Banner Men
DANNY GRYME
It was so much a sure thing, he almost felt it insulting to take the Gambling House for so much. But his losing streak had to change sometime.
They called him Danny 'Fingers' Gryme. He preferred 'Cool Hand' Danny Gryme, though. Trouble was it wasn't true. Danny was on one Hell of a losing streak right now, where every turn of the card, or roll of the dice and rattle of the silver ball left Danny with less than he started. Yet he remained an inveterate gambler; he played the odds. Pretty soon his luck was going to change. Unfortunately, it seemed, it wasn't this day.
"Sir," said the croupier, dead eyed and tired of every roll being questioned by Danny.
"Are you sure? It looks reddish." tried Danny, using all the techniques at his disposal.
"No, Sir, it's definitely black."
"Not even a little reddish?"
"Afraid not Sir. Please wait while a Guard comes -"
"Uhm - double or quits?"
"You have no funds, Sir."
"Spot me?" pleaded Danny. He knew what the answer would be before he said it.
"No Sir."
"Bugger." This was Danny's cue to do the only thing left to him - he turned from the table and the croupier, and sprinted in any direction that wasn't there, only to be poleaxed by the solid arm of a Guard who had responded to the croupier's gesture. "Shit." concluded Danny, from the ground.
#
"Danny. Danny Fingers. Why always you?" It was the voice of Red Swallow, the owner and manager of Deftly Done Gambling House, one of many in the House of Prudence. Red was rotund, but mostly with muscle. He didn't get his own hands dirty, though. There was no point in Prudence, when on the right side of the law one had the Banner Man, Isiah Ghost, and the man mountain that was Child, the personal servant of Madam Severity.
"Beats me, Red. I have an idea, why don't we chalk this one up to, I don't know, a mistake and carry on with our lives, eh?" Danny tried to stand, but a firm hand on his shoulder from the Guard forced him hard back into his chair.
"I'm afraid this is one too many times, Danny, my boy. We've called for Child to -"
"What? Are you crazy?! I don't think we need to go that far -" squealed Danny, every part of his body feeling the slice of sudden fear from the name no gambler wanted to hear, not ever.
"Not a thing I can ignore, I'm afraid, Danny." shrugged Red Swallow, returning to his desk, adjusting his suit jacket before he sat heavily in the big red chair.
"But surely - Child? Turns out I need to keep all my bits and pieces as still part of my body. Look, that bet was a sure thing! You're croupier must have -"
"My croupiers are infallible. Every one of them. I have made sure of that," Red waved around a bottle of pills, which had come from the deepest, darkest parts of Godenheim, "Besides, don't you know there's no such thing as a sure thing, Danny? Have you never heard the adage that the House always wins?" Red shook his head in resignation at Danny's apparent naivety.
There was a commotion downstairs, on the betting floor where a fight had broken out between two men who had claimed the same bet at the same time. One was brandishing a weapon, which should have been checked at the door. Red Swallow began shouting instructions, and the room went haywire.
"Trod, get down there and contain the situation! Esp, head Child off at the door and take him to the lounge area! Quick! The rest of you, let's move! We have a reputation to uphold! Move!" Red was waving his arms about, pushing the Guards out of the door. Danny just sat there, waiting.
Waiting.
Realising.
"Shit!" The remnants of activity died away naturally, to be replaced by an empty room. Empty, that is, except for Danny Gryme. He was alone. And - unguarded. Suddenly there was a Danny shaped hole in the room.
The whole Gambling Establishment was in furore. No one paid Danny any attention; not the Guards, not the patrons. Nobody. And then Danny found himself in the street, outside. And, oh, how he ran. Anywhere.
#
First he went home. No one was in. He grabbed a few things and packed them into a bag, which he slung over his shoulder. He couldn't leave Prudence. He couldn't survive out there. He would have to hope things went his way, as he looked for somewhere to hide. Child would be looking for him, of this he was sure.
A piece of paper fell from the pocket of the coat Danny had picked up. It was an advertisement for a cosy little getaway spot; a Bed and Breakfast place. He had no idea where the advertisement had come from, not remembering picking up this particular piece of paper. He usually avoided them like the plague. Useless rubbish. But it sounded ideal. In fact, it sounded perfect.
#
"It's bed and a simple breakfast. Outhouse is, well, outside. No solids, if you please." The lady was virtually skeletal, skin like rice paper. She was hunched over so much her top half was almost horizontal. Despite that, she seemed like a crotchety old beast - which was Danny's first impressions, and seemingly unlikely to change. But the place was hidden, which became what he needed right now, at least temporarily. A necessity.
