Read Online Eightball Boogie by Declan Burke - Free Book Online Page A

mine, gaze steady. Fear churned through the anticipation, and a warm tingle ran up my spine. My throat went dry. It was the old familiar feeling, the kind of old and familiar that needs carbon dating. Besides, there was already plenty of space for a wedge to be driven between Denise and me, and with Gonzo back in town I wouldn’t need to buy a new mallet. I took refuge in my pint. She laughed, frustrated.
    “ You play this hard to get with every woman who buys you a pint?”
    “ I’m not hard to get. That’s my jokes.”
    “ True enough.” She sipped her drink, considered me across the rim of the glass. “So what are you, queer?”
    “ It’s worse. I’m married.”
    “ I don’t see any ring.”
    “ We call him Ben. He’s four years old.”
    “ Nice name.”
    “ I couldn’t spell anything more complicated.”
    “ I can sympathise.” The wide-eyed gaze dared me to look away. I took the dare. She stubbed her cigarette out and said, just loud enough for me to hear: “I’m not that fussed on complications myself.”
    She dug a pen from her handbag, scrawled a number on a beer mat. Then, without saying another word, she got up and left. I watched her go and then tore the number off the beer mat. I looked at it for a long time, knowing what I should do. Then I put the scrap of paper in my wallet where I knew Denise would never find it, behind the condom.
    Dutchie leaned across the bar as I put my jacket on.
    “ Are you driving?”
    “ Don’t be daft. Alfred’s waiting with the limo.”
    “ Don’t take the bridge. The Dibble were pulling there earlier on.”
    “ Cheers.”
    I downed the last of the pint, which put me at least five full pints over the limit, but I’d never thought with such clarity before. My reactions were sharp, vision twenty-twenty. I hadn’t had a woman come on to me like that in years, not even Denise, especially not Denise. I felt buoyant, untouchable. Bulletproof.
    Of course, that was before all the shooting started.
     

8
     
    If you’re going to get kicked senseless it’s best to take certain precautions. Getting drunk is one. That way you go with the flow and don’t resist, which is how bones get broken, especially when there’s three of them and one is wielding an empty beer keg like it’s a beach ball.
    I didn’t even see them coming. One moment I was drunk and warm, thinking about Katie and feeling pretty damn good about myself. The next I was rolling in the gutter, ducking flailing boots and what felt like a length of thick chain. I locked my hands around my head, curled into a ball and tried to scream.
    They were quiet, efficient and deadly. The only sounds were hollow thuds, squishy splats. They booted my kidneys, chain-whipped my legs, pounded my stomach. One of them rabbit-punched my shoulders, fist wrapped in a knuckle-duster. I drifted into semi-consciousness, feeling the blows but not the pain. And then something heavy bounced off my shoulder and clanged away across the cobblestones, jerking me back to reality. It was the beer keg and they had stopped.
    I heard a voice close to my ear, straining to catch its breath, a voice with a northern twang.
    “ Stay away from her, big man. Ye hear?”
    I didn’t answer. I wasn’t able to breathe, the gorge in my chest rising into my throat. I managed a nod, a snuffle that sent something thick and slimy down the back of my throat. The voice came again.
    “ Else it’ll be the wee man getting it. Ben, ye call him?”
    He ruffled my hair and then I heard footsteps, quick but not hurried as they strolled away down the alley. Leaving me to snuffle some more snot and blood, face down in my own vomit. I tried to move. Bolts of pain shot through me, tripped the circuits. The world went black except for a dull red glow right in the middle of the nothingness. When it started to fade I followed it down.
     
     
     
    I couldn’t have been lying there long. Dutchie said, after, that a bloke angling for a sneaky piss behind the