Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 129, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 787 & 788, March/April 2007

The Old Story by Liza Cody

Copyright © 2007 by Liza Cody

Art by Mark Evan Walker

Liza Cody is not a prolific author, but the several novels she has produced over the past quarter of a century have all been significant books, starting with the first, Dupe, which won the John Creasey Award for Best First Novel. Her loyal fans will be glad to know that that first book was brought out in a new paperback edition in 2005 by Felony and Mayhem. The following story is the last of a trio of stories produced for a seminar with fellow authors Michael Z. Lewin and Peter Lovesey.

It was a sharp, clear autumn day, and as afternoon turned to evening Harold and I met by appointment outside Kwik Save. No sooner had we met than I had my first shock.

“Move yer wrinkly bum ’oles,” a kid yelled at us. And I moved, sharpish, pulling Harold with me. I was amazed at the kid’s good manners. Normally they skate right through us without warning, like we’re fallen leaves scattering in a high wind.

Harold took a swipe with the wrong end of his cane, trying to hook the board’s back wheels.

Three things about Harold: one, he’s hotheaded; two, he won’t admit he’s as deaf as a bathroom door; and I’ve forgotten number three.

The boy whooshed away unharmed and unaware he hadn’t even come close to being upended. He zigged and swerved and zagged and curved along the pavement scaring oldies, youngies, and in-betweenies.

Harold said, “Spotty little turd,” and banged his cane on the ground. “He doesn’t know how close he came.” Harold mimed the murder of a spotty little turd. “I could’ve done for him. He doesn’t know who he’s messing with.”

“Let’s keep it that way,” I said, taking Harold’s arm.

“Huh?” said Harold, and I gave his elbow a pacifying pat. Sometimes I think I’m only included on this enterprise to pacify hot-headed Harold. Because clearly it has been many, many years since I heated anyone’s head, and therefore my two old friends, The Gent and Wiggy, gave me the job of keeping him manageable. He boasts that when he was young he ran with one of those famous South London gangs, but neither Wiggy nor The Gent believe him. I’m uncertain. We don’t usually work with outsiders.

I kept walking and wondering why the three of us had fallen for Harold’s pitch. It isn’t as if he’s charming and clever like The Gent or clever and funny like Wiggy. And it wasn’t as if it were a particularly good plan. In fact, it was downright crude when you consider the slickness of our usual operations.

But when I say usual… I have to admit that nowadays we don’t plan much and the last operation was Wiggy’s — for nasal polyps.

Speaking entirely for myself, I wonder if my reluctance is due to the technicalities of modern banks and building societies. All the intelligent work is done with computers. Modern operators who want to rob a bank only have to flip a switch and rattle around on a keyboard; they don’t even have to visit the premises anymore. As Wiggy said, “You can rob without even leaving your own home. All you need is your own five-fingered girlfriend.”

“And a little more know-how than we possess,” confessed The Gent.

I kept my mouth shut: Technical stuff confuses me and I don’t even own a computer. My contributions to our joint enterprises used mainly to be in the planning stage, and as a distraction when the operation went live. I could scream or faint or suffer epi-fits better than any RADA-trained actress.

“Elsie’s scream is world-famous,” The Gent used to say. But it hasn’t been employed for nearly five years and my skill in planning is thwarted by security and surveillance I no longer understand.

Which explains why, on a sharp, clear autumn evening, I was calming Harold, and walking as fast as his hip would take us towards Preston’s betting shop at the corner of Grosvenor Road and High Street. My hand was firmly in the crook of Harold’s elbow. Our reflection in the coffee shop window showed me that we looked frighteningly like an old married couple.

We should be retired and living by the seaside, I thought. But how do you retire from a business like ours? There isn’t a company pension. Besides, The Gent is having to remortgage his house because his son’s in debt again. As is my daughter, but I try not to think about it. And early this month Wiggy was released from his last vacation at Her Majesty’s pleasure to find that his precious Airstream had been repossessed by the finance company. During his absence his sister, who should have been dealing with the payments, took a dippy turn and handed all his money to a donkey sanctuary. So often, in our insecure lives, the three of us have found ourselves starting from scratch. We are all, in our separate ways, dogged by the choices we made when we were young and thought we could always stay ahead of the game.

