The Big O (A Screwball Noir)

by Declan Burke

  ‘Points being a percentage.’

  ‘Right. Twenty per cent of the take, that’s twenty points. Usually off the gross.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘But this guy’s fucking me around. See, I work off a flat twenty for any job up to two hundred grand. After that it’s twelve points on the gross. The higher the gross, the more risk I’m taking.’

  ‘Makes sense.’

  ‘Except the shylock, being new, he’s saying, “How come it’s a flat twenty?” I say, “Terry knows all this already. It’s set, it’s been set since the start. You didn’t ask Terry?” And the shylock says, “I’m asking you.”’

  ‘So you’ll know,’ Karen said, ‘who’s in charge.’

  ‘I’m sitting there, I don’t answer straight away. The last guy, The Fridge, I liked him. Y’know? A serious guy. Could be philosophical. This is a guy who’s known and respected for being cautious. Gets called in to resolve disputes. This is why the cops only ever raided him for show. He’s what they call a calming influence.’

  ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘What I’m hearing is it’s some Balkan crew, new in town and looking to shake things up, bunker in. I’m guessing the shylock’s fronting for them, that he’s fingered The Fridge for points on The Fridge’s book. This is why I’m around at Terry Swipes’ place earlier on.’

  ‘Terry Swipes?’

  Ray nodded. ‘I’m looking for the inside line from Terry. See if he doesn’t want to dissolve our arrangement now The Fridge is gone. But the shylock’s already there in the office when I arrive. Sitting on the corner of Terry’s desk.’

  ‘So Terry knows who’s boss too.’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘What’s he look like?’

  Ray shrugged. ‘Blocky, hard. Shaved head. He’s wearing this suit, baggy in the crotch and too long in the cuffs. The kind that always need a good ironing but still look like they’d stand up by themselves propped against a wall. Y’know?’

  Karen nodded.

  ‘Anyway, this guy’s keen to give the impression he’s ruthless, brutal. Looks to me like he’s suffering from squinty-eye syndrome, but you don’t want to jump to conclusions. The Slavs are hardcore. Sociopaths. Incapable of grasping the concept of something for everyone.’

  ‘Not the kind you just walk away from.’

  ‘This is the point,’ Ray said. ‘I don’t know if I can afford not to walk away. With The Fridge gone and a Balkan crew moving in, it’s only a matter of time before the cops come down heavy on everyone.’ He glanced across. ‘You might want to think about that.’

  ‘Some of us don’t have a choice, Ray. Go on – the guy’s giving you grief about twelve points.’

  ‘I’m playing it straight with the guy,’ he said. ‘No edge. All I say is, “I charge a flat twenty on anything up to two hundred.” The shylock thinks this is hilarious. “And after two hundred,” he says, “what then?” “Then it goes to twelve points,” I tell him. “Really?” he says. ‘A whole twelve?”’

  ‘Taking the piss,’ Karen said.

  ‘I can see it from his perspective,’ Ray conceded. ‘He’s looking at some guy in overalls covered in paint spatters. I mean, who the fuck am I to him? But then he starts getting personal.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’

  ‘“You’re talking to me about points?” he says. ‘Laughing it up, trying to get Terry in on the joke. Terry sitting there staring at me, y’know, wanting me to play along. Except the shylock goes, “You should be talking to your barber, man. With that fucking fringe? The King is dead, get out the fucking shears.”’

  ‘He’s disrespecting the quiff?’

  ‘I couldn’t believe it. The guy thinking I’d want to duke it out over a haircut. I just went, “That’s twelve on the gross, by the way.” Terry nearly shit.’

  ‘What’d he say to that?’

  ‘“You’re on a giraffe.”’

  ‘A giraffe?’

  ‘Having a laugh. I say no. He says, “Say we tell you it’s two hundred. How do you find out it’s more?” Maybe I don’t, I say. “But what if you do?” he says. Don’t worry about it, I say, I probably won’t find out. “Anyone ever gipped you before?” he says. By now I’ve had enough. I tell him he should be in the movies and get up, head for the door. The shylock’s going, “Where the fuck do you think you’re off to?” I tell him, if he wants someone snatched, I’ll keep them out of sight until he gets his hook-up. That to me is worth twelve on the gross. But if he doesn’t go that high, no harm done.’

