Monday 30 December 2013

New Year

New Year's Eve always seems to be the most disappointing time of the year. It is always built up by the media and by people to be this fantastic event - so much depending on it, how you spend the evening will be how you spend the rest of the year...

Rubbish!

In fact more than rubbish, completely and unutterably wrong! 

The only time anyone has been more wrong is Fred when he told me I needed to give up drinking and smoking. 

New Year's Eve has never been anything short of a drunken extravaganza designed to make bar and club owners rich and everyone else short of sleep the next day and a lot poorer to boot. 

Every year I hear people in cafes and bars and on the street and even in the off-licence talking about what they are doing for New Year's Eve and who they are doing it with - unsurprisingly some of these conversations involved a level of detail that no self-respecting eavesdropper would be comfortable hearing. Around the millennium it was almost unbearable to hear such hype that turned out to be nothing more than a doubly impressive let down.

In all honesty I try and ignore New Year, New Year's day often brings me a lot of profitable work so on the eve, getting to bed early and stuffing my ears with as much cotton wool as I can find has always been my common practice.

Now this has always proved to be somewhat difficult. There are many factors that always seem to conspire to make me stay up to see the clock change from 11:59 to 12:00 (as though I had never done that before). Most of these come in the form of, yes, you've guessed it - Frederick J. Barlow.

Fred has this horrible habit of thinking that I am lonely, that I am need of being kept cheerful on this most irritating of nights. Even worse than that is Harry Lee, yes Harry informs me continually that New Year's Eve is the perfect time to, and I quote "get Fred into bed and then let him down gently in the morning". What I don't understand is why Harry thinks I want to get Fred into bed, let alone let him down gently. I've never done anything gently in my whole life, I'm not about to start on New Year's Day.

That's the other thing that gets me about New Year, this idea that people's will power will somehow be greater at this point in the year than at any other time so they decide to create a resolution to do something... why the significance of the changing of the year? Why not when Spring becomes Summer? Or when Wednesday becomes Thursday (or Monday if you have managed to get yourself hospitalized and lost a few days in an unconscious state).

The only thing that has ever made New Year's Eve remotely fun was the time that Ryan turned up at 11pm telling me he knew where Kevin Metis was and that if I was quick I could shoot him in the knee caps and no one would ever know it was me...ah now that was a fun night - and no one ever did know I shot him in the shin and made him lose a toe the stiletto of the woman he was trying to seduce.

However it is now 10pm and I can hear footsteps on the stairs. It will be Fred coming to tell me that his girlfriend is no longer his and how he needs to drown his sorrows with me. If only I thought ahead every year I could go to somewhere remote and quite, like a monastery and not be disturbed, however I am not sure they would let me bring my guns or whiskey with me, so on balance that probably isn't the best idea.

Tuesday 24 December 2013

Christmas

Christmas happens to be one of my most favourite times of year. Not because the run up to Christmas is very busy for me with people wanting people followed to find out where money is being spent and why spouses don't come home after office Christmas parties, but because there is a certain level of peace and harmony that seems to fall over the city.

Yes, homes get broken into on Christmas eve of the richer element and have their presents stolen, there are drunken brawls and drunken drivers galore and A&E is not where I want to step foot given the number of incredible Christmas related injuries that occur, but none of this seems to have any effect on dampening my spirit.

Even Fred and Harry are less annoying at this time of year. We don't fight or scream or have any form of exciting adventures, we sit down to a nice meal together with Ryan and spend two days in peace and harmony

That is until I wake up and find the frozen pipes in my apartment, no food in the fridge, Harry has gone out of town with his latest conquest, Ryan has wound up in prison and Fred... Fred is sat with his girlfriend and her family in one of the large townhouses on the other side of the city having the middle class Christmas he loves so much.

Christmas is my favourite time of year because I get to have the peace and quiet of my place all to my self, the phone doesn't ring, no one bursts in unexpectedly and tries to rescue me for dangers untold and most importantly, no one tries to drink from the bottles I have stored up for the day except for me.

Monday 16 December 2013

Catsuits

Catsuits are something are extremely useful in my line of work. They are aerodynamic, don't snag or get caught on things when you are throwing yourself around in a gunfight.

They are easy to clean and if I do get covered with blood - no one can tell if it has stained or not because the black leather hides it well!

There doesn't seem to really be any downside to a proper full leather catsuit except for the name...

Have you ever tried to search for a practical, every day catsuit? No? Well that isn't all that surprising. In fact I imagine I am one of the few people that would be looking for a catsuit that doesn't involved the search word "sexy" or "dance".

Worse still is when you are trying on several catsuits that you have had delivered and Harry Lee walks into your office. Granted changing in my apartment with the door to my office open probably wasn't the best idea in the world, but still Harry did not have to stand there for five minutes staring before he announced his presence.

The only thing that would have made the whole situation worse would have been Fred having walked in as well. Fortunately he didn't, though Harry irrupting and all his extremely helpful comments did make up my mind on one thing...

...though practical for my line of work, I don't think I could cope with Fred and Harry's continuous comments...

...maybe I should look into flight suits instead - at least then it wouldn't unzip all the way down the front...

Monday 9 December 2013

12 Days of Christmas Reprise

On the first day of Christmas, the city gave to me, all the shreds of Fred's dignity.

