The Big O (A Screwball Noir)

by Declan Burke

  His hand shook uncontrollably, splashing bourbon up his wrist. Even in the depths of his misery Frank diagnosed the symptoms: the excess of adrenaline, the flight-or-flight reflex; time for Frank to stand up and be counted or slope away fast.

  ‘He waits, Frank. He’s good at waiting….’

  Mopping up with a paper tissue, Frank crossed the study to the French windows, went out onto the patio.

  ‘Gen? Uh, Gen?’

  Prone on the lounger, from behind saucer-sized shades, Genevieve said: ‘What?’

  Frank advanced towards the lounger trying to gauge her mood. ‘Say we were to go on holiday,’ he said. ‘Where would you most like to go?’

  ‘Acapulco.’

  That one caught Frank broadside. ‘Acapulco? How come?’

  ‘Palm trees. Tequila. Banditos. Trumpets.’ She made a lazy v-for-victory sign. ‘Viva Zapata.’

  ‘Acapulco it is, then.’

  She sat up fast, one hand holding up her bikini top, the other shading her saucer-sized shades. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘No shit. Acafuckingpulco. When?’

  ‘Tuesday. But listen, Gen, there’s something else. Before we go?’

  ‘To Acapulco. On Tuesday.’

  ‘First class. But Gen, what I need to ask is – Are you listening? Gen? How much do you want to go to Acapulco?’

  But Gen, dancing topless around the patio in what looked to Frank like an Hawaiian rain-dance, was too busy squawking La Cucaracha.

  Rossi

  ‘You could do with a maid,’ Rossi noted. ‘Driving,’ he added, ‘a bulldozer.’

  The place a crummy one-room littered with sandwich wrappers, pizza boxes, empty beer cans, foil cartons. A damp patch on the back wall, behind the fold-down couch, that looked to Rossi like a map of the oceans. A carpet – what was left of it – made of damp socks.

  ‘A maid?’ Sleeps lifted his head from where he lay sprawled on the couch, squinting at Rossi to see if he was serious. ‘On disability cheques?’

  ‘’Course,’ Rossi said. ‘You’re on disability for the narcolepsy.’

  Sleeps shook his head. ‘They call it a lack of motivation. It’s a clinical ailment now. I’m certified.’

  ‘So they pay you,’ Rossi said, shifting gingerly in the busted deckchair, ‘to stay home and get stoned.’

  ‘Pretty much.’

  ‘Sweet.’ Rossi passed the joint across, took a slug of Sleeps’ homebrew. ‘Good wine, too. What is it, raspberries or some shit?’

  ‘Elderberries. But yeah, it’s a good year.’ Sleeps deep-sixed the joint, held it down. ‘So what’s the plan now? I mean, we can’t go prowling Karen’s place again, right?’

  Rossi scowled. ‘See those fucking cops? Time they had me spread on the car, I look down – there isn’t even any yellow fucking lines. You see what I’m saying?’

  ‘Harassment.’

  ‘Perxactly.’

  Rossi bitter, worn down after a night in the cells staying awake to nudge Sleeps every time he nodded off. Rossi still couldn’t believe the cops had fallen for it. Except here they were, back at Sleeps’ dump, watching Little House on the Prairie on the black-and-white portable.

  ‘Fight fire with fire,’ Sleeps advised.

  ‘’Cept we don’t have any ––’

  Sleeps dug under a cushion, felt around, pulled out a .22. Rossi hunched forward. Shit, it even looked real; nickel-plated, a pearl handle. ‘Where the fuck did you get that?’

  ‘Right now,’ Sleeps said, enjoying the moment, ‘I got it from under the cushion. Originally, if that’s what you’re asking, the Internet. Eighty bills, ammo included.’

  ‘Yeah? How many rounds?’

  ‘Just the six. I mean, there’s six chambers.’

  ‘You’ll be wanting them all. Gimme a look.’

  Sleeps handed the .22 across. Rossi broke it, checked the action. ‘Soft-tops,’ he announced. ‘Blunts in a lady-gun.’ He snapped it shut, lobbed it back onto the couch. ‘You might want to think about bringing along a kazoo,’ he said sourly, ‘in case the soft-tops don’t blow him away first try.’

  Sleeps nodding along. ‘If I get picked up carrying that, what’ll happen?’

  ‘The cops’ll bust a gut laughing, put you away five-to-ten.’

  ‘Because the gun’s a fucking joke.’

