by Wez Wallie
The Hitnan whacked his arm in embarrassment. "Well, the joke's on you 'cos I ain’t ever gonna die!"
"Oh really, Dorothy, is that a challenge, now?"
Dotty shrugged. "Bring it on!"
"Ladies, please!" said Peader, trying to de-escalate the inevitable. "We're all friendy-chums now!"
Tilda ignored him. "Here's a challenge for you - I bet I can grow more luscious tomatoes in my garden than you, D."
"Blasphemy!! I'll have you know I won the 1999 Tomato Magnifico compet -"
"Yes, yes, blah, blah. Well let's see if you've still got the juice, so to speak! When I get back from my cruise in the spring, we'll have a tommy-off. We'll both diarise their progress over the summer and at the end we can have our followers judge the best ones on social media. Then it's fair and objective."
"Ohh, why do you always have to encroach on my favourite hobbies - first it was ridin' me husband, then Bingo, now me gardening! But I tell ya, my tommies are always the most well-rated in all the county!"
"Gotta keep you motivated, old girl. And what’s more, I'm gonna destroy your regional scores with my nutritious red orbs!"
"Oooh, this means war, Tilda coontin' Maffews!"
"Oh, have a day off, Dorothy. In fact, have a few months off. Enjoy your Youtube dosh while you got it. Something tells me you may not be long for the platform..."
"That's fine - I've always got me OnlyFans."
"NAW MS WALKER!"
"It's okay, Peter. They only seem to want selfies."
The End
Epilogue
Lights on. A two-way mirror separates the man from the opposing voices. Still damp from salt spray, he struggles against the wrist binds at the silver table.
"Plese! Just be letting me go; you can have the dang café!"
A composed yet booming voice instructs him to remain calm. It is distorted somehow, by technology perhaps, and now it asks him what he knows of Bognor.
"Uh, pebbly beach and a free weekend away if you collect enough stamp-tokens in The Sunny paper?"
"We know who you are."
"Plese! Why I am here?! I just going on my holidays -"
"Do not attempt deception. We know you assisted in transporting two agents to a hangar in City airport before attempting to flee the country. After all, we brought you in after you were found trying to smuggle yourself back to Turkey. It was an ambitious plan, but you drew too much attention to yourself when Border Force patrols spotted you paddling in your inflatable kayak in the opposite direction to the usual swarms of dinghies coming the other way. Come on. Nobody sane tries to sneak into France."
"I, I, I just humble café man trying to earn honest living!"
"Do not play silly buggers with us. You're a spy. We know you were working with the Top Bass traitor. She betrayed her oath to the Agency, which makes you an accomplice to her treason."
"Eh, que? Me hablo no speaky anglaish!"
"Nice try. But we can lock you in this room and throw away the key. Nobody will look for you. And in 100 years archaeologists shall find your bony skeleton still sitting in that chair, at that table, wishing you had complied with our simple questions; rueing the day you chose to be such a silly bugger."
"Fockedy me!"
The man's black moustache is now sweating its own sweat down onto his mucky white vest. His scrawny arms no longer fighting against the chains.
"Okey, okey, plese. In my country, I was big spy. But I leave game; come here to Englandland for start fresh. Become mind doctor. Then woman approach me and say ‘yo, Gustavo, here is café; you spy long time on Queen.’ I say no! I say Barbara Windsor is good woman and I do no such thing as spy against monarchy!” (At this moment, a sense of genuine British patriotism overwhelms him, and he tries to do a salute but ends up fracturing his wrist whilst it remains cuffed to the table.)
"So you're saying Top Bass approached you and forced you to commit a campaign of espionage against your will?"
"Yes. But then she tell me it is not Queen but in fact a woman-bird lookey-likey-lady, and say if I say yes it give me opportunity to practise my mind healing, and also she give me lifetime supply of jelly-eels!"
"Wow," the voice says. "I can see why that was enticing."
"Exactedly! And now I say, wow! How my cooking skill has improved over past year of the spying and stuff. Gus learn new foody-talent whilst watching old lady!" The man leans forward into a whisper. "Between you and between me, I have audition next week for Dragons in a Den, where I going to take my popular new creation, 'Turkish Delightful Dish,' and be making the big moneys! I see it now - 'Gustavo P. Askim presents...' (He tries to do the visionary arm motions but just fractures the other wrist in the process.)
"And what was the plan?"
"I swap 10% of business and ask for 'undred thousand Brittycoins!"
"No, we mean, what exactly did you do for Top Bass once you were in place?"
"Oh, just usual spying stuff. Hanging 'round the targets and picking up any intel I find. Getting close to daughter, speaking with daughter and helping her process trauma..." He leans forward with a whisper again. "...She is very broken, very sad. It is shame to stop our sessions now because she was very near to breakthrough. Poor girl, very sad."
"There was another with you - your 'nephew' correct? Or was it your 'cousin'? Intel differs. Who was this man?"
"He trainee spy from also my country but I just call him nephew or cousin. I get confused with words sometimes. But he also good guy. Try to fit in and go to school like regular teenage boy. He learn cooking. Good kid. He give many tears for this job."
