Too Many Crooks - Paul D Brazill

by Near To The Knuckle

  Leslie Hawkins lay naked and sprawled across a four–poster bed. She peeled back her eyelids and immediately regretted it. The hangover headache sliced through her brain like a stiletto. She grunted.

  Sidney took out his hip flask and took a nip of Mortlach.

  “I remember my granddad used to say that domesticity dulled the pallet for life,” he said “Gramps said if you only eat bangers and mash you’ll never appreciate foie gras. You see, you have to develop your taste for the finer things in life. And the drab hand of domesticity dampens the old taste buds. What do you think about that?”

  Leslie pulled the bedclothes over her head and grunted.

  “Yeah,” she croaked.

  “Best get a move on, Leslie,” said Sidney. “Our guest will be here in a moment.”

  “Oh, okay,” said Leslie, yawning.

  She got out of the bed and stumbled into the bathroom.

  “I’ll be two ticks,” she shouted, before switching on the shower.

  Sidney placed one Derringer in its wrist strap and checked the other one in his ankle holster. He picked up a walking cane with a death’s head handle and clicked it to make sure the sword was functioning. He knew that he would need all of his resources if he was to endure a meeting with Ziggy Kowalski and his gang.

  Satisfied, he sat down in the red leather armchair and lit up a Gitanes. It was a foul habit, he knew, and one that he had kicked many times before, but he needed to calm his nerves. This could be his final curtain call, as well he knew.

  “You know you’re not supposed to smoke in here and that fag smells like a tarts handbag,” said Leslie she stepped naked out of the bathroom and pulled on her underwear.

  “It does reek, rather, doesn’t it?” said Sidney, examining the cigarette, curious. He sniffed it but it smelt normal. The aroma was being emitted by something else. Something outside the room.

  There was loud knock at the door. When Leslie opened it, Ziggy Kowalski stood there grinning. He was a handsome man with dyed red hair. He was wearing a red leather three–piece suit. He was drowned in perfume. Poison. The Greenwood twins stood beside him. They were wearing new black Crombie coats.

  “Well this is a site for sore eyes” hissed Ziggy, ogling Leslie.

  He winked.

  “Fuck you very much,” said Leslie. “You’re a shite yourself.”

  She yawned and started to dress.

  Ziggy and his men walked into the room.

  “Long time no see,” said Sidney.

  “Well, you’d know all about time, Sid,” said Ziggy. “You’ve done plenty of it. Never been detained at Her Majesties pleasure myself, of course. The only crime is getting caught, eh?”

  “Fancy a drink, Ziggy?” said Leslie.

  Ziggy walked over to the globe shaped drinks cabinet and opened it.

  “I don’t think I see anything decent here,” he said. “Not for a man of my sophisticated tastes.”

  “No, just the domestic stuff,” said Sidney.

  He tapped his hip flask. “But I do have a shot or two of Mortlach here. And here.”

  Sidney reached into a wardrobe and pulled put a bottle Mortlach.

  Ziggy’s eyes sparkled. He leant against a book case, took out a snuff box from his waistcoat pocket and inhaled.

  “Do you mind if Flip and Flap grab a seat and take the weight off their inflated salaries?” He nodded toward the Greenwood twins.

  “Of course not,” said Leslie, now fully dressed in black jeans and a roll neck sweater.

  Ziggy gestured to his bodyguards and they both sat on the edge of the bed. Darren sniffed loudly and grinned. They smirked at each other.

  “So, you say you know where the ring is?” said Sidney.

  “Well, of course,” said Ziggy. “I have the bloody thing here. It was a souvenir from a recent business meeting.”

  He smirked.

  “I didn’t get it from a Kinder Egg, did I?”

  He held the ring box next his hear and shook it.

  Sidney frowned.

  “Well, it looks as if the time has come for you to hand it over, old chum,” said Sidney.

  “Maybe,” said Ziggy. “But it’ll cost you, you know that. I don’t do charity work.”

  “How does a hundred grand sound to you?” said Sidney.

  “I can hardly hear it,” said Ziggy.

  “Two hundred?”

  “It is getting a little bit louder but it’s slurring its speech …”

  Sidney slumped forward in his seat. He put out his cigarette and lit another.

