The Big O (A Screwball Noir)

by Declan Burke

  Still, she conceded, it was all paying off now, the pain no more than a dull burn, an ache that was practically bliss.

  ‘So what’d you want to know?’ she said dreamily.

  ‘Say again?’

  ‘Outside on the street, you asked if you could ask me something. Just before I collapsed.’

  ‘You remember that, huh?’

  Karen didn’t like his tone. Or maybe it was the way he was making her out to sound helpless, how she wouldn’t even remember what they’d been talking about. Acting all superior, all manly and shit, with this smug grin.

  Karen, coolly, heard herself say as much – sounding tinny, she thought, like she was talking from the room next door. Ray, grinning wider now, told her he was impressed at how women listen and remember stuff. How a guy, if he’d collapsed in the street, wouldn’t be reminding anyone of the fact, bringing up questions they’d been asked just before, especially when there was a danger of something personal being proposed.

  ‘Proposed?’ Karen shook her head, taking a good five minutes or so to do it, her brain feeling a lot like fluffy cotton wool. ‘It’s a leap year, Ray. You don’t get to propose.’

  Ray jerked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘Actually, I was wondering about the shutters. I don’t suppose you know where Frank got ’em?’

  Okay, Karen thought, so maybe I shouldn’t have popped that third pill. And then, because she was about to die from mortification, Karen thought she’d fake a quick faint, have herself a little nap.

  Doyle

  ‘It’s not so much what he says,’ Doyle told Sparks, sitting on the edge of Sparks’ desk, dropping by the station with Danish and coffee, Christ, on her day off. ‘It’s what he doesn’t say.’

  ‘He doesn’t say yes?’

  ‘Last Wednesday night, in the bar? My birthday drinks? This is the night, of all nights, he meets someone.’

  Sparks nodded sagely. ‘And now he’s getting his lumps, first time in ages, he doesn’t want to fuck it up.’

  ‘There’s more to it than that.’

  ‘She’s pregnant already?’

  ‘Apparently,’ Doyle went on, ‘she kicked him out last night. Busted him a good one too. I mean, cut him under the eye.’

  ‘Go girl. So he’s what, crying on your shoulder?’

  ‘See, this is the thing. He’s just telling me. Not looking for sympathy or maybe a quick blowjob to pull him out of a hole.’

  ‘He’s telling you what, exactly?’

  ‘That I’m not too sure about,’ Doyle admitted. ‘He said he’d been saying things to her he shouldn’t, stuff he wouldn’t usually tell anyone. This is the effect she’s having on him.’

  ‘So he doesn’t tell you what he shouldn’t be telling her.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Sounds like a marvellous conversation. How was the coffee?’

  ‘The coffee was fine, thanks. We were fine, y’know? I mean, I’m sitting there thinking, this I could handle on a regular basis.’

  ‘Except he’s talking about someone who’s just chucked him out.’

  ‘Nobody’s perfect, Sparks.’

  ‘Girl,’ Sparks bridled indignantly, ‘have you looked at me lately?’ She mulled the situation over. ‘Here, what if the reason she kicked him out was he’s crap in bed?’

  ‘Nah. You’d give him a week at least. He might be the nervous type.’

  ‘But he’s not saying why she kicked him out.’

  ‘All he said was, he behaved inappropriately.’

  ‘He actually said that. Inappropriately.’

  ‘Said it was all his fault. Said she was right, at the time, to show him the door.’

  ‘Now I know you’re shitting me.’

  ‘He did say,’ Doyle clarified, ‘that he thought she maybe overreacted a little. That it wasn’t as inappropriate as she made it out to be.’

  ‘That sounds more like it.’ Sparks nodded at her PC on the desk. ‘You check him out yet?’

  ‘Haven’t had the chance. Want to?’

  They huddled around the PC. Sparks, being the junior, did the hard slog. Forty minutes later they had nothing.

  ‘Not even a birth cert,’ Sparks said.

  ‘So what have we tried?’ Doyle said.

  ‘Raymond, Raphael, Ralph, Ray and Reynaldo. And Rainier, naturally, in case he’s an illegitimate prince from Monaco. You’re sure his second name is Brogan?’

  ‘That’s what he said.’

  ‘Which means he’s lying or he’s gone to a lot of trouble to get himself invisible. No driving licence, no social security number.…’ Sparks tapped at a tooth with the end of a pencil. ‘Either way, he could be the straw that breaks society’s back, starts riots in the streets. I mean, it’s your duty as an officer of the law to get the guy legal.’

