The Big O (A Screwball Noir)

by Declan Burke

  Ray nodded.

  ‘The weird thing is, he’s the one telling her to report it. Ring the cops. But she doesn’t. He couldn’t work it out. Next thing she knew, the bastard was like a kid with a new toy. Couldn’t figure out how she worked, so he’s trying to bust her instead.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Pretty much, yeah.’

  The Transit crawled along in the rush-hour traffic, Karen watching the pedestrians, all the normal people going about their normal lives.

  Ray said: ‘So your father goes away and you move in with Rossi. Is that it?’

  ‘Not fucking likely. Rossi was already in by then, his first tumble.’

  Put into care, Karen had been old enough to say screw school, she knew her rights. So they got her a job on a factory floor making rubber mats for weighing scales, some Korean crew.

  Karen didn’t mind the work: it was monotonous, but at least you got the feeling of a job done at the end of the day. No, what got her down was the way the other women just accepted their lot, talking on the breaks about what they’d be cooking for dinner after working a full shift. The husbands at home watching videos, maybe picking the kids up from school if they weren’t welded to a bar counter.

  Karen stuck that for eighteen months, then split. By then Rossi was back inside again, his second jolt, so Karen took a job stacking shelves, eventually graduating to till jockey.

  ‘And this is where,’ Ray said, ‘you got the idea for the stick-ups.’

  Karen shook her head. ‘Rossi, the silly prick, gets out. We move in together. Then he gets pinched again. Third time, so he gets the full five years. I mean, for taking down a fucking chemist.’

  ‘A chemist?’

  ‘Codeine, anything morphine based, your basic amphetamines. Rossi wasn’t fussed. Except this time the chemist hands over something new, so Rossi gets the bright idea of trying it out there and then, making sure the chemist isn’t passing him duds.’

  ‘Only the cautious survive,’ Ray reminded her.

  ‘He gets clean away but the cops didn’t have too much trouble tracking him down. Like, he’s the guy under the Ducati wrapped around the railings on the wrong side of the motorway. At the hospital they told me he only survived because he was already unconscious when the bike hit.’

  ‘Lucky,’ Ray commented.

  ‘The bike got lucky. Hardly a scratch. Rossi got two broken legs, a punctured lung, a fractured skull.’

  Karen’d been so damn mad the night Rossi went down for five with no appeal that she’d gone out and held up a gas station just to show the prick it could be done without getting nabbed. Using Rossi’s Ducati to prove her point. The .44 was Rossi’s too, she’d pinched it from his lock-up. Karen never told him. She didn’t think he’d appreciate the irony.

  So she’d walked in, wearing Rossi’s leathers – baggy in the ass, but basically a close fit – helmet on, visor down, hair tucked away out of sight. Up through a side aisle to the counter, stomach churning, no idea of what came next but so pumped and mad she had to be doing something.

  ‘Afterwards,’ she said, ‘thinking back? I was blessed. I mean, it was late, I was the only customer. The fat guy behind the counter had his t-shirt rucked up so I’m looking at his hairy back, he’s watching TV on this black-and-white portable. None too interested in schlepping his fat ass down off the stool and helping me out. So I tap the .44 on the counter and say, “Excuse me?”’

  ‘I’ll bet he shit himself.’

  ‘The fucker just opened the till, dumped the cash out, went back to watching TV. I had to ask him for a plastic bag to put the money in.’

  ‘How’d you do?’

  ‘Twelve hundred and change.’

  ‘Not bad,’ Ray said, flashing a bread-van out of an intersection. ‘And this, I’m betting, is when you shit yourself.’

  Too fucking right. Karen didn’t pull any jobs for six months after. Shivering whenever she thought about it, every night expecting the cops to kick her door in. Once in a while the size of it hit her, the enormity of what she’d done, what it might mean to Anna if she got caught, was put away. This one time she saw a movie about Marie Antoinette, the girl on her knees waiting for the blade to fall. Karen’d cried.

  But as the months passed and Karen began to accept that she’d got away with it, the buzz seeped back in. The adrenaline thrill. The sheer nipple-stiffening power of it. Karen’d taken stock, liking the way she hadn’t panicked and dumped the dough. Which suggested to Karen that she had what it took.

  So she worked it around, how she’d pulled it off, the factors involved, and came up with a quiet time, a lonely place, not being greedy and not getting caught.

