Too Many Crooks - Paul D Brazill

by Near To The Knuckle

  The car moved off and she continued on her journey. McGuffin soon fell asleep. When he awoke, they were parked in front of a pair of large metal gates and Anna seemed to be having problems opening them. Anna was laughing. She stuck her head into the car.

  “Sorry, but I have lost my key,” she said. “If we get out now, we can go in on our own through the side gate and I’ll bring the other things from the car later.”

  “Suits me,” said McGuffin wearily.

  Anna had taken a wheelchair out of the boot and she helped McGuffin out of the car and into the wheelchair.

  She pushed him into the building and into a small lift. It stopped outside the door to an apartment and they went in.

  The third floor apartment in Warsaw’s Praga district was minimalist, Spartan even but is was more than adequate for McGuffin’s needs. He stood with Anna, looking out of the window.

  “This is my father’s flat really though he only stays here when he has to attend medical conferences,” said Anna. “He’s not a great fan of the bright lights and the big city. He’s a country boy at heart.”

  “It looks okay to me, from what I’ve seen,” said McGuffin . “This part of the city seems to be buzzing with life.”

  “It’s a generational thing I think. I love the place myself. Have you been to this part of Warsaw before?”

  McGuffin shrugged and laughed.

  “Maybe yes, maybe no,” he said.

  “Maybe baby you don’t know,” said Anna.

  She cringed at her own silly question.

  McGuffin edged his wheelchair over to the bedroom window. Three floors up afforded him a view of a small baker’s shop sporting a bright green frog logo. Christmas lights lined the street, along with a stretch of bars, including one with a sculpture of a large black crow perched above its dark oak doors. Looking at the huge bird, McGuffin felt a pull at his memory. But it quickly disappeared like spit on a hot pavement.

  The street bustled with young people wearing strange clothes and stranger hairstyles. A tall blond in a black fur coat walked up to The Crow Bar and pressed a door bell.

  Anna patted him on the shoulder.

  “Okay, I have to go. I’ll get back as soon as you can. Any emergencies and you have my number, you know?”

  “I know,” said McGuffin . “And thanks for everything.”

  “Nie ma za co,” said Anna.

  As the doors closed, McGuffin closed his eyes and soon drifted off to sleep.

  London, England

  Peter hid the knife, just in case. He didn’t want to tempt providence. To tempt Zoe. He knew what her temper was like. Her mood swings were bad enough on a good day but dumping her could push her over the edge. Anyway, it wasn’t as if she hadn’t stabbed anyone before. Far from it. There were at least three men and a few more women who’d had trips to intensive care courtesy of displeasing Zoe Walker.

  He knew it was risky giving Zoe the elbow in his flat, he had a lot of valuable breakables. There was his LP collection to think about and the bottles of champagne he’d won in the pub quiz. But there wasn’t a lot he could do. She was a married woman and if anyone found out about their affair he’d be up shit creek. Her husband was a violent nutter. He couldn’t have her blubbing and blabbing in public, that was for sure. It had been a wild few months with Zoe but Peter knew he was playing with fire and it wouldn’t be long before he got burnt. And all of this shit with Ziggy Kowalski only made things worse.

  He moved as many of his valuables out of harm’s way as he could. He spent the morning packing his vinyl collection. He deliberately hadn’t washed for a couple of days and had worn the same Dumb and Dumber t–shirt and ripped jeans all week. He wanted to make himself as unattractive a proposition as possible.

  The doorbell rang just after noon. Peter opened the door and there was Zoe, looking suitably stunning in a little black Chanel dress, her hair cut into a bob. Peter’s guts lurched, though, when he saw the man beside her. Her brother Lee was dressed, as per usual, in a black leather overcoat, black suit and black wrap around shades. His head was shaved. He looked nothing like his petit sister but was even more dangerous.

  “Afternoon, Peter,” said Lee.

  He pushed past Peter into the house. Zoe followed him. It looked as if she’d been crying. She was holding her head.

  Peter followed them in. He hovered over them.

