The Big O (A Screwball Noir)
Page 26
‘I think a little more blusher,’ Mirror-Madge said. ‘Up under the eyes.’
Madge peered into the vanity case mirror. ‘You think?’
‘They’re still going to look puffy and swollen. And there’s nothing you can do about the bloodshot whites. But if you highlight the cheekbones, blend them in….’
Madge dabbed and brushed some more. ‘How’s that?’
‘Not so bad,’ Mirror-Madge said. ‘I mean, there’s this sick desperation in the way you’re ––’
Madge snapped shut the vanity case, zipped up her travel bag. Then, with rigid fingers, hands shaking, she rolled a cigarette from the debris Rossi had left on the table. She took a deep drag, cupping the cigarette in her palm, the real reason for rolling it – Madge thought she’d never before been so cold and miserable. She switched the cigarette from hand to hand, warming each palm, smoking only to keep the tiny ember lit. She could have sipped the damp air through a straw.
‘You’ve been colder than this,’ Mirror-Madge said.
Madge, hugging herself tightly, just shook her head.
‘That time you went skiing,’ Mirror-Madge urged. ‘Remember? In the French Alps? Where the ski instructor advised everyone, but women particularly, against peeing outside.’
Madge turned away from her reflection in the window and began walking around the table, rubbing her shoulders and upper arms. A long curved ash fell from the cigarette.
‘And you were definitely more miserable,’ Mirror-Madge went on, ‘the night Frank, y’know, that time in the car. Or the time you gave up that little baby. Remember?’
But Madge didn’t want to remember. In the last twelve hours Madge had done enough remembering to last her a lifetime – and no matter where she had looked, Rossi’s eyes were iris-to-iris with her own: huge, round and dark with pain. She had always acknowledged the magnitude of her baby’s loss; even in the worst times, the blackest nights, Madge had always been aware of how the child’s hurt was immeasurably deeper than her own. But last night, unable to break away from the compelling gravity of his dark eyes, Madge had realised that Rossi’s sense of loss was so vast as to encompass everything – the planets and stars, the entire universe. Because Madge now knew that, for Rossi, everything, from his inside out, sprang from loss. He was pain fired in a kiln of absence, every last cell shot through with grief.
‘He’s going to kill Frank,’ Mirror-Madge mocked, ‘isn’t he?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘But you want him to. And you want to watch. Otherwise you’d run away. I mean, Rossi’s left you here alone, hands untied, and you haven’t even thought of running off.’
‘Where would I go?’
‘The main road, maybe? To hitch a lift from there? It’s only about a mile or so away.’
‘I wouldn’t make it,’ Madge said, twitching an ankle. ‘Not in these heels.’
‘Perhaps not,’ Mirror-Madge agreed. ‘But then, you want to see Frank die. Don’t shake your head. You do.’
Madge closed her eyes and shook her head so violently tiny lights danced in the darkness; it was as if the night sky had taken leave of its senses and was spinning according to no law of nature Madge had ever heard of. Not to be outdone, gravity took a little break for itself, and Madge felt herself tilt….
She came to as Sleeps crouched down to pat her cheek, although it seemed as if he was very far away. Beyond him, Rossi sat on a corner of the table, one leg swinging, the phone clamped to his ear.
‘You alright, Madge?’ Sleeps was saying. ‘Can I get you a glass of water or something?’
‘Hold on,’ Rossi said. He hunkered down beside them, thrust the phone at her. ‘Tell Karen you’re doing great.’
Madge reached a long, long way to take her phone.
‘Karen?’
‘Madge? Are you okay?’
‘Forget about me, Karen.’ Madge heard her voice come weak and echoey. ‘You have to think of Anna. Think of Anna, Karen.’
Rossi snatched the phone away. ‘You get that?’ he said.
Madge heard the distant twitterings of Karen’s voice.
‘Yeah, well,’ Rossi said, ‘at least you know she’s still alive. Which she won’t be in two hours’ time if I’m not looking at the money and Frank.’
He hung up and switched off the phone, tucked it into the breast pocket of his pink-striped suit. Madge thought he looked a bit blurry.
Sleeps came through from the kitchen holding an empty glass.
