She angrily tugged off her one Doc Marten. Hobbling along was driving her mental. She made a beeline for the chip fryer, but even as she did so, her assistant manager eyes noted the night shift's infractions of the closing procedures. The ketchups hadn't been married, the soda dispenser hadn't been wiped down, the trays were in an untidy mound. She'd be passing out quite a few written warnings.
She stared down at the chip fry vat. Flimmin lazy eejits! They hadn't siphoned out the lard from the night before. Most other chains had switched over to what their lawyers claimed were a healthier method of frying chips, vegetable oil, but an executive decision had been made at Kebabalicious. Switching over would lose them not only a tradition, but also taste and therefore customers. Lard was natural and had no trans fats. Their lawyers had been nervous, especially when one of the executives (Bridie had heard he had had a few too many pints before the meeting; it was Kebabalicious lore) had bleated something about the banning of pig fat being due to the Jewish influence in the US, but a line had been drawn. There was no smoking in pubs, hip hop blared from the radios, but Ireland wasn't quite all America yet, and the chain's chips continued to bubble proudly in pig fat across all 17 stores nationwide.
So Bridie stared down at the handle of the fry basket that was submerged in old, brown lard that had congealed around the fry basket. She turned on the fryer to 360°. The lard would take a few minutes to melt.
And then! As she was inspecting her cold sores in the metallic sheen of the fryer, there was a little explosion in her brain and...Dymphna! In the loos of the Craiglooner! How had she forgotten? Maybe it was the last memory to surface because it was the most troubling. Dymphna had been her best mate since she could remember. She cringed at the memory of attacking her with the plunger. Her face burned with shame. Had it happened before or after the man in the bus stop? Before. No, after. No, before. She had had two boots on then.
As she jiggled the handle of the fry basket a bit (it was still stuck in the slowly-melting lard), hating herself, she saw lodged on her right hand the Claddagh ring, the love, loyalty and friendship ring Dymphna had given her all those years ago. It was a heart with a little crown on top held by two hands. It was made of gold plastic. How many years had Bridie worn it? The shame continued to fill her heart. It was around the same time that Dymphna had been knitting those jumpers and giving them out to everybody she knew. So Dymphna must have been about 12, and Bridie 14. Ten years ago. Bridie had long ago grown out of the jumper, and, indeed, from the fatty flesh the ring was embedded in, she had also outgrown the ring, but she still wore it. It was the only ring she had ever been given, by any gender.
But then Bridie noticed she wore the ring with the point of the heart facing her fingertips. That meant she was single and looking for love. At a glance, everyone knew she was available, and how! The ring would remain steadfastly on her right hand with the heart pointing out, saying...Look at me, Derry City! Lad wanted! Sad old twat in need of love! Available! Forever! And Dymphna's wedding to the man Bridie loved was three days away. She seethed with sudden resentment as her knuckles grew white around the handle of the fry basket and her face, contorted with rage, was basked with heat from the fryer. Dymphna had given it to her only to mock her!
That jammy cunt! She thought. She deserved all the abuse I gave her. And will this lard never melt? Me stomach thinks me throat's been cut! Hurry on up, ye bastard! I need me fecking chips!
She looked down. And her eyes couldn't believe what they saw. She blinked, then blinked again. It was impossible! Was her brain so soaked in spent liquor it couldn't process the images her optical nerves were sending? Was that really...?
Her hand recoiled from the handle as if it had been Tasered. The darkened kitchen of the restaurant, the oven and the warning posters and hanging ladles and spatulas, receded from her line of vision. She heaved huge breaths as fear and wonder coursed through her veins in equal measures.
“Dear Lord in Heaven above!” she gasped. “God bless us and save us! I kyanny believe it!”
She backed away from the fryer and cracked her hip on a counter edge. She didn't register the pain. She whimpered and moaned, her eyes drinking in what they were seeing, trying to commit everything to memory for the rest of her life. She gibbered animal-like as she fiddled in her pocket for her phone. She didn't know if she should bless herself, flee or scream. Or all three.
