The Devil I Know (12 page)

The man who had pointed his finger rolled onto his side clutching his knee. A small child wailed in fright. Hickey clapped his phone shut and stood up to claim his winnings. ‘
Gracious
,’ he said. ‘That’s the word I’m looking for. Isn’t that right, Tristram? Isn’t that what we’re selling here?
Gracious
living.’

M. Deauville didn’t materialise. Hickey stood between his big box balls at the close of business that evening and jingled the coins in his pockets. ‘Cristal?’ he offered, then winced in mock apology. He took off his sunglasses to admire them. Two grand, he remarked they’d cost him.

He turned his back and headed off, holding up a valedictory hand in that way that used to drive me mad when I had less to be driven mad by (what made him so very positive that I was looking at him?) but then he paused, dropped his head, relented, and turned around. ‘Lookit,’ he said, as if making a major concession, ‘I’m having a barbeque next Saturday, okay? Me an the wife, up at the ranch. I might see you there. I know you’re a busy man.’

‘Yeah,’ I said, getting up to allow two men in overalls to
remove
my chair and load it into the back of a truck. The rest of the bistro set had already been packed. I stood there watching the place being locked up. Checked my phone: no calls. Busy man.

I looked about for a chair but found none and in the end sat down on a kerbstone. It rocked in its moorings. Everything built by Hickey rocked in its moorings. There were no moorings.

I loitered there until the warmth went out of the sun, waiting for M. Deauville to walk through the gates and find me, the abandoned birthday boy, surrounded by burst balloons and half-eaten cake, party hats and torn gift wrapping strewn at my feet.

He didn’t come and he didn’t ring either but he was there in spirit. I see that now. I see it all now. Every aspect of the launch bore his hallmark. The Devil is in the detail.

‘And at what point did Dominic Dowdall enter the picture?'

I'm sorry, who?

‘The Viking.'

Oh, him. Yes. I should have mentioned. He pitched up on launch day to sniff around, sensing that juicy spoils were to be had. That’s what Vikings do. They raid juicy spoils. It was only a matter of time before he stuck his whore – I mean, his oar in. We’ll get to her – I mean, to that.

He rocked up with his wife and their three blond children, all of whom had ridiculous names. I realise I stand in a glasshouse in this regard, but at least my ridiculous name is hereditary. ‘Leave that tree alone, Roman,’ he called as the boy struggled to wrench a young Japanese maple out of the ground, but there was no conviction in the Viking’s voice. Pull it if you wish, Roman, he was saying. Do what feels good. Do what feels right. Nobody is going to stop you, son, that’s a valuable lesson in life. The maple snapped. Roman looked at the slender antler of branches in his hand. ‘Put that down,’ his father told him, and the boy cast it aside and moved on to the next target. Hickey shook his head. ‘That little bollocks is going to get such a boot up the hole.’

His wife held her husband’s hand and kept her counsel, smiling about herself vaguely. She was dressed for a skiing trip on a beach. Fur-lined boots on her muscular brown legs, denim shorts, a sheepskin gilet over a sun top. Hickey sized her up with interest. She had a gleaming mane of chestnut hair and a hard little nut of a face beneath it.

If the Viking noticed Hickey and me sitting at the bistro table when he came through the gates, he didn’t betray it. We watched him regally making his rounds, his brown queen on his arm. He surveyed the Lambay building with a proprietorial tilt of the head before cocking a hind leg to squirt his scent on it.
Tsss
. Hickey was itching to belt over and counter-spray – I could feel him chafing beside me.

‘You know he has a conviction for beating up his former partner, don’t you?’ he muttered.

‘Yes.’

‘Girlfriend partner, not business partner. He beat up a
woman
.’

‘Yes, I heard.’

Even I knew that. We all knew that. Everyone on the hill knew that the Viking had been handed down a suspended sentence for breaking a former girlfriend’s jaw. Somehow, this hadn’t impacted on his social standing.

He came upon us at the bistro table when his tour was complete. ‘I like what you’ve done here,’ he told Hickey. ‘I like the look you’ve achieved, yeah?’ His great bullish head was blocking out my sun. He was a handsome man, in a coarse sort of way.

‘Phase One sold out in forty-five minutes,’ Hickey stated.

The Viking tossed his hair. ‘Sweet. A lot of new customers for my bar.’

Hickey tossed his hair back. ‘They’ll be at my bar.’ He nodded at the trunk of the hotel. ‘Have you seen me hotel? It’s going to be eleven storeys high.’

‘Yeah, your hotel.’ The Viking stroked his smig. ‘I wouldn’t mind a word in your ear about that. I have, uh . . . a proposition. You must come see my operation some evening. You know, get the tour.’ He made eye contact with me to indicate that the invitation extended to us both. ‘Why don’t I give you a call?’

‘Yeah, why don’t you?’

‘Excellent.’ The Viking touched his temple in salute before rounding up his feral children and sauntering off. I won’t repeat what Hickey called him when his back was turned. I don’t approve of that kind of language.

Three days later, we were summoned.