‘Sorry, Madge. I forgot there’s no water. There’s any amount of Nervocaine, though, if you have a headache.’
‘That’s okay, Sleeps,’ Mirror-Madge said. Madge could hear her only faintly. ‘I think, now, she’s going to be just fine.’
The last thing she heard was Sleeps, from very far away, his voice a furious whisper: ‘Jesus, Rossi – she’s bleeding out her fucking ear.’
Karen
‘Think of Anna?’ Ray sounding baffled. ‘Why’s she talking about Anna?’
Ray with his head close to Karen’s so they could both listen in on the call. Karen stared down at the phone on her open palm as if trying to weigh the import of the message.
‘What’s up?’ said Doyle from the rear.
‘Madge didn’t sound so good,’ Ray said. ‘Started rambling about the wolf.’
Anna growled. Frank whimpered.
‘They’re at the cottage,’ Karen said.
‘I don’t get it,’ Ray said.
‘It’s a woman thing, Ray.’
‘Which we’re calling what today – a hunch? Feminine intuition?’
‘Neither. It’s called lying to a man’s face without him having a clue.’ Karen half-turned in her seat to look back at Doyle. ‘Okay, there’s been another change in plan.’
‘You know where they are?’
Karen nodded.
‘And I’m guessing,’ Doyle said, ‘that where they are is nowhere near where the pick-up is supposed to happen. I can’t sanction that, Karen.’
‘I know.’ Karen poked the snout of the .44 into the rear of the van. Doyle looked at the gun, then Karen, one eyebrow raised.
‘That’s a hell of a change in plan,’ she said.
Frank noticed the .44 and made a high-pitched noise in his throat, shied away, tugging Doyle off-balance. Doyle, still staring at Karen, dragged him back with a twitch of her wrist.
‘This way,’ Karen said, ‘afterwards, you didn’t have a choice in the matter.’
‘Is that thing even loaded?’
‘Which would be better for you, loaded or not?’
‘I’m not thinking of me, girl.’
Ray flashed a Renault out of an intersection. ‘So we’re heading for the cottage now, right?’
‘Yep.’ Karen still staring at Doyle. ‘I’ll need to take your phone away too,’ she said.
Doyle hesitated. ‘You’re sure you want to do this?’
‘I don’t have any choice, Stephanie.’
Doyle passed her phone across.
‘And you might want to think about unchaining yourself from Frank,’ Karen advised.
‘I would, but I don’t have the key. They’re not even my cuffs. I had to borrow a pair this morning.’
Ray groaned. ‘Hey, why don’t you just make a wish? That way, when the cuffs fall off, it’ll be a woman’s thing.’
Karen grinned. ‘What’s wrong, Ray? Worried I might be lying to you?’
‘Men don’t multi-task, Karen. And right now I have to worry about you holding a gun on a cop.’
‘You mean, Stephanie.’
Ray rolled his eyes. ‘What I’m saying is, how do we hand Frank up to Rossi if he’s cuffed to a cop?’
‘What’s that?’ Frank said.
Karen waggled the .44 in his general direction, then said to Doyle: ‘I don’t have to point this at you all the way there, right?’
‘Is the safety on or off?’
‘Off.’
‘Then no. I don’t get paid to take tho
se kind of risks.’
Frank cleared his throat with a squeaky cough. ‘Karen?’
Karen didn’t even look at him. She clicked her tongue to call Anna, unbuckled the muzzle, lifted it clear. Anna practically purred. Frank blanched.
‘You want to step on it a little?’ Karen said to Ray. ‘I’d like to get there before it gets any worse for Madge.’
‘You want us to get pulled over by a traffic cop?’
‘Oh Ray,’ Karen sighed, patting her heart with the butt of the .44, ‘you think of everything.’
Rossi
‘But how come it’s me,’ Sleeps wanted to know, ‘has to make the pick-up?’
‘Because the main guy always stays home with the troops,’ Rossi said. ‘It’s good for morale.’
They were on the porch outside the cottage, Rossi straddling a chair, Sleeps swamping a damp stump of log.
‘Rossi – I’m your troops. Me. And my morale is already rock fucking bottom.’