  ‘What’d he say to that?’

  ‘Nothing. I jumped across it, asked Terry, “Hey, Terry - where’d you get those blinds?”’

  ‘Blinds?’ Karen said.

  ‘Sure. These double-rolled bamboo on the window behind the desk.’

  ‘Window blinds?’

  ‘This is what the shylock is saying. By the time he gets his head around the switch, I’m gone.’

  Karen

  ‘Okay,’ Karen said. ‘But window blinds?’

  ‘See, it starts out with murals. Then, you’re halfway through, they start wondering about backdrops. Contrasts on the covings, the skirting boards, that kind of thing. Before you know it, they’re talking about window blinds.’

  ‘Take the next left,’ Karen said. Ray indicated, turned off. ‘Go on,’ she said.

  ‘I swear, there’s someone out there who spends their whole life coming up with new blinds. Soon as you get a handle on one, another’ll pop up. Some sort of pleated Venetian or sheer horizontal. Double-rolled bamboo. Won’t be long,’ he warned, ‘before you’ll need a degree in origami just to let the sun in.’

  ‘Take the second left off the next roundabout.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have put Terry Swipes down for dabbling in the black arts. But there it was behind his desk, a chunky lateral bamboo, except it’s rolled vertically to one side of the window. I’m wondering, is it something new for autumn or is it a retro thing. Y’know?’

  Ray came off the roundabout and pulled in when Karen pointed to wrought-iron gates set into a dry-stone arch. Beyond the gates, under orange lights, was a half-empty parking lot, a neatly manicured lawn, four squat three-storey apartment blocks.

  ‘That’s me,’ she said, unclipping her safety belt and opening her door. Then she realised Ray wasn’t moving. ‘You’re not coming in?’

  ‘You want me to?’

  ‘That was the idea. So you could taste some decent coffee.’

  ‘Even after all the, y’know.’

  ‘You’re not so tough. Besides, who’d want to snatch me?’

  ‘That’s not the point.’

  ‘If it’ll make you happier,’ Karen said, digging out her mobile phone, speed-dialling. While she waited she stared boldly at Ray. Then, when the answering machine kicked in: ‘Madge? Hi. It’s about one-ish, I’ve pulled, and the guy’s worried that I’m not worried about making him coffee. So – he’s called Ray and he drives a white Transit van, registration number nine-six-dee-one-nine-nine-five-three. Buzz me tomorrow.’ She hung up. ‘Happy now?’

  Ray turned off the engine.

  On the way up the apartment block steps, he said: ‘So this coffee is the best, right?’

  ‘Now you’re a connoisseur?’

  ‘Just fussy. And all the time, not just with coffee.’

  ‘I’m supposed to be flattered now, right?’

  ‘Only if my opinion counts for anything. Why, would that be a problem for you?’

  Karen, buzzing on three vodka-tonics, one of them a double, had to think that one through while she put the key in the lock. ‘Not right now,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow, though, yeah. Probably.’

  Ray shrugged. ‘So let’s just drink some coffee.’

  Madge

  When Karen rang, Madge had other things on her mind. For the past hour or so, ever since a passionate Doug had moaned ‘Honey-mums’ just before he shot his wad on to her hip – he’d been aiming for her breasts, but Madge for one wasn’t disappointed his
ambition exceeded his ability – Madge had been awed by the number of names she answered to. So she let the phone ring out and click through to the answering service.

  ‘Madge? Hi. It’s about one-ish, I’ve pulled, and the guy’s worried that I’m not worried….’

  Madge, she thought. Was that even a name? It sounded, if you said it a certain way, like some kind of stain, strawberry jam squished into the carpet. She took a pull on the loose joint she’d managed to roll, sluiced down another gulp of iced brandy-ginger, and tuned back into the message. ‘… nine-six-dee-one-nine-nine-five-three. Buzz me tomorrow.’

  The phone clicked dead.

  ‘Who was that?’ Doug wanted to know.

  Madge looked down, surprised. She’d forgotten Doug was still there, sprawled across her pillows, sweat glistening through his comb-over. ‘Just someone I know,’ she said.

