The Goldfish Heist And Other Stories

by Jay Stringer

  Perfect.

  Dion watched out the corner of his eye as she walked up Ludlow on his side of the street, then crossed over before she got to him, toward the shadows of the opposite corner. He nodded at Renee, who caught the message and headed down Delancy a few steps ahead of the target, walking casual. Dion pushed off from the stop sign and followed a few metres behind, nice and slow.

  As they reached the storefront, Marlo stepped out of the shadows and pointed his gun at Renee, making it look like she was the one being mugged. As the real Target took a step back, Dion stepped in behind her with his own gun ready. The target moved fast, grabbing Renee from behind and whispering something in her ear that made her shudder. Marlo must have caught something in her eyes, because he lowered his gun and then dropped it to the floor. Dion stepped in again looking for a fast control of the situation, but the woman whirled on him and grabbed his gun hand in a vice grip. She twisted his hand until it felt like his wrist would snap, and then lifted the gun out of it with her free hand. All the time her dark smile stayed in place.

  All three would-be muggers stood and watched as she continued her walk along Delancy, whistling and swaying her hips.

  ***

  “How’s Williamsburg working out for you?”

  “It’s hip. Too hip, you know? All coffee shops and baby strollers now.”

  “Yeah? When I was a kid the only people who lived out there were Jews and arsonists.”

  “They have barmen now, too.”

  “Is it as hot over there as it is here?”

  Toby looked over the bar at Mickey, “It’s this hot everywhere."

  Mickey had been coming in once or twice a month for four or five years. Toby knew him by name, and knew that he was some kind of lawyer, but left it at that. Mostly because it reminded Toby that he’d been running the bar for the past five years, and he tried to forget.

  Nestled on Mott street, just around the corner from Prince, he’d been discreetly trying to offload it ever since his father had passed away. If the bar had been twenty feet further south, on Prince, he’d have been able to sell up to make way for some clothes shop or deli. But nobody wanted to touch a dive bar hiding behind a church on Mott. Case in point; still a couple of hours until closing and he only had one customer.

  Mickey finished his drink and signalled for another, working through them in a hurry, “You know what this heat reminds me of?”

  “Yes, you say it every time.”

  “Well it’s true, don’t it remind you of that night?”

  Everything reminds me of that night.”

  “TV saying, leave your AC switched off because of the dust, the whole city sweating?”

  “Yeah,” Toby passed the drink across the bar top. “It got hot, all right. My cat still got asthma.”

  “You know? I hear that a lot. Could be a law suit in it.”

  “Who you gonna sue?”

  Mickey shrugged, “I’d find somebody. You in a bad mood?”

  Toby shrugged said, no, then nodded, “Yeah. I don’t know. I just got this feeling like, I don’t know. You superstitious?”

  “Nope.” Mickey rubbed his beer belly, “Only things that lead me around are down here.”

  Toby smiled, thought about leaving it, then, “I am. Little things, not ladders and shit like that. My AC broke? Last time that happened, my old man passed.”

  “You think the AC is out to get you?”

  Toby shrugged, wished he’d left it. A couple of minutes later Mickey was signalling for another. Usually he signalled by pointing down at his empty glass and looping his index finger round in a circle. As the night had worn on, his signals were getting more elaborate. This time he pretended to shoot the empty with both hands turned into guns. Toby poured another and then, “You celebrating something?”

  “Yep. Got a big one through the court today, fourth time of asking.”

  “Fourth?”

  “His lawyer kept finding an excuse to postpone it, get more time. Just stalling though, they knew the minute we got them in court it was done.”

  “Big case?”

  “You don’t read the papers, huh? Irish guy, Quinn?”

  Toby paused, his mouth did a wobble before finding the words, “Shit, that was you?”

  Mickey put his drink hand up in the air as if celebrating a goal, “Yep. Took me four attempts, but he’s down. Pushing for the lethal.”

  “Wow. Big day then, huh?”

  “Yeah, just don’t tell your AC. It might get ambitious.”

