Death & the City Book Two

by Lisa Scullard

  I close it again and nudge it with my foot. It’s not nailed down, unlike the rest of the fixtures in The Zone that Cooper mentioned earlier.

  “I’ll take these outside now if they’re in the way,” I say, casually.

  “Take anything out you want,” he says, with a grin. “None of it’s on the site inventory.”

  “Where the Hell have you been?” Cooper asks me as I report to the bus stop, attempting to brush half a century or so of dust off the front off my hi-vis and sleeves. He tries to be helpful and join in, but when Animal sidles up saying I’ve got dust on my backside, I push them both away good-naturedly.

  “Had to help the Fire Service move some stuff that was in the way of the electrics,” I say honestly. “Was saving the venue a bad report and preventing them closing it for the rest of the night otherwise.”

  Mgr Stacie, the shadow dancers in their towelling bathrobes and stilettos, or hastily pulled-on Snugg boots, and the rest of the staff are smoking, taking advantage of the break. Most of the customers have queued up again outside The Zone front doors, hopefully waiting to be allowed back in. The queue is attracting more passing trade as well, making the venue appear popular, so it’s growing. Stacie looks at me, gives a tight little smile, and mouths ‘thank you’ before ticking my name off, on the fire drill register.

  “You all have to sign this at the end of shift before you leave,” she announces. “Right, the alarms are off, back to your positions, everyone. I want all staff back on site before we allow a single customer back into the venue. Would someone please fetch D.J. Crank out of the kebab shop so that we can have some music back on as well, if you wouldn’t mind.”

  Crank is playing on the fruit machine in Pittarama. Solange goes to call him, as she’s nearest, and has just extinguished her cigarette butt. I see him punch the button and collecting winnings, before waving to the shop owner and joining us, as we filter back across the street to the venue. To the annoyance of taxi drivers, slinking down the road in kerb-crawling taxi-rank formation.

  “Hey,” Crank catches up with me as I cross to the central reservation, behind Salem and Pascaline. “Check this out.”

  He shows me an email on his Blueberry, from his casino banking account. Congratulations on your win. The summary detailing his winnings and added benefits is too long to read at a glance, but I see ‘limosine transfer’ and ‘penthouse suite’ and ‘Playbunny Party’ under dollar signs with many many zeros after them.

  “You’re meeting me at the travel agent’s tomorrow to book our flights in person, and pick up the itinerary,” he says, tapping the tour operator’s name listed as sponsor on the email, which pops up various optional methods of how to book. “You better have a passport. Give me your number.”

  Still slightly bemused, I type it into his phone, and hand it back. He dials it immediately and my phone rings in my pocket, so I take it out to save the number.

  “What’s your real name?” I ask him, opening Add To Contacts.

  “Just Crank is fine,” he grins. “Plenty of time to laugh at my real name on my passport.”

  He pats me on the shoulder and runs back inside to get back to work.

  Probably among the more surreal people I know, I think to myself.

  Head office ring me as I’m doing a toilet check, shortly after re-opening. Customers have flooded in, en masse, needing the toilet desperately after nearly fifteen minutes spent waiting outside, controlling their tiny alcohol-sensitized bladders.

  “Hey you,” they greet me. “Just checking your Zone payload reached double on the double or nothing.”

  “What’s that?” I ask.

  “The theatrical costume department, we guessed you’d find something useful in that room with the old fuse-box in, given the opportunity,” they say. “Also might need you as Standby on some long-distance jobs, so you should make sure you turn up to book those flights with D.J. Crank tomorrow.”

  “Oh, so he wasn’t joking?” I remark. I try to recall what happened with Mexico. Something about a Martial Arts Conference weekend, and a spare ticket I was offered for twenty quid at Tae Kwon-Do the week before, after someone dropped out at the last minute. Head office seem to be good at taking advantage of coincidences. Either that, or the world has more than enough contract killers needing dealing with, wherever you happen to look, so travelling at any one time is merely a busman’s holiday to them. They’ve never admitted to engineering those coincidences, and I probably wouldn’t ask. “Okay, I’ll set my alarm, and wash my hair and all that.”

