Too Many Crooks - Paul D Brazill

by Near To The Knuckle

  He struggled to his feet and looked out at the day through bleary, bloodshot eyes. He stuffed a hand in his raincoat pocket and pulled out a can of Special Brew. He sipped on the sweet beer, slowly and methodically.

  A shiver sliced through him.

  He finished the beer, crushed the can and threw it across the park. He unzipped, took out his limp dick, closed his eyes and pissed against a tree. His phone vibrated in his pocket.

  He checked the message. It was the same information that he’d received the night before. The information that had dragged him out of five years of sobriety and sent him down the path to drunken oblivion. The text message that had told him his brother had been murdered.

  A Tissue Of Webs

  Warsaw, Poland

  Vladimir Gogol picked up the dart and threw it toward Marek. It slammed into a dart board that hung on the back of Marek’s office door, just missing Marek Malinowski’s head. Marek gasped and tried to retain control of his bladder. He was sweating like a pig. His office was small and cramped at the best of times but it seemed decidedly claustrophobic with Vladimir in the room. He wiped his face with his shirt sleeve.

  Marek was a stumpy man with bushy eyebrows and receding spikey hair, and was a sharp contrast to Vladimir, who was tall, tanned and elegant in his Mark Powell double breasted suit. His long black hair was pulled back into a ponytail.

  The Russian had always intimidated Marek but today was even worse than usual.

  “It was you who let McGuffin escape and it most certainly is you who is responsible for finding him. Understand?” said Vladimir.

  Marek’s English was weak and he didn’t always understand everything Vladimir said but he just nodded and said “Yes… I… ”

  Vladimir slammed Marek against the wall. A signed photograph of a Polish footballer fell to the ground and shattered.

  “No excuses, Marek. I will make this simple. Find John McGuffin . Bring him to me so that I can cut off his dick and feed it to my dogs. Do this and I will spare your life. Fail and I will feed you to my dogs. Understand now?”

  “Yes. Yes. Yes.”

  Vladimir looked around Marek’s office with disgust.”

  “And get a new decorator, for god’s sake.”

  Vladimir left the office and Marek slumped to the floor.

  London, England

  The Golden Jubilee certainly didn’t glitter and was far from golden. The walls were painted garishly red. The furniture was pitch black. The atmosphere grey and grim. Nursing a beer and a shot of vodka, Peter sent a text message to his mother’s contact.

  Hanging up, he ordered another bottle of beer. He was surprised that he’d never been in the pub before, considering its proximity to Bethnal Green tube station.

  Rod Stewart’s version of Reason To Believe whispered through the sound system. The barman, well–dressed and overweight, with what seemed like a constantly constipated expression, sat at the bar and drank whisky and played chess with a statuesque Indian girl.

  A small group of ridiculously–dressed fashion students sat sharing two beers, occasionally topping the glasses up with the contents of a bottle of supermarket vodka, while keeping a furtive eye on the barman.

  Peter sat by the window drinking his second glass of Belgian beer. He briefly turned his gaze outside, to where the morning rain poured down in sheets and the wet pavement reflected a nearby kebab shop’s flickering neon sign. Police sirens screeched, cutting through the roaring wind.

  Peter’s contact came down a staircase at the side of the bar and briefly paused when she saw him. Amanda was short, dark haired and dressed in black jeans and an oversized Oasis t–shirt. She helped herself to a drink and headed outside with a pack of cigarettes in her hand. She stood under a grubby umbrella smoking as if it was the last cigarette on earth.

  Peter waited a few moments and went outside to join her. He turned his collar up against the rain, sat in a grubby white plastic chair and lit up.

  “Your mother said you need a makeover,” she said, lighting a second cigarette, not looking at Peter. She had a strong American accent.

  “That’s right. Can you do it?” said Peter.

  “Of course. But I need a decent amount of cash up front.”

  “I… can arrange that.”

  Amanda turned slightly and looked at him. Closed her eyes. Smiled.

  “Then we have a deal,” she said,

  She went back into the bar.

