Read Online The Redemption Factory by Sam Millar - Free Book Online Page B

a medal, or something like that – and Shank couldn’t do enough to help. We never had another visit from Daly again. In fact, any time when Daly saw my da walking down the street, he would cross over to the other side, fearful of offending a friend of Shank. Now, do you understand the power of Shank?”
    “I wished you hadn’t told me all this. Now I’ll be crapping myself every time I see Shank.” Paul took a taste of his cigarette, allowing it to burn inside his lungs.
    Stevie laughed. “You’ll never see him again. That was probably a one-off encounter you had. All the time I worked in there, I only saw Shank once.” Stevie took a longer sip of the pint before continuing. “What did you think of Violet?”
    “Violet?”
    “The receptionist.”
    “Oh, right. Yes, quite a pleasant person.”
    Stevie chuckled. “Now, I know she’s not too great to look at, but you should see her in bed! Fuck! Couldn’t get enough of me. The only real problem with her is she can get quite nasty at times. That’s why they call her Violent Violet. She’s as charming as a crocodile. Her vocabulary begins with the first four letters of the alphabet – as well as the sixth, of course.”
    “I’ll be honest. She put the shit up me more than Shank did.”
    “She would, wouldn’t she? Being Shank’s daughter, and all.”
    “Shank’s …?” Paul was relieved that he hadn’t made any derogatory remarks about Shank in her presence.
    “You know, she was almost killed in a car crash a few years ago, as a kid. Went right through the windscreen of her uncle’s car. Fortunate to be have survived. The plastic surgeon did a great job on her face but was unable to remove all the millions of tiny fragments of glass encrusted in it. You noticed that, didn’t you?”
    Paul had a horrifying flashback to the office, Violet sitting there. Now he remembered, the strange texture of her skin, how it seemed to … gleam.
    “I’m not kidding,” enthused Stevie. “When you turn the lights off, her face turns into one of those mirror balls you see floating from the ceiling in the old disco movies.”
    An image of Stevie doing his impersonation of John Travolta flashed in Paul’s mind.
John Revolting
, more likely. He wondered if Stevie had any info on Geordie?
    “There’s a girl in there, in charge of the butchers. They call her Jeanie or something,” said Paul, trying to sound casual, deliberately mispronouncing Geordie’s name. “Know her?”
    Stevie paused for a second. “Jeanie? I’m trying to think. Can’t remember any Jeanie. It’s been a couple of years since I worked in there. Probably all new workers. Can’t say I know any Jeanie, mate. Sorry.”
    “She … she … seemed to have bad legs, I think. Walked funny.”
    “Walked funny …? Oh! You mean Geordie, not Jeanie. Fuck, how could you forget her, once you’ve spotted her? Walks like Long John fucking Silver with woodworm.”
    Paul smiled, hating himself for its falseness, his silentacceptance of Stevie’s words.
    “Hmm. Yes. Now that you’ve mentioned it, I think her name
was
Geordie.”
    “No thinking about it, mate. The devil broke the mould when he created her along with her sister.”
    “Her sister?”
    “Yes. Violent Violet. Not notice the resemblance?”
    Paul thought for a moment. “I never got that close.”
    “Good. Keep it that way, mate. Two real fucking nutcases – just like their da. Biggest mistake I ever made was going out with Violet.” Stevie shivered, involuntary. “Keep this to yourself, mate, but that fucker threatened to slice off my dick when I told her I no longer wanted to see her.”
    “Fuck …”
    “That was the main reason for leaving. She made my life a living hell, in there. Just keep away from her – from the whole lot of them, mate. They’re a strange family …”
    Before Paul could interrogate Stevie further, Lucky began to signal frantically that a table was free.
    “I’ve got to get back over to Lucky. Thanks