The Big Over Easy

“About a year,” she repeated. “I called them about the shower, but they never came. They’re arseholes, you know, dahling.”

She inhaled on her cigarette and blew the smoke upwards. Jack walked over to her.

“I know who you are. You’re Lola Vavoom. You used to be big in movies.”

“I will treat that feed line with the contempt it deserves, dahling. I’d never tread on Norma’s toes. Who might you be?”

“Detective Inspector Jack Spratt of the Nursery Crime Division. These are Detective Sergeant Mary and Constable Baker.”

She nodded in Mary’s direction but didn’t look at her. She put a languid hand out towards Baker, just out of his reach so he had to step forward to shake it.

“Detective Baker,” she cooed.

“Constable Baker,” he corrected with a small smile.

Despite her faded grandeur and worn poise, Lola had a certain grace and bearing that still made her extremely attractive.

“That’s a beautiful name. I had a lover named Baker once. He was hung like a hamster.”

“Is that good?” asked Baker, unsure of her meaning.

“It is if you’re another hamster.”

Jack managed to turn a laugh into a cough. Baker blushed, but Jack quickly took charge of the situation.

“Miss Vavoom—what are you doing here?”

“Here, dahling?” she replied with a smile. “Why, I live here!”

“We thought you’d be in Hollywood… or Caversham Heights at the very least,” added Mary, who remembered seeing Lola performing Anthrax! live when she was a little girl.

“Hah!” Lola spat contemptuously. “Being waited on by an army of cosmetic surgeons? No thanks. What you see is what I am. I’ve not had my boobs done or my arse lifted, no nips, no tucks. No ribs removed, nothing. Those little strumpets we see on the silver screen today are mostly bathroom sealant. They buy their breasts over the counter. ‘What would you like, honey, small, medium or large?’ They give us stick insects and tell us it’s beauty. If someone of their size went for an audition in my day, she’d have been shown a square meal and told to come back when she was a stone heavier. What’s wrong with curves? Anyone over a ten these days is regarded not as an average-sized woman but a marketing opportunity. Cream for this, pills for that, superfluous hair, collagen injection, quick-weight-loss diets. Where’s it going to end? We’re pressured to expend so much money and effort to be the ‘perfect’ shape, when that shape is physically attainable by only one woman in a million. It’s the cold face of capitalism, boys and girls, preying on misguided expectations. Besides, I always found perfection an overrated commodity.”

Her voice had risen as she spoke, topping her tirade on a high C. She paused and collected herself, then continued in a normal voice.

“Sometime I’ll make a comeback, and when I do…”

Jack and Baker just stared. Lola looked from Baker to Mary and then back to Jack again. She tapped her heel against the doorframe and lit another cigarette.

“So. You’re the police. I heard about Humpty. I was sorry, I thought he was a nice guy. A bit short for my taste, but there you have it.”

“When did you last see him?” asked Jack, trying to gather his senses.

She flicked the ash off her cigarette. “About this time last year. I saw Hump come lumbering out; he never could move very fast with those short little legs of his. He looked a bit agitated, and I asked if he was all right. He was a bit startled when he saw me and said everything was fine, then went downstairs. I went back indoors, but I could still hear the shower running. Humpty never came back, and I called the maintenance engineer the following week. He didn’t turn up, and it’s still running. My guess is that they’re trying to make the building unsafe so we all have to move out.”

She looked around the shabby corridor and pulled at a piece of curling wallpaper disdainfully. It tore off easily in her hand, and she crushed the fragment to little pieces.

She suddenly looked bored. “Can I go? If you want me, you know where to find me. I don’t go out a lot.”

Lola didn’t wait for a reply. She just looked at them all, smiled at Baker, went back inside her room and closed the door noiselessly behind her.

Jack sighed and put an ear to one of the glass panes of Humpty’s front door.

“We’ve just met British cinema history,” he commented.

“She was rather a cracker in her time, sir,” declared Baker.

“I think she still is.”

“Well,” announced Mary, “if I look that good in my fifties, I’ll be a happy girl.”

Jack raised a finger to his lips. “Quiet a second, guys.”

They all stood in silence for a moment.

“She’s right. The shower is still running.”

He stepped back and gestured to Baker to force the lock. They pushed the door open against a mound of junk mail that had collected in the hall and then went on to the second door that separated the hall from the rest of the apartment. Jack paused and looked at Mary and Baker, seeing his own feelings of foreboding reflected on their faces.