I was quite fond of my earliest book covers, MS Paint vector-graphic cartoon-like computer colouring-book imitation things that screamed 'home-made' and didn't pretend to be anything otherwise. But like all the best nostalgia, I knew they didn't have staying power, weren't even intended to have lasted more than an unpublished author profile originally, and at some point would be at least half-relegated to history.
All books get revamped and re-launched and redesigned over time. You only have to look at the latest official covers for Arthur Conan Doyle and Jane Austen. They're not sticking with what they started out wearing.
So for this season, Death & The City will mostly be wearing:
Followed by...
Along with...
And of course...
And elsewhere...
Fashion is a fickle friend, but to me these combine just the right amount of creepy and crazy to keep me happy for the forseeable present ;)
DEATH & THE CITY: BOOK ONE and DEATH & THE CITY: BOOK TWO by Lisa Scullard, are both currently free in the Amazon Kindle stores until the end of Monday 27th August 2012 (PST). Click the link/image above for more background info, yet another excerpt, and download links.
Rating: Moderate - no graphic or explicit content (suitable for all literary genre readers)
EXCERPT: From BOOK TWO - Chapter 26 - The Hollywood Method...
A police uniform driver takes us back to Connor's place, and all he has to say about it is that he wishes he had bigger plastic covers on the seats. Most of the blood is drying on now, and my clothes feel stiff and tacky, adhering to me unpleasantly in places. It reminds me of the incident where a customer was bottled in the neck, and I went home and sat on the sofa alone with a cup of tea for nearly two hours without moving afterwards, with the tea going cold, and my clothes plastered onto me with blood.
Connor's not going to let me do that this time, because he's concerned that there's still a chance of catching something from the blood of Scarecrow Wolf boy Justin. He takes me straight into the downstairs shower next to the study, fully clothed, and turns on the water.
"Maybe I'll sober up as well while I'm in here," I say. He peels off his t-shirt and uses the back of it, which isn't bloodstained, to start cleaning up my face and around my eyes. "I can do that, it's okay."
"I can see better than you where the blood is. You just help by doing me."
The water pouring down isn't shifting the dried blood on its own. I squeeze some shower gel onto my hands and rub it into his neck and around his ears, helping the smudges dissolve and sluicing them down his arms.
"You need to wash your hair," he says, matter-of-factly.
"So do you." I try to rub caked-on blood from his eyebrows and jaw line.
"Take this off." He tugs the front of my t-shirt. "Don't be funny, come on. It's covered. Arms up."
I raise my arms obediently and he strips it off, dropping it on the floor of the shower. He rubs blood off my arms and neck, then reaches for the shampoo.
"Hold your hands out," he says, and pours some into my hands for me to use before starting on his own. "Tell me if I miss any."
I watch as he rinses his hair, scrunching shampoo through my own, feeling it clogged in the lengths.
"Nearly," I tell him, as he rubs water out of his eyes. "Just the back of your ears, I think."
He turns around so that I can check, and I find a streak left behind one ear, which rinses away as I wipe it.
"Need some help with yours?" he asks, turning back round. It's more rhetorical that he's asking, because he helps anyway, adding more shampoo to the ends of my hair, which came out worst.
"Smells of limes," I remark, looking at the shampoo bottle. "It's not helping me sober up. I'm just thinking about tequila instead."
"Yeah, I did think you'd had enough," he smiles, turning my shoulders gently so that my back is to him, and he can see the back of my head, which as he clicks his tongue sounds like it didn't miss out on the gore. He coaxes the tangles out by threading my hair through his fingers slowly, easing out the blood clots along with the shampoo bubbles. "Hopefully we won't have to do that again. I don't like working in a confined space like that. Not in public either."
"It's a bit Hollywood stereotype hit-man," I agree.
It goes quiet, as I get used to feeling his fingers comb through my hair, the only sound being the water drumming down onto us from the shower. I feel him squeeze the last of the shampoo out down the length of my hair, and his hands rub the backs of my arms briefly.
"Thanks," I say, turning back to face him. He's very close, studying me. "Has it all gone?"
"Think so," he nods. His hands move up to my shoulders and he kisses me. I don't think he intended it to be more than just one, but as we part and our eyes lock he moves in again. I feel a bit weakened and dizzy from alcohol, so as he goes further, an involuntary sound of protest escapes me, as I feel my back pushed up against the wall of the shower.
"Okay." Connor turns the water off, and pulls me away from the tiles into his arms, grabbing a towel and wrapping it around me. "Glad you didn't just switch the water on to Cold, but I get the message."
"Didn't know how to," I say.
"Wouldn't be right anyway. We've both had a drink this time. Having sex drunk is really last Millennium."
