Monkey Wrench

Liza Cody

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

About the Author

By the Same Author

I only wanted a bunch of bananas. I was on my way to the shop to buy them when I saw a bunch of kids circling and yowling like hyenas. They chanted,

‘Dirty Dawn

Stinks like a prawn.

She lost her bra

In a punter's car

And she don't know where her knickers are.'

Dawn is trouble. She's a mess and a waste of space. She's always on the piss. I crossed over to the other side of the road. If she saw me she'd expect me to get rid of the kids and wheel her home in a barrow. I ducked into Hanif's shop instead.

I took my time behind the shelves. If I stayed there long enough Dawn would pull herself together and shamble off without my help. Helping people always ends in tears. And helping drunks is a total waste of time. They're never grateful, they don't pay their debts and they've got rotten memories. What's the point in being nice to someone who can't remember how nice you've been? Tell me that. The only point in doing someone a favour is if they remember and do you a favour back.

Besides, angry wasps are better-natured than the kids in this part of London. Take a tip from me – if you like a quiet life don't
ever
get yourself outnumbered by kids. I was a kid once myself so I know how evil they can be once they get into a pack. Normal rules don't apply to a pack, and a little kid who wouldn't do hokey-cokey on his own becomes Conan the Barbarian in a bunch. Come to think of it, that's true of grown-ups as well.

I know about crowds. I should do, I'm a wrestler.

That's right. Me. I'm Eva Wylie, the London Lassassin. Maybe you heard of me, maybe you haven't, but I'm getting myself a reputation as one of the meanest, toughest villains in the business. So don't you tell
me
about crowds – just shut your mouth and give your ears a chance. You think all you have to do is cram a load of people together and what you got is a crowd? Wrong. A crowd is
not
just a lot of people. It's an animal. It's an animal which roars. It can be stroked quiet. It can be goaded. It can be tweaked and revved-up. It can be kind, but mostly it's cruel. People who wouldn't dare insult me eyeball to eyeball if they met me on the street call me dreadful names when they know all they have to do is duck back into the body of a crowd.

I don't care. I can take it. It's what I get paid for.

I do not get paid for taking on a bunch of nasty, dirty-minded kids. And besides, I don't owe Dawn anything. The opposite, in fact.

I used to know Dawn's little sister, Crystal – we dossed together sometimes and went on the same collection routes. That was in the days before my luck turned, when I was still on the streets. And before Crystal's luck turned and she got a stall on the market. At the time it was Dawn who was doing all right, and Crystal and me who were hanging on by half a fingernail.

Here's what happened. It was one hard cold night, so cold that the damp in your coat freezes and your chilblains split, and Crystal and me had made a nest in a condemned house in Hammersmith. We thought it was safe and we'd just settled when we got rousted by a family of crusties and their dogs. Eight crusties and three dogs.

I might have managed some of the crusties because even in those days I was a big girl who could be a bit useful. But eight of them! And three dogs. I could do it now – they wouldn't know what hit 'em. But then, I hadn't realised my full potential. And besides, Crystal was such a little thing – knee-high to a piss-pot, she was. And we hadn't managed to scrounge any supper so we weren't at our best.

Anyway, the crusties tossed us out and there we were back on the street with nowhere to go. And Crystal says, ‘Maybe we
could go over to Paddington and see if my sister will lend us a bit of floor.'

I was dead surprised. I never knew she had a sister, and as we slogged along the empty streets to Paddington I wondered why, if her sister had a room, Crystal was always so down and out.

I found out why when we got there.

‘Piss off, Crystal,' Dawn said. It was the first thing she said when she opened the door. Looking past her, I saw a warm room, all painted pink. But Dawn barred the door.

‘If you think I'm letting you in here,' Dawn said, ‘you've got another think coming. You smell like the corporation tip, and who's that you got with you – the Incredible Hulk?'

‘That's Eva,' Crystal said.

‘Well, she can piss off too,' Dawn said. She was all made up with pink cheeks and black eye shadow at three in the morning. Which meant only one thing to me. And I wasn't wrong.

‘You're costing me money,' Dawn said. ‘Stood here on my landing like this was some dosshouse.'

‘Just a warm-up, Dawn,' Crystal said. ‘We won't stop long. It's perishing outside.'

I hated to see her beg. She was only little but she had grit.

‘I know your warm-ups,' Dawn said. ‘Last time you was in here I scratched for days. I had to douse me bed with flea spray. Now sling yer hook.' And she slammed the door in our faces, but not before I saw a huge box of chocolates spread out on her bed, and comics, and heated hair rollers. Everything a whore needs to occupy her mind between sessions.

And there we were, out in the grinding cold.

‘So much for family feeling,' I said. Because
my
sister would never've chucked us out. If I'd known where to find her.
My
sister would've had us in for a cup of tea and a kip on her bed. She'd of given us a whole handful of chocolates, and a bath.

‘Well, where
is
your sister then?' Crystal said. Because she could be quite spiteful when she was hungry, and she knew I hadn't seen her for years. I was looking, but I never found her.

