by Wez Wallie
"I'm not - you just said you can be filled anywhere! Sounds a bit liberal to me..."
"Never! And yes, you can be filled by the Spirit anywhere."
"Hmm. How convenient, Dorothy. Means you don’t even have to get out of bed on a Sunday, in that case."
"I know. Ain’t the Lord brilliant?"
"ENOUGH!"
Suddenly, the lights came on in a blinding flash accompanied with a crash of thunder outside. It took a moment for their eyes to settle within their starry eyelids, yet when they did, they came to rest on the vision of a leather-clad vixen, so opposite to the head librarian guise.
"Ah. Agents Widowmaker & Coffin Dodger... we meet at last."
They appeared to be in a wide light-aircraft Hangar, tied down to chairs a few feet apart, beside a white and green-striped Cessna airplane waiting patiently across the hall. Stacks of square crates were packed all around, perhaps for transport. Far behind they felt the draught of the open Hangar door, the smell of the surrounding Thames placed them perhaps in a private hangar, somewhere around City airport.
Before them stood The Wife of Michael Fish, who was adorned tip to toe in black shiny PVC, like this sixty-year-old had modelled her look on the hot spy-babe from the Avengers movies, (Marvel, not Joanna Lumley).
She retained an hourglass figure and a rotund rump, which to any observer could not be a natural formation. Her glossy cappuccino-brown locks sported a strong streak of silver through the right side, looking like Rogue from the X-Men comics, (Marvel, not the trans parody series available on the top shelf of your local garage).
Tilda scoffed. "What was that about mutton you mentioned earlier, Dorothy?"
"Yeah, Tild. Amazing how you can spend all that dosh on the clobber, but not fink about using any of it to correct God's mistake when he designed that mug! I mean, they say the Lord is infallible, but they've clearly never laid eyes on you, luv."
"How dare you, Dotty!" she spat in retort, fingering her unnaturally smooth and plasticky face with a gentle caress. "This perfection is the result of years of careful and subtle cosmetic surgeries to achieve the gold standard in graceful ageing…"
"What? You mean that face is what you got after you paid top surgeons to intervene with nature? Wow. That's what happens when the government loosens regulations, I guess. I had no idea you could get cowboy plastic surgeons!"
"Enough again! Stop it with the hurty words, Agent Coffin Dodger. I'm here to -"
"- PG Tips."
"Pardon?"
"PG Tips."
"Yes, I'd quite like a cuppa too please," Tilda interjected. "Herbal, if you got it?"
"Sorry, just what do you people think this is? I've got you both tied to a chair ready to destroy you, and you're asking me to put the kettle on?!"
"I don't know about her," said The Hitnan, "but I was just reminding you of me new codename. 'PG Tips'. Remember? I told your operator over the wireless back when I was beating up Tilda Maffews at the construction site, when me handler, Peter, got himself encased in concrete for some reason."
Tilda laughed. "Good times. You really should write a book, Dorothy."
"Yeah, might do, Tild. I'll call it: 'A Tale of Blood & Can-‘"
*SWISH*
The Wife of Michael Fish flicked a bullwhip onto the floor between their chairs.
Dotty gulped. "Ooh, that gave me a wee fright!"
"GOOD! I've been waiting a long time to get you two in front of me."
Tilda snapped. "What are you playing at, fish-bitch?! We had a deal, remember!"
"Oh, yes. Assign all the Level 4 and above London contracts to you and you'd take out Dotty Walker for me in exchange. Well, here she sits, still breathing and stinking of musk."
"Fackin' musk?"
"Well, to be fair, you didn't specify a time-frame. I just haven't made my move yet." Tilda leaned forward and descended into a whisper with a wink: "I'm letting her develop a false sense of security; biding my time as it were..."
The Wife of Michael Fish just looked at her. Then at Dotty. Dotty looked back at her. And then back at Tilda. They were all speechless and bemused.
"Just let me out of these restraints dear, and I'll do her in now. Then we can go back to our arrangement and both live happily ever after."
"Do I get a say in this at all? Can I propose some sorta counter-offer or somefing?"
