Best Served Frozen (The Irish Lottery Series Book 4)

by Gerald Hansen

  Right! Down to business! He pushed through the revolving doors and thought where she might be. Across the slick slabs, past the public loos, he saw the Yank family approaching Magazine Gate with a copper. What was going on? Not his concern. Focus. Time was ticking. The Craiglooner first, and if Sorcha wasn't there, the Rocking Seamaid, then the Idle Fiddle, then the Hairy Lime, and if he still hadn't found her... And what if she had found a boyfriend? It could happen. But he couldn't think like that. His freedom was at stake. And in his life, his 25 years, he had had precious little of that.

  Lorcan had spent three years in Magilligan Prison, banged up for grievous bodily harm. He had beaten Sean O'Gallagher senseless after he had spilled his pint of lager in the Craiglooner one night years ago. Sean had paid dearly for that pint, but Lorcan even more. Nobody was quite sure how the Filth had shown up; perhaps they had just been passing. No one in their right mind would get the hated coppers involved, just as nobody would call an ambulance, both symbols of authority from a hated Empire who tried to keep them under their control. Justice on the streets of Derry was usually dished out just there: on the streets.

  But on that night, while Lorcan was yelping in pain as he washed the blood off his fists in the loo, and the victim's mates were outside trying to fold his limbs to fit them into a mini-cab bound for intensive care, shown up the coppers had, in their daft blinding yellow vests, and Lorcan found himself down the cop shop, and then in the holding cell, the blood congealing on his shirt and the drink and the E draining from his system and wondering how he had ended up there and who his one phone call would be to.

  Lorcan wasn't quite a violent maniac. It hadn't been just the wasted beer, though there was that. Drink was expensive. There had been history between Sean and him. Lorcan suspected that back in primary school, when he was seven or eight, Liam had been the one who stole the pencil and eraser set he had gotten from his granny at Christmas, and he was sure Sean had tried to steal Charlotte Teague from him when he was sixteen. And, strangely, considering Sean had tried to steal Charlotte away years earlier, Lorcan had seen him staring at his arse that night and suspected he was a nancy boy. The drink must had been exposing Sean's true, sinful, sordid nature.

  But, still, all were surprised when charges were actually pressed. Rumors spread there must be a Protestant in Sean's family tree; that was the only reason a Catholic might press charges against another Catholic. Sean O'Gallagher had won the case, the battle, but lost the war. After Lorcan was sent down, for months backs turned in pubs all over Derry when Sean walked into a pub (so Lorcan had heard), and once he was spat on, but the jury was still out on if this was due to suspected Protestantism, getting Lorcan locked up, or being a secret shirt lifter. Sean had left Derry two years ago. For Florida.

  Lorcan's initial sentence hadn't been that long—six months—and frequent visits from his mammy and the Vicodin Fionnuala smuggled in her mouth and passed to him as they kissed in greeting had made the stay at her Majesty's pleasure tolerable. But when Fionnuala had been found out and barred from visiting hours, Lorcan had gone off the deep end. A model prisoner he was not, and any excuse had his fists flying. The prison doctors were kept busy. No amount of pleading that cellmates were poofters, arse bandits, after a go at his bum, could make the prison governor melt. Lorcan's eyes and his charm had no power in that office. Month after month was tacked on to his sentence until he finally realized his fists of fury were not his friends, and a complimentary course on anger management offered by the staff helped him. He was finally released and free.

  But then his father guilt tripped him into taking the job at the fish packing plant, and Lorcan had felt in prison again. And now he was counting down the days. Again. Realizing that he was finally leaving Derry, he felt freedom approaching again, but this time it was more exciting. Yes, he loved Derry. How could he not? He had spent his entire life there and knew nothing else. Well, except for Magilligan Prison, which was outside the city limits in the middle of a moor, and there had been the trip to Giant's Causeway with that primary school class with Sean and the stolen pencil. But now Lorcan was finally going to begin really living, just like he saw people doing on the telly. He was set to see the world. Or Florida, at least.

