Read Online The Crime Studio by Steve Aylett - Free Book Online

wildlife I’ve wrestled into submission with these two hands.’
    ‘Pardon me Uncle but your bestial peccadilloes are hardly the issue here.’
    ‘What, you bastard? I’ll slash your throat from sternum to navel.’
    Bounding over moonlit rooftops, arguing red-faced over the plunder and bickering at the foot of their victims’ beds, Leon and his uncle formed an uneasy alliance. Whistling loudly as he dropped silverware into the sack which Savage, glaring furiously, held open, Leon would reel off quotations from Voltaire in a Scottish accent and pause only to have a good laugh. He repeatedly alarmed his uncle by pretending to pass out on the premises and would wait until Savage, flushed and gasping from the exertion, had dragged him through the window to safety before sitting up and asking why Savage’s belly was heaving. He became adept at snagging his uncle’s pants with a grappling hook and hurling them at the eaves in a flap of rags. Pointing with a guffaw whenever Savage tripped on a slate, Leon was a constant source of umbrage and the two would inevitably scuffle and shove on the starlit ledges, hurling diamonds and slugging each other with nuggets of masonry.
    Leon had quickly discovered that the best way of getting into something is to think of it as mischief. This adroit principle entered him like a sickness. It suggested that the tedium of the getaway could be relieved by pretending that Kermit was trying to get out of the sack. It caused him to sit at gang meetings mimicking a cop siren without moving his lips. He made unneeded extra cash at K-Mart demonstrating flame-retardant dungarees. He frightened little kids by murmuring poetry. The cops hated him - he was forever telling the truth and throwing a spanner into their inquiries. Savage felt as though he’d knitted a monster.
    But he had to concede that Leon had contracted a personality since the days when he had had to stamp on snails in an attempt to entertain the gloomy child. Most youngsters these days could not entirely believe in a thing unless it was printed on a T-shirt, but Leon seemed to have a genuine interest. Savage talked about his life as a re-offender. How could someone be offended by the same thing twice? Was nothing learnt?
    Leon theorised that a thief creates something out of nothing, like an artist or god. These lisped absurdities made Leon unpopular with other criminals, and Savage suffered a loss of esteem by association. They wanted to know why Savage stood for it, and he felt the pressure. He began to think Leon was being resentful for the time Savage had tried to teach him about real life by dragging him behind a Chevy. Leon had been eight years old at the time and had made no comment except to thank his uncle for demonstrating the behaviour of a typical bastard. In truth the incident was one of Leon ’s fondest memories and in the autobiographical novel Burgling In Beerlight With Uncle Savage attributed the whole thing to Savage having taken buoyant leave of his senses. Savage was a laughing stock before the book’s publication but on hearing of its existence he lunged across the table at Leon ’s throat. Pulling away with his uncle’s hands about his neck Leon dragged him through shattering breakfast plates and into a struggling, screaming heap, kicking over chairs and straining for weapons just out of reach. This scuffle formed the opening scene in the stage adaptation, which was notorious for the ending in which a cop appeared on stage and arrested the audience. The acclaim which greeted Uncle Savage came as a total surprise to Leon and a shock to his uncle, whose hair went black overnight. Disguised as an Arab and approaching Leon at a dinner party, he had barely begun to express his feelings when Leon tugged down his false beard, at which Savage retreated in alarm. They say a little embarrassment’s good for you - I wonder what they say about this much?
    Leon wallowed in the newfound popularity which was aided by his