The Big O (A Screwball Noir)

by Declan Burke

  Sleeps put down his Slurpy Joe. ‘You’re serious? You’re actually going legit?’

  ‘All the way, Sleeps. Some day,’ he added, gesturing out at Larkhill Mews, ‘all this will be yours. Well, some of it anyway.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say, Rossi.’

  ‘The less said the better. Soon as we get my sixty grand back from Karen, we’re in business. Get stocked up, rent an office, start applying for grants and shit. Scam ’em blind.’

  ‘Don’t forget the Ducati,’ Sleeps said.

  ‘And the .44,’ Rossi said. ‘I mean, it’s a matter of principle.’

  Frank

  ‘Y’think,’ Gen murmured, swirling her gin-tonic, ‘if I was to dump you, I’d be having that good a night out?’

  ‘For the last fucking time,’ Frank growled, Frank with his back to the room, elbows on the bar, ‘I dumped her. Okay?’

  ‘Sure, Frank. Whatever you say.’ Gen sounding bored, insolent – Christ, Frank could get that kind of shit at work, or from the twins. ‘But it looks to me like she’s having a pretty good time for a woman who’s been dumped. Wouldn’t ya say?’

  ‘You think people come here to have a good time?’ Frank, grinding out the words, felt his incisor crown wobble. ‘Jesus.’

  ‘Chill, Frank. Relax. I mean, we’re supposed to look natural, like nothing weird’s going on.’ Gen swivelling on the bar-stool, puckering up and making kissy noises. ‘Why don’tcha kiss me or some shit?’

  ‘I hardly think that that would constitute acceptable behaviour in Margaret’s presence.’

  ‘Y’know what? We could start a dwarf conga on her table and she wouldn’t notice. That guy she’s with? He’s hot.’

  Frank was about to reply when he felt himself skewered by a high-pitched trilling, a peal of laughter that pierced the plinkity-plonk muzak and set his marrow a-shiver. The noise coming, he could tell without looking, from Margaret’s table, where the hilarity was bordering on hysterical. Even the guy – some freak with a fringe, in t-shirt and jeans; Christ, on a Sunday night at Oakwood? – even the toy-boy seemed to be enjoying himself. Frank couldn’t work it out. Unless, it was possible, the guy was on drugs. Why else would he be boffing Margaret?

  ‘I’ll say one thing for her,’ Gen said. ‘That’s a serious dress. I mean, she’s mutton dressed as mutton, but if she was twenty years younger … Hey, isn’t that Bryan?’

  ‘Thank fucking Christ,’ Frank said, turning from the bar. ‘Oh, shit.’

  Bryan strolling over to Margaret’s table, Fiona in his wake; Bryan shaking hands now with Karen, being introduced to the toy-boy, all the while smiling sadly at something Margaret was saying. Frank wondering how long it’d take Bryan, the acid-fried asshole, to let something slip about the snatch….

  ‘Stay here,’ he ordered, dismounting from his stool.

  ‘And miss this?’ Gen giggled as slid down off her own stool and staggered slightly on her spike heels. ‘We’re partners now, Frank. Remember?’

  Frank gritted his teeth, wincing as the loose crown danced a fandango. ‘Okay,’ he conceded. ‘But let me do the talking.’

  Gen teetered as she took Frank’s arm. ‘Y’know what I like most about you, Frank? You’re so dynamic. Virile. You make me feel … Ooops,’ she said as her dangling handbag walloped the back of an unwary head. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Just try to stay on your feet for ten minutes,’ Frank urged. ‘That’s all I ask. And perk up them tits.’

  The toy-boy nudging Margaret now as they approached, the guy meeting Frank’s stare.

  Frank cleared his throat. ‘Margaret.’

  ‘Frank.’

  ‘Fiona.’

  ‘Frank.’

  ‘Karen.’

  ‘Hey, Frank. Nice tie.’

  ‘Yes, well….’

  ‘How goes it, Frank?’

  ‘Good, Bry, good. And you?’

  ‘Not great, Frank. I just heard about Doug.’

  ‘It’s tragic,’ Frank agreed. ‘But accidents will happen. And if the guy hadn’t been, y’know, standing on the edge of the green, he’d have been well out of ––’

  ‘Not that.’ Bryan peering curiously at Frank now. ‘You haven’t heard?’

  Frank’s stomach pitched sideways. ‘Heard what?’

  ‘About Doug.’

