Dead I Well May Be Read Online Free PDF Page A

boss has gone and he, Scotchy, is going to take the initiative. Lesser men than me could foresee trouble in the tea leaves. Scotchy’s always been an ill-starred unlucky lout and chances are we’ll go over to Shovel’s house, me and him, and then Shovel or Shovel’s girlfriend will end up throwing hot fat on us or shooting us or calling the bloody peelers or sticking our fingers in the toaster or something worse. That would be typical of Scotchy. ’Course, whatever happened he would live and in the incident I’d be blinded in one eye or lamed or scarred for life. That would just be the way of it.
    Suddenly a thought occurs to me.
    If he hasn’t spoken, how do you know it was Shovel? I ask.
    Stands to reason, doesn’t it? He was over at Shovel’s asking for cash; Shovel had already told me he wasn’t paying nothing. Bastard must have got Andy in the street, from behind.
    Oh yeah, stands to reason, Sherlock. Clearly that’s the only fucking explanation, I mutter sarcastically.
    Fucksake, Bruce, you fucker. Fucking fucker. Listen to me, you insubordinate wanker, just get the fuck up here, Scotchy yells furiously.
    Oh Scotchy, keep your hair on. Look, I’m on my way, ok? I say with just a hint of deference now.
    Scotchy hangs up. I take the phone and kill a water bug on the wall with it. I hang up and go back into the bedroom and close the window.
    I’m going to have to take the train after all. This also is typical and it’ll cost me another token. I sigh and splash water on my face. I get my jacket, and in case it’s going to be an all-nighter I put cigs, reading material, matches, and cash in the pockets. I pull on my Doc Martens, brush my hair, shove in extra ammo, the wee .22, and go out.

    I know at least five Scotchys. Scotchy Dunlow, who beat the shit out of me every Friday night at Boy’s Brigade for seven years. Scotchy McGurk, who was a player and whom I personally saw drop half a cinder block on some guy’s chest for a tremendously minor reason and who got shot in a typically botched robbery on a bookie’s. Scotchy McMaw, who lost a hand in a train-dodge accident in Carrickfergus and who was quite the weird one after that but who ended up saving a boy’s life when they were out fishing in a boat, swimming to shore with one arm and later getting some bravery award from Princess Diana. Scotchy Colhoun, who also was a bad lad and got himself nicked for racketeering and murder and went in the Kesh (though he must be out by now because of the Peace Process). Finally, of course, is our Scotchy, Scotchy Finn. None of them needless to say has or ever had any connection whatsoever with Scotland. How they all became Scotchy is a matter of mystery to me and probably them as well.
    Scotchy Finn himself does not know. He grew up in Crossmaglen and then Dundalk, which, if you know Ireland at all, could only mean one thing. And sure enough, it turns out his da, ma, three brothers, two uncles, and an aunt were all at one point in the Lads. They startedScotchy early and he did time at some kind of juvenile prison for something. He says it grew too hot for him across the
sheugh
, which is why he ended up first in Boston and then the Bronx. To be honest, I’m a bit skeptical about all his stories of “ops” and “encounters” with the Brits, the Proddies, the Intelligence Corps, the SAS, and the cops. He says it was the Irish peelers, the Garda Síochána, that gave him his limp for petrol smuggling (a limp that only ever appears when he wants sympathy for something), but I heard from Sunshine he fell off the roof of a parked car after he’d had eleven pints at Revere Beach. This was before he started working for Darkey, and you can’t really imagine Scotchy at the beach because his skin is as thin and pale as fag paper and he looks like yon boy that gets beat up at the beginning of the Charles Atlas ads. Red hair, white skin, bad teeth, bad smell disguised by bad musk and that’s our Scotchy. I don’t know