Plugged

shut down bakeries.’

Vic almost has an aneurysm. ‘Fucking funny, lady. If I wanted to take shit from a bitch, I coulda stayed at home.’

The cop has a comeback for that too. ‘Yeah? Well maybe if you click the heels of those ruby slippers together, you could do us all a favour and magic yourself off to whatever dream world manufactures culture-raping assholes like yourself. . sir.’

These are strong words, but Vic started in with the B word, so the cop is probably on safe ground complaints wise. I decide not to get on her bad side.

The blue puts up with five more minutes of Vic’s obstruction, then gets tired of making the effort and sends him up to the plaza for a night in the cells.

Brandi objects loudly until the door closes behind her boss, then she sparks a cigarette and says, ‘Thank heaven. That boy was about to feel the sting of my boot on his behind.’

I am surprised. Behind is a delicate word to be coming out of Brandi’s mouth.

So for two hours we sit around in the bar, waiting for a crime lab crew that has to come all the way from Hamilton in their paper suits. Then another ninety minutes while they scrutinise the area for trace. Good luck to them. That back lot has seen more pot deals and blow jobs than the Amsterdam red-light district. I bet they get semen samples going back to the nineteen fifties.

I keep an eye on the scene through the high window. All I can see of Connie is her foot, but it’s enough to make me want to cry for every sadness I’ve ever known. I don’t break down, though. Tears from a big man are as good as an admission of guilt to a zealous cop.

A couple of the CSIs are not as processional as they might be, pulling down their masks to smoke cigarettes and bobbing along to whatever’s on their headphones. Maybe that’s how they deal, or maybe they genuinely do not give shit one.

And all the time, while the trail is growing cold, the staff is sitting jittery around the casino’s poker table; that is until Brandi hits upon the notion of getting hammered on the boss’s dime. Victor’s locked up, Connie’s shot dead. So, screw it, we all need a drink.

After a while the only ones sober are me and Jason, and he’s been chewing steroids like they’re Juicy Fruit.

‘This is fucked up, man,’ he says for the hundredth time.

Some of the hostesses echo the sentiment back to him, but the number dwindles each time he says it.

I know how Jason feels; there are no words for this kind of situation. Nothing covers it. The numbness is leaving me now, and I miss it. In its place there’s a ball of nausea in my gut.

Have they told little Alfredo and Eva? Who’s going to take them in?

I feel myself getting Irish maudlin again, asking the big questions. Where has my life gone? What have I got? I remember my brother Conor and the look he always had on his face. The look you see on dogs in the pound, the ones they find in burlap with chains coiled at the bottom.

Fresh wounds are like doors into the past. Who said that? Hope to Christ it wasn’t Zeb. I don’t want to be therapising myself with any of his skewed wisdom.

Thanks a bunch. I said plenty of wise shit. Who told you not to fuck with the Jews? Who told you that?

By the time we run out of silver tequila, the cops are ready for interviews. They set up in Vic’s office and summon us one by one. I go second, after Brandi, who comes out snapping her fingers, like she’s won some kind of victory.

There are two local detectives in the room, both African-American females, which is not as much of a long shot as it used to be. They’ve squeezed themselves behind Vic’s desk and swept some of his porn memorabilia into a drawer. The junior detective is the lady who gave Vic grief over his trainers. I want to take a liking to this girl, but she’s got her arms folded across her chest and is wearing a pretty clear I don’t make friends face. I duck from habit under the steel construction beam that spans the ceiling, even though it’s a couple of inches above head height, and sit opposite the detectives.

I point at a Pirelli calendar on the wall. ‘You might want to take that down too.’

I am not being a smartarse here; it is important to me that this investigation goes well. The first forty-eight hours, as they say.

The younger detective rips the calendar out of the wall, taking a chunk of Sheetrock with it.

‘Satisfied, Mister McEvoy?’ she asks, giving me the bad-cop eyeball. We are off on the wrong foot; she has me down as non-cooperative.

‘That was a genuine suggestion,’ I protest, calmly and sincerely. ‘Connie was my friend and I want her killer caught.’

The cops are not won over by my Irish brogue; if anything, a foreigner seems to make them more suspicious. They sit up, shuffle papers and stuff, bump shoulders in the tight space. They were going for authoritative, lining up behind the desk like that, but they look like two school kids squeezed behind a bench.

‘Cornelia DeLyne was your friend, Mister McEvoy?’ says the older of the two.

Cornelia? I don’t know why Connie’s full name surprises me, but it does.

‘Mister McEvoy?’

I focus on the lead detective. She is maybe forty, striking, a slash of rouge on both cheeks, strands of silver in her cropped hair. She wears a grey suit and a colourful Jamaican parrot shirt that kind of jumps out at you.

‘Yes, Detective. .?’

‘I’m Detective Goran, this is Detective Deacon.’

Deacon, the smart mouth, is early thirties. Severe grey suit, wearing anger on her face like latex. I know the type; very serious about her work.

‘Well, Detective Goran, Connie and I were good friends. More than that, briefly.’

I figure Brandi has already told her.

‘So she broke up with you, and you were pissed off.’

I don’t sigh dramatically; I was expecting this.

‘We never broke up, as such. We had a weekend together, and I think there was another one coming up. If you want to talk pissed off, we had quite a ruckus in here last night. Bunch of college kids.’

‘We know all about it,’ says Deacon, cutting across me. ‘Harmless hijinks, I’d say. We want to talk about you, Mister McEvoy. You’re saying you were this beautiful young lady’s booty call?’

I heard this phrase once maybe five years ago. Nobody uses it any more.

‘Booty call, Detective?’

‘Fuck buddy. How does that suit you?’

From hijinks to fuck buddy in a couple of heartbeats. We’re down to this level already? I expected another minute of civility, but this is how it goes. It’s not personal, except with Deacon I have the feeling that maybe it is.

‘Okay, I get it, Detective. I know, she’s. . she was twenty-eight and I’m. .’

‘You’re what? Seventy?’

I don’t get riled. ‘I’m forty-two. I counted my lucky stars, believe me.’

Deacon goes for it. ‘You want to know what I think? I think you were fixated on Miss DeLyne. Obsessed. She kept turning you down. It’s disgusting, right? You’re an old man in a silly hat. So you freaked and shot her. Why don’t you sign the paper and we can call it a day?’

I can’t see myself, but I bet my jaw is jutting stubbornly. ‘Not that easy, Deacon. You’re going to have to work on this one.’

‘Come on, Danny, give it up. I’m tired and the coffee stinks.’

‘What? You think I’m going to break down and blubber out a confession?’ I turn to Goran. ‘She always this lazy?’

I shouldn’t be smartarsing, but Deacon needs to refine her style a little. This shooting has to be solved and the detective is throwing spears into the ocean hoping to hit something.

Goran shields her face with a file and I suspect she’s smiling. ‘You know the young ’uns, Mister McEvoy. Instant gratification.’

And suddenly Deacon is smiling too and I realise that this bull-in-a-china-shop attitude of hers is the oldest