Crazy Lady

by James Hawkins

  “Just a few days,” Bliss reminds his son-in-law as the waitress slaps a couple of cups of instant coffee on the table, asking brusquely, “Somefink to eat?”

  Bliss looks around at the backstreet café, at the smoke-stained, grease-engrained walls and the finger-smeared display cabinet containing the remnants of yesterday’s lunch, and thinks, Eat — in here? Are you kidding?

  “No, that’s all,” he says without consulting his sonin-law.

  “Three quid,” says the plump woman with her hand out.

  “Keep the change,” he says, giving her exactly three pounds and watching her smile fade halfway to the cash register.

  “Frickin’ funny,” she spits over her shoulder.

  “Shoot,” says Bliss trying to take away the coffee taste with several spoonfuls of sugar. “What have you got in mind for your dear old dad?”

  “Hey, don’t you start,” says Bryan, laughing, then he pulls out a couple of legally signed warrants. “Wiretaps,” he says flourishing under them Bliss’s nose. “One for Edwards and one for Creston.”

  “How the hell —” starts Bliss, but Bryan cuts in.

  “Friendly judge, hates bent cops more than he hates villains. ‘At least villains are honest about what they do,’ he says to me as he signs Edwards up.”

  “So what do you need me for? Just listen and learn.”

  “That might work,” admits Bryan. “But I doubt if either of them will be stupid enough to sew themselves up without a little encouragement.”

  “And you expect me to encourage them?” questions Bliss.

  Bryan nods in agreement, saying, “I’d use one of my crew, but I’m not sure who I can trust.”

  “Because,” starts Bliss, but he doesn’t push the point. He’s well aware that few of his colleagues are completely fireproof; that no one can be certain that Edwards’ lawyer won’t spring out of the defendant’s box with a trial-stopping revelation that will leave them without a pension while Edwards paints on a broad grin and walks free.

  “The taps are going in as we speak,” carries on Peter Bryan. “It’s going to take all day — Edwards’ place; Creston’s home, apartment, and office.”

  “Cellphones?” queries Bliss.

  “The works.”

  “So like I said, what do you need me for?”

  “Hey, are you two finished?” yells the stubby waitress from the cash desk. “People are frickin’ waiting you know.”

  “Couple of minutes, luv,” replies Bryan, then he leans in to Bliss. “What I need is an undercover man in Creston’s office.”

  “That could take weeks —” Bliss is starting when Peter Bryan stops him.

  “No. I want a really clumsy one. Someone who’ll be sussed in ten minutes flat, someone so dense that a ten-year-old would catch on.”

  “I’m sure we’ve got a few of them,” laughs Bliss, but his son-in-law isn’t laughing. “I want you in there, Dave, in Creston’s face, bumbling around like a greenhorn, asking stupid questions, dropping hints, offering backhanders. He’s already jumpy. He knows Edwards has been lifted. Plus, he’s snowed under trying to keep his wife quiet, and he’s got a war on his hands in West Africa.”

  “It doesn’t sound as if he’s having fun.”

  “Oy,” shouts the waitress with a tone of finality. “I need that frickin’ table for real customers.”

  “Nice lady,” mutters Bliss, but he’s got all the information he needs. “Give me a couple of hours to think it over,” he says as they leave. “I really want to get back to my writing. I’m scared she’ll think I’ve forgotten her.”

  “Not much chance of that, Dave,” jests Peter Bryan as he throws an arm around his father-in-law’s shoulders. “I’d never forget you and I’ve never even slept with you.”

  George McMahon, the manager of the janitorial company responsible for cleaning the Creston tower, is a pushover for Bliss two days later.

  “Are you really sure you want this?” queries the softly spoken Liverpudlian, eyeing Bliss’s bronze skin and sharp jeans. “Only you ain’t the usual type.”

  “Need the bread,” says Bliss pushing his cockney accent as far as it will go. “I got the trouble and strife on me bleedin’ back to get off the dole.”

  “Well, sign here, then. Start at six Monday mornin’. Amy’s the boss over there. She’ll be right chuffed. She’s always bendin’ me ear about not having anyone to do the liftin’.”