  ‘It’s a dirty job,’ Doyle sighed.

  Ray

  ‘So that’s Anna,’ Ray said.

  ‘Want to guess what she is?’ Karen said.

  ‘Guessing, I’d say some kind of wolf.’

  ‘Siberian Timber Wolf. Born to hunt. To kill.’

  ‘Is she ever let out of the cage?’

  ‘It’s a high-security kennel, Ray. And of course she gets out, she’s exercised twice a day. Otherwise she’d crack up.’

  ‘What’s she on, a seal a day?’

  Karen with her face against the reinforced wire mesh, the wolf rubbing its nose against Karen’s, its tongue lolling.

  ‘She likes to eat alright,’ Karen said. ‘Seven feet long from tail to tip, two hundred pounds, fifty miles an hour at full sprint.’ She winked at Ray. ‘In the wild, she ate whatever she liked.’

  ‘Reared wild, huh?’

  Ray liked the warm smell of fresh straw and pretty much nothing else about the set-up. The hound had a skull that was bigger than Ray’s, the snout alone a foot long. Ray could see it, Anna roaming the steppes, bringing down mammoths as the mood took.

  Plus, whenever she stopped snuffling around Karen, looked away towards Ray, he got the distinct impression the monster was laying on a baleful eye, this amber glare. To Ray’s way of thinking, the growl going on low down in its throat was showing off.

  ‘Hear that?’ Karen giggled, still a little high from the Nervocaine rush. ‘I always think I’m hearing a Harley when she does that. So what d’you think – should we let her out?’

  ‘Fuck no.’

  ‘C’mon, Ray. You’ll have to meet her sooner or later. I walk her two, three times a week.’

  Karen slid the bolt back, pushed in the wire-mesh gate. The wolf backed off, nipped around the gate and lunged across the walkway to plant a Yeti-sized paw either side of Ray’s ears. Ray staggered back and fetched up pinned against an empty kennel, afraid to breathe, the wolf doing enough for both of them, huffing and puffing sour gales in Ray’s face, upper lip curled back in a snarl, fangs the size of Ray’s thumbs.

  Karen patted the monster on the back of the head, tugged its ears.

  ‘Anna,’ she said, ‘meet Ray. Ray, Anna.’ Then: ‘So what do you think?’

  Ray, hoping Karen was speaking to him, said: ‘I like the eye-patch.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Absolutely. It’s, um, rakish.’

  ‘Isn’t it though? So Ray, last night – what were you doing outside my place?’

  Ray knew as well as any man that when a woman gives you a gold-plated opportunity to come clean, that’s the one time you need to lie like a priest in a convent dorm.

  ‘I was just passing, Karen. What I told you.’

  ‘How about Larkhill Mews? How come you were there?’

  Ray gagged on Anna’s sour breath. ‘I did some work up there last month,’ he said. ‘I’ve been back a few times to collect but the fuckers’d pass gallstones quicker. But I wasn’t up there last night, if that’s what you’re asking.’

  ‘Why would I be asking about last night?’

  ‘Last night’s what we’re talking about. Why I showed up at your place.’

  ‘
Swear?’

  ‘Karen, I didn’t even know it was your place I was at. The way I came up on it, we never arrived that way. It was always from the other direction.’

  While Karen thought that over, Ray squeezed his luck. ‘So what’s the deal with Larkhill Mews – someone saw me up there?’

  Karen tapped Anna on the back of her head. ‘Down, Anna. Good girl.’

  The wolf dropped to all fours, its muzzle six inches from Ray’s groin, the bushy tail whipping against Karen’s leg.

  ‘Don’t flatter yourself,’ Karen said. ‘It was someone you priced a job for, she recommended you to Madge. So Madge was wondering if she’d seen you around.’

  Ray held his breath, thinking, you cannot be serious….

  ‘Oh yeah?’

  ‘Yeah. Madge thinks she might have her place redecorated for a cheer-me-up. She wants to know if you can you drop by, give her a quote.’

  Madge

  Madge left the Crossfire running and strolled up into the high-hedged driveway, grinning when she saw Bryan in the khaki Bermudas, the Moses sandals, whistling off-key as he hosed down the Merc.

  ‘Well hello, big boy,’ she said breathlessly.