"And where is he now?"
The captured man looks down. He explains how his 'nephew' has already made a run for greener pastures, seeking asylum in lands where eight-year-old girls don't make you up to look like a homosexual mime.
The voice behind the mirror now grows impatient. "And that's it?! The spying went on for a year. What else did she ask of you - there must be more!"
"Well, we try to use tactic from my country where we tie tiny pea-camera to foot-base of iconic red Squirrel, but then mob of grey Squirrel chase it away, and my nephew spend hours after College climbing tree trying to recapture footage. It always work perfectly in my country. But we had no idea in UK that even the Squirrels were big fat racists!"
No voice comes back to him through his reflection.
"Look, plese! I wanted no part in spy game; I like Mrs Walker and her disabled son. Her daughter and me build bond and I even agree to babysit daughter of daughter! I had to give myself and my nephew mind doctoring after weeks with the girl - I victim too!! I even try to warn targets of spying game by putting letter through lettery-box in doorframe. But then house explode and singe my nipple off, so I take as sign not to interfere any longer."
The voice comes back after minutes of silence. "Thank you for your time, Mr P. Askim."
"Okey good you let me go escape now? Hey? Hey plese, you letting me make a run, now yes? I promise I return to mind mischiefing and become successful therapy-guy! Pay big taxes to UK treasure-man. Hey plese! Plese!!"
His cries for mercy are diffused as we pass through the mirror, and behind stands five men in formal grey suits in a small and dark room with stern faces. The Bognor Board stood firm and some sipped tea whilst they conferred.
A black gentleman removes his bowler hat and addresses the Chief Agent stood by the microphone.
"What he says is true. I mean, the son is clearly disabled - the guy keeps wanting to swap pants with me for a start. But don't worry, I have ensured nothing has been formally recorded by the feds. All off books."
"Good work, Abercrombie. But I wish for you to remain in the role of 'Sergeant Jones' for the time being. Just until we clean this mess up and to keep the blasted pigs off the scent."
His face fell.
"I trust that won't be a problem?"
"No. Of course not, Sir. Good show, Sir."
"Good." The Chief turns his back on the rest of the Board
to face Gus, still calling out to the mysterious voice in the white room. "The Wife of Michael Fish got away with corrupting the Agency's integrity with her personal vendettas simply because our attention was elsewhere. Even when we banished her, she was able to form her own splinter cell and continue to cause a whole mess of trouble for us here."
He turns back to face the Bognor Board.
"My friends, we have allowed other global priorities to lure away our attention for too long. We have placed our faith and trust in other agents to run the institution in our absence and it has blown up in our faces - pretty literally. We may have been complacent in recent years, but after what went down at City Airport, (and all the buggering compensation we've now had to pay out to NASA), we can no longer afford to sit in the shadows and expect this agency to run to the standards we hold of it. We're back in the game now, gentleman. Eyes on."
"And what of The Hitnan?" asked one of the Board members sternly. "She's a loose cannon, Sir. Intel shows she took direct action and initiated the confrontation with Top Bass. We can't have another Wife of Michael Fish situation, Sir."
"Yes. This 'Dotty Walker' may be a problem," said the Chief, turning back to face the mirror. "Contact REGIS. We may have another rogue agent on our hands."
DOTTY WALKER WILL RETURN IN:
"THE HITNAN STRIKES BACK!"
About the Author
Born at a young age, Wesley Wallie was placed into a neonatal care unit with so many waiting babies he was mixed up and sent home with an Asian family. All was well until they had to return to China when his dad's chinky business was shut down for poor hygiene, with the local council finding "too many mould spores on the rice stores."
As a white kid growing up in the slums of Shanghai, he was constantly picked on for having spherical eyes, and his peers would mock him by making circle shapes with forefingers and thumbs and placing them over their own eyes, whilst shouting "chip shop eng-lish-man." He had no comeback of course, because if the roles were reversed, he'd be slung in a cell for a hate crime, yet nor did his inherent white privilege that he was always told he had, grant him the ability to escape the daily micro aggressions and casual racialisms.
Though his eastern upbringing taught him resilience, the western violent scumbag part of him just wanted to twat the punks. And so, his parents swiftly sent him up to the monks over in the high mountains of Tibet, where, under the tutorship of his beloved mentor, Lo Dar Nonsense, he learned the ancient art of patience and self-control, and how not to smack up a bunch of Asian kids for saying "all white men look like Piers Morgan."
After moving back to London at the age of when he did, Wallie retrained as a Bus conductor, and now uses his newfound skills of tolerance to put up with the disrespectful school yutes and clowns of TfL.
To cope with the increasing pressure of western life, he also writes farcical and politically incorrect novels on the side. You can contact the author at [email protected], or find him in person down at Catford Bus Garage, lecturing the working-class whiteys about the benefits of Communism and having a baldy-head, between ticket-inspecting shifts on the 208 route.
He is currently working on his next book, (if anyone is remotely interested), currently titled "The Hitnan Strikes Back!", which is due for release in the winter, (unless he is cancelled first).