Joined at the Hip Read online

  Joined at the Hip

  By

  Natasha West

  Copyright © 2016 by Natasha West

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  One

  It was midnight when Molly Kaminski looked away from the window of the Quick Snack Mini-Mart where she was currently on a double shift, having just watched her Mother (the owner of said mart) drive angrily away in her Ford Fiesta, and found herself looking down the barrel of a gun.

  She looked from the gun to its owner. Despite wearing a pig mask and a hoody, a few things were obvious about its wearer. Firstly, she was a woman. She was petite, curvy and full breasted, so there was no hiding her gender. Secondly, she was nervous. Her stance gave the game away. She kept shifting her weight from foot to foot, trying to look confident but falling a little short.

  A glance to the left of the gun wielder and Molly knew that she was dealing with a duo. There was a man with the girl. He was a lean guy, much taller than his partner. He seemed about as relaxed as his partner, which was not very much at all. In fact, Molly could have sworn he was shaking his head faintly, as though annoyed at having to be here. He was wearing a clown mask.

  Molly took in the scene and inhaled deeply before she looked the Pig in her deep set electric blue eyes, still visible through her mask.

  ‘And what the hell do you want?’ Molly asked her.

  Two

  And why was Molly being so cavalier with her own life, you may ask. You might also want to know who the Pig and the Clown were, if you’re possessing of an enquiring mind. Thirdly, why were they holding up a tiny mini-mart in the dingy Biddlesworth council estate that probably had about £20 in the till? All good questions.

  For the answers, we need to go back about ten minutes. We could go back further, cycling through the lives of our robbers and victim, trying to explain how they all ended up at this point, what twists and turns brought them eyeball to eyeball in this standoff. But for the best stuff, the juiciest stuff, ten minutes is sufficient.

  11.50pm

  ‘FUCK, FUCK, FUCK!’ Jamie Jenson yelled as she banged her dainty fists repeatedly on the wheel of her old, dinged up, black SUV. It was all she could do right now. Vent. Everything had gone so badly wrong tonight.

  Her brother Max, who sat in the passenger side, watching her chuck her toys out of the pram, decided to wait it out before he contributed anything to the situation.

  ‘Dad’s gonna fucking kill us’ Jamie shouted. But she was clearly starting to calm a little. There were words other than expletives coming out of her mouth now. But Max knew Jamie. He wanted to be sure she’d run out of steam before he attempted to speak to her. She was smaller than him but when she went off, it was more hassle than it was worth to get into it with her. She’d been known to punch him in the throat when she got a bit heated. And her small fists could be quite strong when she threw her full weight behind them.

  ‘What are we going to do now?’ she demanded. Max waited to see if it was a rhetorical question. It was not. ‘Max, answer me would you, you bloody mute!’ Jamie shouted at him. She loved her brother, but the whole laconic vibe was occasionally insanely irritating. Now was one of those times. He was about as much use as a chocolate dildo when he was like this.

  ‘What do you want me to say?’ Max asked. ‘You were the one who left your post.’

  ‘But you were supposed to give the security guy the backhander. That was the real problem, if we’re pointing fingers.’

  ‘I told him I’d see him later and give him the cash then. He gets paid when the work is done. Like everyone else.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s the thing about being a criminal, Max. People aren’t usually prepared to trust your word. He probably thought you were gonna rob the warehouse and then leave him with the blame. That’s why he shafted us.’

  ‘That’s not what happened. It was just bad luck. Ray’s alright. He wouldn’t do that to us.’

  ‘That is what happened, actually, Maxwell. Because when the cops showed up, he was pointing at us and shouting ‘That’s them!’ I’m shocked we got away un-arrested. We were just lucky we got a chance to switch cars or we’d be wearing silver bracelets right now, I can guarantee you that.’

  Max’s mouth dropped open. He was truly hurt at the thought that Ray had sold them out. He’d had a cup of tea with him. They’d talked about Ray’s chocolate Labrador, Judy. Max had thought they’d bonded.

  ‘You think you know someone…’ Max said forlornly.

  But Jamie wasn’t interested in Max’s hurt feelings. She had bigger fish to fry.

  ‘And now Dad’s gonna flay us alive. He gave us that job. He scouted it out and he could have done it himself. But he trusted us to do it. And we’ve just lost him a metric fuck-ton of cash.’

  ‘He’ll understand.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s Dad. A very understanding, measured sort of person. Not at all prone to fits of rage.’

  ‘He’s gonna chuck us out, isn’t he?’

  Jamie paused.

  ‘I don’t know. He might not have been serious about that.’

  ‘He said ‘If you fuck this up, don’t bother coming home.’ Sounded serious to me.’