  They both paused, drawn to look out into the street. The city down here had a way of telling you when to look, like a sixth sense. A guy walked past outside, naked except for a pair of briefs and a guitar case. He seemed oblivious to the stares he was attracting, bopping down the street with Ipod earphones in. Nobody could see where the Ipod was tucked.

  After everyone in the street turned back to look for a new thing, a woman walked into the bar. Toby and Mickey both noticed her, cute ass in tight jeans, motorcycle boots. Toby’s head filled with a hundred different song lyrics, but he didn’t have a pad to write any of them down.

  “Get you a drink?” He said.

  Mickey slid across the three stools between him and the woman, “whatever she wants,” he said, “ on me.”

  She didn’t decline or feign politeness. She just took the drink and stared down into it for a second. Toby noticed a few freckles on the bridge of her nose, then stopped himself before he got annoying.

  “Not seen you in here before?” Mickey tried again, all his frustrated charm amounting to nothing more than a mumble.

  She turned to meet him, smiling a little at his failed attempts at suave, “You’re Michael Loew, right?” Her voice was low and cracked slightly, a genuine Irish accent in a city that could fake it with the best of them.

  Mickey was not one of the people who could fake it, and his attempt to say, “aye,” in an Irish accent died at the back of his throat, came out more like, “arr.”

  Great, Mickey the Pirate, Toby thought.

  The Irish girl reached into her handbag and pulled out a large gun. She’d pumped four rounds straight into Mickey before Toby had time to blink. She turned to point the gun at him, holding it there while she downed the drink. She wiped her mouth after setting down the empty, smudging her dark lipstick ever so slightly, and toasted Toby with the empty glass, “Slainte.”

  Toby didn’t let out another breath until she’d turned and walked out.

  ***

  Dion heard the gunshots and then a moment later saw the woman walk out of the bar and head away from them up Mott. She was walking calmly, not worried that police sirens might cut the air at any moment. Dion liked that, it was cool. He tucked his hands into his pockets and walked with his head down low, trying to look casual, as he followed her up the street. Halfway up, she slowed down and then stopped. Still not worried about Police, amazing. She kicked off her boots, the main thing Dion remembered about her, and threw them over the wall into the churchyard. Out of her handbag she pulled a small pair of slip on shoes and stepped into them. Next she pulled out a small hat, one of those old school things that all the white women were wearing, and slipped it on at an angle.

  At the top of Mott she crossed diagonally, heading for the subway. Two blocks down Dion could see Marlo, walking slowly away from them on the other side of the street. Renee would be somewhere out of sight, he could feel it.

  ***

  Detective Marcus leaned against the squad car, it’s blue lights bouncing off the back of the church wall like an old French film. He watched his partner come out of the bar and cross the road to him, ignoring the reporter who was buzzing around them like a housefly.

  “What you get?” Marcus said.

  “Nothing useful,” Doyle said. “He juts keeps talking about his AC being broke. He did say something about an Irish woman with freckles. It was like talking to you.”

  Marcus laughed and waved away Doyle’s joke. He watched as she turn
ed to talk to the reporter, quietly telling him to get to fuck. She would surprise folk, a dark and attractive native woman with an Irish name; it seemed to throw them off. Marcus was an old Jewish man with a Jewish name, didn’t seem to surprise anybody.

  “Lets take him over to the fifth,” Marcus said once Doyle had scared off the crime tourist, “Get him some coffee and a cell. You never know, might turn out he’s our guy.”

  Doyle cocked her head to one side and shot him a look, “You even looked in there? No way he climbed over the bar to shoot Loew from that angle. And where’s the gun?”

  “I’m just saying. Wouldn’t it be nice an easy?”

  “When is it ever?”

  Marcus nodded at that, then his thoughts drifted for a second, snapped back, “So, this Loew, he’s a city lawyer, right?”

  “Yes. Part of the team who did the Quinn case today.”

  “No shit? I never heard his name before?”

