Chasing the Dragon

by Nick James

  The little Chinese woman nodded. ‘You need help? Drugs? Or need someone dead?’ she asked, taking out a notepad. Nothing seemed to faze this woman, whether it be ordering a drink or ordering a hit.

  ‘Not yet, but I want your little hacker friends to dig some dirt on this man.’ I handed her the file so she could take down the details. ‘Get everything you can.’

  The little pervert nodded. ‘No problem. I get this done,’ Suzie said and wobbled off on her far too high heels.

  I pulled out my phone and called Mike. ‘Hey, baby, I’m staying a bit longer.’ I paused while he cheered despite being in a meeting with his minions. ‘So, my role hasn’t changed. You are my wife today… Yes, still.’ I walked off into London with a sway of my hips and a smile on my face. It always pleased me when I managed to turn heads.

  Chapter 14

  Sam Blades

  It was Thursday morning and I was feeling fine while I listened to ‘Billie Jean’ by the late MJ, and for the first time in my life I managed to moonwalk onto the tube train. ‘Shamone, motherfuckers!’ I cried out at the sheep who had surrounded me on the tube. I even managed a twirl. ‘Mind the gap. I own the gap!’

  Let’s just say my crowd of admirers looked like I had just escaped from a fairly well-padded room, but even they could not upset my mood. Work had been good, and even the journey to work and back had been a delight.

  Oh yes, the scarring of my musical soul was still there busking away, torturing the patrons and killing music. Surely there must be laws against this sort of thing. But this week they were battling a group of Peruvian pan pipe performers who were rocking it and had followed those song abusers around. Life was good and my busker nemesis was pissed off.

  The rest of the journey was event free; well, as quiet as London gets. I watched some poor bugger getting robbed by some very unconvincing transvestite muggers. Also, I managed to dodge a flight of pigeons who were on their early morning bombing run. Mr Jackson sang to me all the way to the soul prison which is Shimmering Dreams.

  I waved at the soulless China dolls on the reception desk. Rightly or wrongly they were still pissed off at the gift of hair dye, with a note asking them to cover up the grey bits as they hurt my eyes when they reflected in the sun. That cost me a trip to Mike’s office. Damn you, CCTV. Luckily, he was still buzzed by whatever chemical he was on that day. Also, for some reason, he showed me a photo of a gorgeous Chinese woman in a long red dress, and then blurted out that he wasn’t gay. Now, I didn’t care whether he was or not; it’s down to who you are, so be happy.

  Anyway, I plodded through my work quite happily, apart from a few dreams that nearly made my breakfast make a break for freedom. Although, I made time to forward Dwayne Hicks his application to be on the first flight to Mars – after all, he was a colonial marine – but he just wasn’t playing ball. By the look of concentration on Emma’s face, and the fact that she was typing one-handed, that was the reason why.

  Lunch was okay. Mark and I were going through social media sites to find any pics from his party. Only one or two popped up occasionally but none from the fight, which surprised us. He texted Kate to ask why and received a long, shitty text explaining that up-and-coming actors and pop stars don’t want to be seen getting the shit kicked out of them by a small, angry Chinese woman. It didn’t help matters when I joined in and told her that Bunny was from Hong Kong. Pick your battles, Sam.

  At last, it was home time. After a quick pint, I was caught up in an inappropriate double hug from the Wallflower twins who snagged me on the way out of the pub. Their hands were like octopuses. They should be in the police – that was a body search from the gods.

  On the tube I high-fived a pan pipe player and flicked the middle digit to the now packing up tone-deaf busker and the leather gimp. ‘Take that, prick,’ I mumbled and headed home with Madness ringing my ears singing ‘One Step Beyond’. As I copied their dancing, people moved out of my way thinking I had a walking disability, but at least they gave me a seat on the train.

  I made it home to our lovely blood- and piss-free flat and saw Bunny standing by the sofa looking a bit annoyed. ‘What’s up, baby girl?’ I asked with a smile that even James Bond would be envious of.

  My little flower of the Orient held up a letter from the bank. ‘Sam…my love,’ she said coldly, making me think that jumping to my death may be a good move on my part.

