But there won’t be hurling!
That’s the reality of it.
– Kilkenny hurling manager
Ridge was standing before Superintendent Clancy. His main hatchet man, O’Brien, was standing point, smirk in place. Ridge marveled that Clancy once had been Jack’s best friend and now was his sworn enemy. She’d tried to probe Jack on it, he said, “Shite happens.”
Her alliance with Jack was a permanent black mark in her file. Clancy kept her waiting, poring over papers, making odd grunts of assent.
Who knew?
He was uttering,
“Hmphh.
Mm…”
By the holy!
Finally, he removed his reading glasses, gold rimmed, of course, sat back, surveyed her. His eyes were slabs of pure slate. He said,
“You were arrested by two citizens.”
She started to say,
“Sir, it was a…”
“Shut the fuck up. Did I ask you to speak?”
O’Brien gave a wide grin. She took some solace in knowing that Jack had once beaten the living daylights out of him. Clancy continued,
“If the media got hold of this, we’d have a cluster fuck on our hands.”
She longed to say something but bit down.
Hard.
Clancy said,
“As a favor to your husband, I’m not going to launch an official investigation.”
He stared at her.
What?
Was she, like, to say, “Golly gee, thank you so much yah prick?”
He continued,
“You’re suspended without pay for a month, confined to desk duty, you can handle a phone, I presume, without aggravation?” He returned his reading glasses to his burst-veined nose, said,
“Now get the fuck out of my sight.”
As she slunk out, she began to better understand Jack’s loathing of the man.
Anthony was waiting outside, dressed like the country squire, all pomp and damn little circumstance, and was that a cravat… with the emblem of the Galway Hunt? He barked,
“Get in the car.”
Ridge, never the most tolerant of individuals, already way past her simmer date, asked,
“What?”
To her horror, she noticed he was wearing his riding breeches as he strode to the BMW. He stopped, said,
“We’ll discuss this at home. I had to pull a lot of strings to save your pathetic career.”
She almost ran up to him, got right in his aristocratic face, said,
“Pull this.”
Instead yanked the cravat from his neck.
He was about to protest when she said,
“One fucking word, just one, and I’ll make you eat this piece of rubbish.”
Turned on her heel and walked towards the city center.
She had to stop at the Wolfe Tone Bridge as she realized her whole world was going down the toilet.
She fumbled for her mobile, her hands shaking, called Stewart.
No frills, she begged,
“Can I stay with you for a few days?”
If he was fazed, he didn’t sound it. Then, nothing ever seemed to get to him. He said,
“A Garda in my house, fantastic.”
One of the reasons she loved him, he never, never asked,
“Why?”
You find a friend like that, you’re freaking gold.
That a convicted drug dealer and a Garda were tight was a conundrum neither analyzed. Jack had brought them together but even he never expected they would form a separate peace. They did share one quality, an indefinable regard for the train wreck he was. Both, in their separate ways, felt they might yet save him. When Ridge had begun her martial arts program, Stewart had encouraged her, offering Zen wisdom to beat the wall of pain. Jack, of course, true to form, on hearing of her enterprise, muttered,
“I’ll rely on my hurley.”
When Ridge arrived at Stewart’s house, he already had a room prepared. His home was on the edge of Cooke’s Corner. But a postmortem away from the fish shop where a body had been found in the freezer, and had been there for many years. Of course, the local wits had a field day, the very least of which was, “…Ah, he was always a cold fish.”
Mafia jokes too, of course, not so much sleeping with the fishes as being on ice with them.
Stewart was dressed in a silk kimono, black with gold dragons. It should have looked ridiculous, like Hefner on ludes. But his smooth, lithe movements, his air of total calm, carried it off. He hugged her and she nearly broke down. How long since anyone had done that and truly meant it. She could feel the easy strength of his body. He released her, said,
“Tea’s on the pot, toast ready to pop, and my special omelet is just the right tone of crisp and delicious.”
He ordered her to sit, served them both breakfast, commanding,
“Eat first, talk after.”
She asked,
“Is that Zen?”
He smiled, said,
“No, that’s hunger.”
The omelet was heaven, laced with a hint of a spice. She gasped,
“God, this is good.”
He said,
“And not a magic mushroom in the mix.”
Finished, they sat back, sipped the Darjeeling tea, and he told her about the new player, Mason, the official PI. She said she would run a background check, adding ruefully,
“If I’m still allowed to use the computer at work.”
Stewart wasn’t big on self-pity and asked about the attack on her.
He considered, moved into a lotus position on the chair, said, “First Malachy, then a handicapped man murdered, and now you. And one of your attackers referring to your sexual orientation.”
She asked,
“You think they’re connected?”
He wasn’t sure, said,
“Sometimes, you need Jack’s crazy view on things. He sees weird patterns that a normal person would miss.”
Ridge nearly smiled. Whatever else, Jack would never be condemned as normal. She asked,
“Where is he? Do you think he’s gone on one of those biblical benders?”
Stewart never replied instantly, took all the factors into account, then,
“A ferocious lash, no. He’s drinking, sure, but not in his usual blitzkrieg blaze. Laura, the American woman, is