The author, Lisa Scullard - on duty, Ocean & Collins nightclub, Southampton 2008
NEWS: The individual, exclusive-to-Amazon Kindle ebooks of Death & The City: Book One and Death & The City: Book Two will be FREE on Amazon Kindle worldwide, on these dates:
December 25th and 26th 2011 (48hour free promotion, PST)
January 1st and January 2nd 2012 (48hour free promotion, PST)
Both books will be free in both promotion slots scheduled Happy holidays!! :)
Death & The City - the story:
Lara Leatherstone - not her real name, she picked it from an online Porn Star Name Generator - is just trying to live in peace with her daughter 'Junior', with whom she discusses the everyday mundane aspects of life such as zombie console games, changes of identity, and occasionally, the best means of despatching unwary hit-men.
Her regular job as nightclub door supervisor - bouncer, if you're old-school - is the best vantage point from which to deal with contract killers as they pass through the hospitality industry. At least as far as her blackmailers, 'head office' are concerned. It's an amicable arrangement - she stops contract hits from being carried out, and they try to find out what her weak points are, now that her former dissociative psychosis seems to be wearing off. They've tried just about everything - offering designer shoes, plastic surgery, holidays, tree-houses, knitting vouchers - the fact that she already feels like a schizophrenic Barbie doll, with a wardrobe full of possibly knocked-off designer gear bought in online sales next to her uniforms and bar-crawl fancy-dress, means they're not getting very far with that. And it looks like they might need to start recruiting replacements pretty soon, if she can convince them she's fully capable of walking away from the job.
So they try a different tack, and give her a promotion and a wing-man to watch her back. She's not keen on their first choice - but once they agree on a second, it's not just head office's hidden agendas that she's concerned about...
DEATH AND THE CITY (Genre: romance/mystery/crime) is available in these formats - 'Tales Of The Deathrunners' 2-in-1 paperback & hardcover exclusive to Lulu.com, paperbacks from Createspace, Amazon and other outlets such as Barnes & Noble, and in the special extended DEATH & THE CITY:HEAVY DUTY EDITION eBook from Amazon Kindle, Kobo, B&N, Diesel Ebooks, or Smashwords for ePub/Nook/Sony.
Alice heads upstairs with her Ginger Latte and a cream Bath bun, and Connor and I follow presently, after a fight over the last chocolate brownie. He wins by rock-paper-scissors, meaning I get carrot cake instead with my Maple Syrup Latte. As we sit down in the window sofa as before, side-by-side, he splits both in half so we share equally anyway - and I realise he just enjoys winning a fight, over just about anything.
Alice is curled up in a huge armchair in the opposite corner like a Jackanory storyteller, the 'Kitty, Kitty' free Spring catalogue open on her lap. She's texting behind it, obviously adding to her own story with her latest inspiration.
"What did you get?" Connor asks, nodding towards my shopping bag. "And when do I get to see you in it?"
"Never mind," I say indignantly, not sure I can handle this level of conversation in public, under the circumstances. "Something they recommended."
Connor just grins, not in the least bothered. I think he likes seeing me squirm as well.
"You could wear it on our next proper date," he suggests, catching me out.
"When?"
"Sunday," he reminds me. "I did ask already."
I nod, vaguely remembering something to that effect. I feel as though it was someone else having that conversation at the time. Connor watches as I peel off the biker jacket, and after I put it down, he picks it up and finds my wallet in the inside pocket, flipping it open and sliding out my cards and I.D.
"What are you looking for?" I ask, not in the least fazed by his curiosity.
"You," he says, finding my photo I.D. "Here you are. Recognise yourself?"
I glance at my driver's licence in his hand. My hair used to be dark, but it's still me. I have a weird feeling, sort of a settling sensation, as if I've been in an out-of-body experience all morning. Seeing the photograph of myself is the necessary grounding force to bring me back down to Earth.
"That's what I thought." Connor puts it away again. "Transference. Spend too much time focusing on someone else, you lose your own sense of self. Remote influencing acting on the observer, not on the subject. Like Flynn said, you're a psychological sponge. To be honest, I don't think this is the work direction they should be pushing you in, for your own sake."
I shrug.
"They think I'm good at it."
"Yeah, you are, because you forget yourself in the process. I think you should be doing something that reinforces who you are, instead of steals you from yourself."
"Maybe I don't want constant reminders of who I am," I remark.
"Too late," Connor smirks. "Because you've got me backing you up now."
As I look at him, with no idea of what to say, he leans over and gives me a kiss.
"I don't know who I am in this situation," I confide, before he moves away. "Only what I read in other people."
"Nobody knows who they really are," he whispers in return. "You just have to wait and see how you deal with your own reality, not try and predict it, by projecting how you'd cope in someone else's."
He sits back and rests his arm around my waist as he sips his black coffee, glancing out of the window. Now I find myself wondering how he does it. Apart from admitting to his own self-control issues. Even without that, he still has a stronger sense of his own identity than I do.