My recollections were interrupted by someone calling, “Mrs. Ivo. Hey, Mrs. Ivo!” I would have walked on, but Wiggy appeared from the Bell pub doorway, and said, “Oh, bloody hell, she’s forgotten her own code name. Elsie, you’d forget your family if you didn’t carry photos.”

“You pronounced it wrong,” I said stiffly. “It’s Ee-vo. You said Eye-vo.”

“Ee-vo, Eye-vo, Nee-vo, Nye-vo, let’s call the whole thing off.”

“Eh?” said Harold. “No one’s calling nothing off.”

“It’s just one of Wiggy’s jokes,” I said, patting his arm. “What are you doing here?” I asked Wiggy. “We were supposed not to meet until…”

“Come inside,” Wiggy said, looking past my shoulder. “Hurry, the CCTV camera’s swinging in this direction.”

“Huh?” said Harold. Wiggy took one arm, I tugged the other, and we whisked him into the pub before he became visible and bellicose.

“We’ve run into a problem,” Wiggy explained, pointing to the slumped figure of The Gent at a table in a dark corner of the barroom.

“I’ll have a pint since you’re offering,” Harold said. “One won’t hurt.”

I hurried over to The Gent.

“It’sh my tooth,” he said, covering the lower part of his face with his hand.

“Not his wisdom tooth, obviously,” Wiggy said. “He was supposed to go to the dentist last week but he funked it.”

“I don’t think I can do the job,” The Gent said. And indeed, he looked yellowish and extremely unwell.

“Oil of cloves,” I said, rummaging in my handbag.

“Now’s not the time for your portable pharmacopoeia,” Wiggy said. “He’s already rattling, the number of pills he’s necked since lunch.”

“I don’t want to hold you back,” moaned The Gent. “I really am sho shorry.”

“What’s wrong with him?” Harold sat down heavily, slopping his pint.

“Tooth rot.”

“Huh?”

“Forget it,” Wiggy said. “The only way I can see out of this is if The Gent waits in the car and does the driving instead of Elsie, Elsie is lookout instead of Harold, and Harold comes up to the betting shop with me instead of The Gent.”

“Huh? Say again.”

“The Gent waits in the car…”

“Shut up,” I said, “anyone could hear you.” Except Harold.

“So what’s going on?” And that’s another thing about Harold — even before his hearing failed he never listened.

“Are you quite sure you want Harold on shtage with you at showtime?” The Gent was speaking through considerable pain.

“Huh?”

“Do we have any alternative? Or should we just abort?”

I would have pressed for standing us all down — it’s what any sensible woman would have done. But I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life eating lunch at the YMCA cafeteria. I’d rather go back to chokey, I thought. At least there, bad food comes free. Because when times were good, Wiggy, The Gent, and I had often lived high in the sky in foreign cities where hotel suites were more spacious than English houses. Rhubarb and custard at the YMCA isn’t the worst thing life can throw at you, but if I thought it was all life had to offer from here on in, I think I’d want to top myself.

As it turned out, I went on stage with Wiggy, The Gent waited in the car, and Harold kept his job as lookout. It wasn’t possible to explain a change of plan to him without a bullhorn. And shouting your plans through a bullhorn when you’re making changes to a heist on a betting shop is not advisable.

“Take my coat,” The Gent said, “the mashk ish in the left pocket, the plashtic gun ish in the other.”

Wordlessly I took the coat and gave him my small bottle of oil of cloves in return. Wordlessly, Wiggy handed over the car keys. “Show time,” The Gent said with a brave smile. “Shparkle, guysh. I know you’ll be shplendid.”

We left him in the car park behind Cristettes Kitchenware and Novelties. The great thing about Cristettes is that the main door opens onto the High Street and you can walk all the way through to the car park at the back. The shop is hugger-mugger with too many shelves and stacks and there are no surveillance cameras. It’s a great place if you want to get off the street in a hurry.

Preston’s is a small betting shop above a newsagent at the corner of Grosvenor Road and High Street. We reached the newsagent five minutes before the betting shop was due to close and left Harold pretending to read the small ads in the early evening paper. He seemed edgy.

Halfway up the narrow flight of stairs Wiggy and I paused to put on our masks and raise the hoods of our coats. It was only then that I realised how much condition Wiggy had lost on his last spell away. For a big man he was always fit and pretty fast, but now he sounded like a hinge that needed a squirt of oil.

