The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 10

LAST TRAIN FROM DESPRIT by Richard Godwin

THE FLAMINGO BAR stood beneath the broken neon glow of a sign that read: “Make Money. Change Your Life Now”. The words flickered outside the unwashed window, while the name of the company that was advertising hope to the desolate remained submerged in blackness. All that was visible were the letters LOSS beneath the slogan.

Joe Murray sat in the Flamingo one Monday when the lights went out in the small town of Desprit, which lay lodged like a thorn in the hungry side of Allen, South Dakota. He was reading an article in the Rapid City Journal entitled “Allen may be poor, but there’s hope”. As he looked at the latest statistics about the few who’d found jobs, the power came back on and the sign flickered into life. Glancing up, Joe deciphered the mystery that was the ad. “LOSS INSURERS NEVILLE TRADE INC, JOB VACANCIES”, it read, “we’re looking for employees. If you’re honest, you’re our man.” It gave a phone number that he hurriedly jotted down on a matchbox with a pen he’d taken from the betting shop. Then he headed out into the yellow morning, found the nearest pay phone and made the call. Someone had scrawled “Wes The Trassh Of America” on the wall and Joe traced the illiterate letters with his eyes as he waited.

“Neville Trade, how may I help you?”

“I saw your ad and I’m ringing up about vacancies,” Joe said.

“I’m not aware we’ve placed an ad. Where did you see it, sir?”

“It’s on the sign outside the Flamingo.”

“I’m sorry?”

“It’s a bar in Desprit.”

“Desprit?” she said, as if someone had forced a swear word into her mouth. “I’m sorry, sir, that ad is over a year old, we’ve asked for it to be taken down.”

“Nothing works in this town,” Joe said, as he hung up the greasy receiver.

Outside his feet felt leaden on the hard road. Turning the corner to Railyard Street he bumped into Rocco, with his salesman’s eyes, hair greased back, collar up to hide the scar that ran in a red streak from his neck to his ear.

“Hey, Joe,” he said. “Thought you’d left town, the amount of times I knocked on your door. How’s Mandy?”

“I been busy, Mandy’s good.”

“I’m sure she is. You got work?”

“I heard you got out, I was going to visit you.”

“All that time inside, Joe. I saw you only once. I been out for months.” Rocco laughed. “It’s OK. I got plenty of visits, from people a lot better-looking than you.”

“I wondered how you been doing.”

“Well, here I am, Joe. I got a job going if you’re interested.”

“I dunno.”

“No killing involved. Shooting that cop was dumb. Shit, do I look like a cop killer?”

“Nah.”

“Exactly. I got style…feel this coat.”

Rocco offered his lapel and watched with canine eyes as Joe ran his hand across the material.

“Nice.”

“Joe, there’s a cool four K riding on this, you get half. Wanna be a loser all your life?”

He playfully jabbed Joe in the shoulder.

“Doing what?”

“Simple job, you’ll be in and out quicker than a whore’s snatch. What do you say?”

“Half, huh? Maybe I’ll come round later and you can tell me more about it. I ain’t promising nothing though.”

Rocco straightened Joe’s dirty collar.

“You need to smarten up, Joe, you look like shit.”

Mandy was sleeping back at the damp apartment. Her naked legs were astride the night table, her arms sprawled out on the grey sheets. A train chugged by and the bedroom shook as Joe read the note she’d left him when she staggered in at five: “Either you get a job or I’m leaving. I ain’t doing this no more.”

He ran his eyes down her back and stared at the tattoo of a naked woman wrapped around a dollar bill that spread from her spine to her buttocks. He leaned and kissed the nape of her neck, admiring the shape of her breasts from the side as they squashed into the mattress. She’d gained some weight lately and he liked it.

“I’ll buy you more tattoos, Mandy, you’ll see.”

He lay down and shut his eyes.

When he opened them it was dark. He rose and tried the light. There was no bulb in it. He navigated the room in the lurid beam shed by the streetlight, which illuminated the rusty water dripping down the back wall. Mandy’s purse lay on the edge of the sofa. Joe reached inside and took out ten bucks. He walked two blocks to the store, where he bought some razor blades and a can of shaving foam. Back at the apartment he stared into his blue eyes in the tarnished mirror as he scraped the beard from his face, waiting for the revelation. He looked in his late thirties, and the struggle to survive showed in the lines around his eyes. He was putting his best shirt on when Mandy stirred and got out of bed.

“Hey, Joe, your beard.”

“Darlin’, I’m gonna get a job, I’m gonna get us out of here,” Joe said, running his eyes down to the sculpted tuft of dark hair at her crotch as she put on her bra from the night before.

“An’ how you gonna do that?”

“You’ll see.”