  Frank’s guts yawed in a gale. ‘What about him?’

  ‘Bryan?’ Margaret put her hand up. ‘Can I answer this one?’ She turned to Frank. ‘Doug slipped into a coma earlier this afternoon,’ she announced. ‘You didn’t know?’

  ‘But Grimes said he was on the mend,’ Frank barked.

  ‘They say it’s touch-and-go,’ Margaret went on.

  ‘Although,’ Karen added, ‘they’re also saying you should get away with, I think, third-degree manslaughter. If Doug doesn’t come around, like.’

  Frank, in shock and already weaving unsteadily on his feet, wobbled as he was brushed to one side, Gen leaning in across the cubicle table with her hand outstretched. ‘You’re Margaret, right?’

  Margaret arched an eyebrow. ‘And you might be…?’

  ‘Genevieve. Gen. Y’know, Frank’s fancy?’

  Frank watched, horrified, as Gen extended her hand again. Christ, he’d known she was drunk, maybe a little mopey on gin – but how could he have failed to spot that the girl was actually suicidal?

  Except, Jesus, now Margaret was taking Gen’s hand and shaking it, looking her up and down. Frank wobbled again, even though no one had touched him; the room starting to swirl, Frank feeling a tremor in the floorboards….

  He nodded at the toy-boy in one last desperate bid for dignity. ‘And who might this young man be?’

  ‘Jesus, Frank,’ Gen snapped, ‘lighten the fuck up.’

  Margaret hooted. Karen snorted. The toy-boy grinned. Frank wished the ground would get on with swallowing him whole, just plunge him into a dark and silent cellar. Except Gen was still pumping Margaret’s hand, giggling now, saying: ‘No offence, but I just had to meet the woman who, Frank says, has the sexiest bellybutton since Raquel Welch.’ She shrugged. ‘I mean, whoever the fuck, Raquel Welch….’

  There was a moment’s stunned silence. Then, as if in slow-motion, the storm broke. Everywhere he looked Frank saw grotesquely distorted masks of hilarity – Margaret bawling tears of joy, Karen red-faced and whooping, the toy-boy suppressing a sneaky grin, Bryan tugging at his nose, Fiona with her thin-lipped Botox smile. Even Gen, the traitorous bitch, was chortling along.

  Frank gritted his teeth so hard he popped the loose crown off his incisor. It shot onto the cubicle table, bounced high as a dice, and skittered off the edge into Margaret’s lap. Margaret shrieked, setting them all off again….

  Frank bowed his head and found himself wondering, for the first time in his life, how he might go about getting a gun.

  Monday

  Ray

  Ray glanced at the scrap of paper Karen had placed by his mug, then crumpled it into a ball and dropped that in the ashtray. He wiggled his thumb, indicating she should set it alight.

  ‘Because,’ Karen said, ‘if anyone finds it, I mean here, then I’m an accessory.’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘What’d we decide, Ray? We’re in this together. Yeah?’

  Ray knuckled his stubble. ‘Yeah, but it was my idea in the first place. At least, it was Terry’s. Plus you have Anna to worry about. So if anything fucks up ––’

  ‘I thought it never fucked up.’

  ‘You said it yourself, about the stick-ups, it’s the law of averages. It’s only a matter of time.’

  ‘Okay,’ Karen conceded. ‘But how come you’re thinking negative all of a sudden?’

  ‘Just looking at the options. And the worst-case scenario is, the gig fucks up.’

  ‘Sure. But ––’

  ‘No buts. Look,’ he said placatingly, ‘it probably won’t. But if it does, I’ll do okay. It’ll be Frank and me, unlawful detention, conspiracy to defraud. No,’ he said as Karen ma
de to protest, ‘wait a minute. Terry’s got good lawyers, they’re sharks. And Frank’s the scumbag who wants his ex-wife snatched. Me, I’m just the fuckwit he pulled in to do his dirty work. That way no one else gets touched. Not Terry, not Madge, and not you.’

  ‘How come not Terry? I mean, it was his idea.’

  Ray just stared.

  ‘You’d do time for him?’ Karen said.

  ‘Some.’

  ‘And that isn’t a problem for you?’

  ‘I don’t want to do it. But we need someone, if it all fucks up, they can put away. And looking around, I’m the logical option. The one with the least to lose.’

  ‘There’s still time. We can ring Madge and tell her it’s off.’

