Author Information
idea for a book, maybe
1
“Can I take your order, sir?”
I jump, startled at the voice and look up. Just the waiter.
“Just a black coffee please.”
“Any pastry or dessert to go with that?”
“No. Just the coffee. Please.”
As he walks away, I glance at my watch, for what must be the thousandth time. Two minutes past eleven. He said be here at eleven. It’s two minutes past and he still hasn’t arrived. Did I do something wrong? Is he not coming? And, since when does a doughnut in Wimpy count as a pastry?
And, Patsy….?
I feel a twisting in my gut; my vision swims as I feel the nausea rise again. Overwhelming. The stench of stale coffee and burger fat… I lose my breathing and start to gag.
“Your coffee’s arriving. That wouldn’t look seemly.”
I catch my breath again, open my eyes. As the dark whirlpool explodes into a million shards of light, I see the waiter approaching with my coffee. And a pair of dark sunglasses, opposite me, at the table. So black, can’t see my own reflection.
“Make that two coffees. And… how are your brown derbies today? Haven’t had one those since I was a kid.”
“The finest in London, sir.”
“We’ll have two of those, as well. My friend skipped breakfast again, this morning.”
Behind the sunglasses…
Short brown hair. White skin. No facial hair…. Can’t even tell if it’s man or a woman… just those sunglasses.
“We spoke. Earlier. On the phone.”
Is it him? He came? I gotta tell him everything….
I open my mouth and gibberish comes out. The blahs and slabberings of an idiot.
A straightening of his (her) jawline. A deep breath.
A deep exhale, relaxing the muscles.
“You are confused. Stressed. Feeling panic, maybe. Do like I do. A deep breath in. And slowly, let it out.”
I do as instructed and feel exhausted as the tension leaves my body.
“We spoke on the phone. Earlier. You said you needed help.”
“Yes, I need help. Definitely fucking… Yep… need help! I found him…. they said…..” and I fall back into silence.
“I find these situations are easier if you start at the beginning.”
“Start at the beginning? What the hell does that mean?…..” I start gagging again.
“Breathe….. in…… out….. breathe….
“Okay.. let’s start from a different angle…. how did you find me?”
A deep breath in, to pause and recollect my thoughts.
“I googled…. ‘need help, don’t know what to do.’
“After twenty five pages of links to dying from cancer and buy your Russian bride here websites… I came across ‘Odd-Job Man. You don’t know what to do and you need help? I do the oddest of jobs. Discretion Guaranteed!”
“You just went all tense and scary, what did I say wrong?”
A deep breath from Sunglasses… exhale…. slowly….
“Nothing…. seriously…. google search? That’s really how you found me?”
“Yes.”
“Just, straight google?… not dark web… private VPN… summin like that?”
“No, no…. just google. Don’t even know what the other two are.”
“OK. Google.” A deep breath in. “I’m really gonna have to work on my advertising and promotion…. OK…. Why did you call me?”
“They got Patsy. They killed him. They say say they going to kill her.”
Having said them, my words chill me. I feel my skin prickle with the iciness of fear. My stomach just melts into warm mush. My vision melts into kaleidoscopic images as the tears well up in my eyes…. I feel a crushing pressure in my shoulder and look up to see an outreached arm and the hand gripping my shoulder.
“Remember to breathe. Slow…”
I follow that advice. The madness dissipates…
I look up into those sunglasses.
“Who’s Patsy?”
“Patsy?… Patsy?… who’s Pa…”
It’s like a firework went off…
I sit up straight and look around. A burger bar… a coffee in front of me… and Sunglasses sitting opposite me.
“Patsy’s my sis……”
The world explodes into a cacophony of madness. One giant ‘BOOM!’ unleashes the 1812 overture…. loud, deafening bangs… tables splintering and falling… the wall puckering out… spitting debris all over me.. people falling.. and screaming…
A pressure forces me to me knees… I recover myself and look up… to see Sunglasses beside me, pushing me down….
“Get low! Stay down! Do as I say!”
He has a gun in his other hand… what the…..
The world explodes into the brightest light I’ve ever seen… the loudest thunder I ever heard… blind… deaf… I try to stand… feel a solid… and know nothing but blackness…..
2
I feel a rhythym, a rumbling….
I hear…. everything… nothing… it’s all indistinct.…
I open my eyes.
And close them as burning pain racks every fibre of my being…
“Ah. You’re awake. Breathe in… and out… sorry, but your head’s gonna hurt for a little while. Things went bad, back there and I had to… improvise…”
Little by little, I open my eyes again. Everything still hurts, but not as much…
The blackness of a million fireworks exploding, slowly fades into the back seat of a dimly lit car.
“You were saying… Patsy’s your sister…?”
Patsy? Sister?…
I start to sit up as I remember.
“NO! NO! Stay down for now!”
…. and the back window explodes in to a million splinters…. prickling me a thousand times over as I’m showered in the debris.
My stomach heaves as the car lurches to the left.
The indistinct sounds dissolve into squealing tyres and… bangs… pops… repetitive, explosive drumbeats… and crashing glass and whispers buzzing past my ear…
“Who’s they?”
“What? What the f…. where am I?”
“You said, ‘They’ve got Patsy. Who’s ‘They’?
“What the… Patsy… who’s got Patsy?” My head feels so sluggish…warm… I close my eyes.. just a second… so warm…
“The ‘THEY’ who are shooting at us!”
…. shooting… WTF?….
I sit bolt upright….
“Sh..sh…shoot….”
“Yeah, damn, right, shooting at us!”
My left cheek explodes into warmth as the window shatters beside me.
And I huddle, right down to foetus, birth position, on the back seat of a strange car. Nearly thumb in mouth, baby-style, as glass splinters rain over me.
I scream…. “Please, WTF is going on?”
