And The Street Screamed Blue Murder! Read online

  Then he was gone and all that remained was an after-image that continued to boogie and as his thoughts were caught up in the whirlwind ecstasy of humour, images tumbled out of the cabinet of his mind.

  The heart coldly stamped through with a nail.

  His dear old mum sat in her own dirt.

  McKnight being pulled out of the sad waters.

  Through the blur of his cascade of happy mad tears, he saw two people emerge from the bar. One tall and feminine, and one as short as a child. They held each other's hands and the flutter of a thousand beetle wings seared into his ears and he felt a plague of locusts swarm down from the sky and enter his mouth. True night descended upon Lime and the next thing he knew through his sharp inhalations and sweet aching ribs was the cruel feeling of two steel gun barrels pressed against either side of his head, then a click as he brought his head up fast knocking one of the guns away but not the other. A finger tightened and that was it.

  A bullet pierced the plates of his skull bone and flew into his cerebral mass at point blank exploding and scattering his face to the four winds and all over the pavement as his body mass slumped forward with the shock, crashing into the ground.

  A bloody twitching abstraction.

  Lime is dead now and as I sit writing, I too wonder where it goes from here.

  Chapter 15

  Not even a single moment of pain.

  Red becomes a black hum becomes a blinding (if only there were eyes to see) white dot (or is it a wave?) that hurtles towards what-was-once-Lime (or does what-once-was-Lime hurtle down a tunnel towards it?) and a lone female voice sings the most beautiful requiem (if only there were ears to hear) to accompany the descent. A fall into the light down the barrel of gun and out the other side of the hole.

  The requiem reaches its crescendo.

  A ripping and tearing pull away from the illusion of solidity as a bone-like grip lets go and opens into a vastness of luminosity beneath. A sky filled with sombre and tempestuous clouds of suffering that appeared to be churning gas but were as hard as a diamond.

  The turmoil of matter.

  Now gone.

  Awareness of floating.

  A mote of dust.

  Floating down now from the solid sky towards a glowing ocean far far below.

  This was how a snowflake must feel, and billions of snowflakes made up the snowfall storm. The light below, a calm sea of infinite brightness. Tendrils both immeasurably thick and diaphanously fine grew up from the peaceful liquidity towards the sorrowful firmament. All of those tendrils ending in an immeasurable number of translucent threads some decaying into snowflakes, some pulled taut, some throbbing and gorging on life.

  As the snowflake passed through them it knew that they were life in its total immensity. A cat in Venezuela munching on a scrap of tissue paper. A grandmother in London urinating into knickers out of desperation. Bacteria on a moon in a galaxy far far away from the one that the snowflake had imagined. An emperor playing with his Fu Manchu moustache. Plants there were no words for in other universes to the one that had been his.

  Sense of time vanished.

  Past, present and future - No need.

  The glowing snowflake came to rest on the top of a wave that moved. A wave that stayed still. The vestige of a notion of the corporeal began to dissolve into the liquid consciousness. The snowflake disgorged what was once its mind.

  Its joy burst out into a minuscule fluorescent ornate triangle that zipped into its new home.

  Its self-pity a long tube, thin enough to see its ribs.

  Its pride, fat and bloated.

  Its fear, a dog head whimper.

  Its anger, the largest of all. A giant chimera. A shark. A wild boar. Vénonique crying tears of blood and shrieking for vengeance.

  Turning upon themselves and each other for all of that never ending second. Scattered and ragtag as they tore themselves from the snowflake there was that feeling.

  Then they were gone.

  That feeling.

  Pure oceanic bliss.

  *

  The snowflake was and was not.

  The uncanny flora and fauna of that place sometimes floated by the crest of the snowflake's wave. A trillion shapes in ectoplasm. Iridescent living splashes of colour, senses become physical.

  The innumerable metamorphosis of the gibbering voices of the discarded and the jagged instincts of killers and the jelly thirteen pointed stars of laughter.

  The waves around the snowflake talked to it without words.

  Their soothing vibrations reassured it of the peace that was in letting go.

  The snowflake waited.

  *

  “GET A MOVE ON, LIME!!” echoed through the sea from somewhere else and a millennium passed in the blink of the celestial eye.

  All was forgotten but the strange ebb and flow of the sea.

  Then suddenly, it felt an uneasiness flow over it.

  A hatred pure and simple was lying next to it.

  Purring and sucking.

  It was Anger.

  “Not … Finished ...”, the dark chimera resonated.

  “Must … Return ...”

  The snowflake felt a twinge that became a pull.

  “Véronique …!!” the girl's head soundlessly cried as drips of blood flowed from her eyes dropping to the liquid to become sharp rose petals that sliced through sea as they floated away.

  “Véronique …! Véronique …! Véronique …!” the heads all shrieked.

  The snowflake stirred and became blood red.

  “Véronique!” came a thought.

  “Vengeance ...” came another and the ocean began to boil in far places.

  “HURRY UP, LIME!”

