So with all this in mind, I use my army stealth training to creep into the apartment. There could be a cell of jittery terrorists holed up on the second floor and they wouldn’t hear Company Sergeant Daniel McEvoy slipping down the hallway to his own door.
Which is open. The busted triple-bar lock lying shamefaced on the floor.
I forget all about operation under the radar when I see the whirlwind that has rolled through my apartment.
‘Christ Almighty!’ I shout, wading through the detritus that was my life. I used to do that metaphorically with Simon; now I’m doing it for real. It’s just as painful and I don’t feel better with every step.
The place has been wrecked. Destroyed. I’ve seen bomb sites with less shredding. They pulled down the wallpaper, disembowelled the sofa, dismantled the appliances. My fridge is lying on its side, leaking mayo; looks like a dying robot. The AC unit is in pieces on the table; reminds me of a mechanic’s course I took once. Pictures on the floor. A Jack Yeats West of Ireland print I carried in a tube from Dublin, slashed for malice.
I walk around flapping my arms, kicking through the debris. Where do you start? How can you fix this?
Then Mrs Delano pipes up. She was waiting for me to come home, I’m sure of it. Probably been up all night injecting her eyeballs with caffeine. I know that sounds crazy, but when you live underneath crazy, some of it drips downwards.
‘Kee-rist almighty,’ she calls, voice wafting through the light fixture. ‘Kee-rist fucking almighty.’
I am absolutely not in the mood for this lady right now. The best tack, I know, is not to rise to the bait, because if I react she wins, and we could be at this all morning and at the end of it my stuff is still trashed.
‘You down there, Irish? Can’t you keep your monkey friends under control?’
Monkey friends? Screw it. Zeb, Barrett and sweet Connie. I need to loosen the valve, let off some steam. So I throw my head back and roar like Tarzan.
‘Shut the hell up, you crazy bat.’
She comes back with ‘Hell is shut for crazy bats.’
‘Shut up,’ I shout, and I can feel my tendons stretch. ‘Or I swear to Christ I will come up there and wring your neck.’
‘No Christ in this neck of the woods.’
This kind of carry-on is infuriating, and now that Delano has me on her hook, she could keep it up for hours.
‘Drop dead, you lunatic. Why don’t you drop bloody dead?’
My face is red and tight. I’m not just shouting at Delano, I know, but I keep shouting anyway.
‘That’s right. Drop dead. The world would be a better place.’
‘Dead is a better place? You think dead is a better place for lunatics, Irish?’
There’s a new note in her voice. Wild, past caring. I’m a bit that way myself.
‘You heard me.’
She doesn’t respond, which is unusual. Ominous, even. Echoes of my own voice circle me like ghosts.
If this was a movie, something really bad would be just about to happen.
What is she going to do? What’s the big tease? How can Delano haunt me for ever?
There’s one sure way.
Something thumps on the ceiling overhead.
Four dead? Four in one day? Come on.
I race to the door, skirting my ruptured easy chair. The corner of my eye notices that they even took the weights off my barbells. Thorough.
Up the stairs three at a time, sick to my stomach, heart bouncing around like a lottery ball in the cage.
Please God, not too late. What the hell did she do?
Delano’s door is pretty solid, with a couple of extra bolts, but I’m running on adrenalin and take them out with a bull charge. Momentum carries me inside, and I lurch across the threshold, heaving breaths, shoulder throbbing, afraid to look and see.
I do look, in case time is of the essence, and I see Delano sitting in a straight-backed chair, a cigarette between two slim fingers. There is a large book on the floor beside her. A bible, I think.
‘Hello, hero,’ she says, smoke leaking from between her bow lips. ‘You owe me a door.’
I am such an idiot.
‘Sucker,’ Delano adds, which is a more accurate word.
My first thought is to launch into a rant, but by the time I draw breath I realise there’s no point. It’s funny; this whole thing is hilarious. Not ha-ha funny, so I don’t laugh.
‘You might cut me a break,’ I say quietly, ‘if you realised the kind of day I’ve had.’
