I gulped some coffee, it was bitter, black burned my tongue, just the way I liked it, like my fucking life.
* * * *
We don’t get a bill, we leave a fat tip on the table, that’s how it works, Richy left a twenty and seeing my look, he pleaded, “I’m gonna ask her out, can you give me a minute?”
When he went to ask her, I switched the twenty for a five ..........no point in madness.
* * * *
I waited in the prowl car, the radio squawking and my head full of her, she was dancing across my heart..............fuck and fuck.
I lit a Lucky, tried to figure out what the hell had just happened to me.
Richy came back, shit-eating grin all over his dumb face, said, “She said yes, can you believe that?”
I said, as I put the car in drive, “Guess the twenty did the trick.”
I didn’t have to look to see the disappointment on his face, like his school project had been trampled on.
Tough.
* * * *
The next couple of weeks, Richy was gone, signed sealed and fucked. He was taking Nora to fancy restaurants, clubs, buying her shitloads of jewelry, clothes, and crackin on about her, till I went, “Shaddthefuckup.”
He didn’t.
He couldn’t.
Where was the money coming from and it took a lot of moola.
Richy had grown up with wiseguys and now he was on the pad. He’d hinted I might like me some of the action till he saw my face and I could tell, deeper and deeper in the hole to these scum, he was going.
He was my partner, what could I do, watch the disaster take shape and get ready to annihilate him.
* * * *
I watched.
* * * *
One evening, I was sitting in the Mick bar, down a block from the precinct, fuming, the constant simmering rage in barely reined leash. I had me a Jameson rocks, Guinness back, and it wasn’t my first. Someone slipped onto the stool beside me and I got the whiff of that perfume, swoon stuff.
Heard,
“Tis himself.”
I turned to face her and my damn treacherous heart skipped some beats, those eyes and that Irish colouring and she had lips, you wanted to run your finger, gently across them and kiss them till they bled. She was wearing a tight dress that had to be against some law, least one that protected fools like me. She asked, “So will himself buy a girl a jar or have I to beg?”
She had a double Old Grandad, Bud back. I asked, “You’re not gonna drink an Irish brand?”
She gave me a look, her eyes half lidded, said, “Sure I’m in America, I can have the other stuff at home, wouldn’t I be stone mad not to try yer drink?”
She put a cigarette between those gorgeous lips, waited and said, “So Mr Grumpy, are yah going to light me up?”
Jesus.
I did and she held my hand as I did so, I swear, I had a tremor in me fingers and she said, “Christ fellah, calm down, I’m not going to bite yah ........................yet.”
* * * *
An hour later, I was buried to the hilt in her, sweating and groaning and howling like a lunatic and she goaded, “Ride me like yah loved me.”
* * * *
After, her head on my chest, I asked, “What about Richy?”
She was pulling at the hairs on my chest, said, “Tis a bit late to remember him now.”
I sat up, that hair-pulling, the sucker hurt, said, “So you’ll finish with him?”
She laughed, asked, “Are ye mad entirely, he’s loaded and I love money.”
I tried for some decency, not that I know much about it, said, “He’s my buddy.”
She began to massage my dick, asked, “And how do you treat yer enemies?”
* * * *
Another month of me fucking her twice a week, Richy buying her more and more shit, getting deeper in the hole and one evening, over a few brews, his face a riot of agony, he said, “Joe, I’m in trouble.”
I thought, “You’ve no fucking idea, pal.”
I said, “Spill.”
Deep, huh?
He drained his fourth bottle, now, he hit the Jameson, hard, said,
“I owe some guys and I can’t meet the vig, never mind the freaking principal and Nora B, she’s wanting more and more.”
I echoed, “Nora B............what’s with the B?”
He was puzzled, said, “Jeez, I never asked.........beautiful, I guess.”
Bitch, I thought
I said I’d see if I could maybe help him out.
Right.
* * * *
The following Monday, Richy had his kids, and against my better judgment, I went back to Nora’s place, always, we’d used my pad, we were deep in it when the door opened and there was Richy, his face a mask of stunned bewilderment. Nora, cool as an Irish breeze, slipped out of bed, naked, said, “How ‘as your day dear?”
He was reaching for his piece when she shot him in the head, twice, said, “I just wouldn’t have been able for all that whining he’d have done.............you?”
I was too shocked to speak and she said, “Let’s make it look like his shady friends got fed up with him, you can fix it to look like that, can you sweetheart?”
I could and I did.
And worse, I was part of the team that went after the wiseguys.
Nora disappeared, taking every cent Richy had stashed under the bed, she left me a note,
Joe a gra
I’m tired of policeman, ye are too serious.
I was thinking of getting some sunshine,
so if you’re ever in Florida, look me up.
Tons of kisses,
Nora B.
‘Course, she wasn’t in Florida or anywhere else I could find her.