  The snowflake leapt onto the back of its anger as the waves all hummed their unhappiness and across world's of liquid the sea disgorged its hope and fear and joy and its lust ejaculated bullets as it spurted and they all rose and crashed and slammed and fucked and nuzzled into each other as essence became substance and HE rocketed up towards the solid momentary turmoil of existence. The mirage of the sad.

  And HIS tendrils burnt in their wake.

  And HE joined the tendrils that led to HIS life splitting into one and then another universe.

  The cosmos blossomed open as the snowflake flew passed nebulas and witnessed the violent deaths of galaxies and it nestled deep down inside HIM and the forming mess of hot spit and bile.

  *

  Then it was time to go back.

  And suddenly his nerve-endings told him that he was.

  He knew what he must do this time.

  And through his sharp inhalations and sweet aching ribs was the cruel feeling of two steel gun barrels pressed against either side of his head and then a click as he brought his head up fast knocking first one of the guns away and then the other and a finger tightened and he moved just an inch and the bullet went in but crackled and fizzled as its force was stopped by something and somehow it had wedged itself in his skull yet still the force of the blow brought him down and time slowed and he saw Hassan leap at the two odd assailants, changing as flew into a tall glowing white man. The figure rose above them in cruciform and shone a light onto the hell-mutoids that sent them screaming in fury and pain. Their bodies twitched and expanded and constricted. Body parts turned into crustacean then jellyfish then bacterial under the searing light. The man in the light grabbed something from behind himself then began firing at them with what appeared to be a silver Sten .99mm.

  As he fell, Lime saw his two albino assailants scrabble away from what-was-Hassan, tumbling and hissing like cats leaping out of bath and tumble back, light seeping from their wounds as the white figure emptied the magazine into one who danced a deadly jig and threw a dagger at the other that caught him right between the eyes and, just like that, the two hit men exploded into luminescence.

  Lime saw the blonde run up to him and hold his leaking bloody head in her hands, screaming words that he could not make out as the light haloed h
er and looking into her eyes he finally blacked out.

  Somewhere a snowflake is weeping for what it has lost.

  Chapter 16

  Piercing the soft darkness, shadows loomed and swayed until he saw the light bulb in his room at the L'Hotel Bordello. Circling the light and its cracks were a garland of faces gazing down upon Alfie Lime's head.

  Maria, Rocco, Elvis and Lily were all cooing. There was one face that he didn't recognise. The white suit. The white suit's mouth was smiling as a smoking big old cigar was stuffed into it, clamped there by his teeth and his blue eyes twinkled a cheery “How do you do?”.

  Lime's right ear felt tight and muffled and he had a banging headache just behind it. He lifted his right hand and gingerly prodded at it. It was bandaged. Underneath the dressing something small jutted out.

  “It's the bullet” grinned the blonde playfully as she brushed some straw coloured hair out of her feline eyes “It's stuck right in there”.

  *

  He had been sweating and groaning in his hotel room for three days. The white suit and Lily had stayed by his side, the white suit watching while Lily slept. The others had brought coffee and cake and mopped his brow, bed bathed and dabbed and fed him fevered water and pale soup that his mouth had taken without his brain knowing. As he had begun to stir and open his eyes, Lily had ran out of the room and summoned them all and they had come running.

  *

  Lily slept curled up at the side of the bed, looking like a lost little girl, while the white suit sat on the chair staring at Lime. Lime had sat up and was slowly sipping some dishwater broth, feeling it energise his aching joints and limbs. It was the first time that the suit had had the opportunity to speak with Lime in confidence. He was a large and muscular man. Larger, possibly, than Lime and certainly in better shape. He cut an imposing figure with a shaved head, a pirate's moustache and thin goatee under his eternally crackling stogie. His spotless white suit was accompanied by a black shirt, handkerchief and a striking white silk tie. His right ankle crossed over his left knee in a gesture of territory and confidence and showed off his leather brogues, black with white wing tips. A white fedora with black headband rested on his lap. The white suit just peered intently at Lime and puffed away like a runaway steam train.

  It was then that Lime saw that one of the suit's eyes never moved.

  It was made of glass.

  Lime licked his lips, trying to dab a rogue morsel of leek with his tongue. He swallowed some slime, ran his tongue once more over his still dry lips, then cocked his head and spoke.

  “Thanks for whatever-you-did back there at the club, I mean, much appreciated … um … saving my life an' all that and don't take this badly … but … who the fuck are you?”

  A reasonable enough, if somewhat awkwardly expressed question. The white suit leaned forward all conspiratorial and exhaled his mouthful of smoke. His voice was deep and the timbre low.

  “The name's Blake. Vincent Blake … ” he let his name hang in the air with the smoke then added “and I am your fucking guardian angel, Sonny Jim.”

  The white suit winked at Lime, who had stopped with his spoon raised halfway between bowl and mouth, and rested back on his chair, disappearing in a musky cloud.

  *

  Blake had taken a room right next to Lime's at the Bordello. Elvis had been happy to oblige and was proving himself to be a resourceful chap. Fresh clothes and bandages appeared outside Lime's door and pots of coffee and plates of food were laid on with no bill.