  ‘Piece a crap,’ Rossi confirmed. ‘Now your .44 – that’s a rod. Cop goes up against that, he gets a hole in his head you could watch a movie through.’

  ‘For which,’ Sleeps countered, ‘you’re doing life.’

  ‘If you get bounced, yeah.’

  Sleeps got up from the couch and lurched unsteadily towards the kitchen. ‘See, this is what I need to tell you,’ he said. He opened the fridge, took out a bottle of wine, lumbered back through the pizza boxes to the couch. ‘The rod? The whole point is it’s a piece a crap.’

  Rossi’s brain made five or six efforts at absorbing Sleeps’ words before they finally filtered through. ‘You want to go back inside?’ he said, aghast.

  Sleeps made a half-hearted wave around. ‘The fucking walls’re damp, man. I mean, they’re actually leaking. See last winter? I fucking cried. That’s how cold it was. Meanwhile I can drive fork-lifts except I fall asleep, just like that. So I can’t even make minimum wage. And anyone says you can live on disability cheques, I dunno, maybe in fucking China. I mean, Rossi – you see what I’m saying.’

  Rossi, saddened, said: ‘This is the whole point of FARC, Sleeps. To get people back to ––’

  ‘First off, it can’t be FARC no more. We talked about this.’

  Rossi nodded. ‘I’m thinking about FARCO,’ he said. ‘Same as before, only with Organisation on the end. What d’you think?’

  ‘I dunno. It’s not all that different when you say it fast. And then there’s that movie.’ Sleeps shrugged. ‘Anyway, being honest, the reason I boosted the Volks….’ He took a deep breath. ‘Rossi, straight up, I’m hoping to get pinched. And the way I see it is, if I stick with you, it’s bound to happen. I’m hoping it’s a soft fall so I do good time, but the way things are now, I’ll take any pinch I can get.’

  ‘You’re banking on me,’ Rossi said, outraged, ‘to get you put away?’

  ‘No offence, Rossi. But you’re not exactly Little Caesar, y’know?’

  ‘Sleeps – Rico gets wiped. Eddie G goes down, riddled by cops.’

  ‘Okay, so maybe you’re more like Rico than I thought. The point being – when the shit hits the fan, I’ll be there.’

  ‘I don’t follow.’

  ‘I mean I’ll go down. Do your time. What it is you fuck up for, I’ll take the rap.’

  ‘You’re serious.’

  ‘Never seriouser. I know how we can do it, too.’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Get your sixty grand, the Ducati. Get me back inside in some halfway house doing soft time.’

  Rossi, despite himself, was intrigued. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Okay. You said, Friday night, you caught the tags on the Crossfire that dropped Karen off at her place.’

  Rossi nodded, wincing at the memory, a twinge in his shaft.

  ‘So why don’t you run a trace on the tags?’ Sleeps said. ‘Get an address for the Crossfire, nail the owner. Then buzz Karen, tell her you’re up for a swap.’

  ‘Sounds solid to me,’ Rossi said after thinking it through for precisely four seconds. ‘What’ll it cost, this trace?’

  ‘This one I do for free,’ Sleeps said, waving it off.

  Doyle

  Ray glanced up from his paper, then grinned when he saw who it was.

  ‘Don’t shoot, detective,’ he drawled, putting his hands up.

  ‘Mind if I join you?’

  ‘By all means.’

  ‘Put your hands down, Ray.

  ‘Yes ma’am.’

  The coffee shop was busy, most of the tables taken, conversation buzzing. Doyle’d been so dispirited after the Rossi Callaghan fiasco she’d decide
d to take an early lunch of decent coffee and a wedge of carrot cake, extra cream. Not expecting to see Ray, alone and hunched in the corner reading the sports page.

  He folded the paper as she sat down, put his mocha to one side, elbows on the polished glass. ‘So, Stephanie,’ he said, ‘what can I do for you?’

  Doyle was jazzed he remembered her name, liking the way he said it, cool but not slick. What she didn’t like was the way he held the advantage.

  ‘For starters,’ she said, ‘you could tell me your real name this time.’

  ‘You ran my details?’ He tut-tutted. ‘That’s not strictly legal, is it?’

  ‘Not strictly,’ Doyle admitted. ‘Unless I have valid reasons to believe it might be worth my while.’

  ‘And I looked like I might be worth your while.’

