It’s all a blur, like a night out with the boys.
“Come on, Rose,” George says and puts an arm around her neck. “Let’s get you out of here.” He waves to the DJ who cues her up.
Ba da ba da ba da ba.
And even the guitar sounds like it’s laughing.
It’s only when she gets to the dressing room that she sees it, the bob of pink snagged onto her ring and hanging in the air like a distress signal.
***
Seated in her van, she looks in the rear-view mirror and gazes at her scalp.
Atop her sun-blasted, Outback skin the cone of her scalp shines like an egg. All she needs is a tea-spoon and toast soldiers to complete the picture.
Feels another tear roll down.
Lets her fingers play along the hand-held shears she uses for the exhibitions. Waits to take The Maori Mountain’s crown.
-
Nigel Bird is the author of the critically acclaimed Dirty Old Town (and other stories). The winner of the Watery Grave Invitational competition of 2010 and the Things I’d Rather Be Doing Fairytale Crime competition of 2011, he was nominated for the Spinetingler Award for Best Story Online. He was included in the Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 8 and has recently received news that his work will also be appearing in its ninth edition. He is the man behind the blog Sea Minor which features the Dancing With Myself interview series.
The Lady & The Gimp: A Peter Ord Investigation
By Paul D. Brazill
They say that it never rains but it pours and that troubles are like buses – they all turn up at once. They say a lot of things, though. And most of what they say is about as much use as a condom in a convent.
For example, they also say that lightning never strikes twice. Which is a pretty clear indication, to my mind, that “they” never encountered Lightning Jones.
Lightning was very tall, very beautiful and very loud. Very, very loud. Her voice boomed around the room and her laugh had such timbre and volume that she could have started an avalanche if she were near a mountain.
As it was, we were in Harry Shand’s Bar – a smoky, pokey dive on the outskirts of Seatown. Shand’s Bar was located in a converted windmill that was perched on the top of a hill, looming over the town like a great, black bat. It had started to earn itself the nickname The Speakeasy, although I suspect The Shithole may have been a more accurate description. Like some Prohibition-era gin joint, Shand’s was a place where cops and robbers and actors and singers and all manner of assorted waifs and strays rubbed shoulders without getting each other’s backs up. Tonight, as usual, the place was littered with Seatown’s flotsam and jetsam.
Councilor Greg Bardsley – the owner of a chain of successful bakeries and commonly known as either The Man With The Flan or the Gateaux Superstar – sat at the bar arguing with Shand and an unshaven, long-haired comedian I’d seen on local television. The gangster twins Ronnie and Roger Kruger sat in the corner of the room with a couple of their no-necked cronies. The fading club singer Jimmy Golden was fast asleep and drooling on Ronnie Kruger’s shoulder and the disgraced boxer and fence Henry Costa was playing cards with Detective Inspector Sandal. It was a classy joint alright.
“Well, if it isn’t Peter Ord, the private dickhead,” said Ronnie Kruger. His stooges burst into uproarious laughter. Costa and Sandal just nodded and smiled. Golden opened a bleary eye and knocked back a shot of gin before going back to sleep.
My footsteps echoed on the cold concrete floor as I walked up to the bar.
Earlier that day, I’d had a phone call from my old school friend, Barry Blue. Barry was working at Shand’s tonight and he had a job for me. I jumped at the chance. I’d just finished a missing person’s case which involved an errant husband who I’d found living above a dirty book shop in Walton Street with a girl a little younger than his daughter. Pretty much standard stuff and, unfortunately, standard pay. I needed to earn a bit more than that, though. I owed three weeks’ rent and the landlord was losing patience. Carl “Rachman” Raymond wasn’t particularly renowned for his patience, either.
Barry was in the corner of the room repairing the antique Wurlitzer Jukebox which Shand had bought from the Krugers after they closed down the fifties-style American diner.
It took him less than five minutes to fix it. He was good with machines. But women were another story.
“Fixed?” said Lightning as she loomed over Barry.
Barry blushed and stuttered an affirmative.
