Текст книги "Purgatory"

Автор книги: Ken Bruen

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5

He looked at her again, at the white body by the black water, surrounded by dark spruce trees. The scene had nothing of violence in it. In fact, it looked peaceful.

– Karin Fossum, Don’t Look Back

I’ve never seen much good press on purgatory.

Galway nun

Sister Maeve gave nuns a good name. My history with her had started real fine. Even went for cappuccino and croissants, her joy in such a rare treat. Then, par for my course, things hit the shitter, bad and ugly, and she deleted me from her life. Few can freeze you like the clergy, and the nuns learn early in nun school how to deliver that withering look.

I’m stunned, a compliment almost!

Then, busting a rib in the devil, she came to me for help in a delicate case of missing funds and I came through. I wasn’t back on her prayer list but neither was she watching the papers for my obituary.

I was in Java, the designer coffee shop, when she found me. I didn’t recognize her as she was in civilian clobber. And thank fook I didn’t burst out with,

“Didn’t know you without your habit.”

She said,

“Jack.”

Her smile was hesitant, but still had that radiance leaking at the corner of her mouth. A Cupid’s bow that, Ridge said,

“Was fecking wasted on a nun.”

Maybe.

I said,

“Sister, good to see you.”

I offered a seat and she demurely took it. Nuns, if this isn’t too weird, have a trait in common with Frenchwomen.

Delicacy.

A grace of movement, economical but compelling. I asked,

“Cappuccino and. . they have cheesecake fresh out of the bakery.”

She was thrilled. I mean you’ve got to love a person who is so easily fulfilled. Buckets of Jameson, acres of Virginia leaf, a whole mess of pharmaceuticals, lines of pints, and I was as near to peace as the church to the people.

Her fare came and she set to with gusto. It was a pleasure to see her demolish that cheesecake. I asked,

“Another?”

“Oh, I couldn’t.”

But no heart in it.

I said,

“A little wickedness gives us all something for the confessional.”

I settled back in my chair and she gave me that nun appraisal, all encompassing. I came up short, I already knew that. But I had credit in the ecclesiastical bank, so I waited. She said,

“You look well, Mr. Taylor.”

No point in trying

“Jack.”

So I took

“Thank you.”

But this wasn’t a social call, the get-together with the local thug gig. She said,

“I find, or we. . the church. . in need of your valuable assistance once more.”

I bit down on sarcasm too easy and I figure, take a run at a nun, all kinds of shite coming down the karma pike. I said,

“If I can.”

She produced a sheet of paper, laid it on the table, asked,

“Are you familiar with Our Lady of Galway?”

Knock

Lourdes

Medjugorje

Sure.

But Galway?

Really?

Not that it would hurt the tourist trade. Always money in devotion, and if you can find the Madonna on a wall, bingo. Work it.

I said

“No.”

This is the short version.

Our Lady of Galway.

A seventeenth-century Italian statue of Our Lady. She holds in her hand a stunning mother-of-pearl rosary, donated by a Claddagh fisherman. The first Catholic mayor of Galway, in 1683, put a gold crown on the head of the statue.

The Penal Laws came down the pike, Catholics were forbidden to practice. The statue was buried by a man named Brown, who, after the persecution was over, presented it to the Dominican order.

They resided in an old thatched church in the Claddagh. A new church was erected in 1891. The Madonna, the centerpiece of the church, has an altar showing

A Claddagh fishing boat

Saint Edna, the patron saint of the Claddagh

And

Saint Nicholas, saint of Galway.

A week previously

Someone nicked the statue.

Thus Sister Maeve.

She said,

“Of course, we don’t expect you to work for free.”

They did.

This was just cover-your-arse nicety.

I played.

“No need for that.”

Did she argue?

Guess.

Peg Ramsay was not a nice lady. There was little in her background to indicate she’d become a mean, vicious, greedy cow. She was simply a bad bitch. Her husband had been a moneylender, on a small scale, without too much intimidation in tow. Junk food, brandy took him out in his early fifties. Peg decided to up the game.

Recruited two East Europeans who learned their trade in the Serbo-Croat conflict.

Learned to be vicious.

Francis

And Xavier

FX.

Their special effect was to break all the bones in the face. All the bones.

Slowly.

And the face has a surprising number of bones.

And there were a not-so-surprising number of debtors. Peg had a few ground rules. Never to be wavered from.

The amount.

