The Killing of the Tinkers by Ken Bruen

with the tone. Whatever happened, I’m not part of it. I’m with you, remember?”
    A bitterness worked its way down from his eyes to his mouth, caused a tic to vibrate above his lips. He scratched at it, said,
    “You’re from the settled community. No matter how outlaw you think you are, you’re part of them.”
    I let it go but I didn’t fucking like it. Shook out a cig. Sweeper ordered,
    “Light two.”
    The child in me wanted to roar,
    “Buy your own.”
    I lit them, handed one over. He said,
    “I’ve offended you, Jack Taylor.”
    “Don’t sweat it, pal.”
    He concentrated on his driving. The nicotine joined the cloud of tension. He pulled up at Dangan Heights and we got out. He nodded towards the valley, said,
    “Look.”
    Mainly I could see smoke. I said,
    “Fires, bush fires. So what?”
    “That’s the…camping ground.”
    Focusing, I could see people, wandering stunned through the haze. Men, limping, were vainly ferrying water in a futile effort to douse the flames. Children, barefoot, were crying, clinging to mothers. Not a caravan was untouched. Those not aflame were overturned or charred. I asked,
    “Where are the guards?”
    He snorted with derision, asked,
    “You listen to the news, right?”
    “Sure.”
    “Did you hear anything about this?”
    “No.”
    “Because it’s not news.”
    “Who did it?”
    “The upright citizens you’ll find in church.”
    I thought of my mother, didn’t argue. I looked at his hair, his clothes, said,
    “You were there.”
    “Yes, but I arrived late. Not that it made any difference. I did stop two from castrating one of my cousins.”
    “It sounds like
Soldier Blue
.”
    “It sounds like Ireland today.”
    “What will you do now?”
    “Rebuild. It’s what we always do.”
    “I don’t know what to say.”
    He clapped my arm, said,
    “Come on, I’ll drive you back.”
    “Could I go down, help somehow?”
    “A settled person would not be welcome today or for many days.”
    We drove back in silence. At the house, I said,
    “Call me if you need anything.”
    “I need one thing, Jack Taylor.”
    “Name it.”
    “Find whoever’s killing my people.”

“What laws shall you fear if you dance but stumble against no man’s iron chains?”
    Khalil Gibran,
The Prophet
    I had no idea how to get Ronald Bryson. Shooting him was the most attractive idea. Proof, some bloody proof. I could pray, of course, but held little store in that. Whatever else, I didn’t think faith would nail the bastard. So I did what I do when I’m stuck. I read. Call it escape, I call it calm. My most recent find was Robert Irwin. A joy to my heart, a Cambridge scholar and wild drug user. Him I’d have liked on a pub crawl. How could it miss? His brilliant crazy work,
Satan Wants Me,
had just been reissued. Set in swinging London in 1967, it’s beyond definition. So taken was I, I had got Vinny to track down
An Exquisite Corpse,
about surrealism in 1930. They don’t have to be read in the west of Ireland with a line of coke and a large tumbler of Black Bush, but Christ, it sure enriches the rush.
    My strategy on finishing those was to revisit James Sallis. In particular, his Lew Griffin novels, and then I’d be in the perfect zone for embracing mayhem. The phone went. I gulped some Bush and picked it up.
    “Jack!”
    “Laura?”
    She was weeping, gasping for breath. I said,
    “Take it slow, hon, I’m here. Just tell me where you are.”
    “In a phone booth on Eyre Square.”
    “Don’t move, I’ll be right there.”
    I found the kiosk and a near hysterical Laura. When I opened the door, she jumped. I said,
    “It’s OK…shhss.”
    I cradled her, and a woman passing glared at me, her eyes shooting venom. I said,
    “I didn’t do it.”
    “That’s what they all say.”
    Laura pushed a crushed package to me. The Zhivago logo. She said,
    “I got you a present, Jack.”
    That nearly killed me. Put that feeling on top of rage and you’re holding high explosive. I