by James Newman
“Good enough,” Byron opened the door.
Hale took a look at the smashed in nose, recognized it from somewhere, looked around the room. “Where’s the hooker?” he asked.
Byron nodded towards a suitcase. “In the bag.”
“How the fuck did you manage that?”
“I used to work in a slaughter house. The head I managed to separate.” Byron lifted a towel from the bedside cabinet. Underneath the towel the transsexuals head, or at least what was left of it. The jaw had been removed leaving a large gaping hole from beneath the nose to where the neck once was. The eyes were open in a snarl of surprise and the make-up smeared all across the remains of the face. “I know it’s not pretty, but I can’t having any one identifying the bitch through dental records. The jaw and teeth I’ve disposed of. I won’t tell you where, for your own safety. The body as I say is in the suitcase. I punctured the lungs, each one with a screwdriver so the case doesn’t fackin bob back up with the oxygen. I’ve weighed it down. We charter a fishing boat and drop the suitcase somewhere deep. The head, or what’s left of it we cast onto a hook and hope something big takes a nibble. You’ve got shark, barracuda, marlin here, right?”
Hale looked at him. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt. He was serious about the fishing trip. “This isn’t the first time you’ve done this sort of thing now is it? Well, I guess we check out and lose the luggage, take a fishing trip, and then we can have a little chat about this other problem you seem to have.”
Byron made a noise like a bear waking up from hibernation. “You’re good, son,” he said sarcastically. “I like your bleeding style.”
The suitcase was heavy. But not so heavy as the geezer that lifted it. Hale picked up the rest of his belongings, including the transvestite’s head inside two smaller bags. Looking back at the hotel room he noticed how clean it was – as if nobody had ever been there.
THE SIAMESE TWINS
THE BAR was a narrow strip dimly lit with a dozen stools lined up against the bar. One side was a short woman, large of breast and snaggled of tooth. The other side sat Hale and Byron. They had been out on the boat, suitcase bobbed twice before sinking to the depths of the sea. Bryon then headed to the reefs. The hooker’s head, well, Byron hooked the line through the eyeball as Hale puked over the side of the boat. Took twenty minutes before a school of groupers tore it to pieces and consumed it. Byron had played with the fish tugging and reeling before finally cutting the line. “Fack it,” he said.
Hale never did have sea legs.
“The White Flamingo.” Hale told Byron. “That is where she has gone.”
“What is this, some kind of fackin bird-watching club?”
“I wish it were that simple,” Hale grinned. “The White Flamingo is something of a legend around here, she runs an exclusive gentleman’s club up in the hills.”
“And you think my Rose is working there?”
“It’s what I do.”
“Visit knocking shops?”
“Yes, but normally looking for lost wives rather than daughters. My fee, however, is the same for both services.
Rumor has it there’s a good looking English girl working there. Just started as it happens. Now I can go in and get her, or you can do it yourself.”
“My daughter, one the game. You’re off your rocker, geezer.”
“I’m telling you the truth.”
“Fack. Give me the address. And I’ll need a fackin shooter.”
Hale pursed his lips like a car mechanic pricing up a job. “It’ll cost you.”
“Whatever. What kind of iron they use round ‘ere?”
“Glock. Normally a 17.”
“Perfect. Get me the shooter and give you two large.”
“Pounds? Better make that five.”
“Three.”
“Three and a half.”
“Done.”
THE WHITE ROOM
BYRON WALKED away from the beach until he met a new cluster of bars. More upmarket than the rest. Membership fees painted on the walls. He walked past them, until he found one called:
The White Room.
Inside everything was white, the walls, the sofas, the bar stalls, the women, waitresses, whores, whatever they were wore white costumes like those of dental nurses. It was like stepping into a Kubrick flick.