The leather-clad lady continued at Tilda in her hoarse and husky tone. "You think I'd give you yet another chance to muck things up, Widowmaker? Absolute liabilities, the pair of you. If it isn't this one over here doing Youtube videos from the middle of crime scenes, it's this one pausing in the middle of a job to call her eight-year-old stepdaughter to make sure she was happy with her dinner that evening. (Yes, we monitor all calls and comms, my sweet). Honestly, there's only so much incompetence we can tolerate here at Bognor."
"In my defence," Tilda said, "our Bluebell is twice as scary as any villain Dorothy and I face during our gigs. On that particular occasion, I was more likely to die when I got home from overcooking the gourmet Tofu Twizzlers rather than facing down twelve Samurai warriors solo on a barge."
"It's unprofessional, Agent Widowmaker."
"But that was only one time... okay, two times... okay, it's a regular thing, but are you really going to kill me for the crime of caring about the wellbeing of my child?"
"Give over, it's hardly the only negative on your performance review, Matthews. What about when you started that fire last year in the library and lost half of our ammo stock? Do you know how many military grade poppers we lost in that blaze? Silver tops were combusting like firecrackers!"
"Not my fault your stock is cheap and substandard tat.” Tilda scowled with a whisper: “And those reviews are strictly confidential!"
The woman made a face and digressed. "Anyway, it was after that debacle I thought I'd better make that my secret base of operations as the head of the whole of the Bognor Agency, if only to keep an eye on you two pests! Unfortunately, that did mean having to maintain the other two staff doped up to their eyeballs to stop them cottoning on to all the pellets of venom and stacks of 3-D printed handguns & tasers being delivered to our humble local community library."
"Oh, there you go Tild, you didn’t make them into oxygen-starved zombies via the fire; her cocktails of drugs did over the course of a year!"
"Shut it, Coffin Dodger!"
"IT'S PG FACKIN' TIPS!"
Tilda intervened. "Are you going to 'off' us then, as they say?"
"Of course. You've forced my hand by confronting me tonight. Ruined my big plan I was cooking up to get you to kill each other again. Now I'll just have to do it myself. Besides, you fannies are past it now, and only I, The Wife of Michael Fish, can be the one fogey to rule them all!"
"At least give us a chance to say goodbye to our loved ones..."
"And Handlers..." Dotty added.
"Fine. You were the top agent for a long while Widowmaker, so I suppose that's only fair. And Dotty here finally got rid of my insufferable nagging hubby, so I'll grant you both your last requests."
"Alright, Paolo, keep ya New Shoes on..." The Hitnan mocked under her breath.
"Shut it, Dorothy!!" Tilda grunted back through gritted teeth.
The Wife of Michael Fish had pulled out her phone but was struggling to find a signal. "Bloody T-Mobile!" She walked away to the other end of the Hangar, waving the phone in the air to get a few bars, as The Hitnan tried to gain Tilda's attention again.
"Psst... psst, Tilda... Oi - Mummy Long-Neck!"
"That was unnecessary, Dorothy, I'm literally right next to you."
"You got a plan or what?"
"Other than sit here waiting to die?"
"Oh, gawd. You know, in all those years of domestic assassinations and kicking arse, I never thought I'd be done in by the spouse of an '80s TV weatherman!"
"We probably deserve it in a way. Karma catches up to us all in the end."
"Shut it, Maffews! If I could slap some se
nse into you I would! Fink - how are we gonna get outta this? This ain't gonna be where we die. Not today!"
"Well, it's got to be approaching midnight so you could be right - technically, we could very well die tomorrow."
"Never! Now come on, use that fancy noggin of yours. Surely you have more than just a cheap umbrella inside that crappy beret?"
"No. Its space is limited. It was either that or a mini-machine gun turret that could sprout out the top. I think I chose wisely." The Hitnan gave an exasperated sigh in disbelief. Tilda looked around the Hangar. "All I know is I really wanna fly that plane."
"Right so that's our escape method then. But first we gotta get to it! Keep finking… how tight are your straps?"
"Pretty comfy, but I've been looking at getting a new one from Marks & Sparks when they go on sale."
"Fack ya bra, Maffews, I mean the rope on ya wrists!"
"Oh, of course. Um, pretty tight but with some wiggle room – eh, listen, whilst we were at the library, I took the liberty of pulling a Dorothy Walker and sneaked the fold-up Machete out of that book without checking it out and stuffed it into my back pocket! Naughty I know, but if I could just do a reach around -"
"Wow. I'm impressed!"