Also, I don't know how he seems to have all the answers to mine as well. It's as if I've been studied under a microscope. He seems to know fairly certainly what's me and what isn't, and how to keep what is me on the right track. And without all the peer counselling techno-jargon of the sort I'd get from either group therapy, or someone like Warren. Connor just cuts out all the social niceness and politically-correct preliminaries, and gets straight to the point.
"What do you suggest I should be doing instead, then?" I ask, more as a challenge than a concession. Connor smiles to himself and doesn't quite make eye contact.
"I've got a pretty good idea," he admits. "Been trying to talk you into it for a while already."
"Now I reckon you really are just brainwashing me," I tell him, and he chuckles and shakes his head.
"More than you were getting brainwashed before I turned up just now?" he says, looking at me. There's still a slight smirk on his face, but his eyes are saying something else I'm not familiar with. Before I can start trying to break it down into logical conclusions, my phone reminds me what I'm doing here with another update.
Out of the corner of my eye, Alice is now settled with her soup-tureen-sized coffee, gazing out of the window in a Hollywood starlet faraway-thoughts photo-opportunity pose. Probably at least half real, the other half part of her developing current secret life fantasy, acting how she wants to appear to others. Mysterious and thoughtful and aloof. Not empty-headed, gullible and suggestible. That would be me, if I put on any act. The dumb blonde reality would show me up every time. I can't even do cute and scatty, the generally accepted face of internalised self-denial. It's like Martha, adhering to her cultural background in the modern world - watching Alice hang onto her fantasy life in spite of the evidence to the contrary. I don't seem to have any tenacity in comparison. Too willing to let go of ideas, and self, and reality.
I pass my phone to Connor and let him read the incoming update first, in case he considers anything in it hazardous to my allegedly ongoing identity crisis, or at least to allow him to pre-empt anything in it that is. He scrolls through, before handing it back.
"Reminds me of a documentary monologue by someone not otherwise known for their introspection," he remarks. "Reaching around for something deep and meaningful to say when you know they get their groceries delivered by Harrods and unpacked by their house staff, and all their laundry done by a hotel service. The most they see of a kitchen is when they go to look for a corkscrew."
I nod, familiar with that type of entertainment in the Media. Give a celebrity a camera and send them off to survive for a week in a Council flat, or working in a fast-food joint. Suddenly they come over all philosophical and philanthropist, not realising they're going to be showing themselves up as having thought nothing much about anything for the last decade or more. Other than their pole-position ranking on the red carpet, and their page number in the tabloids. But then the broadcasters probably don't see it either, being part of the same bubble. It's hard to say what is intentionally ironic in the Media nowadays. With so many people wanting to challenge the public perception of themselves, and ending up reinforcing it, it's no wonder there's an endless supply of it about. Running vicious circles around themselves as they try to stay in the public eye, and yet be more to the public eye than just eye candy. Exploiting anything of any humanitarian value within their own comfort zone, as if the rest of the world isn't aware of humanitarian issues, in order to somehow become more human themselves. There is something vampiric about it, eternal life by the suffering of others. I can't remember a time celebrity pressure ever changed the licensing laws at The Plaza, so why they think it should change laws and policies in foreign countries is a mystery. Probably easier to get public support for, than carrying no formal I.D, coked out of their heads, and drunkenly trying to bluff their way past a nightclub door supervisor (who's already having a crap night) into a gay strip bar.
Probably the reason they do it, I muse to myself, re-opening the file Connor has just browsed on my phone. Proving they're more than those sweaty alcoholics falling off kerbs and out of taxis in London's West End, where they're mostly known for wasting police time, and that getting on TV in places like The Gambia is better than being seen in Groucho's. As if central Africa is a posh yob's club outside of SIA and the licensing law's jurisdiction, where they don't have to adhere to a dress code and not swear. A combination of edgy open-air rock festival celebrity dive, and minimalist detox holiday for the rich. The opposites of Robin Hood, feeding their self-image and ego off the poor locals.
Connor was bang on the money in his response to her internet blog post. There's a lot of I feel that… opening sentences, fairly typical of someone with nothing real to say and a lot to speculate about. Speculating about the risks of underestimating the dangers that could be ahead, and keeping her identity secret, the thrill of a new challenge in uncharted waters, and the responsibility of such a task being given to her. And about what levels in society she must now be expected to mingle and familiarize herself with, whether her acting skills are up to standard in order to fit in, and not arouse suspicion. All acutely contrived clichés that could be applied to any new job, from Benefits Fraud Investigator, to Mystery Shopper, to Government Advisor On Education. She's got the skill of weaving stereotyped statements together vaguely enough to attract unqualified attention, not quite Mills & Boon standard, but definitely bored online bingo chat-room fodder, or Miss Haversham's Raffia Mafia audience. But still with nothing substantial or detailed or concrete enough to be termed a work of serious insight. More a fashion-victim of her own storylines, following whichever path she notes gains her the most attention. Maybe increasing her blog followers today by me and a couple of idle police monitors is spurring her on to write more about anything that comes into her head, fulfilling what she perceives is her public's demand.
