Trouble & Strife Read online

  This guy was impossible.

  Megan Quinn wanted to call her boss, just say, “We can’t do this, let’s make a different movie.” But she couldn’t. You didn’t get to run your own movie that way. She figured, get good information from Jimmy Finch, get good story, and she could make this into her ticket.

  But now he wasn’t even paying attention.

  “Hello?”

  Jimmy’s eyes shifted back to her. He didn’t apologize.

  Megan was like, really?

  So rude. So sure of himself. Just sitting there, not interested in explaining himself, not interested in telling his story. Who does that? Who doesn’t want to talk about themselves?

  Megan looked down at her notes. The list of issues given to her by the writer and studio. All the things they needed to fix to make the book into a film. A couple of the notes had come from the publisher, too. Over a coffee the day before, his editor has said, “Hey, we’re having the same issues, maybe if you can get him to talk, we can change the book.”

  Three hundred and forty pages, and nowhere did he explain himself, nowhere did he give any kind of justification. And that ending? What was that? The guy just walks out of prison and smells fresh air and that’s it?

  “Okay,” Megan said, swirling the straw around in her now-empty glass. “Lets’ talk about the jokes.”

  “You want to hear them?”

  “No, I’ve read the book.”

  “They’re not all in there, I got a bunch you won’t have heard.”

  “Jimmy, I don’t want to hear the jokes, I want to know why you told them.”

  Jimmy cocks his head, like he’s never heard that question before. He looks like a confused puppy for a second. This guy in his late fifties, gray hair. In good shape for his age, but nowhere near as much as his self-confidence suggested.

  “Who doesn’t want to hear jokes?”

  This was good, this was her way in. “I would think, people being robbed don’t want to hear jokes. Cashiers don’t want to hear them. Servers don’t want to hear them.”

  Again with his confused look. Megan could tell now he was doing it for show. “They’re the exact people who need them. You got to put people at ease if you’re robbing them, make them relax, let them know things are okay, they don’t need to do anything rash.”

  Megan looked down at her notes, why not guns?

  “Okay, but tell me how that started? I mean, most people would just use a gun. You walk into places, up the register, and start telling a joke. Why not just point a gun, or pretend you’re pointing a gun?”

  “I don’t like guns.”

  Megan felt the frustration rise again, her voice rising. “There has to be more to it.”

  “Why? Why you need more than that, I don’t like guns, so I don’t use them. I like jokes, so I tell them. You walk in, you spot the person most amenable, and you start talking to them, engage with them. Nice and friendly. You’re telling them a joke, and while you do it, you hand them the sign that says, ‘this is a robbery, give me all the money in the drawer.’ You’re still telling them the joke, so they’re off balance, their brains going in two different ways. But everybody likes jokes, so they’re still relaxed, deep down.”

  “You said find the person most amenable, how do you know?”

  “It’s just a sense, you have it or you don’t.”

  Jimmy’s eyes drift again. He keeps looking at something over her shoulder.

  Megan isn’t used to this kind of behavior. In these meetings, everyone wants to focus on her, to answer her, to work with her and be important.

  Maybe the jokes are the way? Maybe it’s in his childhood? He skips over that in the book.

  “Okay, so let’s talk about the jokes then, you like them so much. When did that start? Was it maybe a defense mechanism at school? We could frame it that way, show you using humor to get out of trouble, as a kid, you know?”

  Jimmy rolled his eyes, looked at her again. “You want to make a crime movie, but you don’t want to make a movie about criminals.”

  “But at school…”

  “I tell jokes because I like them. Because I loved watching Johnny Carson, and I figured being him was the best thing in the world.”

  “Why not try being a comedian?”

  “I wanted to make money.”

  Megan made a couple notes on the page. That was a good line. It wasn’t much, this angle, but maybe they could use it. Show him as a frustrated comic, build up that way. She could see it, now she was thinking it. Early scenes, watching Carson. Maybe a flashback.

  Yeah, it could work.

  She looked at the next question.

  “So, this Marshal who arrested you…”

  Jimmy’s eyes opened up. “Deputy US Marshal Chloe Medina.”

  Was that a smile? It was.

