Desmond Barry - London Noir

Two seconds later Vanya reappears into view, carrying the chair she’d just used to reach the top of the wardrobe, and placing it in its usual position next to the chest of drawers. She looks in the mirror, makes a cursory adjustment to her hair, and smoothes her hands down her slip before exiting the frame stage left to the door that leads to the sitting room.

Ten seconds of stillness, then back to moving pictures as he enters the room. Four slow, graceful strides bring him to the mirror, where he stops to take in his reflection. A tall, slim, handsome man in his early fifties wearing a tastefully expensive dark gray suit offset by a weighty flop of silver hair. The epitome of conservative English style. He runs an index finger over each arched eyebrow, taming any rogue hairs, then turns and unwittingly strikes a face-on, screen-test pose for the camera.

Perfect.

Vanya’s back in the room now, her heels wobbling slightly on the squishy carpet as she walks to the chest of drawers and finds a condom. The gentleman takes off his jacket and hangs it on the back of the chair, then places his shoes neatly underneath. By the time Vanya has rolled the condom over her index finger and greased it thoroughly with Vaseline, the man is naked but for his calf-length thin black socks and has positioned himself on the bed, facing away from the camera, bearing his arse to it.

Vanya kneels behind him on the bed, still in her slip and shoes, and gently greases the QC’s rectal area, accompanying the finger strokes with a softly murmured Croatian lullaby. Mamu ti jebem u guzicu. She gently eases the digit inside and begins finger-fucking the man, her Serbo-Croat mantra rising in volume as the pace of the thrusts quickens. Picka. Mamu ti jebem u guzicu... About one minute later the silver-haired gentleman, wanking furiously now, reaches his climax and the transaction is complete.

I press STOP.

Got the cunt.

Time to rewind.

The previous week — the previous millennium, in fact — I’d been at the River of Fire. The government had organized the Thames to be set on fire on the stroke of midnight. It was going to be an almighty twenty-stories-high flaming surge of orange-and-red pyrotechnic power bursting through the heart of the city at 800 miles an hour. PM Turns Water into Fire; Elemental Alchemy on the Grandest of Scales. But all anyone got were a few oversized candles fizzling away on some barges along a muddy river.

Not that I gave a fuck. Fabrication, fabrication, fabrication. I knew those sloganeering cunts would never deliver. I wasn’t there for the show. I was there to steal stuff from unsuspecting thick cunts. And unsuspecting thick cunts do deliver. Copiously.

I wasn’t doing it for the money — though some of the stuff I nicked did come in handy later. It just needed to be done. With all that sense of hope and expectation for the dawning of a new millennium, someone had to restore the balance. Inject a bit of reality into the situation. These people were supposed to be slick city folk, weren’t they? Experts at the urban experience. Come to London . Where the people are such cunts they piss and shit and vomit on their own streets while a bunch of incompetent failed lawyers-turned-slogan-peddlers fuck them up the arse and make them pay for the pleasure.

So I put on my own show. Illegal performance art. A one-off special for a discerning audience of — me. Creative theft. Taking and giving. No one else would’ve got it anyway. It was a world away from the ham-fisted gippos and hood rats who worked Oxford Street and the tubes. Banging into tourists with an awkward fumble into their pockets and coming away with the odd one-day travel pass to sell on for two quid. The occasional mobile. No sense of style, no originality. No drama. Mine was a virtuoso performance — just me, my rucksack, and my pair of dextrous pals: Right-hand Man and his partner, Leftie. Dab hands, the both of them. Digitally precise, you might say. Got to keep them at arm’s length though. You see? It’s called style, cunt. Wit! Something those fucks will never have. I take and I give. It’s art, fucking art.

True, the actual pickpocketing was pretty much the same as I’d done in my act a hundred times before. Same technically, anyway. And I’d picked pockets for real before, illegally that is, a couple of times. But it hadn’t given me quite the buzz I’d expected it to. No sense of occasion. This was different though. The river bit might have been shit but there were still two million happy, stoned, drunk singing people all squashed up together. All mesmerized by a few colorful lights in the sky. And everyone happily embracing their fellow man, getting up close and hugging, like they didn’t actually hate each other, like they weren’t all cunts for one second. I’ll give you “Auld Lang Fucking Syne,” you twats. “Should auld acquaintance be forgot...” Forgot to keep an eye on that, mate, thanks very much. “And never brought to...” Mind if I take that off you, sir? “Should auld acquaintance be for...” Gotcha! “For the sake of auld lang...” Signing off now, gotta go!

All in front of about a zillion boys in blue. It was a good night. A new beginning. The way forward.

After the show I figured I’d go for a celebratory fuck. Vanya would still be working. I’d been going to her for about six months — since she’d come over from Croatia. She was very good value for money — extremely pretty face and a good body, but still reasonable rates. If she were English she’d probably have charged twice as much. Maybe three times. But then I guess that’s one of the benefits of immigration. Cheap, efficient labor

I started slowly working my way through the throng. Up the Strand, past Trafalgar, and on toward Piccadilly and Shepherd Market. Made up a little song on the way, to the old Robin Hood theme tune: He steals from the thick/And gives to the whore/Robbing’s good!/Robbing’s good!/Robbing’s good! Sometimes, Jonathan Marcus Tiller, I thought, you really are the wittiest fucker in the world. In the fucking world.

I was just taking in Piccadilly Circus — the glitz of Burger King, the glamour of Dunkin’ Donuts — when I was approached by an American tourist: “Hey there. Could you direct me to Piccadilly Circus?” He said the last two words uncertainly, as if no such place with that name could possibly exist.

I didn’t reply, just announced the thing with outstretched arms, then turned to him with an expression I’d hoped conveyed: What the fuck do you think that is, cunt? Now fuck off.

It didn’t work.

“Only, I’m kinda here to make this movie and I was told Piccadilly Circus was where to look.”

I glanced up and down his face as he spoke.

“Look for what?” I said, mildly intrigued.

“To meet actors. Only, I’m filming the thing in my hotel tonight and I thought you might like to...”

Suck your cock? “Don’t think so, mate. But yeah, this is the right area — just a decade or so too late...”

I left the Yank fruit to it and carried on up Piccadilly. Walked along the north side. It’s lined with imposing gray-stoned edifices, like gigantic doormen keeping an eye on things, keeping the undesirables out. Raising a suspicious eyebrow at anyone who dares venture near the promised land of Mayfair. Perhaps sir would be more comfortable taking a different thoroughfare? A street more suited to sir’s... position, shall we say?

Not tonight though. Tonight I wasn’t being hassled by them. It was as if I’d passed some kind of test. Like I was okay now. They hadn’t exactly handed me the keys, but at least they were going to turn a blind eye while I picked the locks for a while. It was definitely a new beginning.