by Ken Bruen
The Englishman turned and left.
“I’m shaking in me boots,” Fred says. “Threatened by a scut who can’t hold down a job in this economy.” I remembered then, the Brit had been fired. Incompetence, I think. They’d been so desperate for bodies they’d offered to retrain him. He told them to fuck off, and went back on the dole.
I must have been buckled because I found myself in Megan’s gaff a bit after the holy hour. She was a fine thing, Megan. She had the map of Ireland painted on her face, and since I was going in without me slicker, sweet baby Jesus willing, I’d paint a map of the Hebrides all over her sweet belly, in a shade of white paler than her skin.
I don’t know why she took me home. She’d never fancied me before I defended her wee bit of honor. Maybe it was a deeper need, or maybe she really did like me. I stopped thinking about it as soon as I got a glimpse of her pubes.
I love Dublin in the rain, the drops bouncing off the bricks, the stabbers looking like boats riding little rivers between the cobblestones; reminds me of my history lesson. Some of the Vikings, tired of rape and pillage, took a fancy to the place where the River Poddle joined the Liffey; Dubh linn, Black pool in the old language. They’d settled down, married some of the local women, and started trading with the painted inland chiefs.
I felt bad about pulling a legger on Megan, but I thought kindly of her, a heavy blanket between the chill predawn morning and her fine pelt.
She’d surprised me the night before, when we tangled up in each other after we’d done with the rasher. She’d the accent and the attitude, had her pegged for skanger, but she was a bogger, slipped out of Sligo a little after her fourteenth birthday and managed to stay two footfalls away from the whorehouse steps since. I felt like I was the only jackeen left in the whole pissing city.
That is, till the hurley stick took my legs out from under me. I figured it was a couple of local lads looking for a quick score. Then I thought better of it.
It was the worst beating of my life, and not on account of the pain. A couple of Manchester boys and a Yank had turned my piss to blood a few years ago when I was on the piss after a football match. I’d limped around for a few months after that one. I’d probably shrug this one off in under a week. Still, I prayed for a two bulb, or even a wasp to save me from the humiliation.
The fucking wog and the sasancach used hurley sticks on me. Judging by the dried flecks of blood mingling with my fresh batch, I’d say they were the same pieces of Irish ash they’d used to work over the narrowback. The fucking wankers had probably paid for them with euros.
LONELY AND GONE
BY DUANE SWIERCZYNSKI
Caidé an scéal?
Conas atá tu?
Oh, not Oirish, are you? Funny. You’ve got the pale skin, dark hair, the whole Gaelic vibe ’bout you.
Me? Spent a lot of time here and there. A lot of it here.
No, not literally here, in this pub. Nice place, though, innit? Trés Victorian.
Hey, let a girl buy you a drink.
Yeah, I’m foukin’ serious. Fancy a pint?
Oh. A Scotch man. A thousand pardons. Allan, could you pour this handsome devil here a Johnnie Walker black? To match his hair.
It’s a joke, boyo.
You’re a serious one, aren’t you?
Let me take a wild foukin’ guess: You’re American. And your wedding ring’s in your carry-on, right?
Yeah, sure I’ll watch your drink. I’ve got Allan here to keep me company.
That was quick.
Yeah, sarcasm. Bingo.
Ah, just drink up. Your ice is already melting. Tell me about yourself.
Hi, Jason. I’m Vanessa. Glad we covered the basics.
No, you first. I insist. I’ll get to me in a little while.
Sin scéal eile?
Ah. Knew you were a customer-relations man, Jay. I could just tell.
Ever scale the museum steps—like in Rocky?
Nah, never been. I’m sure I’ll make it there eventually.
Yes, yes.
Hmm.
Very interesting. Really. Would I lie to you, Jaybird?
Oh me?
Me, I’ve got a plane to catch in exactly fourteen hours. Which means I’ve got time to kill. And to be perfectly blunt, Jason, I’d like to spend it with you.
Which is why I poisoned your drink …
Uh-huh.
As you Americans say: deadly.
Whoops.
Was it something I said?
Tá tú air ais.
Means, “I knew you couldn’t cut it abroad.”