“What’s up?” I muttered, trying to make the coat of a much taller man zip over a much fuller bosom.

“Just an allergy,” Wiggy wheezed back. “These stairs haven’t been swept.” His mask was an elaborate affair that could have graced a Venetian ball.

“Decongestant?”

“Not now, Elsie,” he said patiently. Which was just as well, as I’d left my bag in the car with The Gent.

The Gent’s mask was a simple but elegant thing his wife had knitted especially for him from a silk and wool mix. I pulled it over my head and topped it with the hood.

“Let’s get this over with,” I said. “The hood’s ruining my hair.”

“Let your coat hang open,” Wiggy wheezed. “You still look too much like a woman.”

“And you look like a real hunk,” I snarled back.

“Let’s go. And leave the talking to me.”

But after climbing to the top of the stairs he didn’t have enough breath to blow out a birthday candle, and the staff behind the grilles didn’t even look up as he stood there panting and swinging his baseball bat. So I took over.

“Everybody freeze!” I yelled. Instantly everyone stopped what they were doing. Oh, the power! No one had taken this much notice of me since my daughter was too small to talk back.

“The money!” I shouted. “Give us the money and no one gets hurt.”

“The gun,” Wiggy hissed, his chest heaving. “It’s still. In your. Goddamn pocket.” To cover for me he strode to the counter and whacked the baseball bat against the grille. The man and the woman behind the counter cowered in shock. The manager started towards the back.

I fumbled the plastic gun out of my pocket and pointed it at him. “Don’t move a muscle,” I bellowed. “Instruct your people to fill our bags or I’ll put two bullets in your fat gut. Believe me, I can’t miss.”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Wiggy push a bunch of crumpled plastic bags through the grille. They came from Safeway and I swear they’re the same ones we used on our last job. Wiggy never throws anything away.

By now he’d recovered his breath enough to say, “Fill the bags. Quickly. Unless. You want. To see. Your boss. Shot.” He sounded eerily like an automaton. The woman started to cry, but she began to stuff bundles of money into the bags.

The manager stood, feebly protecting his paunch with his hands. I kept the gun trained on him while I screamed at the other, younger man. “Help her! Now!” and he suddenly jerked into life and started stuffing bags too.

I was jubilant. Energy surged through every cell of my body. I had no idea what a sense of self-worth there was to be gained from pointing a plastic gun.

“Tie the bags,” Wiggy growled, “and throw them. Over. The grille.”

Bags sailed over the grille and dropped at our feet.

We’d done it. All we had to do was pick up the bags and leave.

Or not.

The door at the top of the stairs swung open and a man in SecureCorps uniform walked through humming a tune from Guys and Dolls.

“Hi there,” he said. “Cashed up, everyone? Ready to go?” Then he saw Wiggy. Then he saw me. Then he heard thunderous crashes from the stairs below.

He drew his weapon.

The young man behind the counter started to cry loudly.

Harold charged through the door.

Wiggy swung his baseball bat.

I picked up as many bags of cash as I could manage.

Harold fired his gun. A huge lump of plaster detached itself from the ceiling and fell on the SecureCorps guard’s head just as Wiggy’s bat connected.

“Oh farkin ’ell,” yelled the SecureCorps guard, who was wearing protective headgear but went down in a pile of rubble anyway.

Harold fired his gun at the manager, who seemed to be making for his panic button. The manager went down.

I said, “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“Don’t just stand there,” Wiggy said, grabbing a couple of carrier bags in the hand that wasn’t wielding the bat.

“Huh?” said Harold. And for once I could see what he meant: A real live gun, with real live ammo, going off twice in a confined space leaves you with real live tinnitus. It had never happened to me before. But then I’d never worked with Harold before.

We scrambled for the door. On the stairs Wiggy remembered to remove his mask. He pulled mine off, too. And snatched the plastic gun out of my numb fingers. Harold stumbled down after us, picking up his walking stick from where he’d left it at the bottom, and unwinding his scarf from around his head.

I didn’t even want to look at him. Wiggy, The Gent, and I had never, in all of our long careers, ever used live firearms. No one had ever been hurt except for the odd whomp with a baseball bat when persuasion didn’t work. Harold was supposed to be the look-out. He was supposed to have warned us about the SecureCorps guard and not charged in afterwards firing a live gun.