  ‘Yesssssssss,’ I answered like the butler from the Munsters. My brain said a touch of levity may help… Wrong. But she did look very nice with the city in the background.

  ‘Why have we paid six hundred pounds for a pan pipe group to work for an hour in the morning and again in the afternoon, for a whole…WEEK!’ she snapped, with what seemed to be venom coming from her fangs.

  I rubbed my face. This is always my problem; I just don’t plan ahead. ‘Well, you see, my love, there are these buskers…’ I then stopped as she held up her dainty finger with a vicious talon on the end of it.

  Bunny closed her eyes as she mastered her breathing. ‘Okay, this long-lasting feud against that busker must stop!’ She then slowly opened her eyelids to allow her black eyes to pierce mine. ‘You’re a grown man, Sam!’

  ‘But,’ I added, hoping to defend myself, ‘sometimes I have bouts of the dumbs about me.’

  The dreaded finger came back up again, slashing through the air like a whip. ‘Shush, it was funny with the foreign money, and I even condoned putting a paintball grenade in their guitar bag,’ she said, giving me a sad sigh, ‘but six hundred pounds! Really. Sam?’

  As I thought about it, it was a poor plan. ‘Sorry, Bunny. I won’t do it again…I promise,’ and dipped my head in submission. I then heard the click-clack of her heels as she walked up to me.

  ‘I love you, Sam, even though you’re wired up wrong. But I still love you and want to marry you and have crazy, insane and slightly violent children with you,’ she said softly before peppering my face with kisses.

  We fell into a hug where our bodies became one. My brain rejoiced as it claimed I had got away with it – but I was wrong.

  ‘You will have to pay for this, baby. Ten minutes, and then come in. It’s play time.’ She gave me a slap on the arse that didn’t belie her size.

  ‘Damn, I’m boned,’ I muttered as I heard the crack of her ‘he’s been a bad boy’ toy. The blood drained from my face and my brain checked out, apologising as it went. Luckily, my lower brain kicked in reminding me that I enjoy this, making me run in.

  Chapter 15

  Albert Kettering

  Even though I was the director of external security, it didn’t mean I had an easy time of it. For the first few days I still had an imprint of that bitch’s Croc on my face, which brought chuckles from most of the minions in my department. Then I had a phone call from the Croc-wearing bitch herself telling me never to come around again unless I wanted to be arrested.

  At least it was the end of the week. There were no plans to do anything. No visitors or visits planned, just me and my wife, Dawn, and hopefully some fun times. This made a smile appear on my face, which always worried people at work.

  Stephanie, my secretary, called. ‘Sir, Mr Madison wishes to see you in his office.’ I could see her through the glass partition and the look on the fifty-something’s face said it wasn’t good news.

  ‘Thanks, Steph.’ I checked my watch. ‘Why don’t you call it a day?’ It made her smile brightly. I always liked her. I had brought her from my last job. You always need people you can trust.

  ‘Thank you, sir. Have a good weekend, and give my love to Dawn,’ Steph said happily. It’s a plus if they’re your wife’s best friend. Information flows quicker between them, to the point that if I dropped a pen I’d get a text from my wife saying, Whoops! Plus, it saves me from having to tell her everything when I get home.

  My mind raced as I headed upstairs to see Madison. It had been quiet for a while. No probes by China or Korea. A few kids with high IQs tried, but we had the cops pick t
hose shits up.

  I knocked on the door and entered noticing it was just the two of us. ‘Good afternoon, sir.’ I saw him look up for the briefest of seconds to point at the chair opposite him.

  I sat there quietly as he tapped away on his laptop. My mind chuckled to itself as I always thought he would use a Dictaphone and just hand it to his nineteen-year-old PA. He seemed to change them on a regular basis, when their pregnancies started to show. I had that and more in my personal files at home. Finally, he closed the lid on his notepad.

  ‘Right, what did I tell you?’ Charles said angrily.

  I looked blankly back at him. ‘Erm…what about, sir? Is it about the Berlin thing?’ I asked, which made the CEO pale. His last PA was a German national and having twins and wanted him to be there when they were born. €60,000 later, she didn’t give a shit.

