Unquiet Dreams (3 page)

It was a short time later—less time than a walk to the seven pillars, but more than a slow steady piss in the morning—he first heard it. He could see from the overpass where he dangled his long legs, that the Man and his cronies were as attentive as ever to her little secret, her small mystery, and he smiled this time and knew it. It was her gift, after all. He just didn't know how, he tried to make it so simple. But she knew. She always knew.

At the first roar his head jerked up. Somehow he had been nodding. How long had he been awake? Or was it the unaccustomed weight of freedom, a burden he would move from shoulder to shoulder until he found the right position to bear it away. He would become used to it, quickly. Again, louder now, as it rushed along the many twists of her snaking body, trying arrogantly to carve new ways. Chin resting on the guardrail he looked down at the Man, candle lights sparkling in his puny world, reflecting his small understanding, and he waited. It was not long. The roaring, the confusion, the shouts, and finally only the green-brown waters so high, so sudden, he finally had to lift his feet or risk losing his two different shoes. There was no sign of the Man or the mystery. Maybe tomorrow; he would be walking south, perhaps he would see the Man, washed ashore, white and bloated as everything else swept up by her waters. And maybe not. He didn't much care. The gulf would really be filled this time. He hummed to himself as he crossed the empty street, swung over the rail, and stepped down to trace the lapping edge of his Mother.

 

 

for Mr. B with regards

Mandrake anthrax
: a whispered phrase, one the kids tossed around while they waited for buses, for dates, for the long lines outside the Karma club, twitching to the beat. The girls wore dresses so short you could glimpse their knickers or at least it seemed worth trying your luck. The boys had hair that defied gravity. Riley suspected they spent more time on their locks than the girls did.

But none of it mattered. He cared nothing for fashion, just sniffed around their ranks for a word on that elusive stuff—better than crack or smack, rocket fuel—or so rumour had it. Riley drifted past knots of strung out kids in Eyre Square, hoping for a lead and bought a cuppa in Mocha Beans, an ear cocked to the convos around him.

No one was holding, that was clear, but here and there he'd hear the phrase as he shambled about town, check himself and turn. Then he'd find they were speaking in French or Romanian, laughing as if they'd just switched tongues on his account. Riley had a moment's regret for not paying more attention in French class back at St Cedd's, but he knew sooner or later he'd discover the source.

Or else he'd go to Una.

The thought made him shiver. Dark spots in his brain still echoed and he didn't want to add to their number. Three days passed before the need got so bad that his unwilling steps turned toward that shabby industrial park. He wasn't a junkie, it wasn't that. Riley liked to think of himself as an explorer, one bound for the unknown inner realms. He had sampled just about everything then gone back to the tried and true, yet he bided his time for a hint of something new, beyond what had gone before. Transcendence, that's what he was after, a spiritual high. Most nights he had to settle for the more mundane type. But he had a weather eye cocked for the bigger score.

Riley paused on the roundabout past the Tesco, waiting for the traffic to clear. A murder of crows chattered on the island, their raucous tones taunting him—or was it a kind of warning? He shouldn't go to Una. He knew better. He would curse her name before they were through. Nevertheless, Riley knew that she would be the one, that hers would be the place where rumour became fact and he could get his hands on some of that mandrake anthrax.

The rain began: that horizontal rain that filled all your pockets and wormed its way down your neck. Riley argued that it wasn't a sign either. It wasn't Galway unless the rain was whipping down—even when the sun came out. As he crossed over the little rivulet that passed under the road, a single magpie laughed at him from its perch on a reed and he remembered it was one for sorrow, two for joy, and looked in vain for a second. "Shoo," he muttered, waving an ineffectual hand. The pie flicked its tail feathers, hopped to the other bank and continued to make remarks about the weather—or his fate. Riley checked the shiver that shook his shoulders. It was just a bird after all.

Headford Road teamed with afternoon traffic. Delivery vans jostled with suburban families heading for the cinema or the shopping centres in their SUVs. Riley cut through the car park at Debenham's then behind the hotel to come out by the used car dealer that never seemed to have any cars. It was that part of town.