‘Why are you after wearing a suit?’ Hickey berated me as we made our way to the Viking’s bar, ‘did you have to go and wear a bloody suit?’ He had never objected to my suits before. I always wear a suit, and have done ever since giving up the drink. Even on weekends. It is my Sober uniform. Every morning, I must get up and put it on.

The Viking was parading himself outside his bar on his phone in his linen and we hated him. His bar was a block of jade glass like Hickey’s hotel, like McGee’s bank, like the Lambay building, like everything. He lowered the phone. ‘Guys, I’ll be with you in a tick. Have Svetlana bring you a drink.’

He pointed to a blonde who was standing sentry inside the door. Svetlana stepped forward and held it open to welcome us into the Viking’s emporium. I noted Hickey noting this – the Viking’s hand command; the beautiful blonde leaping to his bidding. She was dressed in a fitted white shirt, black tie and black trousers. A long black apron was knotted around her waist. Hickey stared at her trim backside as she led us upstairs to the VIP area. He would have liked to have run a
woman
like that – five foot ten and slender as a runway model, her hair pinned up in a French twist. He would have liked instructing a woman like that to serve his friends.

The VIP area was empty. Nobody was Very Important that night. Svetlana guided us to a raised platform and took our drinks order. We sat looking out the window at the
Viking
, still strutting up and down his patch of Harbour Road.
Tsss
: he cocked his hind leg to mark the lamppost. ‘I could burst that X,’ Hickey remarked quietly, resorting to that word again that I find so objectionable. I nodded my agreement all the same.

He finally appeared in the VIP den. ‘Gentlemen, did Svetlana take care of you?’ It was not a hospitable enquiry but a power display: there would be consequences for Svetlana if she did not take care of his friends. ‘She did, thank you,’ I told him.

Svetlana arrived with a tray and set down our drinks. A sparkling water for me, a Carlsberg for the Viking and a double brandy for Hickey. It was the most expensive drink he could think of. He should have asked for my advice. Svetlana’s nails were an inch long. Her palms were stained fake-tan orange, her lifelines and heart lines a tracery of tobacco brown. Your path in life will be a dirty one, a palmist would have told her. You will have a filthy, dirty little path.

‘Jaysus,’ said Hickey as he watched her arse depart, the belt of her apron tied in a smart bow at the small of her back. He swirled the contents of his brandy balloon and knocked back a mouthful:
Ahhhhh
. ‘This immigration business. It’s not all bad news.’

‘Svetlana? Yes. The Russian girls are beautiful. Doesn’t translate into the men though.’

‘No,’ Hickey agreed. ‘Now that you say it. I hadn’t looked at it that way.’

They nodded thoughtfully, two men of the world. ‘The Russian men don’t find Irish women attractive,’ the Viking added, ‘but the Russian women find Irish men extremely attractive. Did you know that?’

‘Get away,’ said Hickey. ‘You’re bullshitting me.’

‘I am not. They find rich Irish men practically irresistible, in fact. They’re all Roman hands and Russian fingers when you get them in a corner. Don’t tell me you haven’t tried one yet.’

I had never seen Hickey embarrassed before. He sniggered into his cognac glass. I glanced back at the bar to see what Svetlana was making of this. The girl stared fixedly out at the harbour lights.

The Viking signalled for another round. Svetlana collected the old drinks and replaced them with fresh ones. I looked at her tray as she removed it. The Viking’s old pint was two-thirds intact. Hickey’s brandy glass was empty.

The Viking nodded at me. ‘I heard this fella was dead,’ he said to Hickey.

‘That was another Tristram St Lawrence,’ Hickey told him.

I stared at them as they exploded into laughter, failing to understand the joke. ‘I am dead,’ I said to shut them up, but it only made them laugh harder. The Viking raised his hand for attention when Hickey had emptied his glass. Svetlana approached, exchanged Hickey’s empty glass for another double, and a fresh pint for the Viking’s partially consumed one. A third sparkling water was set in front of me.

Hickey didn’t notice that his new best friend was sending back barely touched pints. All he noticed was my sparkling water. ‘Are ya too good to drink with me?’ he wanted to know. ‘Is that it? Is that the problem?’

I recognised the space he was in. No drinker trusts a sober man. ‘We’ve been over this,’ I told him quietly.

The Viking looked from Hickey to me for an explanation. None was forthcoming. It was a private matter. Then my phone rang.
Tocka tocka
. Saved by the bell. I excused myself and left the table.

Hickey was red in the face by the time I returned, maybe as much as half an hour later. The call to M. Deauville had dragged out. I had raised objection after objection. ‘Hickey and I . . .’ I tried to explain to him, ‘we have a past. He used to be my—’ but M. Deauville felt that it was a necessary step in my recovery that I return to the VIP den immediately to face down my fears, so in the end I complied, having first admitted to him that I was powerless over alcohol and then accepted the things that I could not change, i.e. everything.

‘Here he is,’ said Hickey. ‘Told you he wasn’t dead.’

‘Sit down,’ said the Viking. ‘We ordered you a fresh fizzy water.’ They cracked up at that.