  ‘Sounds like she’s about to get lucky.’

  Madge thought about that. ‘She could get pregnant tonight,’ she said. ‘Or pick up a dose she can’t put down. Or the guy could be a fruitcake, turning nasty once she lets him in.’

  ‘Possible, I suppose,’ Doug said, scratching one-fingered at the inside of his thigh.

  ‘Or say he doesn’t. Say he’s just hopeless in bed, can’t kiss, getting sloppy, slimy. Then, tomorrow morning, she can’t get rid of him. He’s like a dog, sticking around with his tongue hanging out.’

  ‘When you put it like that ….’

  ‘Or he could be married. Like you.’

  ‘I take your point. Do you want me to go?’

  ‘Doug,’ Madge said, fiddling with her new belly-button ring, ‘I didn’t want you here in the first place. Remember? The bit before you started crying on my doorstep?’

  Doug sounded a lot like damp wallpaper as he peeled away from the sheet. He really did sweat a lot, Madge observed, noticing how Doug’s hairy back stained through his shirt. She wondered if all men sweated as much. Frank had been a pumper too.

  ‘Will I see you this weekend?’ he said, hauling on his jockey shorts.

  Madge took another hit off the joint. ‘I wouldn’t have thought so.’

  ‘What about ––’

  ‘I’ll be busy.’

  ‘But you don’t even know when ––’

  ‘I’m going away, Doug. To work in the slums of Calcutta. I’ll send you a postcard.’

  ‘Not to the house,’ he said, alarmed. ‘Christ, Audra’d be asking all sorts.’

  ‘To the office, then.’

  Doug nodded, struggling with his left sock. Madge didn’t have the heart to tell him that Audra was too busy fucking half of Oakwood to notice a blue whale coming through her letterbox, let alone any Calcutta postcards. Not that Madge was passing judgement. At least Audra had standards, refused to screw anyone who played off more than a twelve handicap. Madge, on the other hand, was fucking one of the few men Audra wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole even if her allowance depended on it.

  ‘Doug?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘When you see Frank, at the golf? Tell him I need that five grand fast.’

  Doug stared, aghast. ‘You think that’s wise?’

  ‘If I was any way wise, Doug, I wouldn’t be humping you.’

  Madge waited until she heard the front door slam, then got the joint lit and went back to wondering about all her names. Her parents had been generous, christening her Margaret Dolores Assumpta Bernadette – Margaret after her maternal grandmother, Dolores for some reason Madge never discovered, Assumpta because her father went berserk, pushed the boat out, when he heard christening names came free, and Bernadette because her mother said you had to have at least one properly martyred saint.

  Somewhere along the line Margaret had been shortened to Mags, although once she hit puberty it had lengthened again, to Madge. By then Madge had taken Frances for her confirmation name. Later on, when she got married, Madge had accrued yet another title: Margaret Dolan. This along with all sorts of dopey cute names from Frank, most of them baby-talk slush he thought was sexy. And soon after that, Madge had had to get used to being called Moms.

  She’d always believed Jeanie and Liz used the plural because they were twins, but whatever the reason, Moms was the name that irritated Madge the most. Although she had to admit, even Moms wasn’t as bad as the names her father had used when speaking to her – bellowing, actually – for what proved to be the last time. Slut, whore, tart and round-heels were only some of the variations on what had quickly become, for Madge if not her father, a boringly repetitive theme.

  Now, she thought, sucking on the loose joint and brushing the hot-spots off the quilt, she was going to have to get used to yet another title. As a divorcée Madge would be expected to revert back to her maiden name. The thing about that was, Madge wasn’t sure she would respond to anyone who called her by that name. It was so long since she’d used it that Madge felt the name belonged to someone she had sat beside in school but hadn’t seen, or wanted to see, in half a lifetime.

  Which was why, at the age of forty-five, sitting up in bed with the quilt tucked around her thighs, halfway through the first joint she’d ever rolled, her hip still sticky, Madge heard herself whisper: ‘Okay. But who the fuck am I, really?’

  Karen

  Karen went straight through to the kitchen, waving Ray into the living room. ‘The stereo’s in the corner,’ she called.

