and your clients were even more desperate than you. Denise wasn't blind but that was only part of the problem. Denise and me, we had issues. I had only one, but Denise, she liked to share.

I made the office around ten, not breaking any records. Picked up the phone to order coffee from downstairs, got Herbie on voicemail. Sounding unusually vital at that early hour, as a rule Herbie was either stoned or asleep and Herbie toked himself into a stupor at least once a day.

"Harry Harry? f.u.c.k Harry, get your a.r.s.e up to Tony Sheridan's, up at the lake, back of the racecourse. The wife's spark out, throat slashed. The Dibble are trying to keep it quiet about the c.o.ke. Looks good, the shots are in the bag. Ring if you need directions."

I didn't need. Everyone knew where Tony Sheridan lived, except maybe Tony on the nights he thought he lived with the brunette who ran Bojangles, an underage dive down near the river, although not so near it might get a proper flus.h.i.+ng if the river ever flooded its banks.

I picked up a dictaphone and notepad. Thought about it, sucked air through my lower teeth, shook my head, thought it over some more Gonzo home and a gory death all in the one morning, it might be a fluke and maybe not. I unlocked the bottom filing-cabinet drawer, pushed aside the false floor, pulled out the snub-nosed .38. Tucked it inside my belt, snug in the small of my back.

I cut down through the alley across from the coffee shop, crossed the footbridge into the car park. Wasted five minutes trying to remember where I might have left the car. Then I crossed the footbridge again, cut a right down towards the quays to the taxi rank.

The fat flushed cabbie didn't say a word, flicking glances in the rear-view mirror, chewing his bristly moustache, a smirk curling across his chops. I let it fly, no one had to tell me I looked for s.h.i.+t. The black two-piece was rumpled and creased because it was the only suit I owned and I wore it Monday through Friday, rotating the s.h.i.+rts until both went grey. The thin black tie came free with the suit and I unknotted it every New Year's Eve, for luck. The shoes were Italian and suede because women look at your eyes first, shoes second, and I had eyes that made women take a lingering look at my shoes.

In the business you need to look like s.h.i.+t. I work off people who like labels, who talk louder and not always on purpose when there's a shabby suit two barstools along, or in the booth behind the dusty plastic plants in the quiet corner of the restaurant. If a punter was desperate enough to come sidling through my door he had enough problems without worrying about why my threads were better than his. He wanted to see a suit and tie that matched. That was enough and not too much.

And they all sidled. Once in a while someone walked through the door, shoulders back and chin up, nothing to hide. They were the ones who wanted a missing dog tracked down.

Mostly, though, I looked like s.h.i.+t because I didn't care how I looked, couldn't afford to care. Down in the Old Quarter, two times out of three you flip a double-headed coin, it comes down on its edge.

Last time, it doesn't come down at all.

Herbie was slouched on his battered moped, elbows draped across the handlebars, the out-of-date tax disc. Bleary-eyed, s.h.i.+vering. A black woollen hat pulled low over his ears, a mop of red curls framing a face the colour of sour milk, chin and forehead a rash of angry pimples.

"What the f.u.c.k took you?"

"Your mother wouldn't give me my shoes back."

"Better you than me." He nodded up at the split-level villa. Three pillars supported the upper storey, the front of which was all gla.s.s, with a two-door garage below. He said, casual: "They reckon she topped herself."

"Cut her own throat?" I whistled. "Brave girl."

"Another theory runs like this. She opens the door and he gores her. Drags her to the living room, heels first, she's still kicking. So he works her own steak knife in the hole, over and back, sawing."

"Who's telling you this?"

"Regan. Anyway, he puts the knife in her hand, lets the arm drop natural. Wants it to look like suicide. Chops some lines out on the coffee table, leaves it messy, rubs some into her gums, drops the wrap."

"Any dabs?"

"Millions, and you watch too many movies. So Regan says he takes his time after, grinds a boot into the wedding photo, giving it motive. Sparks a smoke, leaves a b.u.t.t in the ashtray, stays around to make sure everything's kosher. Doesn't touch her up. Maybe he's a pro, Regan says, or maybe her pants are already p.i.s.s and s.h.i.+t. Or maybe he gets his jollies clocking corpses draining out."

"Always nice to have options. How long is she there?"

"No idea. They found her about two hours ago."

"Who's on now? Regan?"

"Kilfeather."

"Wanting his name in the paper?"

"He f.u.c.king better."

Kilfeather waited, watching as I waved a card at the uniformed garda standing by the gate pillars, waiting until I ducked under the yellow tape and started up the tarmacadam incline. Then he waved me back. I ignored him, it was what he expected and I hate to disappoint. He watched me come, a sour twist at the corner of his mouth, saying, tasting the word: "Rigby."

"In all his tarnished glory. Who found her, Tom?"

Kilfeather catching fresh air was almost news on its own, especially if I could nail down the brand of dynamite they'd used to get him out from behind his desk. He leered down at me, six-two of obtuse duty, ruddy cheeks and no neck.

"No chance, Rigby."

"Did he find her?"

"He who?"

"Tony he. Come on, Tom."

He put his huge hands up, palms showing, miming a push.

"Back behind the line, Rigby. You know the drill."

"You can't tell me who found her?"

"It's an ongoing investigation. I can't tell you anything."

"Not like you to be shy, Tom."

He didn't bite. I tried again.

"So what kind of investigation is it?"

"The strictly routine kind. And until it's over, I can't tell you anything."

"You don't tell me what's going on, Tom, I'm going to a.s.sume the worst. With my imagination, you don't want to take that risk."