‘It’s on the house,’ Hickey added and they laughed harder still. The Viking wiped a crocodile tear from the corner of his eye. He was sober. The other clown was a different story. Brandy didn’t suit him. I sniffed the new glass of water. My nose detected nothing suspicious but I pushed it away to be on the safe side. That’s when I spotted the nickel tray. It was the tray for delivering the bill, except there was no bill on this tray but instead a ridge of white powder to which the Viking was adding more. Hickey shoved a rolled fifty into his hairy nostril and hoovered the powder up.

‘It’s getting late,’ I began, but the Viking cut me off.

‘What have we here?’ he wanted to know, looking over Hickey’s shoulder. Hickey turned around and the Viking pointed at the back of his head. Svetlana duly approached. ‘Show us your lovely dress, hon,’ he instructed her. ‘That’s it. Give us a twirl.’ She had by then slipped into something more uncomfortable. No more black and white. Just black, and not a whole lot of it. The Viking turned to Hickey. ‘Isn’t that a lovely dress?’

‘Gorgeous,’ said Hickey. ‘Knockout.’

The Viking put a hand on the builder’s shoulder. ‘This is my good friend, Dessie,’ he explained to Svetlana. ‘My
very
good friend,’ he added meaningfully. ‘Why don’t you sit down and join us, babe?’

Svelte Lana smiled at Hickey. ‘Hi Dessie,’ she said, and the way she pronounced his name lent it an almost sophisticated ring, as if there were an accent on the i.
Desì
. Hickey beamed up at her, his tusks of nasal hair frosted white. ‘Howaya love!’ She sat down and slid along the banquette until they were side by side. Her gold heels were five inches high and fastened around her ankles with little chains. The Viking threw me a knowing smirk. I couldn’t watch. And yet I did.

Svetlana whispered something into Hickey’s ear. ‘Ya are not!’ he exclaimed and she nodded, then leaned forward to whisper into his ear again. She sat back to see his reaction, then covered her mouth and giggled. I missed the signal whereby it was settled that he had pulled. Svetlana stood up, took Hickey’s hairy hand in hers and tugged it. ‘Ah no,’ he objected, leaping to his feet fairly lively all the same. With the additional height of her stilettos, the girl’s hips were level with Hickey’s belly. Her breasts jutted out at his chin. He gazed
into
them and told her that she had beautiful eyes.

I checked my watch. ‘That’s it. I’m done.’

The Viking’s hand shot out to detain me. ‘Stay. I want a word.’ Svetlana was leading Hickey away by the hand. ‘Don’t worry,’ he assured me as we watched them depart, ‘she’s well looked after.’ I stared at him. He stroked his smig as he contemplated their mismatched silhouettes disappearing through a door marked Staff Only. ‘And he’ll be well looked after too,’ he added with the air of one who knew what lay in store for Hickey beyond that door. ‘Now,’ he said when Hickey was safely tucked into bed and it was just the adults, ‘let’s get down to business. I believe we have a mutual friend.’

‘That strikes me as highly unlikely.’

‘Mr Deauville?’ the Viking prompted me.

‘Monsieur Deauville is not your friend.’

The Viking frowned. ‘Hasn’t he briefed you about me yet?’ The shadow of the crane swung across my grave again, though it was night and there weren’t supposed to be shadows.

When I didn’t answer, the Viking sat back and laughed. ‘I’m running your bloody hotel. You’re looking at your new business partner. And Deauville’s too, and of course Hickey’s. We’ve formed a consortium.’

‘But you’re a pimp. Monsieur Deauville wouldn’t do business with a pimp.’

The Viking lowered his head and shook it. He shook it for a long time before picking up his mobile phone and rising from the table. ‘Fuck you, St Lawrence. I amn’t charging Hickey for the girl.’

Dark thoughts, black thoughts, dark thoughts, black thoughts, fuelling the headlong charge home, dictating the rhythm of my feet. I stumbled like a drunk in my haste to escape from him, from them, from that place, that door, Staff Only. I didn’t trust the whoremonger not to spike my drink and M. Deauville had accepted him into a consortium.

I told myself over and over again that I accepted the things that I could not change, but I didn’t, and I couldn’t, and I wouldn’t, but I had to. ‘Ring,’ I urged my phone, holding it out like a compass to guide me, clenching it so hard that the casing creaked. My mind howled with the need to speak to M. Deauville. Perhaps it was a test. If so, I was failing.

Larney didn’t care or dare to show his face when I passed between the stone pillars that should have been crowned by winged dragons or hooded crows, something clawed that feasted on carrion. Instead, he chose to call out his riddle from the safety of the bushes. There is no safety, I wanted to tell him. You may as well come out of there.

‘The more you have of it, the less you see,’ came his voice, which was trembling with anticipation. ‘What is it?’

I didn’t have to give it a second’s thought. It was so obvious that I almost cheered up. I had a heart and a mind and a soul that was full of it. ‘That’s easy, Larney. Darkness.’

‘Well done,’ came the response in a dry, cultivated voice that did not belong to the gatekeeper. I stopped dead, turned to the trees.