Plugged - Eoin Colfer [5]
So I shut the drawer on Faber and Connie and give the crowd a once-over. Couple of college boys eyeing the hostesses, a few divorcees, and old Jasper Biggs playing the big shot. Tossing in one-dollar bills like they’re hundreds. No danger signs. Still, I decide to send Jason back here to throw around the steroid stare. Can’t hurt. Sometimes trouble begets trouble.
Unfortunately, I am not wrong. Before the ghost image of Connie’s hips can fade, a dozen yeehaws barrel through the double doors. One of them either has a very dainty dick, or a flick knife in his jeans pocket.
Jason, I think. These guy should never have made it in the room.
As Bob Geldof once sang, Tonight, of all nights, there’s gonna be a fight. Unfortunately, Bob’s not wrong either.
CHAPTER 2
After my first stint with the Irish army’s peacekeeping corps in the Lebanon, I was flown home to a zero’s welcome and found the green green grass not so lush any more. Apparently the general public were of the opinion that peacekeepers don’t fight wars; we just stand between the two armies who are fighting the wars and say stuff like: Ah, lads, that’s a bit much or Show me the passage in your holy book that says ‘minefields are okay sometimes’. And then the armies say: You know what, you Irish guys have hit the nail on the head, no offence Christians, plus you have such a good record in your own country that we should all be thoroughly ashamed of ourselves for all this border conflict stuff and just accept our differences.
I decided that the best way to fill the crater that had been blasted in my soul by none of this happening, plus all the exploding and stuff that did happen, would be to volunteer for a second tour, and my application apparently rang a few warning bells, because the sergeant major ordered me to sashay on over to Dr Moriarty’s office at my convenience. Minus the words sashay and convenience, plus the words hustle and right fucking now, retard.
I know that traditionally I should have been outraged, smashed my fist into my palm and blurted this is outrageous, Sarge or I still got the stuff, but honestly, the notion of being probed kind of interested me.
So I showed up prompt at o-seven-hundred the next morning only to find out that consultant shrinks do not do enlisted hours and spent the next two hours in Dr Moriarty’s waiting room reading a magazine that I swear to God was called Head Cases.
Dr Moriarty? I know, almost a professor. Hilarious, right?
By the time Dr Simon Moriarty finally showed up, I was starting to get to a handle on the psychology of the whole psychiatry thing: if bad things happen to you when you’re young, then you’re liable to blame someone for it when you grow up, possibly someone with a similar hairstyle to whoever did the bad things in the first place.
I explained my conclusions to Dr Moriarty, when he finally rolled in looking like the guitarist from Bon Jovi and smelling like the drummer from the Happy Mondays. Not a dickie bow or elbow patch in sight.
‘Nice theory,’ said Moriarty, collapsing on to the couch. ‘I told Marion we shouldn’t leave psych mags strewn around the waiting room.’ He lit a thin cigar and blew the smoke in a dense funnel towards the ceiling, while I tried to remember if I’d ever heard the word strewn spoken aloud before. ‘The charming Colonel Brady suggested that I leave Woman’s Own out there so we can weed out the gays. Man’s a genius.’
‘Good kisser, too,’ I said, straight-faced.
Simon Moriarty grinned through a mouthful of smoke.
‘There might be some hope for you, soldier.’
I thought it best to burst that bubble. ‘I want to volunteer for a second tour in the Lebanon.’
Moriarty expertly flicked his cigar through a half-open window. ‘Then again, maybe not.’
So we talked for an hour. A