Dublin Noir - Ken Bruen [68]
Megan says I shouldn’t be so hard. She says Ireland went out to the world, now it’s time for the world to come to Ireland. She might have a point. It’s been a few years since I’ve been on the dole. It’s not like any jackeen who wants a job is left out. Everyone seems to be working with the new prosperity. We all have to eat, even the bloody wogs and Pakis. Can’t accuse me of not doing my part, I was feeding one of them: my boot.
Steel-toed solution.
“A race of bloody poets,” the Englishman says. He’d just walked in, got a look at me as I’m cleaning blood off my boot with a rag dipped in a pint of seltzer water, after me mate Freddy and me had finished our jig on the wog. I’d thought I was done, but got a touch of last-minute inspiration, turned heel on the way back to the pub, and kicked him two more times, “One for Molly Maguire and one for the Queen Mother.” Freddy got a kick out of that one, doubled over laughing.
“Fucking blow in, shouldn’t have been trying to pull a Bloom on us. He should be sticking his little brown stick into his own kind,” I say, as I replace the rag with a shotglass, tilt the Jameson down. I winked at Megan when I said it. She was a beauty all right, if not too discerning. I’d often thought about going a round or two with her. Freddy had told me kissing the blarney stone would be more sanitary. He then educated me as to what the lads are up to when the tourists aren’t around. Apparently it’s the biggest cock manger in the whole country.
“Bad form, lads. The Indian fellow works with me. He’s a friend of mine. There’ll be consequences.”
Fred’s bloodlust was still up, but I put my arms around his shoulder before he took a step toward the Englishman; ordered another round of the black, with a Jameson chaser. Something about the Brit’s eyes. I think he lived west side, Tallaght maybe. I felt he was almost one of us, despite the Imperial legacy. He’d been drinking here at the Clannagh for nigh onto a year now, by my best estimate. He’d worked with Fred and me for a few months at the financial institution, babysitting the computers running the new prosperity, feeding off Dublin’s newly ripened teat. A few steps up from the dole, just like the rest of us.
Besides, he had a Celtic surname, as far as I can recall. Figured him for a county boy come back to see how his grandfather lived, before he emigrated to Liverpool to stick rivets in the side of the Imperial Navy. I’d bet he knelt down and genuflected in the direction of the Pope five times a day, just like the rest of the lads throwing back Guinness and Jameson at the pub.
“Fucking wanker. Why don’t ye go back across the sea. We don’t need you stirring the pot over here,” Fred said.
He should be one of the last to speak, Fred. He’s a fucking culchie. Blowed in from County Cork, I think. His company is barely tolerable at the best of times. I wouldn’t have anything to do with him if he didn’t have a throat as often as I did.
The Brit downed his pint in one long, continuous draught, catching my eye the whole time. “There’ll be consequences,” he repeats.
“Call the Gardaí if you’ve a mind,” I said.
The Gardaí had better things to do than worry about a Punjabi bleeding a Ganges of blood into the gutter. The reason me mate and I were so pissed is because the bank we worked at turned us out early. Couple of lads in Balaclavas had robbed the place; gotten away with a boatload of euros. The cunts worked over the narrowback who had repatriated to guard the stash. The Yank had reclaimed his Irish citizenship, only to have the shit kicked out of him with hurley sticks. Freddy and me had gotten a raise out of that. Score one for Ireland.
The Englishman