PINKY
RING.
By
Tom Leins
Cherry is 45, but in the half-light she looks 20. She
dresses slowly, putting on a Tartan miniskirt and transparent bra. She has an
eclectic wardrobe. Back when she used to work as an escort she specialised in
dressing like a schoolgirl. Beauty can get away with almost anything. I don’t like
to ask what she does for a living, and she tends not to ask me. Believe me –
it’s better that way.
*
When I arrive at my office there is a girl leaning on
the skip outside, smoking a high-tar cigarette. The skip pre-dates me, and I’ve
worked here for a while. It has been full for years, but I guess no one wants
to pay to have it removed. That’s the problem with this town: the rot has set
in, but no one wants to do anything about it.
“Mr Rey?”
I nod, vaguely in the girl’s direction, but more to
myself.
She has auburn curls and ruby-red lips. High
cheekbones and smooth skin. I jam my key in the battered green front door and
leave it open behind me.
She follows me up the rickety staircase.
“Mr Rey, have you heard of a man called Frank Bascombe?”
I don’t turn around.
“The cop?”
“Ex-cop.”
I pause at the top of the stairs.
“He’s dead.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. He was a good man by all
accounts. Please come in.”
I offer her a seat and slide into my own worn-out
swivel chair.
“How can I help, Miss …?”
“Jones.”
“He was found hanged yesterday. The police told me it
was suicide, but I disagree. When I discovered his body he was strung from the
rafters, but his jaw was clearly broken. He had been punched repeatedly in the
face by someone wearing a pinky ring.”
Now she has my attention. A few dirty cops have been
picked off over the last decade, but no one has ever taken out a good guy like
Bascombe. In most towns that would be headline news. In Paignton it is the
punchline to a sick joke.
“Mr Rey, I would like to hire you to find out who
killed Frank.”
I nod. I can’t afford to turn down work, no matter how
dirty the job seems.
“Can I ask: what is your interest in Bascombe?”
“I was his mistress.”
*
The Polsham has been a cop pub since before I was
born. The lounge bar is scattered with relics – decrepit old men obsessed with
their own bad memories.
I search for a familiar face, but come up empty.
I consider talking to the barman, Crawford, but it
would be a waste of energy. He’s a bloodsucker, who soaks up the tawdriest scraps
of information for his own misuse.
Eventually I spot a guy named Jerry Connelly. He
retired from the force last year. He’s not a bad guy, he’s just slightly boring.
Either way, he has a reputation as a straight-arrow.
I raise my glass in his direction and he threads his
way through the predominantly elderly crowd. He was one of the arresting
officers in the Plastician case, and I was the man who tracked him down.
“Jerry.”
“Joe.”
We shake hands, and his eyes exude genuine warmth.
“Need I ask, what brings you down to this snakepit on
a weekday morning?”
I eye him curiously. His orange satin shirt seems to
shimmer under the sickly pub lights.
“Alright, Joe – I’ll come clean with you. Bascombe was
my ex-partner. I gave Helen Jones your details.”
I nod, but don’t thank him. I’m entering a world of
shit, and he knows it.
“Did you see the body?”
“No, but I’ve seen the photos. I figure that the guy
who did it must have been a trained boxer – hit Frank with the bottom three
knuckles. Bust his face up pretty good.”
“Can you think of anyone on the force who wears a pinky
ring?”
He holds his own fist up for inspection.
“It’s a long list.”
“What about chatter?”
“I’m out of the loop, Joe. No one trusts an ex-cop in
this town.”
“When they started to bulldoze the old cop-shop a lot
of old skeletons started to tumble out of the closet. I heard that Bascombe saw
some cops smuggling garbage bags full of hash out of the evidence locker and
into their patrol cars. Punches were thrown and hot blood was spilled.”
“Any names?”
Jerry looks over his shoulder. He looks nervous.
“Listen, Joe – I’ve got to go. But, stay in touch,
right?”
“Sure. I owe you a drink, Jerry.”
He shrugs, and offers a weak Bacardi-flavoured burp as
he drifts towards the backdoor.
*
I finish my pint and make another lap of the pub. It’s
filling up rapidly as lunchtime approaches. Not that the place sells food –
unless you include stale sandwiches and rancid-looking pickled eggs. Beer is
the definitely the most nutritious option.
As I head back to the lounge bar I notice a skinny,
tubercular-looking man lurking outside the toilets. His cheap suit is littered
with cigarette ash, and he has quick, dark eyes.
He makes no effort to get out of my way, and I try to
edge past him. He grips my wrist – surprisingly firmly.
“Listen to me, Mr Rey. The department doesn’t want an
unstable officer on the street any more than you do.”
His breath feels hot and sour on my cheek. If I wasn’t
in a cop bar I would unspool his guts with my switchblade.
“Leave the investigation to the professionals, son.
Otherwise somebody might get hurt.”
His dark eyes linger on my face, and a sick feeling
washes over me.
I head to the bar for another drink, but when I turn
around he has vanished.
*
Crawford glares at me from behind the bar. He was never
a cop, but he has an irrational hatred of private investigators regardless. The
guy seems like a loose cannon to me.
I drink quickly, in silence, sorting through the
options in my head. Two choices: I do the right thing, or I do the easy thing.
It’s no choice at all.
*
I head outside, into the afternoon gloom, and after a
few paces I start to feel queasy. I grab the pub wall for support, but my legs
turn to jelly. Shit. Crawford must have spiked my drink. My veins start to
churn with whatever he drugged me with.
I grab my face and it feels rubbery. I drop to my knees, and my vision goes
translucent. I cough up a mouthful of sour bile – barely enough to fill a shot
glass – and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. Then I pass out.
*
When I come round, I’m propped up on an unmade bed in a
grim-looking room that I don’t recognise. I roll over and dry heave, guts
trembling.
Jerry Connelly is sat in front of me. There is blood on his knuckles and booze on
his breath. He must have been mixing his drinks, because his breath smells like
the slop-bucket at Paignton police station.
“The man who threatened you: his name is Randall Clay.
He’s not a cop, but he has serious police connections. No one really knows who
he is, or what he does, but he is into shit so deep you could stir it with a
stick. He works with a man called Vincent Marsh. An ex-boxer with a mean
streak. Marsh is dangerous, possibly mentally defective. He does whatever Clay
tells him.”
“And these guys killed Bascombe over a garbage bag
full of hash?”
“That was just the tip of the iceberg. Frank knew that
and so did they.”
“Where can I find Clay?”
He shrugs.
“Kick over enough rocks and he will crawl out
eventually.”
*
Two days later.
It’s a raw November evening. The sky looks inky black.
It seems to sag under the weight of the dark clouds.
Jerry has managed to trace Clay to a high-stakes poker
game that takes place in a shitty flat behind the Baptist Church on Winner
Street.
The alleyway I’m lurking in is unlit and smells of
human waste. Grey smoke bleeds out of the air vent behind me and hangs overhead.
I’m so bored I’m seriously considering taking up smoking, when Randall Clay
emerges from the fire exit. Next to him is an obscenely fat man with a hangdog
expression. His pinky ring glints as he casually lights a cigarillo.
I clear my throat.
“Is this a private party, or can anyone join in?”
Clay smirks and Marsh smiles lazily, eyes twinkling.
“Mr Rey. In case you didn’t get the message: dead meat
is the best that you can aspire to. Walk away, while you still can.”
I have no past to speak of, and a future that
generally keeps me awake at night. I drag Jerry’s pump-action shotgun out from
under my coat.
“Everyone needs something to look forward to, right
Randall?”
