Sanctuary by Ken Bruen Read Free Book Online

furtive look round, then said, ‘There’s a guy named Gary Blake who has been shouting about ridding the town of heathens and perverts. He says first we take the homos, then we take Berlin, sorry, the child-molesters. GBH is his nickname. He plays golf with lots of the top guards.’
    I ignored his lousy attempt at humour, the riff on the Leonard Cohen song, echoed, ‘GBH?’
    He loved my ignorance. ‘Grievous bodily harm. He uses homos for harm.’
    â€˜Where does he hang his hate shingle?’
    Caz looked worried. ‘Jesus, Jack, leave it alone, the guy is connected.’
    I leaned across the table. ‘Did I ask you if he was connected? You hear me ask that?’
    He finished his drink, wanting to get away, not to be seen with me. Galway was a cosmopolitan city, but still in the valley of the squinting windows. He whispered, ‘Newcastle Avenue, a new bungalow there.’
    I sat back, the Jay stoking the old flames of rage and violence. It felt good, felt alive.
    He added, ‘Jack, he’s one of the Blakes. They’re, like, one of the tribes of Galway.’
    I said, ‘Time they were extinct, don’t you think?’
    He legged it fast.
    I finished up. The temptation to stay was nigh onoverwhelming, but I dragged me arse out of the comfortable position and thought,
Go home
.
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    I went back to my apartment and I dunno, maybe it was the booze but I thought I heard sobbing from behind my neighbour’s door. That combined with the booze only made my resolve more determined. Inside my place, I pulled the small bookcase aside, took out an oilskin cloth, unwrapped it and took out the revolver.
    When I’d had to cancel America, waiting on the result of Ridge’s surgery, I’d found it hard to pass the time. A guy had asked me to help him clear out an old house, said, ‘There’ll be the price of a drink in it for you.’
    Words to live by.
    In the house, I’d found a torn copy of ‘If’ and what looked like an original Proclamation of Irish Independence, and in the oil rag, the old revolver. It was still functional, well cared for, five bullets with it. I imagined a Republican on the run, hiding out there. But what the fuck would he be doing with Kipling? I thought of the line in the poem:
    Â 
    or being hated
,
    don’t give way to hating
.
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    Is this what he said to himself at night? While he dreamed of harming his enemies?
    Right.
    It was why he had the revolver.
    I’d put the two declarations on the bathroom wall and as I shaved in the morning would flick back and forth between the two ideologies. It made a sort of Irish sense, i.e. none.
    I loaded the revolver with the five bullets, put it in my jacket, said, ‘Let’s rock ’n’ roll.’

 
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14

Funeral Path
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    Gary Blake’s house was midway along Newcastle Avenue, the original name of the avenue being
Cosan an Aifreann
. Mass Path. Because the hearses from the morgue drove along this road to the funeral parlours. Newcastle Avenue didn’t quite have the same ring to it.
    The house had large wooden gates, but one was open and I went in. The small yard for parking was deserted and no lights were on. I rang the doorbell, and smiled at the nameplate on the door: St Jude’s – the patron saint of hopeless cases.
    I waited, then used my tool kit to open the door – a present from Stapelton, a psycho friend, long dead and by my hand.
    I found myself in a long hall, with icons and pictures of avenging angels lining the walls and a huge blue banner that proclaimed: ‘Aids is God’s answer.’
    I muttered, ‘What’s the question?’
    The house was well cleaned and had one upstairs bedroom with a skylight. I opened the cupboard. Apart from a few shirts and jeans, it contained a baseball bat that looked well used – the smudges on the top weren’t red paint – and a set of brass knuckles.