Dead I Well May Be by Adrian McKinty Read Free Book Online Page B

beating like a steam engine and the tension eased out of me. It’ll be a bad night: drink, smoke, and some terrible restaurant at the break of dawn, but at least I’m going to live, which is something.
    Darkey poured a half pint of some single malt down my throat and fell asleep in the backseat. With him practically out of it, Big Bob and Scotchy got to arguing about where we were going to go and, of course, with Scotchy and Big Bob trying to get things done it all ended farcically with us being pulled over by a cop. It was left to Sunshine in the front seat to deal with the peeler and take us to the first den of I., which was a strip joint in the vicinity of Madison Square Garden.
    Darkey was revived and led us in. He was well received. The place was standard fare: dark booths, a gangway, stripper poles, main act, side acts, filthy glasses, spaced-out clientele.
    I found a quiet corner to try and kip and I really must have nodded off, for Fergal’s droning voice woke me with talk about a redheaded girl he’d fallen in love with. Fergal was maybe traumatized by the whole Shovel business or maybe he was just being Fergal. He was a gangly bloke and always a bit of a high-strung character. He’d been a thief back in the O.C. Fingers, he tried to get everyone to call him, but no one did. He had a good five years on me, but I was the older brother.
    There she is. Tell me, Michael, tell me isn’t she amazing. Jesus, look at her, Michael, come on, look.
    I took a look and I thought he was pulling my leg, but he was serious. Aside from the fact that she was a working girl and coked out of her mind, she was four inches taller than him and with the heels it was nearly a foot. She was dancing at a side booth, not even the main show, and added to that she was skin and bones, she hadn’t eaten or seen sunlight in a good few moons, and the hair was a wig. Fergal is six foot two, so there was at least a possibility that the girl was in fact an emaciated, coked-out bloke.
    I see what you’re saying, Fergal. She might be the one for you, right enough. Fair skin, red hair—man, you’re made, and you a big-time player and all.
    You really think so? Really, Mike? Mike, I’m dead serious. I just looked at her and I had this feeling come over me. No, not what youthink. It’s like this feeling of love or something, you know. Love at first sight. I mean, you can’t help it. It just happens. Jesus, out of the blue. You could be riding the bus and see somebody and they’d be gone forever. Could be anybody….
    During this neat dissection of love, which wasn’t exactly Ovid, I was scanning the ill-lit club for a sign of the others. I didn’t see any of them and assumed that they’d either left us or retired to a private room somewhere. Either way, it was a sly move to leave me with love-drunk Fergal, and I thought I was supposed to be the man of the hour.
    Bastards.
    What?
    Not you, Fergal. I was wondering where the others were.
    I don’t know, Mike. Have you been listening to what I’ve been saying?
    Of course, Fergal, your words are pearls.
    Well, look, what do you think I should do? I have this warm feeling in my stomach.
    I have that too, Darkey’s so-called single malt, I think—
    Michael, for fucksake, be serious. What do you think I should do? I mean, she’s a dancer, maybe even a—he lowered his voice—hoor or something. Jesus, that would be bad. And anyway, I mean, do you think it would be right if I went over, and if I did go over, what would I say?
    I beckoned him close.
    Listen, Fergal, she seems like a perfectly charming girl. She might, for all you know, be a divinity student who dances to pay off her school fees. You simply go over to her and say politely: Madam, I wonder if it might be possible to see you sometime when you finish working in this establishment, not for any untoward purpose but rather merely to have a coffee or something similar, a meeting of minds, ideas and cultures, that would, I believe, be