Women usually did that to him, which was probably why he still lived with his mother even though he was well past his sell-by date. And Lightning Jones was some kind of a woman. She was tall with long black hair, a ripped black t-shirt, high heels, leather skirt and fishnet stockings. And she looked like she was literally taking Barry’s breath away.
“Thanks, luv,” she said with a muddy, drunken slur. She leaned over and gave Barry a peck on the cheek. Barry was so embarrassed that he looked like Vesuvius waiting to erupt. He rushed over to the bar and sat next to me, still burning up. Shand walked over and patted him on the back.
“Thanks, youngster,” said Shand, handing Barry a brown envelope.
“Any time, Uncle Shandy,” said Barry, a tremor in his voice.
“What can I get you boys?” asked Shand. Shand had big bushy eyebrows almost meeting in the middle which made him look constantly confused.
“Irn Bru, please,” said Barry with a slight lisp.
The massive barman, whose name tag said Titch, poured an Irn Bru for Barry and a beer for me.
The Bonanza theme blasted out of the jukebox and Lightning screeched and danced around the room like a wild woman. From flamenco to tango in less than five minutes. And back again.
“She’s amazing!” gasped Barry.
“She is, indeed,” I said. “Clearly a can short of a six pack, but amazing nevertheless.”
“She looks familiar,” I said to Titch.
“Liz Jones,” said Titch. “She used to be the singer in that punk band Pulp Metal before they moved down the smoke. They used to call her Lightning because she used to swig from a two-liter bottle of White Lightning onstage.”
“I remember,” I said. “Wasn’t she a blond?”
“Yeah,” said Titch. “But the collars and cuffs didn’t match.”
“She’s amazing,” said Barry, again, looking a bit on the mesmerized side.
“Best keep away from her, lads.” said Titch, giving us our drinks. “She’s got issues.”
“Let he who is without sin,” I said. “We’ve all got our issues you know?” I sipped my pint and raised it to him in a mock toast.
“Yeah,” said the barman. “But her issues are about six-foot-six with a psychotically violent temper and are currently doing time in Durham nick for a string of horrible murders. You’ve heard of Spammy Spampinato, haven’t you?”
“The bloke who burnt down Jack Martin’s strip joint?”
Titch nodded and Barry and I shuffled off to sit in the corner, Barry looking a little crestfallen.
“Do you come here often?” Barry said, with a grin. I was keeping an eye on Lightning who was now dancing on a table and looking to be in danger of doing herself a mischief.
“Not if I can help it,” I said. “I feel about as welcome as a wino in a Wine Bar.”
“Not really my cup of tea, either,” said Barry. “I do go to the Indoor Bowls Club in Charleston Road every now and then, though. I like the quiz. Or I did.”
In lots of ways, Barry hadn’t changed. He was middle aged now, like me, but he was still baby faced and still wore a waxy, blue raincoat and thick-framed glasses with lenses that looked like jam-jar bottoms. And still a mine of useless information who really came to life during pub quizzes.
“So, what’s the story?” I said. “How’s Mrs. Blue?”
Barry gazed over at Lightning who was doing a can-can on the bar. Titch was ignoring her, reading a well-thumbed copy of Colin Wilson’s The Outsider.
“She’s scarpered,” said Barry.
“What?” I said.
“Yeah, she’s done a runner with Mike Evers, the ginger Welsh bloke that did the quiz in the Bowls Club. Ginger, mind you!”
Barry had a thing about red-headed people. It went back to our schooldays. Like most kids he had a few nicknames at school: Barry Poo, Barry Spew, that sort of thing, but the one that stuck was The Gimp.
Ron Penhaligon was the PE teacher that had christened him The Gimp. Penhaligon was short and stocky with freckles and bright red hair. He had glasses as thick as Barry’s and his shoulders had more chips than Harry Ramsden. He found particular amusement in tormenting those unfortunates who turned up for PE without their kit, or with sick notes. And, for whatever sadistic reason, the rotten apple of Penhaligon’s bleary eye was Barry. He jumped at any opportunity he could to bring out The Gimp and humiliate him in front of the rest of the class.
There were more than a few of us who gleaned a fair bit of satisfaction when Penhaligon was sent down for playing hide the salami with an under-aged student.
