A Story For Sunday : Baby's Got A Gun by Paul D. Brazill
BABY’S GOT A GUN
Nobby Noble sits at his usual table in The Cosy Café. He’s sipping a mug of milky tea and he’s got a copy of today’s Sunday Times spread out across the table in front of him. He’s staring at the cryptic crossword like it’s a magic eye picture. He’s licking and biting his lips. Furrowing his brow, as if he’s deep in concentration. Not that Nobby understands the crossword clues, mind you. It’s all gibberish to him, for sure. He’s as thick as pig shit, is Nobby. But he does have a mate who always texts him the answers to the crossword, so he can look clever to the café’s punters, who aren’t exactly the sharpest tools in the box either. His phone buzzes and he reads the message.?
Nobby smirks.
‘I think the answer to 21 down is Remembrance Of Things Past,’ he says loudly.
A couple of prune-faced old men nod approvingly, clearly impressed.
Nobby sucks the end of his betting shop biro and then carefully writes in the answer. Smirking, he sticks the biro into his earhole and cleans out a load of wax. It doesn’t seem to bother him when he sucks on the pen later. He’s a class act is our Nobby.
I’m sat at a table near his, but Nobby doesn’t notice me, even though we’ve met a couple of times before. He doesn’t register me at all. But, then, that’s Nobby all over - he’s so far up his own arse he could give himself an enema. I’ve just been paid quite a lot of money to kill Nobby. It’s not personal, of course. Though, I really can’t stand the bloke and won’t exactly be riddled with guilt after I croak him. Good riddance to bad rubbish and all that.
Everyone in the cafe is listening intently to a local radio news report and tutting accordingly. Apparently, London is now riddled with bag snatchers riding scooters. The grubby tabloid I have in front of me tells pretty much the same tale of woe. From the radio report and the café’s customers reactions, you’d think it’s the end of days but London has survived worse: the plague, the Great Fire, the blitz, the IRA, Spandau Ballet. It’ll survive this, for sure. It’s a city of survivors. I should know, I’m one of them.
Leonard Houseman, the café’s owner, limps over and chats with Nobby. They have a laugh about something or other and Leonard pats Nobby on the back. He seems to be grinding his teeth. Leonard’s a bit of a dark horse. He wears half moon glasses and a baggy beige cardigan. He looks like a librarian or an accountant but here’s something about his manner that makes me think he’s really a bit of a hard bastard. A wolf in sheep’s clothing. A man with a murky past, maybe.? Leonard goes back behind the counter and chats to Marta the little blonde Polish cook. She gives him the finger and Leonard laughs.
The late afternoon melts into evening and I sit watching Nobby drink tea and eat fried food until he completes the crossword. He gets up, picks up his ever-present blue Adidas bag and leaves.
I get up, put on my Homberg and follow him down Holloway Road. Nobby’s pretty easy to track since you don’t see that many big fat blokes wearing bright pink t-shirts, yellow sandals and red cargo shorts this time of the year. No matter how cold the weather, Nobby always dresses like he’s on holiday in the Bahamas. He suffers from generalized hyperhidrosis which means he sweats buckets pretty much all the time. And, of course, he’s clinically obese which doesn’t exactly help matters a great deal.
A lime-green Vespa hurtles down the road before jumping a red light and skidding around the corner. A police car follows, sirens wailing. An old drunk waves a fist at the police car and drops his plastic carrier bag on the pavement. The bag’s contents spill out and the old man quickly scoops them back into the bag, picks it up and heads into a nearby pub.
?The lead grey sky is pockmarked with rain clouds and by the time Nobby reaches The Luscious Launderette the rain is pouring down in sheets. I cross the road and stand in the doorway of the bakery opposite the launderette.? The smell makes me hungry and my stomach rumbles. I realise I haven’t eaten since morning. I avoid the temptation to call into the bakery for a quick snack and wait for Nobby to leave the launderette. After another few minutes, I need to go for a slash. The new hypertension tablets the doctor gave me seem to be doing the trick but they have one particularly annoying side effect: I’m always getting caught short. And at the most inopportune moments, too. Well, it’s either the drugs or it’s my age. I’m a kick in the arse off sixty, after all. It has to be expected.? I’m debating whether to pop into a nearby pub to use the toilet and grab a bite to eat when Nobby comes out of the launderette, his arm wrapped around Baby.
Now, Nobby is a big man for sure. To be honest, most people would call him a fat bastard, although not to his face, of course. But Baby Finnigan is huge, corpulent even. She wears a yellow polka dot dress and holds a yellow, polka dot umbrella aloft. In the dim and distant past, Baby had been known as Babycham 69, a semi- professional wrestler of some repute. When she retired, she opened up the launderette with money she borrowed from Nobby, one of the city’s most ruthless loan sharks. And then, more than somewhat surprisingly, Baby and Nobby had a fling which seems to have blossomed into a full blown romance.
Nobby flags down a black cab and they both get in. I call into The Queen’s Arms. I don’t worry about losing Nobby and Baby as I know exactly where they’re going. He’s a creature of narrow habit, is our Nobby. I manage to flag down a taxi a few minutes after I leave the pub. As the cab heads towards Romford, I spot the lime green Vespa I’d seen earlier. It has crashed into a Post Office van. People are standing around taking pictures with their smartphones as the scooter’s rider staggers around trying to take his helmet off. A siren screams.