  Peter took another sip of his drink and started to relax.

  Warsaw, Poland

  Vladimir Gogol knew that there were those that feared the dark and found comfort with the break of dawn, but for a long time now, Gogol had dreaded daylight, preferring the comfort of the womb of night. A long dark winter ached onward and tall, concrete tower blocks blacked out the winter sky as he trudged through Warsaw’s snow–smothered streets towards what had become his usual watering hole when he wanted anonymity. He pulled off his woollen hat as he entered Pub Wik and stamped the snow from his heavy boots. The bar was full and stiflingly hot, smelling of boiled hot dogs and rheumy–eyed old men wavering on the precipice of death.

  “Vodka?” said Pani Wanda, the wrinkly old crone that regularly scowled from behind the counter like one of the gargoyles that guarded the front of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.

  Gogol nodded, snatched up the shot glass as soon as it was poured, gulped down its contents and asked for another.

  He carried his drink over to a small, rickety table in a dimly–lit corner of the room. Took off his black overcoat and avoided the eyes of the other customers. He looked out of the window through the nicotine–stained lace curtains. An empty tram rattled down the street, narrowly missing a careering taxi. Horns honked. People shouted and screamed at each other or no one in particular. The beast inside Gogol stirred but remained caged. He had one thought on his mind of late. Finding John McGuffin and then slicing him to pieces in front of Gogol’s wife. The thought brought a cruel smile to his face.

  His iPhone buzzed on the table. He wearily checked the caller ID. It was Marek.

  Family Misfortunes

  Warsaw, Poland

  Despite his impatience, John McGuffin’s world had fallen into quite a comfortable routine. After struggling out of bed and taking a shower, he would dress in the endless supply of black sweaters and jeans that Anna had left him and go to sit on the balcony. Pani Maria would bring him hot coffee or tea with rum. Sometimes a small bottle of fruit flavoured vodka. Between sips, McGuffin watched the neighbours come and go. Where possible, he would glean whatever apartment gossip he could from Pani Maria, using the dictionary to help. He knew that the lines between his memories and dreams were blurring these days but he was happy for the consistency his life now had. He had the sense of a storm having passed.

  Every morning, at six o’clock on the dot, a tall man with long black hair stepped out onto the balcony opposite and played the flute. This morning it was a wildly improvised version of A Bridge Over Troubled Water.

  “He is musician. Famous composer,” said Pani Maria, with a disapproving grin. “He is… ” she flicked through her battered Polish–English dictionary. “He is genius. Crazy.”

  “Well, he certainly looks the part,” said McGuffin, with a smile.

  The man bowed to no one in particular and went back into his flat. He closed his curtains and for a moment McGuffin thought he saw the flash of a camera.

  McGuffin drummed his fingers on the arm of the wheelchair. He tried to pull himself out of the chair but pain sliced through his legs and he collapsed back down into it.

  Panni Maria frowned.

  “You must wait for the doctors,” she said.

  She patted his shoulder.

  “I know,” said McGuffin.

  Anna had phoned to say she would be heading back from London a little earlier than expected and McGuffin was surprised how elated he had felt when she’d told him.

  London, England

  The nightmares never stop
ped. They smothered her sleep and draped Hattie’s days with gloom and fear. The medication that the quacks shoveled down her throat helped a tad but there were still those moments when all she could see was the blood. The shrink had called it post–traumatic stress disorder, one of the consequences of Leslie Hawkins glassing her.

  Hattie switched on the television. There was another programme about cooking. That was all there was on the telly these days. Cooking and gardening, for fucks sake. She found a cartoon channel instead and watched Scooby Doo for a bit. Most of the channels in the community room had been blocked for fear of showing programmes that over stimulated the residents, as they called them. But they left the ones about ghosts and Ninja Turtles. Nothing to give you hallucinations there then.

  Hattie was the only one in the room. At that time of the morning most of the residents, or inmates as he liked to refer to them, were asleep. Doped out. But Hattie didn’t sleep much. She had bloodstained dreams of killing Leslie. She’d told the police and the doctors that she couldn’t remember who attacked her. That it was all blank. But she remembered alright.