  On awakening three days after his arousal back to Death Street, Lime noticed two things, one: that his headache had gone and two: that he was alone. He decided that it was time to remove the bandages. He began to gently touch and prod the area where the bullet had gone in. To his surprise, there was no tenderness or inflammation. He took a small shaving mirror from the bathroom and held it behind his head so that he could see the bullet reflected in the large mirror on the cupboard door. There it was. A bullet. Around the piece of metal the wound seemed to have been cauterised and was nearly healed. It was as if he had been born with a dirty blackened lump of metal in his skull.

  He showered long and slowly scrapped the grime of being bedridden from his stiff body. Tidied up his clumsy beard. Time to face whatever life lay ahead of him. He thought of Lily. Why had she stayed and looked after him? What had exactly happened that night? and really, who the fuck was Blake, and what had he to do with all this? The questions just kept coming and he needed answers. Blake seemed like a man in the know. Lime wanted some of what he knew.

  Behind him he heard Elvis cackle …

  “No message for you …”

  … as he left the Bordello and crossed the road heading towards Maria's Occult Emporium. While he had been convalescing, he had been aware of the relationship between Blake and the three residents of Death Street. The familiarity with which they talked with each other and their solid trust of Blake. It was as if they had known each other for a long time. As if they were old, old friends or comrades. He needed to speak to Maria and suss out her friendship with Blake. Blake had saved his life but was very dangerous. There was an edge there. A sharp edge that if he stroked just a touch too hard would cut his whole arm off.

  Lime stood in front of the magnificent effigy of Saint Death in the window display and bowed his head. “We know each other, you and I” he whispered and added “and you've got one helluva singing voice, darlin'” then he blew her a kiss.

  He remembered that terrible and heart breaking requiem. He found himself secretly longing to hear it once more and fall eternally into its melody. As he neared the door, another sound tumbled into earshot. It was the sound of a violin. Lime guessed that Rocco was entertaining Maria and as he entered the colourful parlour he saw Maria whirling around and clapping her hands to the wild music flowing from the stringed instrument. When the two lovers finally emerged from their reverie and cavorting Lime clapped his own hands in appreciation of the spectacle. They sheepishly bowed and curtsied, then greeted him warmly and grabbed a whisky bottle and began pouring.

  Maria seemed to instinctively know that Lime was there to ask questions and as the second glass finished itself the subject turned to Blake. Maria's eyes sparkled all mischievous as she poured the third glass.

  “Seems like I've known him forever. Probably have. He's a good man. Like you. Listen to him” was all she would say on the matter. She found the stopper and put it back into the bottle.

  "He's at Calypso's” she told him.

  "Go find out for yourself”.

  *

  The Calypso was one of those places were twilight reigned. It did not matter whether it was two in the rain soaked morning, or a sun-kissed Sunday mid-afternoon, as soon as you crossed that threshold you were in a netherworld. A state of inbetween-ness. Shadowed crannies stood in direct opposition to the brightly illuminated bar. Away from the light, dull colours lit one's gloomy way past huddled couples seeking shelter from the wicked world and lone drinkers with million yard stares.

  The owner, Calypso, surveyed her property as a harsh queen stares out upon her complaining lands, from a booth while counting her money. She was waiting for her man to return. She did miss him so after all those years. Her loneliness had turned her to ice. The place in Death Street was all she had now.

  Lime pushed open the door as a low and heavy rock n' roll beat pulsed its way towards him. He wound his way down to the bar and was unsurprised to find Blake and Lily propping it up. Seeing Lily sat there laughing as comfortable as old chums with the mysterious Blake gave Lime a sudden stab of jealousy that he immediately shook off. They all had a lot of explaining and catching up to do.

  Lime ordered a whisky soda, which Blake paid for and the usual “how you feeling?” passed by fast enough. Lily began to stretch her arms and back and told both men that she was going back to Bordello to catch up with forty winks and to leave them to their “man talk”. This suited Lime as he had suddenly become aware of how uncomfortable he
felt being around ladies who are pleasant on the eyes for too long. He wondered if she had partly left because she suspected his social awkwardness. He suspected not. Anyway, she had taken his keys, not Blake's.

  Lime watched Lily leave with that wiggle in her walk that she had, then turned and found Blake grinning right him with the eyes of a trickster, a touch of a fool and a whole lot of sage.

  “She's something, isn't she?”

  The white suit was wearing a smile to shame a Cheshire cat. Lime looked back at the closing door then raised his eyebrows. They held each other's gaze while nodding at each other.

  “So?” spoke Lime.

  His question did not need elaborating on.

  “Here, take this.”

  Blake pulled something heavy and metallic from his inside pocket and laid it on the table. It was a pistol. An old Luger. Swastika carved on the dark oak handle. Lime was just about to ask the extraordinary man about his World War II weapon fetish when the suit grinned and edged the firearm towards Lime.

  “Just in case.”

  Lime had fired guns in the past. But always rifles, never a handgun. He picked it up and felt its weight. It was a powerful feeling touching that gun. Though part of Lime was telling himself that he should not, he liked the way it made him feel. He liked it a lot. He popped the long nosed pistol into his pocket.