Zodiac's toy, John Jones [nonfiction book recommendations .txt] 📗

jaw, knocking him crashing against the chair making him fall to one knee. He rushed at Ray, putting his hand in his inside pocket, but also causing him to stumble to the floor.

"The knife, give me the knife!" he said as he took it out of the pocket and ran into the unit.

There were six beds, three on either side, four of them occupied.

"Fred. Les you cunts where are you?" he shouted. Nurses shied away.

"Fred, Les!" he looked at the other occupants but found who he was looking for at the farthest beds, opposite each other. He hurried across to one.

Fred was tubed and bandaged up, linked to various machines and monitors. He was awake and looked wide-eyed at Lee as he wielded the knife.

"There you are you cunt!". A blue sheet covered Fred up to his chest. Lee stabbed him in the thigh twice. Fred yelled out, even though he had a breathing tube in his mouth. He rushed across to Les and managed to stab him in the thigh once before the policeman tackled him. He allowed himself to be arrested, and shouted at them as he was marched out.

"That's what you get you cunts, that's what you fucking get!" Ray was kneeling on the floor, almost crying. Images of Caroline and Wayne went through his head. How far away he was from being in the same boat as them. Someone to love. Someone to spend the rest of your life with. Instead of being a yes-man to the likes of Lee. Instead of drinking and smoking away his sorrows. Find a woman, marry her, maybe have kids, or just ride through life together, holding hands. Such wishful thinking. Then he did burst into tears.

 

For most of the rest of the day he was in for questioning, but then satisfied, they let him go. Asking why he was there, asking about Lee. His mind was not geared up to lie, to cover for Lee. Instead he told the truth, because he knew that was the fastest way out of there. Lee could have been justified in calling him a grass, but he didn't deliberately talk him down, simply told it like it was, and it was almost a relief to speak about it, because perhaps Lee was now going back inside, and Ray, deep down, knew he would be happy with that.

However, when he got back, he saw Lee's 'office' open, and cautiously went inside.

To find Lee sitting on the safe.

"Lee!"

"I don't get it. I was on the way to the station in a van, and then it stopped. The police all told me to get out, I need to keep annoying Ray. That was what they said. Keep annoying Ray, the scales of justice are in his favour, and that was it. Like when I killed Blotto, but I don't understand".

Ray slowly made his way back into Shane's flat, and on the table, there was the zodiac cards. The Libra card on top.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 45

 

Ray lay on the sofa with a fist against his forehead, his eyes scrunched. The zodiac is not real, he thought, but then his thoughts were disturbed by a banging on the door. He wound his way up. More banging.

"Ray open up". It was Lee. When the door was opened he walked in and into the bedroom.

"I think I'll use one of these shotguns," he said, surveying the weapons, picking out a Remington 870 Express tactical. "No-one's gonna argue with this," he said, pumping the barrel.

"What are you doing?" Ray asked.

"I need money. I'm gonna hit another post-office, and you're gonna help me".

"What Lee no. I already helped you at the hospital”.

"Look, we could both do with money. The fucking pigs took all mine so I'm gonna do a post-office and I only want you on lookout. It's not like I'm asking you to shoot anyone. Just keep dixie. That's it".

"Come on Lee, if I get caught...the wedding".

"I'm the one in the balaclava with the shotgun. All you're doing is keeping lookout, stopping people from coming in. If you get caught then nothing's gonna happen. Just say you're a member of the public. That's all you've got to do. Fucks sake Ray. Are you gonna help me or not?"

Ornotornotornotornotornotornotornot..! his mind screamed.

"Fine," he muttered. Lee turned the shotgun at Ray's face and pulled the trigger. It clicked on an empty barrel. Ray flinched and stumbled back. Lee punched him in the shoulder.

"Come on," he said, "I won't hit the same one as last time. There's another one I've got in mind. They usually close at five. And closing time is a good time to hit them. Not as many customers and all their heads are on going home. So they won't be expecting a fucking shotgun in the face". Lee gathered the bullets, then cautiously looked out of the flat to make sure there were no other residents to see him with the weapon, and went into his own flat and grabbed the bag and balaclava.

They were soon heading out to a nearby bus-stop. Ray just had his hands jammed in his pockets, his shoulders hunched. Lee just looked at him and shook his head. There was nobody else around them.

"You're just keeping dixie," he said, but Ray didn't reply. The bus turned up and they were soon sat at the back, journeying the four miles south to a post-office Lee had hit before.

Ray was still quiet. Lee had his arms folded.

"So, your sister's getting married to that hippy fucker". Don't call hi...thought Ray, but still said nothing.

"Fuck knows what she sees in him".

"She loves him," Ray said.

"Well whatever. Actually, tell you what," he said, "what a pair of cunts like us needs". His voice, although not high, was high enough to be heard by a few other nearby passengers.

"We should go and chat up some birds. How about tomorrow night? We'll go into town, hit a few pubs, see if we can pull anyone". Ray thought about that for a few moments, and realised he liked the idea. He nodded.

