by Liza Cody
‘You tell her,’ Keif said, ‘tell her the juice fucks up your immune system. It’s why you got the flu, man. You listening or what?’
‘Course I was listening. What else could I do lying on my belly with him making putty of my lumbar region? What was I going to do? Tell him where he could stuff his sermon? You don’t say that to a bloke with good hands.
‘I hear you,’ I said.
‘Speak up,’ he said. ‘Where’s all the shouting gone? You going to shout for me tonight?’
‘Tonight?’
‘My fight, girl. You ain’t forgot that. You’re my fan club, right?’
‘I ain’t coming to that.’
‘Got to,’ Keif said. ‘You got to shout my name real loud. Lead the chorus or what. I want all the little girls shouting for Mohammed Wily, ‘cos he the greatest. Right? Make Pete Carver mad for sure.’
He didn’t understand. I can’t go to the wrestling. Not if I ain’t in it. I can’t shout his name. It’s supposed to be me. Everyone’s supposed to shout my name. Wrestling ain’t his. It’s mine. I ain’t given it to him. I want it for myself. He didn’t even want it that bad. I can’t go and watch him up there in the light, in the ring, ‘cos that’s where I should be.
He didn’t understand and he went drivelling on. He said, ‘Besides, my mum want to meet you. She say, “Who’s this little girl you seeing all the time, boy?” You got to explain about wrestling to my folks. My dad knows boxing but he don’t know wrestling.’
‘I can’t go,’ I said.
‘’Cos you barred?’
‘Na. ‘Cos
‘Mr Deeds can’t bar you out of the audience. He can bar you out of his shows, he can bar you out of the gym. But he can’t tell you what to do as a civilian. He got no rights to do that.’
‘But I ain’t a civilian. I ain’t no audience.’
‘Woh! Chill, girl,’ he said. ‘You gone all knotted. You do yourself a mischief. All my girls got to be soft.’
And that was the problem. That was it. I got it. Dunno why it took me so long. I ain’t soft. I’m hard. I ain’t nobody’s soft girl. I’m the London Lassassin – the one they call Bucket Nut. Keif was stealing my work, and he was stealing my name. He didn’t really want neither, and he was expecting me to lie down on my belly and be soft about it. Fuck that, man. Fuck that. He even wanted my pup.
I rolled over. I said, ‘Fuck that! I ain’t going. I ain’t audience. I’m the London Lassassin – I ain’t sitting in the dark.’
His face was still all smiley. He didn’t get it.
‘You don’t get it,’ I said. ‘I don’t go to the wrestling. I am the wrestling. I don’t watch. I fight.’
‘Oh man!’ he said. ‘Wouldn’t that be something? Wouldn’t that make them creepos mad or what?’
‘Wha’?’ He was stone bursting with himself. I took a deep breath and I would of blasted him into next month except Simone come in. I was really glad she didn’t see me with my shirt up round my neck and him with his hands.
She said, ‘Uh-oh, didn’t know you were busy with your boyfriend.’
So the blast came out ‘cos I couldn’t hold it back into my throat. They was all of them getting it wrong. ‘He ain’t my boyfriend,’ I said. ‘I ain’t no soft girl. I ain’t nobody’s dream whatsit. I got me own shit. I’m the London fucking Lassassin.’
‘Don’t you shout at me,’ Simone said. ‘If you want to shout at someone, shout at loverboy here. Shout at those two guys waiting for you outside.’
‘Never knew a girl so popular,’ said Keif.
‘What two guys?’ I said.
‘Herf?’ said Milo in his new deep voice.
‘Fucking shut up, all of you,’ I said, and I went out and slammed the door after me. I hoped it burst their eardrums.
Except I wasn’t wearing any shoes. I forgot them again. But I wasn’t going back for them. If you slam the door it’s got to stay slammed. You can’t slide back inside and say, ‘Oops, pardon me for breathing, but I need my sneakers.’
On the other hand, barefoot ain’t the way you want to meet Droopy-drawers and his fish-faced mate. Not when both of them had boots the size of canoes on their plates of meat. Only one thing to do – don’t give ’em time to notice.
‘Oi, you,’ I said. ‘Get away from my gate. I told you before.’
