by I N Foggarty
The look in Ramone’s eyes at the mention of money told Sergio that he had finally worn him down. His fight with Maria must have been particularly nasty this time. “Fine…” Ramone said in resignation, “what is the lowdown?”
Sergio smiled in a manner that would send most people running and sat back down. Reaching back into the bottom drawer, he pulled out a new glass and poured himself some more tequila. “I have a shipment of merchandise going out tonight. Pirelli is buying.”
“Pirelli, that stuck up asshole,” the disgust was evident.
“That stuck up asshole pays better than most,” Sergio replied, helping himself to a drink. “Paulo is conducting the sale. I need you to go along and ensure he doesn’t screw it up?”
“What!” Ramone demanded, the rage reigniting. “You want me to tag along while Pablo takes charge?”
Sergio opened his mouth to bellow at him about whose job it was to decide who would be in charge but stopped himself. Instead, he asked, “who the fuck is Pablo?”
“It’s the actual name of the cunt you keep calling Paulo… and the idiot motherfucker you’re letting handle the sale tonight.”
“I decide who make’s the fucking sales,” Sergio spat, his temper flaring. “And his fucking name is fucking Paulo.”
“It’s fucking Pablo,” Ramone barked at him as the two men locked gazes. “We’ve never had anyone called fucking Paulo.”
“Like, hello!! His name’s Paul.” Sergio’s fierce eyes broke off the staring contest and they quickly shifted to the desk where the phone lay; Ramone’s did the same. “He’s like from Detroit. And Pablo like totally checked out two years ago.” He’d completely forgotten that he hadn’t hung up the phone.
Ramone was the first of them to respond. “Who the hell asked you?”
Sergio let out a low groan, picked up his glass and downed the remainder of the tequila in one go; it burned the back of his throat. Here they go again he thought, pouring himself another drink and leaving the door open for Tanya to retort.
“Since neither of you can even get his name right you like totally forfeit the right to complain at me for butting in. Besides, I was like so talking to Serg first.”
Ramone opened his mouth to retaliate but Sergio cut him off, “Enough!” Listening to the pair squabble over every little thing just wound up getting nothing done and giving him a headache. “I don’t care whether his name’s Paulo, Pablo or fucking Janice. We have a shipment of merchandise going out tonight and you,” he glared up at Ramone as he stabbed a thick finger in his direction, “are going with it to ensure that Paulo gets the job done right.”
“What’s the need? You obviously think he can handle it,” Ramone replied scornfully.
Sergio glared at the man but managed to restrain himself from shouting. Though he had been hesitant to agree with Tanya to give Paulo, or whatever his name was, a chance to make a name for himself, experience had taught him the hard way about erring on the side of caution. “I need you to supervise things. Ensure that Paulo and his team can do the job properly.”
“His name’s Paul,” Tanya whistled but he ignored her.
“I need you to do this… mi amigo.” He fixed Ramone with an awkward look that he hoped would remind him of their comradery. Eventually, the hard look on Ramone’s face softened slightly and Sergio knew he had got what he wanted.
“Fine. But I know this wasn’t your idea.” He watched Ramone glare at the handset on the desk. “I’ve told you before you had better curtail that bitch before it’s too late.”
Before he could reply, Ramone had turned on his heel and headed for the door. “Make sure you shower before you leave. Pirelli might take offence at your stench,” he stabbed listlessly as a passing remark.
“That prick can go fuck himself,” Ramone called back offhandedly as he opened the door and stalked out.
When it slammed shut Sergio swallowed his third drink and picked up the phone. “So what were you saying about this kid?” he asked, placing his feet once more on the surface of the desk. He might have dealt with Ramone in a relatively painless and non-headache inducing manner but his gut told him Tanya was about to tax his brain enough to make up for it.
Lamb and sheep
By four o’clock in the afternoon, the relentless assault from the sun had lessened slightly. That was not to say that the city had been saved from the heatwave. The collective group of individuals known as motorists were currently giving off enough hot air to more than make up for the slight drop in temperature, and rush hour hadn’t even officially started yet.
