Scarlet Women

what they earned, but Rizzo was The Man. If they didn’t hustle, then Rizzo would be mad, and that wasn’t good. So no matter what they heard, and no matter what they experienced—first hand or not—then here they were, working their little patch, Rizzo’s little patch, which now sported just two girls instead of three.

Rizzo wasn’t happy about that. He’d lost a valuable asset in Val. And, incidentally, he’d lost a sister too. He’d drafted his little sis into the business when she turned sixteen. He remembered it well.

Their mum had been at bingo and Val, mouthy little bitch, had been sitting in their front room with him and their little cousin Paulie, watching The Avengers on the telly, him saying what a tosser Steed looked with that bowler, like a toff, what good would a geezer like that be in a ruck?

Val had been droning on all through the programme, which Rizzo had found pretty bloody irritating. On and on about what would she do now? She’d left school, she didn’t want to work in no effing shop, not even in a clothes shop, the pay was piss poor and life was too short, but signing on was a drag. All the while painting her nails orange—Jesus, that stuff stank.

‘Will you shut the fuck up?’ asked Rizzo, popping a can.

The programme was getting interesting, Emma Peel was looking tasty in a leather catsuit and was about to get done by a villain if Steed didn’t get a fucking move on and show up, and all he could hear was Val going yackety-yackety-yack in his ear.

Now she was saying she didn’t want to work in a grocery shop either, she’d die of boredom, but maybe she could get an apprenticeship at the local hairdresser, what did he think?

‘I think you should shut the fuck up,’ said Rizzo.

Paulie, crawling around on the carpet, getting in front of the TV screen, sticky fingers all over the damned thing—for God’s sake, was there no peace to be had?

‘Yeah?’ Val snapped. ‘Well I think you should take an interest in what your own sister’s doing. Would it kill you to just have a proper conversation with your own sister?’

At which point Rizzo wopped her a hard one around the chops. Orange nail varnish splattered all over the arm of the sofa and on to the floor. He saw the surprise there on her face as the redness bloomed on her freckled cheek. He’d never done that before.

Paulie froze on the carpet, his eyes going between the two. Val’s expression changed from surprise to fear. Good, thought Rizzo, and right then and there he devised a plan.

‘Don’t worry. I can get you a job,’ he said.

And so it was that Val Delacourt entered her new profession. Took to it like a duck to water, too.

Rizzo was pleased; she pulled in a good living and so did he—half her earnings went straight into his pocket to feed his little habit.

The escort work had been something else, just a little extra. He’d been mad about it when he’d found out. He didn’t want his girls subcontracting; his business was what mattered, not their own.

And the escort stuff had resulted—sadly, really sadly—in Val getting herself killed stone-dead. Their mum had wailed and screamed and cried when the cops came by to break the news, he’d never forget it. Felt a bit guilty too. After all, he’d started Val out along the path to her own destruction, setting her up as a brass. Even if he didn’t like her escorting, he had to admit that she wouldn’t have been escorting if she hadn’t started tarting first.

Still, he didn’t feel guilty for long.

So now Rizzo had just the two girls, and one of them wasn’t all that, until he managed to source a third. Because good girls were hard to find. This girl, this one who was standing on the towpath chatting to his two remaining girls, was not a good girl. He could see it clearly as he approached, Benj his bull terrier tugging his arm out of its socket as usual, straining to get forward as always.

Rizzo loved Benj. You knew where you were with a dog. Step on its paw and it would howl, but ten minutes later it’d be there licking your hand, kissing your arse and humping your leg. And Benj helped Rizzo’s reputation.

Benj had pulled down a Dalmatian belonging to one of the other pimps in the park last month, chewed the mutt all to hell. They’d had to haul the thing off to a vet’s and have it put down. Benj had been going for the pimp, too—the bastard had been trying to muscle in on Rizzo’s patch—when Rizzo called Benj off. The pimp had been traumatized and he hadn’t been seen in the area since.

Now he looked ahead and saw a girl, no, a woman, whose stance told him she would not take orders. This one would try to give them, and there was no fucking way Rizzo Delacourt was taking any orders off any skirt, no sir.

‘What the fuck you doing?’ he asked loudly, coming nearer, Benj pulling him ahead like a tugboat hauling a liner.

Rizzo was pissed off.

He’d expected both of the girls, Jackie and the other one, Misery he called her, to be off earning by now, pulling in the johns like they were supposed to. It was nearly eleven thirty and the pubs had emptied out, but no, here they were, standing about shooting the breeze.

Shit! Couldn’t you leave these bitches unattended for a couple of hours, go about your business in the expectation that they would be about theirs? It was hard running a business these days. You had to have eyes in your arse, and that was a fact. Couldn’t turn your back for a minute. Who’d want to be in management when it was so damned hard?

‘Hey! You hear me? I said what the fuck you doing?’ he yelled. Yelling worked well with women, he knew that. Shout at them, get in close, act like a threat and they folded. Started to cry, poor little dears. Benj let out a yap, excited because Rizzo was, in tune with his master just as he’d been right from a pup. Bit anyone and anything, but never Rizzo. All the family were scared shitless of the hound, even the tattooed hulk Pete wouldn’t touch him—although Pete hadn’t been around lately—but not Rizzo. Rizzo was The Man.

Only this girl didn’t look the type to fold easy.

He came up close and she just stood there. In the dim yellow light cast by the streetlamps he could see dark hair and steadily staring dark eyes. Jackie and Misery were acting nervous and that was good. Shooting looks at each other, shifting from foot to foot, they didn’t want no hassle with Mr Rizzo Delacourt. Misery, a skinny blonde, drew deeply on her cigarette and eyed him nervously but said nothing.

‘We ain’t doing nothing, Rizzo,’ said Jackie, short dark bobbed hair and a skirt hitched high enough to show what she’d had for breakfast.

Rizzo ignored Jackie’s whining and addressed himself to the tall dark woman who stood there.

‘What you doin’ here, wastin’ my girls’ time?’ he demanded.

‘Just asking them a few questions, that’s all,’ said the woman, who was not reacting to Rizzo as he was used to being reacted to. In fact, she seemed more interested in eyeing up Misery. Perhaps she was a lezzer. Maybe here to strike a deal, who knew? He took it down a notch. Business was business, after all.

‘About what?’

The woman’s eyes pulled away from Misery and fastened on to Rizzo. ‘Val Delacourt. You’re Rizzo? Her brother?’

Rizzo shot his girls a glare. Loud-mouthed cows. They shrank back. ‘What’s that to you?’

The woman shrugged. ‘Just asking. Sad business, her dying like she did.’

Now Rizzo was getting mad. He didn’t care if she was a punter; all this delving into his private business was strictly out of bounds. ‘Look, I don’t want you coming down here putting the wind up my girls by goin’ on about all that. We had all that out with the Bill. They got the man, it’s done.’

‘It’s not done, Rizzo. They got the wrong man.’

Rizzo’s mouth dropped open. Then he rallied himself.

‘Look.’ He came in closer to the uppity bitch and poked a finger at her shoulder, ramming his point home. ‘I want you to fuck off, girly. You’re botherin’ my girls. Val’s dead and gone. They got the man who done it. End of story.’

Annie recoiled from Rizzo’s breath. She glanced down at the dog, slavering and pawing the ground just like its owner.