White-knuckled

I’ve gone through life white-knuckled and knock-kneed, and running away from the Blue Swan was no different.  Thankfully Jackie was still playing doggo and staying where I’d told her to, so I wasn’t pursued.  As I veered left at the T-junction I heaved a huge breath into my aching lungs and wondered when I be able to stop running away.  I didn’t think there was a whole lot of hope unless I’d finally broken my legs.  I took the next left, a quick right, and then fell against the first lighted doorway that I saw and only sobbed a little when it didn’t open for me.

No-one had followed me, it seemed.  I wheezed heavily, getting my breath back and feeling the aches and pains molest me like an eighties television presenter, but there were no running feet, no cries for people to stop me, and best of all, no sounds of gunshot or angry people hitting defenceless street furniture with heavy tools.  Eventually I pulled my legs in, listened to the cartilage in my knees crunch, and wondered what I was going to do next.  I was still looking for Boy Blue, if only to let him know that Natasha Monkeybutt was looking for him too, and I was kind of curious about whoever had redecorated his room with sheep’s blood.  I knew there were better things to do than get involved with any part of a case more than treating it as just a job: like Miss Sapphire had said, people tend to die around me and it’s better that I don’t let myself get attached.  I’ve watched kids get orphaned while I was on their case, and I’ve watched relationships fizzle and die just because I’ve been sat at a nearby table.  My record is emptying an entire restaurant on Valentine’s day, with all the men going one way and the women another.  It’s not a proud moment, but I ever write up a CV it’s going on there.

Then there was the Jack Horner angle.  There was a name I’d not come across before, and I thought I knew all the low-life in this city.  From what Miss Sapphire had been saying it sounded like it might be a pseudonym, which is a long word for a small-time crook.  And he had to be small time, or Mad Frankie would be putting me on his case in the hopes that he’d be the next victim of the MacArthur curse.  Or blessing, depending on who you asked.

The gentle patter of rain started, soot-laden droplets splashing down on the filthy, pot-holed streets and making me glad I was sat in a doorway.  I looked out across the street into the fading light of late-afternoon, and the door I was leaning against pushed out squashing me against the wall.

“Move it, you piece of crap,” snarled a woman with a red face like she’d been washing it in the floor-scrubbing bucket.  She was wearing a heavy woollen coat and carrying a handbag like a mattock.  She swung it at me to make her point, and I ducked, to avoid it.  “Get out of my bloody doorway,” she continued.  “It’s scum like you that make an honest woman like me afraid to walk the streets at night.  You disgust me, you tramp.”  Her handbag struck the wall with the clatter of cutlery and she didn’t even have the grace to look embarrassed.  I wriggled out from behind the door as she put her weight against it, and I just got out of the way in time.  The door struck the wall and the glass in the top quivered with the impact.

“Now look what you’ve made me do, wretch,” she said.  Little flecks of white spittle flew out of her mouth, and I flinched away.  I have a mild germophobia about other people, which my doctor says he can’t understand given where I seem to spend most of my time.  Then he orders me out of his office before he autoclaves me, which is a threat I know he’d like to make good on.

“Harridan,” I said, racking my brains as to why she looked familiar.

“Hah!  Big words.  What a shame your wallet can’t match your mouth.”  Her words dripped with sarcasm the way a cobra’s fangs drip with venom and suddenly I knew who she was; the last time I’d seen her was a few years ago when she was still a stripper at Lucy Locket’s.  She’d been hanging upside down from a sequined pole wearing a g-string, high-heels and an ill-fitting wig that didn’t really hide either her dandruff or her cradle cap, glaring at me while I crawled under the seating pursuing the Legless Wonder.  She’d spat at me then too, and I’d thrown a handful of change at her.

“Belle Peep,” I said, my cough hacking its way through her surname and dragging it out for a whole six seconds.  She didn’t look happy that I knew it.

“The next show’s at nine,” she said.  “Pay on the door.”

I looked up: the doorway I was in was the side-door of the Municipal Library.  I don’t know if she saw my quizzical face (it’s a lot like my orgasm face, I’ve been told, which fact I ascribe to the infrequency of my orgasms) but she swung her bag at me again.  I dodged once more to the sound of crashing cutlery, and then she was past me, stalking off down the street like an old whore with too much pride to pick her breasts up off the floor and retire.

“Jack Horner,” I muttered under my breath, hoping it wouldn’t start my cough off again.  My doctor’s written on my records that he’s hoping its consumption and refusing to test me for it so as not to jinx things.  “I know how to find you.”