  ‘I think it was just meant to be extra motivation’ Jamie said, hoping to allay her brother’s fears. But in truth, she wasn’t so sure their Dad hadn’t meant every word.

  Jamie and Max sat for a moment with the thought of their possible impending eviction. Max, at twenty, didn’t feel at all ready for that. He was the youngest sibling and he wasn’t so sure how he’d do on his own. The family home, his Dad, his sister, they were his world.

  Jamie, on the other hand, was twenty-two. And she thought that perhaps she was long overdue a move from the family home. But there were a few things that had been holding her back. Firstly, she wasn’t entirely sure what she’d do if she left, what her life could be. She only knew how to do one thing and that was stealing. And truth be told, she wasn’t really even very good at that. She’d been working under her Dad’s supervision, who was the real brains behind the operation. Tonight had been the big handover, their chance to see if they were up to doing jobs without him. And apparently, they were not. So what was she supposed to do now?

  It was a big question.

  But Jamie was young enough that she might have just said fuck it to all that, to larger questions, to plans, and gone ahead and jumped off the cliff into adult life anyway. She might have simply gotten some shitty job somewhere and given the whole gainful employment thing a pop. But then there was Max.

  They’d grown up in a unique family home, in which the storage of one hundred and fifty pounds’ worth of frozen steak or twenty smart TVs - not to mention the occasional police raid – had been their version of normal. And from that strange upbringing, they’d ended up becoming each other’s closest bond, as the only people who could understand each other’s lives.

  But still, they had to leave the nest sometime. And if they had to be flung out, maybe that wasn’t the end of the world, Jamie thought as her mind began to slow its angry, crazy circles.

  ‘Look, Max-’ Jamie began, before noticing that Max was biting his nails. He only did that when he was r
eally worried.

  And it was true. Max was bricking the upcoming conversation. He couldn’t stop picturing his Dad’s reaction when he came back empty handed. His face going all red and blotchy, stomping around, telling them both how disappointed he was. And Max would laugh it off later, but underneath it, he’d be wounded. But he wouldn’t share that with Jamie. She had enough on her plate without him laying his anxieties on her.

  But Jamie knew Max. She knew what was going through his mind without a word passing from his lips. And that was all it took. Jamie knew she had to do something to fix this. It was all on her.

  And then she glanced down the street.

  ‘Look’ Jamie said and Max followed her eye line. She was looking at some all-night shop across the road, the Quick Snack Mini-Mart.

  ‘Did you want a coke or something?’ Max asked.

  ‘No! Look, you tit.’

  Max did as instructed, looking closer.

  They both watched through the large windows as a stern looking woman in her forties with short grey hair angrily ranted at someone else. The girl on the till. She was a delicately cheek boned woman in her early twenties, with thick chestnut hair pulled back into a tight ponytail and thick black rim glasses, cute in a snarky sort of way. She looked a little like the stern woman, only younger. In fact, Jamie thought the stern woman had probably looked exactly like the till girl once upon a time, before life had happened to her.

  ‘Once that woman goes, the place is practically empty. Just that girl on the till’ Jamie explained. At last, Max caught on.

  ‘No way. We don’t do that sort of shit. Robbing a warehouse while someone’s paid to look the other way is one thing. Holding someone up… No.’

  Jamie considered it. She didn’t really want to scare the girl at the till any more than Max did. But larger than the voice of her conscience was a different voice. It was the voice of a big sister. One quick holdup and Max wouldn’t need to feel so worried about their Dad. All things considered, it was the lesser of two evils. If she could get him on board.

  ‘Where’s that toy gun?’ Jamie asked.

  ‘I’m not doing it, Sis.’

  But she wasn’t listening. She was in action mode, too busy looking through her backpack, trying to find the prop gun they’d gotten off eBay. It had been for the benefit of CCTV, so that Ray could claim he’d been held up by some tough bastards who were armed to the teeth. They also had a couple of masks that they’d worn to protect their identities.

  She found the gun and then considered the masks.

  ‘Do you want the pig or the clown? Doesn’t matter. You’re getting the clown. It’s way too fucking creepy. I can’t put it on my face again.’

  She held out the clown mask.

  ‘JAMIE! I’m not doing it! End of story!’ Max said, uncharacteristically riled.

  The angry tone gave Jamie pause at last.

  ‘Max’ she said. ‘I don’t want to do this either. And we won’t if you don’t want to.’

  Max sighed. He knew what his options were. The robbery or his Dad’s furious face. And maybe being put out on the street. He took the clown mask and slipped it on. Jamie gave him a grateful smile as she put the pig mask on.

  ‘It’s all gonna be ok’ she said. In that moment, Max believed her.

  Suddenly, the stern woman was storming out of the mini-mart and climbing into a battered Fiesta.