Mrs Funnup opened the door to what was to be Danny's room. There was a bed and a window. The window looked down the main road, a virtually unbridled view for some distance. Danny would be able to see if anyone was approaching, that was for sure. "The window doesn't close. Don't force it. If it rains in the night, I don't know - get under the covers or something. Oh, and no jumping out the window, even if there is a convenient bush under it." Danny stretched his neck out the window to see the bush. It certainly was convenient. Danny turned round to thank the old woman, but she had already disappeared. She could certainly move when she wanted to, that old bag.
It was still dark when Danny Gryme awoke. If he was paying attention to the waning of the Moon, or more accurately if he could have seen the Moon beyond the acid clouds that stored its trillions of tons of water, just hanging there with its physics and everything, he would note it was somewhere around three in the morning. What had caused his interrupted sleep was the door to the place being almost systematically knocked off its hinges by a very large and unforgiving man. Danny could hear Mrs Funnup open the door before it opened of its own accord.
"Do you know what time it is, young man?" she expressed in her most matronly voice.
"I do. But I look for a man." said the deep, resonating voice.
"Don't we all, dear. Any one in particular?"
"His name is Danny Gryme, perhaps under the moniker Danny Fingers?" He was surprisingly erudite for such a hulking, limb-tearing mountain of a man, was Child.
"Oh, yes, I do have a Danny Fingers. He's just upstairs - excuse me! How rude!" The thunder of large feet on delicate stairs signalled Danny to test this window jumping theory. He grabbed his bag and jumped out, landing with ne'er a scratch. Danny scrambled to his feet and ran, followed by the withered voice of Mrs Funnup, "You owe me money young man! I don't know! Kids these days!" The last thing Danny heard was the door slam shut, only to be finally smashed off its hinges by an explosive Child. But Danny was already gone. What luck!
Eventually Danny rounded a corner, after running for as long as his lungs would let him, which was not far. He didn't really think gambling necessitated a high lung capacity. If he'd known this would happen he would have stayed fitter. Well, fit, by any description. He wasn't on any true level of fitness, unless you counted his ability to place betting chips on a table as exercise. The turn of the corner brought him out by the Coffers.
The Coffers was a round building, made of very thick concrete, surrounded by fences and was surprisingly secure. Danny felt his way around the fence until he hit a gap. He slid through the folded fencing and scurried to a spot hidden from the road, where he hunkered down and tried to get some sleep.
Once morning had come, and the light found his face and woke him, Danny stirred, but didn't break cover. Which was a good thing. See, what Danny didn't know until it happened, was that it was time for the arrival of the profits, the daily routine made by the Banner Man, Isiah Ghost, who would deposit the profits of the previous day in the Coffers.
"Inspection day, is it?" asked one of the Guards of the Coffers, quite petulantly to the Banner Man as he approached.
"You should be checking the circumference of the building daily. Shouldn't take me coming here to trigger you useless dolts into action. I'll do it after I've stuck this lot in there." Danny didn't need telling twice. He was off again.
Danny Gryme jumped a fence, ran over a play area, tripped over a cat and eventually came to rest at the back of a house. He crouched by the steps that led to the back door, trying to gain his composure and his breath. Suddenly the door opened and a half naked woman stepped out. She almost dropped the Nearly Tea she held in her hand, half way to her lips. She looked at Danny. Danny looked at her. Uh-oh.
"What you doing, lingering around my back door?" she asked, looking down at Danny.
Danny smiled, as though this would answer all questions. It didn't, "I - uhm - I was - uhm - I'm -"
"Spit it out man! Don't keep blathering. Yer getting spit everywhere."
"I'm - hiding?" Danny attempted truth.
"From Child, I presume? You're not the only one. Come," she gestured, "And wipe yer feet before you enter." The prostitute led Danny reluctantly to her room. It wasn't quite what Danny was intending, but any bit of luck, he would grasp with both hands. Shame he hadn't felt this lucky streak when he was betting. Still -
"Sit down. Nearly Tea?" Danny nodded and the woman poured from a teapot the 'at least it's brown' liquid into a cup. She handed it to Danny, who drank it with gusto, spilling it in his haste.
"Sip it, don't slurp it. You're getting it all down your chin. Labia Cobble's the name, by the way. As you can tell, I was kinda born into the business with a name like that. You don't find many Programmers or Engineers with a name like Labia." said Labia.
"I don't know. I like it." said Danny.
Labia blushed, "Aww, you're just saying that! Wait - I don't give anything away for free you know. Gotta pay the bills somehow."
Danny suddenly looked embarrassed and his face flushed too, "Oh, I didn't mean -"
Libida chuckled and touched his knee, "I know, I know. 'Cause if you were, you'd have jumped me by now. I know what I got." she said, thrusting out what she had.
"You're - very attractive." said Danny, slurping away at his Nearly Tea.