It usually takes a few minutes to sink in.
Yeah, it’d be easy to think I’m crazy. Or that I’ve got a seriously sick sense of humor. But part of you is wondering, right? Wondering if there’s a tiny chance that I’m serious?
Jason, mo ghrá, I’m completely serious.
Hand on the Holy Book, I poisoned your drink.
Nasty stuff, too. I’m not going to bore you with the precise chemical compound—you probably didn’t like chemistry in secondary school in Philadelphia, did you?
Didn’t think so.
Well, let’s just cut the shit—in about twelve hours, you’re going to be bleeding out yer eyes. Your skin’s going to turn red and slough off your muscles. It’ll start with an itch. Then you’ll itch all over. It’ll drive you crazy. And you’ll scratch. And you won’t be able to stop.
Yeah. Weapons-grade.
I know it’s easy for you to think that.
Such a mouth on you.
Walk out of this bar and you’ll never see Philadelphia again.
They’re called gardaí here. Guards. And they can’t help you.
No one can.
Only me.
Hey, Jaybird … pub closes at midnight!
An hour and forty-five minutes. That’s a new record.
You started itching, didn’t you?
Oh, sit down. I’ll explain everything. Almost.
Want another drink?
Swear to Christ, I’ll leave it be.
Suit yourself.
Here it is, Jaybird. I’ve been poisoned, too. No, not with the same stuff. Something else. Something worse. If I’m alone, my heart will stop. And my brain will burst.
Oh, I wish it were a bloody poem. No, I mean it literally.
If I don’t have someone within six feet of me at all times, I will die.
What’s that?
Look around you. We’re in a crowded pub on Dame Court. Plenty of people. Until midnight. Until I have to leave and go for a walk down Dame Lane. If I’m not with someone like you, I’ll be one dead dame.
Gallows humor is my specialty. It’s on my CV. Right after biochemistry.
Nah, I never did tell you, did I? Well take a wild foukin’ guess.
Uh-huh. U.S. of A.
I work here. The Celtic Tiger’s been roaring. We’ve got all kinds of labs.
More on the research end, but yeah. You’ve got it.
Ah, I know you’re humoring me. But that’s okay. As long as you humor me for the next twelve hours.
No way, huh?
Okay, then. Piss off.
Really, I’ll poison some other handsome devil. Have a nice flight. Hope your bride doesn’t mind a closed casket.
Bí curamach.
Allan, I’d suck a dick for another pint, so how about it?
Back now, are you?
Your skin must be driving you mad by now.
Me? You want to know about me?
Ah, you’re just looking for the antidote. Nothing more. Maybe a blowjob before you die. Yeah, well ask me arse, ye bollix. I’m desperate. Just not that desperate.
Yeah, I know what I said to Allan. It’s an Oirish thing. Ironic exaggeration. You wouldn’t understand.
Okay, fine, the antidote. We’ll get to that. In a while. First you’ve got to hear my story. Don’t worry, I’ll give you the abridged version.
Look above you. Past the ceiling of this pub,
deep into the clear Irish sky. Not as far as the stars. Just below. Can you see it? The spinning silver ball?
Humor me. Tell me you can see it.
Yeah, that spinning silver ball. The foukin’ satellite.
Use your imagination, Jason, for fuck’s sake. That’s why God gave it to you.
Okay. You see it. Now picture this: biochemical triggers in my blood. You can make them silver, too, if you want. Little silver balls, swimming round my red and white cells. AIDS? I’d welcome AIDS. There’s shit we can do ’bout AIDS. We can’t do anything ’bout this. These little silver balls. Can you see them?
Good. Now imagine the big silver ball in the sky.
Yeah, the satellite, Jaybird.
That’s the big silver ball that’s fixed on the tiny silver balls in my blood. It needs six feet circumference to do its job, otherwise the big silver ball could kill innocent people. Besides me, hah hah.
Star wars.
Yeah. My lab’s been busy the past twenty years.
So yeah, okay, if I were to get up from this bar stool and walk across Dame Court? You’d see me lovely body fall to the ground. Dead. Those silver balls are brutal. They grow spikes. In my heart. In my brain.
