Acid Lullaby (Underwood and Dexter)

by Ed O'Connor

  ‘Why were you on your own?’

  Fallon’s expression clouded briefly. ‘My mum died soon after we moved there. There was a car accident.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. It wasn’t your fault,’ Fallon replied crisply. ‘Unless you were driving a motorbike through the northern suburbs of Delhi in November 1971.’

  ‘Did you win?’ Liz ignored his weak attempt at humour.

  ‘Win what?’

  ‘The fancy-dress competition.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Liz held up the old book in her hands and flicked through. She winced at some of the pictures. ‘Man. This would give me nightmares.’

  ‘Assuming you get to sleep tonight.’

  She ignored the flirtation. ‘So you’re a closet intellectual?’

  ‘Hardly.’

  ‘What did you read at College?’

  ‘Philosophy.’

  ‘No shit?’

  ‘Yes shit. You say “shit” too much, by the way.’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  ‘Actually, I read Philosophy for two years then I changed to Theology.’

  ‘Why, for Christ’s sake?’

  ‘That’s a bad joke if you meant it. To be honest, I found philosophy boring. Theology was more to do with belief systems and religious mythology: much juicier.’

  ‘I’d never have guessed you were into all that stuff.’

  ‘I’m full of surprises. There’s a mythology exhibition at The British Museum this week as it happens. I’m going on Saturday. You should come.’ Max waved at the wine waiter who pulled a notebook from his pocket and drifted over.

  ‘I got better things to do on a Saturday than hang out in some stinking museum, bud.’

  ‘Stinking?’

  ‘Good evening,’ the waiter smiled at them.

  ‘Champagne,’ Max said without looking at him. ‘Not the house muck. Something decent.’

  ‘Of course, Monsieur.’

  ‘And you can ditch the accent. I’m not a tourist.’

  The waiter froze, bit his tongue and walked away. Liz was horrified.

  ‘Max, you are so rude.’

  ‘He’s about as French as my nuts.’ Max studied her closely for a second, his eyes moving over her. ‘I’ve got a question for you now.’

  ‘Shoot.’

  ‘What’s this I hear about you shagging some monkey from Settlements? Slouch or Couch or something.’

  ‘Crouch. That’s nothing. Just a kink I gotta iron out.’ Liz felt a sudden sting of guilt. She tried to dab the wound away.

  ‘Someone like you doesn’t need any dead wood.’

  ‘He’s a nice guy but it’s never going to work out. He’s kind of possessive.’

  ‘Ditch the bitch, I say. There are winners and losers. Blokes like that live in a cheap, spivvy little world. Cheap beer. Cheap clothes. A suffocating mortgage. Motorway nightclubs. Match of the Day. You don’t want that. Don’t demean yourself.’

  Liz shook her head slowly. ‘You’re just an incurable romantic, aren’t you?’

  Two champagne glasses appeared before them on the table. Max tasted the wine, gold and sparkling.

  ‘Spot on!’ He gestured at the waiter to continue pouring. ‘Seriously bloody spot on.’

  The bubbles nibbled at his tongue. He felt empowered. Liz sipped her champagne and he noticed the soft smear of lipstick she left on the lip of the glass. It was going to be a long and fruitful evening.

  6

  The following morning Simon Crouch got into work early. He was at his desk at 7a.m. He hoped to have a chat with Liz before the market opened and she immersed herself in trades, emails and excuses. He walked across the lift lobby from Settlements onto the hallowed ground of the trading floor. Most of the traders and bond salesmen were already at their desks. Some glugged coffee from expensive cardboard containers, others enjoyed the tits on page three and a few stared intently at their trading screens hunting out the titbit of information that might give them an edge.

  Eventually he arrived at the eurodollar trading desk in the centre of the floor. It was distinctive for three reasons: first, it had a line of US flags stretching across the tops of the computer monitors as if they denoted forces on a battlefield diorama. Secondly, a large rubber Yoda dangled above the desk in a noose. The toy had a piece of cardboard sellotaped across its belly that said: ‘May the Bourse be with you.’ Thirdly, Danny Planck, head of trading, was already booming instructions at his beleaguered foot soldiers.

  ‘The word today is Gas, boys and girls. We are expecting a billion spondoolies to hit the market from Arizona Natural Resources. Now as you know, this is a skittish market. It’s jumping about like a kangaroo in a carwash. The extra supply won’t help.’