  ‘Everyone’s guilty, Ray. Until they can prove otherwise.’

  ‘Whatever happened to innocent until?’

  ‘We lost that one the day defence lawyers started to make more than the prosecution.’ She forked home some carrot cake. ‘So how come,’ she said, ‘you have no record? I mean, not necessarily a rap sheet. I’m talking no record at all, not even a birth cert.’

  ‘It’s out there. You just didn’t look hard enough.’

  ‘And it’s definitely Brogan.’

  ‘Ray Brogan, yeah.’

  ‘The Ray bit being short for something else?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Rumplestiltskin?’

  ‘Close. Keep working it, you’ll get there.’

  Doyle sipped her latte, forked up another chunk of carrot cake.

  ‘Let me help you out,’ Ray said. ‘The murals?’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘I picked that one up inside.’

  ‘You were in prison?’

  ‘The stockade. I was in the Rangers, yeah? Got in a court-martial. Refusal to obey direct orders.’ He grinned. ‘I thought they’d kick me out, y’know? Fuckers put me away for six months. Insubordination.’

  ‘Six months is a long time for insubordination.’ Doyle thinking, the Rangers?

  ‘They were looking to make examples,’ Ray explained. ‘There was a lot of it about at the time. Plus, this particular deal? Had to do with the OC’s wife, her dog, this fucking Chihuahua. Nasty little shit. Got a firecracker up its wazoo one Hallowe’en night.’

  ‘And you …?’

  ‘Wasn’t me, no. But I knew who did it. And they knew I knew. I mean, at the court-martial. But what’re you going to do, squeal?’

  ‘And this,’ Doyle said, wondering why he was telling her, ‘is where you learnt murals.’

  ‘Among other things, yeah.’

  ‘Like what?’

  He kept it brief, no names. How the guy he’d celled with put him wise to the kidnap routine, a percentage deal, low risk. The guy giving him a name, putting Ray in touch with this guy on the outside who ran the show.

  ‘You’re telling me,’ Doyle said, a forkful of carrot cake poised halfway to her chin, ‘you snatch people?’

  Ray nodded.

  ‘Except,’ she said, ‘if I believe you, you’re naming no names. I mean, this conversation never happened.’

  Ray nodded again.

  ‘So why’re you telling me?’ she said.

  ‘I’m unburdening,’ Ray said. ‘Can’t live with the guilt anymore.’

  ‘Try again.’

  ‘You’re thirty-one, right? Thirty-two?’

  ‘Thirty-one.’

  ‘Okay. So how long’s it been since you realised no one else gives a fuck except you?’

  ‘I honestly couldn’t tell you.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. What matters is, the first time you said it, to yourself, why should I give a fuck, that’s when you started sliding.’

  Doyle didn’t like the way Ray was assuming a lot. On the other hand, he’d let her skate by on claiming thirty-one without so much as batting an eyelash. ‘Go on,’ she said.

  ‘There’s a job coming up,’ he said. ‘You keep an eye on me, a close eye, maybe you’ll see something you shouldn’t. Piss off the boys down the station by closing their files.’

  Doyle put down her fork, stared at Ray. Ray stared back. ‘You’re saying,’ she said, ‘you’ll take a fall so I can piss off the boys?’

  ‘What I’ll do is go down on a sample charge. Cop a plea for one snatch.’

  ‘Giving me what?’

  ‘Names, dates, places, amounts. That way you get to wipe about fifteen cases off the files.’

  ‘Except this guy who runs the show, the legit guy – you’re not shopping him, right?’

  ‘Au contraire, Stephanie. I’ll hand him up wrapped in a frilly fucking bow.’

  ‘And you get what?’

  ‘The money from the snatch. What else?’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘That’s nothing to do with you. Anyway, it’s insurance money.’

  ‘No chance.’

  ‘Hey, Stephanie – you’re getting fifteen scores, plus you’re pissing off the boys down at the station. And you’re telling me you’re worried about some insurance company’s loot?’

  Doyle chewed slowly on some carrot cake, trying to get her head around what Ray was saying. ‘So how much time are you thinking of doing?’

  ‘I’ll go two years.’

  ‘Two actual years or, y’know, two years?’

  ‘Two years.’

  ‘So you’re back out in what, nine months?’

  ‘I do good time.’

  ‘What’s to stop me pulling you in now, obstruction of justice, accessory before and after?’

  Ray just grinned.