‘It’s a funny old world,’ says the taxi driver, shaking his head.
‘It is that,’ I say.
*
Dog racing is supposed to be a dying sport, according to Wikipedia, but the Coral Romford Greyhound Stadium is absolutely packed. Reports of its death appear to be greatly exaggerated, it seems. You could say the same for me, I suppose. Certainly, my recent attempt at retirement was a failure with a capital F and now I’m back in the game. An ageing hit man with nothing better to so, it seems.
I sit at a table in Laurie’s Panther Bar pretending to watch the races but I’m really watching Nobby and Baby. They’re knocking back champagne like it’s tap water. Nobby is holding court, as usual, and Baby is guffawing with laughter at everything he says. Which is when I realise for sure that she’s playing Nobby like a Poundland violin. There’s no way Baby she can find Nobby so amusing. She’s many things but Baby Finnigan is no fool.
I take out my phone and send a text to my client. I tell him what I’ve found out and ask him how he wants to proceed. Whether we should just let Baby fleece Nobby and let him suffer that way. A few minutes later, he texts me back telling me to keep on with the project.? Baby and Nobby start canoodling, mouths and fingers everywhere.? I take that as my cue to leave.
*
The next day, Nobby follows the same routine as his did the day before and I follow him again. As he approaches The Luscious Launderette, a motor scooter races past me, slowing down to pull the blue Adidas bag from Nobby’s hand. However, Nobby pulls it back with force and the scooter goes over onto the pavement, spilling its rider. The rider falls into Nobby who pulls out a cosh and hits the rider on the arm.? The rider screams. There’s a loud gunshot and he falls to the ground.? I look toward the launderette. Baby’s stood in the doorway and she’s got a gun in her hand. She fires it at the rider as he tries to stand and he spins back into the road. An ice cream van skids to avoid him.
Baby rushes over to Nobby, who clutches his chest. People scream, sirens wail, and I head off in the opposite direction.
*
The Bistro is empty when I walk in. A radio plays a 24-hour news station in Italian and Alessio is behind the counter cleaning the La Spaziale coffee machine. The young Italian pretty much dotes on it. In the corner, Greta is packing the vacuum cleaner away.
‘Are you having a nice day, Mr Bennett?’ she says when she sees me walk in.
‘Yes, Greta,’ I say. ‘The weather could be better but it could be worse.’
She smiles.? I’ve tried to get her to call me Tommy but she always says that isn’t the Lithuanian way. I am her boss and her senior so I will always be Mr Bennett to her. Greta is just over forty but she is much more conservative than a lot of British women of that age.
I hang up my hat and coat and take the Daily Mirror from the counter. I sit near the window and flick through the newspaper with little interest in the world’s problems.
‘Coffee, Mr B?’ says Alessio.
‘Yes, please son,’ I say. ‘And could you make it a little Irish?’
He smiles. I open the newspaper to the crossword and think of Nobby. I can’t help but grin.
Alessio brings over my Irish coffee as Alice Merton’s ‘No Roots’ kicks out. He dances back behind the counter and I take a sip. A few minutes later, Lee Hughes walks in. Lee is tall and tanned. He has recently had his teeth bleached and blond highlights put in his hair. He’s wearing black leather and is carrying a Harley Davidson motorcycle helmet.? Lee won the lottery a bit back and has taken to employing me for what he calls payback jobs, one of which being the long overdue death of Nobby Harris who had apparently made Lee’s mum’s life a misery.
Lee says something to Alessio and smiles at Greta. He puts his helmet on my table and sits opposite me. Heavy rain machine guns the window.
‘Just I time,’ says Lee. ‘I don’t fancy riding in that.’
‘I imagine riding a motorbike in London is a bit of a high risk activity these days,’ I say.
‘A Harley Davidson is more than just a motorbike, Tommy.’
I chuckle.
‘If you like,’ I say.
Alessio brings over Lee’s espresso.
‘Have you heard what happened to Nobby?’ says Lee.
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I contacted a friend of mine that works at Hammersmith Police Station. Apparently, Nobby’s in a coma although I doubt a lack of brain activity is unusual for him.’
‘I expect Baby got herself arrested?’
‘For sure. She’ll probably plead self-defence or something.’
‘The bag snatcher?’
‘He’s in a bad way, it seems, but he’s not dead, luckily for Baby’
Lee hands me an envelope.
‘There you go,’ he says.
I pick it up.
‘This feels a bit heavy to me,’ I say. ‘Considering I didn’t finish the job.’
Lee shrugs.
‘As far as I’m concerned the job’s done. You put the graft in. The leg-work. Nobby’s out of action now. Maybe indefinitely. If he ever wakes up from that coma, maybe you can tidy things up then,’ he says, smiling.
‘Well, that’s something to look forward to,’ I say.
Lee knocks back his espresso and pats me on the shoulder.
‘Later,’ he says, and leaves.
?I gaze out of the window at the city’s rain soaked streets, the Bistro’s neon sign reflected in the pavement. The people rushing by oblivious to anyone else but themselves. I sigh, put the envelope in my pocket, and let the sense of resignation enfold me.