It had been a long time since I'd heard the sweet taste of footsteps on the rickety steps that
led up to my office. But there was no mistaking them now: By the sounds of it she was about
25 years old, 120 pounds with - if I wasn't losing my touch- a small birth mark in the shape of
a birth mark on her upper thigh. I smiled to myself. No doubt, another damsel in distress.
Why do they always come to me? If I had a
nickel for
every heavy breathing, eyelash fluttering, velvet gloved moll that came to me when the chips were down
I'd have a LOT. I could almost smell the chanel perfume already, almost hiding- but not quite- the smell of
carbolic soap and griddled eggs. A light ever-so-timid knock and the unmistakeable silhouette
of an hourglass figure poured into a 20 minute frock told me I was right. "Come in Miss...",
I called out,
"...ter Levy!!", I finished, choking on the whiskey I had begun to swallow as the door opened.
The gingham dress was a new look for him: I liked it. But I didn't like what he had to say. "You've
got 24 hours to pay the rent Perrott...then you're out! And no more warnings ya lousy, scumsucking
schmuck. Oh, there's some broad to see ya, ya lilly-livered, shite sack.", He finished, stomping down the
stairs back to his hideous Landlord's hole, with his colostomy bag swinging as he went. If Mr Levy had a
friendly bone in his body, then it was a transplant that didn't take.
As the air began to clear in the wake of the evil old tosspot, I saw that he had been telling the truth. I did have a visitor.
The last visitor I had received had a couple of friends called Chinny and B Spline who showed me what could
be done with an ergonomic mouse. Hopefully this visit was going to be a little more friendly and a little less...aah...intrusive.
And then she stepped in to my office.
If I hadn't
sworn never to love again after my wife died - damn that faulty colonic irrigation pump-
I would have been barking like a dog with his dick caught in a paper shredder. I shut the door and asked her her name and
what I could do for her. She told me her name was Edna, she looked a little nervous but was trying hard to conceal it and almost succeeding. Or was that
the impression that she wanted me to get? She lit a cigarette with slightly trembling hands. I reached out to steady her hand and noticed
that she didn't flinch. But her hands were cold. I mean real cold. Cold as cow meat. Frozen meat. Frozen cow meat.
"It's an ident job Mr Perrott. A spinning logo.", I paused and then swallowed the last of my whiskey. The
glass was empty: so was the bottle. I turned to look out of the window on the street below. "
I don't do Spinny logos, Miss. You're wasting your time. I think you had better leave". "Wait!' she said, and something in her tone
made me face her. "I know you don't normally take these jobs, but you're the only one I can count on."
I sneered. It felt good so I sneered again. That felt even better. I looked in the mirror and did a really big sneer
followed by an eyebrow raise. That looked the best so I would have to remember that for later. "And what makes you think
you can trust me...a worthless, two-bit
character animator?". "Because...you see...I went to school with your sister." My heart stopped. Painful
memories of my sister...all that laughter, and the childhood games cut so terribly short because of a chance
exposure to an irradiated carpet tile. Sometimes my life seemed like a Greek tragedy. But in English.
"All right Miss. I'll do it. Who's my contact?". She let a lungful of smoke puff out of her nostrils like some kind of...dragony thing and said, "It's man you know very well", she looked into my eyes and I saw that
hers were stone cold. Like stone cold cow meat. She had been waiting for this and knew that I had too. There was no more flirting.
No coy little girl act.
This was the catch. The pin. The rock and the hard place.
"Yes, very well Mr Perrot. Very well indeed."
Who is the contact? Why does David Levy wear a dress? Where will the next botttle of whiskey come from?Find out in some other month's gripping installment!
Next month: Chapter II