“So what are you doing then? Living on your todd?” I said.
“Aye,” said Barry. “Still got the house, though. Dad left it to me, not Ma.”
Lightning jumped off the bar and came over to us. She picked up a box of matches and lit a black French cigarette. She blew a chain of smoke rings.
“Yeah,” said Barry, looking uncomfortable. “It’s a bit weird living in that big four-bedroom place all by myself.”
Lightning’s eyes seemed to flicker and I’m quite sure I saw her pupils become pound signs. The French version of Jane Morgan’s “The Day the Rains Came” was the next song up. Lightning started to sway to the music, in her own world. She blew Barry a kiss went back to the bar.
“So, I take it you want me to find your mother, then?” I said.
Barry nodded.
“I never trusted that Ginger twat, mind you. I reckon he knows about the Ma’s little nest egg, her pension fund, and he’s fleecing her.”
“So, you think they’ve gone to Wales? I’ve never been abroad before. Will I need a passport?”
“I doubt it. I heard that he’s got a wife and kids back there, grandkids even. This is why he ended up here.”
“So where’s he been staying?”
I noticed that Lightning and Titch were deep in conversation, occasionally glancing over at us. My spider senses startled tingling. Well, it was either that or eczema.
“Apparently, the last few years he’s been living at a rooming house in Eastside. It’s run by this old Polish woman. Her husband was a pilot in the Battle of Britain. She doesn’t seem to speak much English, though. She wouldn’t tell me anything, anyway.”
“Okay, I’ll go over there with Big Mark Nowak and see if he can get anything out of her. What do you want me to do when I see your mum?”
“Nothing,” said Barry. “Just tell me where she is and I’ll speak to her.”
I nodded.
“I’ll double your fee if you find her before the end of the month. Her pension goes in the bank then.”
“Okay, suits me sir! I’m off over home,” I said, standing up. “Want to share a taxi? I can drop you off at Charleston Road?”
“No. No,” said Barry. “I’ll stay here a bit longer. See if the jukebox conks out, like. You never know. Tricky things these antiques.”
His eyes were on Lightning as he spoke to me and she had the look of a black widow spider about her. A decidedly peckish one at that.
***
With my eyes closed, the smell of incense was even stronger and was making me feel a bit queasy. Big Mark Nowak’s massive, clammy hand clasped in mine wasn’t exactly helping things either.
This was my first séance and I hoped it would be my last. Mr. Kapuszinska had told Mark that she’d help us if we helped her by taking part in the séance, so here we were. And, for the most part, it was how I’d imagined a séance to be.
It was a dark, cramped room with an old grandfather clock and stuffed animals. All four of us were in a circle holding hands. The four us being me, Mark Nowak, Mrs. Kapuszinska resplendent in colorful, silk robes and a turban, and Jimmy Golden. Mrs. Kapuszinska had started the proceedings by lighting incense and chanting something unintelligible, which was also as expected. The only thing that seemed out of place to me was the music.
I’ve always considered myself to have a pretty strong imagination but in my wildest dreams I’d never have thought that the best sounds to use to contact the dead would be Showaddywaddy’s “Under the Moon of Love.” Really, you learn something new every day.
The whole experience lasted around fifteen minutes and it seemed that, through Mrs. Kapuszinska, Jimmy had received a message from his late mother who had told him to give up his dream of going to Las Vegas and stay put in Seatown and go back to hairdressing. This resulted in Jimmy crying like a baby, so I assumed that it wasn’t the answer he was looking for.
When the lights came on, Mrs. Kapuszinska ushered Jimmy out of the door, after taking a decent-sized wad of money from him. She escorted us over to a mini bar in the corner of the room, below a stuffed owl.
“Here,” said Mrs. Kapuszinska, whose English seemed fine to me and a lot better than most of the Chav hoard in Seatown. She poured three shots of vodka.
“Na zdrowia!” said Mark and we knocked them down in one.
