Plugged

too. Green fields and friendly people.’

‘Not so much of either any more,’ I confide. ‘Not since the country got moneyed.’

‘You could bring us, Dan. Show us around. Give us the authentic tour.’

My stomach flips. ‘Any time, Connie. You know how I feel.’ Connie reaches up and tugs at the band of the black watch cap I wear every waking hour.

‘So how’s it looking, baby?’

I am sensitive on this subject generally, but Connie and me go back nearly two years, which is a lifetime in this business. We got history, as they say. One weekend a few months back, she got a sitter and we had ourselves a fling. It could have gone further but she didn’t want a new dad for her kids. I just want to feel young for a couple nights, Dan. Okay?

Twenty-eight and she wants to feel young again.

Every guy’s dream, right? Couple of no-strings nights with a cocktail hostess. I didn’t push it; now I’m thinking I should have.

‘It’s looking fine,’ I tell her. ‘I got my check-up with Zeb tomorrow.’

‘Can I see?’ she asks, long nails already peeling off the watch cap.

My hands jerk up to stop her, but I force them back down. About time I got an opinion.

She folds the cap into her long fingers, then pushes me back under a recessed spotlight.

‘Zeb did this?’

‘Yeah. He had a few nurses too, preparing the follicles. Students I think.’

‘This is not a bad job,’ says Connie, squinting. ‘I’ve seen plenty of hair plugs before, but this is good. Nice spread and no scars. What is it, rat hair?’

I am genuinely horrified. ‘Rat? Christ, Connie. It’s my own hair. Transplants from the back. They’ll fall out in a couple of weeks, then the new hair grows in.’

Connie shrugs. ‘I hear they’re using rat now. Dog too. Tough as wire, apparently.’

I reclaim the cap, spreading it over my crown like a salve. ‘No canine or rodent. Irish human only.’

‘Yeah, well it looks okay. Another session and you won’t know the difference.’

I sigh like it’s cost me a lot of dollars, which it has. ‘That’s the idea.’

I roll the hat back down and take Connie’s elbow, steering her back to the floor.

A Formica bar, low lighting that’s more cheap than fashionable. A roulette wheel that bucks with every spin, two worn baize card tables and half a dozen slots. Slotz.

‘Here,’ she says. ‘Take fifty. You squeezed it out of him.’

I fold the note back into her hand. ‘It was a pleasure, darlin’. The day he licks my arse is the day I take fifty.’

Connie laughs full and throaty and something stirs in my stomach. ‘Oh, baby. The day he licks your arse is the day I buy tickets to witness the consequences.’

She’s back on an even keel, but it’s temporary; this place really takes it out of decent people. A toll on the soul.

‘You okay to go back on the floor?’

‘Sure, darlin’. You know Victor will dock me for the whole night if I quit now.’

I lean down to whisper in her ear, smelling her perfume, noticing not for the first time how long her neck is. Feeling her peppermint breath brushing my cheek. Remembering.

‘Between the two of us, Victor is also a galloping gobshite.’

Connie laughs again, something I would pay money to hear, then she grabs a tray from the bar and she’s back on the floor, hips swaying like a movie star from back when movie stars had hips worth swaying.

She throws a couple of tantalising sentences over her shoulder.

‘Maybe we got another weekend coming up, baby. Maybe a whole week.’

Connie darlin’, I think, then raise my gaze.

Stick to the code. Eyes up.

Eyes up, for now. But me and Connie have unfinished business.

One more look at the hips, my dark side whispers. Then back to work.

As is often the case, my dark side wins.

I give myself a moment to get my head back in the game. That’s the most common rookie mistake in the security business: complacency. Thinking I’m big and scary and what fool is gonna take a swing at me, even to impress his girl. The key word in that sentence is fool. They come in all shapes and sizes and most of them are juiced, coked or both and would take a shot at the devil himself if they thought it would buy them a little respect from their crew or a special treat from a hostess.

So I shut the drawer on Faber and Connie and give the crowd a once-over. Couple of college boys eyeing the hostesses, a few divorcees, and old Jasper Biggs playing the big shot. Tossing in one-dollar bills like they’re hundreds. No danger signs. Still, I decide to send Jason back here to throw around the steroid stare. Can’t hurt. Sometimes trouble begets trouble.

Unfortunately, I am not wrong. Before the ghost image of Connie’s hips can fade, a dozen yeehaws barrel through the double doors. One of them either has a very dainty dick, or a flick knife in his jeans pocket.

Jason, I think. These guy should never have made it in the room.

As Bob Geldof once sang, Tonight, of all nights, there’s gonna be a fight. Unfortunately, Bob’s not wrong either.

CHAPTER 2

After my first stint with the Irish army’s peacekeeping corps in the Lebanon, I was flown home to a zero’s welcome and found the green green grass not so lush any more. Apparently the general public were of the opinion that peacekeepers don’t fight wars; we just stand between the two armies who are fighting the wars and say stuff like: Ah, lads, that’s a bit much or Show me the passage in your holy book that says ‘minefields are okay sometimes’. And then the armies say: You know what, you Irish guys have hit the nail on the head, no offence Christians, plus you have such a good record in your own country that we should all be thoroughly ashamed of ourselves for all this border conflict stuff and just accept our differences.

I decided that the best way to fill the crater that had been blasted in my soul by none of this happening, plus all the exploding and stuff that did happen, would be to volunteer for a second tour, and my application apparently rang a few warning bells, because the sergeant major ordered me to sashay on over to Dr Moriarty’s office at my convenience. Minus the words sashay and convenience, plus the words hustle and right fucking now, retard.

I know that traditionally I should have been outraged, smashed my fist into my palm and blurted this is outrageous, Sarge or I still got the stuff, but honestly, the notion of being probed kind of interested me.

So I showed up prompt at o-seven-hundred the next morning only to find out that consultant shrinks do not do enlisted hours and spent the next two hours in Dr Moriarty’s waiting room reading a magazine that I swear to God was called Head Cases.

Dr Moriarty? I know, almost a professor. Hilarious, right?

By the time Dr Simon Moriarty finally showed up, I was starting to get to a handle on the psychology of the whole psychiatry thing: if bad things happen to you when you’re young, then you’re liable to blame someone for it when you grow up, possibly someone with a similar hairstyle to whoever did the bad things in the first place.

I explained my conclusions to Dr Moriarty, when he finally rolled in looking like the guitarist from Bon Jovi and smelling like the drummer from the Happy Mondays. Not a dickie bow or elbow patch in sight.

‘Nice theory,’ said Moriarty, collapsing on to the couch. ‘I told Marion we shouldn’t leave psych mags strewn