Propping up the bar drinking a cocktail from a long thin glass was one of the most elegant women that Byron had even seen. She reminded him of some-one a long time ago, someone from a movie or a magazine. Whatever the connection was it brought with it an image of impenetrable glamour and wealth. Wealth. Glamour. Usually the two went together like frois grais and toast, but sometimes they never got along, like Rose, and her little slip. His daughter stopped wearing pretty dresses and stopped picking flowers suddenly and inexplicably at the age of eight or nine, shortly after she met with that gypsy kid, Jimmy, the kid who had brought on this entire mess.
The kid that turned her into a whore.
Felt the iron in his pocket.
Cold, reassuring.
Like victory.
The woman at the bar was wearing a white cocktail dress with sequins and semi-precious stones sewn into the extremities along with floral embroidery. The rest of the garment was pure white. As he approached the bar stool next to her she raised her eyes from the drink and checked him once over. She grimaced slightly at his face and then smiled approvingly of his choice of attire.
“Thomas Pink, she said. I used to buy them for one of my husbands, when he worked in the city. Before he died.”
“How many did you have?”
“Husbands or shirts?”
“You fackin know what I mean.”
“Well, what’s the difference? Husbands, shirts. They both wear out in the end right? Lose their texture, their richness, color. Am I losing you, lover, is this too complicated for you? Shirts and lovers are much the same. At first you want to wear them forever, bathe in them, show them to the world, wear them forever. That’s if you don’t simply grow out of them. But now I am boring you, you wretched old man. Tell me if you can, and you don’t have to. What, my dear stranded soldier, happened to your nose? No, wait. Let me guess. You lost a fight in a pub. You were young and then you came into money but you never got it fixed. The nose that is. You never got it fixed because it is a...”
“A reminder,” Byron said catching the attention of the waitress and pointing to a cocktail on the menu.
“Yes, but a reminder to whom?”
“To anyone who wants to get fackin lively.”
“Aren’t you a bit too old for all that bullyboy business? Mr...”
“Byron. And you?”
“Miss Bell.”
“Don’t mind me asking but don’t I know you from somewhere?”
“Depends. You don’t look like the type to read women’s fashion magazines. I was once a model. Had the legs for it. And, I guess, the head for it.”
“Walking up and down an isle must be a difficult business.”
“Don’t get smart. They called me The White Flamingo. Some say I was the best.”
Byron remembered it now. “So what made you wash up here?”
“I’ll tell you. But you must tell me what brought you here first.”
“I lost a child,” Byron said.
“Well how uncanny,” she smiled sadly. “So did I.”
They both drank in silence for a moment.
“I’m looking for some company. Female company,” Byron smiled. “No offence, but someone a bit younger than yourself.”
“None taken.” She slipped him a card from inside her purse. “We have a little place up on the hill. Caters for all tastes. Expensive, but you don’t look like a cheap kind of guy.”
He pocketed the card.
UNMADE BED
AFTER THE release. The city. Rose was nowhere to be seen. Joe indicated she had took a job in a bar somewhere, vague on the details, but that was his way. He showed me the tower block where my father lived. And then took me to th
e AA meetings in Fun City – more damaged individuals you couldn’t have the misfortune of meeting... A kind dark skinned woman named Tina took me out for coffee, we eventually made it to a movie and then we made it into bed. Hers not mine. She had nice antique Asian furniture and Tibetan mazes on the wall.
I fell for her pretty bad.
They tell you in AA not to fall for anyone or have any kind of relationship. They tell you not to fall for another member of the group. They told you lots of things in the meetings. Some of it was for the birds and some of it wasn’t. You had to make the call.
The thing was I hadn’t forgotten Rose. Is it possible to be in love with more than one woman at once? You can bet your mortgage it is. A man never forgets the first love and Tina had a thing going on with a rich Italian. She mentioned that life in bed with him was rough. He made her do things, he pushed her. She didn’t explain what these acts, although clearly acts of sexual humiliation, were.
I didn’t push it. A woman was entitled to her secrets and God knew I had enough of my own that I would like to keep hidden just the same.