She just seemed to vanish.
* * * *
The years went by, and I managed to retire with most of my pension, and a cloud over my whole career.
Most nights, I sit and listen to that Irish wailing music, they give free razor blades with it, and I see Richy in my dreams, always with that lost look.
* * * *
A few days ago, I heard from an old cop buddy, there was a hot joint up on the west side, run by a hot Irish broad, she had the most stunning red hair he said.......and get this, green eyes.
* * * *
I got the knife from a guy in a bar, and soon as I finish the next Jameson, I’m gonna take a stroll up there, after I chop off that red hair, and before I sever the jugular, she’s gonna tell me what the fucking B stands for
It’s like, been..................... bugging me.
<
* * * *
THE END OF LITTLE NELL
Robert Barnard
They were all poor country people in the church, for the castle in which the old family had died, was an empty ruin, and there were none but humble folks for seven miles around. They would gather round her in the porch, before and after the service; young children would cluster at her skirts; and aged men and women forsake their gossips, to give her a kindly greeting. None of them, young or old, thought of passing the child without a friendly word; the humblest and rudest had good wishes to bestow.
Right! That’s enough of that garbage. Though I’ve a lot more of it up my sleeve before “Little Nell” can be allowed to die. The great British public can’t get enough of such sentimental twaddle, and they shall get it a-plenty. When the book is finished I shall offer it to Mrs Norton, or Mrs Gore, and if it’s not in their line I’ll load it off on to Charles Dickens, who is certainly a low fellow, but he does a nice line in weepies himself. He’ll take it on, put his name to it, earn a tidy sum.
I have to say I sometimes enjoy writing about Nell myself, but that’s probably because I enjoy re-creating myself in a totally false image. I think the image assumed its final perfect form for the pervy schoolmaster we met early in our travels -though I’d done the sweet ingenue quite often while serving in the Shop. Oh! that schoolmaster! What a twerp! All one ever got out of h
im was solicitude, tears and references to his favourite pupil who died back in the old village. You’d think people would have got suspicious of a schoolteacher who built his emotional life around a bright pupil who was dead. Particularly a bright boy pupil. But not everyone has my sophistication in these matters.
My re-creation of myself in the syrupy-sweet image of “Little Nell” began when the gaming houses and casinos of London started to get wise to grandad’s and my little scam. That scam involving my taking three or four years off my age and being always taken to gambling dens by Kit Nubble - a dim spark if ever I saw one. Grandfather always went on his own, so no one ever associated us, and I could wander round the tables where he was playing and then sign him the details of what was in their hands. When they did get wise to us every establishment in London was circularized with our details, which was mighty unfair, and meant we had to take to the road and find out-of-town establishments where we could ply our trade without detection. We kept moving, because if one person keeps winning the big boys soon get suspicious. Sometimes we tried a bit of begging, but that was mainly for laughs. My grandfather has a great sense of humour.
Mind you, I don’t like the road, not as I like London, where I always feel at home. You see some really odd types on the road. Take Mrs (a courtesy title, I wouldn’t mind betting) Jarley, her of the waxworks - musty mummies trailed around the country in a procession of carts and caravans, and presenting a very cut-price version of Mme Tussaud’s classy show in Baker Street. Mrs Jarley really took a shine to me, and it didn’t take me long to guess that she was of the Sapphic persuasion.
“Such a sweet child,” she would say, patting me on the thighs, the arms, and any joint that took her fancy. “She reminds me of the dear young queen.”
The dear young queen strikes me as having a mental age of about twelve, and looks like the chinless wonders who inflict their feebleness on the Household Cavalry and any regiment with colourful gear to camp around in. I did not take kindly to the comparison.
“Her Majesty seems very neglectful of her duties as head of the Church of England,” I said. “Sad that one so young shuns the proper Sunday observance.”
“I had no idea,” said Mrs Jarley, stopping her patting.
“Ah - London knows,” I said. “And London keeps it to itself.”
There’s nothing like a bit of Metropolitan insider knowledge to make provincials feel inferior. And if you haven’t got any insider knowledge, make it up.
I enjoyed my time with the waxworks display. I enjoyed presenting myself as a child barely into double figures. I enjoyed luring people into the tatty display by highly inflated claims of what it contained. I enjoyed most of all slipping off in the night to various rustic gambling hells to ply our trade and hone our skills. The Jarley routine of moving from one place to another made this last pleasure easier to procure. One or two visits to the local low place and we were on the road to another source of income. Grandfather was over the moon, and kept his winnings about his person. He never knew exactly how much he had won, so when I was putting him to bed drunk in the early hours I could abstract a bit for my own use.
Needless to say I put a rather different gloss on these activities in the manuscript I was preparing to hawk to Mrs Norton or that vulgar, jumped-up newspaper reporter Mr Dickens.