Jesus can’t help me, but thanks for the sentiment anyway.
Who? Beats the royal fuck out of me. Maybe some jealous foukin’ bastard in the lab. A jilted lover. A bored and horny bureaucrat. Fucked if I know. Maybe I should have given a ride. Suck some dick for science, right?
You can help me by staying with me. For at least eleven hours. That’s when help will arrive, le cúnamh Dé. And the big silver ball won’t be able to say shite about it. As long as you stay within six feet of me.
Oh, my hotel room? Just a few blocks away. I’m at the Westbury. When I’m in Dublin, I make it a point to stay five-star. You’ve gotta see the bathroom.
Yes, that’s where I have the antidote.
Aren’t you going to hold my arm, mo ghrá?
Of course it’s nice. What did you expect? We’re in central Dublin, not foukin’ Galway.
Stop asking. It’s not important. What’s important is you and me. Together. Tonight. Within six feet of each other, at all times.
You don’t mind if I handcuff you to the bed, do you?
No, I wasn’t exactly joking.
Mm!
Mmmmmm.
Well.
This is an unexpected development.
The handcuffs, wasn’t it?
I do have them, swear to Christ. Right here in my bag. See?
Oh.
Mmmmm.
These turn you on, do they?
Oh, we’re almost there.
It is a beautiful lobby, isn’t it? Almost as beautiful as my lips, wouldn’t you say?
Oh, the mouth on you.
Here we are. Push the up arrow, boyo.
What?
I wouldn’t worry about that. The antidote doesn’t matter. What matters is us. Together. Tonight. You, here with me. For … yeah, looks like eleven hours.
Ding.
Yes, Jason?
625. Why?
What are you—
You snap the one cuff around her wrist and the other around the car rail. You watch her eyes widen as you step back.
And the doors close.
The frantic pounding and clanging. The wail of betrayal.
Then you swear you can sense it: the faint tremor just beyond the range of human hearing.
Because the wail has stopped.
No need to worry about that antidote. You knew she’d made it up. Her security clearance doesn’t give her access to the hard stuff.
You unflip your cell. Dial the number that after a few security switches will connect you with a basement somewhere in Virginia.
All you have to do is make this phone call and you can hop your plane home to Philadelphia. Just two words, and you’ve earned your paycheck.
“It works,” you say.
ROPE-A-DOPE
BY CRAIG MCDONALD
Harcourt Street, a raucous downstairs bar: über meat market.
George has his eye on a woman—out of his league, but worst she can say is no.
And he knows this: Lonely women fear lonely weekends like death.
Friday, just after work. This, in his too-successful experience, is every lonely woman’s hour of least resistance.
Pints are guzzled by lookers in little black dresses who’ve spent their days skirting the boundaries of “casual Friday” good taste—sweaters or jackets between them and stern warnings from sundry Human Resources Nazis.
George signals the gaffer, points at the woman alone at the table near the door.
The keep nods and half-smiles, says, “Russian Quaalude.”
George Lipsanos scowls. “What the fuck kind of drink is that?”
The barkeep smiles and shrugs. “Obscure one: Frangelico, Bailey’s, and vodka. Honestly? Had to look it up.”
Impatient, George nods. “Send her a double.”
Lipsanos watches. The bartender serves the sleek stranger the drink. Questioned, he stabs a thumb at George.
The woman raises an eyebrow, lifts her glass, and nods at George.
Lipsanos is headed her way before her first sip.
As he approaches, she shifts her legs—long legs, already crossed. Her right foot now slips behind her left leg’s calf.
This woman was striking at thirty yards in dim light through a haze of cigarette smoke. At five feet, she’s a leggy wet dream: mocking green eyes, dark hair … chiseled chin … natural rack, and good thighs on full display in her tight-black, fuck-me-now-and-hard! dress.
George thinks … righteous, compliant sports fuck.
Or she soon will be.
She smiles at him—a sultry, mocking mouth. She sips her freaky cocktail, says: “’Tis himself. Ah, but he didn’t know my drink. Maybe doesn’t bode well.” Another sip, then, “You’re not Irish.”