‘You ever hear of buckwheats, Sleeps? No? Things to do in Denver, Andy Garcia. With buckwheats, you get a round up the hole. Horrible death. You see what I’m saying. About morale.’
Sleeps sighed. ‘What if, when I get there, they won’t come back with me? I mean, they’ll be expecting to see Madge.’
‘Tell ’em….’ Rossi mulled it over. ‘Okay, yeah – tell ’em Madge isn’t fit to travel. If they want her, they have to come and get her.’
‘So why not ring Karen and tell them to come here?’
‘And what? They’ll stop off for the cheeseburgers?’
‘Okay, so why don’t we go meet them, stop off for eats on the way?’
‘Because this way,’ Rossi said patiently, ‘they don’t know what they’re getting into. They’ve no time to plan anything. And Sleeps – get sugar for the coffee this time. If I have to drink coffee with no sugar again, I swear I’ll shoot some fucker in the eye.’
Sleeps stood up. ‘Y’think,’ he said, ‘did Mussolini, Napoleon, all these guys – y’think did they threaten their troops all the time?’
‘Fucked if I know. What d’you think, maybe they should’ve?’
Sleeps glanced through the doorway to where Madge lay prone on the floor, his jacket tucked up under her chin. ‘What about her?’
‘She’ll do.’
‘I don’t know, Rossi. She looks pretty ––’
‘Tell you what I’ll do, Sleeps. I’ll sic five or six guys on her, for some reason they might want to bust her face in, maybe slip her one up the ass because there’s nothing on TV. After that, if she hasn’t improved any, I might get all worried and shit. How would that be?’
Sleeps slipped and slid across the muddy clearing. On the fringe of the forest he turned. ‘Hey, Rossi – all this food and shit, that comes out of the expense account. I mean, I’ll be getting expenses, right?’
Rossi took the lady-gun .22 out of his pocket, held it up. ‘Buckwheats,’ he said.
Ray
Ray jammed on the brakes when he saw the Merc top the small rise about eighty metres dead ahead, pulling the Transit in on a bend that curved down to the right and had space enough to tuck in to the side. The van pulling sluggishly with all the extra weight in the back. Ray didn’t fancy trying the steep, narrow track with anyone looking down at him, not from some Merc and not in the middle of any forest.
He flashed his lights. The Merc flashed back.
‘There’s every chance,’ he said, ‘that this is Rossi.’
‘Rossi’s seen your van before,’ Karen reminded him. ‘And Rossi wouldn’t have stopped, not for us.’
‘So who is it?’
‘How would I know? Flash it again.’
Ray obliged. The Merc moved forward a little, then reversed back towards the sheer drop behind.
‘He’s going to fall in,’ Doyle observed.
The Merc stopped on the brink, seemed to teeter, then edged forward towards the high bluff on the other side of the track.
‘He’s blocking the road,’ Ray said.
The Merc began reversing again. ‘Nope,’ Karen said, ‘he’s going for a u-turn.’
‘He’s going to fall in,’ Doyle insisted.
The Merc teetered again on the brink, seemed to shudder, then slid backwards off the track and out of sight into the gully.
Ray looked at Karen.
‘Maybe,’ she said, ‘that was Rossi.’
‘You think we’d get that lucky?’
He thought she said ‘Never’ but he couldn’t be sure because that was the moment Anna, pacing the van and sniffing the air, cut loose with a rib-shivering howl.
A gunshot cracked through the forest.
‘Christ,’ Karen said. ‘He’s shot her.’
Madge
Madge sat up, stiff and cold, a little dizzy. Wondering what had woken her. Through the doorway she could see that Rossi had heard it too – he stood rigid on the porch, staring off into the forest, his pallor grey.
She threw back Sleeps’ jacket and got to her feet, feeling woozy, a pounding at her left ear that might have been her brain pulsing out an SOS. She supposed she must have fainted and bumped her head on the way down; the last thing she could remember was saying, to Karen, on the phone, about how she should look out for Anna….
Anna?
Now Madge knew what had woken her. She moved towards the doorway and stumbled out onto the porch, a treacherous heel catching on the rough boards. Rossi, hearing the scraping sound, whirled to face her.
There was, Madge noted as he pitched towards him, a gun in his hand….