  “Oh, I fucking hate haggling,” he sighed. “Is a half a million more acceptable?”

  Ziggy smirked. “It’s a deal.”

  Sidney held out his hand. Ziggy shook it and grinned.

  He winked at Leslie as she sat in front of the mirror applying blood red lipstick. She leaned over and switched on a radio. She turned up The William Tell Overture loud.

  Ziggy laughed.

  “Have you heard anything from Jim McGuffin recently?” he said, raising his voice.

  “I haven’t heard from him for a long time,” said Sidney. “He went deep cover in Germany I hear. Retrieving some film memorabilia for a mutual friend, I believe.”

  “Well, now, he’s in Poland, would you believe? My old stomping ground, in fact. Warsaw,” said Ziggy.

  “Really?” said Sidney.

  “Really. He has a swanky flat on Esperanto Street. It turns out he was up to some dodgy deals with a bunch of even dodgier Russians.”

  He handed a small box to Sidney.

  “That’s a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it?” said Sidney.

  “It’s the Gods honest truth. On my life,” said Ziggy, putting a hand on his heart.

  Which was when Leslie took her gun from her handbag and shot him in the chest.

  Sidney leapt to his feet and shot Darren and Dan as they went for their guns. They crashed together and fell onto the bed. Sidney shot one of them in the forehead and Leslie did the same to the other. Sidney turned and saw that Ziggy was still curled up, groaning but breathing. Leslie shot him three more times, just to make sure.

  “Well, that turned out alright on the night,” said Leslie.

  She coughed.

  Sidney tittered. “Yes, it was a lot easier than expected.”

  “Ziggy’s eyes were always bigger than his dick,” said Leslie.

  Sidney turned down the music

  “You know, I fancy a holiday,” said Leslie.

  “Where do you feel like heading off to?” said Sidney.

  “Poland, maybe.”

  “To check out your brother?”

  “Perhaps,” said Leslie, “If what Ziggy said was true.”

  “Well Ziggy was never the most trustworthy of people. In fact, maybe we should get the ring authenticated before we go off gallivanting?” said Sidney. “We don’t want to go off half–cocked.”

  “Speaking of which,” said Leslie. She unzipped Sidney’s fly.

  “You know how murder always gets me horny. And we do have the room until tomorrow.”

  “What about them?” asked Sidney.

  He nodded toward the corpses spread around the room.

  “Let’s deal with the other stiffs after I deal with this one,” said Leslie.

  “Fnarr fnarr,” said Sidney.

  The Man From Esperanto

  Warsaw, Poland

  Dreams and memories crashed together like stock cars and then Jim McGuffin sharply awoke. The hospital was migraine bright and stank of antiseptic. He was still irritated by a constant beep, which he had taken a while to realize was his own heartbeat, tracked by machines. Every now and then, the old drunk that was strapped in the bed next to his would shout in Polish and try to escape from his straps. Then he’d burst into tears and sob uncontrollably until one of the nurses calmed him down.

  Jim McGuffin took out the mirror that Dr Anna Nowak had given him and again looked at his reflection. The face had become a little more familiar o
ver the last few weeks but he still couldn’t say that he recognised it. Or remembered anything of his life before Anna had found him in the snow. After a little prompting, he had remembered his name but not much more. He’d been pleased to find out that the damage to his left eye wasn’t permanent and it would heal up soon enough.

  He was looking healthier though and he was a good looking man, he was pleased to see. He was in his early forties, he assumed, with dark hair speckled with grey. He had a strong jawbone and the black eye patch gave him a sense of mystery. The broken nose gave him character, he thought. It made him look like that actor Robert De Nero. Or maybe Al Pacino. He wasn’t sure which one. But then what was he sure of now? He was in a hospital bed in Warsaw, Poland. He had almost died. He was blind in one eye, although he was expected to regain his vision. His back was latticed with scars and burns. His legs were next to useless. Yes, that was more than enough to be going on with, thank you.

  He looked out of the window. Cancerous black clouds spread across the gun metal grey sky. He had the feeling of a great storm ready to rip the heavens open.

