by Paul Harris
Finn was furious, and took the man’s remarks extremely personally. He lashed out at the car with his foot and directed a torrent of verbal abuse at both the passenger and the driver who, as coincidence would have it, were another pair of brothers whom, coincidence would further have it, also shared a significantly chequered past. The two pairs of brothers exchanged dubious hand signals and Finn’s foot made contact with the car. His kick, however, was of very little consequence as the wing panel of the Volkswagen was already heavily dented and one of its headlamps was missing altogether. The car span its wheels and skidded through a red light, disappearing into the High Street. Len and Finn were left in a cloud of fumes that smelled of burning rubber, and that made Finn feel sick.
They turned into a side street and sped along it, pedalling as fast as they could. When they reached the park, they burst through the old iron gates, scattering strollers, sun bathers, and dog walkers in their wake. “Let’s get an ice cream,” shouted Finn.
“Why?”
“Because it’s hot.”
“Stop pedalling so quickly then.”
Finn stopped. “Where’s the ice cream van?”
“By the other gates, where it usually is, I should think.”
“I dunno, do I?” They continued slowly, side by side; so slowly that they wobbled and teetered like the first lap of an Olympic cycling sprint. “Anyway, what’s that stink?” asked Finn, screwing up his face.
Lenny sighed and took a sideways glance at his brother. “Grass,” he replied curtly.
“Grass don’t smell.”
“It does when it’s just been cut!” Lenny irritably explained through gritted teeth. “Most people would think that it’s a pleasant smell. People wax lyrical about freshly mown grass.”
“It stinks. It’s making me feel sick. And what are you talking about people whacking lyrical about?””
“Why are you so dumb, Finn?”
Finn looked at Lenny and couldn’t quite believe his own ears. “Dumb?” he spat on the ground. “You’ve read one book and you think you’re Alfred bleeding Einstein!”
“Alfred Einstein?”
“I bet you don’t even know what it was called.”
“What what was called?”
“The book.”
“I’ve read a lot more than one book. I’ve read loads. If you’d have read more books when you had the chance instead of sitting in your cell crying about mum, you’d know things too; like that freshly mown grass smells and that owls do actually exist and that eggs come from chickens.”
“Let me stop you there because I know that eggs come from chickens.”
“You asked me where eggs came from this morning!”
“Yeah, and now I know where they come from and I didn’t have to go to all that trouble of reading a book to find out. All you got to do is ask, Len. Just ask.”
Feeling beaten by Finn’s very particular brand of logic, Lenny began to peddle a little quicker. Finn followed suit and soon caught up with him. “So, what books did you read?”
“Lots.”
“Like what?”
“Detective books, and police books.”
“And what good’s that?” asked Finn.
“What good’s that? You can learn their methods, the way that they think. How do you think that we’re always one step ahead?” Lenny tapped the side of his head with his forefinger to emphasise his point.
“Apart from when we rob corner shops,” asserted Finn with a smug grin on his face.
There was a queue at the ice cream van and they joined it without discarding their precious bicycles. Steadily the queue shrank and they edged nearer to the van. In front of them, a man with an East European accent was remonstrating with the ice cream seller over the choice of topping on his Mr Whippy.
“Hurry up, mate,” shouted Finn, “I’m gagging here, son.”
The man span around. He wore a camouflaged jacket and scruffy shoes, and had a large scar running the full length of one side of his face. He glared malevolently at Finn. Lenny could feel the hairs standing up on the back of his neck. He placed a discrete finger on Finn’s elbow and hoped that he wouldn’t say anything to further antagonise the stranger, about whom Lenny could sense an air of dark violence and foreboding.
For several seconds the man eyed Finn, whilst Finn searched his head for words appropriate to the circumstances. Being unable to find any appropriate words, and the circumstances appearing not to be in Finn’s favour, he smiled completely insincerely. The man settled for the toppings he had, and walked to a bench where he sat down and continued to watch Finn with an expression of pure loathing.
“Who’s the Polish geezer?” asked Finn as they ordered two raspberry ripples.
“Don’t know,” mused Lenny and he cast a surreptitious glance towards the bench. He was still feeling uncomfortable about the man’s continued attention. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Shall we go over and give him what for?”
“Are you joking? He’s nuts! And, who says that anymore? ‘Give him what for’? What have you been watching? Grange Hill?”
They rode off without paying for their ice creams, to the ice cream vendor’s extreme vexation. Cak Lazlo watched them go. He never forgot the merest of insults, even those he had only perceived.
As they cycled along the path beside the river, Lenny’s hair was still standing up on his neck and he began to feel itchy. His shirt was sticking to him and he felt slightly dizzy. “I don’t think he was Polish,” he finally muttered under his breath.
Finn looked him in the eye. “Lenny?”
“Yeah?”
“Where do chickens come from?”
Once home, Finn began to empty his pockets out onto the cigarette-stained coffee table and reclined into an armchair that had previously seen far better days.
Lenny watched the contents of Finn’s pockets spilling out onto the table with an air of curiosity. “What are they?” he asked.
“What?”
“Those keys on the coffee table. They don’t look like yours. What are they for?”