Three grand.

Lent for a month. You wanted less?

Fuck off.

But people in need, who’d turn down the extra euros?

The vig?

That was purely on a whim. Depending how bitter Peg was feeling on a due day. She worked on the maxim

“Ground them.”

I was looking at a poorly shot photo of Peg. FX could be faintly glimpsed in the background. Stewart had come to my apartment in a state of agitation, pushing the above picture at me, and an envelope. I snapped,

“And what happened to. . Hello, how are you? And maybe, Hey, nice place, You know, like manners?”

I’d been up late, watching the Super Bowl, watching the New York Giants win for the second time in four years, watching Madonna strut her stuff, and I was tired, cranky. Watching sport without a six-pack seemed

Wrong!

I was on my first coffee, and not feeling the kick. I asked,

“Who’s this?”

He was in no mood for bollix. Said,

“See this fucking envelope? My name is on this. Why am I being dragged into this shite?”

Phew-oh.

Stewart and cursing were rarely in the same room, let alone sentence. His Zen seemed to have taken a holiday. I looked at the photo, then took the envelope, took out a sheet of paper, read,

. . Stewart, Jack seems reluctant to play so. .

This is Peg Ramsay. Want to take this one and maybe we can get Jack on board?

C33

Stewart had, of course, checked out Peg and told me who she was. I asked the obvious.

“Is she still with us?”

Got the look. I said,

“Hey, come on, it’s a relevant question.”

He shook his head, said,

“You know what we have to do?”

No.

I said,

“Not a clue. The Guards?”

“We have to warn her.”

My turn to gasp; asked,

“Are you fucking kidding?”

6

The Burning of Auchindoun

– performed by Sophie Ramsay

Stewart had a new BMW. I shit thee not. This kid was pulling down some serious change. With the rest of the country in the economic toilet, he was buying a new motor?

I asked him,

“How do you do it?”

Changing gear, as we veered off from the main drag of Eyre Square, heading down to the docks, to Long Walk, opposite the Claddagh, he went,

“Huh?”

He knew. I said,

“The new car?”

“Perk of the job.”

Fucking with me. Then to divert me, asked,

“The party, what happened there, you and Reardon not going to be best buds?”

Jesus.

I snarled,

“Stop talking like you’re off the set of The Kardashians.”

Got him.

We were coming up on the Spanish Arch, the Thai restaurant to our right. He spluttered,

“You’re familiar with the. . The. . Kardashians?”

Hard not to be, like a virus there was no stopping. I went with,

“I left early because parties without a Jameson are like Zen without the echoing yawn.”

Cheap shot but you take what you can.

Told him how as I was walking down Threadneedle Road, a limo had pulled up. Yeah, an actual limo, and a woman in her thirties offered me

A ride home.

In the American sense. She was, she said, Kelly, Mr. Reardon’s PR director. It was starting to rain so I took the lift, and kind of liked Kelly. A displaced New Yorker, she had that Louis C.K. sense of humor, so what’s not to like?

And

She was an avid reader of Anglo-Irish literature. Oscar Wilde being, she added,

“Her doctoral subject.”

Only Americans can quite get this reverence when talking about books. An Irish person would say,

“Read Wilde; not bad.”

Stewart was sliding the car close to the water on Long Walk. He asked,

“You like her?”

“We’re having coffee in a few days.”

He wanted more but we were right outside Peg Ramsay’s office. No one could accuse her of false advertising. A large sign declared,

Loans.

Stewart said,

“Take it easy, okay?”

“Hey, your idea to come. I’m saying fuck all.”

A no-frills office, with a plain wooden desk, four hard chairs, and FX.

Francis and Xavier.

The Serbians, in dark suits, looking like the bookends of a very bad novel. Their faces carried expressions of hard, uncompromising dullness. They had the appearance of being related by malignity. The only difference I could see was one wore a tie.

The tieless one strutted over, growled,

“Yes?”

Stewart said,

“We’d like to see Mrs. Ramsay.”

The guy could care fucking less, asked,

“Why?”

“Personal business.”

He’d been looking at Stewart like he wanted to eat him, turned a lazy eye on me, said,

“Ring, make appointment.”

I said,

“Hey, deliver the message. Keep the hard-arse act for someone who gives a shit.”

He was surprised, then a tiny smile. I saw him flex his body, then he took a breath, let it slide.