The tourists never saw this part of the city. Riley remembered when he first arrived here, queueing at immigration, wishing his grandmother had been Irish after all, the old liar. He passed the line of hopefuls now, still hanging about the unmarked office in the gloomy industrial park—it was useless though, as the numbers were long gone by this time of day and the Gardai would never see them.

He slipped past the book bindery and there it was: Allied African Imports. Didn't half sound like a phony name. Irony: Una made a good clip from the trade, well beyond the smuggling. The little head shop in the centre and that newagey clinic both took a steady stream of merch off her. Riley used to deliver boxes of drums and fertility statues that they marked up and sold on to the kids at the uni every new term. Of course that was before.

"Well, look what the cat dragged in." Hackett glanced up from his station at the counter, an incomprehensible pile of mechanical works in front of him, a screwdriver in one hand.

Riley grunted. "It's said the Hacketts have been celebrated through the ages for their wit and charm. What a pity to bring such an illustrious tradition to an end."

"You're a feckin' mess, Riley. Sleeping in the rough now, ya drunk?"

"Where's Una?"

Hackett stared a moment, tapping the screwdriver on the counter. Finally he called back over his shoulder, "Una! You want to see what the cat dragged in?"

"Thanks. You're a prince, Hackett."

"Fuck you, Riley." Hackett went back to work on the gadget, studiously ignoring him. There had been no malice in his hatred. Nothing more than habit, really. It was just the way the dividing lines had been drawn and now Riley was on the other side.

Una stepped out from the backroom and Riley felt as if a light had been switched on in the grim interior of what passed for a shop. Not that she was sweetness and light: if anything, Una Flanagan offered nothing but dark from her raven tresses to her ten eye Doc Martens. Her pale face and piercing blue eyes produced only harsh lights that probed him with the unflattering glare of a well-placed searchlight.

"Is there something you're wanting, Riley?" Her smooth contralto with just a hint of coffee and cigarettes purred almost gently, the tiger teeth hidden behind its velvety folds. The curves of her form provoked more intoxication than any other substance he had ever ingested but that elixir had been denied him for some time now.

"Can we speak private like?" Riley finally managed once he broke his mesmerized gaze from the jut of her jaw.

"Have we anything to discuss?" Her tone suggested there was not.

Riley tried to compose himself a little, straightening his spine and throwing his shoulders back. "Can we have a word about…mandrake anthrax?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Where'd you hear about that?"

Riley felt a charge of hope surge through his chest. "Around."

Una smiled. The expression didn't suggest friendliness and it made her look even more feline. If she had a tail, it would have been lashing back and forth. "Come through." She turned and disappeared. Riley trotted over quickly, ignoring the snicker from Hackett.

"I'm glad you weren't too high handed to see me, Una, because—" The smack of her palm jarred him but he was too relaxed to let it do more than swing his head around and back like child's toy on a spring. "Fair enough, I grant you, Una. You might give a lad some warning all the same."

"I hate feckin' junkies." She uttered the words without rancour and sat behind the beautiful teak desk he remembered so well. Of course the last time he'd seen it Riley had had Una bent over the side of it with his trousers around his ankles as he slammed into her, a speedball coursing through his veins.

Good times.

"I'm not a junkie."

"Yeah, pull the other one. It's got brass bells hanging from it." Una picked up a crumpled pack of Gauloises and lit one, inhaling deeply before she spoke again. "How did you hear about mandrake anthrax?"

Riley shrugged and slipped into the chair opposite. "Word gets around."

"Around where?"

"Just around." Her questions were suspicious. Riley's mouth watered. This shit must be amazing. "You know, just whispers anyway. No one who's actually tasted it."

"And even though you're no junkie, you want some, is that it?" Her cool gaze fixed him to the chair like an insect on a pin. Curlicues of smoke rose from her nostrils. The early afternoon light caught the fumes as they dissipated. The haze spread toward the ceiling. He found it hypnotic.

"Yes." His heart pounded, perhaps audibly.

Una laughed. The sound tickled his solar plexus with seductive memories. Riley itched for the feel of her skin. An itch he'd be unlikely to scratch again unless it was another slap to his cheek. "Well, maybe it's your lucky day, Riley."

"Yeah, maybe."

She leaned forward over the desk. "Or maybe it's the beginning of the worst day of your life."

