Callous, page 3
But the locals were friendly.
Most said,
“Sell it, get a nice apartment.” Like fuck.
Her determination impressed them and they told her/helped her with the Utilities
Builders
Cleaners.
One of them said,
“You’re the spit of that opera singer.”
She smiled through gritted teeth, heard,
“That girl-een had a fine voice.”
OK, if it ingratiated her to the neighborhood, she could suck it up.
For now.
She thus learned the use of “–een.”
Man-een
Woman-een
Hand-een.
It was used to either diminish or build up a subject or person, to reduce to less fearsome size or even for affection, as in “girl-een.”
The Irish version of English took some getting used to.
She hadn’t yet mastered the ubiquitous fierce.
The weather was fierce.
Life could be fierce good or the exact opposite.
Kate settled for winging it, fall back on being American when language failed. A woman said to her,
“We like Americans …”
Pause.
“Again.”
Whoa, talk about fuckin’ loaded! But Kate, no slouch in verbal warfare, said sweetly,
“Oh my, that is such a relief.”
Thinking,
Take that, bitch.
You grew up on the streets of Brooklyn, with an Irish mother on point; a passive-aggressive shopkeeper was going to diss you?
Sure.
She went to see her lawyer, a guy in his sixties, all suit and fuss, no class. He offered tea, laughed, corrected, coffee?
Kate let a silence hold, to echo how that question sounded. And she let a little hard into her tone, said,
“Could I have coffee without being patronized?”
A beat.
Then he smiled, said,
“Your aunt will never be dead.”
After Kate had signed all the deeds, the lawyer sat back, surveyed her with a cold eye, then he said,
“Would you like me to help with the sale of the house?”
She was genuinely shocked, went,
“Sale?”
He did a movement with his mouth which suggested he had a bad taste in there, or even …
Even.
That he might be about to spit.
Which would be a very bad move before a woman like Kate. Instead, he cleared his throat, said,
“Young single woman like yerself, take the money, travel, enjoy the freedom.”
His face had an expression dangerously close to a leer. Kate said,
“I’m confused. Did I give you the impression I wanted your advice?”
Now he bristled, said,
“Wiser heads, you know.”
She said,
“Pity my brother Colin isn’t here.”
The lawyer felt in control again, smirked,
“He’d be the sensible one?”
Kate stood up, said,
“He’s a marine. He’d put you through the window for talking like you have to a woman.”
He picked up a pen, said,
“We’re done here.”
She leaned over, said,
“You’re a fierce man-een.”
Kate was waiting for an hour in the Guards station until finally a detective summoned her to a small office. He was in his bad mid-forties, going bald, with bloodshot eyes, a reek of stale alcohol seeping from his pores.
His nameplate said Det. Clarke.
He looked at Kate with mild distaste, but that might have been due to his hangover. He said,
“Kate Millet?”
She snapped,
“Mitchell, Kate Mitchell.”
He stared at his notes, asked,
“You sure? Says Millet here.”
He leaned back in his chair, asked,
“What can I do for you?”
She took a deep breath, said,
“My aunt was murdered. I’m wondering what’s been done.”
He seemed mildly confused, said,
“Done?”
Phew-oh.
She counted to ten and then on the outbreath said,
“Any suspects, any sign of a motive? You know, police stuff.”
He took another glance at his notes, then,
“Inquiries are ongoing.”
She stood up, snarled,
“So, like nothing, then.”
He gave a sly smile, said,
“I’m not at liberty to reveal details of a current investigation.”
She said,
“Bite me.”
Outside, she fumed, felt the draw of the heroin bliss but shook herself, wanted a kick-ass drink but forced herself to take a long walk. Ended up on Nimmo’s Pier.
Gazed out at the ocean, feeling a deep sense of loneliness. Heard footsteps behind her, didn’t turn. A man’s voice.
“Hope I’m not intruding.”
Then he came alongside. He was tall, in his thirties, maybe, bald with sallow skin, dressed all in black, but very expensive clothes. She knew quality, as when you can’t afford it, you are keenly aware of it. Just one of life’s little fuck-yous.
His accent was part American, part UK English. She gave him the full appraisal, said,
“You look like a crow.”
He gave a small smile, said,
“A raven, perhaps.”
He put out his hand, manicured hands, but strong, said,
“I’m Dio.”
She sighed, said,
“A name as ridiculous as your outfit.”
He let that slide, said,
“You are, I believe, Kate Mitchell.”
She shot him a look but he countered, fast, said,
“My apologies but this Claddagh is like a village. An American is known.”