‘No, listen,’ said Droopy-drawers. ‘You listen. We found the car. No, listen, we found it but we didn’t find what we was supposed to find in the back.’
‘Why the fuck am I supposed to care?’ I said. ‘Fuck off.’
‘No. We ain’t going nowhere,’ he said.
‘I’ll get my dogs,’ I said.
‘If you walk away,’ said Fish-face through his little pouty lips, ‘I’ll fucking shoot you in the back. And I’ll shoot your dogs. I don’t care. I’m a dead man already.’
I didn’t have an answer ready for that one, so I stayed where I was. I couldn’t see no shooter, but I could see two big coats which could of hidden two cannons for all I knew.
Droopy-drawers said, ‘You gotta listen. You gotta talk to us.’ If you put the both of them in the one anorak they still wouldn’t fill it out. There was still plenty of room for a sawn-off.
I said, ‘Where would two droopy dildos like you get a shooter?’ Which was stupid. A bloke with a sawn-off ain’t a droopy dildo. He’s a bloke you stop and listen to. You might even want to call him ‘sir’.
The thing that made me uneasy was that they were more scared than me. They were sweating and shifting from foot to foot. They were twitching and looking over their shoulders.
‘You waiting for someone?’ I said.
‘I told you we was in trouble,’ Droopy-drawers said. ‘But you wouldn’t listen.’
‘Listen to what?’ I said. ‘You said you lost your car. I ain’t seen it. Now you lost something else. I don’t even know what you lost. And you’re going to shoot me in the back. What am I supposed to listen to? You call me a thief and a liar and I’m supposed to listen to that?’
‘It’s got to be you,’ Fish-face said. ‘There ain’t two like you. There can’t be.’
‘Two like who?’ I said. ‘What the hell’ve I done to you that makes you want to shoot me in the back?’
‘Look, we don’t want to shoot you,’ Droopy-drawers said.
‘I do,’ said Fish-face. ‘I don’t care any more.’
‘You really got a shooter?’ I said.
‘Yeah,’ said Fish-face. ‘You know we have. We nearly took you with it the other night.’
‘Not me,’ I said.
‘Yeah, you,’ he said.
‘You drove off with Mr … with Uncle’s motor,’ said Droopy-drawers. ‘It was you. We saw you. We found the motor. The window was blown out. You must of noticed.’
‘I’d of noticed if I’d been there,’ I said. ‘We’re going round in circles, and I still don’t know why you want to shoot me in the back.’
Fish-face and Droopy-drawers looked at each other. You wouldn’t think they had enough jazz between them to lick a stamp, let alone rob a petrol station or walk around with a sawn-off.
I suddenly knew what to do. I said, ‘I’m getting stone hacked off with you two. You got no right coming here calling me a liar. You two’s the liars. Not me. I don’t believe you got a shooter. I don’t believe you. And even if you got one you ain’t got the jazz to use it. So fuck off’
It was a dead simple plan. I’d tease Fish-face into showing me the shooter and then I’d take it away from him. Then I’d have it and he wouldn’t, and he couldn’t shoot me but I could shoot him. Except I wouldn’t ‘cos I didn’t never want to see another dead bloke in my yard again. But he wouldn’t know that.
Fish-face put his hand up to his collar to grab the toggle of his zip.
Droopy-drawers said, ‘No, look, don’t. We’re in enough shit already.’
Fish-face said, ‘That’s just the point. We can’t be any worse off. And I don’t like her. She’s an ugly bitch.’
He grabbed the toggle and pulled his zip down to the waist where it got stuck.
Droopy-drawers said, ‘You can’t shoot her ‘cos she’s ugly.’
‘Why not?’ Fish-face was wrestling with his zip. ‘Why the fuck not? I got a gun, ain’t I?’
I was getting impatient. I was ready. I’d been ready since he first touched his zip.
‘Look, no,’ said Droopy-drawers, ‘she ain’t told us where the sports bag is.’
The zip came free. It was taking for ever, and we was in the open where the men in the yard and anyone passing by could see us. But half of me really truly couldn’t believe that Fish-face, with his little pouty lips and his flat eyes, could possibly have anything as serious as a shooter. The other half was ready.
His zip came free. His anorak flopped open. He did have a sawn-off shooter. But it was stuck through his belt pointing at the ground. He grabbed the stock with his right hand.
