The White Flamingo Read Free

control.”
    “Yeah, of course you have, mate. Everyone has everything under control. Little Miss Tammy had it all under control until she met the lunatic who sliced her open like a Christmas turkey here on my table. Are you shooting every day? Smoking it? Shoving it up your ass?”
    “Skip it.”
    “What?”
    “The part about the Harris.”    
    “Touchy, eh? Listen, you been touching that stiff?” Hale said, pointing at the corpse and then the Detective’s hand.
    “No.”
    “Good,” Hale said, and shook the Detective’s hand. “We’re glad you are here.” He looked at Tammy’s body. “The gig’s up for that wench.” Hale lit a smoke. “Listen, Joe, I think I know who did this.”
    “Yeah, well, it might be a bit early in the game for speculation, Jimmy.”
    “Don’t call me Jimmy.”
    “Now who’s touchy?”
    “My father called me Jimmy.”
    “Okay, I’m sorry.” 
    “Forget it.”
    “Okay, Hale. Now, oh wise one , let’s hear it.”
“I know who was with her last night. A customer.”
    “And?”
    “And the geezer’s a nutter.”
    “He’d have to be t oo. His name?”
    “You’ll like this, mate. His name’s Sebastian Bell,” Hale chuckled taking a drag on his cigarette.
    “Nice name. Kinda like a boy named Sue .”
    “His mother used to be a catwalk model in the seventies. Hung out with Grace Jones, did some film work. Incredible set of pins.”
    “Nice.” Joe looked lazily at the body for the last time.
    “It was, for her. She married a millionaire. Two years later , he dies from a heart attack; rumour has it, while on the job with Mrs. Bell. She inherited the lot and built a house in the hills. Her son, she lets play around in Fun City. My guess is he got bored of the normal toys and took things a stage too far.”
    “Wild imagination you have there, Hale.”
    “Wild city,” Hale said. “Nothing would surprise me here. Did I tell you about the midget on Sixth Street?”
    “Does it concern what we see on the table?”
    “No.”
    “Then don’t tell me about it.”
    “Just saying, nothing surprises me here.”
    “Not even this?” The Detective said pointing to Tammy’s mutilated corpse.
    “Well, it’s a curveball, a sick fucking curveball. That’s for sure. Now, are you gonna let me tell you what happened last night or not?”
    “Ok ay, spill.”
    “Well…”
     
     
     
    THREE
    The night before
     
    SEBASTIAN BELL looked at the spread on the table.
    It didn’t look good.
    Danny, his opponent, had one arm. Only one. The other he had lost in an industrial accident, the claim paid for his existence in the land of sin. A nice little disability, thank you very much. 7k a month. U.S. Dollar. Life taught him how to make do. Life taught him to accept what he had. Circumstance had thrown him to a city where women were cheap and easy. Life was great, he woke up in the afternoon, normally with a pair of brown thighs wrapped around his like an appendage, a pair of legs which would remove itself following the exchange of hard currency. Danny liked everything about the town. 
    The bright lights.
    The dark city.
    It was like coming home.
    Who needed two arms when you quit choking the chicken the minute you stepped off the big bird? When you had those brown thighs, thousands of them, walking up and down the bars and in and out of your hotel room, yes, Danny had come home.
    Danny had a shaved head and no neck to speak of. His face was large and strong like that of a formula one racer. He had tattoos and he had good cuing action for a man with one arm. Strange how the human body compensates for its losses, the blind gifted with excellent senses of smell, the wheelchair basketball player, the runner with prosthetic legs. Danny used his chin to steady a shot off the rail and followed up by spearing with his only arm. The cue ball sailed down the middle. The black ball sunk in the bottom left. The crowd cheered. Bell swore. The bargirl racked the next game. Sebastian