So that was the first time I saw Dawn and I haven't forgotten.
Forgiving and forgetting's for those who can afford it. Not me. I can hold a grudge forever if I want to.

But it wasn't worthwhile holding a grudge against Dawn. She was her own worst enemy. She had no guts. Crystal had all the guts in that family. So now Crystal has a place to live and a bric-a-brac stall in the Mandala Street Market, but Dawn stands on street corners and gets in blokes' cars. And then she pisses all her takings away in the pub. How stupid can you get?

She only moved down here, south of the river, so she could leech off Crystal. She used to have a bloke to look after her, but he went the way all blokes go when they're through with a woman – onwards and upwards. And Dawn went the way all gutless women go when there's no one to look after them – backwards and downwards.

That's what happens when you depend on other people. Take it from me. You got to depend on yourself in this world. Crystal did. I did. We made our own luck.

I paid for the bunch of bananas and went out. Dawn was still there. The kids had got her down and one of them was trying to lift her skirt with a stick.

‘Dawn's a whore,' they were screeching, ‘she's so poor, she does it up against the lavvy door.'

I turned away to go home, when all of a sudden Crystal burst out from the alleyway opposite. She grabbed the stick and started laying about her like a homicidal midget. She's not much bigger than a ten-year-old kid herself, but she cleared a space round Dawn in no time at all. She looked so funny I just stood there splitting my sides.

Big mistake. She saw me.

‘Eva,' she yelled. ‘Give us a hand.'

‘Get stuffed,' I yelled back. ‘I got work to do.'

But then one of the kids pointed and said to his mates, ‘Ain't that Bucket Nut?'

Bucket Nut is one of the more civil things I get called when I'm fighting. And I was so chuffed the kid recognised me I strolled over, all casual like. I took my jacket off as I went so everyone could
see the size of my arms. I'm proud of my arms. A lot of time and trouble went into them. I'm not so proud of my belly but I wasn't going to show it off to anyone, was I? Not in the middle of the road, I wasn't. Not without getting paid.

‘Give us a hand, Eva,' Crystal said again.

‘You really Bucket Nut?' one of the kids asked.

‘What you think?' I said. ‘And watch yer mouth or I'll show yer.'

‘My dad says wrestling's all an act.'

‘Yeah?' I said, taking just one pace forwards. I could tell the kid was impressed. He took two paces backwards.

I was chuffed to buggery. This time last year no one knew me. Now I get recognised in the street. It goes to show I'm on my way.

‘My dad says wrestlers are about as much use as jelly doorknockers,' the kid said. ‘When it comes to real fighting …'

‘Tell you what,' I said, ‘you give me your dad's name and address, if you know it, and I'll see what he says when I push you through his letter box.'

Crystal said, ‘Why don't you stop posing and help me?'

She'd got Dawn sat up and she'd wiped her off a bit, but it would've taken an engine hoist to get her on her feet. She didn't have any bones in her legs. I've seen my ma in that state, and there's only one thing for it – the good old-fashioned fireman's lift. Which is what I did. Not for Dawn, mark you. She could go rotten in the road for all I cared. But Crystal and me have a history. We aren't mates – we never were, exactly, but we were in the same boat once or twice, and if she never did me any favours, she never did me any damage either. And that's as close as I get to having friends.

Crystal's room looked a lot like her stall. She didn't have furniture, it was more like her stock-room with a mattress in the middle. We laid Dawn out to snore and then Crystal went back to the market, and I went off to the yard.

That's where I live – a breaker's yard. And if you think that's funny, ask yourself, do
you
get paid to live where you live? If you're the one with a landlord or a mortgage don't you sneer at me. I get
my accommodation free. It goes with the job. Because that's the other thing I do besides the wrestling – I mind the yard at night. So if you fancy a few spares or plant, and if you don't fancy paying for it, it's me and my dogs you have to deal with. You won't find it easy, let me tell you. Me and Ramses and Lineker have practically a clean sheet where thieving is concerned. We may not be pretty, but we're bleeding effective, and between us we can pack a lot of muscle and make a lot of noise.

So that night, after all the men had gone home, I locked up the yard, as always, and I let out the dogs, and we did a tour of the property. I'm supposed to be there all night, but sometimes there are other things to do. It depends who pays best. But so long as I'm back in time to feed the dogs and open up, who's to know?

Tonight I was going to see The Enemy. She thinks she's so sharp and in control and she's just waiting to catch me at it. At what? Who bleeding knows? There are some people like that, and they're all polizei of one breed or another.

That's right, The Enemy is a lady cop. She says she isn't any more, but I say, once a copper always a copper. You can't clean it off like shit on your shoes.

The sign on the door says ‘Lee-Schiller'. Lee is The Enemy, Mr Schiller is her partner. He's an old geezer, and the secretary is an old bird. The Enemy runs a day-care centre for wrinklies. Which is why she needs me for stuff that can't be done by someone in a walking frame.