Peg was a heft of a lady, in her rough fifties, with a face that no makeup was ever going to conceal, a face that had learned hard, sustained it. A shitload of jewelry that rattled like a conscience when she moved. A smoker’s pallor, that color I know, inside and out. She rasped,

“Taylor, well I’ll be fucked.”

Nice.

I asked,

“We met?”

She made a T sign to one of the Serbs, then to me,

“In my business it pays to know the high-profile drunks.”

She let her eyes slide over to Stewart, said,

“The nancy I don’t know.”

Stewart had done six hard years in Mountjoy. Name-calling wasn’t high on his radar. He asked,

“Would you believe we came here to warn you?”

The returning Serb, tea on a tray, moved a little faster on the word warn; the other, tieless one, was already in place, behind Stewart. Realizing, Stewart said,

“We have some stuff here that seems to indicate you might be in danger.”

The tea plus chocolate biscuits were in front of Peg, and Stewart placed the photos, the threat before her. She took a healthy bite of chocolate, noisily, said, mouth full,

“This a shakedown?”

Sounding like a really poor dame noire, she seemed only vaguely interested. I jumped in, said,

“Sorry to have taken up your time.”

Moved to leave. Tieless stepped in front of me, growled,

“You no go.”

Peg asked,

“You want me to believe you came here, out of. . Jesus. . good citizenship?”

Stewart said,

“At least you can be on guard.”

Peg did the most unexpected thing of all: she smiled.

“I’m on guard, twenty-four-seven.”

This got a snort from the Serbs.

I stared at the tieless Serb for a moment, he stepped aside. We moved to leave and Peg shouted,

“You run into financial difficulties, you remember your Aunt Peg.”

Outside, I said,

“The sooner the bitch gets strung up, the better.”

Stewart shook his head, said,

“I thought she had, you know, a shine for you.”

No answer to that. I looked across at the Claddagh church, asked,

“You ever hear of Our Lady of Galway?”

He thought, then,

“Circa 1780?”

I nearly punched him, said,

“Nobody likes a fucking show-off.”

I began the task of finding Our Lady. The irony was not lost on me. A recovering Catholic, mired in guilt, remorse-is there any other kind? – seeking the mother of God. There was one essential to finding her.

Faith.

Kidding.

Money.

Yes.

So I began the round of pubs, churches, dives, flophouses, derelict buildings, student accommodations, crazies, neo-pagan subcults, nuns, all the band of would-be Madonna theft. Spreading, if not the joy, at least the cash.

And found her!

Swear to Jesus.

Lost her.

As fast.

A miracle in and of its wicked self. Minty, a street guy, who favored, get this, crème de menthe above all, thus his name, was the new go-to guy on my information street. For years it had been Caz, a slick Romanian who’d become my uneasy friend.

And got killed.

Not directly because of my friendship but in there.

Like that.

Minty had come to me, offering street cred, rumors, the half-truth that existed on any Galway street in times of deep hardship. Rumor faking as fact, like the government. It’s the Irish way. At least it was now. I’d get Minty some bottles of that awful liqueur and he’d tell me mostly what I wanted to hear. There was always that hidden kernel of truth but I had to sift.

Curious and also never able to mind my own damn business, I’d asked why that drink, got,

“It’s a class thing. You really wouldn’t understand.”

I found him on the steps of the Augustinian church, just before 11:00 a.m. Mass let out. It was, he said,

“Good takings to kick the day off.”

I told him what I was looking for. He was dressed for combat, in a long Irish army coat and Dr. Martens, and seemed more student than bum. He was of that indeterminate street age, beat, worn, wary. Could be bad thirty, or sixty. I palmed him some euros, said,

“I’ll get you some of the de menthe later.”

He nodded, said,

“Jack, it’s getting rougher out here.”

I knew.

I waited, then got,

“Young hoody, name of Brennan, he took the statue, stashed it in his old man’s garage, somewhere in Newcastle. The kid plays at being street but he’s just a spoiled bollix, taking a holy statue would seem to him to be. . edgy.”

Minty threw his eyes up at this nonsense.

Case solved.

I asked,

“How do you know this stuff?”

He shrugged, no biggie, said,

“It’s an art, but not great.”

Before he went fucking deep on me, I asked,

“And Brennan might be, where?”

“Down at the swamp. He and his mates smoke shit down there.”

I said,

“The church thanks you.”

He shuddered, protested.

“Don’t be fucking putting no jinx on me. Jesus.”