  “Want a cuppa Zoe? Lee?” asked Peter.

  “Nah, ta,” said Lee.

  He said in an armchair. Zoe sat on the arm.

  “Got a beer, Pete?” asked Zoe. “Something light?”

  “Yeah, sure,” said Peter. He went into the kitchen and came back with two bottles of Miller Lite.

  “Almost alcohol free this stuff,” he said.

  He handed a bottle to Zoe who pulled the cap off with her teeth, as usual.

  “To what do I owe this pleasure?” said Peter. “It isn’t often …”

  Lee held up a hand.

  “To cut to the chase, Peter, ”he said. “Zoe’s husband is dead.”

  “What? Trevor? No way! How? When?”

  He felt faint and leaned against the wall. He took a swig of the beer but wanted something stronger. He was sure Zoe was responsible for her husband’s death.

  “When? Yesterday. Last night, to be precise. As to the how, it looks like his security guard, a fat bloke called Raymond Carr, croaked him. It seems like they had a lovers tiff,” said Lee.

  Lee was smiling. Zoe rubbed a bruise on her forehead. She stifled a giggle.

  “You mean Trevor Williams was gay?” said Peter. “Really Zoe?”

  “Yeah, he liked to flip me over and play my b–side,” she said. She winked and rubbed her buttocks.

  She took a pill bottle from her handbag and popped a handful of tablets. She washed them down with the rest of her beer. She held out the empty bottle. Peter took it and went to the kitchen for another. He handed it to Zoe.

  “For fuck’s sake! This is mad,” said Peter.

  He walked over to the box where he’d packed the strong booze. He took out a bottle of Grants whisky and poured it into a glass.

  “What happened to the security guard?” he said. “Have the police got him? Has he confessed?”

  “Well, it seems he was full of remorse,” said Lee. “He hung himself. And some feat that was, I can tell you.”

  Zoe and her brother burst out laughing.

  “Ouch,” said Zoe. “It hurts to laugh.”

  Peter poured himself another drink.

  “Zoe? Lee?” he said, holding up the bottle.

  “Not me and Sis needs to be a bit careful, what with the meds she’s on,” said Lee.

  Peter sat on the sofa.

  “So, what can I do, like?” he said. “Can I help? I mean, is there anything I could … I should …?”

  Lee held up a hand.

  “Well, for a start, you can stop shagging my sister,” he said “She’s a grieving widow now. We don’t want the insurance people thinking this was some sort of Double Indemnity type scam.”

  “A double what?” said Peter.

  Lee shook his head.

  “Never mind,” he said. “I should have known you’d be more of an Adam Sandler fan.”

  “Listen. Is your old gran still living at home? I hear they were trying to get her into a nursing home,” said Zoe.

  “They tried but it was a waste of time. An unmovable mountain my gran, when she digs her heels in, well … ” said Peter, feeling uncomfortable. “Why?”

  “Because we want you to sort Zoe out with an alibi for last night. You could say she was staying with your gran. Keeping an eye on the old dear,” said Lee.

  “Well, I suppose I could …” said Peter.

  Lee stood.

  “No suppose. You will. Alright?” he said.

  “Yes, yes, sure,” said Peter.

  Zoe stood.

  “Right, Pete, we’ll be in touch,” she said. “Make sure you get your story straight with your gran. Wou
ldn’t want her to have a nasty accident at her age.”

  Peter nodded.

  “We’ll see ourselves out,” said Lee, and they left.

  As the front door closed, Peter didn’t know whether he’d had a lucky escape or jumped straight out of the frying pan and back into the fire.

  He poured another drink and picked up the phone.

  “Mum,” he said. “I think I’ve got a bit of a problem.”

  Snobbery With Violence

  London, England

  Sir Kenneth Watt’s cold black eyes stared into Sidney, who sipped his lemonade slowly. He wished he had a real drink but Sir Kenneth had taken the pledge a few years before and was very anti–alcohol.

