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7

A Mind of Winter

—Shira Nayman

My hurley was almost bent from previous outings. Made by a man in Prospect Hill; he still used the ash: cut, honed, and polished the wood to a sheen and, if asked, would add the metal rings around the end of the stick, for traction.

Kidding about the traction.

Since the loss of the fingers on my right hand, I’d become adept at compensating, had wound a tight leather strap on the handle of the hurley. It had been a while since last I’d employed the stick. Ridge, then horrified at the use I’d put it to, had made me swear to never use it again.

I swore.

Swearing is easy.

I placed it in a sports bag that proclaimed,

Mervue United.

Shucked into my all-weather Garda coat, item 1834, that the Department of Justice continued to try to repossess. From habit, I reached for the staples: the Xanax, a lethal shot of Jay, pack of cigs.

Nope.

Going to dance this reel with plain old-fashioned rage, bile, and bitterness.

Fuel of a whole other hue.

I checked my breathing: level, not what you’d expect for a guy with edged murder in his soul. I slung the bag over my shoulder, headed out. Ran into a man I used to know in my cop days. He’d been a player, became one of those predators they called speculators: had him, he told me once, a portfolio of quarter of a billion.

On paper.

And with Anglo-Irish.

As wiped and gone now as the promise of poverty eradication.

I thought then, what I thought now, on his losses.

“Fuck ’em.”

He stopped, peered at my sports bag, asked,

“Going to the gym?”

Of course gyms, saunas would have been part of his tycoon’s life, then. I said,

“Well, a workout, sort of.”

He said,

“So sad about Eamonn Deacy.”

Our most cherished local sporting hero; what Messi was to Barcelona, he was to Galway.

Made me pause. When we didn’t have heroes anymore, just poisonous celebrities, Eamonn was that quiet unassuming figure that a hero was meant to be. The man before me shuffled, looked to his left, so a touch was imminent. He said,

“Heard you were doing good.”

Not health or emotional well-being, no.

Cash.

I said,

“Getting by.”

He gave a bitter laugh, went,

“Fuck, in these days, that is doing brilliant.”

I reached for a note, saw it was a fifty.

Mmm.

Bit large for a street encounter, few of them and I’d be street me own self. I palmed it over as discreetly as these things can be. He stared at it. Yeah, hadn’t figured on me for that largesse.

Wrong.

“The fuck is this?”

Not gratitude then. I began to move off, tempted to get the hurley out. He shouted,

“Last of the big fucking spenders, eh, Taylor? Don’t let it break the bloody bank.”

You give a few notes to a guy on the street, you’re hardly going to go back, kick the living crap out of him, take the money back, but Jesus, it was tempting.

Brennan’s house was on the side road that runs parallel to Snipe Avenue, Newcastle. A line of five majestic homes, built from Connemara granite, built to last. With large front gardens and signs that proclaimed

No accommodation.

Translate that,

Students, fuck off.

In the heartland of the university. Balls, if naught else. Saint Martins, name on the house. I readjusted the bag on my shoulder, ready to unleash the hurley. I felt the mix of adrenaline fused with rage as I moved up to the front door. In the next garden, a little girl was standing, staring at me. Dressed in dungarees, with a flow of red hair, she looked like an urchin from a Dickens stage adaption or a refugee from the abominable Annie.

Before I rang the doorbell, she said,

“Nobody home.”

I stepped back, trying to rein in the rush I was feeling, asked,

“Yeah?”

Her face, freckled like a Spielberg extra’s, minus the bike, squeezed up. She said,

“Yeah is very impolite.”

The fuck?

She stepped closer to where I was standing. I was very conscious of . . . an old guy talking to a young girl.

Jesus.

Lynch mobs would meet for a whisper. Her accent was upper middle class; that is,

Posh

Moneyed

Condescending.

She said,

“You are probably the new poor.”

What?

I asked,

“Are you on medication?”

She said,

“I’m nearly a teenager.”

Good to know. I asked,

“You didn’t by any chance see the Virgin Mary?”

Realizing how daft that sounded, though in Ireland we did have a history of moving statues, as if the Mother of God were on tour. She duly scoffed, said,

“Hardly, I’m a Protestant.”

Accounted for the accent and probably the attitude. She asked,

“Do you have a business card?”

I let the exasperation leak on my words, said,

“What would you do with a business card?”

She sighed, said,

“Pretty obvious you never heard of LinkedIn.”

