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Mike Parasite and the mob moll of doom
A BRAND NEW 'MIKE PARASITE' BLOCKBUSTER STORY
It was a quiet day on the newsdesk of the Daily Slur and I was kinda bored when the dame walked in. "You Mike Parasite?" she asked.
"Might be," I said. "Who wants to know?"
"I do," she said.
"And who are you?" I asked.
"I'm the girl who wants to know if you're Mike Parasite," she replied.
"You gotta name?" I asked.
"Sure," she replied. "You gotta name?"
"Sure," I said.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Mike - Mike Parasite," I replied. I kinda felt I was losing out here, somewhere.
She stared at me with deep emerald eyes and lit a cigarette.
She looked real cute, I decided, with her hair all wet from the overhead sprinkler and her face framed in foam from the security guard's fire extinguisher.
"Lady," said the guard, "You ain't allowed to smoke indoors."
"I smoke when I like," she replied. "I smoke after meals. I smoke when I watch the TV. Do you smoke when you watch the TV?"
"I don’t know," said the guard. "I never looked."
It was time to focus minds. I turned to her. "What can I do for you Miss…?"
"Oosey," she said. "Flo Oosey."
"Hi, Flo - I'm Mike Parasite," I said.
"I kinda figured," she replied. "You're the Daily Slur's ace crime reporter, right?"
"You got it," I said modestly.
She looked at me earnestly, her mouth gently foaming, a drowned dog-end hanging seductively between her lips.
"Mike, I'm gonna give you a big exposé ," she said.
My mouth went dry. "Well, if you're sure," I said. I glanced at the clock. "Your place or mine?"
"You heard of Ma Smith?"
"Sure. Ma 'The Spliff' Smith and her boys ran the Marsham Street mob on the Westminster side. Part of her family ran a blue movie racket. Operated out of a fake discount warehouse. What was it called again?"
"They said everything was on sale for 10 pence so they called it the Big 10 pence, 'cept they didn't think that was classy enough so they turned the figure 10 into a Roman numeral."
"Yeah, I remember now. The sign read 'The Big Xpence'. Look, couldn't we talk about this after your exposé?"
"Ma Smith is history, now Mike. She upset the boss of bosses."
"Gordon 'The Stuff' Brown?"
"Right. She had to blow out of town. Al 'The Envelope' Johnston muscled in."
"Al 'The Envelope'. He started small, right?"
"Sure. Post boy. Running messages. But now he's the Capo of Marsham Street."
"Is it time for your exposé yet?" I ventured hopefully.
"I'm coming to that, Mike. But first, I gotta tell you. I'm sorry, Mike. But I've been holding out on you."
"Whaddya mean?" I asked.
She raised her skirt slightly and bent down to touch her bare ankle before flicking wet ash off it.
"I didn't tell you. I work for Dave 'The Toff' Cameron and the Eton gang."
I gave a low whistle. It must have been the beans, I thought.
So! She was the Eton gang's moll!
"They’re planning to take over, Mike. The whole town. Brown 'The Stuff' is gonna get wiped. Then they're gonna stamp all over Al 'The Envelope'.
"I gotta tell you, Mike – 'The Toff' reckons it will go down in history as The Polling Day Massacre.
"Now, here's the deal. 'The Toff' wants to make Brown 'The Stuff' look like the brown stuff. So that when the takeover happens, no-one complains."
I said: "Okay! Don't tell me. Let me guess. You want me to write scurrilous stuff about the 'The Stuff' to stuff him, regardless of the truth?"
She nodded.
I levelled with her.
"Do you know the standards which the Daily Slur sets its reporters on honesty, integrity, impartiality, fairness and accuracy, even when a broad offers an exposé?" I asked.
She nodded again.
"That's why you came here, huh?"
Flakes of disintegrating filter-tip tumbled from her mouth. "I can't hide anything from you, can I?" she whispered.
"There's something I don't understand," I said. "Why were you talking about Ma Smith earlier? As you said, she's history."
"I just wanted to get some decent puns into this deeply stupid story," she admitted.
I liked her candour. But I was worried.
"'The Stuff' isn't going to give in without a fight," I said. "He enjoys being the top crappo."
"I think you mean 'capo', Mike."
"Whatever," I said.
"You’re right," Flo conceded. She reached into her handbag for another cigarette. The security guard took aim.
She turned to him. "Listen, you jerk," she said. "Why don't you downgrade the threat you think my cigarette poses? Haven't you heard what the scientists say? Smoking a cigarette is less dangerous than swimming the Atlantic."
"Lady," said the guard, "I take the policy decision on whether to let the extinguisher off."
There was a soft hiss as the foam found its target. "See what I mean?" he added.
She turned back to me, her face iridescent in the bubbles. "'The Stuff' is trying to win popularity with all the hoods with his policy of "tough on cops, tough on the causes of cops'."
"Hang on," I said. "The gangsters ARE the cause of cops."
"And that really worries him," she replied. "He beats himself up every day about it. Makes some of his gangsters wonder if he's really the man for the job."
"Hey! That’s pretty tough," I said. "But didn't the previous crappo try that line?"
"'Capo', Mike. The word is ‘capo’."
"Sure," I said. "What was his name again?"
"Tony 'Mass Destruction' Blair," she reminded me. "But he blew it. Thought the best way to thwart the cops was to start a huge gang reform programme. Called if 'gang modernisation'. ”
"What was the result?" I asked.