  They were in Sir Kenneth’s sanctum sanctorum, in the cellar of his West London home. The walls were adorned with Nazi memorabilia and Sir Kenneth was dressed in full Gestapo regalia although Sidney felt that the uniform was looking a tad tight these days. Sir Kenneth had just ended a wearying monologue about “the common herd.”

  “Which is why I respect you, Sidney,” said Sir Kenneth. “You stand apart. You are separated from the herd. And you have never let me down… well, before this, anyway.”

  Sidney gulped.

  “I assume you will still be able to retrieve the ring for me?” said Sir Kenneth.

  He sat at his desk and turned the angle poise lamp so that it shone directly in Sidney’s face.

  “Of course, Ken,” said Sidney, wishing he knew where Jim McGuffin was. Jim was one of the best thieves Sidney had ever met. He was sure to be able to get his hands on the ring.

  “Good. Or I will be very, very displeased,” said Sir Kenneth, picking up a luger and kissing the gun barrel.

  “And I will show my displeasure with great, great vigour!”

  Warsaw, Poland

  McGuffin looked outside the apartment again. He liked what he saw and felt at home, for some reason.

  Anna had told him the history of the Praga district. How it had escaped the bulk of destruction during World War Two, only to later become infested with organized crime. In recent times, however, the neighbourhood had been gentrified by the waves of art students and trendy media types that had moved in, although it still had its shadowy corners.

  He saw a man limping into the frog shop with what looked like a bag of empty beer bottles. A white Rasta locked up his bright white bicycle against a flickering lamppost. A gangling, long–haired Goth, wearing a t–shirt and black jeans despite the cold weather, walked past that apartment block’s gates and stopped. He seemed to look up towards McGuffin .

  McGuffin shuddered and pushed himself back into the apartment. His heart was ready to burst out of his chest. He closed his eyes and counted to ten. He made it up to eight when there was a knock at the door.

  He edged the wheelchair over to a table near the door and picked up a stainless steel letter opener.

  “Come in,” said McGuffin .

  The doorknob rattled. Someone cursed. Rattled the knob again. McGuffin wrestled his chair closer to the door and opened it.

  A stooped woman in a red beret and thick fur coat stood grimacing. She clutched two shopping bags in each gloved hand.

  “Hello, Pan McGuffin .” She handed McGuffin one of the bags. “Mam na imie Pani Maria.”

  It took him a moment to register what she’d said.

  “Nice to meet you,” he said, with a grin.

  She nodded and wobbled past him, towards the Kitchen. McGuffin tried to follow, alternating first the right wheel, then the left, using his legs to help pull the chair along the floorboards. It was slow going but Nowak had mentioned getting a motorized chair in a couple weeks.

  “Pan McGuffin . Here, please.”

  Pani Maria’s voice called from the dining room. He clunked his way into the sparsely–furnished chamber, where a large window with a balcony overlooked a deserted car park. The old housekeeper had removed her hat to reveal brightly hennaed hair. McGuffin noticed she had a club foot.

  “You same as me.” She said, pointing to her foot.

  “Na zdrowia!” she said, taking a bottle of vodka and two shot glasses from a small, wooden cabinet. “Let us… drink.”

  “I wouldn’t argue with that, even if I could speak Polish,” said McGuffin .

  London, England

  As he stepped out of Embankment station, Peter felt all eyes burning into him. Peter was dressed like the Tubeway Army era Gary Numan. He was all in black, with spikey bleached–blonde hair. Nothing like the biker look he’d been employing of late but he still felt as if the streets were full of mercenary eyes.

  He’d deliberately changed his appearance after Zoe and Lee’s visit. When he’d found out that things had gone pear shaped with Ziggy and Sidney, he knew a change of identity was the only escape from the shit he was sinking in/ A hippy busker sang a Pink Floyd song in a strong Eastern European accent and seemed to be scrutinising him. A fat woman dressed like “80s period Adam Ant stopped rooting through a rubbish bin in order to watch him. A braying American tourist with a massive Stetson seemed to pause and give him the evil eye. And it was all because of bloody Ziggy. Why had he even got involved with that Polish gangster? Well, money, of course. But now the Slippery Pole was missing presumed dead and Peter was sure Sidney and Leslie Hawkins were probably responsible. And he was most certainly implicated.

