Plugged - Eoin Colfer [25]
There’s no we, just me. And I do not want the police poking around in my business.
Because of the whole killing-a-gangster thing.
Exactly. So what should we do next?
There’s a we now?
I flash on Tommy Fletcher. At this point he is back to being a corporal, following an incident where he doused a sheep with gasoline, set it on fire then actually ate a large portion. There was quite a lot of home-brewed hooch involved. Tommy is belly down on a bluff overlooking no-man’s-land, loosing rounds from his FN at rangy wild dogs.
‘You shooting mutts, Corporal?’ I ask him.
‘Nah,’ says Tommy, grinning. ‘I’m shooting close to the mutts, watching ’em jump.’
I close my eyes and feel sleep rolling over me like a wave of thick fog.
Shoot close and watch them jump. That’s more or less doing nothing. It’s aggressive passivity.
Simon would be so proud.
I met Zeb for the second time when I was doing my time on a door in Brooklyn. It was a club called Queers, which was trying to attract the pink pound but was pulling in the irony-loving New York arty-farts. This was not my finest hour, as the boss had his bouncers in spangly waistcoats and mascara. Any photos from this era would not be going on my website, if I had one. It was a brief era anyhow, I lasted about a week before I got a rash on my eyelids and decided it was either buy some hypoallergenic make-up out of my own pocket, or quit. I chose the latter.
So I was on the door on my last night at Queers, figuring the shit quotient went up roughly two hundred per cent when the doorman was wearing mascara, when this guy rolls up off his face on just about whatever he could stuff in there. I did the five-finger spread on his chest, just so he’d know right off how big my hand was.
‘Sir, don’t even ask. You are not coming on the premises.’
Something about this guy struck me as familiar. He looked a little like one of the Bee Gees after a rough couple of years.
‘Come on, man,’ he whined. ‘I got the cash, plenty. You wanna see?’
I did not wanna see. You bring cash out in the open air for more than five seconds outside a club and someone is gonna start a fight.
‘No, sir. Keep it in your pocket.’
The man ignored me, as was to become his habit, flashing a roll of fifties that could have plugged a rat hole.
‘You know what this is?’
I put a little pressure behind my fingertips, enough to back the man up a step or two.
‘I know what it is, sir.’
‘No, sir. You do not. You think you know.’ The drunk tapped his nose like there was a great secret stashed up there. ‘This here is a couple of silicone boobies and a tummy tuck. Sweet job too. If you let me in, I’ll give you a grand. How about that? One thousand dollars just to step aside.’
I stood my ground, not because I couldn’t be bought, but because this guy thought he could buy me, if that makes any sense.
‘Sorry, sir. Put your money away.’ And then the guy looks me in the face, possibly to plead or up his offer, and something pings between us.
‘Hey,’ he said, wagging a finger. ‘I know you.’
And then I had him. The pasty complexion, the eyes a little shiny. The doctor guy, from the Lebanon.
But what I said was, ‘No. I don’t think we’ve met.’
Zeb stood back and spread his arms wide like a ringmaster introducing himself.
‘Hey, it’s me. Dick-fat guy.’
He kept talking like I didn’t have enough information. ‘You know, that militia man, his cock exploded in battle. I’m a national hero.’
Which is about the strangest collection of statements I’ve heard before or since.
I sleep till four in the afternoon and roll out of bed feeling surprised and grumpy, which is a hard combination to keep going. Four o’clock. The day is dying and I don’t even have shoes on. And this room is a shithole, and why did I not do some tidying up all that time I was lying there thinking? Shaving calms me down as per usual. Eyes open is often a bad time. A moment’s blissful ignorance, then life comes crashing in. And today, life is about as bad as it’s ever been.
I nick myself with the blade and watch a blood bead roll down my neck.
Connie, I think.