Death & the City Book Two (33 page)

"Hey, Miss Daydream," Elaine says, flapping a napkin at me. "You've drifted off again. Everything okay?"

"Yeah, fine, just checking some shoes I was watching on iBay," I shrug. "I think I've gone off them now."

"That's a good idea, you know," Elaine says, and Martha nods, although she looks at me a little wryly but doesn't voice anything to the contrary. "I've put stuff in my Watch space and looked at it every day until I don't fancy it or I decide yes, I'm having it. It's a good way of pretending you own it already for a while until you make up your mind. They should make a special Watch space webpage that looks like a wardrobe, for stuff from the clothing section, then you could really imagine having it and picture it in your real wardrobe for a while until you make your mind up…"

"Here she goes - Mrs. Entrepreneur again," Martha grins.

"That's actually a good idea, though," I remark. "Not like food porn, or harmony trios that can't sing."

"Or poo flumes," Martha mutters, rolling her eyes and then nearly choking on an ice cube as a giggle tries to escape. Elaine starts looking thoughtful, then gets out her own internet phone, and looks up the iBay feedback address, composing an email immediately. Martha grins at me, taking another sip of Virgin Sangria to wash down the rogue ice-cube.

You've got to wonder, I think to myself. One moment I'm lying about text messages on my phone, the next my friend is selling her design improvement ideas to an online auction empire. Bizarre. Definitely other powers at work, outside of the predictable forecast range of personality disorder dominoes.

I take advantage of Elaine's inspiration to finish the last of the olives, before the waiter comes to clear our starter plates away and brings another fresh jug of Virgin Sangria.

"Would you ladies like an aperitif?" he says. "Lunchtime special is free."

"We're driving," the three of us say in unison.

He nods and retreats with a smile.

"What do you reckon it would have been, tequila with the worm in?" Martha says under her breath.

"Absinthe," Elaine suggests. "Or Benedictine."

"No, I got a better one." I point at the very top shelf above the bar, in a small alcove under the zenith of a stone arch, with room for a solitary feature bottle and some trinkets. "Spanish Fly."

"Awesome," Elaine nods. "Dangerous Sports Club Dining."

"I wonder if that's the real thing?" Martha takes her phone out, tilts it to camera mode and zooms the image to photograph it. "Nice bottle."

"Three doormen died on holiday in Mexico drinking it," I recall aloud. "Was about nine years ago, I think. Zombie Necrophiliac's Viagra."

"Way to go," Elaine sighs, pouring us each more Sangria'd cranberry juice.

"Hmmm," I sigh in agreement.

Ian Dyer isn't the only possible rookie who had to travel for multiple targets. I don't think I'd be up for the drinking competition scenario again. A bit too up close and personal. I don't like interaction at that social level. But everyone has their holiday abroad personality separate from the rest of them. Even me. As if they don't carry it around on them the rest of the time - it waits for them overseas, as they get off the plane at their destination, like a demon-possessed UV-activated sun-block. Suddenly it's all about the
gung-ho
in everything you do.

"That would just be the crappiest turn in today's social culture, don't you think?" Martha announces. "Getting a spiked drink when eating out at lunchtime. How chuffing lame would that be?"

"That, I think, would be the final argument for the right to bear arms in this country," Elaine says, nodding, as our main dishes arrive.

"I thought you said the end of
Buy One Get One Free
promotions in supermarkets would be the final argument for the right to bear arms?" I remind her.

"No, that was because the Monopolies Commission said
Buy One Get One Free
promotions were the same as armed robbery. So I said it might as well be armed robbery if they stop them altogether, as people will still want to get their free stuff somehow, and will just nick more off the shelves anyway."

"Did you understand any of that?" Martha asks me.

"I think she resents being expected to take a gun shopping with her in order to get her free stuff," I translate.

"Not like you, then," Martha jokes.

"Well, quite," I say, honestly. "How do you think I got anything in 'Kitty, Kitty' today?"

Banter is a weird thing, I tell myself, looking down at my plate and quite pleased to see genuine exotic fruit salad, and not incognito Ploughman's Lunch. Sometimes out comes the caterpillar of a lie and it flies away as a butterfly of truth. And sometimes humour is the disguise of confession. Interpretation is all in the comfort zones and psychological disposition of the observer. To anyone neutral eavesdropping, we're three women who don't get out much because we draw attention to one another and find far too much to laugh about in public. To anyone who knows us, we're three mums sharing toilet repartee. To a paranoid schizophrenic, we're a historical research witch, a man-eating businesswoman, and a girl concealing a gun under her clothes.

And to some extent, they'd all be right.

Lunch concludes without any more interruptions, and thankfully without any spiked drinks or suspicious co-diners. The burlesque singer is the only entertainment, and fully-clothed in skintone body-stocking and sequins, does an enormous feather-fan dance, which seems to be a senior citizens' favourite.

We go to Cobbler's shoe shop for a twenty-minute browse, and it's interesting how my two friends' different tastes reflect their strongly independent personalities, not influenced by one another, or popular fashion. Elaine likes things that are elegant, practical, brown or neutral, suede, classic - while Martha favours tomboyish ankle boots, lace-ups, brogues, and patchwork hi-top trainers. I'm not sure that what attracts me in footwear, says anything about my personality. Except how fragmented it is.