‘I’ve been up all night listening to your friends,’ she snaps, without a shred of mercy.
This is the closest I’ve stood to Delano. She’s my age, a few years younger. Blonde hair, straight and long. Maybe a figure, hard to tell in a towelled robe. And blue eyes rimmed with kohl, staring right into me like she’s got mind powers. I notice for the first time that this lady has got cat’s eyes, like Ava Gardner or Madonna. Beautiful but dangerous.
The apartment is freaky neat, but cold. There’s a tube of wind coming in through a hole in the window.
She notices me looking. ‘I was having a moment,’ she explains. ‘Goddamn satsuma. Can you believe that? Made a helluva hole.’
Something to do, thank Christ. Take my mind off those eyes.
Get those idle hands to work, soldier, and do not even contemplate strangling this woman.
You learn to use your hands in the army. Things break down in the field and they need to be fixed; no use waiting for a requisitions crate. Ireland is a long way from the Lebanon, and even if your package makes it through the grifters on both ends of the pipeline, you’re still talking half a year. There was a guy in my squad fixed an old 77 radio with parts from a Rolf Harris stylophone he bought on Mingi Street. A real live MacGyver. I wasn’t good with electronics, but I could manage basic household repairs.
So I size up the window with a squint, then go foraging underneath the sink for something I can use.
‘Hey, Irish, what are you playing at?’
Maybe Delano thinks I’m looking for trash bags to wrap her body.
Good.
A pity she doesn’t know about my pro-tective instinct. Perhaps I’ll tell her later.
Nothing under the sink to plug a hole, so I rifle the storage. This woman has more pills than a New York pusher and more drawers than an underwear store.
Boom-boom, chuckles Ghost Zeb. You’re a funny killer, Daniel McEvoy, yes you are.
‘Stay out of my drawers, Irish.’
I laugh. ‘No need to worry on that account, Mrs Delano.’
‘Screw you.’
‘You screw?’ I say, twisting her words. Childish I know but I need a laugh.
Most of the drawers are half empty, so I pour one into another and punch the board out of the first. The wood comes away clean, nails red with rust like they’ve been sealing a coffin.
Stay away from the imagery, Simon told me once.
Because it deepens my pain?
No. Because you are shite at it.
I’d like to read the manual that came from. Chapter Six: Shiteness At Imagery and its Effects on Latent Arseholery.
Delano doesn’t ask what I’m playing at, but she’s pulling hard on that cigarette now, tip pulsing red and white.
Showboating is what I’m doing. I could just tape over the hole, there’s a roll right there, but this board seems a more appropriate expression of the shape of my mood, as a mate of mine might say. I place it over the broken pane, then hammer the nails into the frame with a meat tenderiser from the draining board. The wind is downsized from a gale to a whistle. Not too shabby.
For once Mrs Delano is dumbstruck. She sits like a statue, smoke curling out of her fist.
‘I’ll call a buddy of mine,’ I say on my way out. ‘Twenty-four-hour lock guy, for your door and mine too. Until he gets here, I’d keep the noise down. You don’t want to attract any undesirables.’
In spite of my day, I’m smiling on the steps. There’s not a word f
rom Delano’s apartment. Not a peep.
CHAPTER 6
Before I had more serious things to worry about, I often spent the days leading up to the first transplant session searching my past trying to figure why I wanted hair plugs so badly. Why does a shiny skull prey on my mind so much? I’ve spent enough hours on the couch to know that these wants often have their roots in my own history.
I could never come up with anything. My father was dead before he got the chance to go fully bald. No bald guy ever beat me, or humiliated me that I can recall. I don’t have any hairy heroes that I want to be, or hairless guys that I don’t want to turn into.
It’s in the subconscious, Zeb informed me one night in the park. The two of us were sharing a pint of Jameson after the bars closed. A hefty ox like me squashed into a child’s swing, chains cutting off the blood flow to my feet. I must have been drunk.
Believe me, Dan. Something happened.
I know what happened. Zeb offered me a good deal, started showing me pictures, got my vanity stoked.