  Ray with a little speech prepared. ‘Say it does work out,’ he said, ‘the way it usually does. You and me, we’re splitting three hundred grand. And that buys a place, maybe not the cottage at the lake, but somewhere Anna can live the way she should.’ He held up a hand to forestall Karen’s protest. ‘It sounds freaky, I know, because we’re only hanging out a few days. But that’s actually the beauty of it. Because if I do go down, why would anyone come to you looking for the insurance money? Especially after Terry’s washed it, left it bright and shiny new.’

  ‘What happens after?’ Karen said. ‘When you get out?’

  ‘Christ, you don’t make it easy, do you?’

  Karen looking him straight in the eye. ‘I’m not looking for someone who needs it to come easy, Ray.’

  Ray lit a cigarette. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘this is how I see it. If I go down I’ll take two years, which’ll work out at around nine months. Then, when I get out, if things are different between you and me….’ He shrugged. ‘I say we deal with that if it happens. I don’t know, maybe you remortgage, hand me my cut, I’m gone.’

  ‘Either way, I’m sitting pretty.’

  ‘Or even prettier than usual. Put it this way – it’d be like you’re doing me a favour, holding my stash. In property, where it’s gaining points every day.’

  ‘I’d be the one,’ Karen said, deadpan, ‘doing you the favour.’

  Ray nodded. Karen reached for his lighter and picked up the crumpled ball of paper, still meeting his eye. She lit a stray corner and dropped the ball into the ashtray again. They watched it burn up, Karen tamping the ashes with the butt of the lighter, this expression in her eyes, defiant longing.

  ‘So we’re on,’ Ray said.

  ‘Okay by me.’

  Frank

  All night Frank had had this nightmare where a giant golf-ball chased him down the 14 fairway out at Oakwood, Doug perched atop behind a steering wheel, a Jolly Roger fluttering, Doug laughing like Scooby Doo on helium.

  Now Frank was haggard, drawn and damn near quartered, the razor in his shaky hand slicing divots out of his jawbone. A disaster in the making: Frank had long ago discovered that a forgotten dab of toilet tissue on a surgeon’s chin could cause a stampede in a cosmetic surgery waiting-room. Two mornings in a row could ruin a man for life.

  ‘Frank?’ Even from downstairs, through two sets of closed doors, Gen’s voice was shrill enough to set Frank’s crownless tooth shivering. ‘Babes? You ready?’

  Frank groaned, towelled off the last of the shaving foam, splashed on some Pasha and began buttoning his shirt. He trudged downstairs knotting his tie and found Gen sitting at the kitchen table, smoking. By some miracle she was actually dressed at nine-thirty in the morning, although Frank was quick to acknowledge, as he headed for the coffee pot, that such miracles usually didn’t auger well for one Francis Xavier Peter Dolan.

  ‘Hey, babes,’ Gen said brightly. ‘You nearly ready yet?’

  Frank sipped at his coffee, holding the cup steady in both hands. ‘Ready for what?’

  ‘To drive me into town. I’ll be needing some new outfits for Acapulco.’

  Frank’s stomach churned at the prospect of Gen on an impromptu spree. Plus, the coffee was barely tepid. ‘Gen, we really don’t need ––’

  ‘Maybe you don’t. But if you think I’m flying into Acapulco wearing russets and tans, you’ve another think coming. So don’t even think it.’

  Frank steeled himself. ‘How much do you need?’

  ‘I don’t know. Jesus, Frank, I don’t even know what I want yet. It’s not just outfits. I’ll be needing ––’

  Coffee flew as the phone rang, each peal a piercing drill in Frank’s ear. He snatched up the receiver. ‘The Dolan residence,’ he croaked, ‘Doctor Dolan speaking.’

  ‘Doctor? It’s Detective Doyle.’

  Frank sagged at the knees. So this is how the end comes, he thought bitterly; without so much as a hot coffee to sustain him.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, hearing his doleful tone, realising he was admitting to guilt before being officially accused.

  ‘I interviewed you on Thursday,’ the detective went on. ‘After the mugging?’

  Frank’s knees failed him. He sank to the floor, eyes closed. ‘Of course you did,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Good news, Doctor. We’ve located your briefcase.’

  ‘That,’ Frank said, opening his eyes to see Gen glaring at him, ‘is fantastic news. You have no idea of how good that news is right now.’

  ‘Well, unfortunately the briefcase was empty. But you probably expected that.’

  ‘It’s the world we live in,’ Frank agreed. He hauled himself vertical, levering against the marble worktop, hands shaking.