  She shook her head, “Wasn’t a big part. Did some of the paperwork, research. I talked to his boss, he says Loew was their go-to guy for the small print, he got round the delays from Quinn’s defence team.”

  “Okay. And the barman says the shooter was an Irish woman, right? No way is that coincidence. We should put someone on the other members of the legal team.”

  Doyle shot him that look again, “you think I’m new at this?”

  “Already done it?”

  “Already done it.”

  One of the uniforms stepped close, looking nervous around the two detectives, “Uh, we got another one, up on East Houston. Gun related, figured you’d want to see it.”

  ***

  Doyle leaned low over the body; it’s glassy eyes still staring up at the railing of the subway entrance. A nice looking hat lay nearby, looking like it had been knocked of the woman’s head as she fell.

  “No coincidences, huh?” Doyle stood back up and walked over to where Marcus was catching the story from the uniform who’d caught it. “You sure about that?”

  Marcus smiled thinly and nodded, then he took a turn to look down at the woman’s body. First thing he noticed was the bullet holes across her chest and abdomen, four of them, probably fired fast at point blank. Second thing he noticed were the freckles on the bridge of her nose.

  “So you reckon if we check her I.D. she’ll be Irish, huh?”

  Doyle nodded to the nearest squad car said, lets find out.

  The shooter was cuffed in the back of the car, caught straight away by one of the squad cars that had been on its way to the bar. Two other youths had been seen at the scene, a girl with blood all over her nose and a black male running on a nasty looking limp. But the cops had prioritised catching the third one, who’d been stood holding a gun and a woman’s handbag.

  “What’s the shooters name? Doyle asked.

  Marcus rechecked his notes, “Uh, Dion. DeWhite Dion. Name rings a bell.”

  “Related to Black Top Dion?”

  “I bet you he is. Say, a beer after work?”

  Doyle looked him up an down with a faint smile then said, “Yeah, okay. Only if we’re right, though.”

  They both bent to look on the front seat, where the victims bag was lying. Her I.D. lay beside it, Margaret Quinn, 27. Definitely Irish. They both stayed silent for a long time and then Doyle said, “This is fucked up.”

  “Yeah.”

  “If she’s the shooter from the bar, where’s her gun?”

  They both looked to where murder weapon lay, in a plastic bag on the hood of the car, at pretty much the same time they both said, “Can’t be.”

  Then Marcus looked back along East Houston toward the corner of Mott. After a moment he said, “What you reckon we go back to the bar, see if we can’t convince that AC guy of yours that his shooter was a young black kid?”

  “Think you can do it?”

  “A dinner after our beer says I can?”

  “You’re on.”

  Bullet For Bauser

  “Is that-?”

  “Yes.”

  “For real?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fuuuuuck.”

  “Uh huh.”

  Bauser looked at the cold steel in his hand. Funny, he thought it would be heavier. He’d always imagined holding a gun would be like holding a cannon, a real sign that you had some fucking strength in you.

  He’d held an air pistol once, at his best mate Dex’s house after school. He’d shot Dex in the balls and he’d walked with a limp for six months. Thing was, that air pistol was pretty much the same weight as this gun. His little brother Marcus was staring at the gun as if it was the greatest thing he’d ever seen. Bauser had never heard Marcus swear before. He cuffed him round the ear proudly.

  “Listen to you, swearing like Granny.”

  “I’m a man now, just like you.”

  Bauser laughed. Marcus was only a week past twelve years old. Which put him two weeks past the eighth anniversary of their daddy walking out. Stood there in second-hand pyjamas, a faded power ranger on the belly, and swearing with pride.

  “Is that right? When you going to start working for a living, then?”

  Marcus smiled and pulled a face. When he was younger, that had been the face he pulled if he didn’t like the food he was given, now it just made do for anytime he wanted to be funny.

  “Workings for looooosers.” Marcus stretched it out in a high whine. “I never seen granny working, and she’s always got money for magazines and shit.”