  His focus was full on her now.

  Megan tapped the notes, bingo. “Yeah. Tell me about her.”

  “She didn’t shoot me.” He paused, leaned back in the seat. “I mean, she could’ve shot me. She shot Lisa. But she didn’t shoot me.”

  “Why do you think that was?”

  “You should ask her.”

  We’ve tried, Megan thought. They’d tried to do a deal with Medina already, use her name, put her in the story. She refused both, they were going to have to change the name if they used the scene in the film. Someone else who didn’t want to be in a movie. What was wrong with the world?

  “Tell me what happened.”

  Jimmy shrugged. “Not much to it. We’ve gone in the bank. I hated doing banks, but Lisa had this idea. And she’s got me packing, and I hated packing. But it’s all working, this trick she had, knew the exact time the manager was opening this small safe they had behind the desk, like a drop box they put money before taking it all out the back? Lisa knew the exact time of day they opened it, and we’d got bags full of cash. We come out, and there’s this Marshal standing there on the steps, just watching us.”

  “You knew what she was?”

  “Well, you could tell she was something. Some kind of law.”

  “And she pulls a gun?”

  “She’s got her hand on the gun. On her hip. Which, by the way? Hottest thing I’ve ever seen. I mean, I don’t like guns, but she made it work. And she identifies herself, says, ‘Deputy US Marshal Chloe Medina, don’t do anything stupid.’ But then Lisa does something stupid.”

  “She tries to shoot her.”

  “Well, I guess. Her hand twitched. Lisa’s gun was down at her side, we’d both lowered them as we came out the bank, thinking we didn’t need them. Lisa’s hand twitched. Not even an inch, really, and Chloe shot her. She drew so fast.”

  Chloe.

  Megan was right. Jimmy had a thing for this Marshal.

  “Then she looks at me, just looks at me, cocks an eyebrow, and I drop the gun. So yeah, she could’ve shot me, and she didn’t.”

  “The one time you got caught.”

  “The one time.”

  “Love story between a criminal and a Marshal,” Megan said, circling Medina’s name in the notes. “There’s a story there.”

  Jimmy didn’t answer. He was gone again, focusing on something behind her.

  She turned to look. A small guy in an army surplus jacket was standing at the register, pointing a gun at the two servers. He looked twitchy, nervous.

  The gunman called out, “Nobody move.”

  Jimmy leaned forward. “That’s not how I would do it.”

  The kid in the jacket looked scared. His gun pointing one way, then another.

  “All the money,” he was saying. “All of it.”

  The older of the two servers, the middle-aged woman with red hair, said, “Where you want us to put it?”

  He didn’t have a bag. Hadn’t thought that far ahead.

  Jimmy figured the kid hadn’t even intended to rob the place. Just came in, maybe for a coffee, maybe to get off the street. Bu
t the gun in his pocket had made a stupid decision, and there was no way this ended well.

  Jimmy slid out of the booth. He saw Mega turn to him, panicked, mouthing for him to stop. The kid spun halfway round, towards him. Jimmy looked at all the other customers, none of them sure what to do next, nobody having any idea what to do when a gun shows up.

  “Freeze,” the kid’s voice going up a level. “Stop effing moving.”

  Effing? Jimmy put his hands out, palms up, and smiled. “I got you, I’m staying right here.”

  “Get back,” the kid took a few steps towards him.

  Jimmy watched the thoughts pass across the servers faces, was this their chance to do something?

  “What I’m thinking,” Jimmy said, “is that everybody should keep still.”

  “I already said that,” the kid was whiny now. “But somebody didn’t listen.”

  “I just want to help, give you some on-the-job training.”

  The kid pointed the gun square at Jimmy’s face.

  “I’m Jimmy Finch. You don’t know me? Jimmy the Pinch? Nothing?”

  “Uh…” A shrug. “No.”

  Jimmy took a small step forward. “Two hundred thirty-seven robberies, only caught one time. My date over there,” he said, twitching his head, indicating Megan behind him, “is a Hollywood producer, going to make a movie based on me. So I’m basically an expert at what you’re doing.”

  “Okay.”

  “How do you think you’re doing right now?”

