Monkey Wrench Read online

  MONKEY WRENCH

  Liza Cody

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  About the Author

  By the Same Author

  Chapter 1

  I only wanted a bunch of bananas. I was on my way to the shop to buy them when I saw a bunch of kids circling and yowling like hyenas. They chanted,

  ‘Dirty Dawn

  Stinks like a prawn.

  She lost her bra

  In a punter’s car

  And she don’t know where her knickers are.’

  Dawn is trouble. She’s a mess and a waste of space. She’s always on the piss. I crossed over to the other side of the road. If she saw me she’d expect me to get rid of the kids and wheel her home in a barrow. I ducked into Hanif’s shop instead.

  I took my time behind the shelves. If I stayed there long enough Dawn would pull herself together and shamble off without my help. Helping people always ends in tears. And helping drunks is a total waste of time. They’re never grateful, they don’t pay their debts and they’ve got rotten memories. What’s the point in being nice to someone who can’t remember how nice you’ve been? Tell me that. The only point in doing someone a favour is if they remember and do you a favour back.

  Besides, angry wasps are better-natured than the kids in this part of London. Take a tip from me – if you like a quiet life don’t ever get yourself outnumbered by kids. I was a kid once myself so I know how evil they can be once they get into a pack. Normal rules don’t apply to a pack, and a little kid who wouldn’t do hokey-cokey on his own becomes Conan the Barbarian in a bunch. Come to think of it, that’s true of grown-ups as well.

  I know about crowds. I should do, I’m a wrestler.

  That’s right. Me. I’m Eva Wylie, the London Lassassin. Maybe you heard of me, maybe you haven’t, but I’m getting myself a reputation as one of the meanest, toughest villains in the business. So don’t you tell me about crowds – just shut your mouth and give your ears a chance. You think all you have to do is cram a load of people together and what you got is a crowd? Wrong. A crowd is not just a lot of people. It’s an animal. It’s an animal which roars. It can be stroked quiet. It can be goaded. It can be tweaked and revved-up. It can be kind, but mostly it’s cruel. People who wouldn’t dare insult me eyeball to eyeball if they met me on the street call me dreadful names when they know all they have to do is duck back into the body of a crowd.

  I don’t care. I can take it. It’s what I get paid for.

  I do not get paid for taking on a bunch of nasty, dirty-minded kids. And besides, I don’t owe Dawn anything. The opposite, in fact.

  I used to know Dawn’s little sister, Crystal – we dossed together sometimes and went on the same collection routes. That was in the days before my luck turned, when I was still on the streets. And before Crystal’s luck turned and she got a stall on the market. At the time it was Dawn who was doing all right, and Crystal and me who were hanging on by half a fingernail.

  Here’s what happened. It was one hard cold night, so cold that the damp in your coat freezes and your chilblains split, and Crystal and me had made a nest in a condemned house in Hammersmith. We thought it was safe and we’d just settled when we got rousted by a family of crusties and their dogs. Eight crusties and three dogs.

  I might have managed some of the crusties because even in those days I was a big girl who could be a bit useful. But eight of them! And three dogs. I could do it now – they wouldn’t know what hit ’em. But then, I hadn’t realised my full potential. And besides, Crystal was such a little thing – knee-high to a piss-pot, she was. And we hadn’t managed to scrounge any supper so we weren’t at our best.

  Anyway, the crusties tossed us out and there we were back on the street with nowhere to go. And Crystal says, ‘Maybe we could go over to Paddington and see if my sister will lend us a bit of floor.’

  I was dead surprised. I never knew she had a sister, and as we slogged along the empty streets to Paddington I wondered why, if her sister had a room, Crystal was always so down and out.

  I found out why when we got there.

  ‘Piss off, Crystal,’ Dawn said. It was the first thing she said when she opened the door. Looking past her, I saw a warm room, all painted pink. But Dawn barred the door.