  ‘Let’s go’ Jamie urged. They climbed out of the car as Jamie whispered to herself ‘I can do this. I can do this. I can do this.’

  11.50pm. Again.

  It had been the longest day of Molly Kaminski’s life. At about half eleven, she’d been nearing the end of an awful shift packed with obnoxious buffoons and rude bastards. Her only comfort had come from knowing that at midnight, it would finally be over. And then Jack, the late shift guy, had called in sick.

  She’d tried to ring her Mother (and boss) Vera, at the other location of the shop, a much larger site across town in a similarly broke area. But no one picked up. Eventually, she left a message saying ‘Jack’s sick. I’m going to close for the night.’

  And then, ten minutes from the end of her shift, her Mother suddenly burst into the shop, shouting in her light Russian accent ‘Molly Kaminski! This shop never closes. Never!’

  After Molly had recovered from her Mum’s dramatic entrance, she replied ‘Mum, I’ve been here since four this afternoon. I need to go to bed. Not to mention the employment laws you’re breaking.’

  ‘You can have tomorrow off. I’ll get someone for then. But for now, just have some coffee. Because this shop NEVER closes’ Vera repeated.

  ‘But I’m knackered! And I don’t like the graveyard shift. All the weirdos show up.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I’m a young woman alone in an illuminated glass box. I might as well put a sign in the window saying ‘Attack me!’

  ‘Stop exaggerating. There’s an alarm under the till if you get in trouble. And you’ve worked plenty of other nights. I don’t see what the problem is. Unless you feel I should just hand you the business when I retire. That you shouldn’t have to put in any real work for it. That you can’t make the occasional sacrifice for your family? Is that what you think?’

  Molly sighed. This was her Mother’s trump card. Anytime Molly didn’t want to do something, her Mother would put it down to a failure of work ethic. Molly didn’t agree. She worked a full week at the mart. Sometimes a bit more than that. But any attempt to reason with her Mum, she knew from bitter experience, would only lengthen the lecture. And she’d still end up working the shift.

  ‘Fine’ Molly said. ‘But we need to get some backup for times like this. I can’t live here, Mum. I’ve got to have a life.’

  ‘You’re twenty-two, you’re not a teenager anymore. You’ve had your fun. Now’s the time to start building something. Make something of yourself.’

  Molly couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Firstly, she’d caved to her Mother’s demands and she was still getting a lecture. Second, the ‘You’ve had your fun’ comment.

  If Molly was certain of anything, it was that she’d never had fun. Her teenage years had been spent under a duvet, with a torch and a book. And that had been good in its own way. Even if the other kids she’d gone to school with had wanted her to hang out with them at the park at night, drinking booze and snogging each other, Molly wouldn’t have wanted to do that. Probably not, anyway. But she’d never had the chance to turn the invitation down. Because she’d been ‘That Girl’, with the strict Mum and always with a book in her hand. Not just another kid, someone to have a laugh with. So no ‘fun’ for Molly. Not really.

  ‘Yeah’ Molly said, wanting to be done with this conversation. She’d lost and she knew it. If her Mother wasn’t going to really listen to her, Molly just wanted her to go now. ‘Whatever.’

  ‘Not ‘whatever’. I came to this country with nothing except you in my belly. And I had to work to make sure we had a good life.’

  The truth was that Molly knew her Mother had not had it easy. And she understood that she’d achieved amazing things with very little. But it was late and Molly was exhausted. She had no desire to listen to the same story she’d heard a million times, a story meant to make her feel lazy and unappreciative. She wasn’t one to argue with her Mother usually, but she couldn’t take anymore. Not tonight.

  ‘Mum, can you not do the monologue? I know, alright! You came here with bugger all and you pulled yourself up by your bootstraps. It’s a classic tale of immigrant pluck. So can we skip it for once?’

  Vera shook her head. She never failed to be amazed that her fight to get here and make a living seemed like nothing more than a boring fairy-tale to her daughter, just another story from one of her books. Her daughter had never known real hardship. Vera had made sure of that and she was glad Molly had grown up never truly wanting for anything. But sometimes she wished that Molly could get a glimpse of struggle, just to know what she really had.
/>   ‘You’re an ungrateful child, Molly Kaminski. And you’d better buck your ideas up if you want to run this business.’

  There it was, Molly’s chance. All she had to do was take the set-up handed to her and explain calmly to her Mother that she didn’t actually want to run the business at all. That she’d rather be doing a million other things. Travelling the world, working with animals, running a marathon, building a log cabin, running for Prime Minister, anything except sitting in this dreary little building, selling scratch cards and cheap booze to the residents of the Biddlesworth council estate.

  But she wasn’t ready for that conversation. She had a strong feeling that it would just about break her Mother’s heart to hear it. So instead, she threw out the second most hurtful thing she could think of.