  Planck picked up the baseball bat he kept by his desk and waved it around for emphasis. Crouch hung back. He had seen Planck smash up computer screens with his bat.

  ‘Look for simple switches into quality credits. Don’t bugger around. Use my tip list. Dangle your balls in the fire at your own peril.’ Planck looked around and picked up the bacon roll from his desk. ‘Now which one of you piss ants has taken my ketchup?’

  Planck spotted Crouch hovering nervously at his elbow.

  ‘What do you want, Crouchie? My trading sheets messed up again?’

  ‘Is Liz around?’ Crouch found his Essex accent grew more pronounced on the trading floor, like a boxer using his jab. ‘I need to check a couple of trades.’

  ‘Course you do!’ Planck winked at him. ‘Nice shoes by the way. Oi Adrian! Clock Crouchie’s didgeries.’

  A curly-haired trader looked up briefly from his glowing Bloomberg Screen and winced.

  ‘Plastic fantastic,’ he said with a yawn.

  Planck grinned hideously. ‘Yeah! Disposable shoes. They are shocking, Crouchie. A man’s shoes say a lot. You’re squeaking like a fucking hamster.’

  ‘Is Liz around?’ Crouch was used to taking flak from the Gucci-shod traders but today it burned inside him, like he’d drunk a pint of wasps.

  ‘She’s gonna be late,’ Adrian said flatly. ‘She was on the lash last night.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Crouch walked away, the bile rising inside him. Liz had been out on the piss half the night. So much for being exhausted. He ignored Danny Planck’s derisive shouts from behind him.

  ‘Eak-eak-eak-eak!’

  As he left the floor and crossed back across the lobby that separated Settlements from Trading, he walked right into Liz Koplinsky. She was emerging from a lift clutching a huge Starbuck’s Coffee. She had shower-wet hair scraped back over her head. It made her eyes shine brighter, despite the bags beneath them.

  ‘Hey you,’ she said wearily; an emotion flickered across her face. Crouch tried to decipher it: panic turned into guilt?

  ‘I called you last night.’

  ‘I heard the phone. I was tired. I had an early night.’

  The lies were becoming more obvious. Her eyes darting sideways as she spoke. He would remember that.

  ‘When can I see you?’ he asked simply.

  She felt a rush of pity. The simple imploring tone of his question upset her.

  ‘Listen, I’ll call you later. Big day on the desk today.’ She dragged her eyes from the floor with an effort. ‘I gotta go.’

  Crouch felt the frustration fermenting in his stomach as he watched her leave. He had seen enough. He knew it was over.

  Now, he had to know why.

  Around the corner, Liz arrived at the Eurodollar desk to a chorus of jeers and ‘look-at-the-state-of-that’s!’ She slumped into her chair and hung onto her coffee for warmth and support.

  ‘Good night, then?’ Adrian asked without looking up from his screens.

  Liz nodded. ‘The best.’

  ‘Some loser was looking for you.’

  Liz felt another spasm of guilt. She had treated Simon poorly. She had wanted to call it off but had hoped he would get the message by implication. Through the broken glass window o
f a hangover Liz saw she at least owed him the respect of breaking up properly. She decided to send him an email.

  7

  The black cab roared up from the gloom of the Limehouse Link Tunnel onto the highway. Crouch sat in the back, cold sweating with anxiety. The cab turned left at Tobacco Dock. The driver looked over his shoulder and opened the connecting window.

  ‘Left here, mate?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Crouch replied, ‘then down Wapping High Street. It’s opposite the tube station. Raleigh Wharf.’

  ‘Gotcha.’

  They arrived two minutes later. Crouch told the cab to wait for him. He hurried into the building as the cabbie opened a plastic thermos flask of coffee.

  Crouch unlocked Liz’s apartment. ‘2-1-2-3’ silenced the alarm system.

  The flat was humid and smelt of shower-gel. He was nervous and quickly retrieved the Dictaphone from the book­shelf. He was back outside within a minute.

  Back in the cab, Crouch took a deep breath and pressed play on the Dictaphone. Nothing happened. The batteries had died. The taxi rumbled back towards Canary Wharf, bouncing along the ancient cobbles of Wapping High Street. Crouch held the muted machine tightly in his hand.

