Kosta said,
“My driver, like you have.”
Edward was enjoying the rush, the sense of calling the shots, asked,
“Has he got a name?”
Kosta was totally relaxed, said,
“Employee.”
Edward enjoyed that a lot. Asked,
“You got my money?”
I kept hoping the macho posing, the cock of the walk-or pier-bullshit would be all we’d have to deal with. These guys were having themselves a fine old time, strutting and mind fucking. Kosta threw the satchel at his feet. Edward, without looking at Caz, said,
“Count it.”
As Caz knelt, and began to do that, Kosta asked,
“How do I know this is the last time?”
Edward laughed, said,
“You don’t know shit, I’ll let you know when I’m done.”
Kosta looked at me and I slid the Mossberg out, racked the slide. Edward laughed harder, asked,
“Is that to scare me…whoo-eh, I’m so afraid. Fuck your employee, fuck you.”
I shot him in the face, range of about five yards.
The proximity nearly took his head off -clean off. Caz, on his knees, looked up as pieces of brain and gore splattered over the money and his face was a study of pure bewilderment. He began to rise when Kosta shot him between the eyes, a great shot if you weren’t a friend of the one on the receiving end.
He moved fast, stood over Caz, put in the coup de grace. He glanced at me, the Mossberg still in position, and with his boot shoved Edward into the water. Then he turned, plucked the sodden notes from my dead friend’s hand, pushed them in the satchel, said,
“You drive the Volvo, I’ll follow in their car.”
A moment.
The gun in my hand, my mutilated hand, still hot from the firing, and I thought,
“Yah think?”
But Kosta was up and moving and I’d have to shoot him in the back.
He said,
“Jack, I’m truly sorry for your friend.”
I said,
“Not my friend anymore.”
Lowered the Mossberg and got in the Volvo, reversed, turned towards the city, looked in my mirror to see Kosta boot my friend into the dark water. Said,
“Codladh samh leat mo chara.”
….Sleep safe my friend.
Yeah.
I felt as fucking hollow as the words.
We got to Kosta’s home, parked the cars, and, standing outside, he touched my shoulder, said,
“Let’s get inside, get some serious drink in us.”
I shrugged him off, said,
“Oh, I intend to get some serious drinking done but not with you, not now.”
I began to walk down the driveway, knowing the thugs were at the gates in every sense, and my back exposed to Kosta.
If he’d shot me, I felt he would have truly done me a service.
He didn’t.
I made my slow way into town, got into a crowded Sheridan’s on the docks, ordered a large Jay, took it outside so I could smoke and get wasted. As I was doing this a guy approached, started,
“Jack.”
Without looking, I said,
“Fuck off.”
And looked across the Claddagh basin to the pier. The double Jameson didn’t erase what lay beneath the water. I don’t think they’ve invented that drink yet, the one that wipes the slate clean of utter treachery.
Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win.
– Irish saying
The next week passed in a daze, Stewart and I trying to get a solid line on Headstone, both now feeling that time was of the utmost. That the major event these lunatics were planning was edging closer. Friday morning, I was up early, not booze early, but eight o’clock.
Like that.