Dublin Noir

“Fuck’s that, eh? Irish sense of humor?” I grabbed the fucker by the arm, hauled him into the phone box. Pressed him up against the glass. “How’s about a Scottish joke, then? This smart cunt’s got no nose. How does he smell?”

“Wait a second-”

“He fuckin’ doesn’t.” I pulled the nose ring out, took the nostril with it. He tried to clap his hand over the ragged wound, but I held him fast.

“Hey, hey, hey,” he said. “I’m just kidding around, man.”

“Stuff it up your arse. Tell us where the fuckin’ cemetery is or I’ll pan yer cunt in.”

“You get the bus from up the road,” he said. When he talked, he spat.

“Which one?”

“Sixteen. Get off at Harold’s Cross.”

I pushed him to the floor of the box. Pulled my hood up and wandered across the road to the bus shelter. Lit a Bensons, watched the white part get spotted with rain. The punk found his feet and took off. Run, Forrest, run.

Barry Phelan. Some radge bastard had already done the job for me, and His name was God. A stroke knocked Phelan into the Beaumont and a heart attack finished him off in the wee small hours. A shock for all concerned. Mostly me. And if I could take the Big Cat to task, I fuckin’ would. Just like Him to cheat a trying man, ken what I mean?

My man Keith was supposed to keep his ear to the ground. He was supposed to tell us where Phelan was when I got here. I’ll sort him out before I go. Useless fucker. Wouldn’t be surprised he got hisself hooked up with the wrong crowd, ken? It was getting that way. People didn’t have respect for tradition no more.

The Bensons tasted rank. I chucked it into a puddle as I saw the bus coming.

What’s the difference between an Irish wedding and an Irish funeral?

One less drunk.

Aye, I’m a funny cunt. And I needed something to lighten my mood when I got to Mount Jerome. The place was a sea of gray, man. Tombstones, creepy bastard crypts and whatsit… mausoleums? An Irish funeral in the middle of a cloudburst. Talk about fuckin’ maudlin. I walked through the stones, making sure I trod on as many of they dead cunts’ heads as I could, sidled up against a tomb, and watched all they bastards in their drookit Sunday best watching God’s lad go through the motions.

Ashes to ashes. Funk to funky.

The mourners, they was mostly family. I could tell because they was ugly bastards. Skinny, suits hanging off them like they was three sizes too big. The women, small and stodgy, hidden away behind tatty black veils. Professional fuckin’ widows, ken? And it pished down throughout. I spat at the ground, put my hand in my pocket, and wrapped my fingers around the Stanley.

Barry Phelan’s balls, they was under that screwed-down lid. Unless I shot over there, jumped on the coffin, and pried it open with my bare hands, Phelan’s balls were going to be worm food along with the rest of him. That wasn’t any big deal. Bollocks was bollocks. There was bound to be another lad round here who I could pass off as the real deal. And I saw him as soon as the coffin went under.

He came to me, hand outstretched. A tall lad with a gut and white hair. “Tommy Phelan.”

I shook. His hand like a wet fish supper in my grip. I read somewhere that a man’s scrotum and nose kept growing as he got older. If that was the case, then this Tommy Phelan must’ve had knackers the size of watermelons, I’m telling you, because that nose made him look part toucan. “Hugh Sutton,” I said. “Mates call us Shug.”

“You’re Scottish,” he said.

And you’re a fuckin’ genius. “Aye, fae Edinburgh, likes,” I said, getting coarse with the cunt. He wanted Scottish, he’d get Scottish. “I heard Barry kicked it, likes, so I thought I’d mosey over and check it out.”

“You knew him?”

“I ken Lee Cafferty.”

“Lee’s a good man.”

Lee’s a dead man. I shot him in the crown, left him sticking to the lino like a fly in shite. “He certainly is.”

“You’ll be coming to the wake,” said Tommy. A statement.

“No can do. Got to be back in Edinburgh.”

“Sure, you can stay for a wee while. I’d be offended if you didn’t.”

“Ach, if you put it like that,” I said, “I’d be glad to.”

An Irish wake, like a Scottish wedding, Hogmanay and Burns Night all rolled into one. A cold spread on a long table up against one wall that’d hardly been touched. Empty bottles that had. We was upstairs in this place called The Lantern. Phelan sitting across from us, a half-tanned bottle of Bushmills and a pint of Guinness next to it. Talk about fuckin’ stereotypes, man, the auld lad was half in his cups and two sheets to the wind about an hour after we got there. He had a Players between his fingers. I didn’t ken they still made ’em.

“What do you think of Dublin?” he asked me. But like most soused micks, he didn’t wait for an answer. His face screwed up and he leaned forward, rattling the table. The black stuff didn’t move. “It’s not Ireland,” he said. “It’s England’s version of Ireland. You know you can’t smoke in pubs over here now? Legislated. We’re losing our culture bit by bit.”

“Aye.” Thinking, Smoking’s part of your culture, pal?

“Sure, you know all about that, don’t you? I been to Edinburgh, I seen what they did to that place. Shops on Princes Street all full of See-You-Jimmy wigs, am I right? Fuckin’ English screwing you out of your heritage. Tourist tat. Am I right?”

“Aye, you’re right.”

“Dublin’s the same. Temple Bar, I was down there the other week, it’s full of coffee shops. Theme pubs. Feckin’ yanks coming over here claiming they have ancestors from the feckin’ bogs. You know what I say? I say feisigh do thoin fein, that’s what I say.”

“Gesundheit,” I said.

A young lad came over to the table. He was stringy, had a mean look about him. He put a bottle of clear liquid on the table and Phelan’s eyes lit up like a cheap fruit machine. “Now that’s more like it. You’ll join me, so.”

“I’m all right, Mr. Phelan.”

“My brother died, the name’s Tommy, and you’ll join me. Won’t he, Barry?”

“Course he will,” said the stringy lad. He took a seat. I knew he was a wanker, because he turned the chair and straddled it.

“My nephew’s just come back from your neck of the woods,” said Tommy. He poured three deep shots from the bottle. “Barry, this is Shug. He’s an Edinburgh lad.”

“Pleased to meet you,” he said. But his eyes said different. His index finger ran down the side of the shot glass. Brown flecks under the nail. “It’s done, Tommy.”

“There’s a good lad. You take care of it yourself?”

Barry looked across at me, like he was trying to work out if it was safe. Then: “The auld bastard was dead when I got there.” He cracked a grin like a graveyard. “Fucker was sitting in front of the telly, Tommy. Sitting in his own shite.”

I smiled. My mouth was open. Some fuck had put vinegar on the roof and it hurt to breathe. I reached for the shot glass. “What’s this, vodka?”

Tommy’s face flickered. “Poitin, Shuggie. Slainte.”

“Slainte,” said Barry.

“Whatever,” I said, and necked it. It burned my throat. That, or something else.

A rat always knows when he’s in with weasels. That’s the way the song goes.

I drank with them, tried to hold it down. Kept wanting to twitch right out of there. Barry didn’t drink so much, and neither did I, but Tommy got wasted. His eyes glazed over, his chin got loose. It looked like he was melting. “Your da would be proud of you, Barry-son. He’d be proud.”

“I know, Uncle Tommy.”

Barry Phelan, son of Barry Phelan. The fuckin’ Irish, they keep it simple, eh? They have to, the amount they