  Out of the window she could see the night creeping over the roofs of the trees. She shivered. Darkness made her uneasy these days.

  She was lucky, she supposed. The care home she was in was one of the best in the city. Expensive, it was, too. And most of the staff were professionals, not daft YTS lasses that worked in the other ones. Satan’s Souls had paid for it, mind. Luckily she’d be out in a couple of weeks. If she behaved herself.

  She changed the TV channel and tried to find some news but, of course, it was blocked. So she watched the weather channel for a while. Rain, rain and more rain. She looked out of the window. A well–dressed, suntanned man got out of the car and walked up the path.

  She heard the front door open and Dr Bogajski came in.

  Dr Julian Bogajski was jolly, jovial and boisterous. Everyone loved him. Everyone except Hattie, that is. Hattie couldn’t stand the fucker, though she didn’t know why. Maybe because he was posh. Popular. He was also the world’s leading authority on the Klingon language, apparently and used speaking in Klingon as part of his radical therapy. Hattie had told him she wasn’t interested and had never seen Star Wars and he’d glared at her.

  The place was coming to life and so Hattie retreated to her beige room. She lay on her bed and closed her eyes. The beige turned red. She had an old cassette radio on the bedside table. She played the compilation cassette that one of the doctor’s had given her. She used to think four seasons was a pizza but she was starting to get into Vivaldi. She hadn’t liked the Sati that followed it so much but it seemed to be getting better. She slept and dreamt of tower blocks, motorways, service stations. In one dream, Leslie was eating a meal in a Little Chef and choked on the food. Hattie woke herself up laughing.

  ***

  Marjorie’s Bar was stuffed with its usual array of ne’er–do–wells, waifs and strays, and ragamuffins in various states of inebriation. The Wurlitzer jukebox played Python Lee Jackson’s In A Broken Dream and Robert Kowalski was in his pots, watching a spectral spiral of smoke drift up from the ashtray towards the big silver star that hung above the bar all year round. Thinking about how he was going to find the bastard that had killed his brother.

  A gust of wind blew the door open and the barman retreated to the shadows. Outside, a sharp sliver of moon garrotted the coal black sky. A tall woman, her long hair as black as a raven’s wings, drifted across the road, oblivious to the mob of traffic. Robert licked his lips and his eyes glittered and glowed with each car’s near miss.

  Almost as if on cue, the night was suddenly filled with the crackle of exploding fireworks and Tina almost floated into the bar, the throng parting for her. She stood before Robert looking like a long drink of water crying out to a thirsty man and a stiletto chill sliced through him. Her eyes glowed bright emerald green and then faded to black as she smiled, a slash of red lipstick across her full lips.

  “You’ve had enough to drink, Robert,” she said, as she walked through the ace of spades archway and stepped up onto a small chiaroscuro–lit stage. “Go home to your wife.”

  “I’m divorced,” said Robert, draped in a cloak of gloom.

  Tina chuckled as two massive, bald men with bullet–hole eyes appeared out of the shadows and helped her with her long black raincoat. They moved a drum kit, a double bass and an old RKO Radio microphone onto the stage as Tina languorously smoked an e–cigarette.

  “Another drink?” said Marjorie Razorblades, the barmaid.

  Robert shrugged and nodded at the same time. Marjorie poured him another drink and pulled the plug on the jukebox. Robert turned towards the stage as Tina’s laugh filled the room again. There was silence. And then she started to sing.

  The sweat crawled down the back of Robert’s neck like an insect, as the drumsticks scuttled across the drums and the bass player’s fingers snaked down the fret board. He shivered as Tina whispered a torch song as if it was her dying breath, and sparked the embers of a dream.

  He’d known Ziggy would get himself too deep into the shit one day. And he’d probably deserved his execution. But he was Robert’s little brother and someone would have to pay for his death.

