Cross - Ken Bruen [39]
The burial went quickly and afterwards I approached her, said softly, 'Gail.'
I could see she thought it was a voice inside her head, but she turned and I knew she saw a middle-aged guy, with a slight smile and, OK, a bedraggled look. She was taken by surprise, the use of her name had thrown her.
'I'm Jack Taylor and, yes, I know who you are. Come on, let me buy you a coffee.'
She marshalled her resources, dismissing me as some burned-out bum, despite what I said.
She said, 'I don't know you. Piss off.'
The steel in her eyes, I had no problem now imagining the acts she might have committed. I let my smile widen, gave a glance round the graveyard.
'Nice language in a cemetery, but here's the deal. See these people, they're Claddagh folk, real clannish and they know me. You – not only are you English, I tell them you killed their kin, they'll tear you limb from limb.'
She risked a look round, and, sure enough, some of the men were giving her hostile stares, nothing warm in their eyes.
She tried, 'You're bluffing.'
I spread my arms, palms opened. 'Try me.'
I grabbed her arm, said, 'I'll take that for a yes.'
I could see she wanted to lash out, but the truth was, she could sense the vibe in that place and she didn't want to test it.
She said, defiance writ large, 'I'm not paying for the coffee.'
I nodded, showing I was reasonable.
'Course not. But you'll be paying for all the rest. That's not a promise, that's a guarantee.'
There's a small café on the edge of the Claddagh, a no-frills place. They don't do lattes or any designer caffeine, they brew up huge pots of real strong java and if you don't like it, well, they couldn't give a fuck. We got in there, took off our sodden coats, sat and a woman in her late sixties came over and said, not asked, 'Two coffees?'
I nodded.
Gail asked, 'You have any apple tart?'
In the morning?
Go figure. She was English, I guess.
She looked at me and for one brief moment she was a young girl, almost naive. 'I love apple tart.'
A fleeting hint of a sweet nature and she got her mask back in place.
The coffee came and the tart, laden with cream, the woman saying, 'Nice young girl like you, deserve a treat.'
Yeah, nice . . . till she crucified a young man and burned his sister.
She dug into the tart, said between mouthfuls, 'I'd offer, but I'm not real big on sharing.'
I let that sit then said, 'I'm not real surprised.'
She finished it in jig time, wiped her mouth with a surprisingly gentle motion and gulped some coffee. She glanced briefly towards the corner of the café, as if she saw something there. Whatever it was, it seemed to embolden her.
Then she quickly looked back at me and asked in a harsh tone, 'So, fuckhead, what do you want?'
The change was instant. One moment Miss Dainty, and, in the blink of an eye, psycho city.
I examined her face. She might have been pretty once, but the heavy make-up, the set of her jaw, neutralized that. Her eyes were the interesting feature. Nobody has black eyes in the literal sense, but she came as close as dammit. An energy came off her, like a blast from a furnace, and all of it malevolent. I moved back a few inches. You sit in the proximity of pure evil, it infects you.
I asked, 'What's next on the agenda? The elder brother doesn't show up, how are you going to pass the time? You have a taste for it now – killing people, I mean. You're not going to be able to stop, and you know what? You're not going to want to.'
This seemed to amuse her. She watched me with those black eyes, then shrugged.
'You know nothing about me.'
I wished I had a cigarette, it was definitely one of those times.
'What's to know? You're a sadistic bitch, a coward who went after easy prey. You think your mother would be proud of you? She'd spit on you.'
And the flash in the eyes, I saw the beast for one moment, deadly and lethal.
She leaned over, hissed, 'You bastard, you leave my mother out of this.'
I took a sip of my coffee,