"Everyone's still trying to figure that out," said Flo. "Basically, it involved setting the gangsters targets. They had to commit this number of crimes a week or that number. But it got rubbish coverage in the press."
"Yeah, I remember now," I said. "We ran stories about machinegun-packing racketeers double parking to make sure they hit their offence quotas."
"Actually, that was a bit of a myth, Mike," she said.
That riled me. "Listen, Flo, don’t try and tell me what's what," I told her angrily. "I'm a journalist. I’m a pro."
"I'm sorry Mike, I was out of order," she said quickly, touching my arm gently with a foaming hand. "I never ever meant to imply that you'd let the facts get in the way of a good story."
I calmed down.
"Okay," I said. "Let's get back to 'The Stuff' Brown. Tell me what else he's up to.”
She furrowed her eyebrows. "Well," she said, "there's his inheritance whacks."
"What's that all about?" I asked.
She shrugged. "He whacks you and takes your inheritance," she said. "Income whacks works on the same principle."
"Won't 'The Toff' do the same thing?" I suggested.
"Probably. Or his top wiseguy, Georgie 'Boy' Osbourne."
"Anything else, then?"
"How about his communications surveillance initiative?"
"His what?" I asked.
"This is how it goes," said Flo. "Every night, the mobsters break into the post office and open two or three million letters on the off-chance there might be a postal order in one of them. He says it’s a vital part of his crime promotion programme."
"You're kidding," I said.
"Do I look like I'm laughing, Mike?"
"Hmmm," I pondered. "Anything else?"
"What about his scheme to flood the place with hoodlums?"
"How's he gonna do that?" I asked. "He’s only got so many."
She tapped the side of her nose with one finger. "Accreditation," she said.
"Uh?" I was getting lost here.
"You've heard of crime families, haven't you, Mike?"
"Sure," I said.
"'The Stuff' wants to go one better. He and 'The Envelope' are pushing something they call 'extended crime families'. So they've got this scheme that allows ordinary citizens to become accredited gangsters."
I considered this.
"You mean we're going to get a load of regular Johns knocking banks over?" I asked.
Flo gave me a withering look. "Don't be stupid, Mike," she said. "These guys and dames will do the low-level stuff. I mean, when they're riding the subway to work, instead of just sitting there they could make themselves useful by maybe selling City Hall to some dumb tourist. They're out there on the street anyway. May as well make themselves useful.
"'The Envelope' says it will free up the real gangsters for more serious crime."
I took stock. "Okay," I said. "We're going to have the regular mobsters but in future they'll be supported by accredited crooks."
"Check," said. "And, of course, Special Gangsters."
"Isn’t that kinda over-egging the pudding?" I ventured. "Who the heck are these Special Gangsters?"
"They're good, Mike," Flo assured me. "Real good. They're up there with the best. They'll blow a safe; do a bullion heist. But only at weekends.
"The Mob is going to rely more and more on them."
I looked her in the eye. "There’s something I don't get," I said. "I thought 'The Stuff' had really hit the big time. His operation was the best, is what he said. The money was rolling in."
Flo gave a contemptuous snort. "The money was rolling in all right," she said. "Trouble is, he borrowed it. From the Triads."
"The Chinese mob?"
"You got it. Now they're getting all Bruce Lee about it and want it back. Paying them could make the Mob go bust. Not paying them could make 'The Stuff' go boom when they put a cap in his ass.
"This is kinda embarrassing for the 'The Stuff' as he said there wouldn't be no boom or bust."
I asked: "How did the crappo get into this situation?"
"Capo, Mike. It's the Capo. He made some big mistakes. Like he fenced his gold bullion hoard at the wrong time and the wrong price.
"Then his casino racket ended in disaster when someone broke the bank.
"He's tried everything. His counterfeiting presses are turning out currency worth hundreds of millions but it hasn't helped."
I looked up from my notes and couldn't believe my eyes. The dumb broad had another cigarette in her mouth. I waited for the foam to shoot - but nothing happened.
The security guard shook the extinguisher. "Damn thing's outta ammo," he complained and stomped off.
I had to ask: "How would 'The Toff' make things better?"
Her eyes lit up and her mouth broke into a bright, high-tar smile.
"Crime will go green," she said eagerly.
"Come again?"
The words came tumbling out. "The Eton Gang will use air weapons instead of sub machine guns," she said. "Less carbon dioxide emissions when they go off.
"And instead of plastic explosive, we'll use an isotope of uranium to blow safes with. It's kinda radioactive and the crime scene will have a half-life of 1,000 years but, hey! It won't hurt the ozone layer!"
"But what about the Triads?" I persisted.
"Well," she said, "We'll keep up the income whacks and the inheritance whacks. And when we do whack someone, we'll ransack their place to get the best jewellery and stuff. They'll be the value-added whacks.
"Then there's the protection money. We'll make sure people buy our insurance against something unfortunate happening to them. We'll make absolutely everyone an offer they can't refuse, so it'll be a sort of national insurance, with premiums that just keep going up!
"And, of course, the boys will go out raiding, big time. We'll hit everything - hospitals, schools, businesses. Be kinda fun.
"Why, we'll probably hit the cops, too! Now, won't that be good news for the extended crime family?"
I sensed something moving behind her. It was the security guard!
Before I could shout a warning, he lifted a fully-loaded fire bucket above her and then dropped it over her head.
I knew I had to do something immediately but the choice was a difficult one. Should I write a world exclusive for the Daily Slur? Or should I leave the country?
I reached for my hat.