  ‘One-off scores,’ Ray said, ‘at a grand a pop – no cop’s busting his hump chasing that. Plus these places are always insured.’

  Karen giggled. ‘The time I nailed the seven grand? It made the papers. Said how the cops were looking for a small, skinny guy in leathers.’

  ‘I’d have said slim, not skinny.’

  ‘You’d say anything you think’ll get you in the sack.’

  Ray conceded the point.

  ‘See the next set of lights?’ Karen said. ‘Drop me off there, I’ll walk down to the laundromat.’

  At the lights Ray said: ‘So what about tonight? You doing anything?’

  ‘Actually, I am. And no offence, Ray, but I think I’d be tired anyway. Three nights in a row is a bit much for me.’

  ‘No worries,’ Ray said, although Karen thought she caught a hitch in his voice.

  Strolling on to work after dropping off her laundry, Karen decided on Tuesday. It’d have to be soon, with Rossi getting out, all these cops in tow, heat Karen could do without. Karen thinking how, if Rossi did turn up, get in her way, it’d be different this time. Karen felt stronger, had all she needed. And not because of Ray, either. It was just, Rossi’d have to get used to it, Karen was different this time.

  It was only then, going up the steps to Frank’s surgery, that Karen realised, shit, she didn’t have Ray’s number. And Ray, as far as she knew, didn’t have hers.

  Rossi

  Rossi’d never admit it now, chib any fucker said different, but Rossi hadn’t always been so proud of his name, his roots.

  He’d taken a lot of stick in the home, the other kids calling him greaser, wop, pizza-face. Shouting the odds about how Italians had sixteen reverse gears on their tanks. The nuns hadn’t helped his case either, dropping his first name and calling him Francis Assisi. The bigger kids on Rossi’s case: who’d he think he was, a saint or some shit? Rossi scrapping hard just to stop the bigger kids stealing his food.

  How the nuns dealt with it was, the kid left on the floor cleaned up the mess. So Rossi spent a lot of time on his hands and knees, scrubbing and starving while the other kids scoffed his grub and called him a greaseball. The only consolation there was, the bigger kids weren’t long finding out there were no reverse gears on Rossi Francis Assisi Callaghan.

  Then, when Rossi was nine years old, a miracle: Italy win the World Cup, Paolo Rossi scoring six goals that included the opener in the final. That night, pumped on adrenaline, half-delirious with joy, Rossi snuck out of bed and began flailing around the dormitory with the old tennis racket he kept under his mattress for emergencies. By the time they got him down, hustled him out, the damage ran to busted arms, cracked ribs and bloody faces, none of them belonging to Rossi.

  After that, once they let him out of the hole, Rossi didn’t have any more trouble with the bigger kids.

  As he got older, Rossi began to realise how much his own life mirrored that of the great Paolo, who had recovered from personal tragedy – some horseshit about fixing matches; Rossi didn’t believe a word of it – to become a national hero to the Azurri. Rossi could see himself on some Sicilian terrace, eating dinner at a big table, everyone jabbering away, Rossi sipping his wine and chewing it up about how he and the great Paolo had beaten the odds to become champions.

  That was why, Rossi f
elt it, it was in his genes, why Rossi liked a sunny day so much. Someone’d once told him how, in Sicily, it only rained two days in every year, guaranteed. Rossi could dig that. When the rain came on, the heavy black clouds, Rossi didn’t know whether to cry or stab some fucker in the heart.

  But even the bright warm morning couldn’t lift his spirits, Rossi barrelling down the canal towpath heading for his lock-up, the Ducati and the .44. He turned off the canal down an alleyway, the lock-up three doors in, noting the rusty padlock that meant no one had been inside in years.

  He finally got the key turned, sprung the lock, hauled open the double wooden doors. And stared, dumbstruck.

  No bike. No love-of-his-life flame-red Ducati 996 under the tarp. Fuck it, they’d even swiped the tarp. And even before he went for the wood-wormy wardrobe against the back wall, Rossi knew the leathers would be gone too, the helmet. He dropped to his knees and scrabbled under the wardrobe for the loose flagstone, groping blind. Knowing the stash would be gone too, his sixty grand, the .44 ….

  Rossi sat on the sagging, mildewed canvas cot and rolled a fat one to sand down the splinters. The red mist descending.

