Eight Ball Boogie Part 2

"This is front-page stuff, Harry. Banner headlines. Big f.u.c.k-off shots, see them a mile off, my name at the bottom. Mine, not those Fhotoprint f.u.c.kdogs."

The agency took a cut of everything we cooked up, which bothered Herbie. It didn't bother me, thirty per cent of f.u.c.k all being approximately f.u.c.k all.

"Nail it down, Harry. I gave you this one on a plate. c.o.ke, suicide, possible murder, the f.u.c.king lot. What more do you need?"

"How about proof?"

"What're you talking about, proof?" He waggled his camera bag. "The shots're ready to roll, beauts too, hole in her neck you could roll the black ball into. Only words these babies need are someone's name on a cheque."

"What about some kind of idea of why? A detail or two?" I was stalling, watching the maroon Civic pulling up, the bodywork too fresh for it to be anything but a rental. "It needs to be done right, Herb. We do it right or we don't do it at all."

He heard the Civic, turned and looked. Shrugged, the anger evaporating too quick to be healthy.

"It'll be done alright, but not by us. Here's the f.u.c.king cavalry now."

She was pet.i.te, five-two at most, the kind of late twenties that takes years of practice. The hair a tangerine peek-a-boo bob, the lipstick apricot. The smile friendly, chasing freckles across the bridge of a snub nose. The eyes deep enough to give me vertigo, wide enough to make me want to jump.

"Gentlemen." Her accent had the faintest of northern drawls.

"Around here that's libel," I said. I nodded towards the house. "And I'd say the pedicure's been cancelled."

"I'll take my chances."

She ducked under the yellow tape, flashed a card at the garda, clicked away up the tarmacadam.

Herbie fired up the moped, the engine clattering, rattling, until the exhaust belched a tiny black cloud.

"Want a lift?"

"No, cheers. I'm in a hurry."

He half-grinned, fiddling with his helmet strap.

"Anything I can be doing?"

"You could be running a check on Tony Sheridan. Background material, whatever we'll need to puff out the story."

"Money?"

"Yeah, go the tragic route. All that cash and his wife slashed open. The punters love that s.h.i.t."

"Alright. I'll buzz you later."

I was halfway to town, down around the cemetery and cursing myself for not b.u.mming more skins from Herbie, when I finally remembered where I'd left the car. Which was when the Civic purred by, indicated left and pulled up on the gravel verge. She leaned across, unlocked the pa.s.senger door and pushed it open. She didn't speak, so I didn't spoil the moment.

She was a good driver. Her movements were easy, a.s.sured, and she didn't look at me as she drove. Up close I could see that the cream two-piece was raw silk. The tiny burn scar just above her left knee whitened every time she changed gear.

She got straight into it.

"What'd you get?"

"Nothing. But that's off the record."

"Put your d.i.c.k away, this is business."

"I don't mix pleasure with business. And I don't do business with strangers. Especially ones who tell me to put my d.i.c.k away."

She suppressed a smile, not pulling any muscles doing it.

"Sorry, I'm Katie. Katie Donnelly."

"And I'm Harry-Harry Rigby."

"I know."

I didn't know what to say to that. She said: "Want to grab a coffee?"

"Always."

We bypa.s.sed Midtown, crawling through the one-way system of the Old Quarter, the narrow streets looming three storeys high. Gaudy shop-fronts below, flaking paint and crumbling plaster above.

"Is the traffic always this bad?" she asked.

"It's Christmas week, the woolly-backs are in town for the annual exfoliation. The rest of us are here because we lack the imagination to realise the rest of the world isn't just another TV channel. What's your excuse?"

"I'm freelance, doing a piece on Imelda Sheridan for Woman Now! Full colour glossy, you know the score, she's the overachieving charity hound for the February issue. I did the interview yesterday, got shots of the house, her in the glad rags looking out over the lake, the full nine yards." She sighed. "And now this."

"This didn't happen until this morning. How come you're still around?"

She nudged the car forward, knocked it out of gear. Fiddled with the thermostat, the windows misting up.

"It's a nice town," she said. "It's Christmas. I thought I'd stick around and pick up some local colour."

"Try grey, we have forty shades."

We edged around the corner and discovered the source of the traffic jam. He was short and squat, pushing seventy, the curly white hair topped by a WW1 leather flying helmet, complete with goggles. His face was full, moon-shaped and flushed. Standing in the middle of the road, windmilling arms issuing contradictory orders every time he turned around. His shabby overcoat billowed in the breeze.

"You should do a piece on him. He's local, he's colour."

"He's not really what our focus groups tell us our demographic wants. Mind you, that changes every week. Who is he?"

"The local nutcase, Baluba Joe. They say he hasn't been sober in living memory. Directs the traffic when the mood takes him and then goes and gets rattlers when everything's snarled up. Harmless b.u.g.g.e.r, though."