I wanted to drop everything and run away from all of them. A lifetime of YMCA lunches didn’t seem so bad anymore. I tore off The Gent’s coat and carried it over my arm, hiding some of the Safeway bags. As I’d feared, my hair was a mess.

We stepped out into the bright autumnal street and Wiggy spun round to face Harold. “What. The hell. Did you. Do that for?” he wheezed.

“Say again,” Harold said. “Come on, we got to get back to the car. Elsie, give me a hand. My hip’s knackered.”

“I’d like to knacker your thick skull,” I said. I wanted to leave him but I couldn’t without endangering the rest of us. “Why the hell didn’t you warn us?”

“Huh?” He leaned heavily on my arm and we limped up the High Street towards Cristettes Kitchenware and Novelties.

Wiggy started shouting, “Why the hell didn’t you—”

“Shut up,” I said, “anyone could hear.” Except Harold.

Harold didn’t even hear the police sirens as three police cars raced past us to the betting shop. My heart was staggering and my vision went speckly. I heard the gunshots and saw the manager tumble all over again.

I’m not quite sure what happened then because the next thing I remember clearly was The Gent helping me out of the car next to my block of flats. He carried a large Cristettes bag which he gave me when we got to my door.

“What’s that?” I asked, and The Gent sighed diplomatically.

Apparently I’d had a funny turn in Cristettes and insisted on buying three baking trays, a set of glass candleholders, and a large wok. He reassured me that I’d paid for them with my own money. He said that the staff in Cristettes were very nice to batty old ladies and had thought nothing of it.

“I’ll make you a cup of tea,” he said sympathetically.

“No, no, I’m quite all right,” I said, wondering what on earth I’d do with another wok. This wasn’t the first funny turn I’d had in the last year, and for some very odd reason I always seem to buy a wok. But I didn’t want to tell The Gent about it. “How’s the tooth?” I asked, to distract him.

“Your oil of cloves worked a treat,” he said. “I tried it in the car while I was waiting. The tooth’s nearly stopped hurting. You’re more use than a pharmacist, Elsie.” Which, of course, is why we call him The Gent — he lies to make other people feel good. But he did look better.

“Wiggy’ll be along when he’s dropped Harold and dealt with the car.” He made sure I was sitting comfortably and then he went away to make the tea.

I sat and wrestled with my wayward mind, trying to figure out what had gone wrong. Why had I felt so wonderful with a plastic gun? So dismal with a live one? Had I drawn attention to us in the shop? What would happen now we were guilty of robbery with violence, maybe even murder? But most of all I wanted to know what went wrong.

I didn’t find out until Wiggy showed up when The Gent and I were on our third pot of tea. He turned on the TV for the local news before dropping like a rock onto my sofa. His face was grey with fatigue.

“Harold,” he said. “Not my favourite. Person. Big mistake. Working with him.”

The Gent poured him a cup of strong tea and we waited while he recovered his breath. “Where’s the money?” he asked first.

“Ah yes,” The Gent said, “we need to talk about that.” He gave me a sidelong glance and then spoke directly to Wiggy. “At the moment it’s in Elsie’s laundry hamper. I know she usually keeps it in her chest freezer, but when I looked in there I found there wasn’t enough room. Elsie, do you know you have four woks in your freezer? Wiggy, she’s got four woks in her freezer. I know it’s where she hides stuff, but why hide four woks?”

“It’s none of your business what I keep in my freezer,” I said. “Why aren’t we talking about what went wrong at the betting shop?”

“Hold on,” Wiggy said, turning up the volume on the TV. “This is about us. Look.”

What we saw was black-and-white grainy footage from a surveillance camera somewhere in the ceiling of the betting shop. We watched fascinated as two shadowy figures entered and then one of them skipped around like a goat pointing a gun in all directions.

“That can’t be me,” I said. “I don’t jump around.” The Gent and Wiggy said nothing.

Jerkily the two behind the counter began filling bags. The film froze while the newsreader said, “Witnesses describe being threatened by two men wearing masks. The third member of the gang only made his appearance after the arrival of an employee from the security firm who should have transported the day’s takings to a night safe.”

“Two men?” I said. “That’s wonderful. We’re home free.” Again The Gent and Wiggy stayed silent.