  Karen?

  Had to be. No one else had a key. And no one else would rip a man off all the way, strip him bare.

  Rossi smoked on, feeling a stirring in his groin, getting hard and mean.

  Thinking, that fucking bitch Karen.

  Ray

  When it came to women, in Ray’s experience, it wasn’t who talked loudest or longest or made the most sense. Mainly it was whoever talked to them last.

  Like this fortyish-looking tennis type with the coffee tan and headscarf wrapped tight to her skull, the chemo-chic pose. All made up at nine-thirty in the morning, gazing in wonder around her own kitchen, head to one side saying: ‘Blue? You really think so? We never thought of blue. But now you say it ….’

  Ray knew he could call at lunchtime and get a whole new Karen, depending on who she’d been talking to last.

  ‘What you have to consider,’ he said, ‘is the kind of light you’re getting back here. Around the front, sure, yellow, to soak up all that sun. But back here, if you think about it, you’re going blue, to pick up on how thin the light is.’

  Ray had been stuck with a heap of blue, aquamarine, and needed to offload.

  The tennis type saying: ‘Of course, yes. We were thinking mauve originally.’

  ‘Too absorbent. Mauve’s more your bedroom colour.’

  ‘Really?’ Still gazing around her kitchen like it was the inside of a genie’s bottle. ‘Well, you’d be the expert on bedrooms, Mr Bro …Oh!’ A hand fluttered to her lips, a blush rising in her cheeks. She met Ray’s eye. ‘I didn’t mean ….’

  Ray slipped her the bashful smile. ‘Don’t worry about it. My mother’s called me worse.’

  Most days Ray was up for a little flirting. It was part of the gig, one of the first things Ray had learned. He was thinking of using it as a slogan for the side of the van – Brighten her home, gladden her heart.

  Ray even got a kick out of the banter. Using all these cheesy lines, throwing them out there to see which ones got the good ol’ girls a-giggle. The funny ones he used again, off-duty. As for the bad ones – the way Ray saw it, when you’re thickening up, pushing fifty, and have nothing better to do than get your house redecorated, there’s no such thing as a bad line.

  This one, the tennis type, she wouldn’t even be a stretch. Still working it, the legs good from all the hours spent pounding the courts. More bony than slim but pert front and back. The kind, she’d want him to take her rough, like a pig snuffling truffles.

  This morning, though, Ray wasn’t in the mood. The thought had occurred to him, the night before, just as he was getting his knees set right, his rhythm going, how maybe Karen’d be the last woman he’d ever get to screw. Not that he was dying or anything. A simple matter of choice.

  It wasn’t the first time Ray’d had that thought: what made it significant was that it had been the first time the notion didn’t cause his rhythm to falter, get him coming too soon. So he said, to the tennis type, keeping it brisk: ‘So what’d we decide – the blue, right?’

  And saw the fall in her eyes. Ray felt sorry for her, he truly did, the woman hoping for kicks from the hired help. But she wasn’t his problem. Ray’s problem, as of six hours ago, was how to go about making sure Karen never got to feel the same way. When he’d looked at Karen afterwards, both of them still panting, swearing softly and sweating, there’d been an expression in her eyes Ray’d only ever seen but once, this Ethiopian kid from a famine documentary, three years old with eyes as wide as forever too soon.

  That was when it finally dawned on him: it’s not the way a woman looks, it’s the way she looks at you.

  Truth be told, Ray was a little disappointed. He’d presumed it’d all be a bit more complicated. But then, Ray’d read somewhere once how for a woman it’s the right guy but for a guy it’s the right time. So maybe he’d just arrived in his time.

  Leaving, Ray tried to cheer up the tennis type. ‘I don’t usually do this,’ he lied, turning on the top step. ‘But if you want to pay cash, I’ll cut two hundred off the top.’

  She nodded. ‘Of course,’ she said, with just enough acid to make it bite, ‘I’ll have to talk it over with my husband first.’

  ‘You do that.’

  ‘I don’t believe I got your number,’ she called as Ray crunched away down the gravelled drive.

  ‘That’s okay,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘I’ll call back in a few days.’

  Not saying if he’d ring or actually arrive. Maybe gladden her heart a little that way.

