Iced
Page 103
They were carrying bags of canned goods and smiling. In my experience, anybody besides your mom that feeds you is going to want something in exchange for it.
I whiz up to Dancers penthouse, where we like to stretch out in the sun, disarm his booby traps and poke my head in the door, calling for him. The place is silent and empty. I decide to see if hes got any food in the pantry cause Im starving. When I get there, I crack up. Theres a note taped to a stack of cans sitting smack in the middle of the floor. Its a cryptogram. Its how we leave messages for each other.
I pop open can after can of beanie weenies and gorge while I solve the puzzle that tells me where he is.
Theres a lot hidden away in Dublin, just like out at the abbey. When I first started hanging out in the city, I got one of those sightseeing books and visited all the hot spots like any tourist. I was embarrassed to be a stranger in my own town, never having been out of my cage much. I wanted to know everything everybody else knew, see it all with my own eyeballs instead of watching it on TV or reading about it in a book.
I went to Trinity College and toured all the cool stuff there. I never got to go to school so it was neat to see the classrooms and labs and libraries and folks being all social instead of being kept by themselves all the time. I couldnt wrap my brain around growing up that way. Mom taught me to read. I taught myself the rest.
I hit up the museums, dropped by the brewery, hung out in Temple Bar, visited the catacombs beneath Christ Church Cathedral and St. Michans Church, and eventually hunted down the underground rivers. I listened when college kids raved about their favorite places and went there, too. I paid attention when old folks talked on the streets about things that used to be.
Thats how I found Dublin-down. Couple of wrinkly old dudes playing checkers by River Liffey used to work for a mob family and knew some interesting stuff. Beneath a restaurant run by a dude name of Rocky OBannion, this big-time mobster that disappeared last year in the craziness of the walls coming down, I found it. A honeycomb of tunnels and hidden crypts beyond a pile of rubble and a series of grated entrances so complex only someone as curious as me or a criminal trying to hide bodies and booty would ever have gone through. Dancer and me mapped out parts but we still got a lot to explore.
Thats where I find him now, in one of the underground catacombs, down a collapsed tunnel (unless you knew how to find the hidden detour) beyond bolted steel doors, hinged into stone, all booby-trapped.
The room hes in is long and narrow and made completely of stone, with those old vaulted fornix ceilings, supported by massive columns, like I only ever seen in ancient crypts and the library at the abbey. Hes got lights set up that I figure have to be battery-powered cause I dont hear a generator, and setting one up tovent down here would take a lot of work. Hes standing behind a stone slab that used to hold a corpse but is now covered with notebooks and envelopes, laptops, bottles, beakers, and burners. Yep, this place is Dancer, just missing a TV to watch movies on, a fridge and shower, and knowing him, he probably has a hidey-hole rigged up nearby with all the conveniences. Another slab is crammed with bottled water and food. His head is down and hes working on something, deep in thought.
Dude, this is fecking awesome! I say as I step inside.
Dancer looks up and the grin he gives me is blinding. His whole body changes, like he was strung up on wires hanging him from the ceiling and they just got cut. His shoulders ride lower, his limbs slide smoother, the hard planes of his face relax into the Dancer I know. Mega! he says. Then he says it again, Mega!
Thats my name, dude. Dont wear it out. I swagger into the chamber and see hes been collecting things from the scenes, too. Behind him is the pice de rsistance: a mystery board! He blew up maps and pieced together an enormous topographical survey of Dublin and the outlying areas and has pins and notes plastered all over it. I beam. I couldnt have done better myself. This place is the Shit, I say.
Thought youd like it. He picks his glasses up off the slab, pushes them back on his nose and grins at me. His eyes are red like hes been studying too long. Hes tall and lanky and pretty much perfect. I grin back and we just grin at each other for a few seconds, cause were so happy to see each other again. Its a big city. Sometimes I feel alone in it. Then I see Dancer.
I toss my backpack on a nearby folding table and pull out my ziplocks and photos to add to his board. He comes over and we sort through them in happy silence, brushing shoulders and grinning at each other. He keeps looking at me like he cant exactly believe Im there. Dudes acting like he really missed me. Were always glad to see each other, but somethings different today.
I go to start pinning my photos of the scenes on the board, and I look back at him, cause something dont make sense to me, besides how strange hes acting. There aint this many iced places in Dublin! I gesture at the pins on the board.
There werent a few weeks ago. Its been escalating.
Dude, there were only ten. You got, like, twenty-five pins on this board! You telling me fifteen more places got iced in the past few days?
Mega, the last time I saw you was nearly a month ago. The day we tried to get your sword back from Jayne.