The film continued with the leisurely entrance of the man from SecureCorps, shortly followed by the muffled figure of Harold. The newsreader said, “As you can see, the footage ends abruptly when the third man shot out the security camera. The manager of the betting shop, who only survived what he describes as certain death by a trained marksman when he ducked behind the countertop, said, ‘These men were armed to the teeth and very violent. They terrorised my staff in what was clearly a meticulously planned raid.’ Police are asking anyone who witnessed three men fleeing from the scene to contact them immediately.”

“Fleeing?” Wiggy said, turning off the TV. “Harold flees at the speed of a rocking chair. What’s up, Elsie?”

“I thought Harold shot the manager,” I sobbed. “I thought…”

“I know, I know,” Wiggy said. “Have you got a handkerchief, Gent? The old broad needs mopping.”

The Gent passed me his handkerchief, politely pretending not to see my streaming eyes and nose.

Wiggy said, “Who knew Harold even had a real gun? Maybe he wasn’t lying about the South London gang after all.”

“It’s unforgivable,” The Gent said. “We made it quite clear to Harold — no real firearms. He knows how we work. We have a reputation.”

“He wasn’t supposed to be there,” I said, blowing my nose on The Gent’s immaculate linen. “He was supposed to be the lookout, but where was he?”

“Ah yes,” Wiggy said. “Don’t think I didn’t ask about that. Very loudly. Guess what?”

“What?”

“He had a beer in the pub, remember? So he’s standing outside the newsagent waiting and watching and, stripe me pink, his bladder starts playing up. So the silly old bugger goes to take a leak. On his way back, he sees the SecureCorps guy disappearing upstairs and all he can think of to do is follow him up and shoot him.”

“He was aiming at the man?” The Gent asked, horrified.

“That’s what he said.”

“I’m too old for this,” I sniffled.

“I have to take the blame,” The Gent said. “If I hadn’t been too much of a wimp to go to the dentist we wouldn’t have gone to the pub. If Harold hadn’t drunk a pint of bitter his weak bladder wouldn’t have been a determining feature of this fiasco.”

“Don’t let’s talk blame,” Wiggy said firmly. “Because I might have to admit I’m not fit enough for this kind of life anymore. If I hadn’t been out of breath Elsie wouldn’t have had to take charge — which she’s obviously unsuited to do. I feel directly responsible for her whatchamacallit.”

“What?”

“Don’t get arsey with me, Elsie. You had a… er… an emotional episode in Cristettes.”

“Just a momentary confusion,” The Gent put in tactfully. “You were splendid in the betting shop.”

“Thanks,” I said. “But Wiggy’s right. I have been having, well, memory lapses. I’m taking St. John’s Wort and fish oils and something else I can’t remember. But I should have told you.”

“Told us what?” Wiggy asked. “That you’re a mad old bat? Gee, what a surprise.”

“Maybe all three of us should think again about the active approach,” The Gent said. “Maybe the way to go is technological.”

“I haven’t got a computer,” I said. “It’s too late for me to learn, and anyway I can’t afford it.”

“Yes, you can,” The Gent said. “Besides what we took from the betting shop you’ve got…” He turned to Wiggy. “In her freezer she’s got dozens of oddly shaped packages labelled ‘Leg of lamb’ and ‘Ham hock,’ which, believe me, are not legs of lamb or hocks of ham or even sides of beef.”

“You’re mistaken,” I said. “I’m a vegetarian. I don’t buy ham hocks.”

“We know,” The Gent said. “You’ve got a freezer full of cash under all those woks. You’re like a squirrel who’s forgotten where she hid her nuts.”

“She’s certainly nuts,” Wiggy said. “But she might be right, Gent: We might just be home free. No one saw us.”

“Of course they saw us.” I waved at the TV. “They called me a man.”

“Exactly,” said The Gent. “They called two doddery old men and one dotty old lady ‘three very violent men.’ Longevity makes us invisible and prejudice renders us incapable.”

“Apart from ripping off a betting shop,” Wiggy said, “our second most serious crime was to get old.”

“But it saved our asses,” I said.

“Maybe,” The Gent said, “but not for long.”

“Don’t worry.” Wiggy consoled me. “He doesn’t mean the cops. He means the Grim Reaper.”

“Oh, that’s all right then,” I said.