On.......my film noir beginnings and how I became Atutu

The rain fell hard and the drops felt like lead. It was one of those kinda nights that all you needed was a quarter glass of whiskey and the love of a good woman. The first part was easy enough to obtain so I waded across to the liquor store on 27th and Poplar. I had just wrapped a case involving a well-known actress and her fiance. I'm getting sick to the stomach with them type of cases. Man suspects broad, I tail broad and take a few pictures, things get ugly I grab my swag and bail. 99% of the time the broad IS fucking around which makes my job an easy one.

I approach the liquor store and, even in the monsoon, my car is advanced by two street dames as I pull up. One of them has a face like a bag of smashed crabs so I tell her to hightail it and start negotiations with the cuter one. She looks like a mermaid standing there in that rain. She has red hair down to the back of her shoulders and the lightning reveals a blowjob friendly mouth. We fix a price and I tell her to wait in the car as I get the booze. Could I get her some she says. The nerve of it I think. The rain had eased up some as I make my way into the liquor store. The place is filled with all kinds of filth and lowlife so I quickly grab the liquor and head back to the car. I ain't big on the ol' small talk so the ride back to my apartment is a long and solemn one. As soon as we gets there she asks for a towel to dry her hair. Now I'm not about to share towels with no hooker so I oblige her with the dirty one I use for the bathroom floor.

We get to it and she looks a whole lot better than she fucks. She has a pussy like a hippo's yawn and fucking her is like feeding tic-tacs to a whale. The sex is over before it even starts and I settle for a blowjob off of that sweet mouth of hers. The broad is all teeth and I grip the edge of the chair several times before the ordeal is over. She mistakes my grimaces for pleasure and blows even harder. I'm about to call it a wasted fifty bucks when the door flies open and two goons jump in. I reach for my heat on the mantelpiece but I get clubbed at the back of the head before I reach it. A black pool appears at my feet. I dive in and there ain't no bottom.

When I come to, I'm still in my apartment, half naked and strapped to the chair. The hoods have done a number on me and I'm left with two broken fingers and one good eye. I've taken hits before and I can usually handle the pain, it's all part of the job description. Right now though I feel about as sprightly as an amputated leg. My good eye scouts the room, struggling to focus and settles on a glittering mass of gold and white sitting in the corner near the window. She calls out my name and I manage a response. Shit, the bastards have loosened a tooth as well.

I've visited this scene before. The mark wants some kinda revenge, wants to teach me a lesson for having screwed them out of their inheritance or whatever. Never mind the fact that they did that themselves by fucking around. I spit blood and tell her to go to hell. The goons, who have been standing behind me this whole time, blackjack me again and the loose tooth becomes a missing one. I plead with her to put me wise. If I gotta go at least let me enter the darkness with enlightenment. She starts talking and the more she talks the more I know I’m gonna be shortly wrapped up in a wooden overcoat with a one way ticket to Hades. It all comes back to me. She was part of the 1% that wasn’t fucking around. Business was rough so I set up her up and took the cash. The photos, the phone calls, I doctored them for the sake of a lousy extra couple of hundred bucks. Her husband kicked her ass to the kerb and left her with a bag of peanuts and a toothbrush.

I’m about to be a dodo. I ask them to make it quick but the dame ain’t even gonna give me that privilege. They gag me and get to work on me. When the breaths stop coming. My last sensation is of a long chiv across my neck. In New York they call it a Harlem Sunset.

LONDON. Winter 1980

It’s a boy!!!!! We thank God O!

Congratulations Mrs Poyoyo.

Ehn? Ehn? Jesus what is this scar on his throat? Doctor!! Doctor!! Why are his fingers bent like this? And his penis nko? Are these bite marks? E gba mi o! Doctor!!

Madam could I just ask that you remain calm. It is perfectly normal. Many children are born with birthmarks that appear scar-like. His fingers will eventually straighten and the scars on his erm ….penis are just part of the foreskin.

Ah! Okay doctor. Sorry o! It is just that my husband took me to watch that Omen film recently and I am now fearing any scar or anything on my child’s body. My God is a good God o and the Devil is a liar.

Nothing to worry about love. You wouldn’t believe what that film has done for the anxieties of new parents. Have you decided on a name yet?

Yes……..We are calling him Atutu because of the bitter cold he was born in.