Fixers

CHAPTER 1

A gunslinger’s worst nightmare must be to die with a loaded revolver in his hand. Mine has always been to die with a pen between my fingers and holding an empty notebook. I’m tired of having nightmares and I could die any second now, so I’m going to tell you a story before it’s too late.

My name’s Rick Sherman. I would’ve killed for a nickname growing up, well, a good nickname anyway or even an okay one. Slick Rick the rapper took Slick Rick. He took Rick the Ruler too now that I think of it. I wasn’t a London gangster, so I felt like Richie didn’t fit. I was too average to be Fat Rick or Skinny Ricky or Stretch. Big Dick was my Dad’s name, still is actually, wherever the hell he is. He reckons it has very little to do with his name. I reckon it’s related to his demeanor rather than any reference to his genitalia. Big Rick was too close to Big Dick, plus, like I said, I’m not that big. The alternative was Little Dick and, well, obviously no way. So it’s always just been Rick or Ricky. On the odd occasion I refer to myself in the third person it’s Rick or Richard. A grown man calling himself Ricky doesn’t sit right with me. It makes me picture a bassist or drummer from an ageing eighties hair band, scalp on top, but hanging onto threads in the back. You know the look. It’s like Hulk Hogan without the bulk. That’s enough with the introductions for now, you’ll get to know me more as we get into it. Anyway, away we go.

I had an address scribbled on a napkin crumbled in my fist. I got the call at home when I was eating a sandwich and wrote it down on the first thing to hand. Looking at the napkin, I could smell mustard, but couldn’t see it. I hate mustard. I don’t know how it showed up on my napkin or my sandwich and the stench of it made me nauseous. I checked the address again outside what I thought was a derelict building in an alley that smelled like piss. There was no mistaking it. I was at the right place. I spit my chewed gum into the napkin, balled it up and dropped it into the street. The litter was an improvement. I pushed the door open to the Harlot’s Den. I could still smell mustard on my hand and piss in the air. I know what you’re thinking, Harlot’s Den, it must be a strip club. You’re wrong. It’s not a strip club. It is a brothel though. I didn’t know that at the time, but I pieced it together quickly. The moment I walked in all I really thought was what a shitty, slimy dive of a bar. I wouldn’t want to be caught dead in there and here I was alive walking in.

Inside the piss smell went away, but it was replaced by one of sweat, stale booze and shit. A red tint covered the room which looked to have smoke billowed along the ceiling. At first I thought they must’ve had a dry ice guy, but it turned out there was just an utter disregard for the smoking ban. The music was loud and bass heavy, it gave me a headache and threw off my sense of balance. It was a cross between rap and electro-house music. It sounded like a Beastie Boys instrumental from the Intergalactic album. I grabbed a bar stool with my hands and put my weight on it for a few seconds to get my balance back. I scanned the room but everything was blurry. Water sprinkled my face and startled me. I turned towards the source to see the bartender dropping her hand back into a glass and flicking her fingers at me. She got me good the second time and it wasn’t water, it was whiskey. It stung my eyes and I had to blink the tears out of them. When the blur cleared, the bartender still stood looking at me. Her hair was brown and dirty. She had it to the side and the ponytailed bunch was a ball of frizz. She was bone thin and wore too much make up, or at least too much eye shadow. She mouthed something to me but I couldn’t hear her over the music or read her lips. I leaned my ear in. She grabbed it and pulled. It hurt.

‘You all right?’ She asked.

‘Yeah, why?’ I said.

‘No reason. What do you want?’

‘Beer I guess.’ I said.

‘You guess?’

I kicked it around again and said ‘Yeah beer.’

She nodded, grabbed a glass and poured a beer. She slid it over to me. It looked like old piss. I took a sip. It tasted like it too. I must’ve winced because she frowned and called me a pussy.

‘Hey’ I yelled over the music. ‘I’m here for Big Dick.’

She raised an eyebrow, but didn’t answer.

‘Wait . . . no.’ I said. ‘Not . . . I mean Big Dick, the man, you know?’

‘As opposed to what?’

‘Big Dick.’ I said. ‘Come on, I know you know him.’

‘Not sure what you heard.’ She said. ‘Pussy, maybe I could help you.’

Hearing the word pussy from this girl’s mouth twice in two minutes made me lightheaded and weirdly aroused.

‘No, listen.’ I said. ‘Big Dick, he’s my father.’

‘Oh.’ She said. ‘So you’re Little Dick?’

