Purgatory. Ken Bruen

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