"I just gotta get to it - oh wait, she's coming back! Buy me some time, D!"
"Alright. You keep wriggling, I'll keep her mingling!"
Every step was punctuated with a squeak of a thigh chafe as the head of Bognor approached. "Sorry ladies," said the Wife of Michael Fish, returning to the women with a pinch of her knickers through the leather and looking a bit miffed at the phone. "I managed to get a dial tone, but it just keeps ringing. I don't know if you want to leave a message if it goes through and tell them the usual bollocks. You've killed people before; you know what they usually want to say to their wives and husbands before they croak. Or maybe I'll just try again later and make something up myself after I finish you. I'm good at impressions - you should see my Michael Barrymore."
"No, wait!" said Dotty, trying to stall as Tilda made decent progress retreating her left wrist. "Erm, erm... so you're the librarian who teaches the silver tops computer skills, yeah?"
"Yep, it's a decent cover story and brings in a nice little side wage - besides, who do you think replaces your gear in the Chucklefission book? You sure do love those darts, don't you."
The Hitnan laughed rather falsely under pressure. "Is that why you allowed that blatant pedo kid to be hired on a Saturday?!"
"That's my nephew and I need to keep an eye on him. Well, was, I guess. Why couldn't those two bicycle yobs just join a gang and sell some drugs like normal teens? No, instead they choose to come into the library every weekend and taunt the Saturday boy! Well, I guess they weren't expecting him to snap and lob "Full of Hot Air: The Gemma Collins Story" at them. You know, the book that had deadly Sarin gas pellets stapled inside? Lucky it was near closing and I got my mask on in time really."
"What about beardy-ponytail boy? The guy who always seems lobotomised?"
"Steve was on his break but he’s used to it. I'm a lone wolf, Dotty. Can't trust too many people these days. I have to keep him sedated when I replenish the gear, anyways. And if he accidentally spots something, I just whack some knockers in his face and call it a day."
"You got KNOCKRS as well?!"
"Of course, Dotty, I spent a small house deposit on these bad boys!" The Wife of Michael Fish leaned over and thrust her squished cleavage into The Hitnan's face. Tilda froze as her arm finally slinked out from under the rope, red raw but free. Dotty seized the moment and played along with gusto.
"Oh, yeah! Ohhh, yeah! Let me just inspect these beee-yuties!" Dotty peered down into her enemy's bulging bosoms, (where for some reason they made a strange metallic jingly sound too). "Sorry, would it be possible to loosen the ropes on me wrists so I can have a real propa feel of these jubblies? I mean, you paid enough for 'em - someone should cop a feel, especially since your Michael's not around anymore, right?"
"Yeah, go on then, why not! It's not like you can go anywhere with your legs tied or anything."
She unknotted the wrist-binds, freeing both of Dotty's arms. "Much obliged." She proceeded to wink over at Tilda as The Wife of Michael Fish screwed her eyes shut in pleasure, enjoying the tiddy massage.
"So you may as well tell us since we're gonna die: why make us kill your 'usband in the first place?"
"We were married thirty years and but he couldn't stop messing up! So I thought ‘sod it’ and used the Agency to set up a hit. That muthertrucker had to die 'cos he kept getting everything wrong: from that hurricane prediction one-time which Michael said wouldn’t be bad enough to have to nail the shed down and thus left us shed-less, to the amount of sugar I take in my tea, leaving me with a dentist's bill that couldn't be paid on a weatherman's pension. It was all too much. He was the worst tempest prognosticator I've ever slept with, and I've slept with a shitload of tempest prognosticators in my time."
"Haven’t we all..." said Dotty, trying to develop a rapport whilst squeezing her norks. "Although of the modern weathermen, I have to say I prefer a bit of that Tomasz Schafenaker off the BBC. Polish geezer: propa 'unk he is."
"Yeah? I always liked the look of that Sian Lloyd on ITV back in the day. Very graceful, and I bet she's a lady in front of the greenscreen, but a hurricane between the peach sheets. Alas, she was the only one I couldn't have my way with back in the day. Well, she's going on my list now, the bitch. Nobody resists the lusty wish of The Wife of Michael Fish!"
Tilda had retrieved the machete by now, unfolded it and sliced through her ropes. She was quietly rising from the chair.
