| The Man with the Golden Tongue | Dec 1, 2020 |
Well, you’ve seen the title, so it’s useless to pretend. I was casting around for some kind of plausible intro, and I reached for the mouse to Google, and there was Sergeant Garmendia standing by my desk:
I folded my arms. It’s always a good defensive tactic. Especially since you can unfold them later as an offensive tactic. “So,” I said, “you’re back, Garmendia. Is it about the title? The Man with the Golden Tongue? And thanks for appearing at the beginning this time,... See more Well, you’ve seen the title, so it’s useless to pretend. I was casting around for some kind of plausible intro, and I reached for the mouse to Google, and there was Sergeant Garmendia standing by my desk:
I folded my arms. It’s always a good defensive tactic. Especially since you can unfold them later as an offensive tactic. “So,” I said, “you’re back, Garmendia. Is it about the title? The Man with the Golden Tongue? And thanks for appearing at the beginning this time, by the way. It’s an enormous help in terms of continuity. I can’t tell you how much …”
“Oh no,” said Garmendia, smiling broadly. “Not the title. The title’s fine. I get that now. Actually, I’ve come to help out this time. Apart from appearing straight off and not interfering near the, er, denouement.”
“It’s dénouement, actually. Dénouement. Dé. Nouement. An acute accent on that first E,” I corrected him coldly. “As I told you last time, Sergeant, I’m busy. I’m having a hard time here. A hard time 101 with some stuff I’m working on.”
“I’m not sure you’re using that 101 properly there,” he countered. “But never mind. Perhaps I could help you out? In exchange for some LT mother-in-law malarkey subsequently, I mean. In a not too distant future. What kind of stuff are we talking about here? Is it anything like last time? Like, for example, like the Bond stuff? Like James Bond …?”
“Garmendia …” I croaked. “I think you might have hit the spot. Like James Bond, yes. Like James Bond …”
…
Pussy recovered faster. In no time at all she had Jane underneath her, pinned face down on the floor. She didn’t have the gun, but she was holding her down firmly. Jane struggled in vain.
“Well, well,” grinned Pussy. “This must be the famous 008 I’ve heard so much about. Good try, love, but no prize.”
“Why, Pussy?” I demanded to know. “Are you and Scarawanga …?”
The question amused her no end. “What, old Golden Arse and me? Are we an item? Are you kidding? Did you get a good look at him? Something only a mother could love. Scarawanga and I make a good team, that’s all. He has weapons of mass destruction, and I, well, I have … weapons of mass seduction. Like you, 007. Besides, James, think, will you? Do you really think I’m going to risk ripping my best feature apart with shards of low-quality Au? Why, you ask? Why do you think? The money, 007.” She lowered her voice a little. “ALL the money, too. Between you two, me and the wall, just as soon as the Ivans deliver the money, Golden Butt will be getting a bullet in the head at a remote location, and then Pussy Zero disappears off the radar for good,” she smiled at me.
Hearing this, Jane suddenly twisted her neck round and up to get a look at Pussy, and from where I sat I could see her eyebrows shoot up and her mouth open wide: “You’ll never get away with this …” she hissed, struggling again.
“Easy, tiger,” said Miss Zero, pushing her face down again.
“ … never, Phyllis,” said Goodbody into the floor.
Pussy started, and dragged Jane onto her knees by the hair, and stared at her.
“I thought I recognised the voice,” said 008 grimly. “I only got a glimpse of the face when I rushed in, but I got a better look just now. Phyllis. After all these years. Phyllis the …”
She was cut short as Miss Zero yanked at her hair. “Jane Goodbody. Well, what a surprise.” Her voice became harsher. “People don’t use that name anymore. Come with me, dear,” she growled as she dragged her over to the commode, stooped down and retrieved the Walther. “Now go over there and sit on the floor next to your boyfriend. … No, love, not right next to him … about six or seven feet away … yes, that’s fine. Much better.”
Curiouser and curiouser, I thought. “You two know each other?”
“Swiss finishing school buddies,” smiled Pussy. “Geneva, back in the day, as I was saying earlier.” She saw my jaw drop. “But no, James, no. Jane and I were in different dorms. But obviously there’s no need to fill Jane in – you don’t mind that turn of phrase, do you, James? – on the shadowy past I’ve been telling you about.”
Then she turned to Jane. “But, 008, there’s something that’s bothering me. I have a question for you. A very simple question, too. What the fuck are you doing here, Jane?”
To tell you the truth, I had been wondering the same thing. Without the ungentlemanly and ungentlewomanly language, though …
008 winced as she smoothed back her hair. “Apprentice 009’s cover was blown. They heard it on the wire a few hours ago. We knew you’d have been caught by now, James, and maybe even d- …” she looked at me with big sad eyes. “I was distraught. I went to see M, and pleaded with him to let me jump in. It was just a long shot.” She blew me a sad little kiss.
