Suddenly I came round, and found myself again in the room of the cheap motel, my suitcase in my hand, and the clothes I was going to put
on laying on the bed. I dressed, and attempted to work out what has happened, what hadn't happened, and why I kept going off on tangents and getting strange delusional experiences whilst in this motel room.

Dressing, and putting the case back in the boot of my car, I tried to make sense of it all – who was Pottsy, had I yet met this guy, what was my job, and where was the cash coming from. As I wondered down by the disused rail tracks, sorting out the memories and dreams in my head, I suddenly realised I was being followed.

Not wanting to look obvious, I turned a corner, but then settled back in a doorway, to watch the individual pass by.

They walked by the door, without seeing me, and were clearly scanning
the disused railway siding to locate me, but my advantage point gave me a clear look at them.

It was Pottsy, there was no doubt about it. But had I ever met her before? Was her name really Pottsy, was I hallucinating again? What was my Job? Where was I?

While I was trying to figure all that out, they spotted me. Pottsy turned and looked at me, and then took off her shoe and slapped me in the face, and trust me, being hit in the temple with a 5-inch heel can sort out for you whether you're hallucinating or not better than a pink elephant.

'What the hell do you think you're doing?' she said. 'We paid you to knock that Semchevsky dead, why is he still up and around? And why are you hiding here like a chicken?'
Everything was coming back to me. I tried to answer, but I only managed
to cluck humbly.

Again she swung at me with her shoe heel, but this time I ducked, not
wanting a matching gash on the other side of my face. Being so casually
dragged back to reality I found myself again, and leapt into action ploughing my body into that of Pottsy and sending her sprawling, I stood up and looked down at her. What a chick.

'Hey, babe,' I began, 'don't suppose you'd mind telling me exactly why you are following me?'
I walked around her, still laying on the floor.

'Look, buster' she muttered, 'You know why I'm here, we want to know why Semchevsky is still live and large, and I do mean "large".'

I regarded her laying on the dust-covered earth.

'The reason, Pottsy, that he is now not dead, as you full know, is that the details of my payment have not been fully resolved'.

I kicked her.

'Cut to the chase chick, who's really hiring me for this job, and where is the dough?'
Pottsy stood up and replaced her shoe. She turned and walked off down
another siding. 'Follow' she simply said, and deftly checking my '45 I began after her, eagle eyed all the time and scanning the multiple buildings and hiding holes that surrounded this area, and we walked.

We turned a corner, and there was the bar. 'The others are inside,'
she said, 'let's move.'

The inside of the bar did not at all look like what I remembered, or
thought I remembered, from last night. The wooden floors, the dim smoky
lighting, the pictures of the owner with Elvis Presley, they were all gone. It was a cute little diner, with pink-coloured walls and plastic flowers and candles on the tables. I despised it.

At the table were a couple of suits with a briefcase, who got up silently when Pottsy and me approached them. I sat down, getting a little nervous now. This was obviously the real deal. No more mucking about in dark alleys and then giving up and going back to the little filthy hole I call home when I can't think of a better name. Now I'm actually gonna do it. I'm going to track Semchevsky down and slip him one in the lungs.

'I'm going to track Semchevsky down and slip him one in the lungs,' I
started, 'the moment I get my hands on the dough. How much is in there?'

'Fifteen G, like we agreed. And you're not getting it before Semchevsky has bitten the dust.'

'Well,' I said, 'It looks like I'll take that fifteen G's now then. He ordered the key lime pie and that's been sittin' on the rack for over a year.'

Pottsy wasn't amused. 'You know what I mean. And I want proof. Either I
watch the deed in person, or you bring me an identifiable body part.'

Pottsy was getting wiser in her old age. Of course I knew that she was thinking of only two body parts that would satisfy her: his head or his left leg. Everyone knew what Semchevsky's left leg looked like ever since the shark attack in the municipal swimming baths in Wiggan, but that is another story for another time.

I got up, ignoring the pie, and glanced at Pottsy before walking out and into the afternoon sun.

'Hi Ho, its a killing Semchevsky we go', I chirped as we went back toward the motel. I knew where Semchevsky would be, I just didn't want this Pottsy doll cramping my style.

I spoke to Pottsy, and she left, before I went up to my motel room, and
after rummaging in the secret compartment on my case retrieved the knife, and hung it inside my jacket.

Re-entering the street, I scanned the local, all looked fine, and all being well Semchevsky would not yet have an inkling of his fate.

Night of The Hoover Archive

Written by 'various'

16.09.04 Front Page

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