Something in his tone had a whisper of menace. She said,
“Take a hike, fella.”
He gave a delighted smile, said,
“Such spirit de, del corazón.”
She put her hands on her hips, spat,
“Try this: fuck off.”
Then she noticed in his finely tailored jacket the tip of a paperback, did a double-take.
She’d recognize that book anywhere.
Near shouted,
“Is that a Sara Gran book?”
He took out the book slowly.
Indeed,
Sara Gran.
The very first Claire DeWitt adventure!
Instead of raging anger, she felt a desperate need for a fix.
Just shoot up. Don’t even try to figure out this weird shit.
He said, with almost a sheepish grin—not that sheepish was anywhere, ever, in his genetic code—but he could wing it, kind of,
“I must confess, you are not unknown to me, Kate Mitchell.”
You grow up in Brooklyn, survive the streets there as a functioning junkie, very little in this fucked-up world would flatten you.
His words did.
She reeled back and he reached out to catch her. She spat,
“Touch me and I’ll gut you.” He loved that.
Just fucking loved it.
He said,
“Forgive my presumption, but I know we are destined to be together.”
She had heard some shit in her time and most of it from her own family, but this guy!
I mean, for fuck sakes, was she to have no peace, having traveled across the ocean?
Then,
She made a dreadful mistake.
Understandable to an extent, perhaps, with the stress she was feeling, but in light of the fallout not forgivable. She snapped,
“You better not let my boyfriend hear this shite.”
She didn’t have a boyfriend, but she had met a man of vague interest. Mike Shaw, an Irish version of a surfer dude, if such a thing even hints at sanity. He ran a sailing school out of the bay adjacent to the Claddagh.
He wore sweaters that would have looked fine in any episode of Nordic Noir, very faded jeans, wild scraggy mop of blond hair and, in total contrast, neatly trimmed beard. He liked to smoke spliffs, took the world very much with an air of utter disdain, and seemed to find Kate, as he put it,
“One splendid example of a spirited woman.” Who could resist?
So, OK, nothing really hot had gone down yet, but it was there, in the air, the fun dance of flirting with a person who made your pulse race.
Dio’s face mutated into something very evil, very ugly. He said, very quietly,
“Woman, do not toy with me.”
She mistakenly misread this as some degree of capitulation and couldn’t resist rubbing his sinister face in it, said,
“Michael is a Viking to your …”
Stalled.
Searching for a suitably scurrilous comparison, found, unfortunately,
“Pitiful punk act.”
Dio didn’t reply, simply rubbed his face with both hands as if she’d spat at him. Then turned, strode away.
A naked lunch is natural to us.
We eat reality sandwiches
But allegories are so much lettuce.
Don’t hide the madness.
—Allen Ginsberg, “On Burroughs’s Work”
Michael Shaw, the man mentioned to Dio by Kate Mitchell, took, as the Irish say,
“Life aisy [sic].”
It wasn’t that he didn’t give a fuck, more that he didn’t give much of a fuck. His sailing school ticked over, never making a whole shitload of cash but enough to keep him in the essentials.
Beer.
Weed.
Roof over his head.
He’d never been to the States, but his inner voice was all Californian mellow, perhaps due to the sheer amount of dope he smoked. (Ludes he would have appreciated, but his generation missed the whole Quaaludes gig.)
Even his movements suggested a chilled dancer, moving sure but with no great urgency. His favorite expression/answer to most anything reflected this mindset.
Like this:
“Ain’t no big thing, man.”
He just didn’t take life too seriously.
Life was about to take him deadly seriously.
Saturday nights, Michael liked to tie one on, have some shots with his pints, maybe grab a chicken curry with chips on the walk home.
But first he needed to pee, badly. He was on the Grattan Road, figured he’d slip onto the beach, relieve himself.
He did.
Back on the footpath, a van pulled up, a guy jumped out, slammed his fist into Shaw’s gut.
Shaw, stunned, had the insane thought,
Pee police?
Then he was dragged to the van, thrown inside.
He managed to gasp,
“Gotta throw up.”
The man who’d hit him said,
“Do, and I’ll break your neck.”
Minutes later, they pulled up before a dark warehouse and Shaw was dragged inside, tied to a hard-back chair. The man said,
“Feel free to puke now.”
Shaw shook his head, trying to focus, trying to figure,
What the fuck is this?
Two men stood before him, literally a clash of light, one dressed all in black, with a shaved head and exuding darkness if such a thing were feasible; the other, blond hair, huge smile of great teeth and a T-shirt that seemed to proclaim
guns n’ roses.