  “Shit? You’re really getting the hang of these words. You been watching my DVD’s?”

  Marcus rolled his eyes.

  “Nah. I get the words from school, man. I only watch your DVD’s if I want to see boobies.” He paused while his big brother gave him a high five. “But one thing I wanna know? What’s a clit?”

  Bauser blushed and looked at the floor. Then at the wall. Then at everything else in the room other than his brother.

  “I, uh, I dunno.”

  “Granny didn’t know neither.” Marcus shook his head. Then his eyes fell to the gun again and his face lit up once more. “Why you got a gun, Eric?”

  Bauser tucked the gun into the waistline of his jeans at the small of his back. He usually wore them a size up, but he needed the waistband to be tight today so he’d worn an old pair. He flinched when his brother used his first name.

  “Cuz today’s a big day for me.” He checked himself out in the mirror to make sure the gun was concealed. “I’m getting promoted.”

  **

  He stopped in the kitchen to kiss him mum on the cheek before going out.

  She was stirring a pot while trying to stop something under the grill from turning to charcoal. From the living room Bauser’s granny was shouting in a running commentary in her Caribbean lilt. Bauser and his mum shared a laugh at the old woman’s rantings.

  “Where you off to?”

  “Doing overtime at work. They say they’re gonna teach me to drive the forklift.”

  His mum smiled at him with a sad tilt to her mouth. She didn’t call him a liar. She didn’t need to.

  “You’ll stay for breakfast first though?”

  “Nah, can’t. I’ll be late if I don’t get off now. I’ll get a pot noodle or something, don’t worry about it.”

  “I saw Dex at the supermarket last night, he was asking about you. You don’t spend any time with him anymore?”

  “Nah, he’s with a bad lot. Gotta keep my head in the work, you know?”

  Dex was working at the warehouse that Bauser was pretending to work at. He was on the straight and boring, and Bauser had new friends now.

  “Mwah.” His mum kissed him on the forehead and waited until he returned the sentiment on her cheek, then turned back to her cooking.

  “Don’t work to hard Eric.” She said.

  “Mum, don’t go calling me that. That’s his name, I don’t want it.”

  Bauser had almost made it through the living room before his granny caught him. She was settled
in her usual arm chair, directly in front of the telly and below a photograph of her husband. She rose out of her chair in a mass of flailing arms and legs, making a funny squealing noise at the thought of not getting a kiss. He gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek, and then made it out the door before any more family members appeared to molest him.

  **

  On the tram ride into town, he could feel the lump against his back. A sweat was trickling down there, sticking between the metal and his skin. This never seemed to be a problem in the films. Not once had he seen a character pull out a concealed weapon and then have to wipe the sweat off before using it.

  The conductor was someone he knew from school. Tony or Timmy, something like that. One of those faceless kids he used to steal lunch money off. Look at him now in his cheap blue blazer, tie buttoned up as if he was proud of it. Faceless Timmy saw Bauser but left him alone. The schoolyard never left some people. It would have been a free journey if some old lady hadn’t taken offence at the idea and pointed Bauser out to the conductor again.

  He wanted to say, oi bitch, I got a gun. Shut the fuck up. He wanted to say a lot, but words had never been his thing. And after today, he wouldn’t need them. He wouldn’t be riding the tram to work, he’d get picked up any time he wanted.

  After today, if he needed bullets for the gun, he’d be able to get them. The Mann brothers would let him have all the ammunition he needed.

  The tram station in the city centre was in front of the police station. Bauser caught a thrill. His spine tingled and his shoulders felt a hundred feet wide as he stood and looked up at the front door. For the first time, he started to feel a little bit of weight in the metal he was carrying.

  **

  Two men frisked Bauser at the door before letting him into the restaurant.

  Later on it would be full of drunken football fans and students, but right now it was a playing host to a board meeting. The tables in the middle of the room had been pushed to one side, clearing a space for them all to stand. The stereo was already playing the generic Indian music that would fill the room later on. Bauser suppressed a smile.