Despite the threat inherent in her words, Riley took heart. "What do I have to do?"

Una smirked. "First there's some work to be done. A delivery on the docks. You look sufficiently composed to make the pick up. No shakes now, are there?"

Riley flushed. "Haven't done the meth in months. It got away with me for a bit, but that's not a problem anymore."

"Went back to drinking? Much safer."

Her sneer meant to unsettle him, but Riley kept his eye on the prize. "A pint now and then, not much more. I'm feeling strong." That phrase bubbled up from the subconscious, some remnant of that court-ordered drying out therapy binge. "I've got focus now."

"And that's why you want some mandrake anthrax?"

Easy for her to sneer, but Una had never been above sampling her wares when the mood struck. For a while there, the mood had struck more often than the bells of St Nicholas' church at noon. Riley had benefited from sheer proximity. There had been no one else around that she seemed willing to fuck. A sudden thought occurred to him. "Have you tried it?"

Una's eyes narrowed. "You don't know a feckin' thing about it, do you?"

Riley shrugged. "Rumours. Innuendo. Heard it's…something different—not a psychedelic but…profound."

"Magical."

The reverence with which she uttered the word sent a pleasant shudder up his spine. He waited to hear more, but she did not elaborate. "What do you want me to do?"

Una slid a drawer open and pulled out a snubnose revolver. "Down on the docks. Find a boat called the
Jaunty Spectre
. See Lucky Luke, the captain."

"American?"

"French."

"And then?"

"Ask him for my merchandise."

"That's it?"

Una thrust the gun toward him, handle out. "Probably."

Riley took the wooden grip gingerly. "Probably?"

Una smiled. The Cheshire Cat might have envied the curves of it. "Sometimes he gets a little froggy about things and has to be persuaded not to monkey with the details."

"What am I picking up?"

Una stared at him blankly. "My. Merchandise."

It had been rather stupid of him to ask. "Right. And he'll be there now?"

"Since yesterday." Now that he had all the necessary details, she looked bored. "Don't bring it back here. Meet me upstairs in the Kings Head." Una raised one eyebrow. "Try not to draw any attention to yourself when you do come in."

"Right-o." Riley turned to slink out. At the door he called over his shoulder, "And you'll have some then?"

"Yeah, I'll have some for you. Just a taste, mind. It doesn't come cheap. You want more, you're going to be doing a lot of work on my behalf, you understand?"

"Right you are," Riley agreed. His thoughts buzzed already just with the promise of a sip of that glorious nectar—or powder or tab. Whatever. He would have some.

"Mind you get the merch, Riley. I'm depending on you."

Such words from her. "Is bheannnacht an obair," he intoned, remembering his mam's old saw about the blessedness of dutiful work.

"Don't fuck it up."

The buzz of expectation was enough to carry him through the puddles along Headford Road. The single magpie still cackled by the rivulet, flicking its tail at him as if admonishing Riley for some misdeed. He felt the weight of the gun in his coat pocket, but the buoyancy of the expected payoff counterbalanced it. It flooded his brain with reckless good humour. "How d'ye do?" Riley called to the magpie. "Where's your old man? Flown off with a younger bird? Ah, the shame of it!"

He laughed to himself as he strode along. The rain started up again as he crossed the square where the gulls and the crows were still squabbling over the food scraps and the Hotel Meyrick looked like a squat sweaty fat man in the rain. Queen Street loomed grim as the rain sheeted down and Riley hunched his shoulders against the assault.

Why he never got a bicycle as Father Malachy always suggested Riley couldn't say. Unsteady as his own legs were from time to time, he trusted them more than wheels and it had nothing to do with Nate McCarthy getting flattened by that CityLink bus on his bicycle. Surely not.

As he strolled down the docks, his brain clicked along nicely—a little snort of speed, no more, just to keep him sharp—but Riley knew that anticipation was the better part of the buzz. The grey waters looked mighty cold. There was a profusion of boats, none of them looking likely. All white! Why were boats always white? Where were the legendary hookers with their sleek black hulls and rusty sails? No more around it seemed. A rich man's folly now. Everything that once sustained the poor had become an idle toy of the wealthy. Go tiger.