She tugged on her phone, brandished it like a weapon, and fearfully tiptoed to the fryer, dreading and hoping things would still be the same. She cowered and wailed. And snapped as many photos as she could. But her hands were shaking with wonder and fear and excitement. The one photo she actually took would prove to be blurry and useless as evidence later on. But Bridie couldn't know that as she, gasping in terror and awe, she stabbed the button on her phone again and again.
And then she ran shoeless across the tiles, past the counter and out the door, shrieking on the cobblestones like a lamb being slaughtered. Early morning shoppers flinched and stared. And listened to what she was shrieking. Mrs. O'Dowd dropped her shopping bags in alarm. Three cups of apricot yogurt rolled across the cobbles. And Bridie McFee was changed forever.
CHAPTER 16
The Killer Investors would save them! When Jed Barnett had hung up the phone, he was shaking. He couldn't believe his good luck. An hour later, he still couldn't. The amazement hadn't worn off. It was like when he had won the lottery all those years ago. That same feeling that one moment in time had transformed his life, everything had changed so that the minute after was a different life to the minute before.
Humming giddily, a new person in a new life, he placed the tray of London Broil beef strips onto the top rack of the oven and flipped the door shut. The middle and bottom shelves were already full. He whipped the flowered mitts off his hands and set the timer, his salt and pepper goatee crinkled into a smile. Two hours. Then he had to flip the strips over and bake them for another two hours. Fifteen strips per tray, times three, was 45. Enough for half a crate. He'd be able to tell the Killer Investors they had loads of inventory.
He sipped Baileys from the wine glass on the counter—there was plenty to celebrate, after all, then stuck the spoon into the jumbo bowl on the counter and stirred in a frenzy. Johnny Cash was singing “Ring Of Fire” on the radio next to the toaster oven. Jed did a little dance as he swirled the beef strips in the marinade. Though there was music and he was humming, he thought he heard a noise upstairs, a clank. It couldn't be Muffins, as the black poodle was nipping at his heels. Then she dug her claws into the checkered polyester of his slacks, wanting to sink her fangs into some uncooked jerky, or, barring that, Jed's thigh. There was another clank. Probably a raccoon, Jed thought, giving Muffins a sliver of jerky from an earlier batch. Those damn creatures were always climbing on the roof. He went back to stirring.
The plastic bowl was big enough for a salad for ten. Jed had thought Ursula looney for buying it; when did they ever eat salad, let alone have eight guests? In fact, considering where they lived in the middle of nowhere, when did they ever have anyone over besides his brother Slim and his wife Louella? And they didn't count as guests because they were family.
But the bowl was perfect for the beef jerky production line in the kitchen. The marinade was soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, teriyaki and Cajun seasonings, liberal dashes of liquid smoke (which made the beef smell and taste like it had been cooked on a grill in the back yard), and Jed had ground in loads of black pepper. Jed and Slim didn't like the fine, powdery pepper for their beef jerky. That was for wimps. They liked the coarse, freshly-ground grains that were almost chunks. They gave their beef jerky—called Slim Jed's Jerky—an extra kick. And, finally he had added Ursula's secret ingredient.
She had been helping him in the kitchen a year before and accidentally grabbed the wrong shaker for the marinade and added into the mix a generous helping of something that nobody in their right mind would expect to be in beef jerky. But the taste was amazing. This secret ingredien
t, Ursula's mistake, is what set Slim Jed Jerky apart from all the others on the market, if the lip-smacking and groans of content from their customers were anything to go by. And the reorders! They were pouring in from all the stores in the area! Now he was envisioning Slim Jed Jerky, his fourth child, on the shelves of convenience stores and gas stations and supermarkets from coast to shining coast. Once the Killer Investors invested in him, Slim, Ursula and Louella. He wondered if all five Knights might decide to invest together. It had happened before, back in season three; he had watched all the old episodes on YouTube for pointers. Now all the Barnetts would be on YouTube in the future. How many hits would their episode get?
“Wa-hooo!”