“Now, isn’t that romantic, James?” simpered Pussy. “The love of a good woman.”
Goodbody turned to look at her, her lip curling. “Love, you say, Phyllis? You haven’t forgotten about Anna, have you?” she hissed. “Because I haven’t. Neither have her parents. And neither have her husband’s.”
I could see Pussy’s hands shaking a little at her sides as her face fell. There was a hunted look there now. Only for a split second, of course, and then the trained killer mindset kicked in again, the fists clenched and unclenched, and the face became a mask. Definitely a huge story here. I’d have sat back and folded my arms, but I was already sat back as far as I could go, and evidently I couldn’t fold my arms, so all I could do was listen:
“Anna’s parents?” she sneered. “What do I care about her parents? As for her husband …!” – a huge rage seemed to boil up inside her, but she checked it quickly. “I … ”
She fell silent for a few seconds, and gestured vaguely around the room with my Walther. But she was feeling something different now. Her face took on a wistful look, and her voice was softer: “No, of course I haven’t forgotten about Anna. Anna from Antwerp. How could I possibly forget Anna Maertens? I loved her. I loved Anna …”
Jane rolled her eyes. “Loved her? Where do you get off? You killed that girl. You as good as killed her, Miss Bloody Zero.”
Pussy shook her head violently, and leaned back against a bookcase. “No, no. I did love her. I know it’s the worst kind of cliché, but … Anna was different. An only child. Daddy dealt in diamonds and spent more time in South Africa than Belgium. And Mummy, well, Mummy began most mornings with Jack.” “Jack Daniels,” she added, seeing my raised eyebrows – “trying to remember what Mummy had done the previous morning, afternoon and evening. Anna grew up with a nanny in a big, big house. And, when love was what she needed most, she was simply packed off to Geneva at sixteen. And that was where she found love,” said Pussy, staring unseeingly out the window, “my love. Phyllis’s love. How can anyone forget a love like that?”
Goodbody was having none of it, though: “Of course you can’t forget. Pretty difficult to forget someone you killed. Or might as well have killed. Is that why you wanted to become a professional assassin, Phyllis? Oh yes, I see now. It’s easier to forget that way, isn’t it? With all the murdering, the corpses get tangled up in your mind, they all overlap, do they, and help you forget your first kill? Is that it?”
“Like I said, she was different,” breathed Pussy. “You weren’t in our dorm. You don’t know. Anna was …” – she searched for the words – “an outsider. Always on the fringes. Not quite stunningly sculptural enough, with her just-ordinary hair and too-small breasts with a tiny little blemish on one of them, a little mole. Always running errands for the big missies, seeking any little scrap of affection she could find, always wanting to be part of the gang. But the gang didn’t want Anna. They didn’t let her be part of it.”
“Especially not the leader of the pack, that supreme bitch Aristea. I saw it on my very first day, when I was the new girl. I was sitting in the study room with a few of them, and the door opened. A little strawberry blonde poked her head around it, and looked eagerly about. “Salut, les filles!” she trilled, I remember. I raised my hand to greet this girl, and she gave me the widest and loveliest smile I’ve ever had smiled at me, just as I noticed that a few of them had looked up, but nobody said even one word to her. Then her face fell a little, it disappeared, and the door clicked shut again. Selena looked behind her. “Who was that?” “Oh, nobody,” said that proud-and-perfect Greek goddess Aristea. “Nobody at all. Just Anna.”
“When their dorm education started, that Aristea cow got one rough ride from me, I can tell you,” Pussy Zero went on. “I barely looked at the bitch as she squealed and squealed under me. Well, she would have squealed and squealed if my hand hadn’t been over her mouth, because we couldn’t risk alerting Mrs Morton at the end of the corridor. The other girls could tell this one was a little more personal, too. They all went pale as they looked over at us from their bunks. Aristea was hobbling around for days afterwards. You see, I introduced her to what they call the road less travelled by, too, and she never dared go for it again.”
“And then one day little Anna asked me so timidly if I’d “show her” too. You know, I didn’t want to. I really, really didn’t, I swear … I think I didn’t want to spoil her or something, she was so sweet. But she took my hand one day, and said she’d like to be with me, and I was just mesmerised by her. But she begged me: “Please, Phyllis. Not in the dorm, please, please don’t. Not with all the rest of them there. I just couldn’t.”