  ‘If you think I’m letting you in here,’ Dawn said, ‘you’ve got another think coming. You smell like the corporation tip, and who’s that you got with you – the Incredible Hulk?’

  ‘That’s Eva,’ Crystal said.

  ‘Well, she can piss off too,’ Dawn said. She was all made up with pink cheeks and black eye shadow at three in the morning. Which meant only one thing to me. And I wasn’t wrong.

  ‘You’re costing me money,’ Dawn said. ‘Stood here on my landing like this was some dosshouse.’

  ‘Just a warm-up, Dawn,’ Crystal said. ‘We won’t stop long. It’s perishing outside.’

  I hated to see her beg. She was only little but she had grit.

  ‘I know your warm-ups,’ Dawn said. ‘Last time you was in here I scratched for days. I had to douse me bed with flea spray. Now sling yer hook.’ And she slammed the door in our faces, but not before I saw a huge box of chocolates spread out on her bed, and comics, and heated hair rollers. Everything a whore needs to occupy her mind between sessions.

  And there we were, out in the grinding cold.

  ‘So much for family feeling,’ I said. Because my sister would never’ve chucked us out. If I’d known where to find her. My sister would’ve had us in for a cup of tea and a kip on her bed. She’d of given us a whole handful of chocolates, and a bath.

  ‘Well, where is your sister then?’ Crystal said. Because she could be quite spiteful when she was hungry, and she knew I hadn’t seen her for years. I was looking, but I never found her.

  So that was the first time I saw Dawn and I haven’t forgotten. Forgiving and forgetting’s for those who can afford it. Not me. I can hold a grudge forever if I want to.

  But it wasn’t worthwhile holding a grudge against Dawn. She was her own worst enemy. She had no guts. Crystal had all the guts in that family. So now Crystal has a place to live and a bric-a-brac stall in the Mandala Street Market, but Dawn stands on street corners and gets in blokes’ cars. And then she pisses all her takings away in the pub. How stupid can you get?

  She only moved down here, south of the river, so she could leech off Crystal. She used to have a bloke to look after her, but he went the way all blokes go when they’re through with a woman – onwards and upwards. And Dawn went the way all gutless women go when there’s no one to look after them – backwards and downwards.

  That’s what happens when you depend on other people. Take it from me. You got to depend on yourself in this world. Crystal did. I did. We made our own luck.

  I paid for the bunch of bananas and went out. Dawn was still there. The kids had got her down and one of them was trying to lift her skirt with a stick.

  ‘Dawn’s a whore,’ they were screeching, ‘she’s so poor, she does it up against the lavvy door.’

  I turned away to go home, when all of a sudden Crystal burst out from the alleyway opposite. She grabbed the stick
and started laying about her like a homicidal midget. She’s not much bigger than a ten-year-old kid herself, but she cleared a space round Dawn in no time at all. She looked so funny I just stood there splitting my sides.

  Big mistake. She saw me.

  ‘Eva,’ she yelled. ‘Give us a hand.’

  ‘Get stuffed,’ I yelled back. ‘I got work to do.’

  But then one of the kids pointed and said to his mates, ‘Ain’t that Bucket Nut?’

  Bucket Nut is one of the more civil things I get called when I’m fighting. And I was so chuffed the kid recognised me I strolled over, all casual like. I took my jacket off as I went so everyone could see the size of my arms. I’m proud of my arms. A lot of time and trouble went into them. I’m not so proud of my belly but I wasn’t going to show it off to anyone, was I? Not in the middle of the road, I wasn’t. Not without getting paid.

  ‘Give us a hand, Eva,’ Crystal said again.

  ‘You really Bucket Nut?’ one of the kids asked.

  ‘What you think?’ I said. ‘And watch yer mouth or I’ll show yer.’

  ‘My dad says wrestling’s all an act.’

  ‘Yeah?’ I said, taking just one pace forwards. I could tell the kid was impressed. He took two paces backwards.

  I was chuffed to buggery. This time last year no one knew me. Now I get recognised in the street. It goes to show I’m on my way.