  “Good girl. Have fun playing dress up as well. Never forget to put a mask on again.” They disconnect.

  Getting more surreal by the minute. First they’re taking the piss out of me for using fancy dress, now they’re encouraging it. Like I figured before, they like my way of doing things. Maybe it suits them better, than the kind of guys who sooner or later all start asking for incentives to stop them taking alternative work. Meaning, the sort with pay, and a contract. Declaring it for tax and benefits, optional. But it’s so much better, not having that sort of thing on your CV. Tax evasion, I mean.

  Zack and his colleague emerge from the office opposite as I leave the toilets, and Zack winks at me and grins as they leave. I just nod and smile. Mgr Stacie emerges behind them, looking a bit stony-faced and serious, striding into the main bar. To me, it looks like she’s just attempted to chat them up, or bribe them with V.I.P. passes to get a good report. She wouldn’t be the first.

  I wonder what Stacie’s like away from work, and whether she’s as straight-laced, professional, and as much of a slave-driver as she comes across as in The Zone. I recall her greeting Elaine the other night, her glee over the Champagne, and looking forward to Tiffany goody-bags at the corporate do. It’s all about the bonuses for her, I reckon. Drive your team like a bunch of mules, and miser away every penny. So that your staff only get scummy tap-water to drink, and the company give you a BMW, a trip to the Bahamas and a Fabergé Christmas cracker every year. Meaning you have no friends at work, but you wouldn’t want to have to share your corporate loot anyway. Never mind, I think. Not my problem.

  She reappears again eventually, as I’m punching tickets in the lobby, and stops to take a call on her mobile.

  “Hi, hun,” she trills. “Yes, I’m definitely up for a spa treatment tomorrow. It’s been absolute Hell here tonight. Fire drill and staff misbehaving and all sorts. I need a salt ice scrub and a good hot stone massage, I can feel it. And you don’t even want to know about my nails. I think I’ll just book myself in for the works. Meeting who…? Ooh, I’ll look forward to that. How is your latest study coming along…? Oh, goody. Well, sign me up for the trials at the earliest opportunity, darling. Ten years younger is the minimum I need after tonight, I can tell you. Kiss kiss, see you tomorrow.”

  She puts her phone away, and gives me a broad smile, which without notice is a bit startling. The last thing I was expecting was a sense of female solidarity from her.

  “Oh, something to look forward to, thank God,” she confides. “Have you ever been to Green’s Spa at Allegra Sands?”

  “Yeah, a couple of times,” I nod. “I’ve got friends there.”

  She looks a little surprised, but covers it well.

  “Lucky you. Freebies, eh? Aren’t they the best? My friend owns one of their sponsor brands. Do you know the Organix Advance range?”

  I shake my head.

  “Oh, they’ve got a new regenerative line in facial treatments. Maybe you don’t go for facials.” She frowns a little critically at me, displaying the slightest Botox discrepancy, favouring her left eyebrow movement more than the right.

  “Aromatherapy massage, mostly,” I reply.

  “Some of the stuff they use in their products, if it was a street drug it would be Class A,” she continues. “I don’t mean as in illegal. I mean powerful. Stuff only grown in Africa, and stuff from beetle secretions, and stuff they can only culture from human cells in laboratories. I’ve got a spec
ial account with them where I get products matched exactly to my DNA, grown from my own stem cells. It’s amazing what they can do nowadays.”

  She gives herself a little hug of satisfaction and strolls away, energy and ego apparently boosted up again for the time being. I amuse myself, speculating what’s being grown for her in a laboratory out of her own stem cells. Even her own breast implants, or a fresh skin graft every six months that never ages. Hair extensions with her own follicles. Yuck.

  The rest of the night is quite fun, observing the new door staff trying to eject drunk customers by the book, with varying degrees of success. Cooper makes me spend the last two hours doing random searches on handbags, and confiscating any sweets I find. Because he’s hungry, and dangerously grumpy when his blood sugar drops below a certain level.

  Chapter 34: The Mogwai Diet

  I get two texts by the end of shift. One is from Elaine to remind me to visit her at Crypto after work, and the other is from Heath Gardner: Need a female at Phantasia down the coast 2mo @ 9pm, black T-shirt no jacket indoors, will sort you out xtra 4 petrol, back @ Plaza on Sat usual hours, Thx.