I made to push off and she asked,

“Your name, sir?”

Christ, she’d make a great cop.

I wasn’t sure of the etiquette of formally meeting teenagers. Do you go,

“Yo”?

And, like, high-five?

I said,

“Jack Taylor.”

She mulled that over, then gave,

“I’m Dell.”

“What, like the comics?”

Exasperated her.

“Don’t be silly, Jacques, it’s from Odell.”

Truth to tell, she made me veer between incredulity and laughter. I echoed,

“Jacques, seriously?”

And got a look of such withering contempt takes most people half a lifetime to learn, nigh spit,

“One tried to give you some class refinement, Mr. Taylor.”

Seeing as I’d made the trip, was here, I asked,

“You didn’t see what happened to the Ban Garda, the female police officer yesterday?”

“Hardly. One doesn’t snoop on one’s neighbors.”

Whatever the fuck that meant. I said,

“Okay, see you then.”

As if it just struck her, she asked,

“Have you been very old for a very long time?”

Did cross my mind that I might find a use for the hurley after all.

I didn’t ring Brennan’s door as a strong instinct urged me not to.

I was walking down the Newcastle Road, students to the left of me, winos to the right.

A blue Datsun pulled up, almost on the curb, a burly ape emerged, and I thought,

“Guards.”

In a bad suit but with the thick-soled shoes you never forget, matches the crust of the spirit. The guy stonewalled me, I knew him. We were almost related by beatings. Usually him doling them out. Named Lee, he gave bullying the X Factor. Worked at it, constantly.

“Get in the car.”

He rasped.

Smoker’s voice, waylaid by second-rate whiskey. The bell for the Angelus rang from the cathedral and no one seemed to bless himself but me. I asked, staring at the car,

“Not buying Irish, then?”

Got bundled into the car, my holdall thrown in with me. The driver glanced at the hurley, muttered,

“A concealed weapon.”

Lee said,

“Super needs a word.”

Clancy.

My onetime close friend, brother Guards on the force until I got bounced and he got promoted all the way. Recently, he’d been honored by the university: honorary doctorate, flash dinner, photo on front page of The Galway Advertiser, all the glittering prizes. We’d clashed many times over the befuddled years, his loathing of me growing in proportion to my defects.

At Mill Street, I was marched before him, in his new spacious office, a riot of photo opportunity, mostly golf shots of him with the rich and crooked. The odd bishop to add color if not dignity to the montage. He was in full uniform, a large oak desk with orderly files at his left. I said,

“Dr. Clancy.”

Lee was behind me, barely restrained.

Clancy looked up, distaste writ huge, said,

“Always the smart mouth, Taylor.”

Before I could summon up something smart, he added,

“So, they cut off your fingers a time ago.”

Indeed.

Lee said,

“Pity it wasn’t his balls.”

Clancy indicated the holdall, the hurley, said,

“Should be good for six months.”

I said,

“Not to mention good PR. Guards bust man for love of the national sport.”

Clancy got to his feet, shoulders back, potbelly well concealed beneath expensive tailoring but there. He said,

“Sergeant Ní Iomaire was hurt in an incident. The wrath of Jesus will descend on you if your name comes up in the investigation.”

Not the time to mention Ridge was seeking . . . the Virgin Mary. Christ, it would sound like a deranged spiritual odyssey. I could have brought up the weird photos, C33, but he’d just ridicule it. He rasped,

“Get out of my sight.”

They confiscated the holdall, bad bastards. Outside, I nearly reached for a cigarette, did the deep-breath gig instead. Turned toward the hospital, frustration dancing with anger in my daily reel of reproach. I bought the paper, the shop guy asking,

“Cigs, Jack?”

I said no and he ventured,

“Rolling your own, eh?”

No answer to that.

Athens was burning anew as the Greeks faced further medieval measures to offset the massive bailout. Dire predictions on every financial front and still, get this, the bank directors awarded themselves massive bonuses.

No wonder the Virgin Mary was MIA.

The Artist won five Oscars. Some deep message in that a silent movie was top of the heap but I was fucked if I knew it. Ridge was still in intensive care. Stewart was pacing the corridor, he snapped at me,

“Didn’t break your neck getting here.”

I let that slide, asked what the doctor said.

The next forty hours would be critical. I said,

“I’m going to try to track down Brennan. If he attacked Ridge, he better hope I don’t find him.” Stewart said,

“You and C33 make a fine team.”