  The way the water went spraying off in all directions, Madge couldn’t be sure if Bryan had actually wet himself or not. He definitely had the look, furtive and guilty, as he twisted the nozzle to shut off the flow, glancing back at the house as he advanced towards Madge.

  ‘Jesus, Madge – what’re you doing here?’

  Madge stepped back out of range, nudged the hose to one side. ‘You’re dripping, Bry. Didn’t your mother ever teach you to shake?’

  Bryan tossed the hose away in a flowerbed, where it continued to dribble. ‘What’s up – what’s wrong, for Chrissakes?’

  ‘I’m pregnant, Bry. Isn’t that nice? You’re going to be a Daddy. I’ll bet you thought you’d never get the chance again so late in life.’

  As it happened, Bryan wasn’t that much older than Madge. But looking at him now, in the Bermudas, the white hairs on his shins, his shoulders hunched, Madge realised Bryan was old. He’d been born old, born to worry about money and only money, because everything else – class, position, prestige – could be bought, sold, rented or leased, Bryan didn’t care how he got them so long as he wasn’t the one looking in from the outside, slavering. A sad, miserable, pointless….

  And then Madge realised, from the expression on Bryan’s face, that he saw in Madge what she saw in him: a wrinkled, over-tanned façade stretched too tight around the hollow within. Balloons, Madge thought; we’re balloons, swollen to bursting except with tedium rather than helium.

  ‘But you can’t be pregnant,’ he said in a furious whisper. ‘You’re on the pill.’

  ‘Did I tell you that? Really?’ Madge tapped her pursed lips with a forefinger. ‘I’m taking pills alright, vitamin supplements, Prozac…. But the pill? No, I don’t think I ever said that.’

  Bryan ran a hand through his coiffed hair, revealing grey roots. ‘But Madge, you’re ––’

  ‘Too old? But Bry, don’t you remember telling me I could easily pass for forty-five, y’know, depending on the light … Oh, hi Fee.’ Madge waved past Bryan at Fiona. ‘Sorry I’m late hon, but the traffic’s murder.’

  Fiona teetered down the driveway on the kind of heels that’d give Madge a nose-bleed, maybe even vertigo. Wearing, Jesus, some kind of three-quarter slacks in bright pink, Madge didn’t know what they were calling them nowadays but they used to be pedal-pushers back in the day.

  Fiona brushed by Bryan, leaned in to air-kiss Madge. ‘Don’t worry about it, babes, I’m running late myself.’ Then brayed a coarse peal of laughter that shattered the avenue’s quiet. Behind her, despite his more pressing concerns, Bryan shuddered. ‘But who am I telling?’ Fiona trilled. ‘I’m always running late when you arrive.’

  ‘That’s okay, hon.’ Madge glanced at Bryan. ‘It’s a lady’s prerogative to be a little late sometimes. Isn’t that right, Bry?’

  Bryan nodded, swallowing hard. Fiona pecked a quick hard kiss on his cheek, putting Madge in mind of robins in winter.

  ‘Don’t forget, babes, dinner’s at seven. It’s Italian, Alfredo’s, so pick out a dark shirt. Oh, and after lunch? Madge and I are off shopping, I need to pick up a few things.’

  Bryan nodded again, caught between glum and distraught as he tried to digest all the bad news at once. Madge, leaving, waggled her fingers flirtatiously. ‘Good to see you again, Bry. Don’t be a stranger.’

  Fiona lit a cigarette as the Crossfire pulled off. ‘So how’s Bryan keeping these days?’ Madge said.

  ‘Fine, I think. Why?’

  ‘No reason.’

  ‘Yeah well, he’s fine … Listen, though,’ Fiona said, half-turning in the passenger seat, wedging herself into the corner, ‘never mind about Bryan. Did you hear about Doug?’

  ‘Ugh? No. What’s he done now?’

  Madge keeping an eye on her mirrors, unable to guarantee herself a straight face if she looked at Fiona, the girl wearing a tight blouse patterned with what looked to Madge like orangey-green parrots and open to where Madge and anyone else who cared to look could see the little bow on Fiona’s pink bra.

  ‘Oh God, Madge,’ Fiona said. ‘Doug’s in ICU.’

  ‘Intensive care? But that’s terrible, Fee. What happened?’

  Fiona sucked hard on her cigarette. ‘Frank happened.’

  ‘Frank?’

