Dublin Noir - Ken Bruen [20]
Margot had booked the flights. They’d gone first class to Brussels. She told Lowe to lay off the booze and drink lots of water but he didn’t listen. His head was splitting when they arrived and things had been hazy ever since—a blur of swank hotel rooms and rainy cityscapes and never quite knowing the time. Zurich, Amsterdam, Luxembourg, Frankfurt—and in each, a friend of the unseen Mr. Flynn, with papers to be signed. They all knew Margot, but it was Lowe’s signature they needed. Lowe had worried about the documents, and the nameless men, and Flynn—wherever he was—and he’d wondered about Margot’s hotel room in New York, and the other hotels, and who was paying. But the questions always stumbled from his head before he could ask them, and Margot was there to put a pen in his hand, and afterward a drink and her hard white body.
Somewhere—Amsterdam maybe—Lowe’s stomach had started to burn, and he found himself thinking of his family. It was incoherent stuff—vague worry about … he wasn’t sure what—but the thoughts left him empty and aching. Three times he’d mentioned them to Margot, and not again.
The first time, her lower lip had trembled. “I thought I made you happy,” she’d said softly. Then they fucked until the sheets were drenched.
The second time went less well. “I’m not yer feckin’ priest,” she’d snapped.
The third time was in Frankfurt and her voice made him jump. “Jaysus—enough with yer feckin’ regrets! It’s over and done but you poke at it like a bad tooth.” She shook her head. “Yer pretty feckin’ Irish for a New York Jew, Jimmy—you’ll fit right in in Dublin.” Ten days in the city now and he still didn’t know what she’d meant.
Not that he’d seen much of Dublin besides their hotel room. Waiting for Flynn and their passports, Margot grew steadily edgier. She was restless and paranoid—stir-crazy, but reluctant to leave the hotel. It was only because he had started to annoy her, Lowe knew, that she allowed him his walks each day, to the park and back. He wondered what she was worried about, and what would happen when they got the passports. Would Margot go with him to another city? Did he care? The thought of not having sex with her made Lowe sad, and the thought of traveling alone scared him, but in his bubble he didn’t dwell on these things long. Margot leafed through her magazine and perfume fell from the pages onto him. She shifted her hips and Lowe thought about the body beneath her robe and reached for her again. She was having none of it.
“Yer head’s too heavy,” she said, and slid off the sofa. She went to the window and looked down on the gray city and the gray Liffey. Lowe felt his tranquil bubble burst and his balance slip away. He opened his unwilling eyes.
“What time is it?” he asked.
“Time fer yer walk.”
He nodded and a large liquid weight shifted in his skull. She was right, he thought, his head was too heavy, and overfull with booze and static—a pail of mud on a rickety perch. Lowe rubbed his eyes. He pulled on clothes and slipped two midget whiskey bottles into his raincoat pocket. He looked at Margot. She was still by the window with her head against the glass.
Though Margot had told him not to, he took the same route to the park each day. The buildings he passed were mostly low and old, which made the new ones look even taller and glossier. The streets were full of young people who looked like bankers and accountants and computer guys, and looked like they’d come from someplace else. It reminded Lowe of Wall Street that way. Maybe that’s what Margot meant about fitting in.
He took a wide, tree-lined avenue deep into Phoenix Park, to a bench by the pond he’d been staring at all week. The air was damp and burrowing cold, and he shivered when he sat. The park was mostly empty now—old people, dog walkers, a couple strolling down the path. The woman had thick red hair and an umbrella. The man was tall and pale and