“Joe, we’re only in our twenties and what have we got?” She fished her panties off the chair, which sported a broken spring. “This wet hole by a railway line that keeps us awake and drives us to drink.”

He looked at Mandy and thought how with her deep green eyes and black hair she could have so many better men than him. Then her lightbulb crackpipe on the broken coffee table caught his attention.

“We’re another bulb down,” he said.

“I’ll get a straight shooter later so you can watch me get dressed under the overhead light.”

“Don’t you want to be more than a crackhead?”

“What about you and your whisky?”

“I wish you wouldn’t do that.”

“What?”

“Put on your panties when another man’s fucked you in them.”

“They don’t fuck me in them, baby, they fuck me butt naked. An’ now’s not a good time to get jealous.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’m pregnant.”

“Is it mine?”

“Sure it’s yours, they all wear a rubber.”

“Mandy?”

“It’s yours.”

He reached out and touched her arm and she turned her head away.

“I want it,” he said.

“How we gonna bring a kid up?”

“I’ll make money.”

“Doing what? You ain’t had a job in years, you got no qualifications, we live in the poorest town in America.”

“This time it’s gonna live, we’re dying in Desprit. Sometimes when I lie awake at night this apartment feels like a coffin in the damp earth and the only living thing is a train rattling by.”

“What future does our baby have, Joe? With you and me as parents to look after it?”

“Give up crack and it will live.”

“I’ll have to give up my career first.”

“Do it.”

“While you go and work in Wall Street?”

“Remember burying her, Mandy? That night, you and me over by the park with a stolen spade? Remember that tiny body in the cold ground? You puked your guts out.”

“How could I forget?”

“I read your note.”

“I ain’t doing it no more.”

“Give me till tonight.”

He left her standing there and headed out beneath the rusted iron bridge which cast a constant shadow on their apartment. A train thundered by as Joe made his way to meet Rocco.

They sat on a leopardskin sofa at Rocco’s apartment. Joe looked with envy at his lifestyle: the plasma-screen TV, iPod, clean furniture, new carpet.

“Where d’you get all this?” Joe said.

“Does it matter? I’m getting out of here, I’m getting out of Desprit, it should be called the town of no hope.”

“So what’s the job?”

“It’s simple,” Rocco said. “This friend of mine owns an office block. It’s all legit, I got the keys.”

“He wants you to rob his office?”

“He ain’t got no insurance, wants out, he’s given me the combination. We go in, get the cash out of the safe, and leave.”

“Simple as that?”

Rocco laid a steady hand on Joe’s shoulder.

“One thing I learned inside is not to go back in.”

“So why do you need me, Rocco?”

“There’s a security guard, I know the times he does his rounds. We get to the office by the back stairs, he never uses them, but I need you to keep watch while I’m getting the cash. My friend takes sixty per cent, and between you and me it’s a straight fifty-fifty cut.”

“That’s kind of generous of you, Rocco.”

“I’m a generous guy.”

“It’s like you’re doing me a favour.”

“Joe, I got responsibilities. My kids ain’t getting all the things I’d like them to.”

“I seen them, they’re doing OK.”

“You don’t know. You ain’t a father yet.”

Joe thought of Mandy, of new tattoos, of another town away from Desprit, where he didn’t feel like spitting at himself every time he caught his own reflection. He nodded and Rocco drew his cashmere coat around his broad shoulders.

Beneath a sullen moonless sky they made their way to the office block that stood out like a scar on a street teeming with restaurants and late-night bars. Raucous drunks staggered out on to the stained pavement, arms heavy on their women, who wobbled on high heels, spraying cheap perfume into the air. Joe and Rocco scurried by, collars, up, heads down in the anonymous night.

Rocco had a key to the back door and they scaled the iron stairs on rubber soles to an office on the top floor, assisted by the torches they held in front of them like stiletto knives. It all went smoothly as they moved silently within the building. The safe was set in the wall behind a painting of a man fishing in a lake, which Joe helped Rocco remove and set down on the floor. Rocco fumbled with the combination as Joe checked the hallway. All quiet except for the satisfying click inside the office. Rocco removed the cash and Joe helped him bundle it into two holdalls. Then they made their way downstairs.

“Easy, see?” Rocco said.

“We got away with it.”

“Nothing could go wrong with this job, it was all planned out.”

“We got money and that means a future.”

As they were passing the second floor a door opened and a large security guard came out. He said nothing as he reached for his gun. Joe froze as Rocco pulled a Glock from his coat and shot the guard. He dropped to the floor like a wounded bull and Joe watched the blood pool by his head. Rocco headed outside, Joe following.

Back at his apartment Rocco handed out the cash.

