Danny stared at the flyer, sure that this was the closest he was ever going to get to the prize money. His odds of winning were slimmer than the rolled-up cigarette tucked behind Tim’s ear, but he knew he had to try. He also knew that if he wanted to stand any chance of succeeding, he was going to need all the help he could get.
* * *
Music throbbed and strobe lights flickered as disenchanted women danced for loud men with slick hair and soggy collars. Danny edged his way through the crowd towards the bar where Vesuvius was busy serving customers. He looked at Danny and winked.
“Come for that kiss, have we?”
“I’m saving that for a rainy day,” said Danny.
“That’s not rain?” said Vesuvius, nodding at the wet patches all over Danny’s shirt.
Danny looked down and grimaced when he saw he was covered in other people’s sweat. “I wish,” he said, grabbing a napkin from the dispenser and gently dabbing himself. “Is Krystal around?”
“Why do you think this place is so busy?”
The collective murmur of the crowd grew louder as the music began to fade out.
“You’re just in time,” he said, pointing over Danny’s shoulder as the lights dimmed and the room went dark.
Danny turned to see several spotlights gathered on an empty podium with a pole in the middle and dark-red curtains behind it. People started shoving each other as they surged towards the stage, eager for a better view of the night’s main attraction. The walls and floors began to shake with a bass line so penetrating that Danny felt almost violated by it, and moments later Krystal emerged, slinking through the curtains and strutting into the spotlights wearing a Stetson, cowboy boots, a holster hung from a belt on her hips, and black-and-white cowhide underwear that was so skimpy the cow probably didn’t even know it was missing.
The men roared and whistled as Krystal approached the pole. One of them lunged for her leg as she passed and got a solid kick to the face for his efforts.
“That’s my girl,” said Vesuvius with fatherly pride.
Danny had only ever been to one “gentlemen’s” club before. It was shortly after he’d started working with Alf, when one of the brickies invited everybody to his stag party. The event was supposed to be a pub crawl, and that’s what it was until the sambuca started flowing and somebody suggested going to Sunset Boulevard, a notoriously dodgy lap-dancing club. After calling Liz and clearing the idea with her (he was hoping she wouldn’t let him go, but she seemed to find the idea of Danny in a strip club hilarious), Danny reluctantly tagged along. He had no desire to stuff money he didn’t have into thongs of women he didn’t know, but he’d only been working on the site for a couple of weeks by then and he didn’t want to be remembered as the only person who left the party early.
The entrance fee included a free lap dance, which Danny didn’t want, so he donated his ticket to another member of the group, who in turn gave it to one of the girls and informed her that Danny was the rightful beneficiary. Before he realized what was happening, a bony teenager with straight blond hair and eyes that were darker than a Whitechapel alley planted herself in his lap. Not wanting to cause offense by asking her to unmount him, and physically unable to remove her without risking a pummeling from the bouncers who seemed almost eager for somebody to break the no-touching policy, he awkwardly endured the lifeless two-minute shuffle, his eyes fixed firmly on the ceiling while the girl jerked around on top of him, her hands on his shoulders and her gaze flitting between Danny and a grim-faced man who watched her from the corner. When it was over and he sheepishly tipped her, bypassing the garter she presented and handing her the money directly, the girl barely cracked a smile as she slid from his lap and climbed onto the next person the man in the corner jabbed his finger at. The whole experience was about as erotic as a trip to IKEA, which was where Danny would have rather been, even though he hated IKEA. As for the girl, she looked like she’d prefer to be bungee jumping without a rope than grinding away in the laps of strangers, but as Danny watched Krystal working the crowd, he couldn’t help but notice how much fun she was having. She wasn’t dancing for the men who were elbowing each other for the chance to cram her boots with their mortgage payments and children’s tuition fees. She was dancing for herself, and they were paying her to do it.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” said Vesuvius. Danny knew precisely what he meant. Krystal wasn’t just performing. She was psychoanalyzing, scanning faces, observing body language, profiling personalities, identifying weaknesses, searching for voids that needed filling, pressing buttons that were rusty with neglect, playing people against one another. She could trick the room’s most frugal man into reaching for his wallet by simply paying more attention to the man standing next to him. She could pluck the last tenner from a poor man’s hand and still somehow manage to make him feel rich. She could make the biggest loser in life feel like he’d won the lottery with nothing more than a well-timed wink, and when she saw Danny across the room and flashed him a fleeting smile, even he experienced a warm fuzzy flutter that lasted until she finished her performance and joined him at the bar.
