by James Newman
It was like nothing she had ever seen. At first she thought some kind of freak-show carnival was taking place and then she realized by the tired looks in the sunken faces of the entertainers and the entertained that this carnival had been going on every day and had lasted for more years than she had breathed the fresh English country air.
Men that had tattoos covering their bodies, men who had ballooned in size, victims of the burger stalls and kebab stands. The men were not normal they stared into bars as if they were searching for water on Mars, nourishment in an alien world. They craved guides, bedfellows, wenches, harlots, a diamond in a junkyard, a princess in a paupers dress. Rejects from modern Western world, they had, she imagined, left a number of burned bridges in their wake, on this, their pilgrimage to a new life free of responsibilities, for now at least. Free from a negative equity on a mortgage, free from credit cards and personal loans, child support, houses, cars, trappings. Here they could be themselves in a world where women were actresses and the audience believed their games and for now at least the sun shone down upon their beer bellies, their prison tats and their sandals. Their sun-burned skin and small eyes that squinted in the sun and scanned the bars for the one who might be the answer to a complex riddle, a riddle complicated further by alcohol, and Viagra, and thousands upon thousands of bars each with its own diamonds and car-wrecks. The army of bloated sugar-ants, centipedes and cockroaches all heading towards that sugar bowl, pot of honey, that special one with the back tattoo and the peroxide hair. Insects, bugs, primitive creatures motivated by the act of procreation and the simulation of love in exchange for tokens of common currency. Nightcrawlers, fireflies, grubs, worms, scorpions crawling through the all night American diners and eat-all-you-can buffets, hawkers of rubber chickens and sunglasses, brokers of massage and low profile hookers who would play the long game waiting with one long watery cocktail and a bag of sliced fruit as a prop. Men who had let themselves become monsters, for they knew that monsters thrived in the city of sin. Amongst these monsters were the two men who had the money for her escape. She walked two circuits of Metroland and then back to the Irish bar and ordered a sandwich and a glass of red wine. The wine was cold – straight out of the fridge. She thought about saying something but then thought again. A calm tropical beach in India or Sri Lanka perhaps. Australia, Indonesia, anywhere but here.
It was darkest before dawn.
Blackness here overwhelming
But for now she had to find work.
Any kind of work.
She asked the barman.
“What are you prepared to do?” he said.
“Anything,”
“Really?”
“Well, a woman with your looks and skills could go a long way. You see that bar over there?” He pointed to a black building with bright white lettering that read THE WHITE ROOM. “There’s an English woman, used to be a model. She owns the place and others like it. Since her son died last year she decided to go public. Back in the day they called her The White Flamingo. She runs many businesses, mainly gentleman’s clubs. She might be your first port of call.”
Rose thanked the man.
She wondered why he hadn’t come on to her.
She looked at the hundreds of women walking the streets, hanging out of bars, waiting for male company. The rules were different here.
Fun City was a different world.
She was out of their league and they were happy frying smaller fish.
THE WHITE FLAMINGO
DRINKING AT the bar.
A cocktail blue in color with a line of salt on the rim of the glass.
She looked Rose over like a jeweler examining a precious stone. She motioned for her to sit, asking the local man she was chatting with to move away. They moved into a private room at the back of the nightclub. “The VIP room,” she said sardonically. Then added “the real VIPs don’t come here. This is, how should I say, our ‘shop window’. Her accent was home counties and she spoke effortlessly as if the words hovered like butterflies around her.
“I’m looking for work, and then I need to find someone.”
“Anyone one I’d know?”
“A twenty year old. His name is Jimmy.”
“Well, that narrows it down to several thousand, dear. Let’s do a deal. You work for me for a while and I’ll find this old lover for you. Hmmm?”
“Well....”
“Shhhh. Have you ever worked in the industry before?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Good. Now listen, darling, most men like to feel like they are men. If they have a good physique, biceps, make a big deal about it: ‘Man, you could crush me if you tried,’ and most men like to see their weaknesses as their strengths. So you got a fat guy. What do you tell him? You tell him ‘oh I’ve love to wrap up next to you in the wintertime.’ No man, my dear, likes to sleep next to a woman that he knows hates him. Many men, sweet pea, are quite content to know that the woman is lying. Any man worth his salt knows this is what women do. Make him feel that he belongs in that bed – his bed usually, make him feel that he earned it and make him feel that you like him. If his penis is small tell him you like it, if it is big, let him know you are scared of it – but like it. Too many young entertainers pass through my hands and they feel that they are being short changed. Well, short changed by whom? Their motorcycle mechanic husbands who beat them with a gear change when they don’t bring home the bacon? Their alcoholic fathers and whimpering mouse-like mothers? Your cliental will be different. Japanese and Chinese, mainly. They pay for the white skin and honey, they pay dearly. Stick with me and you will make that fortune you lost and together we will make another fortune. The kind of money that you could only dream about. Just don’t fall in love, and don’t fall into hate.” The White Flamingo stubbed out her cigarette in the marble ashtray and continued. Rose had not spoken about losing money. Maybe she has assumed it, or maybe she knew more about her than she anticipated. “There’s an out of town hotel that went bust during the depression. I, well, my business partners and I, have taken it over. It will be the world first truly international house of ill repute, and you, Rose, will be its star.”
