“And he tells him all about the bush and the pills and rest of his increasingly complicated regimen.”

“What does the friend say?”

“First of all the friend calls him a tool, but then he tells the guy that he has two choices. Either he burns that bush right down to the roots, which is not really a practical option, is it?”

“Or?”

“Or he moves far away from that bloody bush, where its pollen can never reach him again.”

I get it. I’m the guy and Mike is the bush.

Simon thinks I should move.

Or Simon has just advised me to burn the bush.

It’s all about the interpretation I suppose.

Well, if it’s good enough for Jesus.

CHAPTER 10

COUPLA HOURS LATER I’M ALL CHECKED IN TO CLOISTERS Inn across the road from the bus station. I took a twin room with a bed for me and a second for my stash of weapons that lives in one of the station’s lockers. I find it prudent not to store a bag of illegal arms at home.

My trove of weapons and bricks of cash is laid out on the duvet and I sit staring at it, like the dollars and guns are gonna tell me what to do with them.

Spend me on shit you don’t need, says the money.

Shoot motherfuckers, says a Glock 9.

Not helpful, guys. Not helpful at all.

A Custom Sharpshooter rifle that I got in Chinatown from an Algerian, if you can believe that combo, clears its throat/barrel to speak.

Dan. All you gotta do is snap a Starlight to my back and then wait in Mike’s garden till he shows his face. Then we give that bastard a really bad case of heartburn.

“Did you hear that?” I ask the shamefaced Glock. “That’s what I call real advice. I’m so glad you’re here, Sharpshooter, because if you weren’t I’d go out of my mind.”

Five minutes later I get a text from Simon.

Daniel. I hope you are not conversing with your guns. Remember we talked about this. It is not healthy to attribute blame to a rifle.

That’s ridiculous. I would never blame Sharpie for anything. It’s those fecking bullets.

I send my jacket down for an express clean, put my boots outside for a shine, work my way through a tray of carbs and then lie down on my bed. I was considering squeezing on beside the weapons and cash, but that could seem weird if housekeeping came by unexpectedly. It takes a while to swoon into that shadowy layer of pre-slumber, but when sleep is inevitable my entire being relaxes gratefully. This is my favorite time of any day, when I’m not quite alert and can’t quite focus on my problems. To get to this place usually requires:

2.5 beers.

One sleeping tablet.

A transatlantic flight.

Or a marathon TV session. Me and Zeb once watched 24, season three, in one sitting. I think I got bedsores.

Just before sleep descends, I realize that the strongest emotion in the McEvoy heart right now is loneliness.

Shit.

I thought fear would be number one. Or anger at all the people who are throwing a monkey wrench into my survival engine.

Loneliness.

Huh.

“Loneliness.” I say to Sharpie. “Who’da thunk it?”

I have a few of recurring dreams on my list, which account for about four out of seven nights. Three involve Dad and Dublin and I wake up scared because most of the crap in there actually happened. The fourth nightmare is my subconscious trying to be subtle.

It’s just me, as an adult, seated at a school desk drawing up a family tree for everyone I ever harmed. By the time I’m done, the family tree has spread off the paper and is covering the walls, and my teacher, Brother Campion, is fondling my friend’s Nash’s buttocks and saying, Daniel will go far, boys and girls. He will go far because he puts in the work. Dedication is the key.

I wake up from this and I have somehow moved across into the other bed and the Glock is lying on my chest.

Which is why, ladies and gentlemen, I generally take sleeping pills.

Also, subtle? I don’t think so. You don’t really need a degree to interpret this vision.

I sit up and gulp down an entire bottle of ten-dollar Hawaiian water. It’s expensive but at least I’ll get a second use from the bottle.

I wipe the Sharpshooter and break it down so it fits in a Kevlar backpack. Sharpie doesn’t mind being broken down, he’s used to it. I pack the Glock too, and a couple of smoke grenades, which I always bring just in case but hardly ever get the chance to actually use. I love the feel of those smooth cylinders and just handling them helps me get into the soldier mind-set, which is where I need to be. Most of my clothes are black and the leather jacket is such a deep brown that it would be hard to tell the difference without a swatch card. Luckily, thanks to Johnny Cash, the all black look is cool for middle-aged men, so no one in the hotel bats an eye when I stroll out through the lobby wearing a backpack and dressed like I’m gonna jump out of a plane seven thousand feet over Kabul.