For the next few minutes, Mark and Mrs. Kapuszinska chattered away in Polish. Mark was massive but very deferential to the diminutive Mrs. Kapuszinska. I checked my messages on my mobile. There was a text from Barry asking me to call him and a joke about Charlie Sheen from my mate Bryn, which I didn’t understand. I was lost trying to work out the joke and I came-to when I heard Mark and Mrs. Kapuszinska laughing.
By the looks of things, they were discussing the design of my business card. The loop of the P had been made into a deerstalker hat and the O was drawn to look like the lens of a magnifying glass. Art is a very subjective thing.
Mr. Kapuszinska poured another round of drinks.
“Cheers,” she said. We knocked back the vodka and it burned.
“Bimber,” said Mrs. Kapuszinska.
“What’s that?” I said.
“Bimber,” said Mark. “Polish moonshine.”
“One for the road?” said Mrs. Kapuszinska.
“Oh, yes,” I said. And what a long and winding road that was, I can tell you.
***
Lightning sat on a table close to the bar and was canoodling on Barry’s lap. They’d been like that all night. And Barry, for the first time since I’d known him, was as drunk as a skunk.
The jukebox was kicking out Howling Wolf’s “I Ain’t Superstitious” and Barry was, after a fashion, attempting to sing along. Strange though it may seem, this was the happiest that I’d ever seen him.
“So, you’re Welsh friend left his last digs last week without paying his rent. Did a runner with two weeks due,” I said.
Barry was oblivious to me as he snuggled up to Lightning but she was giving me her complete attention.
“So do you know where Mrs. Blue is?” she said.
I shrugged.
“Well, Mrs. Kapuszinska, using her more earthly contacts, gossips from the bingo, thinks he’s staying in a caravan up at Happy Valley. I’ll go over and check it out tomorrow morning.”
I glanced at Barry who was asleep with his head in Lightning’s cleavage.
“I’ll phone Barry when I know for certain the Welshman’s there. Maybe after mid-day? Give him a chance to sleep it off?”
“Better leave it until well after mid-day. We’ll be busy.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, we’re getting married in the morning. Just like the song,” she said, grinning like a game show host.
***
Raymond Chandler once said that a piece of writing should always lead the writer and not be led by the writer. I don’t know much about that but it certainly works that way when it comes t
o boozing. When you let the alcohol lead you, when it takes the reins and drags you with it toward oblivion, those are the best drinking sessions. After Lightning’s bombshell about the wedding, I let the gargle lead me all the way to a stinking hangover.
I was as rough as toast and I was probably still over the limit when I drove Trigger, my lime green Vespa, up the hill toward the Happy Valley caravan site.
I hadn’t been there for a while but I used to be a regular at the Happy Valley Social Club back in the eighties. Those were the days before karaoke, of course.
Back then it was called Bandbox, which consisted of a singer and an organist. Maybe a drum machine, if they were hi-tech. The performer I remember most clearly was Legs, an old bloke in a World War I Kaiser Bill helmet who did “comic” versions of popular songs. The way he transformed “The Lady in Red” into “The Lady in Bed” was a stroke of genius, if you ask me.
I pulled up beside Booze ‘N’ News and saw Mrs. Blue sat on the step of a caravan smoking and reading a copy of Hello magazine.
“Mrs. Blue, it’s Peter. Peter Ord. Barry’s mate from school.”
“I remember you,” she said, squinting. “You used collect them American comics with drawings of muscle men in them. We had you down as a shirt-lifter.”
I grimaced.
“Nice to see you again, too,” I said. Though it had rarely been nice to see Mrs. Blue.
***
It was usually about the time when he saw Mrs. Blue with her ear pressed to a glass that she’d put against the wall that Barry knew he’d be moving home again, soon.
It was the regular pattern throughout his childhood. He and his parents would move into a flat above a shop or a terraced house or some other type of private rented accommodation. And things would be fine and Jim Dandy for a while. But somewhere along the way, Mrs. Blue would start to get jealous. She’d be suspicious of her husband’s comings and goings. Well, mostly his comings. She’d usually suspect one of the neighbors or a woman from the corner shop. She’d ask Mr. Blue where he’d been when he’d come in from work, even though he was covered in crap from working shifts in the foundry. This would escalate into a screaming match, with plates and cups smashed against the wall.
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