I wanted to scream, but I didn’t.

‘I’m Ricky.’ I said, breaking my own rule, it just came out like that.

She made a face, my guess is it was her reaction to a grown man calling himself Ricky. ‘Big Dick’s around the back.’

‘The back I asked?’

‘Yeah the back.’

I looked around first, just to look suspicious and asked ‘He ain’t . . . ya know?’ I’d gathered at that stage the bar was more than just a bar. Though I was still thinking strip club at that point.

‘His pants are on. There’s a bar back there. Take your beer with you, I’m the only one working.’ She said.

I nodded and grabbed my glass of piss. It had gone warm too. ‘Great.’ I thought. I walked through a doorway that had seashell drapes hanging that sounded like falling stones as I pushed past them. The back room was darker and redder, but at least the music was lower, pulsing bass traded in for smooth jazz, although the vibration still made the wall behind the bar shake.

Big Dick sat at the corner of the bar by himself. A beer, a small glass, and a bottle of fireball cinnamon whiskey sat with him. A beige sports jacket stretched tightly over his giant back. He wore a hat that looked tired and old and added years to him. His nose was big and red, made even more so by the unflattering light. His large hands covered much of the pint glass in front of him.

‘Dad.’ I said, loud enough so he could adjust to my presence. Big Dick isn’t a man you want to startle. He’s the type to punch first and apologize after. He turned to me and smiled. He raised his hand to wave me over.

‘Little Dick.’ He yelled. ‘What it is!’

I gulped. He knew damn well I loathed that name. He called me by it anyway. Big Dick did things his own way always, often to the detriment of those around him. That’s probably why he sat alone drinking his face off in that seedy shit hole. Big Dick was a writer in his day, a journalist. He was considered a very good one. He did investigative journalism, known for breaking big stories, sought after by big name publications and networks. Anytime I had the misfortune of running into an old colleague of his, I had to listen about how Big Dick was Pulitzer Prize material, whatever that was supposed to mean. He was at the top of his game. Then he took some time out and wrote a couple of books. They were big nonfiction pieces, thick and incredibly boring. One flop injured him, the second crippled his confidence. He traded in writing for full-time drinking after that. Since then he looked worse, but seemed to have felt much better. He’d been in much better moods since anyway. He looked haggard and always smelled like shit and cinnamon whiskey, but I got the sense he finally found his passion. Good for him.

About the time he quit writing and started drinking, I stopped working and started writing. I kept drinking too though, I like to keep balanced. At the start, things were looking up. For one, I had the same name as Big Dick, known to the literary consumers as Richard Sherman. The Jr. at the end of my name was inconsequential. Naturally, those in the business figured I was him and even if they knew I wasn’t, they knew I was his son and the name alone might sell papers. I wrote freelance, got a decent check off of most of the known titles once. I never saw a second check though from any of them. Only one article ever actually saw it through to final print copy. It was a red top daily. I got a few inches on page twenty five next to a tampon ad and before the sports section. I thought that was me on the upswing, pushing through once and for all, and the first of many breaks. My optimism was short-lived however. It ended the second it became clear that the piece, a Hollywood who’s doing who and who’s getting fat, was a complete and utter fabrication. The libel lawsuit bankrupted the hundred year-old newspaper. If my name was worth shit at the time, I would’ve been sunk. But it wasn’t, so I wasn’t.

‘Hi Dad.’ I said to him again when I got closer.

‘Around here, it’s Big Dick son. No Dad in these parts.’

‘I am not calling you that.’

‘Your mom did.’

‘That’s fucking disgusting.’ I said.

‘No it isn’t, it’s the natural order of things.’

‘Whatever Dad, what the hell is this place?’

‘This is my little slice of heaven.’

‘What do you mean? You own this shit hole?’

‘What? No goddamnit.’

‘Maybe he does.’ The same bartender said, she appeared out of nowhere. ‘Through squatters rights I mean.’ She looked like a tall lollipop with mascara.

‘We’re having a conversation.’ I told her.

‘I know.’ She said.

‘I think Little Dick wants to talk to his old man alone darling.’ Big Dick said.

She disappeared without another word.

‘You’ve offended her now.’ He said.

‘She’ll get over it I’m sure.’

‘She will, but she also might not be so generous on my tab.’

‘How did you find this dump anyway?’ I asked.

‘I’ve been coming here for years. Anytime I was working something and the subject needed to meet discreetly. You know, politicians, businessmen, cops, you name it. We could always meet here, no chance of running into respectables, you know what I’m saying? Only a handful of these places existed back then. Only one does now and you’re in it. The yuppie infusion closed most, then the financial crisis took the rest.’

