The White Flamingo (20 page)

“Baby” The White Flamingo gathered the kid in her arms. “What did you do to him?”

“Lady, the kid’s an animal. He gets it from his mother.”

“Leave, just leave,” the Flamingo cried.

“Sure. I’ll just take
some security, against the money owed for the completion of the job.” Joe walked over to the wall and took down the American expressionist painting. He held it under his arm.

“Wait, I’ll write you a check
.”

“Sure, just after you’ve burped the kid,” Joe said pointing at her son. “I’ll take this for now. Stay in touch.”

The Detective walked out of the room, out of the house on the hill and stumbled down the road towards the nearest bar. It was little more than a shack built with coconut timber and corrugated iron. The barman was a German in his fifties with a large body plastered in tattoos. He was all beard, teeth, and sunglasses.

“What will it be?”

“Coke. Large one. Have one yourself.”

The bar owner went about
it and put them on the counter. “What are we drinking to?”

“Dysfunctional families,” The Detective said.

They drank to it as the sun went down over the coastline in a wash of purples and orange.

“Hey,” the barman grinned boyishly
, “did you know that the sexy lady, The White Flamingo, lives in that big house on the hill?”

“Yeah,” said Joe
, “tell me about it.”

“One of my
customers just called. Said that an ambulance and a black and white have just pulled up on the drive.”

“Figures,” Joe said absently taking a long drink from his coke. “Pour me another one of these?”

“You not drinking the hard stuff?”

“Not anymore.”

“You drink the coke like it was whiskey.”

“Hey, don’t you think I know that?”

FIFTY-
NINE

THE DETECTIVE
took a taxi to the Shrinks apartment. Rode the lift up to the fourteenth floor, the shrink welcomed him and Joe took the couch. He had the painting under his arm.

“It’s a Coles,” said
Taylor.

“Yeah, I took as a down payment in cash,” Joe said resting against the office wall next to a vase holding five dead purple flowers.

“And how is your good health?” Taylor asked looking at Joe through his glasses as if he were a long distance away. He was wearing a light grey shirt and black necktie.

“Well, I’m off the booze, off the needle, and off the case.”

“Congratulations. How does that make you feel?”

“Like celebrating,” Joe brushed his hands through his hair.

“And how do you normally celebrate?”

“With the
booze or the needle.”

“So we have something to work on. Let’s not celebrate, let’s just be grateful,”
he smiled at Joe and shuffled some papers on his desk.

“Am I in therapy?” Joe asked.

“If you would like to be. As you know, I see my patients for free. I was fortunate enough to have made enough money in my previous life. Well, you heard what happened up at the house?”

“No, but I’m guessing
The Flamingo took the night train.”

“She fell asleep, the kid couldn’t wake her.” 

“Suicide?” The Detective asked.

“Cut and dry case, although why she would do that after her son had been released
, confuses me.”

“Psychiatry is an art, remember. You told me that. People don’t act the way you figure them to act,” Joe took his sunglasses from his breast pocket and put them on. 

“The killer came here and told me the whole story. Seems like he made the most frightful error.”

“He made several.”

“No, I mean with the motive.”

“Revenge attack?”

“Precisely. While he was here, I had him take a HIV test,” Taylor smiled sadly.

“What for? Rub salt in the wounds…Wait, you don’t mean…”

“Yes, the poor man was HIV negative. Not that the test is ever conclusive, but I use a strict testing model. I would say he was clean.”

The Detective let the thought dance for a while
, as he watched through the window, a boat docked into the harbor. A flock of gulls wheeled around in the air above the sea.

Joe stood up and walked to the door. He turned to say goodbye.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Taylor said pointing to the painting leaning against the wall.

“Keep it,” said Joe. “I guess we both work for free. We need to help each other out. Plus
, I’ve got all the ghosts I need in my hotel room.”

“You should think about moving.”

“Why bother, you just take the same shit with you wherever you go.”

Taylor
didn’t have an answer to that so he settled for another smile, as Joe walked toward the office door.

His mobile phone rang.

