Dublin Noir - Ken Bruen [74]
“Nora MacKiernan was twenty-three, George. She was at that bar with irresponsible mates who were there to be laid and shamed her along after work. Nora was engaged. Would have wed next month. But you moved in. She was polite … Nora was always polite.”
The woman’s eyes are drifting now, going sad and a little hard. George is breathing faster.
“You hit Nora, my sister, with Ecstasy, slipped her Rope … I know because I ran the rape kit and stomach pump at the hospital. And you gave her genital herpes, George. Those are fucking incurable. Nora’s fiancé couldn’t take it … broke their engagement. Nora couldn’t take it, either … losing him … carrying your disease. Nora opted out. Wrists, razor … a warm bathtub. Suicide—very bad news in an old Catholic family.”
Lipsanos shakes his head.
“Names are important, George.” She rises now, sways across the room, and picks up her big black purse. She rummages. Mell turns, holding a hypodermic. She flicks it, squirts a little out—clear those air bubbles. She says: “My name is Ceara, and as even you have probably gathered, George, I wouldn’t be sharing my real name with you now if there was any prospect of you ever leaving this room.”
Mell—Ceara—perches again on the side of George’s bed. She slowly crosses her legs. “Question was, how to make you really pay. I thought about that. I went to the personals … Gáire.”
Ceara jabs George’s thigh with the needle.
His eyes go wide and his muscles tense.
“Hush,” Ceara says. “It’s fine, George. Just a cocktail … blood-thinners … anti-coagulants.” Her gloved hand on his penis again—still rock hard. “Shouldn’t interfere with this.”
The woman stands, slips off her latex gloves, and smoothes her short black dress over her thighs. She slips the needle and the gloves back in her big purse, then slings the bag over one shoulder.
“Gotta go, George. But, just so you know what’s in store: I’ve been corresponding on your behalf for several days with a sado-masochistic she-he, deep into domination. You’re into bondage. Some match, yeah? I’ve been stringing ‘shim’ along until I found you. Called him—her … whatever—a few minutes before you woke up. Quite soon, you and your righteous wood will be serving as bound top to his—her’s … whatever’s—enthusiastic bottom.”
George is still reeling … dopey … scared … slow on the uptake: Jesus, I have herpes?
And this girl, Nora … couldn’t remember her … but there had been a dozen since George found his Rope connection.
Ceara is framed in the doorway of his bedroom now. She tips her head to the side, shows him those dimples. “Last thing you should know, George.”
George’s eyes are wide, besieging.
“I told your soon-to-arrive last lover that you’re also a cutter. Ya know what Angelina Jolie once said? ‘You’re young, in love, and you’ve got a knife … shit happens.’ George, those blood-thinners will have you pumping like a world-class hemophiliac when your new friend cuts you. Once the initial slices are made, and the serious blood loss kicks in, well, it’s not the worst death … almost languorous. Probably why Nora chose to take herself out that way.”
Ceara blows George a kiss and backs out of his bedroom, humming “The Parting Glass.”
George, spread-eagled, hard—panicked—thrashes wildly against his bonds, wrists and ankles sloughing more skin.
A short while later, he hears the door of his apartment open.
George closes his eyes and whimpers against his gag. Sweet Jesus, Nora … I’m so fucking sorry.
On Grafton Street, behind the bright red façade of the Temple Bar, Dr. Mell Mulloy sips her Russian Quaalude. Rain thrashes the windows. Positively bucketing. She savors George’s final expression: brónach.
The herpes angle always sets their hearts hopping.
And poor imaginary Nora? Her pièce de résistance: Send the luckless bastards out on a mega guilt trip.