Then he was catching her and staggering backwards. Her momentum carried them both off the porch onto the muddy incline of the clearing and they slipped and slithered downhill towards the lake, ice-skaters locked in a drunken waltz, Rossi swearing up a blue streak.
The incline levelled out. Rossi dug in. They ground to a halt. Madge, breathless and still dizzy, laid her head on his shoulder and hugged him, grateful beyond words for his solidity, the way he didn’t swoop and yaw like the rest of the world. And then, above the sounds of squelching mud, the blood roaring in her ears, Madge heard a sound she’d never heard before. A hoarse sound with a coarse timbre, a sound Madge heard deep inside, booming through a cavern she’d never even known existed.
‘Haw,’ he was saying. ‘A-haw-haw-haw.’
The sound of Israel, her only son, laughing.
Karen
Karen, squinting through the flickering trees, said: ‘He’s going to drown her now?’
The Transit crashed through the wooden-pole barrier and skidded on the thick mud, slewing to a stop, as Ray jammed on. Karen jerked forward hearing paint pots rattle, Doyle and Frank shunt forward, Anna barking.
By now the cottage lay between the Transit and the struggle on the lakeshore; Karen scrabbled to release her safety-belt, cursing it, aware that Ray was already out and vaulting the low wire fence, sprinting for the cottage, tugging something from the pocket of his windbreaker. She released the catch and jumped out of the van just as the rear door slid open. Anna bounded past her, howling. Then Doyle half-fell out of the van, dragging a bewildered Frank in her wake.
‘He’s drowning her?’ Doyle said.
But Karen was already stumbling after Ray, who was already disappearing around the side of the cottage. Then she heard, even over Anna’s howling, three flat cracks. A piercing screech. Ray appeared again, half-somersaulting to one side. He hit the ground hard and wriggled around in the mud, screaming.
Karen, it was like she’d been shot herself, she felt a sickening pang in her gut.
Then, still struggling up the incline, sliding and slithering, she heard another flat crack.
Anna cut off in mid-howl.
Rossi
Like, what was he supposed to do? Karen’s guy comes charging around the side of the cottage, no warning, waving this fuck-off cannon – Rossi, his arm resting on Madge’s shoulder, aimed for Ray’s chest, the biggest target, and squeezed one off.
Rossi had just enough time to admit it’d been a complete fluke, taking down a guy slip-sprinting across rough ground, and then Stalin came hurtling around the cottage howling like a fire engine in flames. She skittered to a stop, slid another two or three yards of greasy turf on her haunches, the huge head turning as she sailed past Ray. Then she got her bearings and fixed that single amber eye on Rossi, howled again; a primitive, triumphant bellow that shivered Rossi to the core. In one fluid movement she got her back legs adjusted, tensed and shot forward.
But by then it was too late.
Rossi, still pumping on adrenaline, just twitched the barrel of the .22. He even had time to breathe out as Stalin loped towards them, slavering, her unearthly howl reverberating through the small clearing.
Rossi hugged Madge close she couldn’t move; rested his elbow on her shoulder. Stalin charged straight down the mouth of the gun, a one-wolf charge of the light brigade. Rossi sighting one-eyed along the .22’s barrel, dead-centre on Stalin’s forehead.
She leapt, jaws wide as a tunnel. So close Rossi could see the silvery drool strung between the massive teeth.
He couldn’t miss.
He didn’t.
Frank
Stumbling along in Doyle’s wake, Frank slipped and went down face-first to inhale a mouthful of cold, thick mud. Then he felt himself being dragged to his feet again, the metal cuff slicing into his wrist, and realised he was stumbling through a world gone dark.
He had enough presence of mind to realise he wasn’t actually blind, that he must have got mud in his eyes. But the way things were going, Frank would have taken blindness over his uncertain immediate future if anyone had offered the choice….
It was hard for him to believe that it was only two hours since he’d strolled into the Trust Direct building. In the intervening period, he’d seen his fortune halved, that half taken away and got himself handcuffed to a cop who seemed to have him pegged for some kind of criminal mastermind. All of which was bad enough, but Frank was still trying to cope with the idea of Karen waving a gun around while a wolf tried to gnaw his testicles.