Remote influencing by audience. Like offering a reward for information, but not specifying either the information or the reward. The speaker knows a reward is forthcoming for filling their airtime in a worthy way, and the Scheherezades all come out of the woodwork. Kiss and tell or kill and tell, it's all filling the same awkward silence there would otherwise be instead, if everyone kept everything about themselves confidential.
I put my phone away and lean on Connor as he pulls me towards him gently, my brain wearing me out as it tries to smash holes in anything that looks like a cliché in my own present situation. Even not saying anything, I'm glad he's here, because so far he's the only person who can listen to my silences and seems to understand them.
"I think she just likes the sound of her own voice, in any given format," he murmurs. "This is just the outlet she has when there's nobody in front of her to share it with. Share whatever fantasy she's currently living in."
"Speaking her internal voice out loud, like internet Tourette's Syndrome," I sigh in return. "That's why it's so weird. It sounds like someone thinking aloud, but not with anything genuinely on their mind. Clutching at straws for things to say."
"Do you have an inner voice like that in your collection?" he asks me.
"I have an inner narrator on constant watch whose job it is to wrangle all the others, so mostly I hear that one trying to keep track of everything, and who are the real people and who are the ones inside my head," I admit. "I'm sure I did have a voice like hers, when I was about four, and thought that the Christmas Tree Fairy was a real job prospect for the future."
Connor just grins.
"Aha," he remarks. "Christmas Tree Fairy."
"What about it?"
"Nothing. Just something I was thinking about earlier."
I get another text, this time from Niall Taylor. Fancy a drink b4 work 2nite? X
"Is it Thursday today?" I ask Connor. "I thought you lot were picking him up?"
Connor glances at the message, frowns and gets his own phone out, pressing Autodial on his last caller to ring head office. He keeps the speaker on Privacy due to the public surroundings, but considering the clamour of shoppers, and chatter of other people on mobile phones, there would be little chance of being overheard in the cacophony.
"What's the latest on Taylor?" he asks. He listens for a few moments and then hangs up without saying anything else.
"Girlfriend withdrew her complaint," he says, abruptly. "Doesn't sound good. Try to avoid him, unless you want to end up in his next photo album with her."
"Is he off the list, does that mean?" I ask.
"Unless he picks up a contract any other time he's bored, and looking for extra cash," Connor tells me, and drains the last of his coffee. "But when I'm bored, I can always pick him up for something minor and make him an appointment with the rubber-glove team. Along with the rest of those perverts you work with. Keep away from him."
He looks at his watch as he replaces his cup back on the table.
"I've gotta go, they want me back on site," he says. "I'll catch you after work tonight. Don't buy too many more shoes to go with that outfit."
He gives me a kiss and squeezes my hand, before he gets up and heads out.
"Yeah, be careful," I mutter to myself.
I put my phone away without replying to Taylor. I don't know whether I have any loyalties at all at the moment, never mind divided ones.
Alice starts texting again. On top of everything else, now I'm going to have to wade through more of her Twaddle looking for anything useful. At least this is where having been a blackmailer comes in handy. If anything has any leverage value, my past self will recognise it. But not necessarily for the reasons head office want me to.
I find the free catalogue in my shopping bag and flick through it idly, my rebel streak finding the shoe pages and skimming through them. Designer hi-jacked styles in PU and faux suede look attractively photographed but fail to thrill me much, seeing as most of what I've already collected is the real thing, and was cheaper on iBay and official sales than they're charging for their brand new plastic rip-off copies. Although I do get an idea or two for customising shoes, including corsage decorations and big satin bows, the kind of thing not suitable for work in any context. Sitting-down shoes. The most walking they do is between taxi and front door.
My phone vibrates again with the latest update, and I'm doubtful how long the battery will last under the onslaught of all the attention. It's a Tweak update.
I'm looking at my first assignment now. Tall, dark, attractive, Sicilian - possible Mafia connections. My heart is racing. He doesn't know he's being watched - just walking his Great Dane like he hasn't a care in the world. Not like I imagined a murderous crime lord. I'll have to keep my emotions cool and distant - otherwise I could be in a different sort of danger…
I look up at Alice quizzically. She too is perusing shoes in the catalogue, tapping her phone against her bottom lip and smiling to herself. She seems to have another idea and starts texting again, entirely in a world of her own.