  “I can do that all right, guv,” says Bliss, flexing his biceps as he prints the name and social insurance number that Peter Bryan provided for him. “What about uniforms?”

  “Blue overalls — pick ’em up from Amy. You wash ’em.”

  “Right-oh, guv.”

  “And make sure you do. Creston gets real foony about things like that.”

  “’kay.”

  “An’ watch yer language. They’re a bunch of bleedin’ Bible punchers. No fookin’ swearing, awl right?”

  “Awl right,” agrees Bliss.

  “I should have brought my manuscript with me,” grumbles Bliss to himself as he whiles away Sunday afternoon feeding ducks in St. James’s Park after watching the guards at Buckingham Palace, and he’s tempted to pick up a notebook and carry on. But he knows he’ll be wasting his time. He knows that he needs a completely clear mind to focus on his writing. He knows that what he has to write is too crucial to his plot to be picked at between the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey like a backpacker’s travelogue.

  “Paul Mann,” he says at ten minutes to six the following morning as he reports to an office stuffed with toilet paper and light bulbs in the basement of Creston tower, and Amy beams.

  “Wow. I heard you wuz big,” she says with more than just a friendly smile as she hands him his overalls. “You can start with the rubbish bins.”

  “Thanks,” he replies screwing up his nose.

  “Don’t worry,” she says. “They ain’t mucky. It’s just paper and stuff.”

  Joseph Creston is in his office by eight when Bliss and the rest of his co-workers are breakfasting in an equipment store twenty-seven floors below.

  “So, what did’ye do before?” Amy wants to know, but Bliss isn’t ready to start sharing.

  “This and that,” he mumbles and keeps his head down.

  “Stairs and lifts,” says Amy once the break is over and she points Bliss to a buggy loaded with mops and buckets. “And try not to get in any of the bigwigs’ way or they moan like shit.”

  It is nearing ten before Bliss finally makes it to the twenty-seventh floor, and as the elevator whirrs smoothly to a stop, he readies his key to lock open the door while he cleans the surrounding area, but Creston’s receptionist jumps on him.

  “Do that later,” orders Tracy, a tightly suited young woman with slicked down hair, from the safety of her mahogany framed counter.

  “Sorry,” says Bliss, continuing to turn the key. “Orders is orders.”

  “Well I’m ordering you not to do it now. Mr. Creston may want to use it.”

  “He can use the other one down the hall,” suggests Bliss, but the gatekeeper has left her seat and is headed his way.

  “Do it later,” she is saying when the boardroom door opens and Creston storms out with Mason in his wake.

  “Professionals,” spits Creston over his shoulder. “Shit, Mason. For what I pay, I expect professionals.” Then he turns on the receptionist. “What’s this?” he demands and Bliss is unsure if he’s talking about the cleaning cart or himself.

  “I told him to come back later…” the girl is trying apologetically when Creston pushes her out of the way, grabs Bliss’s cart, and angrily yanks it aside, yelling, “Get out of my way.” Then he turns to the girl and waves his cellphone at her. “Emergencies only.”

  “Well. I guess I might as well clean the offices, now,” says Bliss once Creston and Mason have disappeared from view. Tracy scowls in reply and Bliss puts on an empathetic smile.

  “Just get on with your job,” she says
going back to her computer.

  “That was a waste of time,” explains Bliss later when he meets to report to Peter Bryan. “Someone peed in Creston’s morning coffee and he stormed out in a huff. I never got a chance.”

  “Oh,” says Bryan sheepishly. “That was me doing the peeing. I gave him a call and asked him to come in for a chat about the money in Edwards’ pocket.”

  “Oh great. What did he say?”

  “What d’ye expect, Dave? ‘No idea; never heard of him; not me, guv’nor; mistake…’ All the usual rubbish. But at least I’ve got it in writing with his moniker on it, so if he tries singing a different tune when we stand his bank manager up in the witness box, he’ll have some explaining to do.”

  The second and third days of Bliss’s drudgery get him no nearer Creston, but cracks are starting to appear at the front desk.

  “He’s a bit of pusher,” suggests Bliss to the snotty receptionist with a nod to the president’s door, and at first she blanks him and sticks to her desk.

  “Actually,” she says eventually, when she’s sure the executive’s doors are all shut, “he’s not usually like that. But his wife’s ill.”

