Thieves
by Paul Kavanagh
Dispatching for pennies.
Two children walking sleepily sauntered by dragging their bags behind; the child nearest wiped his nose upon his sleeve.
“The dirty bastard,” said Harold disdainfully.
“I’m dead to the world.”
“When we get hold of that bugger I hope your bones will operate,” said Harold.
“What time is it?”
“Time, time, time, what have you to bother about with time!” shouted Harold. In his anger the big man rocked the parked car.
“Are we going to do her in also?”
“No just him,” informed Harold calmly.
“We’re going to do him in smashing!” blurted I embarrassingly ebullient. “I’ll have his guts for garters.”
“Who wears garters these days?” asked Harold. “Is that the bastard?”
“No,” I informed.
The swaying bottoms and milky peachy legs of the children vanished.
“I’ve a joke for you.”
“I would rather listen to a wet juicy fart do God Save the Queen!” facetiously flipped Harold fingering one hairy nostril. A dry flake of snot a muted green was plastered to the hard nail. “That’s the bugger!”
“Where? Where? Where?” I blurted pugnaciously protruding blade in hand. “I’ll cut, chop the cunt’s cock off!”
“No put it away,” said Harold, after inspection he flicked the snot into the back seat.
Detumescent, I placed cock cutting blade back into my trousers pocket.
“Money,” Harold stopped talking and laughed, his jaw went up and down quickly, emphatically yak yak yak. He lit a cigarette. A wisp of smoke snaked slowly an opaque cylinder that swirled, held the spectrum, a sibilant sis, I must confess I was with a hint of puerility spellbound, gaping cavernous mouth.
“Tiptoe. Tiptoe. Lightly does it. Not like an elephant. Don’t close the door. The light from the window. You get the pillow. I’ll hold his feet. Smother the bastard. A nasty way to go. But a soft pillow. Quick and easy also.”
“What’s the name of that song, that Maxwell song?”
The front door is kicked in, the sound, the sound, splinters raining rapidly down upon a bald carpet, nails and screws fly, before anything can be done two intruders run into the hallway, screaming women crazily run towards the stairs, frenetically, drunk, screeching, an explosion of fear, dread, hopelessness, a man in shorts stands confused stunned scratching his bald pate seemingly unaware of the danger, the two intruders stop, panting bull like, nostrils flaring, eyes wide. In a bubble of silence filled with perplexity the man continues scratching. The women seeing the two intruders hurry, stumbling up the stairs, gripping and pulling with white bleached knuckles, survival, protection, the kids are crying wildly. Movements become lugubrious, drift dreamily, the women gaping, gasping, crawling disorientated up the stairs, the carpet sucking them in, wailing the world collapsing, the man sees beyond the intruders, it is raining and the droplets are silver and glisten and the darkness holds a hint of brown, autumn brown, a chill grips the man and he shivers, and orange electric light floods hallucinating in to the hallway, a chimera where the intruders were not real, not tangible, there is silence, the man stoops and picks up a piece of the door.
“Maxwell’s Silver Hammer.”
I took off my left shoe and held it up to my nose. “I can still smell his bollocks.” I passed over the shoe. Harold sniffed, “unwashed bollocks smell like leather.”
Harold handed back the shoe. I placed it back upon my socked foot. “And like dead fish,”
I said stooping down upon one knee.
Harold placed the swabbed hammer into a plastic bag.
“You’re bleeding.”
A trickle of blood barely.
“Bloody picked too hard,” said Harold wiping his nose upon his sleeve. “Well on to the next job.”