‘If you get the opportunity to piss off Victor Jones, do not take it.’

‘Too late,’ chortles Jason, accepting multiple high fives. High fives? Christ, these guys are happy.

‘Don’t take it, because I don’t know how legal that poker game was.’

‘Legal?’ says Jason. ‘Vic’s been rolling girls for years back there. How legal was that?’

This is a good point.

‘You know any good lawyers, Danny?’ continues Jason.

Sure he does, says GZ. ’Cept Danny here has a tendency to get lawyers shot dead.

Marco trots across the floor, bearing a large Jameson on a scarred martini tray.

‘Here you are, Dan. You earned it.’

I accept the drink gratefully. The Irish whiskey is smooth going down, but has an aftershock like a jolt from a defibrillator.

‘Back to work everybody, enjoy the new management while it lasts. I need to think for a while.’

Brandi positions herself at my side. ‘That’s right, people. You heard the boss: back to work. We need to negotiate the booth action.’

Looks like I have a second in command.

First thing I do in Vic’s office is to kick Brandi out; the second is to rip down the porn. It’s not that I find naked women offensive; it’s just that I prefer the real thing. Also the pictures remind me of the previous occupant, and all the acts he claimed to have performed with the various club employees. Not images you want popping into your head in the course of a work day. Plus if Vic does manage to legal me out of here, I would like out of sheer vindictiveness to mess up his system as much as I can before he does it.

I don’t know how Vic got anything done. His work surface is a jumble of magazine towers, burger cartons and wadded foil wrappers. There’s a trash can in the corner that looks like it exploded some time in the nineties, and the window blinds are streaked brown and yellow from decades of cigar smoke.

I wipe the boss’s chair off and sit down, and that’s about as far as my plan extends.

Adjust the chair.

It’s a nice touch. I lower the chair six inches so Vic will get an unexpected little shock. Little nuggets like this keep a man going.

So sit down, and then what? Payrolls, overheads, rent, booze orders, cash deposits.

My transplanted follicles are begging for a scratching, something Zeb forbade me to do.

I didn’t employ five students and spend eight hours separating your follicles to have you scratch the little bastards out again. No touching for a month.

Hands flat on the table, I tell myself. Do not touch the new hair. It’s hard to believe how difficult not scratching is. I’ve waded through plenty of hard and distasteful tasks in my careers, but right at this moment, keeping my palms glued to the desk ranks right up there with any of them. Including latrine digging in the Lebanon.

I try to focus on something else, and the first thing that pops into my head is: Kee-rist almighty beep.

What did Sofia mean by that? Where did the beep come from? There was no beep mentioned the first time around. Where the hell do you even hear a beep these days? Maybe there was a car passing by.

Or maybe . . . Something almost occurs to me, but I don’t let the thought materialise fully in case there’s something to it. I can deal with this eventuality if it becomes a possibility.

I follow the cable across Vic’s desk and unearth the phone beneath a pyramid of ledgers. There’s no one at the number I’m calling. Of course not, it’s my own number. I count the rings until my answer machine cuts in, then punch in my password.

One message.

Hey, guy. Doorman guy. Listen, you probably don’t remember me, you get schmucks all the time, right? Kee-rist almighty, I hate machines. Okay. Anyway, listen . . . Oh, this is Jaryd Faber, by the way, the lawyer you ejected last night. Deservedly so, I might add. I got your number from Vic, and the thing is that I enjoy Slotz, the club, shithole though it may be. Passing a few hours with the cards and the babes. I don’t want to give that up, so I just wanted you to know that I smoothed things over with Vic, what a prince, and I’m back in. In case you see me before you see him, no need to throw a punch. What do you say, let bygones be bygones? Live and let live. Maybe I can buy you a drink or a new suit. Okay? We straight? No hard feelings. I hate saying fucking sorry for anything, but there it is. Accept it or not, you should be fucking delighted by the way, if you knew who I was and what I could do to you. Kee-rist almighty.

Then the tape runs out and there’s a beep.

Kee-rist almighty beep.

I hold the phone at arm’s length, like it’s lied to me.

Sofia heard my answerphone. Faber was never at the apartment. I set the cops on the wrong man.

He was the right man for the cops, says Ghost Zeb. Just the wrong man for killing Connie and trashing your place.

And he’s dead now. It’s my fault.