In one particular line of traffic, stuck between a taxi and a school bus, Dylan Rodgers sat behind the wheel of his black Mustang; freshly fitted brake pads as standard. With the windows rolled right down and his stereo system pumping both the cab and the surrounding area full of music, it would have been easy for any of the other drivers to think him in a good mood. He wasn’t.
Impatiently Dylan drummed his fingers on the back of the steering wheel. Watching the taxi in front almost lose its rear bumper when it darted into a gap in the adjacent lane that it had neither a right to take nor fit into. He had been stuck in this same monotonous line of traffic for over twenty minutes and it had become increasingly irksome. Hell, he could have walked home in the time it had taken him to get this far today.
Needless to say, this was not his preferred route home. That particular stretch of relatively obscure tarmac had today become an impassable field of roadworks and thus some bright spark had thought it a good idea to divert all traffic towards the busiest road in the area. Not only that but they had also neglected to place appropriate signage along the way at any point that would have allowed smart people like himself to have avoided the failings of lesser men.
“Oh come on!” Dylan exclaimed as up ahead the traffic lights flickered from red to green then back to red in less time than it had taken him to draw breath for his curse.
Predictably the sound of car horns roared up in anger all around him and Dylan didn’t hesitate to add his to the mix. It took another full five minutes for him to make it through the lights only to join the tail end of yet another procession of cars. If he ever found the person responsible for his suffering, he imagined, he would shove them into a taxi and pay the driver to take them along the exact same route he had been forced to drive for the entire day. That would teach whoever they were about proper road management skills.
After what felt like an age the wheels of Dylan’s car finally tasted the fabled entity of open tarmac. Tomorrow, he would check the internet to see if his preferred route was still a no-fly zone and if so would devise a far better diversion than this disaster. Not that it would take much for someone of his intellect.
Over the next ten minutes, the Mustang covered more miles than the previous thirty. A few turns later and Dylan had arrived back on his home street. Parking the car in the garage he cautiously opened the door that led into the house and glanced around. There was no sign of the old witch here at least. Moving into the hallway a quick scan of the key hooks beside the front door brightened his mood considerably. Mrs Mardle had gone out. Glad to be able to walk freely through his own home without fear of reprisal Dylan deposited his laptop case at the foot of the stairs before he made his way to the kitchen.
Truth be told the room looked more like that in a show home than a working place of food preparation. It was pristine, the checkerboard tiled floor had been thoroughly scrubbed and almost gleamed as light from the overhead LED clusters reflected off its surface. Along the walls, the black marble work surfaces too looked like they had been scrubbed to within an inch of their marbley existence. The same went for each and every one of the chrome covered devices and utensils that were not hidden away in drawers and cupboards. Though Dylan had a strong suspicion that even they had not escaped the housekeepers ministrations. Wandering over to the main oven he peered inside through the smudge-free glass to see what was cooking; a leg of lamb.
“Yuck!” Dylan de
clared to the room as he looked at the thing; he hated lamb. Well, he wasn’t to blame if the old woman had meant to set the oven to 350⁰ but had actually set it to 450⁰. He increased the temperature with a press of a button. An easy mistake for her to have made. He had told his father on many occasions that she was blinder than a dead bat.
Satisfied that lamb would not be gracing his dinner plate that evening he delved into the bowels of the deep freeze and withdrew a pepperoni and cheese pizza. Much better he thought as he placed his preferred dinner into the secondary oven and turned it on.
Twenty minutes later, after a trip upstairs to change, Dylan withdrew the pizza from the oven and smiled at it. “How could anyone prefer to eat some stinking sheep over you?”