I found the young guy where Minty said.

And

We’d a song and dance, as he did tough in front of his mates, strutted until I gave him a sharp cuff on the ear. Does wonders, that.

Short, sharp, educational.

Brennan had the face MacNeice described.

“Low cunning.”

But, yes, yes, he’d taken the statue, for

“The craic.”

And yes, it was in his father’s garage. I said,

“Let’s go get it.”

The kid was barely eighteen, but attitude and stupidity were fighting for supremacy. He asked,

“What’s in it for me?”

The day had started well. I didn’t want to spoil it with beating the be-Jaysus out of this eejit. I said,

“The church has, I’ll agree, lost a lot of its clout but, still, the local hard guys go to Mass of a Sunday. How d’you think those hurlers would treat a pipsqueak who stole Our Lady?”

He’d deliver it outside the Claddagh church at noon the next day.

In time for the Angelus.

I know, dammit, I should have gone right then but I was complacent. It had been too easy. My history told me,

“I don’t do easy.”

The next day, Brennan was there, without the statue. He’d imbibed something to make him a whole new deal, said,

“We’ve moved the statue to a new place.”

Jesus.

I eyeballed him, asked,

“Not the church, I’m guessing.”

His faint smirk now blossomed, said,

“Ten large by Saturday or the dame goes in the river.”

“The dame!”

I was so surprised I did nothing, and he strutted off. I’d have admired him for his sheer brass if it didn’t piss me off so much. I did something I thought I’d never do.

I called the Guards.

Ridge met me in the GBC, one of the few remaining Galway cafés, not only surviving but thriving. They kept it real simple. Good food and cheap. Ridge was in plainclothes, a promotion since the last case we’d been on. Dressed in a new navy tracksuit, white stripes, she looked healthy, less intense. Few could simmer like her. She said,

“Word is you’re still off everything: cigs, dope, booze.”

I gave her my second-best smile, no relation to warmth. She said,

“After the party, you know, what Reardon said, I thought, you know. .”

I knew.

I told her about the statue, gave her Brennan’s name, said,

“You were to visit now, I think the statue would still be there.”

She stared at me, then,

“Why are you not doing this your own self?”

Told the truth.

“I’m getting old and makes you look good with the church.”

She smiled and I actually felt good.

Forgetting smiles are prelude to nothing good.

Ever.

She said,

“I’ve been watching the video of The Bodyguard all weekend.”

Whitney Houston had been found dead in the Beverly Hills Hilton. I wondered if Ridge’s interest had been helped by the gay innuendo that had followed Houston. I was too cute to ask, cute in the Irish sense of sly hoor.

I nodded sagely, as if I understood.

I didn’t.

How do you blow 100 million?

Ben Gazzara died the same week and no fanfare. Ridge said,

“That clip, she sings, I Will Always Love You, and pauses. You know, her lip quivers, she’s going for the high note and nails it.”

I went,

“Hmm.”

But Ridge was going philosophical.

“Whitney never hit that note again.”

I said,

“Apropos of nothing, some of us never hit that note.”

Got,

As she stood to leave,

“Some of us just never got the right song.”

I’d recently come across The Psychopath Test as compiled by the FBI. Jon Ronson had written a book of that title. I’d been compiling my own variation, the AT, as in

The Asshole Test.

I was pretty sure that anyone who used

Apropos

Made the list.

Late that evening, before she clocked off work, Ridge decided to call at the garage, the one holding the statue. Knocking at the main house, she got no reply, then walked around to the garage. She was hit from behind with some form of iron bar, left in a heap on the ground. Either then or in the next few minutes, her Claddagh ring was torn from her finger. Her watch, twenty euros, and her warrant card were all taken.

I didn’t hear until next morning, Stewart shouting into my mobile,

“Why don’t you answer your fucking phone?”

I said,

“I had an early night.”

He was fighting for air, control, spat,

“Yeah? While you were sleeping, Ridge was being wheeled into the ICU.”

Jesus.

That was all the detail. I asked, Where?

Heard, with a sinking heart, the address I’d given her. Stewart picked up on my tone, accused me,

“You know something about this. Ah, no, you sent her on one of your fucking jobs.”

My silence was assent.

He said,

“You bollix, you’re a. . a. . plague.”

Rang off.

I didn’t go on the piss.

I went ballistic.