  I just reply: OK. X

  I’m vaguely aware of Phantasia, a seasonal fetish party at one of the big brand venues - more Carlynne’s type of thing, but she doesn’t drive, and has a good enough deal here on fixed rota at Xcite. I won’t pin any hopes on seeing that petrol money, though. He’s promised on so many other occasions I’ve had to stretch my commute for Heavy Duty, and it’s never materialized. There’s nothing from Connor, so I guess I’m free to do as I please, and text Elaine to say I haven’t forgotten.

  Cooper is bouncing around the lobby, buzzing his nuts off on Haribo Tangfastics by the time we’re urging the stragglers to leave, and I’m actually concerned that Des might have to crack open the Ovaltine and Horlicks before the condoms run out. Scary thought.

  Mgr Stacie then only announces that due to the fire drill earlier, and a new door team starting in full tomorrow, there will be no formal meeting tonight. The sigh of relief from the staff nearly blows all the plastic tumblers off the bar, where they’re stacked waiting for their turn in the glass-washer. And Cooper is suddenly a rapidly decreasing black-blazered dot, vanishing out of the front doors and back to his car.

  I say goodbye to the others - who are making the anticipated noises about heading over to The Plaza for staff drinks, inviting the bartenders and dancers to join them - and make my way out at more of a human turn of speed. Quite a nice feeling, not having to rush. Not getting confronted, or accosted after work, as it’s felt like on a few occasions recently.

  I check my phone to make sure Connor hasn’t tried to reach me, before getting into the car and dropping it into the glove-box with the Beretta as a temporary measure, shutting it and doing up my seatbelt. As I start the engine, I check the rear-view mirror, reach around behind me to shuffle the costume and prop trunks on the back seat into a lower profile position, then flip the headlights on and set off for Crypto.

  The taxi rank has had a prang as I pull out from behind the club - the human manned minicabs responding to demand for custom at Zone-closing-time, had double-parked across the exclusion area reserved for sat-nav unmanned auto-cabs, and got rear-ended by a vacant one returning to its bay. I can see that being a thoroughfare congestion complaint to be filed with the Council, under ‘Recommended Reasons For Closure Of The Zone’ already. It’s the other reason the sat-nav drone cars have onboard cameras. To catch students shagging in them, and to catch other drivers doing things they shouldn’t. Nobody has yet beat a case against them, recorded on auto-cab camera. They’re about as legally watertight as a Gatso.

  I park in a free night-parking space and cut across the skate park in the dark, as I always did to attend Crypto. On the entrance porch, the bar staff and Mgr Lenny are smoking, as is their routine before re-stocking after work. Lenny looks like he might have shed a few pounds, and when I ask if he’s lost weight, he announces he’s just been diagnosed diabetic. And is thrilled because now he can give up being tortured at the gym, or being made to waddle for miles around the city parks by Doorman Stuart, who promised to whip him into shape last year. But now he’s started insulin, the weight seems to be dropping off by itself. I’m actually quite pleased for him. Perhaps getting his hormonal balance right, might also stabilize his other neurotic tendencies, but I don’t say so - it’s just a happy coincidence that I have personal experience of, and have seen the same effect in other case studies.

  “I’ve got to avoid anything that raises blood sugar,” he states cheerfully, lighting another cigarette. “No yoga or sports massage for me.”

  It’s not surprising to me about his mood swings now. Funny how you can judge the personality of someone as being of a fixed definition, without awareness of any underlying medical cause. Even for me to judge that.

  “What made you get checked out, and diagnosed?” I ask, holding the door ajar prior to going inside.

  “It was Sandra popping her clogs, to be honest,” he shrugs. “I heard she’d gone right after getting put on heart tablets, and I thought, that could be me tomorrow, not ever bothering to find out if I’ve got anything. I’m just glad I did now. Got something to be thankful for, at least.”

  I nod and say I’m pleased for him to be getting peace of mind, and head inside, wondering if Sandra’s death making a character like Mgr Lenny suddenly sit up and take notice of his own health and lifestyle, is a common side-effect when other hit-men take a fall. It’s certainly not something I would have anticipated as a benefit.