  Warsaw, Poland

  Anna felt tired, even though the flight from Gatwick to Frederic Chopin airport had only taken a couple of hours. Still, she was glad to be back in Warsaw and excited about meeting this new patient of hers again. Two years of social work among London’s homeless had left her jaded and drained, but the prospect of meeting John McGuffin again had invigorated her. It took her back to her time working with Interpol. Exciting times they were, too.

  She flagged down a taxi and dragged her suitcase inside with her, the beetroot faced taxi driver making no attempt to help her. At once, the cab jolted through the early morning traffic, pulling into the Praga district a scant fifteen minutes later. Anna paid and got out.

  She pushed open the gate and walked into the snow smothered courtyard, pulling her suitcase behind her. A chill sliced through her as she saw the ominous looking black van, its engine purring and what looked like a trail of blood snaking from the security guard’s hut, though it was hard to tell in the wan light.

  She remembered McGuffin’s latest fantasy. It seemed more than a little real now. She rushed to the entrance of the flat, fumbled for her keys and opened the door, the warmth of the hallway embracing her as she stepped inside.

  Controlling her breathing, she looked at the stairs and then at her suitcase and decided to take the lift, unreliable though it was. She pressed the call button and waited impatiently while it clattered to the ground floor.

  As the doors opened Anna heard a door slam behind her and felt a gust of cold air. She furtively turned as she dragged her suitcase into the cramped lift .Just before the doors rattled to a close, Marek Malinowski pushed his way in.

  “Dobranoc,” he said, with a grin.

  Quickly, his hand flashed towards Anna, pushing her against the metal walls. There was a powerful smell of chloroform on the rag that he pushed into her face. She tried to hold her breath and push his hand away but he was a strong man and she struggled. And then the lift jerked and he slipped back, smashing against the doors.

  Anna quickly threw herself at Marek, head–butting him and then swiftly kneeing him in the groin. He doubled over, blood pouring from his nose, as Anna pulled out her keys and pushed one between her fingers as she made a fist. With one sharp blow, she jabbed him in the eye, blood spurting out at once. Marek’s screams melded with the groans of the lift as it ground to a halt. She pulled his head downward and kneed him in the face. His nose burst open and he fell to the ground groaning.

  Anna kicked him again and grinned as he screamed with pain. This was more like it. It felt like the good old days.

  A Quantum Of Bollocks

  Warsaw, Poland

  Anna Nowak poured large measures of vodka and then handed a drink to McGuffin before sitting down in the sof
a.

  “Amazing work, Dr Nowak. Really amazing. Real action woman stuff,” he said. “How did you learn martial arts?”

  “Another time,” she said. “The past is another country.”

  She raised her glass. “Na zdrowia.”

  “Na zdrowia,” said McGuffin.

  Anna tapped the dining room window.

  “It’s certainly livening up around here, these days,” she said.

  “Do you know who that thug was,” said McGuffin.

  “I’ve no idea. I didn’t recognise him. Did you?”

  “There was a little twinge of familiarity but nothing concrete, to be honest. I wonder what he was up to.”

  “Well, no one knows exactly but some of my former co–workers have their theories,” said Anna Nowak.

  “Such as?” said McGuffin .

  “Well, Marek Malinowski was a well–known businessman, in inverted commas. He was the owner of peep shows, bordellos, casinos,” said Anna. “He was also involved in people smuggling. He worked with a group of Russian gangsters, including one particularly nasty character known as Vladimir Gogol. Does the name mean anything to you?”

  McGuffin shuddered.

  “Familiar, yes. Though I’m not sure why. But certainly not in a good way,” he said.

  The image of a tall man with a long black ponytail flashed before his eyes. The man was waving a dagger around. McGuffin blinked the image away.

  “It looked as if Malinowski was interested in kidnapping you though. Do you have any idea why?” she said.

  “None at all. I can’t believe that he took that cyanide tablet without us seeing it,” said McGuffin.

  “I think I can,” said Anna. “If all I’ve heard about Vladimir Gogol is true.”

  “Gogol,” whispered McGuffin .