Death & the City Book Two (32 page)

Chapter 32:
Spanish Fly On The Wall

My phone interrupts, still in vibrate mode. As I get it out, I consider suggesting Martha puts the batteries in her new toy before she puts it away, to see if we can race them along the table. But the table is now pretty much full of plates and drinks and stuff, with the cutlery rolled in red paper napkins being added as well. Martha reluctantly tidies away her shopping, back into her bags again, so that we can eat.

My concerns that Alice's blog updates haven't been cancelled yet are unfounded, because it's Connor.
Check out Northeast latest News later - Connaught/Farrell Brothers Security office bombed multiple casualties.

I text back:
WHO MESSED UP?

And get the response:
They did. All on Newcastle list responsible for the HD/Dyer contract and other recent business competition disputes. Apparently they ordered a dodgy pizza. Xx

No wonder head office were saying Ian Dyer was sounding useful. The Farrells descend from post-War London Irish mobsters, with every generation having done time for one thing or another. Mostly bank, gemstone jobs, drugs and protection rackets, whereas Dyer's family were in pugilist wager and wrestling management, and the most trouble they were ever in was over creative accounting. They got themselves a good accountancy firm, and some offshore trusts set up since the last 1980s scam decade.

Motorcycle courier is a trademark hit in most territories - easy anonymity and fast getaway, so they must have upgraded Ian from his bog standard scooter if they used him for that. It would be a traditional initiation hit, as I remember. Give him something personal to carry out to ensure a thorough job, as they did with me. I wonder if Ian's now sleeping off the exertion in his motorcycle leathers, cuddling his crash helmet.

"Hey, no phone at the dinner table," Elaine scolds with a smile, as I put it away. "Was that him?"

"Maybe, maybe not," I shrug, knowing that Elaine will fill in the gaps anyway with her imagination. Funny how I was just thinking about Grayson. What further upgrades are on the cards in the coming weeks if head office are taking the opportunity to undertake multiple targets with messy explosives? Could be they're just clearing regular petty backlog, now that New Age technology weirdos are joining the List - with their internet Double Life, souped-up cars, online military gaming, undead immortality obsessive, and brainwashed sex worker themes on contract-killing style. No second chances for the Hollywood hit-man now. He's being left behind with the old school times and traditions. Sitting alone at the bar, minus any audience to impress.

Phuket is going to be quiet this summer without Eric Dylan and the Farrells, anyway. I wonder if head office arrange tourist revenue compensation for poorer areas, losing out by successful crime-fighting in ours. Like free skin grafts, donor organs, and tinned dog-food for their pets.

"Well, I hope you said hello from us," Elaine announces. "Can't have him thinking you sit around idly on your own waiting for him to call."

"Yeah, he wishes," I mutter under my breath. I take a bite of grapefruit and avocado. It's really quite tasty. "Anyway, so what's this about Ben being too square for you? What's a guy got to do? I hear he's already got everything pierced on his body that you'd want to use."

"It's just too easy. I need a challenge."

"You are the challenge, nitwit," Martha tells her. "Your challenge is to be evasive, and make it less easy for HIM."

"Like
Hide-And-Seek
," I suggest, inspiration emerging from my earlier thoughts.

"Ooh." It evidently hasn't crossed Elaine's mind before. "Like a game, you mean?"

"Yeah, but with you doing the running away, not the chasing," says Martha. "And I don't mean running out the back door every time he rings the doorbell out front…" Here she shoots me a warning look. "Just being a bit more coy, a bit less open, a bit more mysterious - generally just be only a bit of your current self, not the whole menu. Be like tapas. Just an interesting bit here and there. Not a free all-you-can-eat buffet."

"But it seems so dishonest, holding back. I'd much rather put all my cards on the table up front."

"How's that working out for you so far?" I ask.

Elaine twirls an olive on a cocktail stick, and concedes defeat with a nod and a shrug.

"I can't even give it away," she mutters, and Martha and I crack up, trying not to laugh too loudly over the singer's rendition of
Puppy Love
in French. "I started flirting with Joel Hardy thinking he wanted help keeping the barmaids away, offering to let him hide in the office with me any time he wanted, and now he can't get away from me quick enough whenever I pass. He goes straight to Pole-Ka-Doodle-Doo after work now, to hang out with the guys there. You can't imagine what a slap in the face that is, that he'd rather hang around pole trolls to avoid my lot. It doesn't seem to reveal class is his main priority - is it any wonder I then assume men just want it easy on a plate? Is it surprising I feel like going up to the first fit guy I see, and telling him I'll give him a lap dance if he fancies one ever?"

Martha pats her on the back sympathetically.

"Remember you don't live in the real world, Sweetie," she reminds her. "Guys, when you put that idea into their heads, of course they'll go straight to the nearest strip club, because at least in there it's expected of them to be having those thoughts."

"Are you saying I made one of my doormen feel dirty?" Elaine says, in mock horror. "That's unimaginable. They're all filthy, all of the time."

I recall Hurst's last conversation I overheard about Easter eggs and charity Tug O' War, and try to guess what was filthy about it. I think it's probably best not to mention it at the moment, for the sake of her self-image going any further downhill. Supposing Connor felt the same way, about having a sexually flamboyant and predatory female stalker? That it sullied his otherwise ordinary intentions in life, and put images in his head that weren't his own and weren't welcome. Probably unusually wise of Joel to bust a move down to Pole-Ka and put it in context, if that was the case. I wonder if Connor found an outlet for his own psychological discomfort.