Shaw, who had managed to make light of nearly every event in his life, wanted to ask
“Ebony and ivory?”
But the vibe coming from these guys was anything but mellow; violence seemed to glow and backlight them.
The Guns N’ Roses guys said,
“I’m Keegan and this imposing chap is Dio. He’s like …”
Pause.
“The Man, El Hombre, El Jefe.”
Shaw had a temper, not often on show but you didn’t run a business in Claddagh by being a guy who rolled over. He said,
“Not much of a man if he has to tie someone to a chair.”
Dio rocked on his heels, his machismo, always simmering, took a hit. He snarled,
“What are your intentions to the lady Kate Mitchell?”
Shaw was taken aback, took him a moment to even recall Kate, then he asked, with incredulity leaking over his words,
“The American babe?”
Dio lashed him with
With
Rosary beads?
It hurt. A lot.
Was this some fucked-up priest gig?
Shaw, reeling from the lash, blood already running down his cheek, said,
“Try that shite if my hands were free.”
Dio barked at Keegan,
“Free him.”
Keegan, unsure, asked,
“Like, seriously?” Dio shot him a look.
So, yeah, seriously.
Shaw, freed, rubbed his hands, asked Dio,
“Ever hear of the hard right?”
Then shot out his right fist, executing a perfect uppercut to Dio’s jaw. Dio was lifted clear off his feet, landing flat, heavily on his back. Shaw said,
“Not so much to say now, shithead.”
Keegan whistled, said,
“You’re, like, seriously fucked, dude.”
Shaw faced him, asked,
“So, what you got, asshole?”
Keegan said,
“You have some cojones, dude, but, alas, not going to have them long.”
But he kept his hands casually by his sides, his body relaxed. He said,
“Kate Mitchell, you forget about her, maybe we can let this whole dance slide.” As if.
Shaw said,
“I barely know her, but now, now I’m kind of keen to spend some time with her.”
Keegan said,
“Wrong, wrong response.”
Dio, leaning up on one elbow, plunged a long, thin stiletto into the back of Shaw’s knee, clean through. Shaw crumpled.
Dio moved toward him, the rosary beads in his hand, put his knee in Shaw’s chest, said,
“If thine eye offend me …”
Drove the crucifix into Shaw’s right eye, twisted it with ferocity, grunting like a crazed animal.
Finished, he stood up, said,
“Retrieve that cross for me.”
Keegan thought,
Like fuck.
His time with the Zetas, he’d witnessed
Women with their entrails spilling out.
Children hanging from bridges.
And other atrocities that could still bring a shiver to his spine but this, like, seriously?
He tried.
“Haven’t you got, like, a stash of those?” Silence.
It was rare to rarest for Keegan to ever, ever, question Dio.
Dio gave Keegan the look; only maybe three times in their fucked relationship had Dio allowed Keegan to see what lay behind those dead eyes. He did now.
It was malevolent, feral, slithering, encompassing every evil you hadn’t even conjured. Then it was gone, crawling back to whatever depth it lurked in.
Keegan said,
“I’m on it.”
As he knelt, twisting, pulling to get the cross free of the ruined socket, Dio said, “Find me a hill.”
“What?”
“A hill above the city.”
Keegan couldn’t help it, asked,
“We’re building something?”
Keegan realized he was asking way too many questions and, phew-oh, Dio had a real hard-on about being quizzed.
He stared at Keegan for one long chilling moment, then intoned,
“I will build a cross to make them shudder, a monolith to show them true awe.”
Pause.
“Then I will crucify that treacherous bitch with rusty nails, and her disloyal howls will ring out over this wretched plain.”
Not a whole lot of answers to such a scheme, none of them in the realm of sanity. I mean, did you go, “Great idea.”
“Just the ticket.”
Or,
Simply,
“You mad fucker.”
Keegan, always the survivor, said,
“I’ll start the search for a hill.”
Why the Goddess
Went to hell
And
What to expect
Now
That’s she returning.
—Robert Anton Wilson, Ishtar Rising
Kate heard of the murder of Michael Shaw on
Galway Bay FM.
And she went
B
A
L
L
I
S
T
I
C.
Like, seriously fucking lost it.
Like this:
Smashed her grandmother’s Galway crystal goblets.
In Irish lore, that is serious shit.
Just lashed those beautiful babes against the far stone wall of the kitchen.
She howled like a banshee.
“Yah fuckin motherfuckin’ murderous piece of shite.”
Then turned to see Raymond Givens leaning against the jamb of her traditional half door.
An indication of Kate’s frame of mind,
(given that she based her life on Claire DeWitt, a fictional character)