“Why do you call it a coffee table? We don’t even drink coffee. Why isn’t it just a table?”
“I don’t know!” Lenny yelled. “It doesn’t matter! Where did you get those keys?”
“They were hanging up in the store room at the shop. You know, when the old man took us through to get the bikes. When he was telling us to be good and all that shit.”
“What are they for? What do they open?”
“I don’t know. I just saw them hanging there on the wall next to the safe so I trousered them. He didn’t see me. He couldn’t have seen me. He don’t know anything about it, I’m sure of it.”
But, Lenny was no longer listening to his brother’s protestations. He had been alerted to a new possibility. “A safe? I didn’t see a safe?”
“Yeah, it was next to the keys in the store room.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I couldn’t, Singh was there with us.”
“I mean afterwards.”
“Why? Do you think these keys will open the safe?”
“Of course they will, you fool. Why else would they be hanging up next to it?” Lenny picked up the bunch of keys, fell back onto the settee, and began to examine each key in turn with a glint in his eye that Finn had not seen there for many days.
Chapter Eleven
Over the Rhine
A man stands alone and in silence, leaning on the bar. His head is slightly bowed as he contemplates life’s vagaries. He is dressed completely in black and has a full head of hair and, although it is turning slightly grey, he is still more than a match for a younger man. Indeed, there is something almost indestructible about him; something impenetrable. There is never a flicker of expression; never a word out of place, and never a word too many. He stands like Clint Eastwood, a foot resting on the brass rail that runs around the base of the bar, and stares intensely at the glass nestling in his large fin
gers that look as if they’ve been roughly hewn from ancient oak.
The barmaid watches him from behind the bar but expects no conversation, nor any small talk; there never is any; no attempt at flirtation or flattery as there is with so many others; just silence, staunch and assured. She dabs at the screen of her phone with her finger, with no object in mind; out of habit and out of boredom. Smokey Robinson sings gently in the background about the tracks of his tears, and rain gently patters down on the street outside.
She looks to the window and watches the raindrops rolling down it, then back to the man at the bar who still has not moved. His chin juts out, square like a flagstone, and just as solid. He wears a feint moustache below his crooked nose, a row of bristles bent and frayed like a well-worn toothbrush. He catches her eye and knows that she’s observing him. He opens his mouth, says nothing, and then closes it again. She returns to her crossword, where only seventeen down is keeping her from completion and the small sense of satisfaction that would come with it.
The wind direction momentarily changes and a blast of rain peppers the window like shots from a pellet gun. She shivers. The man in black empties his glass, places it on the bar, nods at it, says nothing, turns the collar of his jacket up around his neck, and leaves without saying goodbye. White foam still clings to the side of his glass.
“Bye,” says Moke sarcastically. “Have a nice day,” then winces at her own insincerity. The door slams shut and no one else is there. She takes the empty glass and carefully puts it into the glass washer next to the stainless steel sink. She sits down and whispers to herself. “R, M, P? R, M, P?” The only three letters she has. “Rodney Michael Peddle? Why?” Even the crossword clues won’t leave her alone.
She takes a yellow duster from a shelf and begins to polish the optics, the bar, the brass rail where the man has been resting his foot. She polishes everything over and over again until everything shines to her satisfaction, and without a single blemish. She cleans with an intensity of spirit that could have her committed should anybody be present to witness it.
To the keener eye, it is clear where those surfaces lie that are within her reach and those that are not. Beyond the scope of her stepladders, a cloud of dust has settled and represents yet more frustration. It hangs over her, taunting, and belittling. The ceiling fans, for instance, hang high above, strictly out of her domain. They have not taken a turn for many years but if they should, if by some act of God or force of nature, begin to rotate, they would plaster the walls and the assembled clientele, should there ever be an assembly of clientele nearby, with decades of accumulated dust and dead insects.
This is what has become of her life now: she is alone and bored. The days are long and mundane. They wear her down; destroy her looks and physique, her mood and demeanour. She hovers forlornly in her own empty little world. But she refuses to cry, trapping the small salty droplets behind her eyelids where they gather like an immense army awaiting the order to advance.
The wind rattles the door and it swings open a little. She turns, more in hope than expectation, only to see that although the door stands slightly ajar, nobody is there. She returns once more to her crossword. There is an ‘I’ at the start of ‘Island’ as in ‘No man is an Island’ and she traces over it to give it emphasis. She takes a sip from a cold cup of tea, grimaces, and then walks to the door. She leans on it nonchalantly, pushing it to, and begins to polish the brass push plate that is screwed into it.
She thinks about Rodney and his last visit. He promised to call her. Didn’t he? She takes her phone from her jeans pocket and polishes the screen. She checks for missed calls for the hundredth time since last she saw him. There are none; none at all; no texts; nothing. She checks her contacts. She still has Rodney’s number. She wonders if he still has hers. She wonders if he may have deleted it by mistake. She wonders if she should call him just to make sure that he hasn’t lost her number, but wouldn’t that seem just a little too pushy? She doesn’t want to appear pushy, or desperate. After all, she made first contact the last time, now it’s his turn. Anyway, she may have put him off, repelled him, repulsed him, with her strange swings of mood and her many mid-life crises.
