It’s too dangerous to work in the Europa, I says to her. You need to get out. Do you know something I don’t? she says to me. I know it’s a target, I says to her. Doesn’t take any insider knowledge to know that it’s a target. I just don’t want to see it coming down around your ears, that’s all. She rolls onto her back, she’s naked except for her black bra and her earrings, the sight of her soft skin, there in the lamplight, her long red hair upon the pillow. She sparks up a B&H. That’s a habit I got her into. Does your man not notice you’ve changed your brand? I says to her. What, you mean from geeky bookish types to suave gangsters? she says to me. Anyway, she says to me, the Europa is a mighty fortress, and she takes a long draw on her cigarette.

I says to her, what, wait a minute, what did you just say? I’m just saying, she says, that the place is impregnable, Sammy, that I’m safer here than anywhere. The whole fucking city could go up at any moment. I could get snatched by the Ra on my way home from work and imprisoned in a safe house and tortured by a pair of gangsters. Sure, you were never tortured, I says to her. Now you’re just getting into sexual fantasies. I pounce on her and she pretends to fight me off before we make love one more time, but all the while I’ve got this phrase in my head, the Europa is a mighty fortress. There it is again. But what is it that’s speaking? You need to go, Kathy says, rushing me out, and I’m still doing up my tie as I walk along the corridor. I’m high. I’m feeling great. I’m bouncing along on that soft carpet with the pattern they had. I take the lift to reception and I’m about to step out when I see Tommy. Fucking Tommy’s standing at the desk, at reception, talking to one of the girls. He’s pointing to something up above him and she’s nodding. He points up, again, toward the ceiling, and the doors of the lift close and I take it back up and I get out, randomly, on the fifth floor. And suddenly everything is up in the air.

*

Wait, what about this one, listen to this one, this is a classic:

Paddy’s wife comes home from the doctor’s and Paddy says to her, did that doctor tell you what was up with you, and his wife says to him, no, the only thing he says was that I had a beautiful pussy, and Paddy says, what the fuck, and he loses it, and he goes battering over to the doctor’s and he barges in on him and he starts laying into him, he starts giving him a right pasting, and all the time Paddy’s screaming at him, don’t dare you comment on my wife’s pussy, how fucking dare you, he’s saying, and the doctor he says to him, Paddy, you’ve got it all wrong, all I says to her was that she had acute angina.