“I thought you promised to leave me alone,” said Krystal. She took a thirsty gulp of the water that Vesuvius handed to her.
“I have something I think you might be interested in,” said Danny at the same moment that Fanny walked past. She shot him a dubious glance. “And, no, Fanny, it’s not what you think.” She smirked and disappeared into the cellar. “It’s this.” He unfolded the flyer and slapped it onto the bar.
“What am I looking at?” said Krystal, staring blankly at the piece of paper.
“Battle of the Street Performers. Winner gets ten grand.”
“Thanks for stating the obvious, Danny. I mean, why are you showing it to me?”
“Because I’m going to enter,” said Danny.
“Good for you.”
“And I’m going to win.”
“That’s the spirit.”
“Because you’re going to help me.”
“Oh yeah?” she said. “By doing what exactly? Murdering the other contestants?”
“By teaching me everything you know.”
“In four weeks?”
“Yeah. Well, three and a half.”
“Have you been drinking?” said Krystal. She turned to Vesuvius. “Has he been drinking?” Vesuvius shrugged.
“I’m serious,” said Danny. “I think we can do it.”
“No, Danny, we can’t.”
“We can split the winnings. Fifty-fifty. Straight down the middle.”
“It’s not possible.”
“Yes, it is. You just divide ten by two, it’s super easy.”
“No, you muppet. I mean there’s not enough time.”
“Okay, how about sixty-forty?” he said.
“Danny, it’s not about the money, it’s—”
“Fine, seventy-thirty, but that’s my final offer.”
“You still owe me a hundred quid!” she said.
“Plus the hundred quid, obviously.”
“Danny, I’d help you out if I could, really, but you’re not even close to competition level and there’s no way in hell you’re going to get there in the next few weeks, even if we practiced twenty-four hours a day. If I was you, I’d forget about the contest and focus on perfecting the simple stuff I taught you.” She threw her empty bottle in the bin and adjusted her cowhide bra. “I need to get back to work.”
“Wait!” said Danny as Krystal turned to leave.
“Sorry, Danny.”
“Look, just hear me out for one second. Please.” Krystal sighed and gestured for him to finish. “I have a son. His name is Will. He’s eleven years old. He was in the car with my wife when she died and he hasn’t spoken a word since. Literally, nothing, so it’s fair to say he doesn’t need any more problems in his life, which is why I haven’t told him that I lost my job, and I certainly haven’t told him that I’m now a full-time fucking panda bear. He still thinks I work
on the building site and he still thinks we can pay the rent, but we can’t, and in four weeks’ time my nasty bastard of a landlord is going to evict us, but not before he breaks whatever part of my body he deems to be my favorite, because that’s the kind of nasty bastard he is. And the only way I can stop that from happening is if I win this competition. I know it’s a long shot, and I know it’s almost certainly hopeless, but I’ve got to try, because if I don’t, I am well and truly fucked. So, please, help me. I’ve never begged for anything, but I’m begging you right now.”
Krystal shook her head, but it wasn’t a no. It was a “what furry little animal did I kill in my former life, or what frail old grandmother did I defraud to get punished like this?” kind of shake. She looked at Vesuvius, who’d been listening in on the whole thing.
“Well?” she said.
Vesuvius looked at Danny. Danny did his best to look pathetic, something he was becoming increasingly adept at. Vesuvius looked at Krystal and nodded.