  “Wife?” queries Bliss. “I thought he was single.”

  “So did we,” chuckles the woman, and then she whispers conspiratorially. “It seems he’s been keeping her dark.”

  “Girlfriend trouble,” suggests Bliss with a suggestive wink.

  “No,” laughs the woman. “It’s Tracy by the way,” she says pointing to the sign in front of her. “He’s too churchy for that.”

  “I see,” says Bliss as he reaches for the waste bin behind her counter, but she stops him with a hand. “That has to be shredded.”

  “No worries,” he says with a helpful smile. “I’ll do it for you. I’m going down to the shredding room right now.”

  By Thursday morning, with nothing to show for his clumsiness, not a hint that anyone suspects him, and the ending of his novel and the return of Yolanda receding into infinity, Bliss pushes buttons.

  “What are you doing?” demands Mason, catching Bliss closing a desk drawer as he enters his office a little after eight.

  “Just clearing up, guv.”

  Mason eyes him suspiciously. “Are you new here?”

  “No, not me,” lies Bliss as he fidgets uneasily with a bag of garbage. “Bin here ages, guv’nor.”

  “What’s in the bag?”

  “Bag?” questions Bliss, as if he’s surprised to find it in his hand. “Oh this? Rubbish I expect.”

  “Let me look,” says Mason advancing, but Bliss gives him the runaround.

  “I don’t think you’re supposed —”

  “I said show me what’s in there,” carries on Mason with his back to the door, but Bliss sees fear in the man’s eyes and pumps up his torso menacingly.

  Mason is out of the door, yelling, “Call security,” before Bliss has a chance to move, but he’s not far behind, dumping the garbage bag into his cleaning trolley while casually remarking, “I guess I’d better be off.”

  Joseph Creston hears the commotion and rushes out, demanding of his sidekick, “What’s up, Mason?”

  The company lawyer, now bolstered by his boss, advances on Bliss, who is struggling into the elevator with his haul, and sticks his foot between the doors. “You’re not going anywhere,” says the lawyer, getting into a tug of war with Bliss’s cart, when a panting security guard emerges from the adjacent stairwell.

  “He’s a cop,” the guard reports ten minutes later when Bliss has been stripped of his overalls, his security badge, and his cleaner’s buggy.

  “I bloody knew it,” swears Mason as he studies Bliss’s details in the guard’s proffered notebook.

  “Yeah,” continues the uniformed man proudly. “He must think we’re stupid or something. The silly bugger had his police ID in his wallet and he even —”

  “That’ll be all,” says Mason shooing the man out, then he picks up the phone and calls Edwards.

  Chief Inspector Peter Bryan can hardly control his voice when his father-in-law gets through to him ten minutes later.

  “Brilliant piece of work, Dave,” laughs Bryan, who has just been briefed by the surveillance officer listening in on the wiretaps. “Edwards nearly took Mason’s head off. ‘I told you never to f’kin call me here,’ he yelled down the phone. Then Mason says, ‘Don’t worry Mick. Me and J.C. told ’em we didn’t know anything about the money.’ ‘Don’t be such f’kin pratt,’ Edwards said. ‘They know damn well you gave it to me. Anyway, why the fuck are you calling?’ Then Mason gave him your name and I thought he’d had a heart attack. Edwards goes dead quiet for like twenty seconds then he says, ‘Hang on a mo, Bliss ain’t here, he’s writing a f’kin book in France.’ Then Mason says ‘What?’ and Edwards… and this is really funny, Dave… Edwards says ‘It’s a double f’kin bluff.’ And Mason says ‘Why would they do that?’ And Edwards… get ready to laugh, Dave… Edwards says… ‘Cos they’ve tapped your f’kin phone you pillock. They’re prob’ly listening in right now… Oh shit!”

  Bliss and his son-in-law are still laughing an hour later when the digital recording is replayed by the surveil-lance officer.

  “Well I’d better get back to France,” says Bliss. “I wouldn’t want to prove Edwards wrong.”

