Dublin Noir

Okay, then. Piss off.

Really, I’ll poison some other handsome devil. Have a nice flight. Hope your bride doesn’t mind a closed casket.

Bi curamach.

Allan, I’d suck a dick for another pint, so how about it?

Back now, are you?

Your skin must be driving you mad by now.

Me? You want to know about me?

Ah, you’re just looking for the antidote. Nothing more. Maybe a blowjob before you die. Yeah, well ask me arse, ye bollix. I’m desperate. Just not that desperate.

Yeah, I know what I said to Allan. It’s an Oirish thing. Ironic exaggeration. You wouldn’t understand.

Okay, fine, the antidote. We’ll get to that. In a while. First you’ve got to hear my story. Don’t worry, I’ll give you the abridged version.

Look above you. Past the ceiling of this pub, deep into the clear Irish sky. Not as far as the stars. Just below. Can you see it? The spinning silver ball?

Humor me. Tell me you can see it.

Yeah, that spinning silver ball. The foukin’ satellite.

Use your imagination, Jason, for fuck’s sake. That’s why God gave it to you.

Okay. You see it. Now picture this: biochemical triggers in my blood. You can make them silver, too, if you want. Little silver balls, swimming round my red and white cells. AIDS? I’d welcome AIDS. There’s shit we can do ’bout AIDS. We can’t do anything ’bout this. These little silver balls. Can you see them?

Good. Now imagine the big silver ball in the sky.

Yeah, the satellite, Jaybird.

That’s the big silver ball that’s fixed on the tiny silver balls in my blood. It needs six feet circumference to do its job, otherwise the big silver ball could kill innocent people. Besides me, hah hah.

Star wars.

Yeah. My lab’s been busy the past twenty years.

So yeah, okay, if I were to get up from this bar stool and walk across Dame Court? You’d see me lovely body fall to the ground. Dead. Those silver balls are brutal. They grow spikes. In my heart. In my brain.

Jesus can’t help me, but thanks for the sentiment anyway.

Who? Beats the royal fuck out of me. Maybe some jealous foukin’ bastard in the lab. A jilted lover. A bored and horny bureaucrat. Fucked if I know. Maybe I should have given a ride. Suck some dick for science, right?

You can help me by staying with me. For at least eleven hours. That’s when help will arrive, le cunamh De. And the big silver ball won’t be able to say shite about it. As long as you stay within six feet of me.

Oh, my hotel room? Just a few blocks away. I’m at the Westbury. When I’m in Dublin, I make it a point to stay five-star. You’ve gotta see the bathroom.

Yes, that’s where I have the antidote.

Aren’t you going to hold my arm, mo ghra?

Of course it’s nice. What did you expect? We’re in central Dublin, not foukin’ Galway.

Stop asking. It’s not important. What’s important is you and me. Together. Tonight. Within six feet of each other, at all times.

You don’t mind if I handcuff you to the bed, do you?

No, I wasn’t exactly joking.

Mm!

Mmmmmm.

Well.

This is an unexpected development.

The handcuffs, wasn’t it?

I do have them, swear to Christ. Right here in my bag. See?

Oh.

Mmmmm.

These turn you on, do they?

Oh, we’re almost there.

It is a beautiful lobby, isn’t it? Almost as beautiful as my lips, wouldn’t you say?

Oh, the mouth on you.

Here we are. Push the up arrow, boyo.

What?

I wouldn’t worry about that. The antidote doesn’t matter. What matters is us. Together. Tonight. You, here with me. For… yeah, looks like eleven hours.

Ding.

Yes, Jason?

625. Why?

What are you-

You snap the one cuff around her wrist and the other around the car rail. You watch her eyes widen as you step back.

And the doors close.

The frantic pounding and clanging. The wail of betrayal.

Then you swear you can sense it: the faint tremor just beyond the range of human hearing.

Because the wail has stopped.

No need to worry about that antidote. You knew she’d made it up. Her security clearance doesn’t give her access to the hard stuff.

You unflip your cell. Dial the number that after a few security switches will connect you with a basement somewhere in Virginia.

All you have to do is make this phone call and you can hop your plane home to Philadelphia. Just two words, and you’ve earned your paycheck.

“It works,” you say.

ROPE-A-DOPEBY CRAIG McDONALD

Harcourt Street, a raucous downstairs bar: uber meat market.

George has his eye on a woman-out of his league, but worst she can say is no.

And he knows this: Lonely women fear lonely weekends like death.

Friday, just after work. This, in his too-successful experience, is every lonely woman’s hour of least resistance.

Pints are guzzled by lookers in little black dresses who’ve spent their days skirting the boundaries of “casual Friday” good taste-sweaters or jackets between them and stern warnings from sundry Human Resources Nazis.

George signals the gaffer, points at the woman alone at the table near the door.

The keep nods and half-smiles, says, “Russian Quaalude.”

George Lipsanos scowls. “What the fuck kind of drink is that?”

The barkeep smiles and shrugs. “Obscure one: Frangelico, Bailey’s, and vodka. Honestly? Had to look it up.”

Impatient, George nods. “Send her a double.”