Droopy-drawers grabbed his right hand. ‘No, listen, wait,’ he said.
Fish-face shook Droopy-drawers off and pulled the shooter out.
I stepped in. One step. Plant left foot. Whoosh-whack. I kicked the sawn-off.
‘Fuckin’ ow-ow-ow,’ I went. I was hopping on one foot.
The shooter popped up over Fish-face’s head and landed in the mud behind him. He stood there like a daisy. He didn’t know where it was.
Droopy-drawers picked it up.
I went, ‘Fuckin’ give me that.’ I hopped at him and wrenched it out of his hand. I was hopping mad because I was hopping, and I was hopping because I hurt me foot. And I hurt me foot ‘cos I kicked the barrel of a sawn-off with me own soft toes. I forgot my sodding shoes.
Why is everything so stupid?
If you read about it in the paper it’d go, ‘London Lassassin Disarms Armed Raider With Karate Kick.’ Well, it would if I was writing it. But it wasn’t like that. It was stupid and feeble. ‘London Lassassin Breaks Toe.’ ‘Show-girl Kicks Better Than London Lassassin. Armed Raiders Fall About In Gibbering Heap.’ Nothing turns out like I want it to.
Except I had the shooter in my hands. Big deal. The only thing you could say about that was it was safer for me. I couldn’t take it serious – it was all too stupid. I couldn’t take the shooter serious, ‘cos I couldn’t take Fish-face and Droopy-drawers serious. My foot hurt and I couldn’t take nothing serious but that.
Chapter 20
I never had a gun in my hands before. I thought it’d be really brilliant – a big power surge or something. But when it happened it was no different to a spanner. Or a hammer. And you know what happened last time I had a hammer in my hand.
So I just stood there on one foot with this stupid sawn-off. My big toe blazed and I was getting a toothache. I almost gave the shooter back to Fish-face, but I wasn’t quite that stupid.
It was silly. And I never thought I’d feel silly with a shooter in my hand. I felt so silly I almost blushed. But I ain’t someone who blushes.
The silliest thing was Fish-face and Droopy-drawers backing away from me like I was the Terminator himself. I looked round, but no one in the yard seemed to have noticed. There was three people by the yard gate waving a shooter around at half past four in the afternoon and no one noticed. I began to have a weird feeling that it wasn’t really happening. Or that it was only happening in my head.
But Fish-face and Droopy-drawers thought it was happening for real. They backed away and they was so scared they was nearly holding hands.
So I limped after them, barefoot in the muck. When we got to the pavement they turned to run. And then they stopped. They stopped because a big gold-coloured BMW crept up very slow and braked just outside the gate. The back door opened and a bloke got out.
He was short and wide. He was wearing a big black coat and hat and he looked like he’d just come from a funeral. He stood for a moment staring at us. And then he stepped forward. He slapped Fish-face once on the cheek with his big black glove.
The bloke said, ‘You won’t mind if I send these foolish boys home, will you?’
I said, ‘I never asked them here in the first place. You can send them to Kingdom Come for all I care.’
‘I doubt if that will be necessary,’ he said.
There was me with the shooter, there was him with the BMW, and in between there was Fish-face and Droopy-drawers with their eyes flicking like pinballs. They didn’t know which of us to be scareder of. They was practically wetting theirselves.
‘Go home,’ he said. He didn’t shout or nothing. He said, ‘Go home,’ quiet and polite. He jerked his chin and the two pillocks took off like a pair of bunnies. I wished I could of done that – just jerk my chin. I’d been telling pillocks to piss off for days, and I didn’t know all it took was a chin.
‘They tell me your name is Eva,’ he said. ‘A pretty name. I am Gregoriou, but you may call me Greg. The English have no talent for foreign-sounding names. Yes, Greg will do nicely. Eva and Greg. Greg and Eva. It sounds friendly, yes? Shall we be friendly, Eva?’
All the time he was spouting this crap he was looking from my face to the shooter and from the shooter back to my face. I wasn’t pointing it at him. It was hanging by its trigger guard from the index finger of my right hand. But he was paying it a lot of attention. And for the first time I began to take it serious too.