Mike’s house is predictably showy with honest-to-God Irish red setter statues sitting atop the gate pillars, and a garden wall that he often claims to have shipped over from Ireland, where it used to be part of a Norman round tower. I believe this to be true, because this is exactly the type of ridiculously over-the-top faux Paddy bullshit that Mike mistakes for patriotism.

However, grand as it surely is, we are not taking about Skywalker Ranch here. Mike ain’t pulling down that kind of moolah, so the Madden residence is the third house down on a swanky cul-de-sac. If you’re ever looking for it, it’s the one with the postbox in the shape of a leprechaun’s head and the letters go in his mouth.

I bet the neighbors love Mikey.

Mike’s Benz is in the drive along with a Prius and a pink stretch limo. I hope the limo is something to do with one of the hooker-mobiles that Mike has roaming all over Jersey, otherwise there could be some kind of party going on in there and I ain’t trying to thread a bullet between the heaving bodies on a dance floor.

Mike could have unknowingly bought himself a reprieve from the reaper.

But seeing as I came out here, I might as well take a look.

I have parked down the leafy avenue that opens onto the dead end. It’s dark now but there are enough streetlights for me to be seen, so as soon as I get out of the car, the plan is to blend with the shadows of mature oak trees and work my way around the back of Mike’s leprechaun lair.

Getting around back of Mike’s house actually turns out to be a breeze. I was expecting the whole nine yards as regards security: external cameras with infrared motion sensors, or failing that, maybe a big goddamn dog. But there’s nothing. I imagine the house itself is alarmed up the wazoo but the building and grounds are actually pretty helpful for an intruder. Plenty of shrubs and trees to lurk behind, and two big California-style floor-to-ceiling glass walls that run the entire length of the house.

I brought some AP rounds in case the glass turned out to be bulletproof but it seems like I won’t need them. Frankly, I’m a bit disappointed in Irish Mike. What kind of self-respecting gangster doesn’t have a dog on the grounds?

I find myself a nice perch in the low crook of a horse chestnut tree and set up camp. I whisper nice things to Sharpie so he will not screw around while I’m assembling him, snap a Starlight to his back and then take a look at the evening’s entertainment.

The first room is an office or study with a large wooden desk

and one of those gas fireplaces built to look like an old-fashioned range. Mike is sitting at the desk reading the cartoons from the day’s paper.

Perfect. Just check the other room and away we go. I could be home in time for the late-late showing of eighties comedy Sledge Hammer! which is hilarious. You will give yourself a pain laughing, trust me and seek it out.

As you can see, I am trying to appear nonchalant about this entire mission, but I ain’t fooling anyone, not even myself. I am planning to gun down a guy in his own house, possibly a couple of rooms away from his wife and daughter. It doesn’t matter who the guy is, my actions tonight are gonna weigh heavily for a long time and will possibly be the straw that busted the horse’s arse vis-a-vis Daniel McEvoy getting into heaven.

Do it, says Sharpie. Take the shot.

I should. It’s all set up. No witnesses in the room.

Pull the trigger.

My finger hovers over the trigger and I try to make my brain send the command, but nothing happens.

Tell yourself again how there’s no other way.

With Mike gone my problems disappear.

Oh, yeah? What about Mike’s number two, Calvin? You think he won’t come looking?

At least I’ll buy myself some time.

You are shooting a guy in the head in order to buy some time?

It will take Calvin a while to gets his ducks in a row.

I refer you to my last point re shooting a guy in the head.

Mike would do it to me.

You are not Mike. Do you wanna be Mike?

No. I don’t.

I do not want to be Mike but I have no choice.

I feel blood throb in my forehead and my eyes water. Why will my finger not do what it’s told?

Mike is right there, seemingly close enough to touch. If I pull the trigger, a hundred things have to happen in the right order for the bullet in this gun to end up in Mike’s brain. The odds against all these things occurring in the right order must be pretty good. My pulling the trigger is barely even the cause of that effect. The actual cause goes way back. Generations. To the forces that brought Mike and I here today.

Tags: Eoin Colfer Daniel McEvoy Mystery
Source: readsnovelonline.net