"Yes," he said, and smiled.

 

The post-office was a mile from the bus-stop and was closing in ten minutes. Ray felt more nervous than he was expecting, but Lee just seemed as if this was a normal thing for him to do. Maybe somewhere inside his stomach there were butterflies. One butterfly. A lazy one that flaps its wings a little then gives up.

There were two people chatting outside the entrance, but then they bid farewell and went their separate ways.

"Go in and see how people are inside," Lee said.

"What...why?”

“What do you mean why? just fucking do it. Go in, look like you want to buy something or just take a leaflet and come out and tell me how many customers are in there". Ray sighed, then went inside.

Lee was agitated, looking around. There was some traffic and a few people at a distance, but no-one close enough to look curiously. Ray came out with an 'online fraud' leaflet and said.

"There's one guy in there. He's not at the counter, but writing something on a table". Lee moved quickly. He put the bag on the floor, took out and pulled on his balaclava and grabbed the shotgun. Ray looked at him wide-eyed with fear and stepped back.

"Keep fucking dixie," Lee muffled, and went into the post-office. Ray stood at the entrance like the world's worst bouncer. 'If your name's not down, you're not coming in'. Oh hang on, maybe there were exceptions. Plenty of them.

He could hear Lee shouting: '...cking money!..' '...king hurry up!'.

One person was approaching, a man in a grey suit with a grey beard who looked to be pushing seventy.

"Sorry," Ray said, "it's closing". The man stopped.

"I haven't come to go in the post-office. I've come to ask you what your star-sign is". Ray just stared at him, saying nothing, then the post-office door flew open and Lee barreled out, crashing into the man, both falling to the floor.

"Fucks sake..!" some of the money that had been in the bag spilled out and fluttered around. Lee hugged it to him and scrambled to his feet and just ran, notes drifting in his wake. Ray looked at Lee, then at the man who was laughing, and as Ray started to run, the man shouted:

"You're Pisces. You're a Pisces".

Lee vanished down a side road, took off his balaclava and stood waiting for Ray. When he caught up to him, he punched him hard in the stomach.

"You fucking idiot!" he shouted. "Why were you talking to that guy? I lost a load of money ‘cos of you you stupid cunt". He opened the bag to see how much was left, and there was quite a substantial amount still there, and this seemed to pacify him slightly.

"Alright, come on. Look normal. Just walk. We'll get a taxi back". They walked down the long road with neat, expensive houses on both sides, Ray trying to breathe and trying to walk normally, clutching his stomach.

He was relieved to be sitting in a taxi, neither of them speaking all the way back.

"Keep the change mate," Lee said, handing the driver a twenty-pound note for an eleven pound fare. The driver nodded and drove away.

"Can't believe you," Lee said, "talking to some guy while I'm inside getting money. Where the fuck is Shane when you need him?"

"He just asked me...the time".

"Should have told him to fuck off".

"I said it was closed".

"But you said he just asked you the time. Oh look it doesn't matter. Fuck knows how much I lost thanks to you, idiot". He walked away into the high-rise.

Lee went into his office and upended the bag onto the sofa. It did look like a lot of money. Ray appeared next to him.

"Are we still going out tomorrow night?" he asked.

"Fucking right we are," Lee replied.

 

Ray made his way back into Shane's and decided on a small glass of whisky, just as a stabiliser, to realign his nerves. As he made it he saw all twelve cards on the kitchen counter in a neat pile. He spread them like playing cards. They were face-down so he saw all the representative symbols.

Fucking zodiac, he thought. He gave serious thought to throwing them out of the window again, but then guessed Lee would gather them up and put them back.

Why would he do that? he thought. Lee wouldn't care. He sat back on the couch and looked at a blank television.

He remembered the man at the post-office, and the Ram and the Centaur, and other things that have shoved astrology right into his mind.

I'm not a believer though, he thought. How can I believe in it if it's not true? It can't be true if scientists have discarded it. How much have they looked into it though? How can it be disproven? Scientists must know their stuff, he thought, because they know about things like that. Boffins know their onions, don't they?

They're clever folks, and if they don't believe in astrology then why should I? Yet the weight of astrological pressure he'd been under, still was heavy, and only a threadbare amount of opposition was keeping him from believing. He wanted to still think it was 'all a load of bollocks', because how could it be true?

He couldn't say there was no evidence, because lately it had entered his mind like the arrow from Sagittarius. Yet still he wasn't a 100% believer, because he still had his want not to believe it, wasn't quite at the stage of covering his eyes in the face of evidence. Science doesn't care whether you believe in it or not. You can believe in whatever you liked it didn't matter. So Ray was more open-minded to the fact that astrology could be very real. However, he didn't want to, and clung to two things that stopped him. Two barriers that had received a hammering, but still just about hung on by their metaphorical fingernails.

The fact that 'reputable' scientists did not believe in it