  Heathrow Airport. The Thursday evening commuters who at one time would have balked at driving home to far-off Oxford or Cambridge now stretch their weekends in Provence, Tuscany, on even the Algarve. Two hours in a business seat aboard an Airbus to Florence is less challenging than two hours behind the wheel in a smog-laden snarl up on the motorway, and the end result is certainly more rewarding.

  David Bliss isn’t travelling business, but it’s only an hour and a half to Nice so he doesn’t mind. And he’s lucky. He has snagged a seat because of a last-minute cancellation, though it did not come cheap. “How much?” he exclaimed at the standby desk and promised himself that he will get it reimbursed through his son-inlaw. “It’s for business,” he told the check-in clerk, and inwardly he is still laughing at the way that Edwards stuck his head in the noose as he heads towards his plane.

  “Chief Inspector Bliss?” questions a uniformed sergeant tapping him on the shoulder as he shuffles towards the boarding gate with his ticket and passport in hand.

  “Yep.”

  “Sorry, sir. But there’s an urgent call for you in the police office.”

  “I’m just getting my flight… who is it?”

  “Sorry, sir,” the sergeant continues with genuine apology. “But I’ve been told that you must take it.”

  Bliss dithers.

  “I think that’s an order, sir,” says the sergeant.

  “You’ve got time,” says the girl taking the tickets. “Twenty minutes at least.”

  “OK,” replies Bliss and he hurries the sergeant to the airport police station.

  An hour later Bliss is still waiting. His flight is skirting Paris, but he’s drinking cafeteria tea at Heathrow while a car is sent to collect him from Central London.

  “Sorry, Dave,” Peter Bryan told him in a downcast voice when he answered the phone. “Edwards has pulled a switcheroo. His lawyer and Creston’s people have got together and they’ve filed a complaint of trespass and theft against you.”

  “Brilliant!” explodes Bliss as soon as he catches up with his son-in-law, but he quickly rationalizes. “Attack is the best form of defence, Peter.”

  “I think it’s probably his only defence,” agrees Bryan, with Edwards’ admission on tape.

  “So why the hell did you stop me? I would’ve been back home by now,” starts Bliss, and then he thinks, That’s interesting, I just called St-Juan-sur-Mer home.

  “Sorry, Dave,” says Bryan, “But the assistant commissioner thought it best if we fronted them, faced them down, saying, ‘Yeah, OK. So what? So he trespassed, since when has that been a crime?’”

  “But what about theft? What the hell am I supposed to have stolen?”r />
  “Company documents, they claim.”

  “That’s a load of bollocks.”

  “I know,” says Bryan. “They’re flying a kite. They think that you were there to pinch evidence, but they don’t know what’s missing. In any case, they know they won’t get any mileage out of a civil trespass charge.”

  “So, what now?” asks Bliss as they arrive at Scotland Yard.

  Peter Bryan checks his watch. “Well we’ve missed the assistant for the day. You’d better stay with Sam and me tonight, and we’ll sort it out in the morning.”

  “We’d better,” seethes Bliss. “I’ve lost another week on my book.”

  “Don’t worry, Dave. She’s coming back.”

  “Easy for you to say; your entire future isn’t on the line.”

  “Dave, don’t worry,” says Peter Bryan. “They’re not going to fire you over this.”

  “I was talking about Yolanda,” Bliss says, pronouncing every word separately to make sure that it sinks in.

  The depression that settled over Bliss in France on Friday morning is nothing compared to the storm brewing on the executive floor of Creston Enterprises. A half a dozen lawyers and their assistants from Barnes, Worstheim and Shuttlecock sit around the enormous table scratching their heads over the stupidity of the owner and his sidekick.

  “We have to stay on the offensive,” says Barnes, opening up as soon as the introductions have been made. “The way we see it at present…” then he pauses to give Mason a fierce look, “… assuming we are in possession of all the facts, is that you received no information of any value from this… what’s-his-name… Edwards. Is that so?”

  “That’s correct,” answers Creston, while Mason mops his brow with a handkerchief.

  “Therefore,” continues Barnes, “could we assume that you, Mr. Mason, simply offered an old friend a small… shall we say almost insignificant… loan, so that he could purchase a new motor vehicle. Would I be right if I said that?”

  Mason brightens a touch and grabs the outstretched hand. “Yes,” he says. “Yes, I think that would be true.”