  ‘Okay,’ Doyle conceded. ‘But throw me something.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘The guy, the legit one, running the show. What’s his front?’

  ‘It’s a beaut. In a million years you wouldn’t guess it.’

  ‘Pretend I’ve just spent a million years guessing.’

  Ray leaned in. ‘He’s a doctor. To be precise, a surgeon.’

  ‘Jesus B. Christ.’

  ‘Sad, isn’t it? Listen – you want another latte? I’m ready for more of that mocha.’

  Watching him order the coffees up at the counter, Doyle congratulated herself on her stroke of good fortune, stumbling across Ray. Then heard the high-pitched giggle, even over the buzz of conversation, and caught the girl behind the counter laughing at something Ray was saying, Ray with the easy banter.

  Heard him again, with the growly drawl: ‘Don’t shoot, detective.’

  And got to wondering, shit, if Ray, just sitting there in the coffee shop nearest the cop station, just reading the sports page on a Sunday morning, hadn’t wanted to be found.

  Madge

  ‘Hey, Moms, what’s up?’

  ‘I’m on the Internet, Jeanie. Having a little trouble making a purchase.’

  Jeanie’s sigh was meant to be heard. ‘Don’t worry about it. Just close the whole thing down and start over. I’ll talk you through it.’

  ‘Jeanie ––’

  ‘It’s easy, Moms. Come on, just try it.’

  Madge groped through the dull, cloudy fog of the dope hangover to find the glass of red, had herself a fortifying gulp. ‘The problem, Jeanie, is that ––’

  ‘Have you closed it down yet? Logged off?’

  ‘Jeanie? Can you just listen for a sec?’ Christ. ‘The problem is that I’m up to where I input my credit card details.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Exactly. Where’s my credit card, Jeanie?’

  ‘You gave it to us, Moms. Remember? To get stuff for the ski-trip.’

  ‘I remember. What I also remember was, you were supposed to give it back.’

  Madge heard the receiver being covered at Jeanie’s end, some muted mumbling. Then: ‘Liz has it Moms. Hold on.’

  ‘Moms?’

  ‘Hi Liz. Rumour has it you have my card.’

  ‘Sure thing.’ The twins even sounded identical, even to Madge. �
�What’re you doing, buying books and shit? On Amazon?’

  ‘That’s right. Give me the details slowly.’

  Liz recited the numbers. Madge tapped them in. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘And Liz? If you try to leave the country with that card, I’ll have you arrested.’

  ‘I hear you, Moms.’

  ‘And for Christ’s sake stop calling me Moms.’

  A static-filled quiet. Then: ‘Mom? You okay?’

  ‘I’m hungover, Liz. Hungover, pissed off and drinking Sunday lunch alone. How’re you doing?’

  ‘Okay,’ Liz said, sounding subdued, ‘I guess.’

  ‘Good for you. Now – am I going to see you two before you go to Aspen?’

  ‘Sure. We’ll call over … Hold on.’ More muted mumbling. ‘You want to meet in town, Moms? For a coffee or some shit?’

  ‘I’d prefer a coffee. When?’

  ‘How’s tomorrow? I mean, we need to get that cheque for five grand anyway, for the trip. It should have been in on Friday.’

  ‘I thought it was next Friday.’

  ‘No, last Friday.’

  ‘Okay. One o’clock. Can you find a window and all that crap?’

  ‘Sure thing, yeah. The usual place?’

  ‘That’ll be fine.’

  Liz hesitated, then said: ‘Moms, are you sure you’re okay?’

  ‘I will be as soon as you stop calling me Moms. And bring that card tomorrow. I don’t want to hear about you forgetting it, or losing it, or any other crappy excuse. Okay? Give my love to Jeanie.’

  Madge hung up and drank off the rest of the red. An hour later, upstairs, trying to decide if it was worth bringing the floppy sunhat or if Karen wouldn’t make her life a misery for wearing it, Madge realised she still hadn’t rang Karen.

  She got the metallic-sounding answering service, waited for the beep.

  ‘Hi Kar, it’s me. Listen, you’ll need to start packing, we’re off on a cruise, two weeks in the Aegean. Just the two of us, hon, sorry, but they have these weird rules against bringing wolves. And don’t worry about money, it’s all expenses paid, my treat. Well, Frank’s treat. Anyway, we’re flying out Thursday night, eight-thirty. And if Frank gives you any grief about taking time off, tell him talk to me. Love you, ’bye.’