  ‘My dad says wrestlers are about as much use as jelly doorknockers,’ the kid said. ‘When it comes to real fighting …’

  ‘Tell you what,’ I said, ‘you give me your dad’s name and address, if you know it, and I’ll see what he says when I push you through his letter box.’

  Crystal said, ‘Why don’t you stop posing and help me?’

  She’d got Dawn sat up and she’d wiped her off a bit, but it would’ve taken an engine hoist to get her on her feet. She didn’t have any bones in her legs. I’ve seen my ma in that state, and there’s only one thing for it – the good old-fashioned fireman’s lift. Which is what I did. Not for Dawn, mark you. She could go rotten in the road for all I cared. But Crystal and me have a history. We aren’t mates – we never were, exactly, but we were in the same boat once or twice, and if she never did me any favours, she never did me any damage either. And that’s as close as I get to having friends.

  Crystal’s room looked a lot like her stall. She didn’t have furniture, it was more like her stockroom with a mattress in the middle. We laid Dawn out to snore and then Crystal went back to the market, and I went off to the yard.

  That’s where I live – a breaker’s yard. And if you think that’s funny, ask yourself, do you get paid to live where you live? If you’re the one with a landlord or a mortgage don’t you sneer at me. I get my accommodation free. It goes with the job. Because that’s the other thing I do besides the wrestling – I mind the yard at night. So if you fancy a few spares or plant, and if you don’t fancy paying for it, it’s me and my dogs you have to deal with. You won’t find it easy, let me tell you. Me and Ramses and Lineker have practically a clean sheet where thieving is concerned. We may not be pretty, but we’re bleeding effective, and between us we can pack a lot of muscle and make a lot of noise.

  So that night, after all the men had gone home, I locked up the yard, as always, and I let out the dogs, and we did a tour of the property. I’m supposed to be there all night, but sometimes there are other things to do. It depends who pays best. But so long as I’m back in time to feed the dogs and open up, who’s to know?

  Tonight I was going to see The Enemy. She thinks she’s so sharp and in control and she’s just waiting to catch me at it. At what? Who bleeding knows? There are some people like that, and they’re all polizei of one breed or another.

  That’s right, The Enemy is a lady cop. She says she isn’t any more, but I say, once a copper always a copper. You can’t clean it off like shit on your shoes.

  The sign on the door says ‘Lee-Schiller’. Lee is The Enemy, Mr Schiller is her partner. He’s an old geezer, and the secretary is an old bird. The Enemy runs a day-care centre for wrinklies. Which is why she needs me for stuff that can’t be done by someone in a walking frame.

  I opened the door and a bell rang. The secretary-bird was at her desk writing things in a big book.

  She said, ‘Hello Eva, come for your money?’

  ‘What you think?’ I said.

  She gave me an envelope. I tore it open and counted the dosh. It was all there.

  ‘Got anything else for me?’ I asked.

  ‘Anna’s out at the moment,’ she said. As if I didn’t know. If she’s in, The Enemy pops up whenever she hears that door bell ring. Nosy cow – always got to know what’s happening. Even when it doesn’t concern her. Typical polizei.

  ‘If there is anything new she knows where to find you,’ the old secretary-bird said. Which narked me off. That’s why I go to see The Enemy regular. I don’t much like her ‘knowing where to find me’. If there’s one thing you should know about me, it’s this – Eva Wylie was not put on this earth to make life easy for the polizei.

  And The Enemy wasn’t making life easy for me. No extra work, no extra scratch. Well, sod her.

  Chapter 2

  The very next day I heard that Dawn was dead.

  I got up as usual at about 3pm and had my breakfast of tea, bananas and bread and jam. Then I went down Sam’s Gym for the weights and the shower. Sam’s Gym is where the mob from Deeds Promotions hang out. Some of us train properly – like Harsh and me. The others just mong about flexing their dangly bits and gossiping. Either way that’s where I go to keep myself big and strong, and to pick up word of where I’m fighting next. I also pick up my purse from my last fight.