Rose kept appearing in dreams. The latest had her in a classroom that transfigured into a law office, the head partner grilled her on her latest report. She turned to me, tears streaming down her face. She left the office and ran up a mountain of stairs, I couldn’t reach her, she turned and screamed, “Where are you going Jimmy! Just leave me alone!”
The old lady in the caravan all those years ago telling me to be aware of The Black Rose. Or was it to beware of The Black Rose. Was there a difference? Was the search hopeless?
So the day came to meet the old man, the father. What does one expect?
Joe told me to expect nothing.
It kind of made sense.
Rode the elevator up and Joe Dylan knocked on a door. The door was opened by a man wearing a cardigan, in this heat, his hair grew to his collar and his teeth were broken. Looked like he’d seen a few dreams turn into nightmare’s in his life and I had the distinct impression I was one of them. “Come in, please sit down. I’m not sure what the protocol here is. Do I hug you or shake your hand?”
Told him a handshake was fine.
Shook it.
Clammy and wet.
“Sorry is not sufficient enough a word, I simply didn’t know. I had no way of knowing. Please Jimmy, sit down. Look at you. Last time I saw you, you were in my arms.”
“It’s all water under the bridge,” I told him and then added, “down the canal.”
He smiled. “Thank the lord you have a sense of humor.”
“The places I’ve been it is essential to make people laugh at the right time otherwise they might turn around and shoot you.”
Taylor raised up his palms. “There’s no pistol up my sleeves, kid.”
“Mine neither.”
Then he stood and I stood.
We hugged each other.
That’s what the meetings do to man. They make you hug. I could sense the old man had been through hell, and my past weren’t a picnic.
We hugged.
Neither of us noticed Joe slip out the door.
SECRET AGENT MAN
DIDN’T TAKE Joe long to find her. While Jimmy was cooling off he did some detective work. He still sucked at it but guessed he was normally one step ahead of the other players in the city. Tracked her down to a section of Fun City known as Metroland. It was a right-angle street of go-go bars, food-stalls, and mock English and Irish pubs. This part of the city the Russians and the Indians hadn’t taken over completely. The clock, however, was ticking. He had paid a motorcycle taxi rider fifty dollars to search the pubs and the guesthouses after phoning the city’s hotels and coming back blank. The rider gave him the address – Finnegan’s Wake – Metroland.
He found the place and sat at the bar and ordered a glass of cider with ice. He thought about James Joyce and how he had tried and tried to get to grips with the grumpy Irishman. Preferred Beckett but only because he was more grumpy than his employer. There were five widescreen televisions showing England playing the rugby. Beckett was a cricket man. He had another glass of cider. It took another five of those glasses before he saw her.
Beautiful?
Absolute knock-out.
Almost spat out a mouthful of the happy apple right there and then.He needed the courage of the apple to approach her. She was aloof, but he had an advantage in that he knew the city. Went for an old line, well used, oiled even.
“New to town?”
She looked at him the way a teacher sizes up a insolent child. “What’s it to you?”
“Nothing. Just being friendly. I guess you don’t need friends. A pretty girl like you has all the friends she needs.”
“I’m not pretty.”
“Baby, you’re perfect. I mean that as an observation, not a pick-up line. I don’t pick up.”
“Nobody is perfect. And what do you mean you don’t pick up?”
Joe opened his palms. “Look. I’ll be straight with you. I used to drink and take drugs, yeah? Now I’m clean part of the program is to not form any relationships.”
“What program?”
“The twelve steps. I have to keep pure.”
“What about the drink in your glass?”
“Well, today I had what the shrinks call a slip.”
“So the picking up is back on the menu?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t need to. My name is Rose.”
“Rose, I’m Joe. I’m charmed to meet you. I mean that, charmed.”
One drink led to another and Joe could see that she was starting to feel the booze causing her to move in directions she wouldn’t ordinarily intend. They had moved onto the fifth bar, an open air venue on the perimeter of a boxing ring. The boxers, who used their feet as well as their fists, Joe knew were only sparring. It was a tourist dive, but seemed to fit the vibe. Rose screamed and looked away as the combatants made contact. She held Joe as the blows brought red shorts down in the center of the ring.
