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Noddy felt like the fat girl in a strip club. Nobody wanted to catch his eye.
Unless he counted the long-haired teenager on the other side of the bar. With a Motorhead shirt and sleeveless denim jacket exposing upper arms covered in tattoos. Three days’ stubble added a touch of maturity to a face that might otherwise have been seen as childlike.
Except for his sad eyes, older than they had any right to be.
That wasn’t unusual, though, not in the 1980s, and especially not in Johannesburg. It didn’t make him special. Noddy knew dozens of kids who looked the same, dressed the same. Felt the same. No job. No money. No prospects.
He shook his head. He couldn’t look at that face any longer.
A bristle of punks shouted about whose round it was next, with the inevitable shoving and spitting. As they bumped against him, Noddy tore his gaze from the mirror on the other side of the bar.
Then the barmaid in Mike’s Tavern spotted him amid the commotion and rolled her eyes as she slid him another round. Noddy raised the glasses in salute and took a sip from each one. Easier to carry that way.
Morag greeted the fresh drink with a wink and a smile. Noddy turned away as she bent over the pool table, aiming for the pocket in the far corner. Too much leather and fishnets. If such a thing was possible.
She had arrived an hour earlier, claiming to be grabbing a quick drink on her way to the club. Noddy should have known better.
Morag’s opponent grinned. His raised glass missed his mouth. He frowned at it. Tried again. Long black curls formed an oiled halo around his face. Tighter curls filled the gap between two sides of an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt. A large gold crucifix bounced off these curls every time he moved. Gold chains encircled his wrists. And a Mad Hatter top hat clung precariously to his head.
Noddy shook his head again.
Morag took a long sip of her beer. She watched her opponent line up his shot. Every time he was ready to hit the ball, he lost his balance and had to start again from scratch, one finger waving above his head to show that he was still conscious.
Morag punched Noddy lightly on the arm. “You alright for cash?”
Noddy felt in his pockets. He had a few notes tucked away, a handful of coins. His life savings. He found that money was useful, but it came at a price. People didn’t buy things with money. They bought things with chunks of their lives that they had sold to employers who could never possibly have paid them enough by the time their lives were all used up.
“I’ve got a few bob,” he replied. “Could always use more.”
Morag smiled.
*
“I NEED TO HIT THE BANK.” Morag turned into an alley between two blocks of flats. Her companion staggered along, arm in arm with his new date. Noddy brought up the rear.
They made a cute couple. Hawaiian shirt and black leather. Italian shoes and Doc Martens. Long wavy hair and spiked green mohawk. Noddy almost felt sorry for the guy, imagining his expression when he woke up next to her in the morning. Morag was a good-looking girl, but this was an acquired taste.
His commiserations were premature. Halfway along the alley, Morag swung her date against a wall. Hard. Noddy could practically feel the back of his head bounce against the bricks. The ridiculous hat fell to the ground. Morag grabbed a handful of the Hawaiian shirt, and a knife appeared in her free hand.
“Your wallet. Now.”
Glazed eyes struggled to grasp this new concept in dating. In slow motion, he reached for the knife.
Morag slashed his palm, smacked him in the face with her elbow and backhanded him so his head bounced off the bricks again, all in one smooth movement. Noddy was impressed.
“Money. Now. Don’t try that again, or my boyfriend here will stab you in the face.”
This was pure exaggeration. Noddy might have had a relationship with her once, but he’d screwed that up a long time ago. The man looked slowly in Noddy’s direction, tears clouding his vision, and all Noddy could do was shrug and smile encouragingly. What choice did he have? Walk away, and leave him to the tender mercies of the queen of the night? Try to get him out of the jam, and risk his own disembowelment? At least if Noddy played along, they might all live to tell the tale.
The victim reached in his back pocket and handed over his wallet with trembling hands. The typical bulging macho wallet. Morag dropped it somewhere inside her leather jacket, then grabbed the chain from around his neck.
“Your watch. And the chains.”
He was starting to catch on at last, as these were removed more quickly. They disappeared into the depths of the jacket, then Morag slammed another elbow into his face. His head cracked one last time against the wall before he slid into the urine-stained gutter.
Morag took off down the alley like a winged mammal escaping from the netherworld, looking back over her shoulder.
“Come on!”
Noddy decided to tag along.
*
SEVERAL TWISTS AND turns later, they stopped to get their breath back. Noddy was starting to sober up. All that time and effort spent tossing back beers, destroyed by a surge of adrenaline.
