Eight Ball Boogie - Declan Burke [52]
“I’ve never used a gun in my life, Joe. Wouldn’t know where to start.”
“It’s knowing where to finish, son. Starting’s the easy bit. You just make sure the safety’s off and let your mind go blank.”
I shook my head again. He didn’t push it.
“You need anything again, son, you don’t worry about putting me out. I’ll be here, or you’ll know where to find me.” He gave me the number of the pay phone in the hall. “I think it still works,” he said, his tone matter-of-fact. “Haven’t heard it ring in years.”
He didn’t have to tell me, he’d never had any reason to make a call himself. I slipped the number into my wallet and left.
It was an hour to Katie’s, giving the centre of town a wide berth, and uphill all the way. She answered the door in her dressing gown, a short cream kimono belted at the waist. As far as I could make out she wasn’t wearing anything underneath, but I was too shattered to investigate properly. Besides, I had one or two things on my mind. She toasted me with the glass of wine in her hand.
“Come on in,” she said, breezy, flirting. Then, when I stepped in under the hall light: “Jesus Christ, Harry! What… Jesus!”
I could see myself in the mirror at the end of the hall. Hunched over, sopping wet, the side of my face bruised and swollen, hair plastered tight to the skull. It wasn’t a pretty sight and I was no oil painting to start with, unless Bosch had turned his hand to portraits. I tugged at my jeans.
“Can I change out of these?”
“Of course. Upstairs. March.”
She gave me a T-shirt and her biggest sweater, a pair of powder-blue tracksuit bottoms. I stood outside the shower, poking one limb inside at a time, trying to keep Joe’s bandages dry, but I hadn’t even started to thaw out by the time I crawled back downstairs again.
She had made a pot of coffee, a bottle of Jameson and a packet of painkillers sitting beside it on the low table between the plush armchairs. I sat down, poured a third of the bottle into the coffee pot, gulped down a mug and then looked at her. I hadn’t wanted to before. Katie was something of a distraction at the best of times, and the loose kimono was destroying what little concentration I had left.
Tiny worry lines creased her forehead. I didn’t blame her. If someone I barely knew turned up at my front door at five in the morning, I’d have been worried too. Worried he might freeze to death in the cold outside, because the only way he’d have got in was on the other end of a battering ram.
“Bren okay?”
“Ben. He’s fine.” Rather, I hoped Ben was fine, hoped with every fibre of my being that Ben was just fine and dandy-o. A little tired, maybe, but still in possession of all his limbs and his endearing innocence. I acknowledged that Katie was due an explanation of sorts. I poured another mug of coffee, popped three painkillers and gave her one, of sorts. I told her what I thought she needed to know, leaving out the bit about Gonzo screwing Celine all those years ago, not because I respected Gonzo’s memory, but just because. She didn’t reach for a notepad and pen but her eyes sparkled all the same.
She was cool. Once I’d reassured her that the pros wouldn’t be kicking her door down, she accepted the situation, started dealing with it.
“He’s dead?”
“Him, O’Leary and romantic Ireland.”
I was trying to be cool myself. I knew I was teetering on the abyss, that I’d tip over into the maw if I tried to make sense of it all. I’d hated Gonzo, my own brother, hated what he was, who he was and what he represented. That didn’t minimise the shock of his death. Whatever he was, or became, Gonzo was my brother. My only brother. My only family.
“And then someone tried to kill you?”
“The fucker was maybe ten yards away when he fired. Pointing at me. Even I can work that one out.”
“What about the Guards?”
“What about them?”
“You have to tell them.”
“Of course. Once I know it wasn’t them doing the shooting.”
“The Guards?”
“This isn’t South Central, Katie.