No arguing with that.

So who did kill Connie? Who wrecked my apartment?

A shadow falls across my face and I look up.

‘Well it’s about time,’ says Irish Mike Madden. ‘I’ve been chasing your pale arse all over town.’

CHAPTER 12

Irish Mike stands framed by the doorway, like it was built for the purpose. He is a big man, huge, with whiskey veins popping in his nose and cheeks. His teeth are crooked and cracked from a hundred bar fights and he smiles broadly, displaying them like medals. He sports a soft fisherman’s cap, worn rakishly to one side with a shamrock pin on the peak. And when he speaks, his accent is more Hollywood Irish than a living dialect.

Irish Mike. A Mick who has never been to Ireland. An immigrant who never emigrated. A plastic Paddy who learned all he knew about the old country from grandma’s stories and Boy’s Own.

‘Daniel McEvoy,’ he says gently, shuffling into the room, like a crooner about to break into a number. ‘A hard man to find.’

‘Not for my friends.’

Madden is all leprechaun charm. ‘Are we not friends then, Daniel?’ His eyes are dull green, and his skin reminds me of a plucked chicken.

I am too old for this.

‘Cut the shite, Mike. What do you want?’

Mike chuckles fondly. ‘Shite. I like that.’ He leans against the wall and it creaks. ‘I want the money you owe me.’

Groan. He isn’t even here for me. I’m a bonus.

‘Vic owes you money, not me. He owes me money too, but out of respect for you and your organisation, you can collect first.’

Mike is a little surprised by this backchat, but amused too. ‘Thanks, McEvoy. Very Catholic of you. But I’d rather you pay.’

‘Not the way it works, Mike. Even God can’t transfer debt. I don’t owe you a cent, and if you don’t stop weaving it into the conversation, I’ll squeeze my way through all that fat on your shoulders and break your thick neck.’

Might as well try bravado, see if it works.

If it was fear and submission I was hoping for, then my bluntness does not have the desired effect. Mike Madden looks tired and resigned, like he is so fed up of doing things the hard way and why can’t it just be easy for once.

‘Righto, laddie. I hear you. Now you listen to me. I’ve been searching for something.’

‘Why don’t you ask the universe? Seems to work for a lot of people. That’s a secret, by the way.’

Madden grinds his teeth. ‘You know wh

at I’m talking about.’

We both know where this is going.

‘I don’t know, Mike. Believe me. But I know how you search for things.’

Mike spreads his hands wide. ‘Couldn’t be avoided. The disk could have been in your apartment.’

I am surprised. ‘A disk? A bloody disk. What do I look like to you? Jason goddamn Bourne?’

Mike Madden hooks the flap of his tweed sports coat over the revolver at his belt.

‘Any road, laddie. You’re going to have to quit work early tonight.’

He’s right. I can’t see any way out of leaving here with him.

‘I have a gun too, you know.’

‘Maybe, laddie. But I have several. One hostile move from you and the floors run with blood. Wooden floors, though, so at least the blood will wipe off, if you get to it quick.’

I place my gun on the desk. ‘No one has said laddie for a hundred bloody years, you phoney.’

‘My heart is Irish,’ objects Mike, worried more by the insult than the weapon.

‘Your heart is clogged with bacon and beer and will drop you in your tracks any day now.’

Which is an unusual thing to say to a person you just met.

Two freckle-faced potato-head types squash themselves into the doorway, fumbling guns from their pockets. I know them both from Faber’s kitchen.

‘You put that gun back in the drawer, laddie. Or my boys will execute everyone in this club.’

That’s what I thought. I glare at Madden, so the murder in my eyes is all he can see.

‘If I were like you, Mike, if I didn’t care about those people out there, then you would be dead right now. I just wanted you to know that and show a bit of respect.’

Irish Mike actually winks. ‘Point taken, laddie. Now come over here and let’s pretend we’re friends.’

Mike takes my phone, then we stroll out of the office and across the casino floor like a couple of swells, and consequently none of his four escorts are forced to shoot anyone. Jason is ready to fight, chest out, arms dangling, but I calm him with a lateral two-fingered slice, which sounds a bit complicated but is one of our door signals. Doesn’t matter how big your pecs are, bullets cut right through.

Tags: Eoin Colfer Daniel McEvoy Mystery
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