“Seriously!” she said, her hands held out like Krystal the Redeemer. “I expected more from you, Suvi.” She sighed and looked at Danny. “Okay, fine, whatever. I’ll help. Just as long as you know that we’re not going to win.”
“You mean it?”
“That we aren’t going to win? Absolutely.”
“That you’ll help me,” said Danny.
“I said so, didn’t I? Monday. Eight a.m. Don’t be late.”
“Thank you,” said Danny. “Seriously. You don’t know how much this means to me. You are such a… WANKER!”
“What the—”
“Not you!” he said before Krystal could hurt him. “That guy!” He pointed to a man with a bony face and a deathly pallor who was standing behind Krystal. “That one. Right there. That’s the guy who got me fired.”
Three men in black suits were talking together near the stage. They looked like they’d just come from a funeral, and Viktor looked like the deceased, his already pale complexion almost translucent beneath the cold white light he was standing under.
“So this is all his fault?”
Danny nodded, his jaw flexing as he stared at Viktor the way El Magnifico stared at something he wanted to ignite.
“Suvi,” said Krystal, “pass me that mic, would you?”
She took the microphone from Vesuvius and shoved her way through the door behind the bar. Danny was still wondering where she’d gone when everyone in the room started cheering and chanting. He turned to see what the fuss was about and found Krystal standing in the middle of the stage, surrounded by a sea of punters who wrongly assumed they were getting an encore.
“You all having a good night?” she said, aiming the microphone at the crowd.
Everybody roared in agreement.
“I thought you might say that. Anybody up for a little game?”
Another boisterous chorus of approval.
“The prize is one private dance with yours truly…” she said. She waited for the room to calm down before continuing. “… and the winner is the first person to unblock the men’s toilet using that guy’s head.”
Vesuvius cut the lights and turned a single spotlight on Viktor. The man raised his hand to shield his eyes from the glare, but to everyone else it looked like he was inexplicably trying to identify himself, as if being used as a human toilet brush was something he actually quite enjoyed.
“May the best man win!” she shouted as everybody piled on Viktor, who turned an extra shade of pale as the crowd dragged him off to the bathroom.
CHAPTER 19
A man with what appeared to be a single giant dreadlock slowly pushed his rickety drinks cart along the path. Danny watched him from his place on the bench, his soggy panda mask steaming gently beside him after a flustered and ultimately misguided attempt to entertain the crowd with his own rendition of the Gangnam dance.
He bought a can of Pepsi (which on closer inspection turned out to be something called Popsi) and held it against his forehead while he watched an elderly lady in a cardigan, far too thick for such a sunny day, trying to attach a leash to a hyperactive beagle. Every time she came within arm’s reach of the animal, the beagle would gallop off and patiently wait for her to catch up before repeating the process ad infinitum. Noticing Danny, either by sight or by the curious odor that continued to emanate from his costume no matter how many times he washed it, the dog trotted over to investigate, sniffing his furry leg as if it wasn’t sure whether to bite it, hump it, or use it as a pee-post. It was still trying to decide which course of action to take when the old lady seized her moment to creep up from behind and fumble the leash onto the distracted dog’s collar. She gave Danny a knowing nod, as if the two of them had been catching dogs together for years. Danny nodded back and watched the lady shuffle off while her beagle kept trying to trip her up with the leash.
He’d barely put his mask back on when somebody spoke behind him.
“Do you just sit in the park all day?”
Danny fumbled for his pad and pen with his cumbersome panda paws as Will appeared in front of him.
It’s nicer than sitting in the middle of the motorway, he wrote.
“No, I mean, don’t you have a job or something?”
I’m a panda. This is my job.
Will smiled. He took off his schoolbag and sat on the bench.
Don’t you have a job? wrote Danny.
“Yeah,” said Will, removing his tie and wrapping it around his hand. “School. I work long hours and don’t get paid. It’s the worst job ever.”