  Passing the chip van, he waved hello to Dymphna and her fancy man. Then he entered the Craiglooner. Nothing was on the jukebox. The five shaved heads of the lads on the bar stools whipped around, eager for the sighting of a stranger in their midst and the menace that would follow. Seeing Lorcan, they relaxed and turned back to their pints, disappointed. Lorcan walked up to the barmaid, bleached Amy-Winehouse-style do and dangly turquoise earrings, mutton dressed as lamb, “Right ye are,” “Aye, right ye are, son,” and ordered a pint. Nobody else was there. This time of the day, not even gone noon, there wouldn't be. But Georgie had said Sorcha liked to drink early.

  Lorcan handed over the twenty pound note, and felt a bit of guilt as the barmaid pulled it from his fingers and handed him his change. He stood at the bar (there were no more stools) and sipped his beer, thinking about the night before. He had felt bad about his mother's reaction to his plans to emigrate. He had gone back downstairs after making a few phone calls, including the one to Georgie who had filled him in on Sorcha O'Shaunessy. Fionnuala had moved back to the settee, damp rag on her head, but seemed to be feeling better. She was eating a Turkish Delight. He kissed her on the cheek.

  “Sorry about the grief I gave ye before, Mammy,” he said. “Ye know I love ye and I don't want to leave ye. Don't ye worry, Mam, but. I'll leave for a wee bit, but then I'll come back.

  But they never do, said her eyes, and Lorcan realized now it was true. Even his auntie Ursula, who had tried to buck the trend and, after years of following her Yank military husband to bases around the world, had come back to Derry when he retired to live forever, had been terrorized after she won the lotto until she was chased away, and here he felt more guilt, because his mother had roped him in to play a part in the reign of terror, demanding he use some of his released ex-con mates to scare the bejesus out of Ursula until she had escaped to the States, though not Florida. But Ursula was with her Yank husband, Jed, who could have lived in Derry for thirty years and would still be seen as the outsider, the alien, not of this world, some vaguely half-human creature, like a missionary in darkest Africa in the 1880s must have been regarded by the indigenous population, and vice versa. Whereas Derry was Lorcan's hometown. “I swear I'll be back, Mammy. Just let me make me fortune, and back I'll come. With new gear and gifts for youse all, like. Haven't ye always wanted a self-cleaning oven and another Burberry scarf? And I'll send money to youse all here every month. I promise.”

  She had moaned and grabbed his strong, young hands and clasped them tightly to her sagging breasts. “I'm afeared I'll never see ye again, but! Ye know ye're the only one of me wanes I have any real love for. Ye know ye're always number one on me lists. Even when ye was banged up. How can I live without ye? I'm not long on this Earth ye know, son. Wait till them tests come back, and then ye'll see. Yer mammy's body be's but a living carcass on its last legs.” Here she squeezed out a tear. “The least ye can do is stay here and be at me side when the Lord comes to take me. So that the last thing I see on this Earth be's them lovely blue eyes of yers staring down at me with all the love I know ye have for me as I slip away. Only you have the power to make me death a happy one, so ye do, son.”

  Lorcan's hands were still prisoners within her clammy claws.

  “Don't worry, Mammy. I'll speak to the neighbors and see if I can't get one of their passwords for wi-fi so'se ye can watch things on the computer instead of the telly. We can take the computer from the scullery and prop it in front of the telly there. Then yer illness won't be so bad, and ye won't have to resort to DIY entertainment. Ye might even be able to see reruns of that program ye love so much, the one with the briefcases with the different money in em.”

  She was staring at him as if she didn't understand. But he went on. “And let's wait ti
ll them tests come back. I won't leave before then. If them doctors give ye a clean bill of health, then I know ye've decades in ye left. Sure, ye're a spring chicken, so ye are, when ye look at me granny Heggarty for comparison.”

  “Aye, that's as may be. She does be older than me, but, ye know. Being me mammy, like.”

  “Ye've me word, Mammy. I won't leave if ye've medical problems that haven't been resolved. A year, I'll stay. That's all. Do ye trust me?”

  She stared up at him for quite a while. And finally, slowly, haltingly, she nodded her head. And Lorcan had been happy. Her eyes fluttered shut, so he had had to clear his throat.

  “And, er, Mammy?”

  “Aye, son? What is it?” she had asked.

  “Could I, er, have a lend of twenty quid?”