He said, ‘Those two boys mislaid an item of my property. And now I see they have lost the weapon with which they were attempting to recover it. What should I do with boys like that, Eva?’
‘Spank ‘em,’ I said. ‘How should I know? Just keep them off of my patch.’
‘I’ll certainly do that,’ he said. ‘But, sadly, I can’t vouch for your privacy in perpetuity. You see, foolish as they are, those boys have managed to convince me that you found the property they so carelessly mislaid.’
‘Bollocks,’ I said. ‘Are you calling me a thief and a liar too? Are you? ‘Cos I’ve had it up to here with prats calling me names.’
‘Please,’ he said. ‘There’s no need to raise your voice.’
‘Why not? I don’t give a shit who you are. You talk like a sodding BBC newsreader, but the message is the same. You’re calling me a liar and you got no right.’
‘Nothing so crude,’ he said. ‘A BBC newsreader? Thank you. Elocution, standard English usage, yes, I’m proud of that.’
See, if I’d been listening to him on the radio I’d never think he had a care in the world. But on the radio I wouldn’t see those eyes watching the shooter, would I? I shifted it in my hand, taking a firmer grip, and watched his eyes watching my hands.
He said, ‘Aren’t you in the least curious about what it is I’ve mislaid?’
‘You could of mislaid an egg, for all I care,’ I said. ‘I know what you lost. Your “boys” told me.’
‘An egg,’ he said, ‘yes. A nest egg. A lot of money.’
‘Do I look like I’ve got a lot of money?’ I said.
‘A lot of what?’ said Simone. She picked her way out of the yard, all dainty. I wished I’d seen her coming. I didn’t want her hearing any of this.
‘Sorry to interrupt,’ Simone said. ‘You were gone so long I didn’t think you were coming back.’
‘Introduce me to your beautiful friend,’ said Greg.
‘Fuck off,’ I said.
‘I’m Simone,’ Simone said. ‘Eva’s sister.’
‘Sister?’ said Greg. ‘Remarkable.’
Things were going downhill at ninety miles an hour. If his eyes’d been hands he’d of been stroking Simone’s tits, but she didn’t seem to notice.
‘And you?’ she said.
‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘Gregoriou. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Simone. I’m sure I’ve seen your face before, though.’
He wasn’t looking at her face. I passed the sawn-off from my right hand to my left and back – just to make him concentrate.
‘What’s that?’ said Simone, seeing the shooter for the first time. ‘Eva, what’re you doing
?’
‘It’s a complicated situation,’ Greg said. ‘I’m here to recover an item of property. As a matter of fact, the gun, too, is my property. Or rather, I’m responsible for it.’
‘I hate guns,’ said Simone. ‘Eva, give it back to Gregoriou.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘He’s calling me a thief and a liar.’
‘You misunderstand,’ said Greg. ‘Can’t we talk about this in a civilised manner?’
‘No we fucking can’t,’ I said.
‘Of course we can,’ said Simone. And she reached across me and plucked the sawn-off out of my hands.
‘Horrible thing,’ Simone said.
‘Then may I relieve you of it?’ Greg said, holding out his big black glove. And Simone just handed it to him. Just like that. What the cocking hell was she thinking of? She just handed it to him like it was a dead rat and he was ever so kindly going to take care of it for her.
‘Simone!’ I said.
‘Don’t shout,’ she said. ‘It isn’t yours. It belongs to this gentleman.’
‘Gentleman, my arseV
‘Eva, please. What on earth do you want a gun for anyway?’
‘Thank you so much,’ said Greg.
So now he had the shooter. So now I really truly took it serious.
‘Honestly, Eva,’ Simone said, ‘what were you thinking of – waving a gun around in public? It isn’t legal. Suppose someone saw it and reported you? We’d have the police round here in no time. Think of the trouble we’d be in.’
‘Your sister’s quite right,’ said Greg. ‘Guns are dangerous, not least to those who handle them.’ He turned round and put the shooter on the back seat of the BMW.
‘Gone,’ he said to Simone. ‘I’m so sorry you were anxious.’
‘Not at all,’ she said. Jeez, how could a sister of mine sound so toffee-nosed? I was sweating buckets. But I had to admit she sort of cut the shooter down to size. I’d rather I had it than Greg had it, but she made sure he wasn’t going to use it. For now.