  The CEO shook his head. ‘No…! The Blades problem – I said leave it all alone.’ Little beads of sweat appeared on his brow which showed how much anger he was holding in.

  ‘Yes, I know…but—’ I started, then felt a burst of hot air as he exploded.

  ‘No fucking but! I said leave it alone, and what do you fucking do? Harass his fucking in-laws!’ he boomed, the veins bulging in his neck.

  I had never seen him so angry. ‘We still needed the information,’ I pushed back, locking eyes with him.

  ‘And how did that fucking go, Albert?’ He placed both fists on his desk. ‘From what I heard you threatened Sam and his girlfriend, and then got a damn slap for your trouble’ the CEO stated as he tried to regain his control. He did need to take a breath.

  ‘I have other irons in the fire. We’ll get them, sir,’ I said knowingly, as I had sent my contacts to comb for anything documenting a birth, marriage or similar with their names on it. I jumped as I saw his fists slam back down onto his glass-topped table making it spiderweb.

  ‘I will say this only once, leave the Blades and Li families alone. I had the Hong Kong police commissioner email me asking why we were harassing them,’ Charles said before taking a deep breath. ‘You do good work here, Albert. Just leave this alone. Jones and McAllister are still watching him, so leave it be.’

  I was blocked into a corner. ‘Okay, sir, we’re done with it.’ But once again my mind added, you won’t hear about it again.

  ‘Have a good weekend, Albert,’ Madison said and shook my hand.

  I walked out and thanked God it was Friday.

  Chapter 16

  Michael McAllister

  My head was banging as I laid it against the cool aluminium of the lift waiting for it to descend. It had been a weekend-long party with some of Tiger’s and my old school friends, along with some rent girls that Suzie Q had brought along. I spent most of my time with Mai, who kept flitting in and out due to an important job she was on. Well, it was now Monday – coke all gone, drink all gone, money spent and by the looks of the place it needed an industrial cleaning crew.

  My body felt decidedly second-hand. I could feel my nervous system pulsing. Not only that, I had lost rock paper scissors again. I need to buy an inflatable ring to sit on at work. ‘Damn that woman,’ I mumbled as the door slid open and there stood people I seemed to recognise.

  The couple chuckled. ‘Morning, Mike. Hell of a party you had going on,’ the male outline informed me. His voice did sound familiar. After rubbing my eyes, I saw my patsy.

  I managed a shrug without pulling a muscle – so far so good. ‘Well, work hard, play hard, Sam. Good morning, Miss Li,’ I said courteously and pressed the down buzzer, which sent my stomach into backflips.

  ‘Please, call me Bunny,’ she said in what felt like atomic bomb tones. Not only that, she was clicking her heel on the ground rhythmically with a smirk on her face. What an evil bitch. I can’t and won’t condone what Stuart Goddard did, but if this piss-taking pair turned their powers to evil, they would rule the world.

  I noticed Sam seemed a bit twitchy, too, but I remembered back to the meeting where they delved into the Blades’ home life. She was an amateur dominatrix, with hints of sadism and fantasy role play. Lucky bastard, I thought and saw what looked like handcuff marks on his wrist. ‘Thank you, Bunny. I hope the party didn’t keep you awake?’

  ‘Oh no, Mike. We had our own thing going on. Didn’t we, honey?’ Bunny said, making Sam jump as she elbowed him.

  Blades smiled. ‘Oh yes, Jenga is hell of a game,’ he said with a chuckle. Then for my amusement he received a rabbit punch to his kidney from the little ninja. The rest of the journey was in silence until Sam and I split away from the smirking warrior princess. It was my turn to tap my foot as they embraced at the tube station, but as pain shot from my foot to my brain, it made me leak a tear, which the future Mrs Blades saw and once again smirked before stalking away to scare someone else.

  Sam and I travelled on the tube in silence. We both had our eyes shut for different reasons. Mine because I thought my eyeballs were threatening to fall out. Finally, we reached our stop. This is when things started to go wrong.

  As we were passing some tall bloke annihilating a Smiths classic along with his one-man band helper, the walking trumpet fucker chucked a bottle of water at Sam’s feet, but it got us both.

