A Fifth of Bruen: Early Fiction of Ken Bruen
- Автор: Бруен Кен
- Год: 2006
- Язык: английский
- Год: Busted Flush Press
- ISBN: 978-0-9767157-2-6
- Жанр: Триллеры
Электронная книга - «A Fifth of Bruen: Early Fiction of Ken Bruen». Краткое содержание книги:
She looked confused, then like a cartoon a bulb seemed to light above her head. A huge smile and she said,
“I get it, you’re Bobby GoldsBERG, that’s it... is this some 60’s revival thing? You’ll have to go to the basement, sir, for vintage stock.”
She began to giggle, all of 17 years and he must seem older than Steptoe. He turned away, deep mortification burned his gut. Another sixties song, “A Deck of Cards” had a line he could use,
“I was that Soldier.”
But what he was, was tired.
In McDonald’s, he got a large, black coffee. They throw in a dab of hostility for free. Danny began to think about his mother. Perhaps Nora being Irish too, had let her loose in his head. Or maybe, he thought, it was just time to think a little about her.
A small, shy woman who loved to sing. Her favourite was, “Pal of My Cradle Days.” She’d sing that in a loud, clear voice, and all shyness fell away.
“God gave us songs,” she’d said, “because he didn’t give us wings.”
A shiver ran down his spine and he gulped at his drink. He thought it was Margaret Atwood who described coffee as “Jitters in a cup.”
“Yea’”, he thought, “that, too.”
An employee was attempting to mop under his feet, persistently. The place was packed, yet the man hung at Danny’s table like glue.
Danny touched his arm.
“Hey, could you give it a rest, mate, it’s clean, OK... you’ve been at it for 10 minutes already. It’s fine, OK?”
The man looked blankly at him and began to wipe the table.
“Hey, for fucksake, piss off, alright!”
The manager appeared, he looked no older than the assistant in the record shop. His name tag read, “Bob”.
“Is there some problem here?”
Danny handed him his coffee carton.
“Be a good lad, Bob. Leap up there and get me another of them coffees. No milk mind, and... yea’, I seem to have plenty of sugar. Yea, plenty of that.”
To the amazement of all three, Bob did. Danny said to the astonished cleaner,
“Aye, there’s nowt as odd as folk.”
His mother had caught Guillain-Barré syndrome. Danny often wondered about the usage of the word “caught.” What, the person went out looking for it or something? “Ah, here’s an interesting disease, gotta grab me some of that!”
Danny shook his head. When his father was told the news, he roared,
“Oh, naturally, nothing common for your mother, she’d have to get something that no one an pronounce. Sounds like a poxy French job, eh...”
As time went by, her breathing became more and more laboured. The disease eventually leads to death by suffocation. Danny had been with her till she died. He said to Kate once,
“Do you know what my Mother said the moment before she died?”
“What, Danny?”
“Nothing.”
“Are you serious?”
“No, I’m making it up, what do you think, take a flying, friggin’ guess!”
He was making it up. His Mother had taken his hand and whispered,
“Ah, Danny, I was always afraid in London, afraid of the streets, but not afraid now... well, only a little bit. I’m glad I don’t have to get up for school in the morning, I’ll be here where it’s warm.”
Her hand had slipped from his.
The third event fell into his lap. He’d planned on recuperation, let his body and mind heal. He was wary too, of becoming hooked on the adrenaline rush. Fear of arrest didn’t bother him, he just didn’t want it to happen yet. Rising to his seat, he said to the still lingering cleaner,
“I’m going to the toilet, will you be cleaning in there, or can you give me a head start?”
As he put his hand to the door of the toilet, it was pulled open suddenly. A middle-aged man stuck his head out and said,
“Go find another toilet, shit head, I’ll be here for a while.”
Danny took a quick glance round.
“O.K.” he said, and pushed the door with all his might. He felt it slam the man and he followed through. The man had been propelled back against the wall, blood already pouring from his nose.
“What the fuck,” he gasped.
Danny moved right in, kneed him in the crotch and caught him as he fell, dragged him to the toilet bowl, said,
“You got a dirty mouth mister, and we’re gonna clean it out.”
As Danny worked the flush he thought,
“That’s twice today I’ve flushed the garbage.”
He went to the basin and washed his hands. As he left, he met the cleaner, and said,
“It needs tidying up right enough.”
There’s a small, second-hand jewellers in a near-forgotten lane off Piccadilly Circus. The owner was a small, fidgety man of indeterminate age. As with most London retailers, he treated custom with blatant aggression. His radio was playing, and, to Danny’s delight, Long John Baldy.
The owner gave Danny a sour look.
“What d’you want?”
“Civility would help.”
“What, whatcha say?”
“I want to get a locket and chain, one that looks old.”
“Antique, is it?”
“Did I say antique, did you hear me use the word antique... I said, ‘That looks old’.”
Danny found that a taste of psychosis brought manners to most shopkeepers. That it might also bring the police was a calculated risk.
The owner mellowed a bit.
“I have one that looks old, alright, needs a bit of polish. Could let you have it for thirty-five.”
He produced a very worn locket. Danny opened it. The left frame had a very faded picture. Too hazy to distinguish, even the sex wasn’t evident. It was perfect, he couldn’t have designed better.
“It’s not what I had in mind. I’ll give you twenty.”
“Twenty five and I’ll polish it.”
“Twenty two and I’ll polish it myself.”
The deal was made.
Outside, Danny took the two envelopes he’d lifted from the drug dealer and felt them. PILLS. He was about to sling them when an idea whispered to him, and he put them back in his pocket.
As he walked up Shaftsbury Avenue, the early edition of The Evening Standard was out. The billboards said,
“Vigilante Fever
hits London.”
On the train he read of a series of “events” all over the city. What they called, “copycat” acts. He hadn’t planned on this, but felt it could only be in his interest. A police spokesman described them as, “a dangerous and reckless trend.” The police were pursuing a definite line of enquiry.
“Yea’,” he muttered, “and pigs might fly.”
He stopped at the off-license and bought a bottle of Crème de Menthe and a bottle of brandy.
He rang Nora and got her answering machine. All over the country, no one was home anymore. If they could now arrange for the answering machines to make calls, people need never use the phone at all. The message he left said he’d like to take her to dinner and if she’d like that, he’d be waiting at The Oval cricket ground at 7.
His flat was so Spartan that it didn’t take much tidying. He put fresh sheets on the bed as he said,
“You never know, maybe I’ll get lucky.”
But he didn’t care a whole lot one way or the other.
That evening he put on a pale blue shirt and knitted tie. A dark wool suit, and resisted the impulse to put a hankie in the top pocket. As he inspected himself in the mirror, he said,
“As I live and breathe, it’s Chief Inspector Morse. Thames Valley CID.”