“I’m telling you she’s got a parrot stuck up her arse,” Micky said.

Jo-Jo stirred his coffee.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I’m saying Nancy has always liked birds, right? I managed to get her to shave it down to two fucking birds, two parrots to be exact, and one of them has gone missing.”

“So you assume, as we all would, that it’s living up your wife’s arse.”

Egg dripped from Micky’s fork as he waved it at Jo-Jo.

“Every time she bends over she makes a sound.”

“Must be all them beans. Are you going to eat that?”

Jo-Jo made a move for Micky’s sausage, which sat in a pool of grease on his plate.

“Get out of it, you fucker.”

He stabbed at Jo-Jo’s hand with his knife.

“I tell you Micky, ever since you did those drugs you’ve been talking shit, absolute fucking shit. You sit there letting your food get cold, you spray me with egg, you need to sort yourself out mate.”

“Nancy’s the only one I need to sort out. I ain’t joking, we went shopping the other day. She was getting some tins off the shelf in the supermarket and as she bent over I heard this noise.”

“Sound like a fart?”

“No, it sounded like a groan, an erotic one.”

“An erotic groan?”

“Aw, ooooh.”

“You winding me up?”

“And why would I do that me old son? Partner in fucking crime, right?”

Micky shook his head, and squirted tomato ketchup all over the remainder of his food, chewing ravenously.

“There was a case of a woman In Alabama”, he said, “who liked a bit of anal. Her husband said she had capacity.”

“Capacity?”

“He lost a tool box up there. She used to sing gospel you know. Well, she got excommunicated from the church because her parrot kept singing ‘fuck all y’all’ in the middle of the chorus.”

“She probably had Tourettes.”

“No she fucking didn’t. She farted feathers. They found a spanner up her when she died. And you know what she died of?”

“Bullshit?”

“Myxo-ma-fucking-tosis me old son.”

“That’s what rabbits get.”

“Who fucking cares? You might think I’m talking bollocks, but I know there’s something up Nancy’s arse.”

Jo-Jo leant forward.

“Stop taking drugs, Micky.”

“Don’t you lecture me, sitting there with a fucking ton of metal in your gob. All those piercings, you could get infected.”

“Some women like them, I got one on my knob.”

“So I heard.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“You go around with you head shaved wearing a week’s stubble, you think that looks sharp?”

“You could be damaged by your own jewelry.”

“Are we gonna do this fucking job or what?”

“Yeah.”

There was mischief dancing in Micky’s eyes as they paid for their lunch. Then they left the cafe, stepping out into the debris strewn street.

*

“Now, he’s on his own, so we’re in and out quicker than a whore’s snatch,” Micky said, when they got to the small post office a few streets away.

“I know the score.”

They put on their masks.

The man behind the counter didn’t look up as they walked in. He didn’t hear Micky lock the door. He only let out a small gasp when he put his paper down and saw two men with guns dressed as Donald Duck standing in front of him.

“Give us the money and you won’t get hurt,” Micky said.

They waited until he opened the back door and then Jo-Jo went into the office where he stacked the bundles of cash into the holdall.

“Easy,” he said.

As he was leaving he saw the old man’s finger hesitate on the panic button and he smashed him across the head with the butt of his gun.

They ran from the shop. They removed their masks in a back alley, dumping them in a dustbin.

“You know what I’m going to spend this on?” Micky said. “I’m going to drug Nancy and stick an endoscope up her arse.”

Jo-Jo tapped his temple.

“You’re sick in the fucking head, mate.”

*

Nancy was sleeping when Micky got home. He stood in the living room as evening fell outside the window, and opened a tin of Boddingtons.

A parrot stood on one leg in a cage staring at him.

“We did the job and I’m loaded, me old son,” Micky said.

“Up yer arse,” the parrot said.

“Jo-Jo is….”

“A fucking cunt.”

The squawks and obscenities roused Nancy, and she came downstairs.

“Micky, are you teaching Freddy to swear?”

Her negligee was open at the front, and Micky ran his eyes down her body.

“Fancy a quickie, Nance?”

“I’ve got to do my night shift.”

“Come on, let me give your arse a slap.”

“Charming.”

“You’re not hiding something up there are you?”

“Like what?”

“What happened to Sammy?”

“I told you, he flew out the window the other day. Have you seen him?”

“I’ve heard him.”

“Where?”