Fuckanory, my inner teenage critic announces. She's not just a slightly brainwashed attention-seeker. She's a liar.
Head office must have something evident to want her followed, otherwise I'm on a pointless mission to read her FBI assassin fan-fiction while she sits blogging in coffee shops, like a younger Rowling planning to harvest the souls of a generation with her thinly-disguised Blyton meets Pratchett mash-ups. I text head office. CAN YOU BACK TRACE THE CASH SHE PAID IN KITTY KITTY? They reply immediately with: Will do at point of banking. I put my phone away and turn to the underwear pages, looking for a distraction. It's bad enough that I have my own alternate realities to contend with in everyday life. Now I'm going to have to deal with at least three more of Alice's - the reality, the brainwashed cult identity, and the escapist fiction...
A staff meeting at The Zone prior to opening reveals that after tonight, those of us on loan from The Plaza will be heading back there (to the sound of much groans and moans by those not looking forward to returning to Mgr Diane's clutches), as enough new door staff have now been recruited for the venue to run on. And also a heads-up about a fire drill Evac at some point tonight, as the Fire Brigade are due to check our new alarm system and evacuation procedures.
I notice already that Hurst and Jag Nut are absent, replaced by new recruits, and also Niall Taylor, which gives me a small amount of relief. So it's pretty much only me, Animal, Cooper and Salem left of the original reinforcements, that I'm on familiar terms with. Cooper is looking kind of deflated, like he can't wait to leave and get back to his comfortable Plaza, with its dozens of secret links, corners and offices he can hide in. And Salem can't wait to ditch the neon pink Zone front-door hi-vis, which he says is only suitable for Downtown Willy's gay comedy club, opposite The Dog Star, where I shot camp hit-man Phil Preston the other day.
The new guys, in contrast, look serious and overly-professional, like an Airfix model Army. Probably recruited straight from the membership list of Heath Gardner's gym and sauna, then vetted by Mgr Stacie's eye for sun-bed use and good dental work. Hurst would call them shirt-fillers - new licence-holders, no old school experience in any of them. Just the one goofy-looking guy, who is probably the token First-Aider, perhaps from leisure centre pool life-guarding or the Territorial Army. Solange is flirting relentlessly with most of them, while Pascaline ignores everyone, texting on her phone in a corner, or vanishing to the toilets to make calls. Apparently those two girls are staying on here. Solange is happy, with so many Action Man dolls around her to choose from, while Pascaline just looks pissed off. She used to do Downtown Willy's front doors with Phil Preston. Funny, I haven't heard anything about who might have been sent to work there, as replacements. Mostly the two managers stand on the front doors of the club, as per their SIA licence-holder status entitlement, so Phil and Pascaline were the eye candy. Whose eye - it's hard to say.
Mgr Stacie looks happy with her own new eye candy, anyway. I imagine it won't be long before Mgrs Diane and Melanie are sneaking up here, with their camera phones, or arranging V.I.P. staff nights out to The Zone in order to Facebuddy the new door supervisor talent. Mind you, most of the Zone's barmaids also look like supermodels, so it'll be a full claws-out competition if they set their sights on anyone working here. Would be a relief to the likes of Ryan, Joel and Harry though, to get a bit of breathing space for themselves. Doorman Harry's actually married, although you wouldn't think so to look at him, and by the way he behaves. Apparently his wife's a geriatric nurse who likes to pole-dance when she's drunk. My psychosis has a problem with trying to picture this, having never met her face-to-face. I don't know if it means she's a pole-dancing retired elderly nurse herself - or a nurse who treats older persons, and I don't like to ask. Either would be believable - Harry has celebrity crushes on everyone from Shakira and the Olsen twins to Tina Turner, Ruby Wax and Joan Rivers. His only regret in life is he's too young ever to have met Mae West. Bit of a strange lad at times.
I think I've missed his greetings of announcing he wants to punch someone, over the last week. It's all a bit uptight and image-conscious here in The Zone.
Cooper hangs around the end of the bar, chatting idly with me as the shift starts on my bar island position, and I have a weird sense of him looking for his own reality check, which I can't help noticing I don't have a copy of on me tonight. He seems a bit too random, a bit too escapist in mood, like someone's been trying to pin him down of late. I can imagine who that might be. He seems to want to talk work, and general doorman gossip, in a way I realise makes him feel more secure in his senior door role. Even though he's several years younger than me and I've been doing the job twice as long as him, I'm always polite enough not to point this out. Not to his face.
"Have the others gone back to The Plaza already?" I ask instead, encouraging him with my lack of inside knowledge on current migratory door staff events.
"Hurst and Niall are back there tonight, Jag Nut went to his uncle's funeral today, so he's on annual leave," Cooper divulges. He accepts a glass of water from one of the bar staff, and looks at the swirling bubbles from the tap suspiciously, putting it down on the bar and watching to see if they settle.
