Isn’t it supposed to fall out before it grows in?
Let’s talk about this later.
Did I look this old a couple of days ago, before all the mayhem? Being a doorman never weighed so heavily on my face.
I blink a couple of times, suddenly tight across the chest. Just when did I start worrying so much about getting old? Some nights in the Lebanon it felt as though I couldn’t wait to die. Or if not that, then at least the idea didn’t upset me. Just make it quick, that was my only requirement. Most of us had kill pacts. Anyone in the pact takes a mortal wound, the others toss a coin and finish him off. Sounds brutal, but kill pacts were very popular. I made some real friends. I still drop them a line every now and then, make sure they know the pact is off.
I notice something else in the bathroom besides my own haggard face. The toilet rolls are stacked in a diamond shape. This is uber-freaky. I skirt the sculpture like it might suddenly come alive and start dispensing Zen advice.
Why would a toilet roll sculpture dispense anything but paper? Where does that thought even come from?
I know who built this. There’s only one person who would.
Sweat gathers at the base of my neck. In spite of my therapy sessions, I feel woefully ill-equipped to deal with someone who builds toilet roll diamonds.
My bag is where it should be, and I quickly locate the toiletries that were strewn around the floor by whoever trashed the place but are now lined neatly along the green plastic sink top.
I stuff them into the bag and collect one last essential. I keep ten years of savings, almost fifty thousand dollars, stashed in the sink drain for emergencies, and if this isn’t an emergency, it’s doing a good impersonation. I screw off the pipe and shake loose the sealed bundles of cash. Usually having this much money on my person would make me nervous, but I’m already as nervous as a person can be without short-circuiting his brain. I pocket the cash and head for the door. In retrospect, I should have gone back out the window.
Deacon arrives outside the door of my apartment just as I tug it open. Her gun is out and there are shoals of blood spatter on her blouse. I search her eyes briefly for signs of gratitude and love.
No luck.
I think about reaching for the Glock inside my jacket; maybe I could make it, or maybe this young, trained and fit officer would put a dozen slugs in a nice smiley face spread through my heart.
Deacon’s cheeks are wet and her eyes are wild. A couple of hours ago she was the embodiment of the law, and now she’s gunned down her partner with no idea why her partner was about to gun her down. She has no idea who to trust or who to blame.
‘Police,’ she says, and taps the badge on her belt.
‘Ooookay,’ I say, interested to hear what’s coming next.
‘Was it you?’ she demands, and her gun is in my face. Shaking. Give me a steady weapon over a shaky one any day. Shaky guns tend to have shaky fingers on the trigger.
‘Was it me what?’
Deacon screws the barrel into my forehead. Feels like a Life Saver mint, only not so cheery.
‘Don’t fuck with me, McEvoy. Was it you, soldier boy?’
The shaking gun is wiggling my eyebrows.
‘You trying to be funny? You making faces at me now, McEvoy?’
‘It’s the gun,’ I say helplessly. ‘I’m just standing here.’
Deacon is on the edge; it’s in her eyes, in the grit of her teeth.
‘One last time. Tell me it was you.’
I don’t think there’s a right answer to this question.
‘Okay,’ I admit. ‘It was me.’
‘It was you what?’
Jesus Christ. Is she kidding me?
She cocks the weapon. Not kidding then.
‘It was me everything. I set you on Faber’s trail, I winged Goran and I watched you finish her off.’
Deacon expected this answer, but still she’s stunned. On a positive note, her weapon drops to her side.
‘It . . . it was you.’
I nod warily. Not out of the woods yet. Deacon’s eyes are glazed and her hands are twitching. My guess is she’s in mild shock. You face the void and cut down a friend all in the same evening and it’s bound to have an effect.
In my experience this can go one of two ways. Either Deacon dissolves to a shuddering heap, or her heart hardens and she shoots me, because at least it’s a positive action.
Better to make a move now while her guard is down, but I barely get my fists balled when she comes at me full tilt, hand flat on my chest. This is confusing.
Back into the room we stumble, her fingers ripping at my shirt like it’s on fire. Then the flat of her hand is on my heart, searching for the life inside. Her mouth is up, snarling, wanting the kiss. So I kiss Detective Deacon, feeling a premature post-coital regret that should warn me off but doesn’t. We trip as one over the remains of the couch on to the Caucasian rug I got from a Lebanese market. It occurs to me that what we’re about to do on this rug is probably a sin in several religions.
Not that this gives me pause. I’m feeling pretty tense myself, and this is as good a way as any to let it all out.
I guess there was a third way this could all go. I never came across this option in the army.
Very early the next morning, we find ourselves mashed up against the wall, half covered with a few sofa cushions.
The next morning?
I know. I always hated that: you’re watching a movie or reading a book, finally the steamy scene is on the horizon and suddenly it’s the next morning. How does that make you feel?
Cheated, that’s how.
So . . .
It’s not like I’m a prude, but this roll on the rug was definitely weird. Deacon bounced me around, pawing at my person. I’m surprised, given my low self-esteem issues, that I was able to perform at al
l.
Go on, encourages Ghost Zeb.
That’s all the detail you need. Anyway, you were there.
Yeah, but I like the way you tell it in your Oirish accent.
You are a sick little imaginary friend, Zeb.
I gotta say, these conversations with GZ are tiring. Even though I know he’s just a greatest hits tape cobbled together by my memory, I am starting to think stuff quietly in case he hears me.
I heard that, dickhead. Think quietly? What are you, a lunatic?
I decide not to answer that question.
So, in the morning we’re wedged into the corner like two corpses that have been tossed there, neither with a clue what to say.
I regain consciousness first and use the minutes to examine the lady I’ve just had some kind of relations with. Usually I do the examining beforehand, but there’s nothing usual about this encounter. Everything about Deacon says strength. Wide brow, strong nose, full lips, skin the colour of polished rosewood. Her body is lean and muscled like she beats suspects a lot, and there’s a welt on her upper arm looks like a bullet wound.
I touch the scar gently; feels like there’s a marble under there.
‘Nine millimetre?’ I ask. Mister Romance.
‘Branding accident,’ Deacon grunts, still half asleep.
I have a feeling we’re never going to send each other perfumed letters.
She shrugs her shoulder to dislodge my hand and her bracelet rattles. It’s unusual enough for me to notice, snaking around her wrist a couple of times, laden with various charms. Washers, bottle tops, coloured glass. I’ve seen these before in Africa. Memory bracelets, the story of your life’s journey worn on the wrist.
I try for some confirmation. ‘Memory bracelet?’
Deacon grunts again.
Most of the charms seem standard enough, but there’s a wizened sphere like a shrunken golf ball.
I tap it with a fingernail. ‘What’s this one?’
Deacon’s voice is sleepy. ‘Guy kept asking me questions,’ she slurs. ‘His left nut.’
Okay. No more questions. Maybe I’ll just take forty winks; after all, I’ve got protection.