I wonder several more things idly, but unlike Elaine and Martha are discussing, not about how dirty doormen's minds are already without the help of the women who attempt clumsily to seduce them. Mostly I'm wondering how
Amour De Petit Chien
scans into the mini Osmond's original tune so seamlessly, in the singer's husky Edith Piaf impersonation. I take a glug of Virgin Sangria, and taste cinnamon and rosemary, and a hint of vanilla. I don't know if it's authentically Sangrian - in fact, I think when making Killer Sangria, Jacques at Sin Street uses red wine, Cointreau, sherry, Angostura Bitters and tequila, and I've never dared try it. To me it would be the recreational drink equivalent of a general anaesthetic. I imagine it tastes the same going down as coming back up - must feel like throwing up blood, all those pints of red stuff everywhere. I don't know how customers deal with the amount of regurgitation they put through their alimentary canals every night. Their stomach acids must eventually burn holes right through their oesophagus.

"Actually the only thing more filthy than the staff are the customers," Elaine is saying, drawing alongside my train of thought. "Every night, they break down the doors of the same out-of-order toilets, and poo in them all over again. Every night, blocked toilets. You'd think they'd have invented some alternative to pub toilets by now. Like a big hole in the ground."

"Ah, yes, people used to drown in those swill pits when they were drunk," says Martha, dunking her potato skins in balsamic dressing. "That's why toilets were invented in the first place."

"I'm really glad my starter isn't the same colour as yours," I remark.

"It needs to be less like a toilet, more like a… like a poo chute," Elaine frowns into middle distance, then goes back to spiking olives.

"A water slide for poo?" Martha smiles, all round-eyed innocent suggestion.

"A poo flume," I correct her. Elaine's serious scientific face lasts about two more seconds before none of us can see properly through tears of suppressed severity of humour.

"Will you be giving the customers complimentary rubber rings to ride the poo flume, or will they have to bring their own?" Martha asks, with heroic effort. Elaine is now bright red and tears stream down into her olives as she tries not to scream with laughter. My sternum feels like it's about to break as I hold in my own giggles, threatening to explode out of my chest.

"I'll have to check," Elaine agrees, trying very hard to keep a straight face, and fumbling for another olive, which jumps off the plate and rolls away among the Sangria glasses. "The height and weight restrictions."

"What, for every poo?" I ask, and Martha drops her fork, holding her sides tightly as if afraid of popping her coat buttons off. "And don't forget you have to blow a whistle and wave a little flag, if you see anyone going down it standing up, or head first."

I barely finish the sentence because now for at least a minute none of us can speak, eat, drink or wield cutlery. I have to push my chair back from the table so I can hold my aching tummy in, with both arms wrapped around myself.

"Shotgun first go on it," Martha manages to blurt out, and Elaine snorts loudly and covers her face in a humiliated red napkin. "Wiccans and vegans first."

"Shotgun not second," I put in, my ribs hurting as if I've just punctured a lung. "Not before a good ten minutes, anyway."

Elaine waves her hands in surrender.

"Stop, stop," she hisses, wiping her eyes in almost futile dabs of the napkin. "Oh, God, I can't go anywhere with you two. You're both little devils. I'll get all sorts of funny looks now at licensing meetings."

"God, yeah," Martha agrees, composing herself. "What are you going to say to them all? I mean, sooner or later they're going to want to know more about it."

"Yeah, what if Health & Safety rock up wanting to check out your poo flume in action?" I ask.

"Health & Safety, my arse," says Elaine primly.

"Duh? I think that's kind of what they'd be hoping for," Martha points out.

"I see you ladies are all having a nice time?" the waiter interrupts, checking up on us with a broad grin, and we all agree and compose ourselves and sip our drinks, trying to dry away the remaining tears.

"I am going to have the last laugh on this," Elaine warns, nibbling an olive in a much more ladylike fashion, as he strolls away. "I am going back home later and sending off my application to patent The Poo Flume, you wretches."

"You may be having the last laugh, but I'm still having the first go on it," Martha reminds her. "I'll be waiting with my rubber ring, you can count on it."

I just chuckle and take the wedge of cheesy garlic bread that Elaine offers, glad of something to chew on, in case I inadvertently prolong the scatological discussion with more comments. My phone joins in and I get it out to check my SMS inbox again.

Two have arrived simultaneously. One is from head office and says:
Sorry - just unsubscribed you from Twaddle now. Apologies for interruption on your lunch break.
The one that arrived just prior to it is a blog update from Alice, so I read it anyway, to take my mind off Elaine's proposed new lavatorial theme park in Crypto.

People reveal more about themselves in bed than just their nakedness. They reveal their vulnerabilities. They establish trust on new levels. They show their lack of self-control. They can be more quickly overcome. There is a lot in the saying, Keep Your Enemies Closer. I was vulnerable once, and it made me cynical, and yet wise to such manipulation. I won't be taken in again. I am always on top of The Game. Don't fear for me. Fear for him.

I close the update but don't delete it. Now she's not in front of me, I'm reading the text in my own internal speaking voice, as if it's my own thoughts. From what I recall vaguely, it all rings fairly true as well. Says a lot about my insecurities around Connor.

What worries me is that if I accused him of horizontally manipulating me, to find out my vulnerabilities or anything else, he'd admit it. I think his main challenge is that the whole act of any sexual chemistry espionage is my basic vulnerability, and starts with my suspicions why any guy would smile at me.

But for some reason Connor's sneaked a Hell of a lot past me already. And I don't know how he's done it. It's like I can't remember any of the turning points now, when I could have said no, or shut the door, or walked away insisting that things be done formally, or not at all. Alice's last blog entry is a reminder of myself and my moral stick-to-my-guns attitude, even though I'm aware that the context for her disposition is entirely different. Where did I get lost and start doing things HIS way? What's his control over me?