"What happened to his uncle?" I ask. "I heard it was something sudden."
"Old landmine. He was clearing No-Man's-Land ex-security checkpoints with his team abroad. Tripped a twenty-year-old roadside bomb. Unlucky sod. Puts me off the thought of going to war for real." Cooper shakes his head as a thin cloudy layer of scum gradually forms on the surface of his glass of water. "What the Hell is that stuff in the water, are we really drinking this shit?"
"Might be residue from the glass washer tablets," I point out.
"Don't think I want to drink that either, the last thing my intestines need is a diamond-like sparkle to them," Cooper remarks, and feels in his pockets around his phone and keys for change. "Another crappy tight-wad venue that won't give its staff free drinks. Do you want a can of pop? It's all right, I'll sort you out."
I accept a cola and we both snap our tins open in front of a passing Mgr Stacie's cold nod of disapproval. Cooper glugs half of his in one gulp in order to summon a deliberately mutinous burp.
"Lara," he teases, blaming me humorously. "Gross."
I know it's immature, but I grin anyway. The situation needs lightening up generally.
"Doesn't matter, we're out of here for good at the end of tonight," he reminds me. "Might as well do what we like. Have a wander. It's this bunch of stuffed shirts who have to impress the managers now, not us. I'm off to see if there's anything not nailed down that would look good in the boot of my car."
He grins at me and saunters off. This time I know he's joking. Everything here is nailed down.
I head up to the D.J. capsule overlooking the club, and find Crank in a similar rebellious mood, eating Chinese out of the cartons, listening to Santana, and chatting on Waffle on the venue's 'Free Whiffy' wireless internet, while R&B chart trash is piped out of the mixing desk into the club.
"Thought you were off to Vegas," I greet him, as he offers me a salt-and-pepper battered king prawn.
"Decided to take the double or nothing route," he says. "Baccarat at 11:00 p.m. If I win I get to take a plus one to Vegas and fly First Class. Got any annual leave? You could be my close protection security for my million dollars."
"Sounds like fun," I remark, washing down the prawn with a gulp of cola.
"I'm serious," he says, eyebrows raised. "I'm planning on taking my winning trip in time for the Dance D.J. convention. If I win that in Vegas, I get a trip to Miami to perform at the Latino Beach Ball. From there, it's a short hop to Trinidad and Tobago to go house-hunting. Come fly with me. It'll be fun. Get you out of this dive for a few days."
I chuckle.
"Just show me the tickets, and I'm all yours," I joke, taking another prawn as he holds out the container.
"Deal," he grins.
As he withdraws his hand holding the empty container, and stretches out to drop it on the D.J. console beside his feet, which are resting up on it, the sleeve of his grey marl No Fear sweatshirt hikes up. Before I turn to leave, my brain has registered a huge diamond Rolex on his wrist, high-roller style.
Imagining things, I tell myself. Not that I'd even have recognised it, from some P. Diddy promo or anything like that…
...Crypto's impressionable barmaids have undergone a transformation overnight. There's so much fake tan they look like they lost a peanut-butter vs. gravy-browning fight. Primarni's underwear section must have sold out of jello-bras. Blingtastic Booty has definitely done a good deal on shoulder-dusting dangly earrings and clip-on hair extensions today. It looks like it was buy the earrings, get the Porn Star locks free. Waists are cinched in, hipsters are low and diamanté-spangled thongs are pulled high. Pierced plastic nails are in serious danger of gouging the bar, as change is gathered and counted.
Sadie, whose weekend off bar-duty for a family wedding last night meant she missed the newcomer, has come in for a drink to gloat about 'being virtually a bridesmaid' and to show off photographs of herself yesterday in her designer frock. Upstaging the bride evidently not a concept in her Universe. And has turned up rather tragically for her in her occasional anti-fashion-statement baggy brown trousers, innocent-farm-girl lumpy sweater, khaki Moon boots, Michael Caine National Health glasses, and Detective Columbo dirty mac. Which she wears when she wants to make everyone else look tarty, and herself look suitably student-like, interesting and artsy (and to get compliments about how she scrubs up well in a posh dress and heels when she shows off the photographic evidence). To be faced on her arrival with a red carpet effort by the other girls, and a new Adonis in a black uniform on the door team. A clamp could not have kept her mouth shut when it dropped open in shock. I wonder whether to warn her that walking around in public dressed like a tramp is quite hazardous at the moment, but Elaine runs around from behind the bar and gives me a massive hug and conspiratorial giggle.
"I've just looked at Sadie's Twaddle update, and she's posted on it that the Crypto Club has gone really downhill all of a sudden and not worth a visit," she confides. "Look at her - just because she thought the object of attention was going to be her tonight, and she missed the whole Joel Doorman boat. It's like she just fell off the Moon. I think a disciplinary might be in order for slagging off her place of employment on a public website, don't you?"
