We tried to get our respective shredded nerves in gear.
I asked,
“How’d the Guards respond so quick?”
He stared straight ahead, said,
“I called them.”
Jesus wept.
I grabbed the flask back, hit it with ferocity, said,
“Fucking great, just brilliant, Christ Almighty.”
He continued,
“Actually, I called Ridge, said she’d find two wannabe Columbines handcuffed to the front door. And that two more shooters were at the rear so to bring backup. The credit and publicity will rocket her career.”
I had nothing, so he asked,
“How’d it go for you?”
Almost dreading the answer, he knew it wasn’t going to be good.
I sighed, said,
“A lovers’ quarrel. Bine/Ronan Wall, he shot her after she opened up on him with her Browning.”
He asked the most inane question, an indication of how madness, gunplay, adrenaline affect people,
“She had a Browning?”
“She does now.”
Part of him wanted the details but most of him didn’t so he went with,
“And you think the Guards are going to buy that?”
I nodded, said,
“Sure, wraps it up nice and tidy.”
The booze had calmed him. He leant back, his head on the seat, then asked,
“OK, you think if we get past this, you might really tell me how it went down?”
I considered for all of two seconds, said,
“I seriously doubt it.”
Ridge was on the front page of all the newspapers, banners proclaiming:
“Hero Ban Garda Prevents First Irish Columbine.”
The accounts narrated her overpowering the two brothers but despite her valiant efforts, she was unable to prevent the deaths of the ringleaders who apparently had, in a bizarre pact, killed each other. Sales of We Need to Talk About Kevin went through the roof. Gus Van Sant with Elephant and Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine sold out of HMV and Zhivago.
The papers speculated on the weird deaths of Bethany and Wall and concluded:…A love affair, fuelled on drugs and would-be celebrity, gone berserk when faced with the actual enormity of what they were about to undertake.
Yada fucking yada, on they went, fuel for the talking heads.
Most of the editorials called for Ridge to receive the President’s Medal of Honor. Promotion was a given.
She called me, demanded,
“We have to talk.”
“I don’t think so.”
A pause, then,
“Jack, I can’t accept credit for what I didn’t do.”
Jack!
I weighed my words, let loose,
“Stewart gave you shelter when you needed it. You open this can of worms, he might go to jail. Trust me on this, he would not be able to do time again.”
Slam dunk.
I hoped.
Then,
“Jack, I need you to tell me the truth on something.”
“Fire away.”
Tentative,
“Did you have anything to do with the deaths of the girl and Ronan Wall?”
I could see Al Pacino in Godfather Two as Diane Keaton asked him something similar, said,
“You get to ask me this just one time, right?”