On the second day of Christmas, the city gave to me, two gunshot wounds and all the shreds of Fred's dignity.

On the third day of Christmas, the city gave to me, three nights in hospital, two gunshot wounds and all the shreds of Fred's dignity.

On the fourth day of Christmas, the city gave to me, four weeks without heat, three nights in hospital, two gunshot wounds and all the shreds of Fred's dignity.

On the fifth day of Christmas, the city gave to me, five new enemies, four weeks without heat, three nights in hospital, two gunshot wounds and all the shreds of his dignity.

On the sixth day of Christmas, the city gave to me, six life-threatening situations, five new enemies, four weeks without heat, three nights in hospital, two gunshot wounds and all the shreds of his dignity.

On the seventh day of Christmas, the city gave to me, seven faulty firearms, six life-threatening situations, five new enemies, four weeks without heat, three nights in hospital, two gunshot wounds and all the shreds of his dignity.

On the eighth day of Christmas, the city gave to me, eight irritating clients, seven faulty firearms, six life-threatening situations, five new enemies, four weeks without heat, three nights in hospital, two gunshot wounds and all the shreds of his dignity.

On the ninth day of Christmas, the city gave to me, nine deadbeat boyfriends, eight irritating clients, seven faulty firearms, six life-threatening situations, five new enemies, four weeks without heat, three nights in hospital, two gunshot wounds and all the shreds of his dignity.

On the tenth day of Christmas, the city gave to me, ten packs of cigarettes, nine deadbeat boyfriends, eight irritating clients, seven faulty firearms, six life-threatening situations, five new enemies, four weeks without heat, three nights in hospital, two gunshot wounds and all the shreds of his dignity.

On the eleventh day of Christmas, the city gave to me, eleven day's at Harry's, ten packs of cigarettes, nine deadbeat boyfriends, eight irritating clients, seven faulty firearms, six life-threatening situations, five new enemies, four weeks without heat, three nights in hospital, two gunshot wounds and all the shreds of his dignity.

On the twelfth day of Christmas, the city gave to me, twelve bitter arguments, eleven day's at Harry's, ten packs of cigarettes, nine deadbeat boyfriends, eight irritating clients, seven faulty firearms, six life-threatening situations, five new enemies, four weeks without heat, three nights in hospital, two gunshot wounds and all the shreds of his dignity.


It's nice to see that at least the city and Fred can agree on one thing...

Tuesday 3 December 2013

Murder in the First - Day 1

There are few days when I get time to myself, to enjoy life, to drink whiskey, read a good book, listen to good music - all without being disturbed. Today was not one of those days, no matter how much it looked like it would be when I woke up.

I woke up to a very cold and crisp morning, the city was covered in a light frost that sparkled in the early morning sun and made me wish that I had better heating in my apartment. I didn't care how many people were inspired to poetry by the sight - I cared about the fact that I had no running water and was at risk of having my apartment flooded again by burst pipes.

So after making sure there wasn't frost on the inside of my windows, and hitting the boiler a few times to make sure it was working, I was able to get up to find that I didn't have time to get dressed before Laurel and Hardy showed up to ruin my day. When I say showed up, I mean both Fred and Harry were already sat in my office looking at their watches and ignoring the fact that they could see their breath.

Now I am sure there are women out there who would welcome the sight of seeing these two annoyances first thing in the morning, I am however not one of them. As I was still in my night attire, that is more revealing than I would have liked at this point in time, Fred's eyes were firmly fixed on my legs. Harry chose to look out of the window instead. After trading the standard pleasantries such as "Get out", "What the hell are you doing here?" and "Fred, stop staring at my legs." and the threats of violence and arrest for the relevant sides of the arguments, I discovered why I'd been paid a visit by the gruesome twosome so early in the morning. Ryan, Fred's younger brother that wasn't so good at staying on the right side of the law, was in trouble.

I have always liked Ryan, he's a lot of fun and fairly harmless, even if he doesn't have the best judgement when it comes to his life choices - though I am hardly one to talk.

Ryan has always been in some degree of trouble. Normally he would come to me directly for help with death threats, loan sharks or gambling debts, mainly to avoid lectures from Fred, but as it was Fred and Harry paying me a visit and not Ryan getting on the phone, it seemed that it might be something a little more serious than normal.

And when I say a little more serious than normal - it was a lot more serious and when I say it was a lot more serious, it's just about as serious as a situation could get.

There had been a murder committed overnight and it turned out that Ryan was the prime suspect. Fred and Harry were not investigating what happened, that honour belonged to Richard Ellis and Ross Turndune. However Fred couldn't believe that his brother was responsible, so as he couldn't interfere professionally he had come to me to help.

Ryan wasn't in custody yet, in fact no one knew where he was, he hadn't been since the murder had taken place and the victim hadn't even been identified yet either. There seemed to be an awful lot of work to do and not much that Fred and Harry could do to help without winding up being arrested.

I spent an hour listening to Fred protesting Ryan's innocence and Harry telling Fred I needed to go get dressed, before Harry managed to steer Fred out of my office and let me sit down and think about what I needed to do.

I needed to work out where Ryan was, work out who had been murdered, why they had been murdered, who had murdered them and if Ryan was really innocent - it wasn't a very long list of things to do really...but before I could do any of it, I really did need to get dressed.

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