  Madge thinking, Christ, she really should get back out to Oakwood for the Friday night cabaret that was the infidelity waltz. The last time she’d been there Fiona had confessed, in the Ladies, how she’d slept with Frank before the separation became official. ‘I’m so sorry, Fee,’ Madge’d said. ‘After all these years, you finally get him into the sack and he goes and falls asleep.’

  ‘No,’ Fiona’d said, frowning, pink-faced from double gins. ‘I mean, when I say slept, I mean ––’

  ‘Oh, it was you who fell asleep. Is that it?’

  At which point Fiona – overcome by the moment and the effort of explaining to Madge how her ex-husband had finally availed himself of the most available comfort known to the male members of Oakwood – Fiona had slid down the wall and passed out on the damp tiles. Madge had tipped off a waitress and gone home, swearing never to return to Oakwood again….

  Fiona, sucking hard on her cigarette, said: ‘D’you think he meant it?’

  ‘Meant what?’

  ‘Belting Doug with the golf ball like that. D’you think he might be, y’know, jealous?’

  ‘Frank hit Doug with a golf ball?’

  ‘Knocked him out. Audra says Doug’s jaw is broken, said they might have to sue. But now they’re talking brain damage, Doug isn’t responding, and they don’t know if … if ….’

  Madge, thinking how Frank couldn’t hit his own knee with his pee if he was aiming for it, said: ‘Fiona, hon – this isn’t your fault.’

  ‘It’s not my fault. You know that.’

  ‘You can’t help it, Fee. Men can’t help it, what you make them do.’

  ‘But Madge – if something happens Doug, if he doesn’t recover….’ She sniffled hard. ‘It could be manslaughter, Madge. I mean, if they can prove Frank did it on purpose, that he knew about me and Doug, they could put him in prison for years. I can’t have that on my conscience, Madge.’

  Madge made soothing noises while Fiona dabbed at her eyes with some tissues Madge found in the glove compartment. Madge wondering, idly, waiting for the traffic to start moving again, where it was, Bali or Australia, or maybe somewhere mid-Pacific, that tantalising point on the globe that was farthest away from where she was sitting right now.

  Karen

  How Karen met Madge was, she was working on the till in a supermarket downtown.

  ‘So the assistant manager, Bob, he asks me out.’

  ‘Impeccable taste,’ Ray murmured.

  ‘Absolutely. So I say no, thanks all the same. I didn’t like the idea of us wor
king together, the guy’s my boss, he can tell me what to do.’

  ‘I can see how that wouldn’t work,’ Ray whispered.

  Anna stirred any time Ray spoke in his normal voice, looking up from where she lay sprawled on the grass, her huge head on Karen’s shins. Watchful even when Ray so much as turned his head. So Ray kept his voice low and stared straight ahead out over the valley at the picnic area on the bank of the river below.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind,’ Karen said, tugging on Anna’s ear, ‘but he wasn’t bad-looking. Anyway, the next thing I know is I’m a super-bitch, I’m frigid, I’m a cock-tease. I can’t keep up. Half the time I’m asking, “Hey Bob, what am I today, a lesbian feminist or some shit?”’

  ‘Can I sympathise in sign language?’

  ‘I wouldn’t. You start waving your hands around….’ Karen patted Anna, who whined and raised her head so Karen could scratch her throat. ‘Anyway, this graffiti shows up on the washroom wall, the women’s I should point out – ‘Karen King, Blowjob Queen’. Which gets me thinking, I could earn as much off three blowjobs a day as I’m making behind the till, taking all this crap from Bob. I mean, in theory. So I’m back at the till and there’s this rich bitch giving me grief, wants me to bag her stuff while it’s going through, in case she breaks a nail or some shit. I tell her, “Sorry, it’s against regulations, in case we miss an item.” Trying to be reasonable, like. So she goes, “I’d like to see your supervisor, miss.” I say, “That’s him over there, he’s called Bob. Feel free to call him over, I can’t remember if I’m supposed to be a slut or a total cunt today.”’

  ‘Classy,’ Ray observed.

  ‘So Bob arrives over and by now the rich bitch is having a stroke, she’s propped up on her shopping trolley, hasn’t heard the like of it in all her born days. Bob wades in, starts fanning her, all this crap. Says he’s giving me an official warning. Doesn’t even wait to hear my side of the story.’

  ‘Probably just as well.’

  ‘Not the point. Anyway, I get out from behind the till and say, “Hey, Bob – you know what?” He says, “Wha––’ and there it is, I’ve busted his nose.’