by Ken Bruen
Roberts was appalled, his lovely nose, his only decent feature, said:
‘You should see the other guy’
Brant nodded, said:
‘Oh, we will.’
A nurse came, began to fluff the pillows, the mandatory nurse stuff, she asked:
‘How are we feeling?’
Roberts said:
‘I’m in pain, could I get something?’
‘Not till the doctor does his rounds.’
‘When is that?’
She looked at her watch, said:
‘Oh, I’d say Tuesday’
And was gone.
Roberts groaned and Brant put his hand in his jacket, said:
‘Try this.’
A small brown bottle, with clear liquid. Porter was alarmed, tried to protest. Roberts asked:
‘What’s in it?’
Brant, impatient, answered:
‘The fuck you care, you want to stop hurting or you want recipes?’
Roberts lifted the bottle and Porter reached for it, said:
‘Sir, with all due respect, I’d wait till the doctor arrives.’
Roberts drank the potion, said:
‘With all due respect, you’re not hurting like a son of a bitch.’
Brant began to zip up his jacket, said:
‘We’ve got to go pick up Fitz.’
Roberts was surprised:
‘How did you know it’s him?’
Porter shrugged, said:
‘He called it in.’
‘And he gave his name?’
‘Yeah, even gave his address.’
They left, Brant goosed the nurse on his way out. By the time the doctor came round, Roberts was sitting up, singing ‘My Way’
In the car Porter asked:
‘What was in the bottle?’
And got the wolverine smile and the answer:
‘What else, “Love Potion No. 9.” ‘
Falls was having a rare moment of self-honesty. It was the day after her magical meeting with Don, when all her dreams came through. This morning a dozen red roses arrived from him and he’d phoned like six times. Everything she’d always wanted, right? Hell, he was the man the women’s magazines eulogised and the hope of such a guy launched a new edition every week. Every schmaltzy song was based on ‘Mr Right’ and the impossibility of finding such. He’d found her, crashed into her life.
So why wasn’t she having all the symptoms of success, the runs, the pains in her stomach, the writing of his name on pages of pink paper, the linking of her name to his, how it would sound if she was his wife… All the insane shit that said: This is the real thing. Where was all that neurotic thinking? She’d made tea, toast with no jam, and only a thin spread of low-fat margarine and said aloud:
‘He’s got no edge.’
There, she said it, he was close to fucking boring, the constant adoration, who the hell was he kidding? Fuck, no one behaved like that unless they were on heavy medication. And his name?…
‘Don?’
Was she supposed to think that was cute? She was raging, tempted to phone him, go:
‘Why are you fucking with my head? Who put you up to this?’
And lit a cigarette, which reminded her, him saying:
‘Oh, we’ll have to wean you off those, my precious, can’t have you damaging yourself’
She hated him.
There, out in the open, enough said.
Graham Picking, the child molester, was very pleased with himself, getting off on a technicality, the pictures in the paper made him look hard done by. He laughed out loud. Combed his thinning hair, put some gel on there, make it appear thicker. He hadn’t returned to his home, oh no. The neighbours would have placards and stones through the window. No, he was far too slick for that. Staying at his sister’s flat in Islington, a school right down the road. He’d already made friends with the cutest little boy, a positively Botticelli angel named Ronan. He’d taken the sweets from Graham without any hesitation and would be waiting after school for the special surprise that Graham had pledged:
He remembered a phrase from an old TV show:
‘How sweet it is.’
Tried to recall, was it The Jackie Gleason Show? He was dressed in a new suit, new shirt and tie, and shining black shoes. The picture of civility. He felt himself getting hard at the thought of the treasure to come. The first time you got them, oh the bliss of all that innocence. They knew you loved them, that it was pure love, not that soiled image the tabloids tried to present. He remembered when The News of the World ran the campaign of NAME AND SHAME… the pictures and addresses of his fellow travellers on the front page. Then OPERATION NEPTUNE, when the cops tracked down another batch of his fellows with the details of their credit cards from the Internet. He had to admit his chaps were foolish, trusting some chat room and some stranger to keep quiet. If he wanted photos, and sure photos were good, he’d go down the Mile End Road, buy all you wanted, no details required but cash. He slurped a mouthful of coffee, sighed with near contentment. The sun was shining. He’d stroll down the street, buy the papers, and maybe some Danish in that bakery he’d seen.
Opened the front door of the house and a man was standing there. Graham panicked for a moment, thinking the media had found him. Then relaxed, this guy was wired, too wired even for a tabloid hack, seemed to be shaking, a Mormon who’d lost his marbles perhaps?