  Ben Trovato is the only doorman left in the venue, and he’s sweeping up broken glass from beer bottles which have been ground underfoot on the dance floor, evidently keen to show Elaine how useful and versatile he is. Good for him. I hope she doesn’t sabotage it by disarming him with cookies and cups of tea while she takes over anything domestic. He directs me to the office where she’s supposedly cashing up, but I find her standing on Mgr Lenny’s new scales, exclaiming what it would feel like for her to lose ten pounds in less than a week.

  “I’d probably die of shock. It would be like my body was cannibalizing itself,” she says to Charmaine Lysander, who is at the computer. Now back in her Gothic purple velour hooded style of dress, Charmaine’s typing in the last of the information from hand-written cards, collected from customers voluntarily adding their details to the venue’s electronic mailing list. “Lara, stand on these - what do you weigh now?”

  I step on the scales. Connor was right - I’ve now lost just over a stone. I thought my work uniform was a bit roomy now. My belt has gone in two notches, from two months ago.

  “I don’t want to lose any more. I think the customers would just blow me over if they sighed as I ask them to leave,” I say. “I feel sort of comfortable like this.”

  “Yeah, you look great,” Elaine nods. “I mean, you looked fine before - I think you carried it quite well. It’s the hourglass shape, isn’t it? All in the right places.”

  “I’m just looking forward to losing mine properly afterwards,” Charmaine groans, pointing down at her currently insignificant tummy. “I’ll be coming to you for advice on that.”

  “My advice is, use the Mogwai Diet - don’t eat after midnight - and don’t let yourself get bored,” I grin at her. “But the first five years are hardly boring, once you get really into it. Everyone’s different.”

  “Jag wants to buy the house I rent next door to his, and knock the two together,” she says. “He’s having a laugh, I mean, nice idea, but it’s such a shit area. I’d rather move back up to Oxford near my parents. I might just do it anyway. He’s all talk.”

  I feel a little bit responsible for the psychopathic bastard, knowing what else he’s got on his plate now he’s on Standby, like I always was.

  “You never know how he’ll turn out, kids change just about everyone.” Elaine cuts in before me, saving me face from having to explain away any defence of him.

  “She’s right, it’s
probably the only circumstance in which the benefit of the doubt ought to be given to anyone,” I tell her. “Unless he’s hitting you.”

  Charmaine laughs.

  “Him? No way. Too much of a Puddy-tat.”

  Prismatic observation, I think. Nobody having the same opinion on the same thing, due to differing experience of it. Every life and reality experienced is unique in the mind of the individual, and everyone else is experienced by the individual as one of a multitude of comparative personalities in turn. What an incredible thing the Universe is.

  It’s nice in a way though, to hear someone refer to Jason in actual knowledgeable terms, rather than the fantasy world about him perpetrated by every other barmaid with no-one better to distract them. And it’s nicer still to hear Charmaine talking normally, instead of quoting Shakespeare, Elizabeth Smart, and Robert Graves, whose supposed love poems read like old vampire suicide notes. Somehow, hearing her talk like Tweetie Pie is so much more down-to-Earth. At least, it is in my Universe.

  “I caught Ben sweeping the floor outside,” I announce to Elaine, challenging her to bring back the subject of him being too easy for her.

  “Well, if the boy wants to make himself useful, let him get on with it,” she grins, as Charmaine logs out of the customer database and gets up. “Did I call you a staff taxi, Missy?”

  “Yes,” the Goth girl nods. “I’m sharing with Vicky from V.I.P.”

  “Oh, good. Well, see you tomorrow night.” Elaine accepts a kiss on the cheek goodnight, and I get a rather surprising hug.

  “Mogwai Diet,” Charmaine repeats over her shoulder to me, heading out of the door with a giggle. “I LOVE it.”

  “Yes, you should write that as a book, I bet you’d sell millions,” Elaine says. “Look, I’m thinking of changing my image. What do you reckon?”

  She picks up a handful of flyers for Sin Street’s Angels & Demons night and flourishes them, featuring some eye-catching airbrushed skin, under a scrap of red latex.