Placing it on a large glass plate he expertly ran the pizza cutter over it. Satisfied with his slicing he then washed the cutter and put it back exactly where he had found it. Leaving any trace to suggest he had made his own dinner would prove fatal. The less evidence of him even being in the kitchen the better. Plate in hand Dylan picked up the empty pizza box and fetched a pint glass from the cupboard. On his way out he took a full two-litre bottle of Coca-Cola from the fridge. Reaching the door he turned back and took one last look at the lamb, slowly cremating in the oven, before leaving the room exactly as he left it… almost.
For the next hour, bliss. Pizza, Coke, anime and most importantly peace and quiet. Unfortunately, it did not last. When the credits rolled on the episode he had been watching a red light flashed on his desk followed by a robotic voice that said “Danger, Danger.”
“Please be a burglar. A prowler…home invader…escaped mental patient…” Dylan exclaimed as below the flashing light a black and white image of the front door popped onto a small screen. “Damn it.” He shook his head. Still, on the upside of this unfortunate turn of events she would at least be unable to accost him unaware should the need to leave his bedroom turned fortress arise.
A year ago Dylan had managed to hack into the servers of the company who supplied his father’s home security system and have the door sensor data along with the accompanying camera feed sent directly to his computer. From there it had then been a piece of cake to set up a system whereby every time someone opened one of the outside doors he could see who it was and whether or not they were coming or going. The sound effect he had added purely for the laughs. Regardless it had helped him greatly in his never-ending game of cat and mouse against the old witch.
From downstairs, a sudden yell followed by the continuous beeping of a smoke detector drifted up the stairs. Apparently, Mrs Mardle had just come to realise her lamb was ruined, pity she had set the oven temperature too high. He ‘tisked’ to himself as he rose from the sofa, picked up his glass and bottle and made his way across the room to sit in an extravagant leather chair in front of a large desk. A 32” monitor and tall loudspeakers dominated the surface. Pulling an equally extravagant gaming keyboard and mouse towards himself Dylan reclined in the chair. Retro or current he mused as the screen flickered into life. He failed to notice that the smoke detector had been turned off.
“BOY!” the voice of Mrs Mardle shrieked as she hammered on the door, causing Dylan to drop his mouse to the floor.
“Yes?” Dylan replied innocently, bending down to retrieve it. “Can this wait I’m doing my homework.”
“No, it cannot wait! And you know perfectly well why! I set that lamb to cook and you’ve deliberately ruined it.” She was angry this time. In fact, Dylan couldn’t remember the last time he had heard so much venom in her tone. Maybe he had pushed his luck too far this week.
“I didn’t even know you were cooking lamb,” he protested in his best-offended manner.
“Don’t you dare try and play dumb with me you little wretch. You turned the temperature up on that oven and don’t deny it. Now you had better open this door immediately and go down those stairs to clean out that oven and dish you’ve ruined or so help me!”
The threat hung in the air and he ignored it. Not likely that he would be going to clean that mess up. He had been home for well over an hour and knew full well that both oven and dish would be far removed from the shining state they had been in before his arrival. It would take hours to even get the burnt mess off. Ignoring his previous thoughts pertaining to caution he decided to have some fun. “Why should I? Isn’t cleaning what you’re supposed to be employed to do? It’s kinda beneath me to do something I have a subordinate employed to do don’t you think? Sorta makes your post seem…well, redundant.” He paused “Unless of course, you’re telling me you want to be redundant?”
“How dare you!” Unfortunately, there were no cameras outside his room as Dylan would have paid good money to see the look he knew would be covering the twisted old crone's face.
“You are a spoiled, ungrateful brat of a child! I do everything to keep this house the way it should be while all you do is sit around in that room doing god knows what.” The anger was palpable. He smirked as if hearing her rage made his night better. “You had best hope you change your wicked ways, Boy. Otherwise, you’ll face far worse than your father come judgement day! Oh yes. The devil reserves special places for the likes of you!”
He always found it amusing when she used her supposed Lord’s name in vain. Maybe if he showed her some of the posters on his wall she would openly pray for his soul. She was still ranting, he glanced at his wristwatch then took a sip of coke.