7

A Mind of Winter

– Shira Nayman

My hurley was almost bent from previous outings. Made by a man in Prospect Hill; he still used the ash: cut, honed, and polished the wood to a sheen and, if asked, would add the metal rings around the end of the stick, for traction.

Kidding about the traction.

Since the loss of the fingers on my right hand, I’d become adept at compensating, had wound a tight leather strap on the handle of the hurley. It had been a while since last I’d employed the stick. Ridge, then horrified at the use I’d put it to, had made me swear to never use it again.

I swore.

Swearing is easy.

I placed it in a sports bag that proclaimed,

Mervue United.

Shucked into my all-weather Garda coat, item 1834, that the Department of Justice continued to try to repossess. From habit, I reached for the staples: the Xanax, a lethal shot of Jay, pack of cigs.

Nope.

Going to dance this reel with plain old-fashioned rage, bile, and bitterness.

Fuel of a whole other hue.

I checked my breathing: level, not what you’d expect for a guy with edged murder in his soul. I slung the bag over my shoulder, headed out. Ran into a man I used to know in my cop days. He’d been a player, became one of those predators they called speculators: had him, he told me once, a portfolio of quarter of a billion.

On paper.

And with Anglo-Irish.

As wiped and gone now as the promise of poverty eradication.

I thought then, what I thought now, on his losses.

“Fuck ’em.”

He stopped, peered at my sports bag, asked,

“Going to the gym?”

Of course gyms, saunas would have been part of his tycoon’s life, then. I said,

“Well, a workout, sort of.”

He said,

“So sad about Eamonn Deacy.”

Our most cherished local sporting hero; what Messi was to Barcelona, he was to Galway.

Made me pause. When we didn’t have heroes anymore, just poisonous celebrities, Eamonn was that quiet unassuming figure that a hero was meant to be. The man before me shuffled, looked to his left, so a touch was imminent. He said,

“Heard you were doing good.”

Not health or emotional well-being, no.

Cash.

I said,

“Getting by.”

He gave a bitter laugh, went,

“Fuck, in these days, that is doing brilliant.”

I reached for a note, saw it was a fifty.

Mmm.

Bit large for a street encounter, few of them and I’d be street me own self. I palmed it over as discreetly as these things can be. He stared at it. Yeah, hadn’t figured on me for that largesse.

Wrong.

“The fuck is this?”

Not gratitude then. I began to move off, tempted to get the hurley out. He shouted,

“Last of the big fucking spenders, eh, Taylor? Don’t let it break the bloody bank.”

You give a few notes to a guy on the street, you’re hardly going to go back, kick the living crap out of him, take the money back, but Jesus, it was tempting.

Brennan’s house was on the side road that runs parallel to Snipe Avenue, Newcastle. A line of five majestic homes, built from Connemara granite, built to last. With large front gardens and signs that proclaimed

No accommodation.

Translate that,

Students, fuck off.

In the heartland of the university. Balls, if naught else. Saint Martins, name on the house. I readjusted the bag on my shoulder, ready to unleash the hurley. I felt the mix of adrenaline fused with rage as I moved up to the front door. In the next garden, a little girl was standing, staring at me. Dressed in dungarees, with a flow of red hair, she looked like an urchin from a Dickens stage adaption or a refugee from the abominable Annie.

Before I rang the doorbell, she said,

“Nobody home.”

I stepped back, trying to rein in the rush I was feeling, asked,

“Yeah?”

Her face, freckled like a Spielberg extra’s, minus the bike, squeezed up. She said,

“Yeah is very impolite.”

The fuck?

She stepped closer to where I was standing. I was very conscious of. . an old guy talking to a young girl.

Jesus.

Lynch mobs would meet for a whisper. Her accent was upper middle class; that is,

Posh

Moneyed

Condescending.

She said,

“You are probably the new poor.”

What?

I asked,

“Are you on medication?”

She said,

“I’m nearly a teenager.”

Good to know. I asked,

“You didn’t by any chance see the Virgin Mary?”

Realizing how daft that sounded, though in Ireland we did have a history of moving statues, as if the Mother of God were on tour. She duly scoffed, said,

“Hardly, I’m a Protestant.”

Accounted for the accent and probably the attitude. She asked,

“Do you have a business card?”

I let the exasperation leak on my words, said,

“What would you do with a business card?”

She sighed, said,

“Pretty obvious you never heard of LinkedIn.”

I made to push off and she asked,

“Your name, sir?”