The rubbery lady heard the chair scuff and was about to turn to investigate as Tilda froze and Dotty grabbed her head, turning it back toward her and saying: "Ooh, let me look at the wonderful plastic work you've had done to your face, yeah, can really appreciate the workmanship up close."
"Sure can," said her leathery foe. "Have a look around the eyes especially, real subtle stuff."
Tilda checked out the plane whilst she was still distracted and gave a thumbs up. Dotty tried to keep the enemy talking.
"So, won't ovvers in the Agency be pissed that you used the assets of Bognor to take out a personal contract?"
"Nah. They won't find out. I hide my tracks well. I basically run my whole operation from that single ancient computer in the library - so old millennials wouldn’t be able to fathom how to hack it. That’s why wire transfers are so slow. And Steve runs the Morse code contraption from under the counter; it's about all he can handle, dots and dashes."
"Genius."
"Yep. And I bet you'll be shocked to find that some of the people you've offed were personal contracts too, Dotty. The Postman, he was an intern at BBC Weather back in the day and gave me Chlamydia. I told him I'd take my revenge when he least expected it! The two bakers back in town, bloody selling me contaminated Tottenham Cakes with the pensioner discount - they thought we wouldn't notice, Dotty, but I tell you, I've had to endure Michael's mother's cooking for thirty years so I know what rat shit tastes like, girl! So they had to go."
"You used us! To settle your own scores and keep your hands clean!"
"Naturally; I don't get these nails wet, my darling. Well, apart from offing you two, but that's a one-off exception."
"And Rocco?" asked The Hitnan, as Tilda approached from behind ready to strike at the enemy's head. Dotty mouthed 'NO!" over the woman's cow-cladded shoulder; 'Wait, I wanna hear the end of the story!' Tilda just stood up with a sigh and a shrug in disbelief and started pacing up and down, checking her own nails in a huff.
"...Rocco was my son-in-law. Uber wealthy drug lord but a stingy bastard. He wouldn't stop fucking around with buxom blondes, and also wouldn't give me one of them fast cars he has tucked away on his little island, so now I'm stuck with my crappy black Corsa. Also, he had the cheek to say I'd had too much work done and ruined my face when he came over last Christmas, and well, he had to go at that p
oint didn't he."
"Yeah, and he didn't seem to have many pics of his wife around the gaff either I noticed."
"Exactly. He loved that sausage dog more than my poor daughter."
"Fair enough I s'pose... but what about all the ovver lot I've killed over the past few years then? They can't all be your grudges. Like, what about that Fisherman I offed in Blackpool recently?"
"You're right. It was just those four I got you to do in for me, Dotty. Most clients we get through the Agency are simply those people coming into the library to moan about their day. Whether it's neighbours at war with each other, or a local resident wanting the stray cat killed 'cos he keeps wandering into their garden and plopping in the geraniums, et cetera. We just listen to their problems at the counter and well, we offer them a solution."
"But if you're doing all this out of the library, most of your customers must be old peeps! How do these fogies pay for the hits??"
"You've seen the sorry state of the BBC in recent years; they've cancelled their license fees en-masse so now they have a whole £159 pot of cash to play with. I do a Pensioner Bonus scheme too, and they can get a juicy-generous BOGOF deal with that!"
"Sounds like a good business scheme, to be fair."
"You'd be surprised how bloodthirsty these crusties get when they hit old age and run out of fucks to give. Especially when that afternoon's episode of Countdown is an old repeat and without Nick Hewer."
They moaned in unison: "Mmm, Nick Hewer..."
The Hitnan and the Wife of Michael Fish both laughed together as they now rubbed each other's chest for some reason.
*CRACK*
The Wife of Michael Fish screeched in pain and slumped off Dotty, as Tilda stood behind having whacked her over the melon with the machete handle.
"Wha’cha do that for, woman, we were 'avin a laugh, there!"
Tilda came over and began cutting her ankle ties. "Oh, I don't know, Dorothy, maybe so we DON'T. FUCKING. DIE?!"
"Language, Tilda!"
The ropes loosened around her ankles and so much blood came rushing down her veins from her head to her legs that she had a wobbly turn for a moment. She took a moment to gather herself. "How did she even get us here on her own?"