Cross - Ken Bruen [49]
I wasn't sure where to begin, but he said, 'To tell you the truth, Taylor, we thought you'd never bothered.'
A factory burned to the ground, a dead man pulled from the canal – imagine if I'd bothered.
I said, 'I didn't want to get back to you till I had something to report.'
His face conveyed total scepticism and I had a building desire to swipe the smirk off his face.
He shook his head, as if he'd met every sort of con man and I was just one more in a pathetic line. He confirmed this by saying, 'You're here to get paid, I expect.'
It had been the last thing on my mind, but before I could get this out, he said, 'You think because the affair is solved you'd, what? Come waltzing in and try and claim a fee? I wasn't born yesterday, Taylor.'
Solved?
I echoed, 'Solved? What are you talking about?'
He mocked, 'The case is solved and ace investigator Taylor doesn't even know it. I think you might consider a new line of work, you're not exactly up to speed with this one.'
Seeing my blank face, he realized I truly didn't know, and said with an exaggerated patient tone, 'A gang of teenagers were snatching the dogs, bringing them to the waste ground beside the hospital and dousing them with petrol, then seeing how far they could run before they – how shall we put it – burned out?'
'Jesus.'
He rubbed his hands together as if he were dry-washing and said, 'I doubt the Lord had anything to do with it, save perhaps in His mighty wrath.'
The last words carried a ring of fundamentalism that was as chilling as it sounds.
'It wasn't in the papers – I didn't hear it on any news bulletins.'
Now he smiled, and there was a hint of mania, just a small dribble of spit on his lower lip, a sheen of excitement in his eyes.
'The powers that be are too busy to deal with something as mundane as missing dogs. Why, you yourself didn't think it worth your time to even make a lazy attempt at checking into it. The world is gone to hell, Taylor. If you were ever sober for any length of time, you might have noticed.'
I was clenching my fists, trying not to go over to the desk.
He continued, 'So we began a more active style of Neighbourhood Watch, and, let me say, those particular teenagers won't be stealing dogs – or indeed anything else – for some time. Do I need to spell it out for you?'
He nigh glowed with his self-righteousness.
I said, 'Vigilantes, that's what you are.'
He stood up. My session was over.
'Ah, Taylor, we are what this city needs, citizens of affirmative action.'
Short of walloping the bejaysus out of him, there was no way of bursting his smugness. I said, 'The Klan have a similar line of rhetoric. You wear sheets yet?'
He looked at me with complete contempt.
'Goodbye, Taylor, and let me add, you're not welcome in this neighbourhood, we're trying for decency and respectability here.'
Fucker was threatening me. I asked, 'Or what, you'll take affirmative action?'
He opened the front door, said, 'Treat it as a friendly word of caution.'
'I'll walk wherever I damn well like, and you decide to take affirmative action, bring more than a sheet with you, pal.'
I headed down towards the canal, bile in my mouth and deep regret that I hadn't taken at least one pop at him. My mind was a maelstrom. King's factory had been razed for nothing, and Eoin Heaton drowned in the canal. Why?
A woman carrying a charity box, selling flags for the homeless, approached.
'Would you like to help the poor?'
I fumbled for a note, shoved a twenty in the box, said, 'Wrong terminology.'
She stared at me. 'Excuse me?'
'The poor. I'm reliably informed they're now the disadvantaged.'
She moved away quickly, keeping the twenty.
I went back to Eoin Heaton's haunts, trying to figure out what the hell happened to him. A round of dingy pubs, dire bookies' offices and hit if not pay dirt, at least a lead in the Social Security