Plugged

Zeb’s is wedged between Snow White’s dry-cleaners and a Brite-Smile. Chemical sandwich. No wonder my doctor friend has his off days, with fumes like that eating his brain. I make sure my appointments are in the mornings, before depression takes hold.

The sign is flipped to Closed when I arrive. Surprising. Usually Kronski’s homeopathic centre is doing a brisk business in powdered crocodile penis capsules by this time. Zeb tells me that the homeopathic bit started out as a front, but now he’s having to file returns.

People are fucked up, Dan, he confided one night at Slotz, down to a film of whiskey in the bottom of his glass. Everyone’s looking for the magic pill. And they don’t give a shit whose horn gets ground to make it.

Wooden blinds stretch across the shop front; reminds me of a schooner deck I worked on in Cobh harbour. Kronski’s Kures reads the decal. This mall is big on misspellings. Two doors down is Close Cutz, and around the back there’s a roomful of Krazy Kidz slugging down Ritalin.

I feel a little irritated. Zeb better not be face down in an empty jacuzzi, sleeping off a bender.

Again.

Last time it cost me two hundred bucks to pay off the madam. I’ve been working up to this session, mentally, running through the scenarios, playing devil’s advocate with myself.

What if the follicles didn’t take? What if I end up scarred? What if I’m a vain asshole who’ll still be ugly after the next operation?

And now that I have myself totally psyched, as my adopted countrymen would say, Zeb Kronski is running late. And when Zeb is running late, he is generally running tanked.

I thumb the flap in my wallet for the spare key; at least I can get the percolator bubbling while I’m waiting. Then I notice the door is open a crack.

A little odd. But no more than a little. Zeb doesn’t remember to zip his own fly when he’s drinking. One time in a bar, honest to Christ this happened, one time Zeb was five steps out of the john before he remembered to tuck his dick away.

I nudge the door open with my toe and duck inside. The light is sepia, and heavy with swirling dust spores. Something has been moving in here.

Little moments like this, I can’t helping thinking of patrols in Tibnin. I try to avoid the whole flashback thing when I’ve got stuff to do, but some moments are more evocative than others. Some moments are fat with menace. For some reason, this is one of those moments.

Suddenly Corporal Tommy Fletcher is in my head for the second time in so many days. Huge Kerry bastard, arms like Popeye, always complaining. Even on an early-bird mine sweep, Fletcher was mouthing off. This weather is murder on my complexion, Sarge, he was saying. My freckles are fucking multiplying.

Then a Katyusha rocket took out the US M35 truck behind us and flipped it on to Fletcher’s leg, severing it at the knee. I walked away lugging Tommy on my shoulder, with a coating of B+ and a case of tinnitus.

And. . we’re back in the present. I try not to get bogged down in those days, but when the memories hit me, it’s like being there, except you know what’s coming next. You surface in the present and for a moment you are that scared boy again. Once I wet my pants. I wouldn’t mind, but I held it in during the real incident.

I love watching the TV flashback guys. Tom Magnum, Mitch Buchannon, Sonny Crockett, all the greats. They have a ten-second jitter scene about ’Nam, then wake up bare-chested with a pained frown and maybe a light sweat on their smooth foreheads.

Fletcher, I think. Jesus Christ.

Inside Zeb’s unit, the dust is settling.

This place is a real dump. Pills heaped in untidy pyramids on the shelves, a filing cabinet, its drawer hanging open like a drunk’s mouth. Papers everywhere, a few sheets still fluttering to earth.

There’s somebody here, I realise, and miss a step, catching my toe on the carpet.

‘You okay there, bud?’ says a voice. There are crossed legs and loafers sticking out of the shadows in the waiting area. Penny loafers, with actual pennies. Who is this guy? One of the Brat Pack? But the pennies strike a chord with me; I half remember something.

I cough to give myself a second, then answer, ‘Fine. Goddamn rug. Doctor is trying to kill me.’

A low growling laugh, followed by a statement I get a lot. ‘You talk weird.’

‘I get that a lot,’ I say.

‘What is it? Dublin?’

That’s pretty good. Most people get Irish, but never Dublin. ‘I’m impressed. You got relations?’

The legs uncross and stretch. ‘Nah. I work with a guy, he watches this Irish TV show on the net.’

The pennies drop. I know who this is, and all it takes is a flick of the light switch to confirm it.

Macey Barrett. One of Michael Madden’s soldiers.

Okay. This could be trouble.

We don’t really have much organised crime in Cloisters. Too small. But there’s one guy trying to upgrade from hood to boss. He spent a summer with his cousin in the Bronx and picked up some ideas on how to run an organisation.

Irish Mike Madden. Prostitution, protection and a burgeoning crystal meth business, to pull in the weekend tweakers. And here, sitting in my friend Zeb’s waiting room, is one of Madden’s boys. In the dark.

What the hell is going on?

I tell myself to be calm. After all, hoodlums get bloated stomachs too. Maybe this guy’s here for some aloe.

Barrett looks like an accountant. Expensive haircut, expensive smile, nice golden tan. But he isn’t an accountant. Jason pointed him out to me one night in the club.

You see this guy, with the permatan and the penny loafers. Macey Barrett. Irish Mike brought him back from New York. They call this guy the Crab, on account of this little sideways shuffle he does before he sticks you.

Sticking people is apparently Barrett’s favourite pastime. I knew guys like that in the army; they liked to get their hands red. Liked the feel of the blade sliding in.

‘You waiting on the doc?’ Barrett asks me, like he’s just passing time.

I help myself to a cone of water from the cooler. ‘Yeah, sure. I have an appointment.’

‘You don’t say? You’re not in the book.’

He’s reading the book now. Doesn’t even bother hiding the fact.

‘I’m not an in-the-book sort of a guy.’

Barrett rolls himself out of the chair, coming to his feet casually.

‘So, you and the doc, pretty tight? Talks to you and shit? Confides in you?’

I shrug, conveying: you know, whatever. It’s not much of an answer, and Barrett is not happy with it.

‘I’m just saying, you don’t have an appointment and you got a key in your hand. You give a key to someone, he’s your friend. You meet for a beer after work, shoot the breeze. Talk about who’s getting what done in the back room.’

‘Zeb doesn’t talk about patients. He’s like a confessor with that stuff.’

Barrett doesn’t listen past the first word. ‘Zeb? Zeb, you say? Shit, you two are tight.’

Then he changes tack altogether, goes all buddy-buddy. ‘So, pal. How do I know you? I know you from somewhere, right?’

‘Small town.’

Barrett laughs, like this is some kind of joke. ‘Yeah, sure. Small town. Nail on the head, buddy. But I know you. Come on, man. Don’t tell me you don’t know me.’

Barrett makes knowing him sound like a wonderful gift.

Screw it.

‘Yeah, Macey. I know you. I see you on the strip. Madden’s boy.’

And the friendliness shoots up a notch. ‘That’s right. I work for Mike. It’s that shithole club, isn’t it. Slotz,