Christ, she’d make a great cop.

I wasn’t sure of the etiquette of formally meeting teenagers. Do you go,

“Yo”?

And, like, high-five?

I said,

“Jack Taylor.”

She mulled that over, then gave,

“I’m Dell.”

“What, like the comics?”

Exasperated her.

“Don’t be silly, Jacques, it’s from Odell.”

Truth to tell, she made me veer between incredulity and laughter. I echoed,

“Jacques, seriously?”

And got a look of such withering contempt takes most people half a lifetime to learn, nigh spit,

“One tried to give you some class refinement, Mr. Taylor.”

Seeing as I’d made the trip, was here, I asked,

“You didn’t see what happened to the Ban Garda, the female police officer yesterday?”

“Hardly. One doesn’t snoop on one’s neighbors.”

Whatever the fuck that meant. I said,

“Okay, see you then.”

As if it just struck her, she asked,

“Have you been very old for a very long time?”

Did cross my mind that I might find a use for the hurley after all.

I didn’t ring Brennan’s door as a strong instinct urged me not to.

I was walking down the Newcastle Road, students to the left of me, winos to the right.

A blue Datsun pulled up, almost on the curb, a burly ape emerged, and I thought,

“Guards.”

In a bad suit but with the thick-soled shoes you never forget, matches the crust of the spirit. The guy stonewalled me, I knew him. We were almost related by beatings. Usually him doling them out. Named Lee, he gave bullying the X Factor. Worked at it, constantly.

“Get in the car.”

He rasped.

Smoker’s voice, waylaid by second-rate whiskey. The bell for the Angelus rang from the cathedral and no one seemed to bless himself but me. I asked, staring at the car,

“Not buying Irish, then?”

Got bundled into the car, my holdall thrown in with me. The driver glanced at the hurley, muttered,

“A concealed weapon.”

Lee said,

“Super needs a word.”

Clancy.

My onetime close friend, brother Guards on the force until I got bounced and he got promoted all the way. Recently, he’d been honored by the university: honorary doctorate, flash dinner, photo on front page of The Galway Advertiser, all the glittering prizes. We’d clashed many times over the befuddled years, his loathing of me growing in proportion to my defects.

At Mill Street, I was marched before him, in his new spacious office, a riot of photo opportunity, mostly golf shots of him with the rich and crooked. The odd bishop to add color if not dignity to the montage. He was in full uniform, a large oak desk with orderly files at his left. I said,

“Dr. Clancy.”

Lee was behind me, barely restrained.

Clancy looked up, distaste writ huge, said,

“Always the smart mouth, Taylor.”

Before I could summon up something smart, he added,

“So, they cut off your fingers a time ago.”

Indeed.

Lee said,

“Pity it wasn’t his balls.”

Clancy indicated the holdall, the hurley, said,

“Should be good for six months.”

I said,

“Not to mention good PR. Guards bust man for love of the national sport.”

Clancy got to his feet, shoulders back, potbelly well concealed beneath expensive tailoring but there. He said,

“Sergeant Ní Iomaire was hurt in an incident. The wrath of Jesus will descend on you if your name comes up in the investigation.”

Not the time to mention Ridge was seeking. . the Virgin Mary. Christ, it would sound like a deranged spiritual odyssey. I could have brought up the weird photos, C33, but he’d just ridicule it. He rasped,

“Get out of my sight.”

They confiscated the holdall, bad bastards. Outside, I nearly reached for a cigarette, did the deep-breath gig instead. Turned toward the hospital, frustration dancing with anger in my daily reel of reproach. I bought the paper, the shop guy asking,

“Cigs, Jack?”

I said no and he ventured,

“Rolling your own, eh?”

No answer to that.

Athens was burning anew as the Greeks faced further medieval measures to offset the massive bailout. Dire predictions on every financial front and still, get this, the bank directors awarded themselves massive bonuses.

No wonder the Virgin Mary was MIA.

The Artist won five Oscars. Some deep message in that a silent movie was top of the heap but I was fucked if I knew it. Ridge was still in intensive care. Stewart was pacing the corridor, he snapped at me,

“Didn’t break your neck getting here.”

I let that slide, asked what the doctor said.

The next forty hours would be critical. I said,

“I’m going to try to track down Brennan. If he attacked Ridge, he better hope I don’t find him.” Stewart said,

“You and C33 make a fine team.”