I gape. That wasnt a month ago. That was a couple days ago!
I whiz up to Dancers penthouse, where we like to stretch out in the sun, disarm his booby traps and poke my head in the door, calling for him. The place is silent and empty. I decide to see if hes got any food in the pantry cause Im starving. When I get there, I crack up. Theres a note taped to a stack of cans sitting smack in the middle of the floor. Its a cryptogram. Its how we leave messages for each other.
I pop open can after can of beanie weenies and gorge while I solve the puzzle that tells me where he is.
Theres a lot hidden away in Dublin, just like out at the abbey. When I first started hanging out in the city, I got one of those sightseeing books and visited all the hot spots like any tourist. I was embarrassed to be a stranger in my own town, never having been out of my cage much. I wanted to know everything everybody else knew, see it all with my own eyeballs instead of watching it on TV or reading about it in a book.
I went to Trinity College and toured all the cool stuff there. I never got to go to school so it was neat to see the classrooms and labs and libraries and folks being all social instead of being kept by themselves all the time. I couldnt wrap my brain around growing up that way. Mom taught me to read. I taught myself the rest.
I hit up the museums, dropped by the brewery, hung out in Temple Bar, visited the catacombs beneath Christ Church Cathedral and St. Michans Church, and eventually hunted down the underground rivers. I listened when college kids raved about their favorite places and went there, too. I paid attention when old folks talked on the streets about things that used to be.
Thats how I found Dublin-down. Couple of wrinkly old dudes playing checkers by River Liffey used to work for a mob family and knew some interesting stuff. Beneath a restaurant run by a dude name of Rocky OBannion, this big-time mobster that disappeared last year in the craziness of the walls coming down, I found it. A honeycomb of tunnels and hidden crypts beyond a pile of rubble and a series of grated entrances so complex only someone as curious as me or a criminal trying to hide bodies and booty would ever have gone through. Dancer and me mapped out parts but we still got a lot to explore.
Thats where I find him now, in one of the underground catacombs, down a collapsed tunnel (unless you knew how to find the hidden detour) beyond bolted steel doors, hinged into stone, all booby-trapped.
The room hes in is long and narrow and made completely of stone, with those old vaulted fornix ceilings, supported by massive columns, like I only ever seen in ancient crypts and the library at the abbey. Hes got lights set up that I figure have to be battery-powered cause I dont hear a generator, and setting one up tovent down here would take a lot of work. Hes standing behind a stone slab that used to hold a corpse but is now covered with notebooks and envelopes, laptops, bottles, beakers, and burners. Yep, this place is Dancer, just missing a TV to watch movies on, a fridge and shower, and knowing him, he probably has a hidey-hole rigged up nearby with all the conveniences. Another slab is crammed with bottled water and food. His head is down and hes working on something, deep in thought.
Dude, this is fecking awesome! I say as I step inside.
Dancer looks up and the grin he gives me is blinding. His whole body changes, like he was strung up on wires hanging him from the ceiling and they just got cut. His shoulders ride lower, his limbs slide smoother, the hard planes of his face relax into the Dancer I know. Mega! he says. Then he says it again, Mega!
Thats my name, dude. Dont wear it out. I swagger into the chamber and see hes been collecting things from the scenes, too. Behind him is the pice de rsistance: a mystery board! He blew up maps and pieced together an enormous topographical survey of Dublin and the outlying areas and has pins and notes plastered all over it. I beam. I couldnt have done better myself. This place is the Shit, I say.
Thought youd like it. He picks his glasses up off the slab, pushes them back on his nose and grins at me. His eyes are red like hes been studying too long. Hes tall and lanky and pretty much perfect. I grin back and we just grin at each other for a few seconds, cause were so happy to see each other again. Its a big city. Sometimes I feel alone in it. Then I see Dancer.
I toss my backpack on a nearby folding table and pull out my ziplocks and photos to add to his board. He comes over and we sort through them in happy silence, brushing shoulders and grinning at each other. He keeps looking at me like he cant exactly believe Im there. Dudes acting like he really missed me. Were always glad to see each other, but somethings different today.
I go to start pinning my photos of the scenes on the board, and I look back at him, cause something dont make sense to me, besides how strange hes acting. There aint this many iced places in Dublin! I gesture at the pins on the board.
There werent a few weeks ago. Its been escalating.
Dude, there were only ten. You got, like, twenty-five pins on this board! You telling me fifteen more places got iced in the past few days?
Mega, the last time I saw you was nearly a month ago. The day we tried to get your sword back from Jayne.
I gape. That wasnt a month ago. That was a couple days ago!