“This town’s not safe,” she whispered in his ear.
“What do you mean?”
“I feel vulnerable,” she said.
“Big city, maybe not the safest place for a girl looks the way you do.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“It’s as close as I get.”
Joe excused himself to the bathroom. Checked his reflection in the mirror. The trip to London had allowed him to shed a couple of kilos. His complexion seemed clear and the dark rings around the eyes had disappeared. He noticed a nose hair. He held it between thumb and forefinger and pulled it out with one swift tug. Splashed water on his face. Inside the bathroom a local man made a living, passed Joe a cold towel and offered him a spray of cologne. He accepted both and tipped the man a dollar.
Rose was sat watching the boxing; he couldn’t help notice that now she appeared to be enjoying it. Perhaps the beer and the city were sinking in. He sat down next to her and took a large bite on his drink. Two more pulls and it was finished.
“Let’s get out of here,” she said, smiling. Brushing back her blond fringe and smiling at The Detective.
“Where did you have in mind?”
“Surprise me.”
Back in the apartment Joe could feel a weight pushing his eyelids down. “You slipped me something. Back at the boxing. You put something in my drink?”
“Relax you’re tired,” Rose said.
She got that right.
Joe, legs like jelly, lay on the bed. He could picture in his mind the green travel bag inside the wardrobe, beneath the flintstone cartoon towel. He pictured her searching the room lifting the towel, taking the cash. Then he could picture his body rising as if holding onto a hot air-balloon, up above the ceiling, the city and the darkness of space..
THE BETRAYAL
HALE SAT at his usual place in the corridor bar as Joe crashed through the door.
“Look what the lizard dragged in,” Hale grinned.
“Fifty large ones. Stolen last night.”
“Dollars?”
“Pounds.”
“Shit.”
“Stand up,” Joe said, indicating the bar. “We need to talk. Were you working for some freak named Byron?”
“What?”
“Big man. Smashed in nose. Club foot. Not too easy to miss. Yes or no?”
“We may have had some business together.”
“What kind of fucking business?”
“He wanted find his daughter. Needed a gun. And...”
“Wait, wait, this is moving too fast. What did you tell him about the daughter?”
“All I knew was one thing. That she was working up on the hill at the Flamingo’s new place.”
STASH
ROSE STRUGGLED with the bag. She rode pillion to the house on the hill. It was once an old grand hotel that had been used to clean dirty money until The White Flamingo bought it, took it over and did much the same. It was a castle of a building with three large wings and two swimming pools, poolside bungalows and a tropical garden. Early morning the birds were chattering in the trees, the security guard waved her in. She paid the motorcycle rider with a generous fee and tip and walked through the old hotel and into the ballroom. Eerily quiet and empty early morning inside the grand entrance there were several stages five feet from the floor with aluminum poles, smeared with hand-prints from the night before. Fake plastic trees and ceramic figurines – knowing that the dancers would find the money in the room she shared with the Ukrainian dancer Helga, she searched the vast hotel for somewhere to hide the money. And then she saw it.
JINGLE BELLS
JOE PAID the five thousand membership fee and entered the establishment.
“Merry Christmas,” the doorman said.
“Same to you. And don’t over-cook the turkey,” Dylan said.
The security man who wore a suit like that of a fleet commander. Colors and stripes on the shoulders.
He walked on.
The Flamingoes new palace was a resort hotel once fashionable until the mob moved in and took it over. Wrought iron gates opened into a gravel pathway with tropical shrubs and palms shading the path. The path led to a swimming pool where semi-naked women from all races of humankind swam and sun-bathed on loungers around the pool. There was a wet bar and a bar above plimsole-line. Joe made it to the bar and ordered a bottle of Jack and a glass bottle of Coca-cola to wash it down. He poured himself two stiff ones and looked at it.