“What will I have to do?”
“Dance, mainly. And, you know, perform private solos for the three times three.”
“Three times three?”
The White Flamingo sighed. “Yes. Three inches, three minutes and three thousand. Dollars, that is. I’m getting old but I know the game. Life is just a game, and a beautiful woman like you has the winning hand at her fingertips.”
“These men will pay?”
“Look honey, I didn’t grow up a model. I grew up in a council flat and my family were so broke there was only one way out. I know the game. From the bottom to the top. From hand jobs to nose-jobs, honey, I know the game. If, and only if, you want to make a killing, here and now is your chance to do it. If not, the door is wide open. Above the money I can offer something more. Something more than money and experience.”
“Such as?”
“Protection.”
Protection from what?”
“Those who are after you.”
“Who says that there are people after me?”
“Sweetie. Everyone that comes here is running from something or somebody. In your case I think it is a man. A lover, or perhaps a parent. Am I, ahem, right?”
Rose looked at a clown across the street. The clown looked at her.
“Perhaps.”
“Chew it over. This place,” she said, her arms fanning out around the White Room, is only a smokescreen. “The real deal is elsewhere. I have many girls. But I need more. Are you in or out?”
“I’m desperate,” Rose said. She looked out onto the street. The men looked like Bernard Manning, the Terminator or a member of ZZ Top. A chemist shop had a sign that read HAPPY DRUGS and below in smaller lettering QUICK HIV. Outside a the bar the clown sadly smoked a cigarette. As he continued to smoke, looked at her, she scared him.
“Many here wear disguises,” she told Rose. “Nothing here is real. Learn that and you will be just fine. Trust me.”
Rose had little choice.
HONEY’S DEAD
BYRON CLEARED immigration and took a seat in the Thai Airways First Class lounge.
Ed Case followed.
“Not so fast, sunshine. This is where we go our separate ways.”
“What d’ya mean? In case there’s somebody following us, like, init? Two trails harder to follow than one, like.”
“Yes,” Byron drew the word out slowly as if addressing a backward child. “I booked you a seat in Economy, can’t be good for us to be seen together until we reach the destination.” Byron said handing Ed the boarding pass. He passed Ed a fifty pound note. “Get yourself some fackin duty free why you’re at it, San.”
Ed walked off, head down.
Byron ordered a brandy and waited for the flight to be called. The first class lounge was cool and quiet. He drank quickly. He had earned the right to sit in first class. Fuck Ed, flying was enough of an indulgence for him as it was. Economy was his style.
Flight called, he made his way, dragging his club foot behind him through the tunnel and into the airplane. He took a seat in First Class and admired the angel-faced air-hostess who served him until sleep wove its magic somewhere above the Middle-East.
A few hours later he was sat in a taxi heading to Fun City with the fifty large on his mind. Ed was quiet. The taxi drove him to the seventh road where he checked into a hotel designed like the front of a cruise ship. He took the keys and handed Ed his key to a simple room over-looking the swimming pool on the third floor. Byron was on the fifteen floor. Grande Suite.
Fackin A.
He checked in and unpacked and then took a long hot bath, conscious of his disfigured body and his broken face as he shaved in the mirror. He remembered the fight years ago and the sound of his nose cracking as the knuckled-dusted fist of the biker made contact. He remembered the blood and the broken pieces of cartilage on the concrete of the pub car-park. The name of the pub, he vaguely remembered being:
The Thirst and Last.
Well, it was the first and last time he went there.
Swept back into the present by the heat of the room, he unpacked. He tried to cool the room turning the air conditioner dial up before realizing that up probably meant hotter.
He chose a Thomas Pink Shirt and a pair of light-weight cotton trousers. He walked down the street, along the beach and found a restaurant over-looking the harbor. He ordered lobster, tiger prawns, squid and a bottle of Chilean Red. Across the harbor the city glimmered in neon pinks, blues, greens, the sound of industrial music, screams and laughter. He ate greedily and logged onto the WIFI with his smart phone. It didn’t take long to find a list of private detectives working out of the city. The list was long but he had an open return ticket and Fun City was beginning to grow on him. He saved a list of numbers and paid the bill.
The main street was known as Walking Street, as during the night traffic was blocked either end. But this was not La Rambla of Barcelona. Walking Street at that time of night was like a circus. Street musicians, mime artists, good time girls, boxers, massage parlors and fast food joints. Neon lights and a starless sky. He found himself in a bar. Dark inside. Smoke and mirrors. Reminded him of the Metropolis or Browns in the East End. A strip of whorehouses in Hamburg and the maze of sleeze in Amsterdam. It was all smoke and mirrors and naked flesh. A local woman with long legs and the tattoo of a cobra snaking up her hips struted over and took the bar stool next to Byron. She grabbed his crutch. “Can I help you?” she said as he began to harden.
“I’m looking for a girl.”
