Dublin Noir - Ken Bruen [62]
“No, not a thing,” I said, and finished the remains of my cocktail.
THE MAN FOR THE JOB
BY GARY PHILLIPS
No, how the hell could I be Wilson Pickett?”
“Oh, right. Sorry,” the square mumbled as I stepped out of the cab. He went down the street the way he’d been heading when he stopped to ask me that bullshit.
“You sure this is where you want me to let you?”
“Ain’t no sweat, man, I can handle it.” I peeled off some bills and handed them to the driver. On the backseat was a folded newspaper and an article about that bald chick, the singer, Shanay, Sinbad, whatever the fuck, and how she’d joined some kind of Catholic cult and was calling for the Pope to renounce Beelzebub. Hilarious.
“Enjoy your stay, sir.” He touched his cap and put his hack in gear. The car was just like the kind I’d seen roving around London, only there weren’t as many of them here. You’d think they’d be stacked up at the hotel I was staying at, but the doorman hipped me to hoof over to O’Connell Street, where I found some lined up.
I snuggled my upturned collar closer to my neck and put the zipper of my leather jacket all the way up. When you got the crawlies like I had, everything is like constant heated pins poking from beneath your skin. Plus the goddamn cold, which I wasn’t a fan of to begin with—gloomy weather was all up in my ass. I looked across a section of the park and could see the projects, or estates as they called them over here, just beyond.
Walking head down, hands tucked away, I knew deep inside but wouldn’t fess up that I was two steps from being certified a fool. I could have been back in my comfortable hotel room, hands roaming all over Molly, Mary, or whatever the fuck was the name of the honey who’d started conversing with me in that pub after the game at Lansdowne.
“I’ve seen you play before,” she said, her liquid browns steady on me.
I’d been giving her and a couple of her girlfriends the glance. They’d started whispering and giggling to each other after me and some of the others from the Dragons and the Claymores had strolled into the joint. The teams had come to Dublin to play an exhibition game at the stadium normally used for rugby and soccer. The stands weren’t nearly as full for us as they would be for their own games, but the curiosity factor and that football, my kind of football, involved its own slamming and swearing got some of the natives out to see us. What the fuck, slappin’ heads was slappin’ heads.
And where you had muscular dudes grappling and tearing at each other, you had the type of woman who dug that kind of action—and not just to watch.
“When was that?” I said, moving to give her space at the bar. She leaned in.
“In Chicago. I lived there for a while. Had a job selling dog products.”
“Dog products?”
“Flea-control solutions, chewy treats, that sort of rubbish.”
I liked her toothy smile. Well, okay, I also liked the fact she had some guns straining that sweater she was wearing. Those bad boys were calling my name. But damn, she knew I was looking. She was too. “So you saw me on TV?”
“Live and in color,” she said, assessing me up and down like a coach figuring out if I was first-string or pine-rider. “Soldier Field. The Falcons against the Bears, before they were in the Central Division. You had two touchdowns for Atlanta.” She paused, considering something, then said, “I believe you shook your arse at the crowd after that second one.”
I gave her my gee-whiz Urkel bit. Babes like a motha-fuckah to be self-effacing and shit. “Just trying to keep the fun in the game. Say did we—?”
“No, Zelmont, we didn’t. All your women blur in your mind, do they?” She’d lit a cigarette and let the smoke float between us.
“It’s not that, it’s just, you know, when you’re on the road during the season, shit just gets jumbled. ’Course, it’s not like I’d forget you.”
She knew it was bullshit, but it wasn’t as if we were carrying on a romance like in one