"Yeah, but you know the people who understand Sadie," I reply, unable to hold back a smile myself. "It'll only attract more people here wanting to know what's wound her up, so they can wind her up even more about it."
"Very true, very true, but I don't want to keep encouraging her," Elaine agrees. "I can just imagine that she'll have one glass of wine then go home to change, and come back wearing a La Senza baby-doll nightdress and Perspex heels with fairy-lights in. Then get as drunk as a skunk and pretend she can't get home to suck up to the door staff for a lift. I've a good mind to send her down to the cellar saying she's got to re-set all the rat-traps."
"No, she'll just milk the attention and pity for it afterwards. Let her do her worst with the Porn Star outfit and drinking like a skunk, it'll be funnier," I say. "Wow, it looks like the make-up counter Oscars in here. Is that Charmaine Lysander wearing a basque? Blimey. Jag Nut is really losing his street cred to this new guy."
"That's him over there," says Elaine, pointing to the console, where D.J. Sammy is talking to the newcomer. "Just graduated in Sports Science, ex-Rugby boy. You might have spotted Chelsea and Yolanda and the other Gucci Cheerleaders, lurking around territorially trying to make our barmaids miserable."
I look at the new guy. Broad shoulders, short dirty-blond hair, twinkly eyes when he smiles, Yankee-style sports good looks - very 'Nick Stokes' from early original CSI. Enough to bring the hardest chav girl to her knees (and not because she's about to grovel either). Funnily enough, I already know him.
"Oh, Joel," I muse. "Joel Hardy. Yeah, I worked with him when I was covering The Galloping Grimaldi Bar on Tuesdays in West Village last summer. He's nice, I had an unrequited crush on him."
"Really?" Elaine's eyes light up like Blackpool Illuminations. "Oh, good, you can introduce me properly!"
I spot Elaine's hidden agenda just as she grabs my arm, and is about to lead me protesting to the D.J. stand, when I look across helplessly and see Joel already turning and striding our way.
"I think he's going to do that for you," I say, relieved.
"Hey Lara." Joel grins his easy grin, and greets me with a kiss on the cheek. "I thought that was you I saw coming in. You look well. How have you been?"
"Yeah, good. Busy," I answer, smiling in spite of myself. Joel was, after all, one of the few genuinely nice guys I had ever worked with. Everyone who met him liked him. He didn't have any of the arrogance, or stand-offishness or attitude, that seemed to go with looks and a door badge. I try to block any traitorous feelings of glee that he noticed me come into the club. "How about you?"
"Yeah, well, finished Uni, looking for a day job, the usual," he says wryly. "Are you working here now?"
"I was, but not any more," I say. "I'm down at The Plaza. You know, the nightclub mall."
"Yeah, I heard they don't like us Heavy Duty doormen because we get paid more than the in-house staff."
"Yeah, tell me about it," I agree with feeling, having felt plenty of backstabbing going on in the last eight months. "I'm just calling in to see my best friend here. You must have been introduced to Elaine already, staff manager and strict mistress of Crypto."
"Of course," he grins, but she doesn't get the chance to do more than smile coquettishly. "I better leave you ladies to catch up. I'll give you a ring after the weekend, Lara, we should catch up properly. Go for coffee or something."
"Yeah, that would be nice," I say, not quite sure I believe what I'm hearing, as the barmaids' ears all point my way like little radar dishes. "See ya later."
He leans over and gives me another kiss on the cheek, before walking away with almost an apologetic grin over his shoulder. Elaine thumps me on the arm.
"Did you just get asked on another date, right in front of me?" she asks, in mock horror. "You strumpet. I'm shocked."
"He said coffee, not nookie," I say, trying to get her to lower her voice, as all the female bar staff seem about to aim their psychic W.M.D.s at me.
"It means the same thing, to a man!" Elaine hisses.
"Not to Joel, he is actually just a nice guy," I reply. Hoping that I'm right. Otherwise I might be put in the position of having to choose, I think, almost making myself laugh out loud. Just picture it. Me, the psychopath. Getting to choose between Connor, who knows everything about me already, and is a good kisser, and Mr. Genuine Nice Guy With The Normal Life of the kind I would like to escape into one day, when I've finished with this hit-man lark. It's a nice thought, thinking I might have options like that. But not the kind of thing that happens every day. Most usually, in my world, coffee means coffee. With milk and two sugars, if I'm lucky. I say so to Elaine.
"Goodness me, I should be so lucky as youare," says Elaine. "You've just got men falling over you, haven't you? First P.C. Connor asking me for your number, then Niall Taylor trying to booty call you over to the casino last night, and now somehow my hunky new doorman already knows you and wants to talk to you alone, not in front of me, your best friend. Whatever next, the head doorman of The Plaza ringing you at all hours demanding First Aid for his special needs that only you can fulfil?"