The kitchen of the Blue Swan

While I don't know what I was exactly expecting to see when I stumbled through into the kitchen, the plate of badly cooked food held in front of me like a prayer for departed, I know I wasn't expecting to see anyone I recognised.  So when my eyes beheld Miss Sapphire leaning against a range, wearing a belt that was doing double duty as a skirt, holding a pint glass of something clear in one hand and a can-opener in the other, I was shocked.  I staggered to a halt, my feet vibrating like violin strings at the opening of the concerto and my ankles complaining they were being abused.
"Mac," she said, her voice like spider-silk, all ethereal and barely there, but somehow still coating my ears and making them feel sticky.
"Miss Sapphire," I grunted back.  She's always been a Miss to me, even though her legs were longer than lampposts and her stockings as sheer as the sides of a prison.  "I didn't know you cooked."
"I don't," she said, dropping the can opener and lifting the glass to her lips.  As she drank she tipped her head back, downing easily half the glass.  She righted it again, set it on the range next to her, wiped her lips, and burped very delicately.  "I just arrange things, whether its food on a plate, money in bank-accounts, or meetings in unlikely places.  But you know this already Mac, how many times have we done this already?"
"Not enough, it seems," I said.  "It keeps happening.  I'm busy, Miss Sapphire.  Mad Frankie will have to use someone else this time."
"Not Mad Frankie," she said.  "He's busy too Mac, and he doesn't like using you anyway.  People die around you, it's like a bad habit you have."
"Hardly my habit," I said.  "It's not like I'm helping them on their way.  You want a smother party, try Big Ben's disco on the first Monday of the month."
"I don't want a smother party, Mac.  I don't even want to find out what one is."
"You're not missing out.  So, you're moonlighting for someone else?  Mad Frankie know about it?"
"Of course he knows, and it's not moonlighting.  It's a secondary interest, and I'm looking after Mad Frankie's interest for a few seconds.  But it's not Frankie who wants your services this time, Mac.  It's someone with a much smaller budget."
"I don't come cheap."  I do, that was a lie, but it felt good to say it.
"You do."  Damn, did I have no secrets from this woman?  "But that's not the point.  The point is, that the job you're being hired for is to keep tabs on Natasha Monkeybutt."
"That's not how she likes it pronounced," I said, just a touch smugly.  Miss Sapphire conjured cigarettes and a lighter from somewhere.  Even though I was watching her hands I didn't see how she did it.
"How else could you pronounce it?"  She sounded curious, and the problem was, I was too.  Natasha had never told me how she liked her name pronounced, just that I was saying it wrong.  I shrugged, and Miss Sapphire lit her cigarette.  The end glowed red like a cyclopean eye peering from the cave, and a thin black line of smoke began to curl up to the ceiling.
"Keeping an eye on her is fine," said Miss Sapphire.  "What we don't want happening though is what we think your hire is after.  We don't want her falling foul of your little curse that means bad things happening to everyone around you.  Keep an eye on her, Mac, but don't let her die."
"I'm not a nursemaid," I said.
"Few things in this world would make as unfit a parent as you," she said.  "But that aside, keep an eye on her, don't let her die.  Make her the subject of your investigation if that helps.  But she's necessary, Mac.  She can do things."
"Fine," I said, shrugging again.  One of my shoulders refused to come back down.  "She's looking for Blue, so am I.  Seems like she'll be underfoot no matter what I do.  Who's hiring me then?  Where's the money?"
"He calls himself Jack Horner, but that's probably not his real name," said Miss Sapphire.  She was looking up at the ceiling.  "You'll get paid when I next see you.  Tell me, Mac, what's the white thing up there?"
I looked up and saw the smoke detector, and the curl of jet-black smoke just reaching it.  I looked down, and she'd vanished, leaving just the cigarette behind, floating in her half-full pint glass.  I turned and lunged through the kitchen doors, just before the fire system set off and started raining fire retardant chemicals down all over the kitchen.  The barman looked startled as I burst back through, and the bouncers all came to their feet and looked attentive.
"He's gone mad!" I shouted, pointing back into the kitchen.  "He's chopping up the pot-washer!"  The bouncers pushed past me, pounding heavily into the kitchen, and I ran for the hatch out to the street, knowing it was quicker than the stairs.
"She's quite a looker, Mac," said the barman as I threw myself through, hoping not to skid too far on my face.

Tapdancing

The doorbell rang before I'd got even half-way down the bottle of gin. I had been sat on the chaise-longue with the black-and-white version of the Wizard of Oz on the DVD player, reminiscing about the only woman I'd never dared love. The sound on the film was turned down very low -- Judy Garland's voice sets my teeth on edge -- and the gin was very effectively bringing back memories of Miss Sapphire, so I wasn't very pleased to be interrupted.

It had been a bad day right from the start. I'd slipped in the shower first thing in the morning and banged my head on the wall, raising a large bruise on the side of my face. Trying to pull myself back up with my eyes full of water I had twisted the temperature dial and scalded myself. When I was finally out of the deathtrap of a bathroom, I got into the kitchen to find that a mouse had died in the kettle and the cat had died on the radiator. The stench from the cat meant that I didn't notice the mouse until I'd tasted the coffee. I left the house under-caffeinated and in a foul mood.

The day had not gone a lot better, but I knew it wouldn't be great anyway. I'm working undercover at the moment in a sweatshop in Camden so I spend 12 hours a day supervising imported children aged between 5 and 12 who are hand-sewing Bossy wallets, Gucchi handbags and marquee tents for weddings. The job would be easier if the kids weren't so damn servile; I get little chance at all to work my bad mood off by shouting at them or disciplining them. I'll be glad when we've found the little bastard who keeps shopping us to the police.

When the doorbell rang I had just remembered the time Miss Sapphire had whispered "You're my superman," in my ear and pushed me backwards off the platform into the car compacter. My life was flashing before my eyes again (it's happened so many times now that I know exactly where to fast-forward past the boring bits and where to hit the freeze-frame) and then the doorbell disturbed it all.

I answered the door ready to scream at whoever dared to disturb me during Happy Hour, and saw that it was the little girl from three doors over. She smiled at me, batted her eyelashes in a way that's just disturbing for an 8-year-old, and went into her tap-dancing routine.

She's only got one leg.

As she pogo'ed noisily up and down, counting time under her breath, something soft and fragile somewhere inside me gave way. I smiled encouragingly, and groped on the table in the hallway behind me. Most people would put the post on it when it arrived, or their car-keys when they came in. I keep my toolkit there.

I overpowered her easily and took her shoe off and hammered several nails into it, then put it back on her foot. Everytime she hopped, she'd drive the nails a little further into the shoe and thus into her foot. I pushed her back out of the door, bolted it, and went back to the gin.