“Well, you’re in the right town, sweetheart.”
“No, not just any girl. My daughter.”
“Oh. She came on holiday?”
“She ran away.”
“Everyone here is.”
“Whatcha mean?”
“Running.”
“Running away?”
“Yes. Everybody here is running away from something and then that something eventually finds them,” she purred into his ear. “What happened to your nose?”
“Fighting.”
“Oh, you, how they say, a hard man right. My name is Honey, pleased to meet you. And your name?”
“Byron.”
“Funny name.”
“It’s the name of a poet.”
“Are you a poet, Byron?”
“What do you fackin think?”
“I think your fist do the talking. Let me help you find her?”
“My daughter?”
“Yes. Shouldn’t be too difficult, but first you have to pay the bar to let me go with you. We sleep and tomorrow we find her.”
“That easy, huh?”
“Everything in Fun City is easy.”
“Is that so, Honey?”
“Yes.”
Back at the hotel Honey wasn’t so sweet when Byron discovered Honey was the owner of an erection twice the size of his own. He grabbed the transvestite by the hair and smashed her face into the wall until she had a nose to match his own.
Opened the door and booted her out into the corridor, throwing her clothes out after her.
She banged on the door. Byron opened it and pulled her back inside. She threw a punch, and he rode it on the left cheek. The next one made solid contact and he fell back on the bed. The woman had disappeared. In her place was a man who had grown up fighting. Byron rolled over on the bed and stood back up. He had more weight and a better reach, swung out with a left and caught what was left of her face, now a bloody pulp.
Honey fell cracking her head on the bedside table.
She stayed still.
He closed the door.
Hotel telephone rang.
“Shit,” he muttered to himself. Picked it up.
“Just checking everything is okay, sir. We heard a disturbance,” the reception said.
“Everything’s fine,” he said.
Put down the receiver.
Checked her pulse.
Dead.
WALK ON THE WIDE SIDE
JAMES HALE was licking some skin, brown, young, skin, when his mobile telephone rang. Hale, once Joe’s assistant had decided to do some investigations of his own while Dylan was in London.
Put an ad in the paper.
NO CASE TOO BIG OR SMALL
The skin was tall with peroxide blond hair and a thin waist who went by the name of Dom.
Dom, my ass, thought Hale.
That bitch was passive.
He was once asked by one of those NGO types what his position on underage sex was:
“Missionary,” he replied only half joking.
He would never forget the look on her face.
“Telephone you.” Dom said.
“I got it,” Hale replied and removed his mouth from her trimmed bush and picked up the bone.
“I understand you can find people?” The voice was English, southern, had that gangster quality to it. Hale’s heart rate quickened. It may have been the Viagra. “Saw your ad in the Fun City Express,” The voice said.
“First of all, I’m in a business meeting. Make it brief. What do you have to go on?”
“She’s my daughter.”
“Shouldn’t be too difficult. But Fun City is a big place and how do you know she’s here?”
“She’s here.”
“Okay. I need a retainer and I need to meet with you. I take it you have a recent photograph?”
“Sure.”
“Where are you staying?”
Byron gave it to him.
“There’s one more thing,” Byron said.
“Spill.”
“I have a dead transvestite in my hotel room.”
“Well, well, well. You have been busy.”
Hale stood and reached for his wllet gave the blond Dom a couple of notes and pointed to the door. Carried on the call: “Put the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door
and hold tight. And bear in mind I charge extra for trannie disposals.”
The blond was pulling on her panties. Hale, feeling the V kick in pushed her back on the bed and ripped them off with his teeth..
Went back down on the blond.
Groaned softly as he worked at it.
HOTEL LOUNGE
HALE STEPPED into reception and had a look at the girl behind the desk. Pigtails, white shirt, sucking a lollipop. Her mouth was numb as she sucked and, yes, you could make a lot of money with a numb mouth, Hale thought. Yeah. Work experience gig from a university, give it two months and she’ll be swinging around a pole for premium lettuce. Work it, baby, work it. Facial mole, cute, what he would do to with just ten minutes... Never-mind... She was dumb. Didn’t give a rat’s ass about the current political crisis and the tanks rolling around the capital. Her boyfriend and her mobile telephone mattered, selfies mattered, and friend’s opinions mattered more than world poverty and the famine in Africa.
Haircuts and shoes were key.
Hale explained the situation to her in the local lingo. Went like this: His uncle was staying in the hotel – new to town – took a man back to his room thinking it was a woman. Well, you know how it is, things got a bit ugly as they do and the transvestite left without picking up her ID from reception. Hale knew that all hotels require locals to leave their ID at reception.
Any chance of taking the ID?
The receptionist smiled and explained that she would have to come back and get it for herself.
Or himself.
Hale explained the situation further by putting a hundred dollar bill on the desk.
She took the money with a smile and handed over the ID.
“Oh I forgot what room it was?” he added.
“702,” she replied.
Hale took the elevator. Knocked on the door,
Byron opened the door a crack.
“We spoke on the phone,” Hale said.
“What did we speak about?”
“A slight accident with a she-male and a missing daughter.”