“And so,” Pussy went on, “the two of us sneaked out of the dorm unnoticed one night. I’d created a little diversion by starting a pillow-fight about half an hour before lights-out, and soon they were all leaping about pillow-casing each other.” She shook her head in remembrance. “Oh, Anna,” she sighed. “I know it’s another cliché, but that girl opened up to me like a flower. A flower with the early morning dew in it and around it. She switched on a CD player at low volume when we crept into the laundry room down the hall. Sam and Dave, it was, I remember. Near the end she rolled over on top of me, dug her nails into my shoulders and threw her head back, whispering the lyrics to one of the songs, you know the one, “Hold on, I’m coming … Hold on, I’m coming”.
Again Pussy shook her head: “You know, I didn’t even realise she was sobbing until I felt hot little tears dripping down all over my breasts. “Oh no, oh dear, Phyllis, I’m so sorry,” she said all alarmed when she finally got her breath back, and then she licked them up off me so shyly.”
As you can imagine, I was looking from one to the other now from my chair. “Killed her? What is all this? What happened to this Anna girl? …”
But it was like neither of them had heard me. Goodbody was still staring defiantly at Pussy: “So you loved her, did you? Maybe so. But, whether you like it or not, she died because of you. Do you remember, Phyllis, when we studied ‘The Ballad of Reading Gaol’? And the essay that bad-tempered bitch “Harpy” Hargreaves set us on ‘Each man kills the thing he loves’?” Particularly poignant in your case, don’t you think? … Being a man, I mean …” – at this, Jane looked her up and down disdainfully – “well, half a man, anyway …”
“That’s not true, you little tramp! I had nothing to do with it, you fucking bitch!” screamed Pussy.
Do you know, she might have had a point, and I might have been tied to a chair, but I was getting awfully tired of people calling my girl a tramp:
“That’s enough, Pussy,” I rapped. “You can’t just …”
“Shut up, 007,” she snarled.
Amazingly, Jane glared at me too. “Yes. Shut up, 007,” she echoed. “I’ll deal with this.”
“Oh, you’re going to deal with Phyllis the Psychopathic Pussy, are you? Well, that’s a load off my mind, I can tell you, 008.” I had to say something like that, you understand. It’s the training. Takes the edge off things. A firm voice, with perhaps a smidgeon of sarcasm, but the watchword is to keep calm at all times when there’s a loaded gun pointed at you. And when your girl’s in the crosshairs too, but she seems to be miffed with YOU for no obvious reason:
But both women glared at me now. “Shut up, James,” they said at once. I could have sworn there was the faintest sign of a beginning of a small glimmer of a ghost of a complicit smile on the two faces, but it might have been my imagination.
“Love? You call that love?” Jane went on. “You were infatuated with that girl. You wouldn’t let her go. Not even when she was engaged to be married. She killed herself because you just wouldn’t bloody leave her alone. I read the papers, you know. She hadn’t been married even a year. And then her husband shot himself in grief only a month later. But really, you killed both of them, Phyllis. Just as sure as if you’d pushed her off that balcony yourself, and just as sure as if you’d pulled that trigger.”
A shrill, tortured voice rang out. If I hadn’t been looking at Pussy Zero at the time, I would have sworn it came from someone else. “No, no, no, no, no! You’re wrong. You’ve got it all wrong.” She sat down on a chair, staring down at the floor, but she still had the gun between her knees. Then she looked up very slowly, her eyes shining with tears:
“Pushed her off the balcony? Do you know, it’s funny you should say that. Yes, Anna was killed in a fall from a balcony all right. And her husband was killed by a single shot to the head. But Anna didn’t kill herself, and neither did her husband. I did pull that trigger. It was me. Yes, I killed him. Because he pushed her off that balcony. He killed Anna. I was in contact with her, she was desperate, she wanted out. She’d never loved him. Her parents forced her into it kicking and screaming, but she wanted to be with me. And I wanted to be with her.”
“So, because we didn’t know what to do, I was keeping close, and she knew I was nearby, too. I was staking out the place, and that night I saw her up on the balcony looking out to see if I was around, and I saw him do it, Jane, I saw that bastard come up behind her and shove her off. You don’t know the whole story. The parents covered it all up, told everyone some redhead dyke was obsessed with her, pestering her all the time, and that’s why she took her own life. But no, he murdered Anna because he couldn’t have her. So I bided my time, and then I murdered him and rigged it to look like suicide.” She nodded at both of us, and wiped her streaming eyes. “Not too tough a trick for the likes of us, is it?” she sniffed.
I looked over at Jane. Her eyes were streaming too. Mine were making a start. Professional killers’ eyes don’t normally stream, and they certainly don’t stream all at the same time. What a mission this was turning out to be.
…
TO BE CONTINUED
[Edited at 2020-12-01 19:27 GMT]
[Edited at 2020-12-01 21:20 GMT]
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[Edited at 2020-12-01 21:54 GMT]
[Edited at 2020-12-02 08:43 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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