Dublin Noir by Ken Bruen Page B

belched and could taste vomit. He gagged from the taste.
    There were heavy footsteps on the stairs. Dugan looked up toward the sound. The woman pulled a string cord and a bright light filled the room. Dugan turned his head from the light.
    He heard whispers. He tried to open his eyes and felt himself slipping back into unconsciousness.
    He was back on the flight with the twins. They were joking about being with the girl, Catherine, the night after Dugan had told them about her. They had stopped by to chat her up and learned her cousin had left early. She had cab fare to get home, but they gave her a lift instead.
    “She went without question,” one of the twins had told Dugan. “Like we were sent from heaven saving her six bucks.”
    “We spent the night taking turns,” the other twin had bragged. “First me, then Sean, then me again. This way, that way. She finally cried when she was fecked raw around sun-up. We did save her the cab fare, though. And you were right, until she cried, she purred like a feckin’ kitty cat.”
    Dugan remembered telling them, “I told you so.”
    “Sorry I’m late,” Dugan heard a deep voice say. He opened his eyes and saw a hulking shadow at the foot of the stairs.
    The huge man had a thick red beard and looked familiar. He leaned over the woman and kissed her forehead.
    “Rusty?” Dugan said. “What’s going on? Why am I tied?”
    “You’re to answer for Catherine,” the woman said.
    Dugan was confused. “Catherine?”
    “My niece.”
    “Mary?” Dugan said. “Mary Collins.”
    The woman took a drag from her cigarette.
    “I’d’ve liked to be here earlier,” the big man said.
    “The soldier boyos took care of it,” the woman said. “They were happy to help.”
    Dugan saw she was still holding the long sleek boning knife. “What’s the knife for, Mary?”
    “You,” the big man replied.
    “But it’s easier when the bones are popped from their joints first,” the woman said. “Why I waited for Rusty here. He caught a late flight.”
    Dugan turned to the big man. “Rusty, what the hell is this? What’s going on?”
    “The other two had something to offer, the boyos took mercy and shot them in the head,” the woman said. “Cutting them up afterwards isn’t a problem. It’s only when you’re keeping them alive so they can feel it does it make a difference. That’s when it helps, the bones are popped or pulled from their joints first.”
    The big man grabbed one end of the blue tarpaulin and whipped it off of two dead bodies. Dugan saw it was the twins laying across one another. He saw a hole in the back of one head before he saw the one with the mustache had been shot through the eyes. Dugan gagged twice before he was sick on himself.
    The woman was standing now, holding the boning knife in one hand. She held a pint of Guinness in the other. She sipped from the pint before handing it off to the big man.
    “Oh, God have mercy!” Dugan whimpered. “God have mercy.”
    “Those two talked about what they did to my niece after they had too much to drink,” the woman said. “The wankers went back to the bar and told it to the wife of the man they beat for you and Marty Ryan, thought they could double-team her, too, from the shite you’d said about her. They tried to feck with her head, told her they’d beat her husband again unless she did what they wanted. They weren’t very bright, the twins. It all got back to Rusty here. From the woman herself. Nancy, is it?”
    Dugan was shaking his head.
    “The boyos here saw the knife and gave you up in a flat second,” she added. “Everything you told them, how we sent her off because she was tainted, you fucking shite. You didn’t have a clue, but you felt like talking, eh?”
    “It’s what I was told,” Dugan said. “I swear it, Mary. I was told she’d been raped by felons from Mountjoy and lost her mind from it.”
    “She was,” the woman said. “And she was affected, but we sent her away so