The Crying Machine. Greg Chivers

      ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘She ditched them.’ He watches my face, waiting for a reaction.

      ‘Ditched them? Ditched them like how? Like she ran away? I mean, good for her, but that doesn’t qualify her for shit, Yus.’

      ‘I’ll tell you what Omar told me. He was there; his stall’s right across the street. She turned into the alley opposite the arcade, you know the one with the carpets hanging out front, and the Safar boys followed her. Two minutes later, she comes out, heads straight in here like nothing happened, and get this – the boys don’t show their faces for ten minutes after that.’

      ‘So what? She beat them up?’

      ‘Come on, be serious! Omar’s friends with those guys – they talk to him, and they say she disappeared! They turn the corner, it’s a dead end, but there’s nobody there.’

      ‘You are full of it, my friend. Or they are. It doesn’t add up.’

      ‘So she’s perfect for you.’

      ‘Ha, ha, you kill me.’ A certain percentage of everything Yusuf says is bullshit. If it’s second-hand, like from his friend Omar, you can double that percentage, but, by the law of averages, every so often he comes up with something. Safar’s boys are just kids, but they’re a serious proposition on home turf. If she got away, she did something right. ‘OK, you made your point. For the sake of argument, let’s say that’s interesting. If she disappeared, how would I even find her?’

      ‘Oh, that’s easy. She followed your advice. Smart girl.’

      ‘My advice? I didn’t give any.’

      ‘Sure you did. One of the regulars saw her at the Mission. Looks like she’s working there now.’

      I look over my shoulder at where the three old guys are still taking turns sucking at the pipe. ‘One of them? I didn’t realize they ever moved.’

      ‘You’re a piece of work, you know that, Levi? Old Yash has been scoring his dinners at the Mission ever since his wife died.’

      ‘Hold on a minute. Are you telling me one of those guys at the pipe is a different person than was here when I left?’

      ‘And you’re supposed to be the sharp one. You think I only have three paying customers? How do you think my business works?’

      ‘I’m not an accountant.’

      ‘No, you leave the adding up to me.’ The dome of that big bald head glistens as he shakes it at me. ‘You got into this mess because you owe too much money to the wrong people, and now you’re at the wrong end of a bad deal. You’ve got to fix this.’

      ‘Look, OK, I get it. A strange woman came in; she was kinda hot, in a skinny European way, and you’re excited. I still don’t get why you think she’s a solution to my thief problem. You don’t know anything about her.’

      ‘I know she made the Safar boys look stupid, and she’s faster than Fat Saul.’

      ‘Evolution is faster than Fat Saul.’

      ‘Options, man. Options. All I’m saying is, you don’t have many of them.’ He’s got that big dopey grin on his face, and he’s nodding at me like he’s waiting for me to agree. It kills me when he’s right.

      ‘Look, it’s late, it’s been a messed up day, and I can’t even think right now. If it’ll make you happy, tomorrow I’ll go to the Mission, see if she’s there. If I find her, we can have a conversation. If I don’t … well, we’ll work something else out. Sound good?’

      ‘Hey, I’m just trying to help you here, but yeah, that makes sense.’ He sucks his teeth and grimaces, which tells me whatever comes next is going to be a pain in the ass. ‘Seeing as you’re going out, can you pick something up for me?’

      ‘What?’

      ‘I’m running a little low on whisky. You got some in last week, didn’t you?’

      ‘Can you get it yourself? It’s just in the stash: in the tunnels in the usual place.’

      His face breaks into a sheepish grin. It looks kind of ridiculous on a guy his size. ‘C’mon, man, you know I don’t like to go down there. Gethsemane always freaks me out. There are people buried in that place, like actual dead bodies.’

      ‘OK, OK, I’ll do it. You’re pathetic, you know that? It’s just a freaking bomb shelter. It’s been empty a hundred years.’

      ‘Love you, man.’

      ‘Yeah, whatever. Bye.’

      It should be a ten-minute walk to the Mission from my apartment, but Yusuf’s detour takes up the hour after breakfast, and the streets are filling up by the time I get going. The route takes you to the north edge of the Old City, where the walls crumpled like paper and the only time people talk about reconstruction it’s the punchline in a bad joke. Harsh morning light shows up the worst of it. Broken glass shines like teeth in the windows of skeleton buildings. Sagging wires just above head height carry stolen electricity to a few of the squats, but at night it’s mostly dark around here.

      The Mission’s the least shitty thing in the neighbourhood, which isn’t saying much. All the cripples and the kanj-heads are outside, cluttering up the doorway or sliding off like woodlice to wherever it is they hide in daytime. They watch quietly, trying to figure out if I’m a mark, losing interest as soon as they realize I’m not here to empty my wallet. Eventually one of them points me in the right direction.

      At first the robe throws me off, but the brown ghost pushing a mop around the crummy dining hall is her. All that cloth hides her legs so it looks like she’s floating across the yellow patches of floor between the tables where the bums eat their dinner.

      ‘Hey, Cinderella …’ She looks up. ‘Spare me a few minutes of your valuable time?’

      She fixes her eyes on the mop; they follow the shiny streak it leaves on the floor. It smells like a hospital in here. ‘Last time we spoke, you said you didn’t need a girlfriend. I think we’re on the same page.’

      The mop goes into the stained metal bucket like a drowning man and unleashes another burst of detergent stink. I grab the handle. She looks at me like she’s a second away from reaching for a blade. There’s something funny about her eyes, like they’re set too deep. She pulls the stick away from me and the head makes a big wet slap as it hits the floor. She’s strong.

      The thing about being in my business is that you learn pretty quick not to take the brush-off: from girls, from gangsters, doesn’t matter. If you need something, you go after it. Also, like Yusuf said, options are something I don’t have right now.

      ‘Fat Saul wants his orange back.’ The hood of the robe falls back, away from her face, as she looks up at me, eyes wide with suspicion, maybe fear. She wants to ask how I know, but she’s not saying, which is good; keeping your mouth shut is an under-appreciated prerequisite for this business. Some people never learn it. The mop stops and settles into a thin pool of grimy water as she leans on it, listening. ‘Are you even earning any money here?’ We both know the answer to that question but still, the point needed to be made. ‘One week, two thousand shekels, and don’t worry, it’s nothing nasty.’

      The money gets her attention, like I knew it would. I can see she’s still thinking about it when the mop starts moving again. How clean does a floor need to be? It’s only bums that eat here. ‘Don’t they ever give you time off in this place? Listen, I can see you’re busy with some important work right now, but when you’re done, come see me down at Yusuf’s tonight. We can have a proper conversation. I’ll be there ’til seven o’clock.’

      The place is empty apart from the regulars when I get in. Yusuf’s watching war porn on the news feeds. One look is enough to tell you tourist season won’t be happening any time soon – Machine crackdowns on insurgents in France and Norway,