Purgatory. Ken Bruen

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: