A Case of Noir (Atlantis)

by Paul D. Brazill

  Luis nodded. He knew the score.

  I poured a couple of shots of whisky and slid one over to Nathan. His eyes flickered and then fired up. The sounds of Pink Floyd faded into the room. ‘Wish You Were Here?’ Appropriate, really.

  ‘So, what does happen, Nathan?’ I said.

  Nathan knocked back the booze and had a coughing fit. Destroyed a couple more napkins, cleaned himself up. Dropped them on the floor. Spoke into his chest, so I had to lean close to him again.

  ‘You disappear. Go underground. But … even after five years, more, you still don’t feel good with the beard,’ he said. ‘It still itches, but you’re afraid to shave it off. Just in case. So you decide on a compromise. You crop it in a style which has only become fashionable in the last few years. Since you became a murderer. You think it makes you look idiotic but you scratch less and still look nothing like the man you were before. Or so you hope.

  Then, one day, you walk into a local greasy spoon for a cup of coffee. Strong coffee. You’re tired. Always tired. Sleeping badly.

  The café’s a dump. Easy to melt into since you’re living an insect’s existence.

  The dishrag that Big Mable, the owner, uses to wipe down the counter is filthy. Must contravene over a hundred health and safety rules. But you say nothing. Avoid drawing attention to yourself. Just pick up your cup of coffee and take it over to the table near the window. Keep an eye on who is coming out of the train station. You’ve done this every weekday for ten years. But you’ve never seen a single familiar face.

  That changes, though.

  One day, your brother-in-law walks out of the train station and towards the diner. Tall and confident. A battered suitcase in one hand. An umbrella in the other. A rolled up newspaper stuffed under one arm. A crumpled trilby on his head. A smile on his face. The first time you’ve ever seen him smile.

  You start to shake. Almost spill your coffee. Your hands grow clammy. Your thick, fake spectacles steam up because you’re sweating so much.

  The bell rings as he walks through the door and you want to run out now. But you sit and stare at his back, transfixed as he orders a coffee and leans on the greasy counter. Makes a joke that almost forces a smile from Mable. You want to run but you catch your breath and slowly walk towards the door. Walk out into the blinding midday sun.

  Halfway down the street you hear the shouting. You ignore it and quicken your pace. The shouting gets louder. High pitched. A hand clasps your shoulder. You spin to attack and see Mable screeching that you didn’t pay your bill. You pull a wad of notes from your pocket. Stuff them in her hand and head off back down the street.

  The next day you draw all your money from the bank and fly out to Spain. ‘Y Viva Espana’.

  His finger jabbed at the television screen like an executioner’s sword.

  ‘That … that isn’t what happens when you kill a man.’

  He looked at me with tears in his eyes.

  ‘Or a woman.’

  Nathan was peacefully canoodling with Morpheus, his head on his chest. Snoring like an AK-47.

  I leaned with my back against the bar. My body was aching, despite the anesthetic of the booze. Whoever it was that said that emotional pain lasted longer than physical pain, hadn’t had a clue what they were talking about. Or maybe they’d never been beaten up by a couple of massive Polish mobsters.

  It was six months since I’d left Warsaw with my tail still intact between my legs, after stupidly playing hide-and-seek with a gangster’s wife and an Ukrainian prostitute. Albeit not at the same time.

  The emotional scars had faded pretty much as quickly as spit melted on the hot Madrid pavement. But my body still felt the consequences of that disaster. Plus, the palm of my right hand was still sore. I’d recently grabbed the door handle of a taxi cab that had been lounging in the summer heat, ignoring the taxi driver’s warnings, and burnt my hand. I was never good at listening to people’s advice.

  Luis changed the music to Tom Waits’ ‘A Little Drop Of Poison’, which I would have seen as a touch of foreshadowing, if I’d been paying attention.

  ‘Nathan Jones?!’ said a female voice, as sharp as an icicle.

  I glanced up and saw the silhouette of a woman in the doorway, the blazing afternoon sun streaming into the bar from behind her. She was tall with her hair in a long, tight ponytail, and seemed to be holding an umbrella in her hand.

  I picked up my sunglasses to take a look but it was too late. She’d already disappeared into the crowded street.