  Max Fallon drifted into his office at 8a.m. Wearily, he turned on his computer and noticed he had twenty-six emails. Three were from Liz. He groaned and necked half a bottle of Evian. She had been a disconcertingly good ride but he hoped that she wasn’t a bunny boiler. A barnacle bird at the office was the last thing that he needed. He would trawl through the messages later. For the moment, he would concentrate on fighting dehydration.

  Simon Crouch bought two calculator batteries from the shop next to the canteen at Fogle & Moore and hurried down to his office. He closed the door behind him and fumbled the new batteries into the dictaphone. After a deep breath he pressed ‘play’. A light flashed on and through the electrical crackle of the playback he could hear snatches of Liz’s voice.

  ‘… Fogle & Moore … giving me a frigging pay rise … working my ass off twenty-four-seven.’

  There was a mumbling in the background. Someone else was in the room but Crouch couldn’t determine who. He frowned as he tried to decipher the answer and cursed the Dictaphone’s inadequate condenser mic. Liz’s voice broke through the crackle again. She sounded drunk.

  ‘… I do work weekends … some weekends … why are you being such an asshole …’

  He could hear Liz laughing. There was a crash of breaking glass. Drunk Liz dropping stuff – he’d seen her do it before.

  Footsteps. Footsteps on Liz’s stripped wooden floor. Expensive footsteps, getting louder. A man’s voice.

  ‘… are all assholes. Didn’t your mother tell you that?’

  Fury engulfed Simon Crouch. Fury that she had lied to him. Fury that he had lost control of events. Terror at what was coming. He could hear a rustling sound. Like the crumbling of a paper bag.

  ‘Shit. There’s wine down the front of your dress.’

  Liz’s reply was muffled and indistinct. The man’s voice again.

  ‘Why don’t you just take it off?’

  Crouch stopped the playback and was suddenly sick into his waste basket. He wiped the acid bile from his mouth. There it was. Cold and brutal. She was screwing him around. His heart was racing. His blood boiled behind his eyes. For a second, he thought about throwing the Dictaphone away. And yet morbid fascination drew him on. He tried for a moment to catch his breath. He removed his tie, its cheapness now stained with vomit. He pressed play.

  Liz’s voice: ‘Whaddya think?’

  Man: ‘… king fantasic.’

  Liz: ‘You planning on doing anything about it?’

  Man. He sounded drunk too. ‘What about your boyfriend … Mr Sad-Act from Settlements.’

  Liz: ‘… over. He’s nobody. Now are we gonna fuck or are you gonna talk shit all night?’

  Crouch sat back in his chair. It would have been better to walk in on them and catch them in the act: better to have fixed a single frozen horror in his mind. Then he could have turned the image into a jigsaw and picked away at it over time. Now, his imagination was painting dozens of terrible pictures.

  He was infuriated by his own idiocy. He was the biggest dickhead on the planet. He had cut her so much slack, believed all her self-esteem bullshit, tolerated the evaporation of their sex life. Aldo had been right all along. She was a piece of garbage. Crouch smashed his hand against the plastic desk. How could he have been so utterly fucking stupid?

  The playback continued. Grunting through the distortion.

  Man: ‘You like this?’

  Liz: ‘Fuck yes… Fuck yes…’

  Man: ‘… knew you were a dirty bitch …’

  Liz: ‘Ugh… Ugh… Fuck me … Fuck me …’

  Fawk me. Fawk me. Crouch found that her accent suddenly revolted him. As if he was eating sludge raked up from the bottom of the East River.

  Man: ‘Where do you want it?’

  Liz. Breathless. ‘Anywhere Max, anywhere you fucking want …’

  You fawking want. Max. Anywhere you fawking want. Max. Max.

  The noises went on. Grunting, screams, rustling. Like killing a pig. Eventually, the tape ran out and in the sudden silence of his office, Crouch cried for the first time in ten years. Every time he closed his eyes he saw Max Fallon, the market’s quintessential tosser, screwing his girlfriend. The image sickened and excited him. He found his own desolate arousal even more enraging. It took two hours for his despair to harden into fury.

  At 10.30 he read an email from Liz saying she needed space.

  At 11.00 he called Aldo.

