City of Bohane: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

own cuz, Ger?’
    Reid burped hard on deep, ragged sobs. Logan placed a forearm along the butcher’s spindly shoulders. Noted the way the shoulders jerked and fell with the sobs, and he enjoyed the feeling of that.
    ‘S’what I’m dealin’ with now, sir!’
    ‘Oh my poor child of the Sweet Baba … Oh Deccie Deccie Deccie … Deccie’s … below in the fish market, isn’t he? … Ah … You can never trust a fishmonger, Gerard. That is what I’d always say. That would be my advice to you. It’s the way they’d be looking down all day at those dead glistening little eyes. How’re they going to come out of that right?’
    ‘I only know of it the last week, Mr Hartnett … I haven’t slept.’
    ‘Only know of it myself the past fortnight, Gerard.’
    A dart of animal pain went through the man. Logan smiled as his forearm felt the shock of the words jolting the butcher’s slight frame.
    ‘Oh I have dark fuckin’ thoughts, Mr Hartnett!’
    ‘I’d well imagine, Ger. Sure he’s lappin’ her out an’ all, I’d say.’
    The butcher now openly wept.
    ‘Would you say, Mr Hartnett?’
    ‘He’s like a little cat at a saucer of milk, I’d say.’
    The butcher stood and bunched his wee, gnarled fists but Logan pulled him gently into the seat again.
    ‘Oh I have dark fuckin’ thoughts, sir! Dark!’
    Logan placed a finger to his lips and softly blew. Brought his lips then to the butcher’s ear.
    ‘Gerard? You’re going to stow those thoughts for me. Hear? I’m going to look after this for you, Ger.’
    ‘Are you, Mr H?’
    ‘Yes, Gerard. I’ll look after the fishmonger. And you can look after the adulterous cunt you married.’
    His pale skin caught the low light of the Aliados – the skeleton of him was palpable, there greyly beneath the skin, the bone machine that was Logan Hartnett – and he smiled his reassurance; it had weight to it in Bohane.
    ‘But we need be very careful, Ger. You hear what I’m saying to you?’
    ‘I do.’
    ‘Think on. If anything unpleasant were to befall a particular cuz, who’d those fat polis fucks come lookin’ for?’
    ‘You mean everyone knows, Mr Hartnett?’
    ‘The dogs on the streets, Gerard.’
    ‘Ah Mr Hartnett …’
    The butcher’s head dipped, and tears raced down his cheeks, and they fell towards the zinc top of the table, but Logan one by one caught them as they fell.
    ‘So where’d the polis be sticking the old beak, eh?’
    ‘I hear what you’re sayin’ to me, Mr Hartnett.’
    ‘It’ll be taken care of, Gerard. You can trust me on that. Now go back to your work and put this out of your mind like a good man, d’you hear?’
    ‘It’s hard, Mr Hartnett.’
    ‘I know it’s hard, Gerard. Or I can imagine so.’
    ‘Thanks, Mr H.’
    The butcher rose to go.
    ‘Of course, Ger, you know that I’ll be back to you in due course?’
    ‘I know that.’
    ‘Favour done’s a favour answered, Gerard.’
    ‘Yes, Mr Hartnett, sir.’
    In such a way in the city was a man’s fate decided. Logan Hartnett yawned, stretched, and stirred a half-spoonful of demerara into his joe. The Aliados eased through its slow, afternoon moments. The Fancy boys talked lazily of bloodshed, and tush, and new lines in kecks. They combed each other’s hair and tried out new partings. Logan brooded a while, and went into his own smoky depths, and then he signalled again with a raising of his eyebrows. No surprise at all the next man to shuffle from a high stool. It was Dominick Gleeson, aka Big Dom, editor of the city’s only newspaper, the Bohane Vindicator . Of course, it was in no small part thanks to Logan Hartnett that the Vindicator remained the city’s only paper. Its masthead slogan: ‘Truth or Vengeance’, as inked above a motif of two quarrelling ravens.
    The Dom was a busy-faced lardarse who walked a soft-shoe shuffle, and as he came padding across to the Long Fella’s table, already he was muttering sadly, as if the machinations of life in the city had