‘Now open the door before I open it with you,’ Tony Valleri said in a brutalist form of monotone to the porter who stood by the entrance to Krisnial’s hotel.
The crime boss had a bluntness lain upon his every inflection implying to anyone in his vicinity that they were about to become a statistic. He hated bystanders, the dumb-faced gawkers that were so quick to pull out a smartphone; Tony loved the simple things, like money and random acts of persuasive violence.
‘Have you ever seen such a hovel?’ Tony boomed, stepping into the lobby of the hotel, and striding towards the receptionist. The lush red carpet wilted under Valleri’s step, his confidence extruding ownership of the situation in every way, a feeling that was shared by the three enforcers who filled up the remaining emotional capacity of the room with hostility.
On a small couch out of way of camera and of staff member, the dishevelled coil of a man who regarded himself as Andy deHands belched an eructative foulness that contained traces of whatever it was that he just nicked from the lobby fish tank. Roused by the sounds of two security guards being taught the art of unfair boxing, Andy gave up piecing together how he had ended up in this rare moment of comfortable sleeping arrangements.
‘Why do bad security guards always lead with a close-quarters haymaker?’ He muttered to himself while struggling to sit up. The inefficiency of movement, the chalkboard sized opening that you could write on as you like and then clap off the dusters before it knew that it was unconscious. Andy didn’t have to watch the fracas to know its result and the tremors of violence that had quelled their way into a whimper lead him to believe that the two guards wouldn’t be getting a promotion anytime soon—some dental work though was a good chance…
‘How many fingers would you like me to break?’ Tony asked the receptionist with a calmness that was uniquely terrifying, ‘ Sorry I misspoke, could you please inform Mr Krisnial that his accountant is here to see him.’
Andy was ok with Accountants, the bastards, it was fair that they had to make a living too. But even with his limited spatial permeance, Andy realised that they didn’t usually have armed enforcers.
‘Coil and broil there’s claret on the floor,’ he yelled across the lobby as the fog of his methylated digestif began to drape itself over his ability to make reason.
‘Been mopping all afternoon I had, even shaved a weasel for the broom.’ Staggering over Andy languidly ducked under an errant punch thrown by one of the enforcers and began to drag a still breathing security guard towards the lounges, ‘fancy bleeding on the floor, I’d have half a mind to complain if it were that both parts weren’t dead to atrophy; I got a crook brain Deloris, and the rabbits are hopping on me cabbage.’
‘Can you remove that man please,’ Tony commanded his enforcers before marching over to the lifts as if annoyed by an unpleasant smell and then jabbing at the call button with impatient fingers.
Why was everyone so determined to be foolish today? You pay protection or you become unprotected; you greeted your superiors when they paid you a visit or they set fire to your office; and you sure as sin didn’t let street-maniacs sleep in your lobby.
Striding into the open lift Tony punched the button for the top floor and barely noticed the acrid haze that had slid into the cabin along with him. It held an odour that was in every way sneaky, it was a repugnant cloud of noxiousness that dared to have faint hints of sweetness.
‘The mind is a mussel, and so is the fist, I believe,’ Andy quipped as the doors closed, surprising the angry little man who had been too within himself to notice that his enforcers had fled from the lobby, having had the displeasure of meeting Andy before.
‘The name’s DeHands my ruddy little tug-boat, and who might you be to be met in such an enclosed circumstance?’ Lighting a fowl cigarette, Andy watched the man in a suit draw a knife and calmly decided to punch him in the jaw.
The lifts at Krisnial’s are slow, a graceful climb of twenty floors clattered and bruised its way up to the offices and the barbaric fight between two passionate pugilists had caused enough damage that it would need more than a hose and a sponge to clean.
‘Is this where I hand in a job application?’ Andy grunted as he stumbled from the lift and dropped Tony down to have a nap on the tiles. He still wasn’t entirely sure why the previous altercations had to have happened, but in the scheme of his week so far this was the most clarity that he had been conscious of. Shaking a corpulent man’s hand vigorously and then being given a cigar, Andy let the fog descend to take over his brain again and lapsed back into the haze of purposeful insanity.
He had never been a security guard before.
J. McCray
2022
Sunday Short Stories 