George scowls, shakes his head: “No … I’m Greek.” He shrugs. “Came to ride the Celtic Tiger. Get some of that Y-2K paranoia action.” He omits the latest nuance: a lucrative leap to cyber-porn. Instead, George hefts his glass, butchering the pronunciation: “Sláinte!”
A husky chuckle. The woman smiles—deep dimples— and winks. “My father’s from Glencoe. You know … the Highlands? He’d a toast, ‘Here’s to you, as good as you are. Here’s to me, as bad as I am. And as bad as I am, and as good as you are, I’m as good as you are, as bad as I am.’”
George has trouble tracking that one. She drains her Russian Quaalude. She signals the bartender, raises her glass, and points at George.
She leans across the table, fingers tented, drawing elbows closer and deepening the dark, enticing valley between her high-riding breasts. “Guess I won’t hold it against you, then … not knowing my drink.”
“Yeah,” George says, “that’s good.” He puts out his hand. “I’m George.”
She squeezes his hand and sits back, breasts shifting under her dress. She tips her head to the side, dark hair slanting. “My name is the last thing on your mind. Let’s be honest, huh, George? Names truly important?”
He feels some sense of firm footing returning. Cocky, he says, “Called out at the right moment? Yeah … means more than Oh baby.”
Those dimples again. She sips her drink, points. “Gutsy, George. Joking about sex this early. Okay: You can call me Mell. Mell Mulloy.”
He puts out his hand again, squeezes hers and doesn’t let go—his thumb stroking the inside of her palm.
She says, “George. Hmm. Like the monkey, huh?”
“Say what?”
“The monkey … my favorite book as a kid, ya know? Curious George? The little chimp … man with the yellow hat?”
“Gotcha.” George bites his lip … sips his drink. Jesus: Best steer clear of books with this woman … literature—not his territory. The last one went on and on about “Joyce” … guaranteeing he’d never read thatbitch.
But the
woman pushes: “Are ya, you know, curious … George?”
George’s kidneys are burning. Should have hit the head before he sent the drink to her. He bounces his left leg. Tries to come up with some response to her question. He fingers the engraved Zippo in the pocket of his sports jacket, says, “You smoke?”
“Not anymore.”
“Mind if I do?”
“Do it, George—secondhand smoke keeps me half-ass in the game.”
George lies: “Gotta get it in before the ban, yeah? I’m out … gotta get myself a new pack.”
He beelines for the men’s room. He shoulders up between pissed, pissing punters and lets go, his left kidney burning … even aching.
The pain subsiding, he washes up and hits the cigarette machine. He buys a pack of Regals that he’ll maybe get through in three or four weeks. He drops it in his pocket with the baggie of half-a-dozen tablets of Rohypnol—the “R2” that he figures to slip in Mell’s drink when she has to hit the head.
But before that, he’ll slip her the Ecstasy in his left pocket.
Yeah.
The E and the “Rope”—a profoundly powerful one-two … no woman could sustain against it.
Mell has a fresh drink waiting for George when he returns to their table.
George slides into his chair—freshly stricken: that face, those tits, those long legs … thinking about those legs wrapped around his ass … about Mell’s mouth, her sultry lips, groaning—and her not remembering—sucking.
“Drink up, George,” Mell says. “They’re gonna be playing our song in a minute.”
Compliantly, George downs his double Jameson and accepts her hand.
They find an empty space on the dance floor and begin moving together, his crotch tight to hers—a slow dance to Mark Knopfler: “On Raglan Road.”
George is dizzy.
And increasingly hard.
Mell clearly knows it too—stroking him through his sans-a-belt pants.
Punchy, his pants now a tent, George follows Mell back to their table. He doesn’t really sit so much as he falls into his chair.
George is sweating—even a little nauseous.
Strike that: really nauseous … sweating like a pig. He had loaded nachos about 4 p.m. He thinks of the sour cream slathered on the chips, then thinks, Jesus, it’s food poisoning!
But Mell has slipped off her right fuck-me stiletto, distracting George from his sour stomach. She’s massaging his crotch with her stockinged foot. She says: “Don’tcha think it’s time we go to your place? You do have a place, George?”
