Slab Rats: A Paignton Noir Mystery by Leins Tom

Author:Leins, Tom
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dirty Books
Published: 2023-10-06T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 5: The Golden Trickle

6pm.

(13 Hours to Deadline)

We are sheltering in the doorway of a derelict-looking newsagent called ‘News & Booze’, scouting out the Golden Trickle amusement arcade. Newquay out of season is a quietly desperate place. A waterlogged ghost town with substance abuse issues.

“What do you reckon?” he asks.

“I reckon the fat one has probably eaten the skinny one by now.”

Rico snorts.

We gagged and bound the hippies with the public school ties we found in one of the bedroom drawers. The ties won’t hold them for much longer, but it will give us a crucial head-start.

“What do you reckon about this?”

I shrug.

“I don’t see much point in making a plan, mate. Kelty either cooperates, or he doesn’t.”

Rico sighs and leans his head against the steel shutters of the newsagent. He scraped up what he could find of the product before we left and sealed the polythene with carpet tape, but he already knows he will be going home short. Really fucking short.

He bangs his head against the shutters irritably.

“Fuck my life.”

***

The sign above the amusement arcade front indicates that the proprietor is a man called Roger Alan Kelty.

The man himself is standing in the doorway, hands on hips. His pastel golf shirt has been lightly splattered by the rain. He’s a tall, rangy-looking bastard with a wart-ravaged face and a sun-bed tan. His outfit is finished off with chequered slacks and tasselled brown leather loafers.

“Step in out of the rain, boys. You look like drowned rats.”

I glance at Rico and he nods.

Kelty steps aside and we walk into the gloomy interior of the arcade.

“We’ve got the loosest slots in Newquay – or so I like to tell people,” Kelty chuckles.

Inside, the machines are streaked in dust or covered with tarpaulins. Unsurprisingly, no one appears to be enjoying the strange delights of the Golden Trickle.

“You’ll have to excuse the state of the place. Me and the boys are about to shut things down for winter. If there’s a particular machine you’d like to try I’d be happy to ask Big Lee to plug it back in.”

I hear a grunt from the cashier’s cage in the back corner. The man inside is bigger than me. He has waxy skin and dead eyes. Something about his facial expression marks him out as subnormal. He is wearing a plastic name tag pinned to his yellow aertex polo-shirt. It says ‘Big Lee – here to help’.

I nudge Rico with my elbow.

“I … uh … we ... uh…” he stammers.

“We’re actually having an end-of-summer party,” Kelty says, with a teasing smile. “You two boys should stick around.”

“If you’re having a party, where are all the girls?” Rico asks.

Kelty smirks at him.

“Oh, I don’t care too much for girls,” Kelty says with a theatrical wink.

Big Lee emerges from behind the counter with a plastic tray containing four plastic beakers full of cherryade. Rico and I take one each, to be polite.

“We’re actually looking for a girl, Kelty. We were told she might have passed through here.”

Rico takes a gulp of his cherryade and passes the Polaroid of Ani to Kelty.

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