He dragged another handful of dripping beef strands onto yet another baking tray (they would have to dry there for an hour) and shook his head in wonder. Jed would've never believed that he, a former naval petty officer who had spent a lifetime surrounded by communist aggressors, would now be surrounded by marinated beef, on the verge of overtaking the world with a secret spice.
He reached down to give Muffins another strip, but the dog had disappeared, maybe to inspect the clanks upstairs. She didn't like raccoons. Jed lined up all the strips, then wiped the sweat from his brow with a dirty dishrag and looked at his watch. He wiped up a bit; that would give Randaleen less to clean when she came. Truth be told, she scared Jed a bit. He went outside for a smoke, taking the wine glass with him. He couldn't wait for Ursula to arrive to tell her the good, no, the fantastic, news. It would give her something to talk about besides that damn Randaleen. He had tried his wife's cell phone, but it was switched off. It always was when she was at bingo.
Ursula never spent a Thursday at home, and even though their cleaner with her alleged light fingers was making his wife a frazzled mess, she hadn't changed her schedule . She had the morning bingo with Louella, then the soup kitchen (she would still volunteer, she had told Jed, because she didn't think Randaleen would have the brass neck to show up, hand outstretched while Ursula's earrings jangled on either side of her head, and even if she did, Ursula was supposed to be behaving as if she didn't know she was a thief, and, besides, why should the other unfortunates who went there for a hot meal suffer because of one rotten apple?), then choir practice. Jed called it in his mind Ursula's Trifecta, which maybe showed he had been betting a bit too much. And gambling was what had gotten them into such a mess the month before in the first place. But after that phone call from the show's production office, it was a mess that would take them to a better place. He was sure.
He didn't understand why Ursula didn't just call the police and get the scuzzy creature locked up. He didn't mind the sunglasses, they had only cost $10. He missed his binoculars. But he had been at his wife's side for decades, and knew the circular logic of Ursula's mind. Circular? Maybe labyrinth-like was more apt. Others might not fare so well running to the police with such scant or even total lack of evidence, but Ursula had a special relationship with a detective on the local police force, Inspector Scarrey. But, whatever. Jed gulped down more Baileys—he was feeling quite giddy now—and lit up another cigarette. Randaleen was a minor irritation now that the world had suddenly opened its arms to him and his beefy jerky. He tried to think back to how he had arrived at this point. He was surprised and a bit mortified to realize it had been his gambling.
Besides giving Ursula support, affection and a listening ear (when the TV was turned down), and between running the store with Slim, taking out the garbage, his occasional bird watching, and fishing in the nearby creek, Jed's life revolved around trips to casinos on Indian reservations, and there was a wide array of them in Wisconsin. He had dabbled in online gambling for a while, as well, but the US government had started to crack down on it. When Jed was on the verge of asking one of the whizz kids who did the website for their store to reroute his IP address to Tajikistan, he realized he was being silly, and that online gambling was boring in any event. He liked the feel of the slot machine buttons, the bells and whistles that rang out around, the thick fug of cigarette smoke that hung in the air, and the waitresses that plied him with free alcohol. No. That wasn't it at all. He knew the real reason he didn't gamble online anymore:
That night a month earlier unfolded in his mind like a moment of madness. As he crushed the cigarette butt under his shoe and made his way back into the house, he was barely able to understand now how he had done what he had done. He felt ashamed. He remembered being caught up in the excitement, adrenaline heaving through his veins as he hovered over the computer keyboard, having wittered away $5000 of the business account on the online poker championship, and then transferring $10,000 more, then $5000. He kept losing and losing. And losing. He couldn't understand it. Where had his luck gone? Finally he had crawled into bed beside a sleeping Ursula, and as he kissed her on the cheek and she mumbled something, the shock of it reached his brain. He had gambled away $20,000 of the business' money. How could he tell Slim?
He didn't. For a week, he prayed Slim wouldn't check the business account, and every time he shopped for supplies at the wholesalers for the beef jerky, every time he had to pay for a purchase order for the hot sauce or guns or bait for the store, he had mental mathematics racing through his brain with each swipe of the card, each swipe causing him to steel himself for that dreaded word, declined.