  But then came the sound he’d learned to look forward to. The ringing of metal against porcelain, as Beata, his nurse, gave him his tea with milk.

  “You are lucky boy, Mr McGuffin . That nice Doctor Nowak will be here to see you again, later, Mr McGuffin ,” she said in heavily accented English.

  McGuffin accepted the warm mug and sat up. Beata checked his pulse.

  Beata was in her forties. Wearing a tight nylon uniform with a cleavage that let her pink bra show a little. McGuffin felt a frisson of excitement every time he saw her. The fact that she wore a wedding ring only added to his attraction.

  “How do you feel today?” said Beata.

  “Better and better,” said McGuffin. “You must put something in my tea.”

  Beata laughed — a throaty, dirty laugh– and pushed the trolley out of the room.

  He sipped his tea slowly. He felt that it wasn’t the best tea that he’d ever drunk but it certainly did the trick. The man in the next bed was having one of his many tantrums and McGuffin decided to go back to one of the English language paperback books that Anna had left him. He chose a Matt Hilton book and was lost in it when he heard a cough.

  Dr Anna Nowak wore a crisp white coat, with her long blonde hair tied up in a bun. She had half–moon glasses dangling by a gold chain around her neck. Her dress shoes had clicked against the hospital tiles as she had entered the room Her eyes were as black as bullet holes, her voice like cut glass.

  McGuffin gulped his tea and set the cup down so he could shake the doctor’s hand.

  “I have some good news and some bad news, Mr McGuffin,” said Anna.

  “Maybe start off with the good news,” said McGuffin . “I’m still a tad delicate.”

  “The authorities have given permission for you to be in my custody and care while we try to find out more about you. Accordingly, my apartment in Warsaw will be at your disposal. You can check out of here tomorrow.”

  McGuffin couldn’t help but smile at the prospect of leaving the hospital. “And the bad news?”

  “Unfortunately, I have to go to London for a few days, maybe a week, on a consultation. So, you’ll be in the care of my housekeeper, Pani Maria. She’s a lovely woman but she can be a tad...brusque. And she doesn’t speak much English.”

  “I’m sure I’ll survive. I suspect I’ve survived worse,” he said.

  “Indeed,” said Anna.

  McGuffin’s neighbour, lost in the throes of delirium tremens, babbled what sounded like a rosary.

  Anna frowned.

  She walked over to the man and glared. She loomed over him, bent down and whispered in the man’s ear. The man was quickly silent.

  Anna sat on the corner of McGuffin’s bed.

  “Have you remembered anything else?” she asked, her voice low. “How you ended up in the middle of nowhere, for example?”

  McGuffin closed his eyes.

  He saw a dark room. A tall, blonde woman dressed in leather. A big, long–haired man with a broken nose. A black crow, its wings flapping. A silver knife glinting. Someone was eating a pizza. Was it a memory or merely a dream?

  He opened his eyes and looked at Anna.

  “Nothing for certain,” he said. “I really don’t remember a thing apart from my name.”

  Sweat was pouring from his pores. His head was pounding. His mouth was arid.

  Anna patted his hand.

  “Are you okay?” she said.

  “Yes,” he said. “I was just having a … moment.”

  “Your first few days here you babbled to me something about being strangled by a Gollum,” said Anna. “Do you remember? I’ve chalked it up to post–amnesic delusions. Still, there’s a real mystery here.”

  “The police still have nothing?” asked McGuffin.

  “It looks as if there are a few Jim McGuffins in the world but there’s no DNA or fingerprint records that matches yours. No missing person that matches your description. Even a Google image search yielded nothing. The police have referred it to Interpol and, since you seem to be English, New Scotland Yard.”

  Anna Nowak stood up.

  “In time, perhaps, answers will make themselves apparent. I’ll bring you some clothes tomorrow morning and we can drive to Warsaw after lunch,” she said.

  She said something to the old drunk and left.

  McGuffin saw that the old drunk was now sleeping and he thought it was a good time to do the same thing.

  London, England

  The long black train silently snaked its way into King’s Cross Railway Station. Leslie and Sidney stood on the crowded platform. Sidney shuddered.

  “Cold?” said Leslie.

