In the Galway Silence
- Автор: Бруен Кен
- Серия: Jack Taylor #14
- Год: 2018
- Язык: английский
- Год: Head of Zeus
- ISBN: 978-1-78854-585-3
- Жанр: Криминальные детективы
Электронная книга - «In the Galway Silence». Краткое содержание книги:
Carefully.
I put on the obligatory black jacket, white shirt, tie (loosely, to suggest mellow or couldn’t give a fuck), black jeans, Docs. The Docs had steel toe caps because who knows? Checked in the mirror, saw a battered undertaker’s assistant, the guy you keep in the background.
Took a deep breath, a Xanax, and good to go.
We were meeting in the Bijou, a quasi-French place run by Vietnamese. Such was the mix of Galway today.
In the foyer of the restaurant, Kiki was waiting. She was looking gorgeous. Fuck it.
She said,
“My man is parking the car, we’ll go ahead to the table.”
My man!
Stung.
I asked,
“Where is Gretchen?”
Waited a beat, added,
“My daughter?”
She smiled briefly, asked,
“You are going to behave, right, Jack?”
I smiled, said,
“Of course.”
We were at the table. I’d ordered a large Jay, Kiki an orange juice, when her face lit up. She said,
“Here he comes.”
I turned,
Michael Allen was striding toward us.
I was utterly dumbfounded.
The bollix was smiling, hand outstretched, said,
“I feel I know you already, Jack.”
Pause.
“May I call you Jack?”
He leaned over, gave Kiki a lingering kiss, said,
“You minx, you never said your ex” — leaned on that — “was one fine-looking dude. Should I be a wee bit jealous?”
His accent was now that polished mid-Atlantic shite that has spread like a disease. Kiki was behaving downright coquettish.
We sat, or rather they did, and I sort of collapsed into my chair. The waiter arrived, said,
“Good evening, folks. I’m Fanon and I’m going to be your server so anything you need, just holler. Now, how about drinks?”
They each ordered juice. I said,
“Double Jameson.”
Allen said,
“We don’t drink.”
Kiki babbled on about the ambience until the drinks came, then Allen raised his juice, proposed,
“A toast to fine company.”
And fucking winked at me.
They ordered some vegan shite. I had a sirloin, adding,
“Lots of heavy gravy.”
Kiki excused herself to go, and it mortifies me to remember, to
“The little girls’ room.”
Soon as she left Allen reached over, grabbed my glass, sank the lot, belched, said,
“Christ, I needed that.”
I asked,
“Won’t you reek of booze?”
He looked at me as if I was completely clueless.
“Dude,”
he said.
“The chick is in love, all she smells is them there roses.”
So many words there to warrant a puck in the mouth.
...dude, chick...
I seethed.
He said, dude to dude,
“Tell you, bro, I got to sneak out late evenings, after some serious fucking, grab me some carbs, like double cheeseburger, side of chili fries.”
Then he looked right at me, asked,
“Tell me, Jack, that blow job she does, you teach her that?”
I was reaching for him when Kiki returned, all aglow, asked,
“You guys getting to know each other?”
I said,
“You bet.”
Somehow the horrendous meal ended and I reached for the bill. Allen grabbed it, said,
“Your money’s no good with this family. Am I right, sweetheart?”
She preened as he pinched her bum.
Outside, Kiki was getting into a cab and Allen hung back, whispered,
“Any idea you have of, how should I say, spilling the beans, I’ll shoot the cunt of a daughter in the face.”
Then he was in the cab, already fondling Kiki.
There is only one good plot. When two men
want to sleep with the same woman.