“You’re still insane, you know that?” He managed to get this out while propping himself against a wall, drawing great gulps of air into his lungs. Morag smiled sweetly and winked as she dug in her pocket and handed over his share of the cash.
She’d lost one of her earrings in the dash to safety. Which was just as well. They had been a beautifully-matched pair of dried, used tampons, dangling from silver sleepers. Mick sold these as novelty jewellery at the local flea market, and they seemed to be taking off. His other innovations included necklaces made from cats’ ears, and top hats much like the one their victim had worn. On demand, Mick could supply a fully-fledged catskin. No questions were ever asked.
“You should have seen your face.” Morag had obviously recovered enough breath to laugh. “Getting soft, are we? What happened to your Viking blood?”
Noddy pushed himself upright and started off down the alley. His life was interesting enough without hanging around psychopathic criminals.
“Hey. Stick around. Maybe I’ll buy you a drink when we get to Valhalla.”
Which showed that she wasn’t completely beyond redemption.
*
MORAG HAD HAD A HANDFUL of jobs since leaving her adopted parents’ home at the tender age of sixteen with only bruises, bad memories and the clothes on her back. Waitress, barmaid, photographic model, and her latest attempt – exotic dancer. None of them seemed to last very long.
She was a beautiful mess, bright enough, and passionate enough, to make a success of any career she chose. But it was that same passion that brought most of those career paths to a spectacular end. Her huge overflowing cosmic passion, the same passion that made her a blazing comet, burning everything around her. She struggled with the mundane, the small, day to day things everyone else took for granted. She knew she was destined for greatness, and that she just needed to find the right path, to get that initial break, then she’d be on her way. Blame it on astrology. Blame it on her parents, who she never mentioned. Blame the music, the drugs, the people around her. If every man and every woman is a star, constantly changing with each new event affecting him or her consciously or subconsciously, then Morag was a supernova.
“How are things with Janine?” she asked. “Are you guys still disgustingly romantical?”
Noddy laughed as she scratched the air with black-painted fingernails. “I dunno,” he shrugged. “It isn’t easy. You know what I’m like with relationships.”
“Hell, yeah, I remember. But at least we were best mates before. I sometimes miss those days, before things got complicated. Before Mick...”
Those last four letters were a conversation assassin. A verbal cock-blocker. It was a few moments before Noddy carried on.
“We’re trying to make it work, you know? But she keeps nagging at me to get a job, make some money, settle down.”
“Okay? And?”
“That’s not me, is it?”
Morag smacked him on the shoulder, pushing him into the middle of the alley they were walking through on their way to the club. “Welcome to reality. We all have to grow up sometime.” She smiled innocently. “Unless... of course... you want to go back into business? Was good having you there to back me up in that alley. Just like the old days.”
Noddy concentrated on keeping an eye open for pursuit. Sticking to the back streets was the best plan she’d had all night.
“I don’t do that anymore. Don’t want to end up dead in one of those alleys. Colours nailed to the wall in Valhalla.”
It was her turn to laugh. “Don’t know if Mick would let that happen. Not after that night he kicked you out for selling acid in his club.”
Noddy stopped dead. “You were the one selling acid.”
“Well, yes. Technically. But he thought you were the mastermind behind it, didn’t he? Nobody ever stood up to Mick like that before. I actually thought he was going to back down.”
Noddy carried on walking. “Until when? The moment he broke my nose? The split-second his bouncers jumped in and dragged me outside?”
Now Morag stopped. “It’s not like he killed you. Or even scared you off. For god’s sake, you’re shagging his ex-girlfriend. Way to go, Romeo. Revenge 101.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Wasn’t it? Tell me you weren’t just waiting for something to happen to Mick. When he was locked up, you jumped at the chance.”
“Believe what you like. And Janine’s not Mick’s only ex, is she?”
Morag ignored the dig. “Does he even know? He can’t, can he? He’s been in a coma since the day he got out. And I doubt anybody had the balls to tell him while he was inside.”
Noddy knew he shouldn’t let Morag get to him. But she’d always had an almost supernatural ability to crawl under his skin.
“They broke up long before he went away.”
Morag snorted. “You think that makes a difference to Mick? You know what he’s like. Nobody touches his property. It must worry you a little bit, surely?”
Noddy shook his head as he stepped up the pace. “It doesn’t, actually.”
“No. Come on. Admit it. You must be hoping he never comes out of that coma.”
“I wouldn’t be the only person around here thinking that. But it has nothing to do with Janine.”
“Keep telling yourself that. Ah, here we are.”