Page 76 of Hang on St. Christopher

She waved and went back next door.

Mirror Duffy: “You still didn’t tell her about the common-law wife and bairn in Scotland, did you, Sean?”

No. I fucking didn’t.

I ate the pasta, listened to the Lou Reed, and admired the Picassos in the living room. They fit the room well. I put on Miles Davis, and I stood on one foot. I reckoned I was the only person in the world listening to Miles Davis on one foot while looking at an original Picasso.

With, it must be said, a massive hard-on.

Kill the music. Kill the yoga. Go next door and fuck her brains out.

No. “No, no, no.”

But maybe.

No.

Phone call.

“Sean, Emma misses you. I was wondering if?—”

“I’ll be right over.”

Outside to the Beemer. Look underneath for bombs. No bombs. Fast down Coronation Road.

So fast I barely registered the stranger lighting a cigarette under the overhang of Mr. Benn’s pigeon coop. I noticed him but I didn’t process it, because I had other things on my mind just then.

I could have missed him completely because he was very good.

One of the best. And I was going fast. But I registered him and later I remembered him. That wasn’t his fault. He was a professional surveillance goon standing a good hundred meters from the house, in shadow, at dusk, but he didn’t know that I knew every single person who lived on this street. I knew by heart Coronation Road’s geography, history, and sociology. This stretch of road (or possibly the Song Book records of Ella Fitzgerald) would be myMastermindspecialist subject. I had made a deep map of this place, and if anything was ever even slightly askew, I saw it.

I didn’t process the man then, that night. But I would.

Coronation Road, Victoria Road, Shore Road, Motorway, Belfast, Ferry Terminal, Ferry, Stranraer, Portpatrick, home.

Squeal of brakes in through the back door.

“Emma’s asleep now,” Beth said.

“How are you?”

“What’s that look in your eyes?”

“What look?”

“I dunno. Mad?”

“I’m fine.”

“Rapey.”

“Rapey?”

“Yeah, rapey. And, Jesus, is that a pistol in your pocket, or are you?—”

“Both.”

CHAPTER11

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