All I’m trying to do is earn a dishonest living. I don’t charge GST and if my business had a LinkedIn account I’m confident its posts would be peppered with Likes. My own dislikes include dark operators who drift into my life, rain on my parade and then imagine they can simply drift out. For example …
St. James Infirmary Blues began playing. It’s a ringtone not to everyone’s taste but I rather like it. The caller ID read: “Unknown.”
“Palmer’s Process Servers,” I said. “You name ‘em, we nail ‘em.”
The caller was near traffic. I could hear it rushing by. There was an intake of breath. “Hello?” The female voice was quizzical. “I thought you’d be a man.”
“Not the last time I looked. Jilly Palmer speaking.”
“I’m told you do more than serve legal papers.”
“Let’s see. A stranger cold calls me, making an accusation. I’d guess you’re planning to set me up.”
“No. I’m planning to ask you to kill my husband.”
She had my full attention.
“I’m in Bayswater Road,” she said. “Let’s meet at Madame Fifi’s Palais de Hop. I’ll be wearing …”
Then came an unpleasant, hoarse noise. Choking. “Bitch,” said a muffled male voice in the background. Silence. Seconds ticked away.
From my Springfield Avenue apartment, it took me and my violin case a few minutes to reach the public phone she’d obviously called from. The hanging handset was dangling above the footpath, still swaying. There was no sign any of Kings Cross’s passing after-dinner crowd gave a hoot. Under the awning outside Madame Fifi’s, a CCTV camera pointed towards the nightclub’s front door and in the general direction of the payphone.
Inside the club, a tall gorilla in a one-size-too-small suit blocked my path to the owner’s office. “I want to check your CCTV,” I told him.
“Bugger off, sweetheart,” said the gorilla.
“I wasn’t asking permission.”
He made a sudden move towards me then his body convulsed and he lurched backwards, bursting through the door behind him and flopping at the feet of an only slightly surprised Madame Fifi. Lighting a fresh cigarette from the butt of an old one, she glanced down at the man and across at my bright yellow cattle prod. My open violin case was in my other hand.
“I need to see tonight’s CCTV recordings.”
“Since you asked so nicely, Jilly,” Fifi said, skirting the prone body and reaching up to a bank of monitors set into a wall.
I poured us drinks from her liquor cabinet before watching the action on the main screen. Two men wearing hoodies jumped from a pale van, ran to a slim, blonde woman in a lamé dress making a phone call and tossed a bag over her head. Hey presto. The woman and the van vanished.
Fifi knew them. “Stone cold killers.” And the lady? Caroline Lamb, wife of Richard “Baa” Lamb, entrepreneurial drug dealer - picture Uber Eats except with crack and hillbilly heroin delivered to your quivering hands.
I’d never spotted the wife before but, over the past few months, I’d seen Baa flitting in and out of a Victoria Street terrace.
Now the thing about a lock picking kit is that it doesn’t always work and it can make scratchy sounds like a mouse with mischief in mind. There I was on my knees on the scruffy house’s doormat, jiggling a wafer pick in the lock. Failure. Then the door swung open.
He wasn’t wearing a hoodie this time but I recognised him. No excuse immediately came to mind, so I smiled up at him, unclipped the violin case lid and sent 5,000 volts through his testicles. Jaw clamped shut, he rose half a metre off the hall floor and pitched forward onto the mat.
At the end of the hallway, light spilled out of a room to the right. Baa and his other contract hit man had seen too many Halloween-style serial killer movies. They stood either side of a bed wearing operating gowns, rubber gloves and thin-lipped smiles. Baa held a mini chainsaw, his new buddy gripped a flensing knife. Strapped to the bed lay a squirming Caroline Lamb, unready for the coming slaughter.
It was the sidekick who saw me first. “Who the hell …?”
Baa turned. “Get the bitch!”
“That’s the second time tonight I’ve heard that word,” I said. “I really don’t like it.”
Knife pointing at my throat, the wannabe killer lunged. “Bitc…”
Ideally I should have opened the window first. As his flying body shattered the window frame, exploding glass made a racket that could be heard in Penrith. He landed on the street kerb and even from that distance I could see his crutch was smoking. Note to self: perhaps lower the prod’s voltage.
Baa raised his chainsaw. “There’s room on that bed for two.”
“You’ve cost me money and wasted my time,” I said. “The first is a nuisance, the second unforgiveable.”
Before I stepped towards him, I closed the door.
Copyright 2024 GREG FLYNN