"I can see how our readers would be fascinated."

She sounded smug. The car was too warm. I needed a smoke, coffee and fresh air, in that order.

"He's an old soldier." She heard the edge in my voice, looked across for the first time since I'd sat into the car. "He's mad, clinically insane. You can see it in his eyes but if you miss it he'll tell you himself. Says he spent three days wandering the Congo jungle after his platoon was wiped out in a Baluba ambush. Jungle's no place to be at the best of times, he reckons. But when you're eighteen years old, and your mates have been butchered with machetes and you're still wearing the spray, the screeching of a jungle at night is as close to h.e.l.l as makes no odds."

We inched past Joe. Froth flecked his lips. Horns tooted, engines revved. His eyes were haunted.

"Hold on a minute," she said. "I wasn't "

"That was back in the sixties, so he's been forty years drinking anything that won't kill him outright and not really giving a f.u.c.k if it does. He told me, one night, that he knows everyone pities him. Asked me if I knew why."

She parked with the minimum of fuss, turned off the engine.

"Harry "

"They gave him a medal a couple of years back but he handed it back when the top bra.s.s wouldn't look him in the eye. Kind of took the gloss off it, he said. I told him he should have taken the medal, just to p.i.s.s the bra.s.s off. Know what he said? 'No one ever made officer got p.i.s.sed off that easy.'"

She stared straight ahead, stony-faced. I said: "I'd never have made officer material. You didn't need that grief."

She peeked at me from under an angled eyebrow.

"Was that an apology?"

"Women apologise. Men explain."

"But we're finished now?"

"Yeah. Who gets to keep the Barry White CDs?"

The coffee shop, Early 'Til Latte, was run by a couple of gay hippies and sold more gra.s.s under the counter than coffee over it. We ducked through an archway into the tiny back room. Second-hand books lined the shelves. Posters on the wall advertised Feng Shui courses, Feiseanna, rummage sales. She sat on an old barstool with her back to the arch, crossing her legs at the knee. I squeezed behind the high, rickety table but not so far back I might need a telescope to see the pins. We looked at one another expectantly but I could tell I was the only one enjoying the view.

"So what can I get you?" I asked.

"Tony Sheridan."

"You want cream with that?"

I ordered a couple of cappuccinos that didn't take long enough to arrive and b.u.mmed some skins from Andrea, the waitress. Katie took a sip and grimaced. I poured three sugars, made a wish and said, stirring and not looking at her: "What makes you think I can get you Tony Sheridan?"

"Detective..." She dug a little black notebook out of her shoulder bag, flipped it open. "Brady?"

"Big lad?"

"That's him."

"He was having a laugh. Besides what would I be getting Tony Sheridan for?"

She pushed the coffee away, lit a Silk Cut, exhaled. Crossed her legs again.

"Let's start over, Harry."

"It's okay with you, I'd rather keep going with the legs."

She smiled a thin one.

"Sorry, you're not my type."

"Types are based on previous failures. You should think more about your future."

"Look, Harry "

"Alright, Jesus, don't get sour. If I had cleavage you'd be hearing echoes. Everyone does what they have to do."

"My sentiments exactly."

"And you want to do Tony Sheridan."

"Correct."

I let it hang, rolled a cigarette. It was her move. She pulled a manila folder from her bag, leafed through a file of newspaper cuttings, handed me a clipping. It had a modest headline: Controversial Development Officially Opened. There was a photograph of mostly men in their Sunday best, smiling their Sunday smiles, standing on the forecourt of a hotel. The dude holding the scissors was tall, well preserved and answered to Tony Sheridan if you had a homeless vote. The rest were a supporting cast of investors, councillors and the usual pick-n-mix of wives, fools, flutes and thrill-seekers, some credited, most not.

"So what?"

"I presume you know the backdrop?"

"Sure, it's about a mile east of town, just where the river empties out of the lake. Used to get a lot of kingfishers up there. Good salmon fishing too."

She stared. Then, patient: "This is front page anywhere we put it. With the right spin, everywhere."

"If, say, we turn up a steak knife in Tony's glove compartment."

"Steak knife?"

"Forget it. I'm kidding."

She looked over both shoulders and leaned in over the table, which caused the front of her blouse to drop a good six inches. I stayed where I was, losing my balance anyway.

"This could be big, Harry. There's a lot of typists out there calling themselves journalists, still trading on that one story, still hitting the front page, pic by-lines, the works. This is my one story, Harry."

"Don't sell yourself short. Besides, there's other people want the story."

"Who pizza-face on the moped? Come on."

"He doesn't flash me cleavage but he's a good bloke. More to the point, he has the shots."

"So he opens a gallery, big f.u.c.king deal. The shots are useless without the story and a place to put it."