The Emerald Lie by Ken Bruen Read Free Book Online Page A

me what’s going down there?”
    Meaning, why are you tooling up?
    I would have liked to have his muscle as a backup but the price of doing biz with villains was a debt that kept on giving. I said,
    “It may be nothing, just a little insurance.”
    He didn’t buy that but, what the hell, like he could give a fuck? He veered, asked,
    “You been hearing about this Grammarian fellah?”
    I nodded, then,
    “Seems to have the public wind.”
    He began to gather his stuff, preparing to leave, said,
    “Fucking amateur though.”
    “You think?”
    He was on his feet, the light in the bar darkening his Costa tan, said,
    “’Course. He left witnesses.”
    The Glock was a nine-mm, one of the new models with a seventeen-shot capability. Now I just needed seventeen people to shoot. I went to see the accountant whose daughter had been killed. I had the gun in my Garda jacket. Always see your money guys with weight. They piss you off, you have a solid argument.
    Made me wait half an hour. I read an old
Reader’s Digest
while I waited and increased my word power. Learned that an intransitive verb acts by itself, like a PI in fact.
    But without the baggage.
    E.g.,
    I sleep
    I fall
    I shoot
    Or, if you’re Irish,
    “Jesus wept.”
    Finally I got ushered into his impressive office. He didn’t seem pleased to see me, opened,
    “Look like you have been in the wars.”
    I explained my visit to his daughter’s former employer and the resultant hiding I received. He asked,
    “You sure it was connected?”
    Was he kidding?
    I asked,
    “You’re kidding, right?”
    He was definitely even more unimpressed. Said,
    “Your line of work, I would think that beatings are all in a day’s fun.”
    The fuck was this? The guy hired me and now he’s going all defensive and good citizen? I said,
    “You hired me.”
    He sighed and,
    “Yes, but not to draw attention to yourself. When we take this player off the board, you think we want to leave a trail?”
    Jesus wept.
    I asked,
    “You taking me off the case?”
    He stood up so that I might admire the cut of his Armani suit, said,
    “We’d been somewhat wrong-footed by some past successes of yours and it seemed that you might, in your stumbling fashion, find out actual evidence but, alas, you have become the very drunken collateral we heard you were.”
    I said,
    “That is atrocious English.”
    He looked down at his desk, said,
    “Good-bye, Mr. Taylor.”
    I moved to the door, reaching for some exit line if not of dignity, at least of significance, tried,
    “For an accountant of some repute, you figured one factor wrong.”
    He gave me a look of borderline pity, asked,
    “Oh, what might that be?”
    “Pigheadedness.”
    Outside, the rain came lashing down and I held my face up to it, hoping … what? Any cleansing available to me had been shut off at source so long ago and now, of course, the government was making us pay for any drop of water. I went to Garavan’s, ordered,
    “A pint, a Jay, and no conversation.”
    They came in exactly that order.
    As I reached for my wallet, my hand touched the butt of the Glock and I derived that scant comfort it gave. I stayed for over an hour and when I readied to leave, the bar guy shouted,
    “Nice chatting to you, Jack.”
    Friday morning, Emily picked me up at my apartment. She was driving a red Kia, which, if it was a statement, said,
    “I’m dafter than you thought.”
    I got in and she pointed out a Starbucks container on the dash, said,
    “Wasn’t sure how you like it so I had them pile in everything.”
    Which might well have been true. I asked,
    “When did Starbucks open in Galway?”
    She gave me the look that urged,
    “Get with the bloody game.”
    Said,
    “They have an outlet in the college.”
    “So they figure the ordinary folk don’t drink coffee?”
    “No, they know that students will drink any old shit.”
    I tried,
    “You know they don’t pay any tax, Starbucks?”
    She shrugged. Not easy when you’re maneuvering