It was a far cry from the heady days after the lotto win in Ireland, even after they had bought the two cars and the house and there wasn't much money left and they had Ursula's family attacking them from all angles, hands outstretched, demanding more of what no longer existed. Now he was in a worse position than he had been in before the lotto win. Jed was always hoping lightning would strike twice, but he felt only that lightning had struck once...and the bolt of electricity had deranged his brain. The future looked glum. And one day at the bait wholesalers—he had a shopping cart brimming with grub worms, locusts and minnows—the teenager behind the counter had swiped Jed's card, looked down at the machine, then looked up at Jed. And smirked. Jed's heart fell. He knew what that knowing smirk meant. Declined!
He remembered the meeting at the store with his brother the next day. “Tough love,” Slim had called it. Well, Slim could take his 'tough love' and shove it. That's what Jed thought at the time.
“Don't sweat the small stuff,” Jed had tried.
“Small stuff?! Are you outta your goddamn mind? We ain't got no cash flow no more! How are we gonna get by?”
And—Jed was still startled at the memory—Slim, who tipped the scales at 350, had lunged towards him, knocked his younger brother into the counter, sending Hot Trout Lure kits and bottles of hot sauce flying, and wrestled him to the ground. Jed's cowboy hat rolled on the floor as he tried to fight back, but his brother's tonnage atop him made all attempts in vain. Slim wrenched the wallet out of Jed's back pocket as Jed wriggled and panted and puffed on the floor beneath him. He flipped it open, found the business credit card, brandished it in the air like bowling trophy, then snapped it in two.
As they sat on opposite ends of the store, nostrils flaring and beads of sweat on their brow, Slim had finally said, “I'm sorry, Jed, but I had to do it. We gotta save the business.”
“Aw, come on, Slim. You should've let me keep it for one more week. I feel a big win coming in my bones.”
The look Slim had given him!
“Your bones have always been wrong, bud. Well, except that time you won the lotto. But that's ancient history now. Maybe you wanna look into this.”
He got up, riffled behind the counter for a while, then wheezed as he made his way across the wooden floor towards Jed. He handed Jed a pamphlet. Are You In Control, Or Are The Horses? Twenty Questions To Help You Find The Answer. It was from a group in the Gamblers Anonymous vein.
“I haven't gone to a racetrack in years,” Jed said, somewhat miffed.
“Change 'the horses' for 'online roulette wheel', or 'the ping of a slot machine in a casino on an Indian reservation,' I don't care. Whatever e
xcites you most. But I think you need help. You're running this business—our business—into the ground. Think of your kids, your grandkids. How many you got now?”
Jed counted.
“Four.”
“Think of those little kids with no inheritance. Whittled away. Think of them having to pay off your debt when you bite the dust, kick the bucket, or should I say cash in your chips?”
Jed thought.
“Aw, come on, Slim. Just one more week. There's a big online poker championship Wednesday night. I already signed up for it.”
Slim looked down at his brother in dismay. He shook his head, his cheeks wobbling.
“We...could go on Attack of the Killer Investors!” Jed suggested. He looked up hopefully.
Slim crossed his arms across his heft.
“What the heck is that?”
“You ever seen Shark Tank? Or even Dragons Den? That's the English version. I think Canadian, too. And maybe Australian. It's a reality TV show.”
“I don't care what it is. All I know is we got bills we need to pay. And a snowball's chance in Hell of paying them! You wanna end up in the gutter? With Ursula sitting next to you?”
“There are five millionaires, well, four millionaires and a billionaire, at least on Attack, and they're all investors. They want to help fledgling or floundering businesses. But at a price. We gotta give them a percentage of the company. We get twenty minutes to pitch to them, though I think they cut that down to ten on the show. And then they give us the money we need. We're one of the floundering businesses. They don't usually get picked, but with the reorders on the jerky... I think you can apply online, and just send them a video or something. We've got that camcorder. Really, Slim, with Slim Jed Jerky, I think we got a chance. They just might back us.”
Slim seemed on the verge of telling him to get the hell out and never come back, but then a look came over his face.
Best Served Frozen (The Irish Lottery Series Book 4) Page 14