  He walked into Gordon’s Wine Bar, down the narrow staircase, and stooped as he stepped into the dark cellar. The place smelt of wine and cheese. But it was full of after work drinkers, tourists and bright young things. Flashy media types and city boys sat around chatting. An elegant, middle–aged woman sat at a rickety candle–lit table drinking a glass of Gordon’s Veneto Red. She was reading the sleeve notes of a David Bowie CD. Peter sat opposite her.

  “Afternoon, mum,” he said.

  Joan Rhatigan slowly shook her head.

  “Look at the state of you,” she said. “You look like you’re going to a fancy dress party. What trouble have you got yourself into now?”

  “Well, that’s a bit of a long story,” said Peter.

  “I have all the time in the world,” said Joan.

  A beautiful Eastern European waitress came to the table.

  “What can I do for you Mrs Rhatigan?” she said.

  “The same again for me and… ” she smiled at the waitress.

  “The same for my son. He shares his late father’s philistine palate but lacks his dad’s pretentions. It may not be too late to educate my spoilt little pleb offspring.”

  Peter cringed. The waitress smiled and walked away.

  “Well?’ said Joan.

  “Well, to cut to the chase. I remember when you were writing books with dad you met a bloke who could fake identities,” he said.

  “Indeed, I did,” she said.

  “Well, guess what? I need to go underground. ”

  He noticed the headline on a copy of the Evening Standard on his mother’s table. The headline was about a body a body being found floating in the Thames. The corpse had died red hair and the Polish flag tattooed on one of his buttocks.

  “And it looks like I need to go deeply underground and bloody quickly,” he said. “Or someone will help me do it.”

  Warsaw, Poland

  McGuffin was gasping for breath. He could hear a chopping sound. He could smell his own skin burning. He twisted and turned. He…

  He awoke with a gasp. The chopping sound continued for a moment, echoing from someplace below.

  He pushed himself out of bed, up onto the nearby crutch. No point trying to fall asleep again. The nightmares would only come slipping back.

  He shuffled to the dining room and pressed his face against the cold glass window. A stone wall surrounded the empty car park below. Next to the electronic gates stood a small breeze–block hut, where a uniformed security guard seemed to live. McGuffin waited, but no further chopping sounds were forthcoming.

  He collapsed onto the leather armchair that Pani Maria had placed
there for him, along with a small coffee table, a remote, and an ever–present bottle of vodka.

  He turned on the TV. After flicking channels for a few minutes, he found an American series about forensic police. Good–looking people stared into test tubes while a short ginger haired man took his sunglasses off and put them on again. McGuffin couldn’t concentrate on the program. A Polish man was talking over the English dialogue, translating, making it more annoying than anything else.

  He turned back to the window. There were scraping sounds, now. The fat security guard had emerged from his hut, cutting a path through the snow. It seemed to be an obsession for him.

  McGuffin poured a shot of vodka and watched as the fat man went back to his concrete hut and pushed a large metal barrel out into the car park. The guard seemed to take forever rolling the barrel towards a black van with darkened windows.

  Something about the way the barrel clanged when set down struck McGuffin as familiar. His head started to throb. Next to the vodka was a bottle of sleeping tablets Anna had given him. He dry–swallowed two and felt a pleasant drifting sensation only minutes later.

  Drifting…

  His eyes snapped open. In the car park below, the fat man had opened the van’s rear doors and was loading another barrel into the back. It could have been a trick of distance, or the pills, but McGuffin was sure he glimpsed a pale arm hanging over the barrel’s side, just before the doors closed.

  He poured himself a glass of vodka and let the booze enfold him.

  London, England

  Robert Kowalski stumbled out of a drunken dream and awoke on a graffiti stained park bench. His head was throbbing, his throat was like sandpaper and he was almost choking on his own stink.

  Children screeched, sirens screamed and motorbikes roared in the distance. A drumbeat echoed through his brain.