  This was not the morning to do this. The gangway froze as Sam and I looked upon the smirking buskers with fury. Not sure what my partner in crime would do, I then saw my employee run past and rugby tackle the one-man band to the floor and subsequently try to strangle him with an accordion.

  I locked eyes with the Elvis leather-clad fucker. He dropped his mic and launched himself at me, so I introduced his stomach to Mr Knee, making him fold up like a deckchair. He was now out of the fight.

  To this day I have not seen or heard anything funnier than Sam Blades strangling a man while shouting, ‘You sing walk like an Egyptian once more, I’ll jam this up your arse!’

  It was at this point I pulled Sam away, but he did run back and stick his foot through the man’s drum. As I pulled him away again, I grabbed my phone and called Tiger. ‘Tony, slight trouble at the tube station. Buskers causing trouble. Can you sort it?’

  ‘Yeah, I’ll pop over now, Peanut,’ Tony slurred, sounding worse than me.

  Can’t say I was surprised, though. At least I slept. Tiger just kept taking speed to keep going – and he’s a copper, to protect and serve. I knew I shouldn’t be walking let alone driving like he was.

  ‘Cheers, buddy. I owe you one.’ I hung up and we made our way to work. All day we waited for the blue lights to light up the building, but luckily Tony the Tiger did his job perfectly.

  I closed my eyes and hoped for the week to end very quickly.

  Chapter 17

  Sam Blades

  I kept my head down at work and prayed that the Rozzers (police) didn’t turn up. The team could sense something was wrong, but I just waved off all questions. I still wouldn’t tell them anything, even when Emily kindly rested her boobs on the back of my neck as she hugged me – I definitely couldn’t move after those bad boys gave me trouser issues.

  Luckily, I had a message from Mike saying that his mate from school had calmed it all down and I wasn’t to worry about it. This was a big relief; I started to do my work with renewed vigour.

  As I scanned some of the highest security accounts, I did have to wonder who would dream about a naked version of the original Ghostbuster movie, and this bloke was a member of the Church.

  The rest of the day was okay. My back was still giving me problems, but I wasn’t surprised as I looked like a zebra underneath my suit. Bunny was pissed off at me wasting money, but I think the talk of marriage and our future made her strangely aroused. I promised myself that I would think before any action was taken, but that fell through when I gave the busking bastard a good kicking. May he rot in the bowels of hell. Hope Bunny doesn’t find out.

  We all went for a pint and noticed that the barmaid had another piercing; we decided not to ask how she went through airline security. See, I am learning. �
��Think First Sam’ was here to stay. After chucking a pork scratching into Emily’s cleavage I screamed out, ‘Score!’ I then received high fives from the team while our busty workmate enjoyed her snack.

  I put on my iPod and played the greatest hits of the eighties just to centre myself as I followed the migration to the underground. Thankfully, all I saw were real people at the station. No soulless buskers trying to destroy our world. This is how it played out all the way home, but that alone made my spider-sense tingle. The day was not over.

  As I tucked away my earphones, the noise of women laughing could be heard through the apartment door. That doesn’t bode well, I thought as it went silent. I got out my keys and opened the door slowly hoping to catch them doing wrong, but it creaked like in all good horror films, and there they were.

  ‘Beth, Stoney and my darling Bunny. I didn’t see your lovely light carrier outside,’ I said happily to the coppers. But I didn’t like their smiles in return; they were way too happy.

  ‘We wanted to surprise you,’ said Stoney, coming up and placing a kiss on my cheek just as Bethany did on my other cheek.

  It was then my brain wanted to immerse itself in ‘Dear Playboy’ fantasies, but my common sense – well, uncommon, if we’re going to be honest – thought I was going to my death. They both linked arms with me and walked me towards Bunny, who very nicely kissed me with nothing but love in her eyes. They were all being nice to me. It was at that point I knew I was screwed.

  ‘Good day?’ asked the love of my life, or my possible killer.

  I steeled myself to confess all, throw myself at her feet and beg for mercy. ‘Yeah, okay. Tricky start trying to talk to Mike, but all good. You?’ Damn. Well, that didn’t happen, then. Let’s wait and see what evidence she has on me, but it was the smiling coppers who worried me.