  “Uh…” The kid looked at the two servers. They both shrugged. He turned back. “Okay?”

  “I gotta be honest. This is not going well.”

  A flush of anger welled up in the kids face, but Jimmy read it for what it was, embarrassment. “No, man, I’m doing okay.”

  “You’re scared, that’s okay. You didn’t plan on this, did you? Came in for some pancakes, maybe a coffee, a burger. You’ve had a bad day, right?”

  The kid nodded.

  Jimmy continued. “You know, when I was a kid, I liked two things. Johnny Carson and Westerns. I decided, when I grew up, I was going to rob a bank in every state, get famous.” Jimmy gambled on another step forward. “You know how many banks I’ve robbed?”

  “Like, two hundred, something, you said.”

  The kid turned for approval from the servers, not confident in his answer.

  “One,” Jimmy said. “Just one. See, when I looked at it, I figured, there’s no real money in robbing a bank. It’s too difficult. If you carry a gun, you got more chance of being shot. And there’s not as much cash in banks as people think, they got sick of being robbed. What I did, I started hitting places like this. Fast businesses, where people paid in cash, and there was no real security. But you know the problem with that?”

  There was real doubt in the kid’s eyes now, but his finger was still on the trigger, he could pull at any second.

  “The problem is, everyone is security now. Walk in a place like this, everyone’s got a cell phone, everyone’s walking around with surveillance devices. You’ve just pulled an armed robbery, with no mask, and I’m guessing no getaway plan.”

  The kid looked round at the other customers now, at the phones they had on the tables in front of them.

  Jimmy said, “What you have here is a mistake you made. And you can’t un-make it. The cops are gonna come, and you’re going to do time. But what you can do is not make an even bigger mistake.” Jimmy looked directly at the gun now. “You can put that down.”

  The gun hand wavered. The eyes behind it, young, confused, really wanted permission to lower the weapon. Jimmy could see it. The anger. The pride. The kid needed to relax.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Uh…Ed.”

  “What’s your full name? Come on, we’re all friends here.”

  “Foley. Ed Foley.”

  “Ed, you ever hear the one about the three dwarves?”

  Ed turned to the servers as if to ask, is he for real?

  They both shrugged, don’t ask us.

  “See, there are these three dwarves outside the head office for the Guinness Book of Records. Never met each other before, just turned up at the same time. They’re asking each other why they’re there. I mean, might be the same thing, right? That would be awkward. So the first dwarf says, ‘I’m here to get tested. I think I have the smallest hands in the world’. And the other two are like, well…okay. Good luck. It’s an achievement, I guess? So he goes in. Thirty minutes later, he comes out. All happy. He’s in. Number one. Smallest hands in the world. Awesome. Then the second one says, ‘I’m getting tested too. I think I have the smallest feet in the world.’ Okay, they say. Well…good luck. He goes in. Thirty minutes later, he comes out. Jumping around, happy. He’s in. Smallest feet in the world. Fantastic. So then they ask the third guy. He pauses, he’s nervous. He says, ‘I’m here to get tested. I think I have the smallest…uh…you know.’” Jimmy made a show of looking down at his crotch. “‘I think I have the smallest…thing.’ And the others, I mean, they want to be supportive, so they go, great, well good luck. So he goes in. Comes out five minutes later. He’s all angry, like really shaking. And he looks at them, and he says, ‘Who the fuck is Ed Foley?’”

  There was a pause. Just long enough for Jimmy to doubt his play. Then Ed started to laugh. One of those that rumbles up, starting like indigestion sounds in the gut, before fighting up the throat. He shook his head and smiled, then laughed again.

  He held the gun out, and Jimmy took it.

  Sirens were approaching, still a little way off.

  Jimmy turned to look over at Megan. “There’s your ending.”

  Back to TOC

  Barnet Fair

  Inspired by the Rhyming Slang for Hair

  Catriona McPherson

  Must have been round about two years back it started. I was on a high about the new premises, doing all the promo I could wangle. I didn’t even mean to say it that first time. It was only local press, poor cow with her split-ends and her soft shoes stretched over a bunion. She asked about the salon’s name and I said what I always say: ‘I’m from Barnet. Bred and buttered.’ Then she goes ‘And hairdressers do love a pun, don’t they. Like chip shops.’

