Rant by Alfie Crow

Luckily and by sheer coincidence they were only a few miles away, so he apologised for his excitable friend, reassured the pizza guy that we weren’t mystery shoppers and ordered our supper while he was on the line.
    â€˜Forty minutes. So, that four must be a three, try again.’
    I dialled the new number.
    Ringing.
    Then, ‘Hello?’
    â€˜Hello?’ I said, ‘This isn’t a pizza delivery parlour, is it?’
    â€˜Is this being kind of joke? I am not finding funny. Who is this please?’ Definitely a thickly accented voice. European somewhere but beyond that I would have been guessing. And as you should know by now, precision and care are my middle names.
    â€˜Who is this?’ I asked.
    There was a pause. ‘I wonder if maybe, arse you calling about the job?’
    â€˜I may be.’ I said. ‘Would it be possible to speak to my wife?’
    He sounded positively jolly at that. ‘So it is you!’
    â€˜Who?’ I asked, somewhat coyly.
    â€˜It is being okay,’ he said, so chummily he could have been talking to a long lost cousin. ‘I knows who you are, but you are not knowing who it is I am, and I am thinking this is probably best for the moment and perhaps always. You will simply be doing as you are told if you are knowing what is in best interests of yourself, and also those of your wife and your child.’
    â€˜Ask him who they want you to kill,’ whispered Sam.
    I shushed him with my hand.
    â€˜Look, there’s been a mistake. I think you have the wrong man. The gun and the money were delivered to me by mistake and—’
    â€˜I am already being aware of some misunderstandment. Do not undermisestimating me. We are knowing this are some problems with deliveries in your area.’
    â€˜Then why…’ A cog slowly turned and clunked into place in my head. ‘Wait a minute. You said child. My wife and child. You’ve definitely got the wrong man. I don’t even have a child – who the hell have you got there with you?’
    â€˜Is your wife and child. Mrs Rant. This is being the voice of the Mr Rant, is not?’
    â€˜Look, let me speak to this woman that you think is my wife. I’m sure we can clear this all up quite quickly if—’
    â€˜Waiting please.’
    There was a long pause, then lots of shouting and ouching and banging about. The ouching didn’t seem to be coming from a woman. Oh my God, that’s my girl, alright, I thought.
    And then Anna came on the phone.
    â€˜You effing bastard,’ she said, fairly sweetly under the circumstances I thought. ‘What the eff have you bloody well gone and done now you moron, you better hope these effers kill you before I get my hands on you, you effwit, and I’ll tell you something for nothing – you’re going to have to find the money that I’ll lose from missing work, you wankpot. They wouldn’t even let me phone in sick. Can you call them and say we’ve had some kind of family emergency, that there’s a problem at home? They’re bound to believe that, most of them have met you.’
    â€˜Anna…darling…dearest…my sweet,’ this sentence actually took a lot longer to get out than that but it did eventually make her pause for breath.
    â€˜Don’t call me your sweet, tosser. What do you want?’
    â€˜Well firstly I wanted to know if you’re alright.’
    â€˜Yes, no thanks to you. And if you—’
    â€˜What about the house?’
    â€˜You bastard! Is that all you can think about? The house?’
    â€˜No, it’s not that. Have they hurt you, I mean. There was blood everywhere. What did they do to you?’
    â€˜Not a lot. Most of the blood came from them. Stephan tried to gag me and I bit one of his fingers. The whole thing just came off in my mouth, it was disgusting. Oh, and I stabbed Giorgio in the bum with that fancy corkscrew your mother gave us last