Dublin Noir

later, he followed her.

Burke’s eyes hurt. Bad. His head hurt too. Worse. He tried to open his eyes. Couldn’t. Sunlight grilled him through the open blinds. Eyes closed, fighting to stay awake, he slid out of bed, stood up, and felt his way to the window. Gripping the blinds, he yanked them closed and then risked opening his eyes. They still hurt but he could see. Turning around, he stopped dead, halfway between the window and the bed. Pia lay there, naked, one leg dangling on the floor, a trickle of blood from her lips forming a small red pond between her breasts.

PART II.THE MANHATTAN CONNECTION

PORTRAIT OF THE KILLERAS A YOUNG MANBY REED FERREL COLEMAN

Jaysus Christ, I hate feckin’ Americans! The donkeys worst among ’em. And them arse-licking cops worst of all. Them with their fifty-two paychecks and pensions, their red noses and “Danny Boy” tears. They think glen to glen is a conversation of like-named punters. Cunts, every last one. Them that sees romance in the famine and the troubles. Yah, romance in a bloody holocaust and the smell of cordite in the streets of Derry. And they ease their guilt and fancy themselves Provo men because they open their wallets and sing Pogues songs and drown themselves in pubs with a gold harp above the threshold. What a load a shite.

Oh, and how they imagine us Irish in the worst possible sense; a race of toothless spud farmers in white cableknit sweaters and black rubber boots, spouting Joyce or Yeats, herding lambs with a switch in one hand and a pint of Guinness in the other. And what of our race of red-haired colleens? Why, they’re out in lush pastures in their white blouses and green plaid skirts gathering clover and hunting for pots of gold. Bollix!

I hadn’t meant to kill the first one. I had dreamed of it, for sure. Taking one of the cheery bastards who hopped into me cab and opening him up like an Easter lamb, tossing his innards out my windows as I drove the M-road back from Shannon. But like with sex, it never quite happens the way you dream it. I s’pose if I had planned it, it would never have come off at all. I had sat patiently for a year at the wheel and listened to my American cousins affect cartoon brogues, recite bad jokes, and spew inanities at the back of me head.

“Would you like a seven-course Irish meal? A six-pack and a patata.”

“Top a the mernin’ to ya, boyo.”

“Where do you keep the leprechauns? In the trunk?”

“Hey, where’s me Lucky Charms?”

“Is it true about the Irish Curse?”

“You don’t have red hair!”

“Irish Spring. Sure it smells good on him, but I like it too.”

What eejits!

I took all of it and more; let it build up like steam in the kettle. It got so that the loathing felt warm as the shame of me Irish blood. I learned to bathe in it so that the thought of killing one of me American fares made me hard as a hurly soaked through with water and left to cure in a baking hot oven. Hate had always been a comfort to me. What’s more natural than hate, save rage? I hate Pakis, tinkers even more. But nothing I had known before compared to how I hated Americans. It was my coming of age.

Then, out of the blue, I was triggered. A blowsy Yank, all muzzy and hog-eyed, got in me cab just outside Davy Byrne’s Pub in Duke Street and asked to go to the Gresham Hotel in O’Connell Street Upper. He went quiet on me after first announcing he was ex of the NYPD. As if I gave a shite. For fuck’s sake, did he expect me to kiss his ring? So many sheets to the wind was he that he seemed to lose his voice as well as his senses. Then catching his breath, he began to rant about the weather, but that isn’t what set me off.

No-it was when he complained bitterly that us Irish drive as the Brits do, on the wrong side of the road. In America, he assured me, they would never put up with that shit. It was at that point I decided to no longer put up with his. Well, it wasn’t so much a decision as a reflex. Why, of all things that should have lit my candle, I cannot say, but light it it did.

I detoured to a section of town where, at that hour, there would likely be no foot traffic at all. Feigning illness, I pulled into an alley near dark as my heart. I got out of the cab, having already slid me sawed-off baseball bat up me trouser leg. When he came to look after me as I knelt on the cobbles pretending to retch up me lungs, I slammed the bat into his shins with such fury to snap at least one. I nearly orgasmed at the crackle of his shattering bone. He tumbled mightily, his head smacking a brick wall. Thud does not describe the sound of his skull against the stone. He was not dead, only damaged. I made sure to damage him well beyond dead. His face, what there was left of it, now red from blood and not from drink. I removed his watch, his jewelry, credit cards, the money from his wallet. I learned that from American TV.

“Was that a home run, fella?” I asked, tossing his pilfered wallet onto his body.

He was strangely silent.

There have been five more like him spread out over the last two years. I’ve made certain to alter the way in which I approach my victims, never again picking one up in me cab. They’re such suckers for the glad hand and blarney that there’s no challenge in it. They’re kittens to cream. Nor have I repeated the method I’ve used to murder them. I’ve stabbed one, poisoned another, beaten one to death with me fists, strangled one, and used a shotgun on the last. When the Gardai seemed to be putting two and two together, not usually a skill they possess, I was forced to kill at random. Not a drop of red, white, or blue involved.

She was an Irish girl, pretty enough to interest the press. She was at Trinity studying some wanker named Kant. Had to swallow the laughter on hearing that. Dropped two rufies in her drink, diddled her every way to Sunday, and stabbed her with the same knife I used to do in the American. I cut her in just the same way as I did the Yank. I think of him as the Ugly American. Looked better when I was done with him than when I began.

I feel bad about her sometimes, like when I’m getting meself off. She’s the only one I rue. Might have been a future for me with her and Kant, but I had to confuse the Gardai. Worked like a charm. They need a new calculator. I figure I’ll have to do the odd one every now and again. No more pretty girls, though. No philosophy students. Kants, the bunch of them. I’ll have to use that line. You think?

Shite, a fare out in front of Kavanagh’s Pub and I was having a tickle with you lot. Do me the favor of keeping your gobs shut until I rid meself of the fare. Then we can get back to our business.

“Where to, sir?”

“Just drive. I’ll tell ya when to stop.”

“American?”

“Yeah.”

Jaysus, I finally got a quiet one. No jokes nor brogues. And look at the face on him, Irish as a Galway swan and dour as a priest out of sacramental wine. I almost feel sorry for this one.

“Here on business or pleasure, you don’t mind my asking?”

“Business.”

“What kinda business you in?”

“Cop. I’m a cop.”

Fuck on a bike! An American cop, but nothing like the others. He didn’t even tell me where. Usually takes no more than a few seconds in me backseat before they show me their friggin’ shield and tell me how long till they’re vested in their bloody pensions. Then it’s to the war stories. As if I give a toss.

“Collins,” I said, reaching me right mitt across my body and over the seat.

“Jack,” he said, giving me hand a quick, uncomfortable shake.

Again, nothing like the others. All the others near crushed me hand, refusing to give it back until I pled for its release. Now as I see him in me rearview, I’d say he’s had a fair amount