“Joe, you’re a hero,” Hale said.

“Hey, Hale
, you’re an asshole.”

“Guess where I am?”

“In a bar,” Joe said.

“I’m on the pier, got a friend with me, he wants to speak with you,” Joe could hear the sounds of boats and heavy machinery in the background, and the cries of seagulls.

“Well, tell him to wait. I’m off the case and I don’t fancy a new one right now. Cheers.”

T
aylor listened to the telephone conversation.

The Detective
turned off the cell phone... “Well, all’s well that ends badly in Fun City.”

They let the thought dance.

“I finished my novel,” Taylor said. “Two minutes before you knocked on the door
, I wrote those brilliant last words.”

“The End?”

“The End.”

“How about the great outdoors?” Joe asked leaning forward.

“Well, I’m getting there. If the book sells, I’m out of this town forever.”

“What’s the novel about?”

“It’s the story of an English expat called Susan Swift, in Tangiers, Morocco, she falls in love with her housemaid, and kills her maid’s husband in act of passion.”

“How does she kill h
im?”

“Poison.”

“Nice. What happens?”

“She runs from the police, through the desert, travels across
Western Africa and then to Eastern Africa where she falls in love with a Kenyan woman and they settle in a house by a lake.”

“The title?”  

“This is the interesting part. Before my wife died, we went to a Chinese restaurant. I remember two stuffed birds that were part of the decoration. It was a tacky place; mirrors, plastic flowers, and a water feature. Anyway, there were these two plastic birds next to this water feature. Faith had insisted that the birds were storks, while I stood firm that they were herons. Whatever they were, they were wading birds. To settle the argument, we called over the head waiter. It went like this:

‘You are both wrong,’ the waiter said with a smile.

‘But how…’ Faith said puzzled.

‘It is the White Flamingo,’ the Chinese smiled. ‘It came from a taxidermist. Very beautiful, yes?’

‘Flamingos are pink,’ I said.

‘Ah, but only because the blood is pink
and of course the diet.. When the bird dies, the blood is drained and the animal is filled with sawdust. When the Flamingo is dead, she is the White Flamingo.’”

“So the White Flamingo gave you two stories,” Joe said walking over and patting Taylor on the back. “Before she spread her wings and flew across the Fun City harbor.”

The sound of the telephone ringing brought them back into the room, and into the present moment. Taylor stood and picked up the receiver, one of the old rotary phones that had crept back into vogue. He listened to the voice on the other line for five minutes. “Yes, yes, I’ll write it up.”

“New story?”

“They just fished a body out of the harbor.”

“Skinny with long legs, pale, looks kinda like a sick-looking flamingo?”

“How did you know?” Taylor asked, his eyes widening.

“Well,” Joe said standing up to leave and putting on his shades. He walked the four steps to the door and then turned to face the journalist. “I never did like that kid.”

“The interesting thing is, The White Flamingo lived, she had her stomach pumped at the hospital.”

“Well, just another day,” Joe said.

“Yeah,” said the writer, “in Fun City.”

THE END

BIOGRAPHY

NEWMAN
WROTE
fiction when he moved to Bangkok  2001. He lived in ten dollar hotel rooms and survived on chemical whiskey and raw luck. Newman has published over fifty short stories in various publications all over the world; most recently for Big Pulp Magazine. He has been included in many anthologies. His novel BANGKOK EXPRESS appeared in 2010. The sequel RED NIGHT ZONE was published shortly after. A collection of his short stories THAILAND AFTER DARK document his short story ventures. Other titles include LIZARD CITY a pulp horror novella, and the novel ITCHY PARK - 2014 with Blood Moon Press. His interests include noir fiction, crime, jazz,  Charles Bukowski, and travelling around on Bangkok buses dreaming about the oncoming apocalypse. Newman is also a playwright, screenwriter, publisher,  director, and  musician.

A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS

THANKS
to the team. John Daysh, Torrie Cooney, Frankie Rhodes, and Kevin Cummings.

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SPANKING PULP PRESS 2013