  There was silence. Then, croaking, she had said, “Hand me me handbag, love.”

  Number two on her list could never have gotten away with that!

  “C'mere,” he asked those at the bar. “Have youse seen Sorcha O'Shaunessy around today?”

  “That slag?!”

  “Her with the face of a bulldog licking piss offa a nettle?”

  “A fire-damaged Lego, more like!”

  “And an arse like two exploded airbags?”

  “Naw, more like a bag of washing.”

  “What do ye want with that one? I wouldn't ride her into battle.”

  “Aye, yer woman's seen more cockends than weekends.”

  “More helmets than Hitler.”

  “A quim like a ripped out fireplace, she must have.”

  “A burst settee, ye mean.”

  “A stab wound in a gorilla's back.”

  “Flaps like John Wayne's saddle bags.” Even the barmaid was joining in now!

  “Right,” Lorcan said. “I'm taking that as a no?”

  “Seriously, mucker! What do ye want with the likes of her? A trip to the clinic?”

  He couldn't say she owed him money; word would spread like the diseases they thought she would give him. He shrugged.

  “Just wondering, like. Ta, muckers.”

  He downed his pint, then headed off to the next pub.

  He found her three pubs and three pints later, in the Poked Pig. Georgie had been right. He had told Lorcan she was in town, would be for three days until she took off again. The Poked Pig was gearing up for karaoke later that day, and she of the Lego face and laundry behind—hair like that stabbed gorilla had been electrocuted during a monsoon, they could have added—was flipping through a book of song selections. Alone. There were twenty or so others in the pub, but she seemed to be with none of them. Her wine glass was almost empty. Lorcan saw red dribbles in the bottom. Perfect. He bought a pint and stood at the bar, putting himself in her sight. He revved up his eyes a gear.

  She looked up, then quickly back down at the book, then shyly back up. Then back down. She gulped the rest of her wine. Lorcan bought a glass of red.

  He loped over, and she seemed to be thrilled and frightened in equal measures. She ran a finger through her hair, her hand down the back of her tights, and coyly batted her eyelashes at him. He knew her to see, who didn't?, but they had never met. Why would he have wanted to?

  “Did it hurt?” he asked, handing her the wine.

  She tinkled with laughter. “When I fell from heaven, ye mean?”

  She seemed legless already. She certainly made use of every waking hour she was in town, the few of them she was there.

  “Aye,” Lorcan said. “I've been noticing ye for years now. Took me all this time to get the nerve to tell ye what I think. A ride and a half, so ye are.” This was a compliment. “I'm called—”

  “Aye, ye're called Lorcan Flood, aren't ye?”

  “Aye, and aren't ye one of them O'Shaunessy's from Creggan Heights?”

  “Aye, Sorcha, I'm called.”

  And ten minutes later they were headed to her place.

  After much moaning and touching and thrusting, some pumping and groaning, and a sudden squawk of “Wrong hole, ye eejit! Ye've got the wrong hole!” there were suddenly many roars of “Ye filthy, dirty bastard, ye! Ye filthy bastard, ye!” in rapture and excitement and pain and a bit of all three, then Lorcan deflated on the sopping sheets, feeling soiled. Sorcha looked like she felt the same. He knew most of the men who had been in the queue, and feared for the health of his knob.

  “That was magic, so it was,” Sorcha said.

  She barely had time to reach for a fag before he had propped himself up on an elbow on the pillow and stared down at her, doing his magic with his eyes. And the magic he could do with his body was nothing compared to the magic he could do with those eyes.

  “So what's all this I hear about ye working for the airlines?”

  CHAPTER 22

  Ursula had dabbled in amateur dramatics as a teen. She had even been chosen to play the lead in Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, well, the female lead, as the two leads were male. She had worn a blonde wig and was Vera Claythorne, the aloof governess who had merely looked on as the young boy in her charge drowned himself, the boy whose death was being avenged decades later. Revenge a dish best served cold? In And Then There Were None, it was practically frozen! Ursula 'was killed' toward the end of the third act; she was 'coerced' into hanging herself (yes, that's what Agatha Christie had written). When the murderer was revealed and the curtain came down and the play was over, there hadn't been a standing ovation, but Ursula had gotten a date out of it, and at least before the play someone had done her makeup backstage, which was more than could be said for Biggbee studios. So she was no stranger to the stage. Nevertheless, she was sopping with sweat yet frigid with fear.

