in the open. What was the point of that? Steno didn't like
Sometimes Steno wished he had been into women, because there were nights when he could take his pick. The women would see their men edging up to him and they'd draw their own conclusions. It was like a nature program Steno had seen shot at night, or in a cave, all you could see was the animals' body heat, represented by color; the shade indicated who would mate with whom: the hotter you were, the redder you were, and the redder you were, the bigger the stream of rapidly reddening females piling over to you. Steno broke his shite laughing when he saw that program. Christine asked him what he was laughing at.
Nothing, he'd said.
Well, he couldn't say, you, you red bitches in heat you, could he?
Christine had come in trying out for the back room. Steno could see immediately she didn't have what it took. But she wasn't the kind you done in the backyard by the bins either. He took her out and he took her home and they became boyfriend and girlfriend. He had to fuck her quite a lot to begin with, and she wasn't into anything 'like that,' and there was a point when he didn't think he was going to make it, but that point was around the same point that Steno saw there was a market for smack around the place. He had mates in Amsterdam, and they'd send a mule, or sometimes he'd pick it up himself; no one at customs ever stopped Steno. He smoked it with Christine until she got into it, and then he'd kept it coming. Then he didn't have to fuck her so much, or at all, and if he did, he'd do what he liked and she'd put up with it, long as the smack showed up. And long as you had regular bread coming in, a smack habit was as easy to handle as a bottle of wine a night; Christine had a regular job as a secretary in a solicitor's office in Blessington and she kept herself looking smart and they lived in a bungalow on the Dublin road, although Steno had a 'manager's flat' McGoldrick built for him when the Warehouse refurb was taking place, an inducement to persuade him to stay. They couldn't run McGoldrick's without Steno.
Well, maybe one day soon, they were going to have to.
The happy accident occurred, as so many have, on account of smack.
After Pa Hutton blew it with By Your Leave at Thurles, he was hanging around a lot, hitting the booze hard, and Leo Halligan stopped slipping him freebies because Hutton wasn't at the races anymore, at first literally, and then majorly. Soon after, Bomber Folan was rolling around in pretty much the same condition after he'd been dumped in short order by F. X. Tyrrell. Folan and Hutton soon found smack was a perfect way of taking the edge off life's little disappointments. Leo Halligan wasn't happy at first that Steno was dealing, but it worked out all right in the end: George was keen that Podge Halligan came nowhere near Tyrrells court because he was a headbanger and a madman, he'd scare all the jockeys away and the Halligans' betting deal with the Tyrrells would collapse. With Steno there, George could tell Podge there was no room for him in the market. George even saw to it that Steno took a weapons delivery or two, just in case a bout of competition erupted.
McGoldrick Senior didn't much like the way superannuated jockeys from Tyrrellscourt seemed to end up haunting the pub, but Steno took a strong line there: quite apart from their being his clients in more ways than one, the town had a loyalty to those who hadn't kept up with the race-not to mention the lads who came up through St. Jude's. That's what Steno said anyway: he didn't know whether he believed it or not, and he didn't really give a fuck: he liked the way it sounded, and the effect it had on the people who heard it, and why else would you say anything? It made him feel like he was a good man, at least some of the time, and sometimes you seemed to need that. Steno didn't know why, but there it was.
Folan fell asunder very quickly. He began kipping up at the old Staples place, helping Iggy Staples out in the scrap trade, trekking down the town for his smack. Meanwhile, Miranda Hart had reappeared-there was talk she'd gone away and had a baby and given it up for adoption, or had an abortion, or some fucking thing: Steno didn't really give a fuck; at least, not back then he didn't. She was hanging out in the back room, hoovering up coke with Jack Proby, spreading herself around, and soon she needed a little taste to bring her down at nights. Steno steered clear of any shenanigans with Miranda Hart though: even if she wasn't in the loop at Tyrrellscourt anymore, she had been once, and there'd always been talk about whose daughter she might have been. He'd supply her with smack, but rarely directly; he preferred to deal with Proby: it kept the lines clear, in case there was any grief from on high.
Pa Hutton was miserable, of course: he'd lost his job, and now his woman, his wife, and possibly his child, and what did he have? A spike in his arm, end of story. Leo Halligan tried to straighten him out more than once, but there was nothing you could do with a junkie: if they want to go all the way down to hell, you can either take the trip with them, or let them fall and hope they get such a land they'll try and climb back up. Leo had the fucking nerve to have a pop at Steno once for feeding Pa the smack; Steno reefed Leo out on that one, told him if he didn't want to find himself and his playmates another powder room, he could lose the fucking career guidance counselor routine. For a poxy little faggot, he'd always been a self-righteous cunt, right back to St. Jude's days. Fucker was never done riding some young fella or other, keeping the lads awake at night grunting and fucking whooping, yet he had the fucking gall to object to the way Steno conducted himself.
Steno had no regrets or qualms about the manner in which he had stewarded the younger lads through the hazards of St. Jude's, and he could have taught Leo and any number of other whores in that school the meaning of self-control: he'd internalized the crucial lesson, which was that you exercise caution and self-discipline at all times. Steno had never played favorites, he'd never had anyone more than once, and he'd always insisted on anonymity: a blindfold properly applied, a willing assistant or two. It wasn't always pleasant; in fact, there had been times when Steno had wondered whether it was worth the grief. But fuck it: you done one, you done them all; easier that way, from a logic point of view. Easier in your own mind. And what was Leo gonna do about it? Go to the cops? (Steno knew what it stemmed from: Leo had always had a thing for Hutton back in St. Jude's, and Hutton just didn't go that way. Well, Steno didn't take no for an answer at the time: he'd used Father Vincent Tyrrell's room in the school when it was Hutton's turn, took him on a kneeler. Hutton didn't like it, and Steno hadn't much enjoyed it himself, it had felt like a duty. Anyway, he knew Leo always blamed him for that. But Hutton never suspected him, and Leo had no proof, never had. If there was one thing Steno couldn't abide, it was any kind of false accusation, no matter what the context.) And Pa Hutton and Bomber Folan didn't have to come to McGoldrick's, did they? He knew Leo had been pouring poison in people's ears about him, but there he was in the bar too. Hypocrisy, some people would call it: Steno said it was just The Way Things Are. Don't bear a grudge unless it works to your advantage.
So Miranda Hart had run out of bread, and Steno wasn't gonna give her any more shit for free, and he didn't find anything else she had to offer appealing; she'd always been a dirtbird, but she'd turned into a total skank on H; the golfers weren't interested anymore, and she was reduced to blowing drunks for twenty quid in the back lane. That's what she was doing, in the rain, when someone told Pa Hutton about it and he walked out and caught her sucking off Bomber Folan and went straight for Bomber's neck. The whole thing was over in seconds. Bomber's system was trashed by the smack anyway, so he was too weak to fight back; the worst thing about it all was, Miranda Hart kept working away down below while Hutton was strangling Bomber, as if she had lost any lingering sense of reality, and the rain teeming down on it all: that's the sight that greeted Steno, like some nightmare act from the circus in hell.
Steno had a choice to make, and he made it quickly, with the usual calculation in mind: How will this work best for Steno? Simple answer: clean it up and hold it in reserve; the alternative-the Guards, and charges, and a court case, with all the damage that would be caused to the reputations of McGoldrick's and the stables, not to mention Steno probably getting caught in the cross fire-was simply out of the question. You didn't know what caliber of man you were until tested in extreme circumstances. Steno still felt pride at how he had comported himself on that evening. He had instinctively taken leadership positions because he was hardwired to do so.
It had been the work of seconds to gather Folan up-he remembered thinking it was like handling an oversize