“Your father should have taken a stiffer hand with you years ago. If you were my child I would spank you to within an inch of your life! Now if you don’t get your act together and get that kitchen put back as you found it when whatever possessed you to sabotage my meal I’ll be getting straight on the phone to him and I’ll be sure to tell him...”
“And tell him what exactly?” he interrupted. This was the part where he got to exact some measure of revenge. “That YOU came home from wherever YOU had been to find that the lamb YOU had left unattended in the oven had burnt. Thankfully not to the extent that any serious damage occurred, while I unknowingly sat doing my homework and are too busy with it to do YOUR job of cleaning YOUR mess?”
“YOU burnt that lamb boy and when I…”
“…manage to prove it judgement day might be on us after all.” His tone suddenly shifted to one of unnatural hardness that his father would surely have been proud of. “It is your job, Mrs Mardle, to clean and keep house for my father and if you have to bother him I hope to hell you have something better than ‘Help me your son burnt my lamb.’ Because if you don’t then my father won’t give you the time of day.”
And thus ended the matter. Unsubstantiated claims were one of the things his father hated most. A businessman through and through Dylan had it on good account that his father had cut down many an aspiring young employee purely because they had dared to present him with data that they could not back up. He had also learned that principle extended to the brief dealings he had outside of work that normal people referred to as family life.
A moment of silence passed. “Have it your way, Boy,” the crone shouted in defeat. “But the kitchen is out of bounds for the rest of the evening while I clean up YOUR mess. In fact, you are not to leave your room!”
Dylan didn’t even bother to acknowledge her with a response. Not leaving his room? Was that supposed to be punishment? He had already stuffed himself with half the pizza and the bottle still contained more than enough coke to last him until morning. Besides, he kept a mini fridge well stocked in case of such an eventuality. He only needed to dispose of the rest of the pizza and any other garbage when the old witch wasn’t around and she would go about her business thinking she had won a small victory.
##
Hours passed and it was getting late by the time Dylan decided he had excavated enough digital tombs for one evening. Saying goodbye to his online friends, he let out a loud yawn and shut down the computer. He jumped when a sharp bang came from the door.
“Oh what now?” he groaned as he stoo
d up from the chair. Had her memory lapsed and forgotten he had already defeated her over the lamb incident.
“You’re for it now, Boy.” He froze. Why did her tone sound so gleeful? “Your fathers on the telephone for you.”
His father? Dylan almost fell backwards into his chair as his brain tried to interoperate what Mrs Mardle had just said. His father rarely called to speak to him. Had Mrs Mardle actually called his office and annoyed the receptionist enough that they had just put her through to him? Unlikely. Though his father had a habit of staying behind at the office it surely had to be too late for him still to be there and that wasn’t taking into account the one hour time difference between New York and Chicago.
No by this time he would more likely be at one of the social clubs he occasionally frequented. That would make sense. If he had gone to a club then he would have had a few drinks. Hence when his PA informed him of who was calling he may have been more willing to accept. There was a lot of ifs in that idea Dylan thought, however, even full planetary alignments had to happen sooner or later. That’s just how the universe worked.
“It’s about time, Boy,” Mrs Mardle said with a wicked grin as Dylan opened his bedroom door. “I hope you took a good look around because if God is good you’ll be off to military school the second you hang up that telephone.”
“Just give me the phone, Tabbie, and you can go.” Her prophet of doom act unnerved him more than it should have but he couldn’t let her see that. He squared his shoulders.
“The cordless phone is out of batteries,” she said smugly. Did that somehow make things more enjoyable for her? “So you can just march your way down those stairs and take the call in the study.”
He was willing to bet that the cordless phone had plenty of charge, but the longer he kept his father waiting the worse things would be. So he dare not risk going to the opposite side of the ground floor to find out. “Fine I’m coming,” he grumbled. He slid out of his room and locked it behind him.