This pleasant life changed when we met up again with Codlin and Short. We had made their acquaintance a few months earlier, somewhere near Birmingham. You won’t be surprised to hear they were an odd couple. I had no problem with them because I was used to the phenomenon from our London circles: the pair of men, usually middle-aged, who squabbled and competed and bad-mouthed each other to outsiders but who really were as close-knit as a nut and a bolt. And Codlin was definitely the nut. He was always insisting that he was my real friend, not Short, and I never quite realized what his motives in doing this were - whether he had plans for some scam or other that required a young, virginal, stupendously innocent creature. Or was he hoping to get tips on my grandfather’s unrivalled techniques in card-play, the tables, horse-racing and cock-fighting?
We were on the way to Stratford-on-Avon, and Mrs Jarley was stroking my hair and telling me what a wonderful Shakespearean actress I would make in a few years - instancing Cordelia, Miranda and Celia, and I guessed these were innocent, slightly wet creatures, without an ounce of spunk.
“You have an aura,” she was saying, “a heavenly atmosphere that envelopes you, so that you would be an ideal embodiment—”
My mind strayed from this fulsome garbage and I saw, further along up the main street of the small town we were passing through, two peak-capped figures gazing into a shop window. Peelers. Members of that elite body of men recruited by Sir Robert Peel when he was Home Secretary, to reduce crime in the cities by their unique combination of brains and brawn. I don’t think! Just look at how much, or little, they get paid and guess how likely it is that the job will attract the elite.
I was just thinking the set of the two backs bending forward to survey the wares exhibited in the window reminded me of people I knew when they turned round as they heard the approach of hoofs and wheels.
Codlin and Short!
As we passed them by I raised my hand, and was rewarded by a double wave, very enthusiastic, in return. They began walking vigorously along beside us, only slowly getting left behind.
Fortunately we stopped at a public house on the edge of the town. Well, not fortunately - inevitably. We stop in nearly every town, so that Mrs Jarley can lubricate her coster-woman’s voice and her travelling hands. When she had steamed off to get her gin and water, grandfather brought me my shrub, with double rum to taste, and he went to mingle with the local mugs while I waited for the precious pair to catch us up.
“Well, you have landed on your feet!” came a voice from the caravan doorway. Actually I was still recumbent on Mrs Jarley’s well-padded couch, but I knew what he meant.
“We’d heard about the two new members of the company, and we guessed it had to be you and grandad. Mrs Jarley taken a fancy to you, has she?” asked Short.
“Actually I am extremely useful to the Museum management,” I said demurely. “I’ve brought hundreds through the door.”
“Didn’t answer my question, did she, Codlin?” said Short, grinning.
“Don’t be so personal, Short. A girl’s got a right to her secrets, hasn’t she, my darling?”
“And does Grandad get hundreds through the door too?” asked Short. “Or does he suggest a quick game of vingt-et-un, and line his pockets that way? His sort of swindle is not so different from Jarley’s kind, when you come down to it.”
Codlin nodded.
“Morally speaking I think you’ve hit the nail on the head, Short.”
“I’m not used to hearing you moralize,” I said. “I suppose it’s the new job, is it?”
“Oh, the new job! No, my darling, Sir Robert’s successor doesn’t pay us to moralize. He pays us to catch criminals. Or failing that to keep track of them.” Short paused. “It’s a real police state he’s created, but we’re the last people who can talk about that. We get messages and send messages, and that means some little placeman in Westminster can put pins in his wall-map of England and show where all the big criminals and most of the small ones as well are at any moment.”
“Which is why we’re happy to have caught up with you again,” said Codlin.
“But why? We’re not big criminals.”
“You’re middle-ranking. And the gambling industry has a lot of good friends in this government, thanks to their readiness to grease the right palms. So we’re just telling you: there are stories going round linking a widespread gambling scam to a certain travelling display of ageing wax-works. Get me? And if you or your revered grandfather slips us a ten quid note and renews it every time our paths cross, we’ll keep you informed and tip you the wink when it’s time to move on.”
“Wouldn’t Sir Robert, or his successor, be angry if he found out?”
>
“Livid - if he found out. But if he wants to stamp out corruption in the nation’s police force he’d better start paying us what we’re worth.” He wagged a finger in my face. “Until then he’ll find that the work never gets done.”
“We’re public guardians bold and daring,” sang Short, in a quavering baritone: “When danger looms we’re never there.”
“But if we see a helpless woman, or little boys who do no harm,” took up Codlin, “we run ‘em in, we run ‘em in - I say, is that your revered Grandaddy I see coming towards us?”
It was, and when he heard what the pair were offering he stumped up. Always good to have friends in high places. We decamped quietly from the waxworks display that evening, taking a quite different route from them, and leaving Mrs Jarley with nowhere to put her hands.
Best British Crime 6 - [Anthology] Page 41