"Those are very you," Elaine comments, as I pick up a triple-strap patent red Mary Jane platform stiletto. It would look good with jeans and a skateboarder vest - mind you, girls of another disposition might also think it suited to a red thong and a shiny pole. I'd be just under six foot tall in it. I consult my mental shoe database to try and remember if I've already got anything similar, but find it difficult, because all I can see in my mind's eye are the shoes I tried on before going out with Connor. It doesn't help that there's a shelf of the latest Zombie shoe styles just above these ones, and one of them has the same print on it as one of his t-shirts. I'm conscious of deliberately not picking any of them up. As if I don't want to become his accessory. Would rather maintain my distance.

"What sort of shoes would you wear on a date, Elaine?" I ask her. "When you're not on the back of a motorbike. Does it depend on the guy, or do you wear what you like regardless of his style?"

"God, Lara, never dress to fit with a guy's taste, you'll end up wearing just those red shoes and a hotel hand-towel," Elaine chuckles. "He's supposed to be learning about you and your style, not the other way around. Men are all beasts until the right lady comes along to raise their standards."

"On my first proper date with Aaron, I wore green wellies," Martha chips in, wandering past with a purple hiking boot. "I'd been digging lambs out of a ditch all morning after a flood, so I met him for lunch in the pub, in my dirty mac and a bit of lipstick, along with my mud and grass stains."

"Very sexy," Elaine teases. "I bet he couldn't wait to get them off you."

"Damn right. It was lunch followed by a hot shower together."

"I just dress depending on my mood, to be honest," Elaine admits. "If I'm feeling ladylike, it's ladylike. If I'm feeling a bit sexy, it's, well, ladylike but with better underwear and slightly higher heels on. If I'm feeling very naughty, it's the same again with added stockings with suspenders hidden underneath, sexy perfume and lip-tingle lip-gloss. It's all in the subtle. Not the obvious, like - Heaven forbid - Sadie's glow-in-the-dark feather bikini and musical stripper shoes."

I grin and pat her back gratefully.

"You're very wise," I tell her.

"Yes, but for some reason it doesn't stop me drooling over Red Watch whenever I see them," she says, wryly. "Meaning I end up spoiling my ladylike appearance by talking like a mother trucker, and dry-humping bar-stools thinking I look cool, fun and approachable."

I have to put the shoe back, giggling, at the absurd mental image now in my head of Elaine gyrating around the bar of Crypto in her full licensing-officer-visit-day business suit and
YSL
long boots, talking dirty and offering suggestively-named cocktails.

"I want to see that now," I complain petulantly, trying not to pick up a Zombie shoe as they call out to me subliminally.

"Any Thursday on R&B night," she groans. "Two-for-one entry fee before eleven."

"I'll be there after work tonight if I can get away," I tell her, knowing I'm already thinking of it as being a good excuse to avoid Connor. "I want to see your mother trucker act."

I don't buy the shoes, but walk back up to London Road to meet Yuri, thinking about Connor and debating whether I should go back for the shoes next week, when the final reductions will be on sale. I might get them for a single figure.

As I wait by the bus stop outside City Central, two women are reading a 'Spring Clean Your Sex Life' article in
Psychologies
magazine together, with rather too much personal spouse referencing between them, and I wonder if sex as manipulation is more normal than abnormal. And if Alice's naïvety of making a song and dance about it is showing her up as impressionable, rather than creating a stir.

Shame I don't have the inside knowledge to judge that for myself yet.

Yuri arrives, and pops the lid on the top-box for my shopping.

"Any underwear or shoes in there?" he asks me with a grin. I shake my head and stow the fashion outlet bag away, slamming the storage lid shut again, and pulling on my crash helmet. "Pity. You could have given me a little private fashion show when we get back."

I pretend not to hear him, tucking my hair in, because I feel myself blushing in surprise. Yuri just grins again darkly.

Not another one, I think to myself with an inward groan. The bus stop setting should have been an obvious clue. You wait for ages, then all sorts turn up…

I watch Yuri, as he walks around my car checking final electrical connections, and detaching monitors. There is something frustratingly enigmatic about the more shadowy half of WXYZ Logistics. I don't know if it's deliberate, or just necessary - to his privacy, and past history.

It's the kind of trap that women always fall for, I think. A mystery. I look across instead at
Van Helsing's
considerably stripped-down Mustang, now on a flat-bed in preparation for towing away.

Yuri sees my change in focus and follows my gaze.

"You believe in that sort of thing?" he asks me. "Vampires and werewolves?"

"Not yet," I joke. "What about you?"

"I've seen a lot of strange things in my life," he admits. "There isn't always an explanation for it."

"I think people often see exactly what they want to see," I muse aloud. "Either that, or someone else is willing to put on a show for them of what they want to see."

"Not all of the time," he grins, indicating my shopping bag on the workbench. "Sure I can't persuade you to do a quick change for me?"

"I'm sure," I manage, with a grin in return, standing up for myself. "Anyway, it's not as if there's a lot of difference, essentially, between a contract killer and a so-called old school fictional vampire slayer, is there? The profile is the same, just the marketing is different when they're seeking work."

"Yeah, and they can use the fear of God to push the price up as well," Yuri remarks, closing the bonnet of my car. "It does happen, in some misguided religious areas. Like the old Puritanical witch-hunts. Dig up a corpse, and stake it or shoot it with a silver bullet, charge the locals their annual income. Quite a scheme, in claiming to save the community from their own dead and buried already."

I consider why this sounds familiar.

"How would we put a stop to that sort of thing going on?" I ask him. "I mean, there's extortion in it, confidence trickery, desecration of a burial site and mutilation of a corpse - but unlike a contract hit-man, no actual murder - if the victim is already dead."