“Every time you bend over.”

She went upstairs to dress while Micky opened another beer and made faces at Freddy.

“Oooh I like a cock ring,” Freddy said.

*

As Micky got drunk, Nancy was straddling Jo-Jo in her stilettos. He was lying on his kitchen floor as she lowered herself onto his cock and licked her lips.

“I love your metal. This one rubs my clit just right, you naughty man,” she said, chuckling.

“You ain’t half got the best arse, Nancy.”

She pounded his cock until she collapsed on top of him and dripped two drops of sweat onto his eyebrow piercing.

Afterwards, as she dressed, Jo-Jo said, “Micky said anything weird?”

“Like what?”

“I’m worried about him.”

“Have you two been up to mischief again? I don’t want him going back inside.”

“No, we’ve been as good as gold.”

“So why are you worried? He don’t suspect nothing.”

“He was saying some weird things about parrots.”

“My Sammy’s disappeared.”

“He says he thinks it’s up your, you know.”

“My what?”

“Your backside.”

“He’s mucking around.”

“No. I think he might hurt you Nancy, I’m serious, he had this look in his eyes, wanted to stick something up there.”

“He’d never.”

“Watch him,” Jo-Jo said.

*

That night Nancy woke to find Micky peering up her nightdress with a Maglite.

She kicked out and knocked him onto the floor. He lay there with the beam of light pointing at the ceiling as she stood up.

“What the bleeding hell do you think you’re doing?”

“I want to look at your arse.”

“Go back to sleep, Micky.”

“Show me your arse,” he said, getting to his feet.

“What do you want to put up there?”

“Who said anything about that?”

She looked away, and Micky grabbed her arm. Nancy slammed her first into the side of his head and kicked him in the groin.

“You’re sleeping on the sofa tonight.”

“I knew I was right,” Micky said, as he stumbled down the darkened staircase.

*

He was woken early by the sound of Freddy saying, “This one rubs my clit just right.”

He was standing outside Jo-Jo’s flat when Nancy got into the shower.

Micky kept his finger on the bell until Jo-Jo opened it, then he smashed him in the face, knocking him backwards into the hall.

“You fucking slag, you’ve been shagging Nancy.”

“I said you were fucking mental.”

“You told her about the endoscope.”

“Bollocks.”

As Jo-Jo got up Micky grabbed his nose piercing, ripping through his septum.

“The parrot’s grassed you up.”

He slammed Jo-Jo’s head repeatedly into the wall until he wasn’t moving.

He went to his lock up on the way home. He fed Sammy and cleaned his cage, then took two pictures of him on his mobile.

Nancy was in the kitchen when he got in.

“I got something to show you, Nance,” he said.

Her eyes were brimming with tears as she stared at Sammy.

“Where is he, Micky?”

“He’s safe, but if you want to see him again I want you to do two things.”

“Are you blackmailing me?”

“Yes. Stop shagging Jo-Jo and tell the cops I was with you yesterday afternoon, all afternoon, we were having sex.”

“Are you mad? Me and Jo-Jo.”

“He’s admitted it. Jo-Jo’s not the sharpest tool in the box, I tell him I think there’s a parrot up your arse and he tells you.”

Nancy hung her head.

“It was only a fling, Micky. I was angry because you went inside.”

“You’re my alibi, Nancy.”

“You won’t hurt Sammy will you?”

“Not if you do as I ask.”

*

Micky had already made the call, given the local police the tip off. It wasn’t the first robbery Jo-Jo had committed, he’d carried out a spate of them in the previous weeks. When Nancy was fucking Jo-Jo, Micky went back to the alley and got Jo-Jo’s Donald Duck mask. He stuffed it under his sofa when he left him lying in the hallway.

Jo-Jo found himself arrested later that day and immediately grassed Micky up. But when the cops visited him, Nancy stood firm by her alibi.

Micky returned Sammy to Nancy who cosseted him as Micky got drunk.

“I swear those birds are the only things you care about,” he said.

I wasn’t long before she realised that Sammy wasn’t well. She took him to the vet and returned teary eyed.

“He’s got psittacosis, Micky,” she said. “They’ve given him shots.”

“That’ll sort him, Nancy.”

Micky had himself vaccinated a few days before.

That night as Nancy slept he put on some gloves and rubbed dried parrot droppings from Sammy’s cage into Nancy’s mouth.

*