  I saw red then. I was doing her a favour with this interview for her stupid rag. I was entitled to respect. After everything I’ve been through in my life.

  ‘It’s an act of defiance,’ I told her. I managed to not to say ‘sweetie’ at the end. Or ‘bitch’.

  She perked up at that. Part-time hack on the local birdcage liner and she thinks she’s Leonard Bernstein.

  ‘I’m a survivor,’ I said. People say that right and left these days. It’s lost all its meaning. I half-expected an eye roll from Bunion Bertha when I said it in the interview. But she was gagging for it, as it goes.

  ‘I was assaulted,’ I said. ‘Sexually assaulted. Gay bashed, actually.’

  She was so thrilled to hear that little gem she forgot to keep peck-peck-pecking away at her shorthand.

  ‘And that’s where it happened,’ I said. ‘Right there in my hometown. At the fair. So using the name for my salon is a…I don’t know what to say. What would you call it?’

  ‘An act of courage?’ she suggested. I shrugged it off but I gave her a half-smile and a quarter-nod. She’d use the phrase in the article now, for sure, pleased with herself for hitting the nail. And I didn’t look big-headed.

  ‘Do you feel you can share it with the readership?’ she asked me. Readership! Bored folk that have finished the mags at the dentist and maybe some house-bound pensioners with the kind of relations that’ll give a newspaper subscription for Christmas.

  ‘My memory’s hazy,’ I told her

  ‘That’s well-known, though.’

  ‘And I’d had a few cheeky Vimtos, as it goes. All trolled up for a night on the waltzers, you know?’

  ‘You don’t need to apologise for drinking,’ sh
e said. ‘There are no perfect victims.’ Cheeky cow. ‘We all know that now. You’ve got no need to feel guilty.’ Oh, she was eating out of my hand.

  ‘This is hard,’ I said. ‘Talking about it for the first time? It’s harder than I thought it would be.’

  ‘The first time?’ she said. I swear she had colour in her cheeks from the thrill of it.

  ‘We had met at the burger van,’ I said. ‘Eyes locked, you know how it goes. And then we went on the big wheel. Very romantic. Stopped at the top. All that.’

  ‘Sounds lovely.’ She was turning misty-eyed. Typical hag. Closest she’d ever get to a fit bloke was listening to me describing him.

  ‘Then…I dunno, it gets a bit vague until the bit when we were round the back of something. There was a generator. It could have been one of the rides, or it could have been a living van. I’m not mechanically minded. It’s hard to say.’

  ‘And then what happened?’ she said. Couldn’t have cared less about me setting the scene.

  ‘We kissed. Not a peck, but I don’t want to say more. I’m bashful.’ I fanned my cheeks and she giggled. ‘The next thing I knew, well not really. Like I say, it’s hazy. But practically the next thing I knew I’m coming round in the HDU and it’s the next morning.’

  She shook her head, tutted and waited for more. Her eyes were still shining.

  ‘My mum was there. And one of my aunties. Holding my hand. Asking me what happened. But I wasn’t even out back then so I said nothing.’

  ‘Didn’t the police ask too?’

  ‘They did, yes. And…I’m not proud of this, but…I told them a stranger had lured me away to a dark corner and I ended up with my head bashed in. The looks they gave me, even for that! It was different days.’

  ‘And they never caught him?’

  ‘They’ve never arrested anyone for it,’ I said. Which was true.

  It’s right enough what they say. I got more exposure from telling that hack my sob story than I could have scored from a double-page ad in a national, with full-colour and a coupon. It hit the red-tops and, before you know what’s what, the phone’s ringing off the hook for more interviews. Then of course they find my wife. Ex-wife. And she’s telling the Mail I’m straight, so I need to knock that on the head. Bad for business. East, west, bi’s best, I always say. My ladies like a bit of camp, but they luurrve a bit of camp with a chance. And so by the time I’ve done another round of interviews I’m a celebrity. I’m judging talent shows and getting asked to donate auction prizes for a different good cause every bloody day.