‘Shame.’ I said.

‘It is a goddamn shame. You can leave that smarmy attitude outside. This city used to have grit. Now look at it, lattes and fucking yoga everywhere.’

‘Don’t worry Dad, we’ve still got guns and drugs. There’s plenty of crime kicking around yet.’

‘Yeah and thank god for that.’

‘You ever have a latte?’ I asked.

‘I’ve had coffee and I’ve had milk, I can do the math. I take mine black and whiskey soaked now.’

‘Yeah, that and everything else.’

‘I’ve earned it.’ Big Dick said.

‘I agree, though I’d be surprised if we meant it in the same way.’ I looked around for a half second. When I turned back, two full beers sat in front of us.

‘She’s fast.’ Big Dick said when he noticed my surprise. The lack of air inside was suffocating me. My headache wouldn’t go away and the poor lighting kept me dizzy and disoriented. I remember feeling like I could faint any second. I pulled over a bar stool and held tight to the worn fabric like a bull rider. I grabbed the piss beer and drank it half down in a gulp to get the effect without really tasting it. I could feel my dad’s eyes on me, but he stayed silent. I waited a few seconds then let out a massive belch. The girl appeared from nowhere again darting around the corner like she was shot from a pinball machine. She said nothing, but managed to slow down long enough to pass on a disgusted look.

‘Excuse me.’ I said. She kept moving.

‘She’ll come around.’ Big Dick said. ‘Listen, I’m glad you found the place. You don’t look so great.’

‘You’re talking?’ I thought but didn’t say. I did say, ‘You’re note said it was important.’

‘No it didn’t. It said we should talk. What you inferred is not necessarily what it said. Anyway, I got a call from an old friend . . . a concerned friend.’

‘Who is that?’

‘Don’t matter his name. It was a contact from the Blackpool Daily . Well, he was from the Blackpool Daily . May Bog rest its soul.’

‘Good one.’ I said. Then I finished off the rest of my beer in my second gulp.

‘That’s the best you could do?’ Big Dick asked. ‘A piece on a B-list wannabe starlet? What happened, bad source?’

I shook my head ‘No.’

‘You Billy Shakespeared?’

A nod.

‘With that shit? Jesus Christ.’

‘I needed money.’ I pleaded. ‘A few months back on the rent. Not my finest hour, I’ll admit. I shouldn’t have made it up. I figured no one would read that far into the paper. It was page twenty-five with used cars and cats for sale for chrissakes.’

‘I don’t give a bollocks if you Billy Shakespeared. We all did it. Anything to sell the papers in my day. That was the only thing that mattered. We worried about what was juicy and believable and what could sell papers and get people to stick ads on it. See, we didn’t lie so much as create the truth.’

‘I don’t get it.’

‘Considering that shit story you produced, I’m not surprised you can’t figure it out.’

‘Thanks Dad.’

‘Don’t mention it.’

‘Yeah no problem.’

‘No, seriously don’t mention I’m your Dad, least don’t go out of your way to do so.’

Big Dick was an apt name I thought after he said that.

‘Listen kid.’ He said. ‘We all did it, it’s true, but that B-list pile of turd you came up with . . . you once told me you were a writer. Is that right?’

‘I guess.’ I said.

‘Well, a writer’s gotta have inspiration. You want to report on a child star going into rehab, join the fucking network news.’

‘Like I said Dad, I needed the money.’

‘You could’ve come to me, instead you sunk a newspaper that’s been around for over a century. At least you’ll probably get a footnote in the history books. Maybe that can be your legacy. We can call you the virus . . . no, the sinker. Hell, people might think you’re a ground ball pitcher.’ Big Dick said. ‘That fucking newspaper outlasted the Great Depression, reported on World War II, the moon landing, fucking Vietnam . . . but you sunk the thing with some made up scribble about absolutely jack shit, some pink shoe and branded t-shirt wearing hipster with abandonment issues and a legal team.’

I felt about the size of a regular M&M when he finished. A peanut M&M would’ve cast a shadow. ‘I think you made your point.’ I told him.

‘Well then. Good.’ Big Dick said. He looked away from me and emptied each glass in front of him down his throat.

‘Wait, what did your contact say?’ I asked.

‘Who?’

‘Your buddy, you know, the guy from the Daily. You said you talked to him.’

‘Oh yeah,