  Madge

  Watching Tamisha from under her left armpit, tangled up in some half-assed Lotus Flower knot that was supposed to relieve stress and promote flexibility, Madge despaired of ever achieving the tranquil grace that came so easily to Tamisha.

  For one, the girl was built like a corn dolly, triple-jointed, with half the ribcage Madge was lugging around. Plus, as far as Madge could make out, you needed to bathe in patchouli oil and grow a moustache. Tamisha took the natural approach, no wax or razors. Behind her back, the class called her Yoga Bear.

  ‘Annnnnnd … release,’ Tamisha announced. ‘Okay ladies, take five.’

  The high-ceilinged room, mirrored down one side, echoed with thuds and grunts. Fiona, red-faced on a padded mat to Madge’s right, rolled onto her back whooping down lungfuls of air. ‘It’s … so … relaxing,’ she gasped, beads of sweat clotting her pencil-etched brows.

  Madge, still on her hands and knees, unable to speak, just nodded. Wondering if Fiona, Audra to her left, felt as ridiculous as she did, jammed into leotards and the matching leg-warmers. Madge could see herself in the mirror, Tamisha at the barre swinging her leg like she was auditioning for a can-can troupe, Madge blowing hard as a baby whale, sweat stinging her eyes.

  Fuck, she thought, this.

  She hauled herself upright and arched her back, hands on hips, then lurched across the hall to the exit, waving away Tamisha’s solicitous enquiry.

  Towelling off alone in the changing room, she cast a critical eye over her reflection in the fogged-up mirror. Starting with the feet – Madge had always liked her feet, small and neat, delicate. Slim ankles, the calves chunky but in proportion, the thighs starting to balloon, dimpling now with cellulite. Frank had wanted Madge to undergo dermabrasion but Madge wouldn’t wear it. Not that she wasn’t as vain as the next girl. It was just that Madge had this problem with taking Frank’s advice, seeing herself through Frank’s eyes….

  The belly, yeah, thickening up, the love-handles running flabby, the stretch-marks like trenches from some abandoned war. But what did they expect, she was fifty-fucking-one, had twins for Chrissakes. The boobs, of course, were still good, hanging a little heavy now but basically presentable, especially in a halter-neck. One thing Madge had learned, getting older, was how a hint could say nothing but still say it all.

&n
bsp; The neck and throat, okay, getting a little turkey’d up, but lines or no lines, the face was still kicking it, as Jeanie and Liz would have it. The eyes wide and brown, the lips full, the nose…. Okay, so maybe the nose could do with some filing down, particularly the little bump just below the bridge. But Madge had seen Frank’s tools – this back when Frank was still practising – the tiny chisels, the bone-saws. No way was Madge letting anyone stick a chisel up her nose, maybe hammer it all the way into her sinuses.

  Outside in the parking lot, waiting for Fiona and Audra, a woollen hat tugged down over her damp hair, Madge reached to switch on her mobile and then thought, fuck it, all she ever got were calls from Jeanie and Liz, the girls always looking for something. A life, mainly. Madge couldn’t stand mobile phones, the way people were always making calls they didn’t need to make, sending texts just because they were standing in a queue. Madge didn’t even like that they were called mobiles, like they had wheels, could be steered by remote control. If anything, Madge thought, they were portables.

  So she reached further into the glove compartment, found her cigarettes, then realised she’d packed the stub of a joint, just enough to take the edge off. She fired it up, thinking how, when it came to busting stress, a smoke knocked a Lotus Knot into a cocked hat….

  The kick for Madge wasn’t so much the mellow buzz, the chilling out. No, what Madge enjoyed best was that she, Margaret Dolan, mother of twins, was smoking grass, weed, pot, call it whatever. All the movies she’d ever seen, the hippies rolling up in a haze of smoke, Madge’d wondered, okay, it looks fun but how’s it feel?

  Pretty good, yeah. But, like, okay – what happens next? Madge was on the prowl for experience, something – anything – new. Once word had got out about the separation, Madge’d been snowed under by Frank’s friends, all concerned as to how Madge was making out, be sure to call if there’s anything you need. Doug was the second of Frank’s golf buddies Madge had screwed: Bryan first, for spite and to compromise him on the divorce settlement, then Doug from sheer boredom. Madge grinned, hearing Karen say it: Fuck your A-bombs, there’s nothing as dangerous as a bored woman.