Goodnight, John-boy: Chapter 12
Dave and Scott have made a sharp exit from Fab Keen's flat, leaving no trace...oh, wait a minute – no, Dave definitely screwed up.
Welcome to Book Two of my dark comedy thriller series, Read Em And Weep.
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If you’re new to the Read Em And Weep series, start with Book One: Serial Killer.
MRS CZAR LEANED BACK in the Bauhaus chair. She was the only person Fab knew who could sit comfortably and elegantly in them. He’d bought the design classics purely for show. He didn’t like women much, but he had to admit she looked a picture of beauty. Her glistening and hypnotic, dark eyes, high cheekbones, and slender, swan-like neck reminded him of the legendary Queen Nefertiti. Or Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Maybe it was the elegant black dress she was wearing. All she needed was a long cigarette holder to complete her Hollywood star look. She looked nothing like her adopted parents, the Pells, who were unmistakably Southern England. Just one glance at Mrs Czar and you could see she was from somewhere more exotic.
‘I thought Brighton for the summer children’s outing,’ he suggested.
‘Why not?’ she agreed.
‘Good. What can I get you?’
‘Vodka on the rocks.’
As Fabulous, wearing an elegant blue Nehru suit, poured her drink, he continued. ‘Our friends from the yacht club can take some of them out for the weekend.’
‘How generous of them,’ she smiled.
‘Provided, of course, your Virgin Soldiers came along …’
She looked teasingly at him. ‘As chaperones, you mean?’
Fabulous laughed. ‘Naturally, Julia. They’ll feel so much safer with you ladies around.’ He passed her her drink.
‘And Uncle Fab,’ she smirked.
‘Of course. Because it’s a dangerous world out there.’
‘And you do have your enemies,’ she pointed out. ‘Those reporters?’
Fabulous shrugged. ‘If I see them dancing in my headlamps, I will run over every one of them.’
‘In your Enfield?’ she smiled.
‘In the Jensen. Because I need to hurt them. Badly. And then reverse over them to finish them off. ’Cos I’m infallible, me. I’m like the pope.’
‘Don’t you mean “invulnerable”, John?’ said Mrs Czar smoothly. She was using his first name deliberately, as a reminder that she had known him for decades, long before he became known as Fabulous Keen.
‘I mean no one can touch me. I can touch them, but they can’t touch me. Those are the rules.’
‘I’ll drink to that,’ Mrs Czar said. ‘Cheers.’ And they chinked glasses. She sipped her drink and grimaced. ‘Water!’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Quite sure. I think your cleaner must be a secret drinker.’ Fabulous tasted his own vodka and tonic. ‘You’re right. But Elsie would never do that. She’s been with me for years.’ He looked puzzled around the room, but everything looked in order.
‘Well, someone’s done it,’ she said. ‘Check the gin.’
He did. ‘It’s okay.’ He checked the others. ‘They’re all okay.’
‘Just the vodka,’ she pointed out. ‘Your regular tipple.’
‘Interesting,’ he murmured, trying to figure out what this meant and what was going on.
‘Could one of those reporters have got in?’ His expression told her the answer.
‘You don’t still leave a spare under the pot plant? Oh, John.’
‘They wouldn’t dare. No one’s going to print those allegations that girl made. Big wailing crybaby. She was asking for it.’
‘Well, it’s either Elsie, or someone’s been in the apartment,’ Mrs Czar shrugged.
‘I thought the story was dead,’ he ruminated. ‘All right, let the pus come to the surface. I don’t care,’ he added bullishly.
‘There’s nothing incriminating a reporter could have found?’
‘Nothing. I’m far too careful.’
‘You’re sure, John?’
‘Quite sure.’
‘Good.’
‘Gin and tonic?’
‘I guess it’ll have to be.’
Fab sat opposite her on the leather sofa. They both sipped their drinks, reflecting on the mysterious intrusion. ‘I can’t get it out of my mind, Julia. Someone’s been here,’ said Fab. ‘You know what it feels like? Like I’ve been violated. I don’t like being violated.’
‘Maybe there’s an innocent explanation?’
‘Maybe.’
‘And you’re positive there’s nothing a reporter could use? You’re absolutely positive?’
‘Of course,’ said a relaxed Fab. ‘Unless…the ledger!’ Suddenly, he was on edge.
‘What ledger? What are you talking about?’
‘The one I use to make sure I’m always in the black.’
‘What do you mean?’
An awful thought hit him. ‘Oh, fuck!’
He jumped up, put his drink down and ran for the bedroom. Going immediately to the desk, he opened the top right-hand drawer.
The relief he felt when he saw the ledger was still there was vast.
‘It’s okay,’ he called back to Julia. ‘It’s okay. It’s still there.’ He exhaled, and started to calm down. Not that a reporter could have really made sense of it. But he should be more careful in future.
And then he saw it: lying on top of The Enchiridion of Indulgences.
A liquorice pipe.
Goodnight, John-boy is the first book in the Read Em And Weep series and is on sale digitally or as paperback.