Declan Burke - Eight-Ball Boogie

EIGHTBALL BOOGIE

by

Declan Burke

First Kindle Original Edition, 2011

First published by Lilliput Press, 2003

Declan Burke

The doorbell rings at five in the morning, its bad news, someones dead or dying. Which was why Imelda got downstairs so quick, still in her nightdress, padding across the cold tiles of the porch. Flustered, thinking someone might be dying.

Which allowed the blademan to get in close, inside the elbows, driving the shank up hard under the chin. Blowing the artery, spattering the porch. Blood, glass, chrome Christ, you couldve hung it in a gallery.

These things happen, although not usually in shiny new towns on the Atlantic seaboard, and rarely to the middle-aged wife of an independent politician thats keeping the government in clover. But they happen. Its a crying shame, yeah, so have a cry, feel ashamed and get over it. The rest of the week is coming on hard and its brakes are shot to hell.

My job was to find out who and why, at twelve cent per word for the right facts in the right order. Enough facts, a decent hook, they might even add up to a front-page clipping for the dusty folder under my bed. Imelda Sheridan was dead, which was tough cookies on Imelda, but then every silver lining has its cloud.

Which was how it all started out, anyway.

It was early Monday, three days to Christmas, the morning not trying anything it couldnt handle itself. I stuck a pillow behind my back, rolled a one-skin, lacing it light, just to take the edge off. Sand in my eyes, a jellyfish in my gut, skull humming like a taut rope. The room stinking of stale breath, bored sex, cold cigarettes.

I sparked the jay, watched Denise sleep. Hadnt watched her sleep in a while, hadnt had the chance, on a second bite of the cherry and still trying to remember if I liked the taste of cherries. Asleep, relaxed, she looked her age, sneaking up slow on the right side of thirty. Dark hairs at the corners of her mouth, a nose that might have been too big if her ears were any smaller. The lips full, salmon pale, the hair chestnut with auburn streaks, shoulder-length. When they were open, the eyes were round and brown. She thought she could have lost half a stone around the hips but I liked the curves, liked that there was more of her rather than less.

She smelled the dope and her eyes flickered, focusing slow. She knuckled one eye, yawning. Then, sounding resigned, she muttered: Out.

No way, I saw chalk-dust.

Buzzing on the jay, kidding her on.

Out, Harry. Go home.

You know what time it is?

No, but Id say its about half past fuck off. She smiled me a tired one that was half regret and half something Id never seen before. Cmon, Harry. You know you have to go.

Alright. Jesus.

I stubbed the jay, scrabbled for my tee shirt, shivering, sleet spattering the window.

Want to join me in the shower?

No shower, Harry. Theres no hot water.

Fucks sakes, Dee.

Officially, we were on a break. Officially, I was sleeping in the back room of my office over in the Old Quarter, the constant verbals costing a fortune in replacing Bens toys.

Off the record, Denise was trying to work out if anyone would take her on with another mans kid in tow.

I pretended not to notice, the truth is a scab you dont want to pick at too often. Last night wed been in the same place at the same time with the same amount of booze on board. That was all and thats never enough.

She sat up, draped a thin white cotton dressing gown around her shoulders. Said, her voice thin and tired: Just get dressed and go, Harry. Please?

Then left, showing me how.

I got dressed, went downstairs. She was still standing in the hall, looking at the phone like it was primed, ticking. Ben lying on the living room floor, cartoons blaring from the TV, wearing dinosaur slippers, Action Man goggles around his neck. I was rapping about building a snowman if the snow stuck, how we could put mums coat on it, Ben not paying attention, when she called me into the kitchen. She put the kettle on and didnt turn around.

Gonzo left a message. Said hed be home for Christmas.

Sounding calm, like Gonzo rang every week, not excited and nauseous, like we hadnt heard from him in nearly four years.

He say what Christmas?

She turned, pulling the dressing gown tight. Her face was pale, her eyes huge, dark panda eyes.

He is your brother, Harry.

Not my fault, Dee. No ones pinning that one on me.

She shook her head, disappointed at herself for not knowing better.

Youd better go.

She pushed me down the hallway and stood in the doorway, shivering, not looking at me, arms folded. I stood two steps below, hanging in, postponing the moment when Id have to admit I left the car in town.

Ben should be dressed. Hell be late for school.

Christmas holidays, Harry. Kids get holidays at Christmas. Not like adults, who get holidays at Fuckallmas. Its Christmas, by the way.

I know its Christmas. Jesus. I scuffed at the doorstep, the hangover thick and dull, the dope not helping. The wind gusting sleet. She tucked a rats tail tidy behind an ear, said: Harry

What?

Dont think that what happened

Dont flatter yourself.

No need, she taunted, stung. Not after all you said last night.

I fumbled for a comeback but she was already closing the door, not slamming it. I faced into the sleet and decided to shave at the office, dug out the smoke box and realised I was all out of skins. That was the shape of my week and it was only Monday morning, nine-thirty.

They reckoned the population around ninety thousand, and even if you discount all the Shinners who voted twice thats still a fair sized burg. Which was the plan. They took a town, just sitting there minding its own business, there not being too much of it to mind, and ripped out its guts. Relocated the locals to breeze-block suburbs that sprawled out both sides of the river, south behind the lake, halfway up the mountains, and theyd have poldered the bay if theyd thought anyone was dumb enough to enjoy wet sand between their toes. Threw up a new inner town, a high-rise jungle of credit finance depots, international call-centres, multi-storey shopping malls, a software research plant masquerading as a university, most of which was financed by American corporates, most of which was offset by indigenous grants, lo-interest loans, repatriated profits. Midtown was all wide streets, tree-lined, Norman Rockwells wet dream parachuted in to the Atlantic seaboard. It all took about five years to finish and no one laughed, not once.

My office was over in the Old Quarter, where Midtown bled into the docks, north of the river heading west. Five or six bustling blocks bisected by railway lines, pot-holed streets and alleyways that always seemed to wind back to the quays. Too noisy to be residential, the passing trade too random to make it worthwhile for shopping centre malls, the Quarter got to keep all its crumbling buildings, cracked pavements and old sewers.

The Quarter drew a volatile crew. Crusties laughed at the skate-kids, who went by sniggering. Winos, bums and buskers worked the crowds for the same chump change. College kids slumming it got a thrill rubbing shoulders with fairies, dips and wide-boys on the make.

Id been sleeping on a couch in the back room of the office for a couple of months by then, getting used to the idea, starting to fit in with the faces on the streets. Mostly I liked them, respected their lack of ambition, their social inhibition. The kind that lived around the Quarter, they needed to know there was a pawnshop in the vicinity, an Army Surplus Store, a tattoo parlour. The bars had tinted windows, the porn shop didnt and the greasy spoon cafs should have at least thought about it. There were antique shops, a joint that sold organic Thai food and way too many second-hand bookstores. Out in the back lots that sloped down to the river, a couple of auto repair outfits kept things black and oily. The bars played jazz, trad and drum n bass, and in the summer the air hummed with the thick smell of patchouli oil and melting tar. At night you could get stoned just driving around with the window down.