  ‘So when can you come down to collect it?’ the detective said.

  ‘Collect what?’

  ‘The briefcase. You want it back, don’t you?’

  ‘That’s okay. You can keep it.’

  ‘I’m afraid I wouldn’t be allowed, sir. That’s not the way we do things.’

  ‘It’s good leather,’ Frank said. ‘And you deserve something for yourself. You’ve obviously worked very hard on the case.’ He sniggered. ‘The case.’

  ‘Sir? Are you okay?’

  ‘Fine. Marvellous.’

  ‘Well, if you’re sure….’

  By now Gen was making slashing gestures across her throat, urging Frank to hang up.

  ‘The thing is, Doctor,’ the detective went on, ‘we’d still like you to come down to the station and have a look at those mug-shots I mentioned.’

  ‘Do I have to?’

  ‘No, sir, you’re not obliged to help us in any way. But we would appreciate it greatly if ––’

  Frank heard a muffled brr-brr on the line. ‘Sergeant Boyle? Can you hold? I have a call coming in.’

  ‘It’s Detective, sir. Detective Doyle. And I wouldn’t advise ––’

  Frank punched line two. ‘The Dolan residence, Doctor ––’

  ‘Frank?’

  ‘Jeanie?’

  ‘It’s Liz. Where’s Moms?’

  ‘How would I know?’

  ‘Well, we’ve been trying to ring her all morning to cancel for lunch but she isn’t answering. You think she’s, like, sick or something?’

  Frank closed his eyes again, the better to block out the memory of a gin-soused Margaret handing over his lemming-like crown. ‘Liz, I have no idea where your mother might ––’

  ‘Yeah, well, you’ll do. Jeanie and me, we need that money for the trip to Aspen. Like, five grand. Today.’

  ‘I thought you needed it for Friday.’

  ‘Yeah. Last Friday.’ Liz groaned. ‘Don’t tell me Moms fucked up again. Jesus, ever since she started smoking dope….’

  Frank dabbed his damp forehead with a shirt cuff. ‘Liz, hon, your mother and I discussed this. Didn’t she tell you? We decided that it wasn’t such a good idea for you and Jeanie to go skiing. Not with all the hijackings and suchlike these days.’

  Liz laughed harshly. ‘Yeah, but seriously Frank, we need that money today. A cheque’ll do it. I’ll call around to the office this afternoon to pick it up. What? Hold on, Frank.’

  Frank heard a muttered conversation, then Liz came on again. ‘Yeah, Jeanie wa
nts to know what we should do about Moms. Should we, like, ring the cops or some shit?’

  ‘No need. Hold on.’

  He punched call waiting. ‘Hello, Sergeant?’

  ‘Doctor Dolan, I do not appreciate ––’

  ‘Yeah, I know. But my daughter is on the other line. Can you speak to her? She’s worried about her mother.’

  ‘What? I don’t want to ––’

  Frank double-punched the buttons, hung up. Then dialled Margaret’s number and let it ring until the answering machine kicked in; hung up again. He shivered.

  ‘Something you want to tell me, Frank?’

  He stared at Gen, his vision blurry, cold sweat oozing into the corners of his eyes.

  ‘It’s, ah, possible,’ he said, ‘that the guy who’s supposed to kidnap Margaret tomorrow has moved a day early.’

  ‘And that means what?’

  ‘I’m not sure. But I think we’d better start getting the ransom together as soon as possible.’

  ‘I hope you’re not thinking that this might interfere with my shopping. I won’t go without a new wardrobe, Frank. I won’t.’ She gave it a half-beat. ‘And you don’t want to leave me behind, Frank. Not now.’

  Frank whimpered.

  ‘And Frank?’

  ‘Christ, what now?’

  ‘If the cops want you to go see them, go see them. Remember – everything has to look normal.’

  ‘As normal as you, say, shopping for new bikinis?’

  But she was already gone. Frank collapsed onto a chair and slumped forward, head on his forearms. He stared into the darkness, fighting the impulse to pick up the phone and call Sergeant Boyle, confess all. Except it was cosy in the dark little world Frank had created, the mini-womb he had built from his folded arms; Frank thought of Doug, comatose and blissfully unaware, and felt a pang of envy.

  Then, a flash of inspiration – Christ, inspiration? It was genius, sheer fucking genius. If, Frank allowed, he actually had the balls to carry it off….