"Yeah, actually Cooper already does that. I get about six missed calls or questionably necessary texts every night from him," I admit wretchedly. "Special needs sums him up pretty well, I'll remember that."
"What about Mr. Blonde Venice Beach you were telling me about too?"
"Oh, he just wants to fiddle with my car. He's got it at the moment actually."
"Sounds like he wants to fiddle with you, you mean." Elaine's look of comedy horror is one I want to frame and hang on my kitchen wall to cheer me up whenever I'm doing the washing-up. "I think it's very selfish of you hogging all these men, you should learn to share like a nice girl."
"I have no idea what you mean - none of them have got my name tattooed on their arm or put a diamond on me," I tease her. "It's just men being random, fishing for random encounters, like they do with all women. I'm sure there's far more deluded women than me who think they're way deeper into relationships with these guys than I am. Anyway, how dare you, Niall lives with his girlfriend. He was talking about her last night as well."
"Ooh, looking for sympathy or your trust that nothing untoward will happen, I bet," says Elaine. "You better make sure he doesn't get you drunk ever. Sounds like a very naughty boy to me."
"Cheers. Nothing's plain or innocent to you, is it?" I ask, realising I sound like I'm arguing with my own prejudices about men's agendas.
"Well, I don't think you've looked in the mirror lately," says Elaine, tapping my sternum. "It's not just the fact hunky Joel said hello to you that my staff are giving you their bestest evils right now. You look like Paris Hilton with boobs. Whatever you're doing, keep doing it, because men are starting to notice, and women are starting to get jealous."
...Something like seventeen customers were ejected or voluntarily walked out. Meaning I have a collection of people's details to write up at the end of the night, on scraps of paper torn out of doormen's notebooks and handed to me. Having to translate descriptions into correct report-speak things like: Fat Buddha white polo shirt, or Grey jumper greasy ginger chav, and White Snoop Dogg torn back pocket in fight & was commando not pretty. The African doormen's notes are more polite and say Gentleman blue shirt white sneakers, or Lady blonde pink dress flowers red shoes attractive. While the Polish guys like Axwel say useful things like: Yellow tee shirt drug dealer barr'd from Crash, and Short man FCUK shirt bootleg pimp razor bladez in shoe fake £20 notez stolen driving licence white yellow powder on chin (cokain or wiz) lot of pillz found in pocket three week ban.
Luckily I spotted this one and called police on site by radio, just as the delightful-sounding individual was leaving the mall so they could stop and question him. I mentioned to Niall, now acting deputy head doorman, that Doorman Trebor could use a quick chat about the two types of ban - three months or life - no soft Equal Opportunities alternatives for customers under five foot three. Even if they are socially repressed, and requiring an understanding light admonition not often seen in law courts. Niall thought this was funny, and said he'd suggest the idea to Cooper about introducing the mini-ban of three weeks for short audacious criminals.
I'm sitting in V.I.P. after work where the tables are clean enough to lean the report book and First Aid book on, writing up this epic and drinking Jungle Juice out of the bottle. The cackling and squawking of the barmaids keeps the boys' attention occupied.
Manager Damien approaches me holding out his phone.
"Police want a quick word," he says, with a look on his face that translates it as: 'This better be properly documented or I'll be hearing from the company directors at Cobra Star Leisure blah blah blah…'
I nod and take the phone.
"Hello," I say, tucking it into my shoulder and still scribbling, crossing out the word 'Buddha' where I've accidentally copied part of a customer's description verbatim from Doorman Harry's scrawl.
"Hey Trouble," head office greet me. "We've got a target for you down at Origins Bar, closing at 4:15 a.m. Kaavey Canem."
"Wasn't he your walkie-talkie man?" I ask, hoping Damien is getting his money's worth out of eavesdropping, while he's pretending to watch the bar staff tidy up.
"Yar. He's working with Igor on the front doors tonight. We've got a special request on him, you'll need specific arms for it. If you can get yourself to Sin Street you'll find what you need in their stock-room."
"That's only an hour," I say, looking at my watch. "If you give me five minutes to write this fight up and get back to my car, you can call me on my phone and give me the details."
"No problem." They hang up and I put the phone down on the table. I slide it in Damien's general direction, without trying to play at calling him over, knowing that he was already paying attention. He strolls over and retrieves it.
"Everything all right?" he queries, raising an eyebrow.
"Yeah, just something they're concerned about generally, nothing to do with the venue," I sigh.
I can see Damien isn't easily convinced, but that's his problem. My problem is, what excuse am I going to come up with for going to Sin Street, and poking around in their cellars?