  8

  Friday afternoon was usually a dead loss. The market indices always behaved erratically after lunchtime as hundreds of traders sloshed back to their desks with half a gallon of lager inside them. It was a sunny day too. The bars around Canary Wharf were already spilling people onto the dockside walk­ways. At 4.30p.m., Fallon gave up and decided to join them. He pulled on his navy blue suit jacket and announced his departure to the trading floor over the intercom: ‘I’m off to the pub. I suggest you wankers join me.’

  Insulted but unshackled, the weary traders gave up trying to make sense of the muddled Friday market and headed for the door.

  Simon Crouch stood at the far end of the trading floor. His eyes still stung. His guts were still twisted in agony. He saw Fallon striding from his office with Danny Planck jogging to keep up with him. Planck asked Fallon a question and slapped him on the back when he heard the answer. Crouch knew they were talking about Liz. It sickened him. She would be another filthy fairy story that fed the cult of Fallon. He would be the nameless sad act from Settlements that got shat on whenever the story was recycled.

  He was not prepared to accept that. Aldo had agreed to meet him at six o’clock. Aldo had a plan. Fallon had some­thing bad coming.

  The majority of the 3rd Floor bond jocks soon joined Fallon and Planck in Corney & Barrow. Time slipped by. Fallon was feeling generous and bought three pitchers of lager which were greedily, ungratefully received. He ordered a Japanese premium beer for himself. It came in a frosted glass; ice cold. It was a nice touch. Fallon enjoyed bestowing his largesse on the little people. They thought it made him one of them. He knew it was about control.

  Tall and imperious Pieter Richter drifted over and floated at Fallon’s side. He was ambitious and aggressive: the youngest director in Sales & Trading.

  ‘So come on, man!’ Richter boomed, Harvard Business School hadn’t quite ironed out his German accent, ‘did you stiff her?’

  Fallon was enjoying the attention.

  ‘What kind of question’s that?’ Fallon wore a grin that spoke a thousand words.

  ‘You stiffed her.’ Richter turned to Planck. ‘Can you believe this lucky son of a bitch?’

  Planck solemnly nodded his agreement. ‘It’s a disgrace. Nice, innocent girl like that.’

  Fallon almost choked on his beer. ‘Do me a favour! Innocent? She half
ripped my flesh off.’

  ‘Show us, man,’ Richter demanded.

  At the far end of the bar Simon Crouch bought a pint of Heineken for himself and a Vodka Mule for Aldo. He watched the laughing traders. Fallon’s voice, pure mockney, rose above them.

  ‘Piss off!’ Fallon shouted. ‘Just ’cause you don’t get any.’

  ‘This is bullshit, man,’ Richter teased. ‘You didn’t fuck nobody.’

  Planck grinned. ‘You won’t say that when you see your bonus.’

  Fallon hated being taunted. He was a God. He would provide a revelation for the unbelievers.

  ‘All right, then.’ He slipped off his jacket and lifted up the back of his shirt. ‘What about that, then?’

  Even Crouch could see the angry red nail marks scratched along Fallon’s hairless back. He recognized them. Six months ago he had worn them himself, proudly like a medal. He swallowed the acid that suddenly spurted into the back of his throat. Aldo grabbed him by the arm and pulled him out of the bar. The shrieks of the traders tumbled out of the door after them.

  There was a small standing area outside the bar that over­looked the dock. Aldo dragged Crouch over and pushed him into the wall. His friend was ready to explode. Tears brimmed in Crouch’s red eyes.

  ‘That prick.’ He spat the words into Aldo’s face. Aldo could taste the beer. ‘I’m going to rip his head off.’

  Aldo pushed Crouch back into the wall. ‘Don’t be stupid. We talked about this. You want to get even, then get smart.’ Aldo reached into his right jacket pocket and with­drew a tightly folded square of tin foil. Crouch’s body began to relax and he watched his friend discreetly unwrap the silver paper.

  ‘What’s that?’ said Crouch, brushing the tears of fury from his eyes.

  Aldo held up the unwrapped parcel so Crouch could see it. ‘This, mate, is revenge.’

  On the tin foil lay three white pills.

  They heard shouting from inside the bar. Crouch could make out Planck’s voice rising above the mayhem. He looked back through the doorway.

  ‘Jesus, Maxy, you were supposed to screw her not murder her!’ Planck was spluttering lager over the gathering.