Graham said:
‘Can I help you?’
Put some edge in there, have a little of the sucker’s balls just for exercise. Then the guy’s hand was moving, he had a heavy gold bracelet like a bloody pimp would wear, and then he saw the barrel of the gun, tried:
‘Hey, wait a sec…’
The first shot took out his forehead and the second one, in his groin, blew a hole between his legs that gushed a fountain of blood. The splatter ruined the fine sheen of his black shoes.
29
Jamil was seriously pissed. Some fuck had been in his crib, stolen his stash, his piece and worse, his gold bracelet, it was like the one the guy wore in The Sopranos. He wanted to off some bastard, break into a man’s home when he was in nick, how low was that? He had a spliff going, a major one, but even it didn’t chill him enough to offset the loss of the gear.
A knock on his door and he grunted and figured he’d have the ass of whoever it was. Opened it to the yellow cop, the motherfucker who’d run. He was astonished, went:
‘You?’
McDonald looked crazy, like he’d been on a blitz of heavy dope. He shot out his fist, taking Jamil under the chin, putting out his lights. Dragged him into the flat, got the weapon out and wrapped Jamil’s fingers round it, then scattered coke all over the place. He wasn’t wearing the bracelet, had with regret left it at home. Then he picked up the phone, called the cops.
Chaos.
The press, cops, the Super, Jamil’s lawyer all arrived, and it took awhile to put it together. Sounded highly unlikely but Ken Bruen the cops had passed fishier cases along. Don’t mention the Birmingham Seven. The story that got issued as a press release went like this:
PC McDonald, acting on a tip that Jamil had offed the child molester, arrived at Jamil’s flat and the suspect pulled a gun, the same gun ballistics were able to prove that had killed Graham Picking.
It smelt to high heaven but the public, shedding no tears over Picking or Jamil, were delighted to have a hero cop and be rid of two scumbags. The cops didn’t believe a word of it but were prepared to pull out all the stops to, not only reinstate a disgraced cop, but have two pieces of garbage removed. Smiles all around. If somewhat uneasy ones.
When Brant heard the story, he whistled in admiration. It was a scheme worthy of himself. He had no love for McDonald but didn’t like to see any cop go down. He figured he’d buy the clever mad bastard a drink, it had been a plan so crazy that you had to sit up and go WOW
Porter Nash was stunned, he couldn’t believe the awesome audacity of the deal. Worse, somewhere in his mind was
the mad notion that the cops were still the good guys, but this proved that they were seriously deranged. He was glad that McDonald was off the cowardice hook, and the image of the force, though highly suspect, was at least cosmetically okay. But he felt a new low had been reached in the annals of the Met. Mainly, he was saddened. Sighing, he figured he’d do what he did best, continue to fight the bedraggled fight. He was going to wrap the Manners killer case today before Brant went and killed the guy.
He went out, hoping to hell he could wrap at least this one thing and do it clean… or cleanish.
Fitz, the beater of Roberts, had flown to Prague and was currently living it large, the only fly in his ointment that they didn’t serve Mild. Roberts would spend fruitless weeks trawling The Costa Del Sol for him. Only when dodgy fifties began showing up in Eastern Europe did he begin to realize where Fitz was. Part of him kinda respected the guy.
Falls rang Don, went:
‘Get the hell out of my life.’
And then she wept for three solid days.
Two days later Porter lashed at Brant:
‘He’s gone, Crew has disappeared, his bank accounts closed, the house up for sale, and because he’s a bloody accountant, a paper trail is useless. Did you off him?’
Brant laughed, said:
‘I should have but I got distracted. I didn’t give him enough credit, he was slicker than I figured. What the hell, you win some, you lose some.’
Porter stalked off, too angry to answer. Days like this, he figured maybe he’d resign but Brant was calling him, going:
‘Come round my place this evening, I bought you real coffee. I’ll bring you up to speed, let you see my manuscript.’
Epilogue
In the dusty roads of Montana, a man named Wilson was hitching, hadn’t seen a vehicle for hours. Then here came a pick-up and stopped. The door opened and a guy with a Limey accent said:
‘Hop in.’
Wilson did, noticed a hounddog at the guy’s feet and Hank Williams on the tapedeck. They drove off and Wilson, who didn’t like Brits, didn’t bother to say thanks for the ride. The guy had a paperback on the dash, but Wilson couldn’t see the title.
The guy smiled, asked:
‘Don’t you have any manners?’
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