“What did you mean about Mandy, Rocco?” Joe said.

“She’s a good-looking woman, and you ain’t gonna keep her if you don’t develop some style.”

“Is that what you got, style, shooting the guard?”

“Screw him.”

“You can’t help killing, can you? You just got out, you’ll be first on their list.”

“What you gonna do, Joe, tell ’em?”

“Have you screwed Mandy?”

A smirk began to crawl across Rocco’s mouth as he looked away.

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“No?”

Rocco lit a cigarette and stared out at the black backdrop of night as Joe grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him round.

“You have.”

He hit Rocco in the face, knocking him over a chair. The cigarette singed Rocco’s lip and his nose opened up.

“That was a dumb thing to do, Joe, real dumb.”

Joe grabbed his money, his hand burning, as Rocco stood and pulled a knife. He was by the door when Rocco slashed at his shirt. He looked down and saw the ripped cotton and the gash in his stomach. He held the bag in front of him to ward off the knife as Rocco came at him again, and he headed out the door and down the stairs, dripping blood on the ruined steps.

Mandy stirred in her sleep as Joe entered the apartment. He inspected the wound in the bathroom. It didn’t look too deep and he bandaged it.

The next morning over coffee he said to Mandy: “Let’s get out of here, you, me and the baby.”

“Where we gonna go, Joe?”

“Anywhere. I got money.”

“How?”

“It’s a loan.”

“There’s blood on your shirt, Joe, I saw it in the trash. You’re wounded.”

“I’ll see a doctor when we get out of here. Come with me, Mandy.”

“Loan… You got involved with Rocco, didn’t you?”

“Why do you think it’s Rocco?” She looked away. “Is it mine, Mandy?” Joe said.

“It’s yours.”

They waited until night, avoiding each other in the wounded silence of the dripping apartment. They packed their few clothes into their tattered bags. And they got the last train out of Desprit, walking with the conviction of the hunted up to the platform on the creaking iron bridge that scowled down on Railyard Street.

As they waited, Joe clutched the holdall with the cash in it, as if he were clenching the slender promise of a future in his hand. He jumped every time someone walked up, but no cops came, and finally the last night train limped and wheezed down the line and they got on. They sat side by side watching the long line of misery that were the final houses of Desprit shrink and fade on the grey horizon. And the empty train rocked its way into the black unknown landscape outside.

“Where we going, Joe?” Mandy said.

“Anywhere. Away from here.”

“Away from us, Joe? We’re going nowhere, we ain’t got nowhere to go. Look at this, it’s like a ghost train, and we’re the only two riders.”

“I got cash. We got a future.”

“Stolen cash, they’ll find you.”

“No, they won’t.”

“Joe, I been keeping us afloat by letting other men screw me. What does that make us?”

“It don’t make us nothing. You’re mine, all mine.”

“Joe, you don’t know yourself. You’ve separated who you are into bits, and the pieces you don’t like are buried in a drawer.”

Joe was clutching the arm of the faded seat with white knuckles as the train sped into the silent night.

“All I used to want was for you to embrace me, to hold me for ever, lay down and never go away. How come you don’t hold me no more? It takes a piece away, Joe, it steals your hope. I tried to be your girl, I tried to belong to you, but what I had to do to support us made belonging impossible.”

“It’s in the past.”

“We are the past.”

“Leave it back in Desprit. There’s a future growing inside you, Mandy.”

“It got spread around, Joe. You’re the great pretender, it’s like you went deaf with despair.”

“What did?”

“My hooking. You never heard them talking? I got used, everyone knew. All those men. It’s killed something in me.”

“Men like Rocco? Tell me, Mandy, are you carrying his baby?”

They passed through a tunnel and in the altered light Mandy’s face changed. She looked older, harder, like someone else. As they came out of the tunnel she turned to Joe with cold clear eyes.

“Does it matter? It could be anyone’s. What are you, Joe? A piece of Rocco’s charity?”

“You fuckin’ bitch! Nothing is ever good enough for you.”

A stranger entered the carriage then and Joe looked at him in the bleak window of the moving train as he hit Mandy. He had no control over this other man who punched his soiled lover in the gut, doubling her over, as Joe tasted all the poisoned impotent years gathering like a black tide inside him. Then Mandy was screaming and Joe was trying to say her name, but his voice was torn in his throat, and no words came, only a gasp of despair like a howl erupted into the last train from Desprit.

Joe looked down at the littered floor. He noticed Mandy was bleeding and he reached for her, his hand falling through the air, as the train jostled on the broken track, knocking him against the side of the carriage. He put his hand to his side and it felt wet. As the train thundered on, Joe’s wound opened up and all he and Mandy had left was the endless embrace of the black night around them.