Plugged

The corridor is lined with posters, faded in the sun. I remember seeing ET and one of the Connery Bonds, then we’re at a door. Someone has written DOCTOR in thick marker.

‘Oh Jaysus,’ says Tommy. ‘Isn’t that handy now?’

And in he goes, with me at his elbow and the nurse close behind cursing us both for sons of bitches. Inside the door we see a rudimentary surgery with plastic on the floor and a man in a white coat sticking a large needle of reddish gunk into another man’s dick.

I’m suddenly no longer curious, and Tommy throws up on the covered floor, sending rivulets running along the polythene.

‘Bloody bastards,’ says the doctor guy. ‘This is a sterile environment.’

And that was how I met Zebulon Kronski.

More later.

Once upon a time, I could have driven the Lexus to Newark airport and abandoned it in the long-term. Now with Homeland Security they’d be shoving mirrors under it in a New York minute, so I pick the local bus station instead and park the SUV by the dumpsters. I should get ten days’ grace before the blues are called. With any luck some kid will jack the vehicle, dump the body and screw up the chain of events for anyone trying to follow it.

I walk half a dozen blocks from the station, then pay for a cab with one of Barrett’s fifties. Guilt free.

Screw him, he tried to stick me.

I can’t say this aloud, even mutter it, because I have never killed anyone outside a combat zone and I am shaken to my core.

You don’t think that was a combat zone? What would you call it then?

In the taxi, I give myself brain ache trying to wrap my head around the morning’s events. Zeb has a good phrase for this kind of situation. A poor hand of poker or bad luck with a woman could set him off.

A total donkey’s cock, this is, Dan. Donkey’s fucking cock.

I don’t know what that phrase means exactly, but somehow it catches the mood.

My friend has something that Irish Mike Madden wants. Something so important that Macey Barrett was cleared to stick any witnesses without even calling it in. If Zeb were alive, there’d be no need to toss his place; he’d give the something up. No doubt about it, zero pain tolerance. I once took him to emergency for a heart attack that turned out to be a trapped nerve. A trapped bloody nerve. Shit, I got a dozen of those a week in the army.

So this means that Zeb is probably gone. And if he’s not, what am I supposed to do about it?

Nothing. Head down and pray the storm passes over. Grieve quietly and wish it away. All that movie soldier crap about never leaving a man behind is just that. Movie soldier crap. A man goes down behind enemy lines and he’s gone. First rule of combat.

CHAPTER 4

I spend an hour and a half over a ten-minute lunch in Chequer’s Diner by the park. I expect the turkey club to taste like ash, but it doesn’t. Sweetest sandwich I’ve ever had in this place, and I’ve had plenty.

I’m alive, I realise. And food tastes good.

I remember now. You make it home from reconnaissance, and gritty water from the neck of an oil can tastes like nectar. This trauma is bringing the memories back. I’m starting to think like a soldier again; maybe that’s no bad thing.

Once I get over the magical goodness of food, I start brooding on Zeb. He’s a friend, I suppose. The only one I have. A man passes forty and he’s supposed to have a handful of guys in his inner circle. Maybe in Ireland there’s a couple of army buddies who would step up for me, but here, no one. Even Zeb wouldn’t have tolerated any actual discomfort on my behalf. One night I made him get out of bed to pick me up, and I had to listen to it for a month.

Probably dead. More than likely. No sense hoping.

The park is still green. That’s unusual for this time of year; even the leaves are hanging in there. Through the railing I see a dad and his boy tossing a baseball like something from a happy-family TV show.

It’s too late now for me. No baseball-tossing, or kids with my eyes. All I have to look forward to is staying alive until tonight so I can listen to my crazy neighbour mouthing off upstairs.

It’s true what they say about Irish people: we have a great love for the maudlin. For every silver lining there’s a cloud. Maybe that’s why I get on with Zeb so well. It has to be said that the two of us love a good moan, though Zebulon’s beyond moaning now.

Don’t count on it, you Mick asshole.

Except in my head, apparently.

I spend the afternoon watching my own apartment from across the street. There are three delis and an Italian restaurant within ten yards of my front door, so I load up on comfort carbs and coffee. With that concoction inside me, my brain is telling me to get up and go while my stomach is begging for a nap.

I am knocking back my fourth espresso when a couple of suits mount the steps to my building, but they’re peddling the afterlife rather than an end to this one. Definitely not pros of any sort. They walk up side by side and don’t even check the door before knocking. Anyone so inclined could shoot both these guys through the mail slot.

I keep up my vigil for a couple more hours, but nobody suspicious or even suspiciously ordinary shows up. But that doesn’t mean I’m clear. Macey Barrett won’t even be stiff in his rug yet.

Eventually the caffeine in my bloodstream beats down the dough balls in my gut so I make the short walk to the club and arrive at eight, mildly surprised to find myself alive and unmolested. Not so much as a crooked look from a passer-by. Well, no more than the usual. Because of the way I look, people project stuff on to me as I walk past. All of a sudden I’m their mean old daddy, or their arsehole boyfriend, or their handsy boss.

Maybe if you smiled once in a while, Simon Moriarty had suggested during one of our sessions.

So I tried that, until my fixed grin reminded a new girl at the club of some serial killer on the FBI’s most- wanted list and she phoned it in. That was an interesting afternoon in the tombs. Especially with me being handy with a knife and all. Luckily for me, the actual killer was caught the same day when he passed out under a park bench having hit a vein trying to tattoo a psalm on to his dick. It pains me mightily to say it, but the guy did look a little like me.

The upshot of all this is that I don’t smile now unless someone I like says something to me that they think is funny. One of the people I like is too young to get my humour and the other is missing presumed dead.

It doesn’t really surprise me that no one is on my tail.

Still too early, I tell myself. Macey Barrett hasn’t been gone more than half a day.

Which hasn’t stopped Irish Mike sending a dozen texts wondering where his employee has gotten to. They start civil enough.

Hey, M. What’s the story?

Deteriorate a little.

M. You trying to be funny? M.

And by the end are openly hostile.

You report in, Barrett, or I’ll cut your forking head off.

Forking? Predictive text.

I don’t read any more after that.

I get to the club early, but hang back for almost an hour, see if anyone is making enquiries. Nothing suspicious. The only dangerous-looking Irish guy around here is me, so I push through the black leather doors. Jason is at the coat check shooting the breeze with Brandi, one of the older hostesses. I say older, but Brandi is barely thirty, which is just out of her teens as far as I’m concerned. Brandi has been angry at the world for about a year, since she had to hang up her stripper’s G-string and downgrade to a hostess job at Slotz. Forced retirement at