Fast Fiction: Fingers
Should he be called fingers, or should he be called Fumb?
Richard Mallinson tells a gruesome tale.
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The hand he stretched out for me to shake was fmgerless.
'Yeah,' he said after I'd clasped it briefly, 'that's why they call me Fingers. You'd fink they'd call me Fumb, wouldn't you, because I've still got a fumb there. But no, it has to be Fingers. Typical, aint it?'
'How did it happen?'
'Oh, all part of the game. Nuffing new. I was out of line.'
'What do you mean, part of the game? The crime game? Is that how you see it?'
'Well, how else d'you expect me to see it? I've played it since I wus six or maybe five.'
'So who chopped your fingers off?'
'The Sways, of course. They said I'd double-crossed em which I had, to tell the truth . .. Anyway they used a machete. One blow, that's all, on a hard surface. "We'll leave you with the fumb," Mad Sway said, blood on his shirt, "but if there's any more shite from you it'll come off as well." No, I didn't faint, if that's what you're thinkin. I told em they could keep the effing fingers but Mad stuffed them in mi top pocket. Then they wrapped a towel round mi hand and drove me ome and when I got in the old lady said "What's that sticking out of yer pocket?" and I larfed till I fainted . . . Hey, yer've gone really pale.'