  There aren’t many people in this world who pay you cash on the nail the way they ought. You do the business but you have to wait for the readies. The boss-class have got it all sorted to their own advantage. I mean, the folk who watch me fight got to pay or they don’t get in. That’s dosh in the cash box. So how come I got to wait for mine? Eh? Tell me that. How come Mr Deeds of Deeds Promotions, who does bugger all but sit on his fat arse all day, gets his first? And me, who takes all the bruises and abuses, gets mine last?

  ‘Go on, count it,’ he said, like he was doing me a favour. ‘It’s all there, but you go on and count it anyway. You always do.’

  And I did. I’d be a fool not to. In that last fight, I was with a woman called Gypsy Jo and when I took her down by the knees in the last round she got one leg out of my grip and hammered my elbow with her boot. My elbow’s been sore for days, and if Mr Deeds thinks a sore elbow’s not worth a few quid he’s a bigger twat than even his wife thinks he is.

  ‘You have swelling there,’ Harsh said. He was getting paid too. ‘Treat it with hot and cold. Rest it.’

  ‘I’ll work it off,’ I said, because Mr Deeds was listening.

  ‘You on the injured list?’ he said. Arse like an elephant, ears like a rabbit, brain like a dust ball.

  ‘Not me,’ I said. If I’m injured he won’t find a bout for me. No bout, no purse.

  Harsh said, ‘Then you will hurt yourself more than Gypsy Jo did.’

  I didn’t know whether to be chuffed or choked. It’s brilliant when Harsh takes an interest, but like as not, when he does, he says something I don’t want to hear. He was wearing grey sweat bottoms and an old black singlet, and his deltoids were shining wet from the exercise.

  ‘There was someone here looking for you,’ he said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘She didn’t say. A kid.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Earlier.’

  ‘I don’t want no strangers in here,’ Mr Deeds said. He thinks if people know what we do when we train they won’t believe in the fights anymore.

  ‘She came to the entrance,’ Harsh said. ‘I saw her there.’ He’s the soul of patience, is Harsh. It wasn’t any of Mr Deeds’ business earwigging other people’s conversations.

  ‘She was very cold,’
Harsh said, ‘so she came in only for a minute. She said, “Tell Eva …”’

  ‘Over here,’ I said, jerking my chin. Harsh may be a lovely wrestler but he’s as thick as potato pie when it comes to keeping his lip buttoned in front of someone who doesn’t like me.

  ‘What did she say?’ I asked, when we were alone by the window.

  ‘She said, “Tell Eva that Dawn’s dead.” She wants to see you.’

  That was the message. Harsh didn’t know anything else.

  Dawn was dead. No how or why or where. No reason why Crystal wanted to see me.

  That was the mystery – what would Crystal want with me?

  Dawn being dead wasn’t much of a puzzle. You knew something bad would happen to Dawn every time you looked at her. She did sex for money and she wasn’t choosy. You could see her pissed any hour of the day or night. Out of her skull. She couldn’t look after herself. And if you can’t look after yourself you’re done. Simple as that.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Harsh said. ‘Was Dawn a friend of yours?’

  ‘No, she bleeding wasn’t,’ I said. ‘She was just around – near where I live.’

  ‘All the same,’ Harsh said.

  ‘All the same nothing,’ I said, and I went off and warmed up. Then I started on the machines. I could imagine Dawn sprawled out on a hospital meat tray. For some reason I thought she drowned. What did it matter how she went? She was half fucking dead when she was alive. Fucked. Fucked up. Dead drunk. Dead.

  I was on that machine which works your inner thighs. You pull a roller with one ankle so your leg snaps closed. And that’s how I was counting the repetitions – fucked, fucked up, dead drunk, dead, five, six, seven, eight. And so on, nice and rhythmical. Change legs, start again on the other side. I thought I’d give my legs and abdominals a real working over. Give me elbow a rest. Like Harsh said.