  “No. I was having a bit of a Proustian moment,” said Sidney. “I was reminded of the story of the funeral train that used to take London’s plague victims to be buried out of the town. Apparently, there was even a special station just for this particular train. It was called Necropolis Central Station, and was located near to Waterloo, if I remember correctly.”

  “Well, that is delightfully macabre,” said Leslie. “You really are a little ray of sunshine sometimes.”

  The lone passenger stepped off the train. He was wearing a dark overcoat and a Cossack hat. A black scarf was wrapped around his saggy face. He pulled down his scarf.

  “Sidney, it is so good to see you again, tovarishch,” said Dimitri Delov. His Russian accent was sharp enough to cut diamonds.

  He held out a leather–gloved hand. The men shook hands. Dimitri kissed the back of Leslie’s outstretched hand.

  “Smooth,” said Leslie.

  “As smooth as Russian vodka,” said Dimitri.

  He winked.

  “Do you want the good news or the bad news?” he said.

  Sidney sighed.

  “Let me guess, the ring’s a fake, isn’t it?” he said.

  “It is indeed,” said Dimitri.

  “I should have known never to trust Ziggy bloody Kowalski,” said Leslie. “It all went too easy.”

  “That was the risk we took,” said Sidney.

  “As we used to say in the KGB, if you don’t risk, you don’t drink champagne,” said Dimitri.

  “Well, it’s too late now. And we can hardly drag him out of the Thames and shoot him again,” said Sidney.

  Leslie stamped a foot.

  “And what’s the good news?” she said.

  “Jim McGuffin is indeed alive. Well, probably. Ziggy was correct, It looks as if Mr McGuffin is still in Warszawa but his blip has disappeared from the radar.”

  “Can you track him down? You have plenty of contacts in Poland I assume,” said Leslie.

  “Of course. Russia’s former colony is a hotbed of free enterprise these days. I’ll set one of my pet goons on McGuffin ’s trail,” said Dimitri. “As long as they’re kept on a tight leash, the local thugs serve their purpose although I hear Mr McGuffin has made one of my countrymen very un
happy indeed. And Vladimir Gogol is not someone to make unhappy.”

  “Let me guess, there was a woman involved, wasn’t there?” said Leslie. “A married woman, probably.”

  Dimitri smiled.

  “You know your brother so well,” said Dimitri.

  “He never changes,” said Leslie. “He’s been caught with his tail between someone’s wife’s legs a few times before.”

  “I’ll find out what I can and get back to you,” said Dimitri. “I may even pop over there myself and have a sniff around.”

  Sidney handed Dimitri an envelope.

  “As always, it’s been a pleasure doing business with you,” said Sidney.

  Dimitri smiled and looked around the train station.

  “I think it’s time for a fry up and a mug of sweet milky tea,” he said. “I do like to go native. See you.”

  He walked toward a café.

  Sidney and Leslie walked to the waiting limousine and Sidney got in the back seat. The car was warm. John Coltrane’s Blue Train was easing through the speakers.

  “Ready to go, Miss Daisy?” said Leslie, as she squeezed into the driver’s seat. “Or are we waiting for someone else?”

  “Let’s getting moving,” said Sidney. ”There’s a storm brewing.”

  Warsaw, Poland

  Anna snaked the black BMW through the leaden winter morning and along Warsaw Old Town’s cobbled streets. She glided the car along the almost deserted streets that were lined with expensive shops, cafes and bars, John McGuffin , reclined in the back seat, listening to Portishead’s version of SOS.

  Anna turned right at the snow covered Palm tree sculpture and headed down Aleje Jarozolimskie, looking up at the sharp blue sky. The neo–gothic Palace of Culture and Science loomed over the city like a giant gargoyle keeping danger at bay.

  As she turned the corner toward the Euro Continental Hotel a big black SUV suddenly screeched in front of them and blocked her way.

  McGuffin had drifted off to sleep again and was jerked awake.

  “What is it?” he said.

  “Just another rich idiot with a car bigger than his dick or his driving ability,” said Anna. “A lot of these Nouveau riche morons learned to drive with little Italian cars and when they fell into money bought massive things beyond their driving ability.”