  But when she came through with the tray, changed out of the leathers into denims and a top with just enough v-neck to make it worth his while sneaking a peek, he was still leaning over the side of the couch looking at the rack of CDs. ‘What do you want to hear?’ he said, without looking up.

  Karen sat on the couch too, at a discreet but not insurmountable distance, and placed the tray on the low table. ‘I don’t mind. Whatever.’

  ‘It’s your place.’

  ‘You’re the guest.’

  He held up a CD. ‘How about these guys, The Smiths?’

  ‘Works for me.’

  He fiddled with the stereo while she plunged the coffee, Ray sniffing the air with a cheeky glee. Karen nodded along with the intro, Bigmouth Strikes Again. Then it hit her.

  ‘I get it now,’ she said. ‘With the fringe? You remind me of Morrissey.’

  ‘I get that a lot.’

  ‘Liar.’

  ‘I get that a lot too.’

  ‘And you’re not half as good-looking as you think you are.’

  ‘That’s still pretty good-looking.’

  ‘Says you.’

  ‘Says my agent.’

  ‘You have an agent now?’

  ‘I have an agent in every time-zone. It’s the only way to keep up.’

  She liked the sound of his voice, a mellow timbre that made Karen want to tuck it up under her chin, roll over on her side. Plus she was catching some breeze off the guy, a swagger, the kind of confidence she liked in a man. He was chilled, upbeat and not shy about flashing his smile. Although the quiff, she decided, would have to go.

  ‘You okay?’ he said.

  ‘Sure, yeah. Fine.’ She toasted him with the coffee mug. He smiled and toasted her back.

  And then Karen heard herself tell the fork story, up to and including the conversation with the female warder.

  Karen couldn’t believe it. Okay, she was drunk, and Ray looked entirely passable, especially the eyes. Karen could understand how people might tell Ray things they shouldn’t just to see his eyes glow like that, turn tigery. But Karen usually waited until after she got her jollies to tell the fork story, this to get rid of the guy. And if that didn’t work, some guy thought he was a hero, was going to take Karen away from all this, Richard Gere marching into a factory to sweep her off her feet, Karen’d introduce him to Anna.

  Right around then was when they’d start having trouble with their mobile phones.

  ‘The day my mother died,’ she said, ‘was the day I realised you can beat someone to death without doing it all in one go.’

  Ray
winced.

  ‘This is when,’ she said, ‘I’ve just turned fourteen. At the time I wasn’t sure who I hated most. Him for dishing it out or her for ––’

  ‘Hey, Karen?’

  She waved him off. ‘That only lasted until he started in on me. He racked up one snapped tibia, three concussions, two broken ribs and a perforated eardrum. This in about four years. Anyway, the last time, one of the concussions, I come to in the kitchen. He’s spark out on the floor, but he’s breathing. There’s a fork stuck in him, here, just above the heart,’ she said, patting the fleshy part of her shoulder.

  ‘The fork was you?’

  She nodded. ‘After, they said it only caused superficial damage. The stroke he got from the shock of being attacked back.’

  ‘Karen, you don’t have to tell ––’

  ‘Bear with me. Okay – I leave him there, go to the bathroom. There’s a bruise swelling up over this eye but that’s not enough, not nearly. So I spend about twenty minutes bouncing this,’ pointing to her crooked jaw, ‘off the round corners of the sink. Y’know, the porcelain ones?’

  Ray swallowed dry.

  ‘Anyway, I collect the teeth, clean up, go downstairs and ring the cops. He gets four years, eighteen months suspended. I gave it two weeks and went to visit. I wait until everyone’s into their conversations, it’s all whispers. This is when I start screaming about how he’s been fucking me up the ass since I was eight years old. So they hustle me out and call in this warder from the female block, put me in a quiet office, bring us tea. I told the warder it was all lies, he never touched me that way. But I told her he’d killed my mother, taking fourteen years to do it. She says, “So this kiddie-rape stuff – you want me to spread it around?”’

  Ray nodding along. After a while he said: ‘Forked anyone since?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Ever wanted to?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘But you didn’t.’

  ‘Nope.’

  He sipped his coffee. ‘Okay by me.’

  The way he said it, mellow with some throaty raw, like a Harley’s pipes, Karen’s hips began having these trembly out-of-body experiences.