Plugged

‘Hey, screw you, Daniel,’ he says, barging all the way in, still pissed about the give Marco a cuddle comment, eyes burning holes in the floor. ‘It’s bad enough that I gotta go around every second of my life. . But then I actually try to help you and. . you throw that shit at me.’

I gulp down a couple of breaths like there’s a shortage, and try to get my middle-aged heart to slow down a little, while Jason folds his arms, apparently oblivious to the person around my neck.

The least I can do is apologise. ‘Okay, Jason. That comment about Marco was crude. I was going for light- hearted: I know about the gay thing and I don’t care, but it came out all spiteful. So, you know, sorry. I misjudged.’

Jason softens a little, but he’s gonna hold it over me for a while.

‘Okay, Daniel. You get one chance. Next time we find out how tough you really are.’

I hang my head in shame, which is not easy with Brandi’s thigh in the way. ‘I hear you, man. Do you want to hug or something?’

Jason frowns. ‘What am I? A Walton?’

I am a crap modern man. I just assumed. .

‘Okay,’ I say. ‘You call the cops. I gotta take the boots off this unconscious ex-stripper.’

Jason seems to suddenly notice Brandi, but it doesn’t faze him. In our line of work we see stranger shit than this at least once a week.

EPILOGUE

Zeb is back in business after a week bolstering his system in Cloisters General. He was finally kicked out having been caught on video loitering around the pharmacy with obvious intent. The blues questioned him for six hours straight over the incident at his store, but he stuck to his story: got hit on the head from behind, woke up in an ambulance. Don’t remember anything. They questioned me too, but Deacon took the lead and she was prepared to swallow my monumental crock of shit in light of all my lifesaving efforts. I tried to mention the word freezer as much as possible while giving my final statement. The file is pretty much closed and I’m hoping it will be gathering dust soon.

The Brandi file on the other hand is wide open. Deacon ran the boot through the lab. They found blood, bone, brain matter, DNA. The works, Brandi’s boot was the murder weapon, no doubt about it. Unfortunately Brandi fled custody from the hospital before the tests came back and fled the state shortly after that, pausing only to raise funds at a Slotz regular’s house in the suburbs. She was last sighted in Florida.

So here I am, back to the quiet life in Cloisters again. All the craziness seems totally unreal. Could it have actually happened just last week? All that crap in a couple of days when things had been pretty quiet for over a decade, not a single person killed, less than a dozen in the hospital, and a couple of them were faking trauma for legal reasons, then Faber comes along and things go red all over again.

Did any of it happen? I know it did because Connie’s kids are in a foster home instead of watching TV with their mom. It’s not an institution and the McGuffins are good people, and I’m gonna visit every week like I promised, but it’s still a foster home.

What I should have done, looking at it now in retrospect, was to walk into the casino and kick good old Mister Faber so hard in the balls that any mischief-making he was cooking up in his ginger head would have disintegrated along with his favourite executive toys.

But I didn’t do that, since I can’t see into the future and apply it to the past.

So it all went ahead and happened. I sat down and watched Barrett bleed out. I’ve still got blood on my cuff. Or I used to until I burned that shirt and flushed the ashes. It took three flushes. Crappy plumbing.

Ronnie Deacon’s words echo in my mind: People like you and me, Dan, trouble sniffs us out. Maybe you can hide out for a while, maybe even a few years, but eventually someone needs to be saved or someone needs to be killed.

No. It won’t be like that for me. I was Superman for a week, but now I’m just a bald guy with a humdrum job. No more quick thinking, crazy coincidences or lunatic plans.

I feel a little antsy walking into work this afternoon, because today’s the day Mike’s coming to personally collect his payment. Also he says the brakes on the Lexus are whistling a little and I gotta take care of it, which is a crock, cos that Lexus was braking fine when I sent it over.

I look around and the car park is empty but for the aforementioned Lexus and my ghosts. I can hear cars passing on the street and they seem a long way away.

I yank my hat off my head, defiantly revealing my head in public for the first time post-op in some kind of gesture, symbolising I don’t know what. Maybe I’ve turned a corner; maybe there are things more important than a head of hair. Zeb says the bald patch will be gone, and that’s enough for me. No more needles in the scalp.

So that’s no more:

Killing.

Lunatic plans.

Needles in the head.

The club is quiet except for Jason in the foyer pulling on a giant rubber band that he swears does wonders for his abs.

‘Gotta keep myself looking good for Marco,’ he grunts. ‘I swear that guy bats his eyes at every queer on the strip.’

This statement is more important than it sounds. Jason is being casual like this to show me I’m forgiven. I stop for a minute, trying to think of something to say that won’t open the wound again.

‘Hug?’

‘In your dreams, Danny. You better go in. Mike’s waiting.’

Mike is waiting in my chair, which is a bit of a cheek, but after the month I’ve had, I’m finding myself very tolerant of things that don’t threaten to immediately kill me.

‘Mister Madden,’ I say, squeezing into the old wooden chair on the visitor’s side of the desk, hoping it doesn’t collapse, which might startle Mike into shooting me. ‘How’s tricks? I mean business tricks, not prostitution obviously.’

Mike does not glare at me. He is calm, a man biding his time.

‘Business is good, Danny boy. Booming. People always want shite, you know, so I give them the shite they want, and to be honest I can’t get hold of the shite fast enough.’

Seems as though Mike is afraid of wires and likes the word shite.

‘And how’s tricks with you, Daniel? Business, I mean.’

I give the standard Irish tell-’em-nothin’ response. ‘Ah sure, you know, not too bad.’

Mike winces. ‘Not what I hear. I hear Vic Jones is causing a few problems.’

It’s true. Victor has a lawyer claiming that the poker game never happened and he signed his lease away under duress. With AJ and Brandi in the wind, the only other witnesses to the game are the two girls whose future we played for. Jason has a team out looking for them. But even if we do find them, a poker lease transfer may not hold up, as it wasn’t agreed to by the owner.

But I say, ‘Don’t worry about Vic. You get your shite no matter who’s behind the desk.’

Mike smiles and touches the peak of his soft cap. ‘Oh, I’m not worried, Danny boy. I always get what’s due to me.’

I decide to change the subject. ‘How’s your mother doing?’

Mike’s smile grows so I can see his ivory-yellow fangs. ‘She’s old, Dan, and she has a bit of a flu. Let’s hope it doesn’t develop into something.’

I should have picked another subject to change to.

The door to my office opens and Zeb’s head appears, weirdly disembodied in the gap. I wasn’t expecting to see him today, but he’s probably drunk or bored or both.

On seeing us he calls: ‘Hey, it’s the hairy boys. What’s up, gangstas?’