I don’t want to talk about Lennox Benson. I saw the way he looked at my wife. So I get up, ignoring her, and look down my front. My cock is jutting out. Gluttonous. I peek up at Rose, my eyebrow high.
“I have a spa day to get ready for and a few friends to convince to come with me.” She gets up and saunters off, leaving me with a raging erection. She stops when she gets to the door, looking back. Her playfulness has vanished.
“I’ll be careful,” I say before she can demand it.
A nod, a swallow, and she disappears into the bathroom.
By the time Brad, James, and I make it Hiatus, it’s past noon, a good thing because I could do with a drink. We enter from the back, and I wave to Mason who has a Scotch on the bar for me where Goldie, Otto, Nolan, and Ringo are lined up.
Mason doesn’t only have a Scotch for me, he has one for Brad too. And a vodka for James, who physically heaves and turns away from it. I smile as I take a sip. I should have sent him to the spa with the girls, because he doesn’t look like he’ll be of much use to us.
I take a stool and drag it away from the bar so I’m in front of the others. “What’s up?” I ask, detecting a bit of tension.
“Tell them,” Ringo says, his big, suited arms folded over his chest, his eyes on Nolan.
I look at Nolan.
“A cop staking out over the road,” he tells me. “She was there when I left last night and here this morning at seven when I took a delivery.”
Collins.James leaves us and walks to the entrance of the club, disappearing for a few moments before coming back, shaking his head. “The cameras?” he asks Otto.
“She left at ten.”
“She probably needed her morning poo,” Ringo mutters, and we all turn half amused half questioning looks onto him. “What?” he asks. “Women are like clockwork, aren’t they? Same time every morning?”
“And men aren’t?” Goldie looks at Ringo like he’s another species. I’m beginning to think he is.
“No, men shit in the evening.”
I laugh, looking at the others, hoping I’m not alone. They’re all looking at Ringo with expressions that basically saywhat the fuck? “You shit in the evening?” Otto asks him.
“Yeah, I shit in the evening. Don’t you?”
“No, I shit in the morning.”
“I shit every three days,” Nolan says, thoughtful. “Could be morning or evening. It’s a bit inconvenient, to be honest.” He looks at Goldie. “When do you shit?”
She gets up and walks away, increasing my laughter. She only wants to be a part of the gang when it suits her.
“Well shit,” Ringo sighs. “I always thought it was a man-woman thing.”
“What the fuck made you think that?” Brad asks him.
“When I was a kid, all my mates had a shit when they got home from school. Stanley, my best pal, he had a sister, and he told me she shat in the mornings, as did all her friends. So, yeah, men shit in the evenings, and women shit in the mornings. It’s because women are organized, you see. They think ahead. It starts when they’re girls. They don’t want to be shitting in the school toilets because they’re fucking grim. Boys don’t have that foresight. We would dash home from school to shit. Obviously, there were the odd few who got caught short and were forced to shit in the school toilets, hence they were grim.”
I look at Ringo, my mouth hanging open, as he shows the ceiling his palms. “You’ve thought way too much about shitting, Ringo.”
“That may be so, but apparently it’s been a waste.” He looks at Nolan. “Are you sure you only shit every three days?”
“Yeah.”
“You know what that means, don’t you?” I say, toasting Nolan’s shitting habits.
He looks worried. “What does it mean?”
“It means that more often than not, you’re full of shit.”
Everyone laughs, including James and Brad, which is an achievement on my part. “Anything on John Theodore Little?” I ask Otto, getting a shake of his head. “What about Higham?”