She finds that she is still leaning on the door with her rag idling in her hand when her unpleasant reverie is broken by a tapping on the window. She rouses herself, opens the door, and lets Broomhead pass through it. She bows her head and doesn’t speak. Neither does he. He marches across the polished wooden floor towards the door marked “Private” which leads to the staircase that will take him up to the first floor and his private accommodation. He has a cigarette in his mouth and she wafts the smoke away. As he passes Moke’s unfinished crossword puzzle, he peers at it for little more than a second and runs his index finger across the newspaper print.
“Aren’t you staying down for a while?” she asks him.
“What for? We’re not busy, are we?” He sarcastically scans the empty chairs and tables. “You’re not exactly rushed off your feet, are you?”
“No, but…” She feels defeated. “You’re always in and out, rushing around.”
“You have to keep moving, Moke. It’s like being on a treadmill, as soon as you stop moving, you get spat out onto your ass.”
“Really? That’s just the sort of nonsense that Rodney would have come out with.”
“You’re not still moping about after him, are you?”
“No, of course not.” And one of the gathered army pops its head above the trench. She wipes it away and continues to polish the push plate.
Broomhead helps himself to a bottle of cold lager out of one of the refrigerators. “Those days have long since passed, Moke, and so’s Rodney.”
“Have you seen him lately?” she asks in an increasingly fragile tone of voice.
Broomhead has his hand on the doorknob. “No.” He turns the knob and then pauses. “I’ve seen his boy, though, Tom, in the bookies. Handsome lad. Can’t be Rodney’s offspring.” He laughs as he takes the cap off the bottle.
“Why are you always in there, gambling your money away? It won’t last forever. Look at this place, it’s empty.”
“What’s that to you? It’s my place and it’s my money. Or had you forgotten?” He opens the door marked “Private”. “Oh, seventeen down, by the way.”
“What about it?”
“Redemption.”
The door closes behind him. She can hear his heavy footsteps on the stairs. The command is given, and the tears begin to descend in a great veil like parachutists over the Rhine.
The Night of the Quarter Moon
So, once more, our heroes stole out in the dead of night, using the crisp, still darkness for cover. Once more, did they sally forth with military precision on a covert operation against Mr Singh’s convenience store. They set out on foot, abandoning speed in favour of stealth. Finn insisted on carrying the keys as it was he who had purloined them. They jangled in his pocket as he skipped along the road. There was an innocence all of its own in Finn’s haphazard gait and the way that he constantly fired random questions and remarks at Lenny.
“What do you think’s in the safe? Millions, maybe?”
Questions and remarks, the bulk of which, Lenny ignored. They heard the hoot of an owl. Finn took fright. Lenny punched him between the shoulder blades. They gathered their composure and began to walk at a greater pace and with more intent. Their well-trodden route passed quickly by. A police car travelling in the opposite direction, slowed as its occupants cast them suspicious gazes. Dismissing the brothers from being a threat to society, the car sped off towards the police station. Their shift was almost over and the last thing they needed was more paperwork.
When their target destination was reached, Lenny and Finn passed in single file along the passageway at the side of the shop. They wore their hoods pulled tight over their faces and their heads bowed low, lest there be closed circuit television cameras operating. Lenny took the bunch of keys from Finn and examined them one by one, holding
them up to the meagre light shed by just a wisp of a quarter moon. He tried a couple of keys in the keyhole of the door, until one clicked into place and the lock was released. He turned the handle and, as the door opened, it creaked and a splinter of wood was trapped in the hinge and snapped with the resonance of a gunshot. They froze, listening for a reaction to the noise; the sound of footsteps, agitated voices, but there were none.
In the dark, they could see a small red LED flashing on the wall. “Alarm!” whispered Finn with some measure of alarm. But, Lenny was on a roll. He remained calm, and soon found the key that would deactivate the alarm system. He was visibly pleased with the success of the operation up to now.
“We’re in.” Lenny patted Finn on his back. “Now, where’s the safe?” he whispered.
Finn made no response. He followed Lenny into the storeroom.
“Finn? The safe?”
“I don’t remember. It’s dark. It was next to the keys.”
“Where did you see the keys hanging? Try to remember.” It was then that a telephone began to ring. “What the…!” hissed Lenny with deep consternation.
Finn snatched the phone from his pocket and began to fumble with it. Lenny snatched it from Finn’s hands and turned it off. “Who’s phoning you at this time of night? Why didn’t you turn it off? Why have you even brought it with you?”
“It’s my alarm,” Finn replied sheepishly, “to remind me to wake up if I fell asleep in the house.”
“You’re an idiot, you know that? I would have woken you up. Who sets their alarm to go off while they’re on a job? Now, where’s the safe?”
Finn pushed past his brother and took the lead, stepping furtively into the dark. But, however furtively he proceeded, it didn’t stop him tripping over a box of Walker’s ready salted crisps. In an effort to regain his balance, he reached out with his hands and, as he did so, managed to grab a heavy object off one of the shelves. Lenny clutched his arm and held him upright before he could do any further damage.