Plugged

‘I know. Fired upon twice, blah-blah-blah.’

‘So you broke protocol and once again drew fire on your own twenty by deciding to ignore the chain of command and providing some covering fire of your own.’

‘Twenty? That’s CB, not military.’

‘I’m reaching out; cut me some slack. So you break protocol, this time getting half a mortar shell up yer hole.’

‘It was a whole shell.’

Simon frowned. ‘A shell made specifically for holes?’

‘Whole with a silent w.’

‘Oh, I see. But my point stands: you felt compelled to protect.’

‘Compelled to protect. Got it. Where were you when I was signing up?’

‘Also you have the gambling addiction.’

This was a new one. ‘Addiction? Come on. Who told you that? I like a hand of poker, it’s true, but no more than the next man. It’s hardly a problem.’

‘Wishful thinking,’ Simon admitted. ‘I grow weary of this analysis, plus I like a game of poker myself.’

‘I don’t think you’re a man to be bluffed.’

Simon closed his notebook with a snap. ‘All in all, I think the medical discharge is the best thing for you.’

‘Medical discharge? Sounds disgusting.’

‘Find yourself a nice conflict-free position,’ continued Moriarty, ignoring my attempt to hide behind humour. ‘Somewhere you don’t have to protect anyone.’

I can’t help it. ‘Don’t you mean protect?’

Simon ha-ha’ed drily. ‘Very good. Wisecracks, the fast track to mental health. Seriously, Dan, find yourself a stress-free position. No cards, no boss and no one depending on you for their well-being.’

So now I’m a doorman at a casino. But it’s not my fault; I’m compelled.

The town is busy tonight, but I don’t feel connected. It’s like I’m watching everything through a dirty window. The world I’ve been holding together with spit and dreams is finally coming apart. The cops toss us out on the street like we’re trespassers and tell us to get lost. There won’t be any rickety roulette or polka-dot bikinis tonight.

Connie is dead, Zeb is missing. I killed a person with a key, for Christ’s sake.

I know that really the key part of it is not important, but there seems to be some kind of irony in it.

Instead of locking the door, I opened Barrett’s doorway to the next life.

Forced. Laboured.

There is no key to life, just a key to death.

Better, but I won’t be writing slim volumes of poetry any time soon.

I feel sick deep in my stomach and there’s bile in my throat. Bile and tequila. I stop and spit in the drain, and as I hawk it up, bent over with my hand on a pole, I see a glint of streetlight on a gum wrapper and remember something.

Macey Barrett’s stiletto spinning like a cheerleader’s baton, burying itself in the ceiling.

The stiletto. It’s still there.

Shit.

Shit. Shite and bollocks.

What can I do about it? What should I do?

I straighten slowly, like a very old man, and actually admonish myself aloud.

‘Okay, Daniel. Think about this calmly.’

In the third person now? Christ, things are bad.

Unfortunately my calm thinking space is out of service at the moment. I try to swat aside the waves of grief and tequila fumes, but my brain is fogged and buzzing.

It should be fine.

So the stiletto is up there; it shouldn’t lead back to me unless there’s a spy-cam in the handle.

The way my luck’s been going. .

I chuckle and spit one last time to restore my manhood after all those thoughts of irony.

Think this thing through.

Going back to the surgery would be a big mistake. Irish Mike could be keeping an eye on the place, and showing up would only put me on his radar.

What about Zeb?

I want to think something positive, I would kill for some kind of bright shining answer, but there’s nothing coming out of my brain but fog and sadness.

Connie, darlin’.

Zeb is dead.

Call him and find out. It’s a thought.

I block the ID on Barrett’s Prada cell and punch in Zeb’s number.

Couple of rings, then a man answers.

‘Yeah?’

Not Zeb. I can tell from a single syllable. Zeb’s got this asthma voice, all in the nose.

‘Dr Kronski?’ I ask, like it’s a professional call.

‘Who’s speaking?’ says the man.

‘You are,’ I say, and hang up. I should probably have invented some medical yarn and promised to call back later, but I can’t be bothered.

They’re answering his calls too. Whatever Macey Barrett was looking for, they haven’t found it yet, otherwise Zeb’s phone would be at the bottom of the reservoir, along with his body.

I shouldn’t have called. I don’t want any of this information; it’s funnelling me towards a choice.

There’s a dawn glow cupping the clouds by the time I get home. I feel like crap and probably look like week- old crap. The last thing I need is my upstairs neighbour Mrs Delano going off on an abuse bender, not to mention the fact that Mike Madden could have cottoned on to my being a fly in his ointment by now.

So with all this in mind, I use my army stealth training to creep into the apartment. There could be a cell of jittery terrorists holed up on the second floor and they wouldn’t hear Company Sergeant Daniel McEvoy slipping down the hallway to his own door.

Which is open. The busted triple-bar lock lying shamefaced on the floor.

I forget all about operation under the radar when I see the whirlwind that has rolled through my apartment.

‘Christ Almighty!’ I shout, wading through the detritus that was my life. I used to do that metaphorically with Simon; now I’m doing it for real. It’s just as painful and I don’t feel better with every step.

The place has been wrecked. Destroyed. I’ve seen bomb sites with less shredding. They pulled down the wallpaper, disembowelled the sofa, dismantled the appliances. My fridge is lying on its side, leaking mayo; looks like a dying robot. The AC unit is in pieces on the table; reminds me of a mechanic’s course I took once. Pictures on the floor. A Jack Yeats West of Ireland print I carried in a tube from Dublin, slashed for malice.

I walk around flapping my arms, kicking through the debris. Where do you start? How can you fix this?

Then Mrs Delano pipes up. She was waiting for me to come home, I’m sure of it. Probably been up all night injecting her eyeballs with caffeine. I know that sounds crazy, but when you live underneath crazy, some of it drips downwards.

‘Kee-rist almighty,’ she calls, voice wafting through the light fixture. ‘Kee-rist fucking almighty.’

I am absolutely not in the mood for this lady right now. The best tack, I know, is not to rise to the bait, because if I react she wins, and we could be at this all morning and at the end of it my stuff is still trashed.

‘You down there, Irish? Can’t you keep your monkey friends under control?’

Monkey friends? Screw it. Zeb, Barrett and sweet Connie. I need to loosen the valve, let off some steam. So I throw my head back and roar like Tarzan.

‘Shut the hell up, you crazy bat.’

She comes back with ‘Hell is shut for crazy bats.’