  As it was, I glanced over at the snoozing Nathan. He looked even less of a killer now.

  Luis glared at me again and I decided to head out of the scorching hot bar and into the blazing sun and maybe try to track down the apparition that had just left the bar.

  What was it they said about frying pans and fires?

  The air outside was thick and heavy and immediately slammed into me like a sledgehammer. I was quickly disorientated.

  The cocktail of booze, dehydration and the ultra-high temperature slowly began to choke me as I rushed through the bustling streets, not really knowing who I was looking for or where I was going. People fired sharp looks at me like bullets from a machine gun. Women. Men. Old people. Young people, their flesh exposed, barged into me. A siren wailed. A Peruvian pan pipe band played ‘Ring of Fire.’ A child pulled at my trouser leg and asked for money.

  I paused and headed over to the Fuente de Cibeles to bathe my face in the water. Dizzy, I leaned over and drenched myself. I almost plunged in.

  I wiped my face. The statue of Cybele, the Greek goddess of fertility, who was on a chariot being pulled by two lions, seemed to gaze down at me with a knowing look in her eyes.

  I leaned against the fountain and steadied myself. Adjusted my eyes. From out of a crowd of leering, jeering English hooligans a young woman walked towards me as if she was in slow motion.

  Black dress. Black stiletto heel shoes. Black sunglasses. Blood red lipstick, alabaster skin and white hair. Her parasol held aloft like a big black bat flapping towards the sun. Lena was a heat-seeking missile and I was the target.

  She perched her sunglasses on the edge of her nose and glared and me with her cold blue eyes. Then she smiled.

  ‘Ah! Luke Case, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ I croaked, my throat like sandpaper.

  She held out a perfectly manicured hand. Red fingernails, of course. Her hand was icy. Mine clammy.

  ‘I’ve seen you at one or two of Pedro’s soirees. How’s the glamorous world of journalism?’ she said.

  ‘Oh, it has its moments,’ I said, feeling about as glamorous as a worn-out slipper.

  ‘Walk this way,’ she said; I bit back a glib quip and followed her.

  I couldn’t really see where we were going, there were far too many people milling around. I just followed Lena like a lap dog. We eventually headed towards the Real Casa de Correos, a building that was far too beautiful to house government offices.

  Lena stopped and stood on the stone slab that marked Kilometre Zero. She glanced up at the famous clock tower. Every New Year’s Eve, at the stroke of midnight thousands of Spaniards gathered here and tried to see how many grapes they could stuff down their throats.

  ‘The Days Run Away Like Wild Horse Over The Hill,’ said Lena.

  I was confused, but I still recognized the quote.

  ‘You don’t look like a Charles Bukowski fan,’ I said.

  ‘We’re not always what we seem, Mr. Case,’ she said.

  And there in the forty-two degree heat, I suddenly felt an icy chill.

  I was desperate for a drink now, with pints of cold beer dancing before my eyes, and was going to suggest heading off to one of the local bars — preferably one with air conditioning — when Lena’s phone rang with the Godfather Theme. She listened for a moment and spoke curtly in what I assumed was German. She looked at me again. Frowned. Whispered and pushed the phone into her small black bag.

  Her hard expression transformed in
to one sunny enough for a Jehovah’s Witness.

  ‘What would say to a bottle of Tinto de Verano?’ she said.

  ‘I’d say: I love you, will you marry me?’

  Lena forced a grin and walked away from the square.

  I followed, of course .

  Behind the bar of Bodega de la Ardosa, hung on the wall, in amongst the collection of old beer bottles and the pencil drawing of Goya's Los Caprichos, was a signed photograph of Frank Sinatra and the owner. Old Blue Eyes looked pretty damned happy to be there and so was I.

  The bar’s dark interior and dim lighting, along with the Tinto de Verano I sipped, was giving me a glow. Taking the edge off my earlier panic attack.

  Realizing I hadn’t eaten all day, I wolfed down a plate of tortilla de patata. The music that was playing wasn’t Frank, but since it was Billie Holiday’s ‘Violets For My Furs’, he probably would have approved. This was a classy joint, all in all.

  ‘I really can’t believe you’ve never been here before,’ said Lena. Her upper class accent was now more neutralized. ‘It’s been here since 1892. It’s a Madrid institution.’

  ‘Well, you know what Groucho Marx said about institutions,’ I quipped, using a pen as a substitute cigar.

  ‘No, I don’t,’ said a stern-faced Lena, with a razor-blade German accent.

  A beat. And then we both burst out laughing.

  ‘That’s such a clichéd line you know?’ she said.

  ‘Well, a cliché to me is like a red rag to a bull. I avoid them like the plague.’

  ‘Oh, that’s such a cliché,’ she said, in the same tone, her German accent now sharp enough to shave with.

  Another beat. And then another. Then she grinned. I didn’t.

  The music had changed to John Martyn’s version of ‘Glory Box.’ The song had given me a flashback to my unfortunate time in Poland. This cut to the reason why I was on the run. Why I was on the run away from my life in England. Panic started to consume me again.

  Fade in.

  It’s autumn and, teetering precariously on the brink of middle age, I become a self-imposed exile from England and get drunk between the moon and New York City. I know it’s crazy but it’s true. I set off with a briefcase full of stolen money and the half-assed plan to hit the road, like Jack and Tom, and like so many half-assed plans it goes pear shipped.

  Autumn soon segues into a winter in Warsaw’s snow-smothered streets.

  More close ups: beer breakfasts in a twenty-four-hour pub; the old football stadiums’ Russian market selling Nazi memorabilia; a Ukrainian lap dancer on her knees, snorting cocaine in the middle of Old Town square. And then cut to a sparse apartment, walls splattered with blood that looks greasy in the pissy light.

  And then winter stumbles into spring which tumbles into a forty-two degree summer in Madrid. Close up on me burning my hand on the side of a taxi; falling into a fountain in Sol, as drunk as a skunk; a row of prostitutes lined up outside a shop called Easy Everything, one of them blind in one eye; waking up in a shop doorway in the midday heat as a policeman goes for his gun.

  Freeze frame.

  Fade out.

  Lena must have caught something from my look.

  ‘Penny for your thoughts,’ said Lena, yanking me out of my reverie.

  ‘Maybe, something stronger to drink?’ she said. And tapped my clammy hand with her porcelain fingers.

  She gestured to the barmaid, whom I noticed for the first time, though god knows how I missed her. She was petit with close cropped black hair and dark eyes. Full red lips. She wore tight cut-off jeans and a denim shirt that was clearly a size too small for her. She came over with two glasses of draft vermouth.

  ‘Here you are,’ she said with a smile.

  Placed the drinks on the big wooden barrels that served as tables. Exchanged a look with Lena.

  I knocked back the booze.

  ‘Excuse me a moment,’ I said.

  I stood up to go to the loo and sighed when I noticed that you could only get to it by crouching down and going under the bar. A dubious task for me at the best of times, but in my current state it was a struggle.

  I crouched, duck-walked and banged my head a couple of times. I heard Lena chuckle.

  ‘Change the tune, please,’ I said to the barmaid, as I stood upright.

  I pulled back a red velvet curtain. Inside the tight toilet booth, I splashed water over my face. Took a deep breath and counted to ten. By seven, I was heading back to the bar.

  When I got back Shirley Bassey was singing ‘Spinning Wheel,’ which put more of a spring in my step, but not enough for me to bang my head. Lena was whispering to the barmaid and had a smirk on her face. Another glass of vermouth was on the table.

  The barmaid was sitting next to Lena.

  ‘You don’t mind if Irena joins us, do you?’ said Lena.

  Now there was a lethal cocktail, if ever there was one.

  And I couldn’t say no, really, could I?

  I jolted awake, coated in cold, dank sweat. Daylight sliced through the gaps between the broken blinds. A tight band gripped my forehead and my pounding heartbeat seemed to echo through the sparse, familiar looking room.

  A beat.

  I adjusted to the wan light. I was on my bed. Naked. Back in the flat that I shared with Nathan. I tried to piece together what had happened.

  At some point during the night I’d woken up, confused, with no recollection of getting there. Irena, naked, was smoking and gazing out of the bedroom window. The tip of her cigarette glowed bright red and then faded to black.