"You're too kind -"
"Danny. Danny - uhm - Gryme." He didn't know why, but he felt he could trust this woman with his real name. She seemed defiantly on his side.
"Aww, Danny? That's a sexy name. Gryme, well, not so much so."
"People sometimes call me Fingers -"
Labia raised an eyebrow and shifted seductively, "Hmm. Might be interesting to discover why you're named thus."
"Oh, it's to do with my time as a pickpocket -”
Labia put her hand back on Danny's knee, "Don't spoil the magic, sweetie." she said.
Danny didn't know where to put himself, "Uhm, I don't know if this is too cheeky, but, could I -"
"Hide out here? Of course you can! Just - bear in mind I do have clients coming and going regularly?"
"That's fine. I'll just, erm, put my fingers in my ears."
"You'll need to put more than your fingers in your ears with me, sweetie. I'm a bit of a screamer, you see. The clients seem to like it. Pays the big bucks, you know."
And she wasn't wrong. Her first client, a Programmer recently back from a trip to the Battle Grounds, liked it a bit rough. There were moments when Danny felt himself being smacked from the force by which Labia delivered her blow. And she screamed. Danny was pretty sure he was going deaf, and by the time two more clients had come through, he was beginning to wish Child had found him and ripped his arms and legs off. Anything seemed better at this point than the constant moaning, slapping, screaming and yelping. Her room was either soundproofed or she was the only one in the house. No one else would be able to tolerate the noise.
Danny took a chance during a brief respite between clients to talk to Labia, "Seriously, you are loud. I thought at one point my whole body was about to rattle apart, not to mention my teeth falling out."
"You should see what it's like under the yoke, so to speak, Danny sweetie." she grinned and winked at the same time. Danny was, at this point, slightly scared.
"How many more do you have?" he asked, partially for pity's sake.
Labia adjusted her sheets and her clothes, what clothes there were, "One more before lunch. A lovely, round man. Full of spu -"
"Okay, okay." interrupted Danny, "Then?"
"Well, three at two, two at four and four at five -" but she was interrupted again by a sharp knock at the door. She gestured for Danny to get hidden again. He did, just as the door burst open.
"Labia! Get yer knickers off! Ooh, they already are! Ha ha!" Danny froze. He knew that voice. Red. Red Swallow. Where this whole thing started. He couldn't move.
Slowly the decibels rose and Swallow's chuckles resonated around the walls. Danny knew he had to do something. He took the opportunity of Red being distracted by Labia to crawl out of his hole on his hands and knees. He continued to crawl to the door, stopping only briefly to remove the large stained underpants of one Red Swallow from his face, where they had been carelessly tossed, and got out the door. He was getting used to running, because that's what he did again. Away from the Hall of Delights.
Danny was at large in the city once again, exposed and fearful. At one point he thought he saw Child coming toward him, so ducked into a bush of rather suggestive flowers - the Garden of Pleasure, where every flower reminded the viewer of genitals. As plain as that. Prudence didn't mess around with metaphor. Straight to the penis and vagina, via nature.
But he couldn't stay there. He was too exposed. He climbed the wall behind him, only to come to a thoroughfare, where the inevitable Madam Severity chose that moment to turn the corner on her daily amble. Danny looked around, knowing Child would be mere feet behind her. He dived under a bench, closing his eyes and praying to a deity he didn't believe in. He squinted his eyes so tightly that he began to see dancing white spots in front of his eyes. But he stayed there, under the bench, eyes closed and hoping his luck held. The procession came level with him, and he tried to will himself somewhere else, somewhere very safe. Slowly, the procession passed him. He waited there until he heard naught but the call and whistle of everyday city life.
And it was over. He slowly opened his eyes, allowing them to readjust, sliding from under the bench and slowly standing up. A broad smile danced on his lips and he thumped the air. This lucky streak! Now, if only he could find a Gambling House he wasn't banned from, he might win back the money and pay Child before he -
Child. Was there. In front of him.
Yes. The mighty giant of a man, rippling with muscles that put other muscles to shame; an explosive strength just lingering beneath the surface, more powerful than What Came Before. Child hadn't been with the procession. He had been running late, due to searching for Danny. Now he had found Danny. And sadly, that's where Mr Gryme's luck finally ran out.
"Shit." he expressed, unnecessarily.
#
'Cool Hand' Danny 'Fingers' Gryme looked shocked. His mouth agape, his eyes like dinner plates. But why should he be surprised? He gambled and lost. He owed a Debt. But Danny was a warning; you can never run from your debts. Someone would always find you. And so - And so, there was Danny, out there on the wall, for all to see.
Well, not all of Danny. Just his head. Just his head on a pole. Maybe that's why Danny looked so shocked? Poor Danny Gryme.
See, Child always took payment. That much was for certain.
You could bet your House on it.
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