Viscosity of Custard

          Stanley Holloway walked through the swing door, the sort that pivots on one side. It swung easily open when he gave it a small shove and walked straight in out of the rain. He took a table by the window overlooking the street and hung his overcoat over the back of a classic utility chair where it spread out over the floor and dripped. Then sat down looking around the tables at all those people creating that everyday cafe din that loudly echoed off the hard walls. The waitress, tall and maybe in her mid-thirties, with that almost wavy but not quite wavy blond hair, sort of ambled over chewing gum and holding a worn out note pad with all the edges curled up like they do when pulled in and out of a pocket all the time. It sort of matched her own worn out expression. She smiled one of those fake, tired smiles showing her front teeth smudged a bit red by overmuch lipstick, some sort of  Patsy Red , the pout making type and looking hurriedly applied, he thought, as though she had t

           About two o’clock after a tough session with a policewoman Doris got home and sat down and cried that let it all out crying. Then she rang her mum who she knew would answer the phone which was right by her wheelchair. One of the motorised ones so she could get about when her dad was at work. She told her about the monkeys and the guns and Stanley, how cool he had been and how he looked out for her. That a monkey had shot a hole in the ceiling and like it was something from the movies. She said Charlie was a jerk for working her too hard and that he had said she could have a pay rise so she could work less and he would take on another waitress so the shifts could be split. Her mum said maybe he was not such a jerk but she said that he was because it was only Stanley saying to him because Charlie had told her what Stanley had said. And that made her feel better, getting more time and everything. Then she asked how her mum was and she had said not too bad but Doris knew that me

            Dave Simmons hung around at the cafe for about an hour after the squad arrived. He spoke to the screaming lady who was all bleary eyed and mascara stained with lipstick smudged to hell and back. He wrote down what she said but knew it was pointless and just a motion goer. A rag doll had more brains and gumption than she did. All he got was that she was an antique dealer, at the market and was having a coffee. She was too busy screaming to see anything then too busy whimpering. She had asked Doris for a flat white but Doris had said, “Flat what lady? This is a cafe not Harrods. You want a coffee it’s either black or it’s white, we don’t do none of those in between ones. Now what’s it to be?” Doris had no time for upmarket ladies with pretensions. And that seemed more important to the lady, the coffee, and wanted Dave to write it in his book. He looked for Stanley and asked Doris where he was. He had said, “Where’s Stanley Doris? I thought I told him to stay put. He does un

            The smart way to leave a holdup is slow and easy and that’s what Benny Wright and his cousin did. Benny came out the swing door pulling his cousin after him and casually strolled down the street with the sawn-off down by his side partially hidden by his arm thinking “All those dumb people sitting round, sipping coffee, in a crap cafe. Just dumb. Sipping coffee and sitting around just waiting to be robbed.” It was a quiet spot around the back where the cafe was and there was no sign anyone had noticed the commotion. A lady in a white coat with a man in a mac were getting close and oblivious. Then looked surprised being suddenly confronted by two monkeys. Benny swung up the sawn-off and growled a monkey growl and they hurriedly crossed the road, scampering off without looking back, the man pulling out his phone. “Dumb fuckers,” Benny grinned inside the monkey head. On the corner of the side street a young man in a black bomber jacket looking like an opportunist was casually s