  Lena — also naked — walked up to her and whispered something in her ear. And then I dissolved back into sleep.

  I stumbled out of the bed and into the bathroom. My wiry arms gripped the washbasin for support. I sighed deeply as I splashed cold water on my face.

  When I walked back into the living room, Irena was standing naked in the doorway to Nathan’s bedroom. Bowie’s ‘Station To Station’ played at a low volume.

  ‘He’s dead,’ she said. She lazily nodded into the bedroom.

  ‘What?’

  My head was still pounding. I picked up a carton of orange juice from the coffee table and gulped it down.

  ‘Nathan is dead,’ she said, her face betraying no emotion.

  ‘Are you sure?’ I said, switching off the Bowie CD.

  ‘Well, I’m not Doctor House,’ she said. ‘But look…’

  I walked past her and into the darkened bedroom, trying not to look at Irena’s erect nipples.

  I switched on a light and looked down at Nathan Jones’ naked, flabby body, spread-eagled across the bed. Cocaine and vomit coated his mouth and chin.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ I said to Irena, who was pulling on a kimono. ‘We can’t exactly call an ambulance, can we? Not with all the cocaine he’s got in him. Shit. Shit. Shit’.

  ‘I told him to take it easy with that stuff,’ said Irena.

  ‘Eyes bigger than his gut,’ I said.

  We both glanced at Nathan’s stomach and burst out laughing. The laughter seemed to take hold of her and she gripped me for support. Her kimono came open.

  ‘Getting rid of him won’t be too difficult. I’ll call some people I know. They’ll sneak him up to their pig farm,’ said Irena, suddenly looking full of life, and wiping white powder from her nose.

  She pointed to the cocaine on the bedside table.

  ‘Maybe a little pick-me-up?’

  Her hand trailed over my boxer shorts. I was hard before I knew it. I picked up an almost empty bottle of DYK whisky and downed it.

  ‘Let’s go into my room,’ I said.

  Within minutes, Irena was bent over my bed, snorting the last of the cocaine as I slammed my cock inside her.

  The summer days crashed into months. The months into autumn days. I never saw Irena after that day and went about things pretty much as I had before. Apart from picking up a bit of extra work, since Nathan went AWOL. Pedro and a couple of people on The Madrid
Review asked about his whereabouts for a short while, but eventually he was just filed in the bargain basement of memories, like so many other Brit hacks that had come and gone. Though none as literally as Nathan.

  Lena had embarked upon a successful world tour. The big time had hit here like a knockout punch from Mike Tyson. There was even talk of Brian Eno, another ghost of the past, producing her.

  Then, one evening, as I was sat in Bodega de la Ardosa, browsing the internet on my iPad, I clicked on a newspaper article. A tabloid journalist had discovered Lena’s tragic past. It seemed that she was actually English and her mother had been murdered by her father. The pater familias had then fled the country with the money he’d swindled from his brother-in-law’s firm. He’d never been found. Lena had been brought up by her step-father and his German wife.

  There was a picture of Lena as a child. And her mother. The resemblance was strong.

  And a very stern looking photo of her father. Nathan certainly looked a lot thinner then. And a lot fitter than the last time I’d seen him.

  I sipped my Tinto de Verano and mused. Had Lena come to Madrid looking for Nathan? Had she and Irena chatted me up hoping to get into our flat? Had Irena killed him? Had Lena?

  I thought for as long as at took me to finish my drink, and then I ordered another. And then the cloak of alcohol enfolded me.

  3

  The Kelly Affair

  Granada

  Father Joseph Black lay on his side in the mud, shaking and muttering. The blood stains from the buck-shot had spread like a Rorschach blot over the back of his Hugo Boss shirt.

  A cold North wind, as sharp as a razorblade, sliced through me and I fastened my leather jacket as tightly as possible. Still shivering, I turned up my collar and stuffed my hands into my pockets. The air tasted like lead and malignant clouds crawled ominously across a metallic sky.

  I walked to the edge of Ruby Hill and stared down at the spectres of smoke that spiralled up from the carcass of the priest’s abandoned Mercedes. My heart was pounding, ready to burst out of my chest.