The Emerald Lie Read Online Free PDF Page A

aw, damn it, Joan Rivers died. A true loss, so few left who actually said the things most of us were afraidto even think. And she pissed on PC. How could you not applaud that, when people were so afraid of offending somebody with any opinion they nervously aired? She had brought not so much joy as a wicked glee in taking down celebrities and other riffraff.
    I walked down Shop Street and the papers were telling us that some economic recovery was already apparent. But to whom? And promising us that the coming budget wouldn’t be so harsh. Just bullshit cover for the water charges due at the end of October. Despite the glut of scandals of fat cats stealing form the very charities they headed, there were still gangs of collectors on the street. And I mean gangs, no longer the lone supplicant, but groups, lest they be confronted.
    A busker was massacring “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” and a tap dancer was only halfheartedly going through the motions. Two teenagers accosted me demanding I support some camogie team. I said,
    “Gimme a break.”
    I was sorely tempted to nip into Garavan’s for a fast Jay but figured I’d soldier on. Top of Quay Street, I looked down to see straggling hen parties looking as if they had been doused in disappointment. Two young tourists checked me out, decided I was reasonably normal, which in Shop Street is some feat these days, and asked if I might know where they would find the
craic.
    I hadn’t the heart to tell them that since the new government decided to tax us into oblivion, the word had more or less lostall meaning. I told them to check out Naughton’s pub. Pushing, they went,
    “But is there music?”
    I pointed down the street, said,
    “There’s all kinds of tunes but I can’t vouch for any melody.”
    I got to the docks as the sun made a late appearance. Glanced up at what was almost a blue sky, took a deep breath, and entered the office of Real Time Inc. An all-biz secretary/receptionist asked if I had an appointment. I said,
    “No, but Mr. Clear will be glad to see me, I bring tidings of investigation.”
    Lest I be IRS or worse, she picked up a phone, did some whispering, then said,
    “Down the corridor, first on the right.”
    I gave her my best smile but it didn’t seem to bring any sun into her sky. Brad Clear was one big guy, over six feet, looked like someone who’d played in the NFL but some time ago. He had one of those stomachs that seems to have a life of its very own. And as always, he emphasized it with the tightest shirt. A very expensive suit did absolutely nothing to hide the gut, nor did he seem to care. He was maybe in that indefinable good for sixty-five or terrible for fifty age bracket. What remained of his blond hair was long at the back and, I prayed, not in one of those god-awful ponytails.
    The face though: a study in opposites, what they call a generous mouth below a nose that veered to the left and the hardestdark eyes I have even encountered. The utter kill-all-the-hostages hue. Something else, too, a spark of malignancy and black amusement. He came from behind a massive desk, of course, with his hand extended, said in a good ole boy roar,
    “Brad Clear, and you are?”
    “Jack Taylor.”
    He smiled, a dark and vicious thing, said,
    “Tell yah, buddy, that don’t mean Jack shit to me.”
    In that good ole tone.
    I took back my almost crushed hand, my mutilated fingers already acting out, said,
    “Tom Shea, the accountant, asked me to look into the death of his daughter.”
    He stared at me, asked,
    “Is that meant to clarify something?”
    Now I got to smile, said,
    “Thing is, she took part in some of your training videos.”
    He stayed with the
Gee, shucks, buddy, you darn lost me there
act. I reached into my jacket, took out the photos of the girl, the postmortem ones, laid them on the desk, said,
    “See if this jogs your memory.”
    He reeled back in mock horror, said,
    “That there is some real ugly shit, partner.”
    You see