  She felt Jed's hand clutching hers, fingernails digging in, as they took step after step into the blinding lights. There sat the investors before them on a slightly raised platform, hair perfect, teeth gleaming, the cut of their clothing telling. The platform was only two inches high, but there was a world of difference in those two inches.

  There was the female one, the dashing playboy one, the old one, the foreign-accented one and the mean bearded scary one, an internet baroness, an energy mogul, a marketing giant, an investment guru, and a food franchise king. The billionaire (the old one) sat in the middle on a grand throne-like chair, the others on either side in less grand but nevertheless luxurious leather. Ursula and Jed had to stand before them on the spot marked with an X.

  Jed seemed like he couldn't locate the X, so Ursula guided him over to it and stood beside him. Smiling. She smiled ahead into the ten eyes that bored into hers with a mixture of disdain, mistrust and pity. Her best flowered skirt felt like a tattered dish rag, her waistline massive, her flesh like the Dead Sea scrolls and her breasts grotesque. Her aubergine bob, which she had made a special trip to the salon to spruce up, seemed like a laughable purple helmet. Her heart pounded in her throat. She feared the streams of sweat lashing down her forehead would muss her eyeshadow.

  There was a camera to her right, one to her left, another by her feet, and behind them all she saw were the limbs and the tufts of hair of the men working them. She sensed one behind her as well. They kept moving around, and red lights kept blinking on and off, so she didn't know which one was on or not, or if she should be looking—no smiling—at them or not.

  Ursula cleared her throat. She hoped Jed would clear his. And begin speaking!

  A second crawled by.

  Then another.

  And another. Ursula was scared because these were the first 90 seconds! Eighty four, eighty three, eighty two...

  “Hello?!” It was Mean. He waved fatuously at her and Jed. An edge crept into Ursula's smile. Obviously she could see him and he could see her. He didn't need to wave.

  “I said hel-looo?” He trilled.

  Ursula, lips arched upwards, teeth bared to them all, trundled her neck half an inch to the left and tried to catch the eye of Female. She was supposed to be the friendly one. But Female was scribbling something down in the little noteboo
k each of them made their computations or whatever it was in. Her pen was a Montblanc Meisterstück, platinum. Ursula inched her neck back. She nudged Jed. Seventy six, seventy five... To their right on the stage, she saw someone had set up a stand with a poster, SLIM JED JERKY in big letters. Spread out was a selection of their wares. The sight of it was comforting and gave her strength. Seventy two, seventy one...

  “Who aaarre youuu?” Mean warbled. “We're waaaiting!”

  Playboy and Foreign snorted with laughter, and Billionaire tsked as he snapped a look at his watch. “Come on, people! I've got other things to do, places to be, people to meet.” Female looked up from her notebook. She nodded secret encouragement at Ursula. Fifty nine, fifty eight...

  Och, for the love of God, Jed! Ursula was peeved, didn't know what was worse, the taunting, the sniggers, the fifty three seconds left, or Jed, the statue of silence. She nudged him again so that Female would know it wasn't her messing up, then chanced a glance at him, and shirked at the sight she saw: jaw slack, frigid with fear. His glasses had fogged up. Her heart fell, but somewhere deep inside her something rose up, she didn't know what it was, it felt like a geyser, and it enveloped her. Forty six, forty five... She revved up her tongue.

  “Hello, Killer Investors.” Her voice crackled with the breathlessness of nerves.

  “Fiiin-ally!”

  “This is me husband, Jed Barnett, and I'm his wife Ursula.” She heard her name as if it belonged to someone else. She curtsied. “We're, erm, we're here to ask youse for the lend of $150,000 for 40 percent of wer company, if ye'd be so kind”

  She was startled at the roar of laughter that washed over her from their parted mouths.

  “You gotta be joking!”

  “You better have excellent sales.”

  “You mean you're valuing your company at...$375,000?”

  Ursula didn't know if they were or not. So she just continued.