I think I prefer my job.
“I’d prefer your job too,” said Will. “Except today.” He squinted at the sun. “It’s too hot to be a panda today.”
It’s okay. Pandas have complex cooling mechanisms.
“Oh yeah? Like what?”
Danny held up his can of Popsi.
Will rolled his eyes. “Very complex,” he said.
Danny stared at the unopened can and wished he could take a sip without blowing his cover.
“Mr. Carter’s Complex Conundrum,” said Will, as if to himself.
Danny looked at him, confused.
“It’s this thing in my maths class. The teacher, Mr. Carter, he always writes a problem on the board at the start of every lesson, and at the end he picks somebody in the class to solve it. He calls it his Complex Conundrum. I hate it.”
Why? wrote Danny, unsure where this was going exactly but eager to keep Will talking.
“Because I can never figure it out. Sometimes I know the answer, but most of the time I don’t, so whenever it’s something I don’t understand, I stay quiet and put my head down and hope he doesn’t see me.” Will thought for a minute. “It’s hard to explain, but that’s sort of why I stopped talking.”
Because of maths class? wrote Danny. He made a mental note to find Mr. Carter and give him a complex conundrum of his own.
“No,” he said. “Not because of maths class. Because, well, something bad happened last year. Something really bad, and it just didn’t make any sense.” He pulled on the end of his tie and it closed around his hand like a mini boa constrictor. “It was like Mr. Carter’s maths problems but a million times worse. I didn’t know what to do, so I just did what I always do in maths.”
You stayed quiet and hoped people would leave you alone? wrote Danny. Will nodded. Danny scrapped his mental note to wait for Mr. Carter in the school car park.
“I just thought it would all go away if I ignored it for long enough. Like, as long as I didn’t attract any attention to myself, then the problem would just, I don’t know, disappear or something.” Will unwound his tie and started wrapping his hand up again. “It seemed a lot more normal when I said it in my head. Now it just sounds weird.”
And there it was. Just like that. After fourteen months of wondering, Danny had an answer. He sat back and waited for the relief to wash over him, but when it came it was more like a drizzle than the downpour he expected. It was sadness he felt more than anything�
�sadness that Will had been suffering in silence, sadness that Danny himself had let it happen, and sadness that it took this ridiculous situation to finally learn the truth.
Realizing that Will was staring at him, he grabbed his pad.
It’s not weird, he scribbled.
“Thanks.”
Talking to a panda is weird.
“My teacher talks to a one-eared rabbit called Colin.” Danny didn’t even bother trying to respond to that one. “And anyway, if talking to a panda makes me weird, what does that make you?”
Super weird.
“Then I guess we’re just two weirdos in a park,” said Will.
I’m okay with that.
Will smiled. “Me too,” he said. Danny reminded himself to talk to Will about the dangers of hanging out with weirdos in parks.
He looked at his son, trying to gauge his next move. The polite thing to do, under normal circumstances, would be to ask about the incident last year, but Danny was already painfully aware of that part of the story and he didn’t want to force Will to talk about anything he didn’t want to (although if there was one thing the last year had taught him, it was that nobody could make Will talk about anything he didn’t want to). Then again, perhaps he did want to talk about it, and by not asking, Danny was denying his son the first and maybe only opportunity to open up about the whole thing. Danny stared at the pad in his hands, unsure what to do next.
“Has anybody you know ever died?” said Will.
Danny wondered how best to respond. He didn’t want to blow his cover by telling Will the truth, but he didn’t want to lie to him either. He felt bad enough about the situation already.
Yes, he wrote, hoping Will wouldn’t probe any further.
“Do you miss them?”
Danny nodded. Very much. He listened to a pair of sparrows chatting away in the branches above while his son quietly fidgeted beside him.
“My mum died in a car crash,” said Will. “It was over a year ago, but I still miss her a lot.” His voice sounded distant, as if trying to retreat. “It feels strange, saying that out loud.”
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