Felix Rodriguez has a small pimp moustache. He has been blind in his left eye for several years, and it is far darker than the right one. When he is not selling girls he is selling rocks of crack to schoolchildren for £7.50 a pop. He's an old-fashioned scumbag, the kind of guy who would cut you first as a warning. He used to look pretty distinguished - like burned-out gentry - but he has deteriorated rapidly since I last saw him. He looks like he has been getting high on his own supply, and even his tiny moustache smells of crack smoke. He is naked save for a leopard-print bathrobe.
"Jesus, Felix. I've seen healthier looking bodies dangling from the meat-rack."

He offers me a grim laugh that quickly degenerates into a coughing fit. His bedsit smells of sour milk and spilled blood. The radiator under the window is reeking heat, and I can feel myself start to sweat. I figured that the cops wouldn't waste their time rousting a no-mark like Felix, so I would waste mine instead.

"Is this a social call, Joe, or are you looking to have a good time?"

I consider exchanging pleasantries, but don't see the point.

"Have you heard of a guy they call The Surgeon?"

He looks at me stony-faced, but the twitch in his good eye gives him away.

I toss him a £20 note.

"I have heard a few stories, but these stories are pretty… interesting."

 "How interesting?"

"Interesting enough."

I drop another banknote on the coffee table.

He nods at the money.

"Don't fuck around, Felix, or I'll slice one of your nipples off with your own pocketknife."

He glares at me, and fires up his crack-pipe.

"They say he is from Poland. Goes by the name Andrzej Bulzacki. Used to work as a plastic surgeon in Krakow before he moved to Paignton. His ex-brother-in-law was mob affiliated, and the local Poles used him to stitch up knife-wounds, gouge out bullets, that sort of thing. Word has it that, four years ago, he stole sixteen condoms full of raw Turkish smack out of a teenage drug-mule who died in transit. The Turks and the Poles both put a price on his head, but he seemingly disappeared into thin air."

Felix looks up at me earnestly, and I nod for him to continue.

"Three years ago a man matching his description was found floating in Paignton harbour with a bullet in his skull, but I have it on good authority that it wasn't Andrzej. Three weeks ago, however, I hear a rumour that some guy is going around performing surgery on working girls. Just little things, nips and tucks, but it piques my interest. I'm a businessman after all. So I ask around, and I hear a story that he did some work on a Polish girl I used to know. Gave her a Cantonese makeover - on behalf of a wealthy client. A man with serious money to burn."

"Wait a minute: a Cantonese makeover?"

He chuckles.

"I heard this dude cut a Polish chick so she looked fucking Cantonese! Can you believe it: Polish pussy, Chinese face."

I don't know what to say, so I say nothing.

"And you know who is supposedly bankrolling this shit? Harlan fucking Deloitte. You know the name?"

I nod. Harlan Deloitte is old money. Paignton's wealthiest man, by some distance. The dude is a motherfucking philanthropist. Jesus. 

"Like I said: interesting fucking story."

Felix's face is flushed with excitement. I toss him another twenty, and he grins uneasily.

"Hey Joe, you're not gonna mention my name are you?"

I shrug.

"Depends how hard they stomp me."

He chuckles nervously.

"That's a joke, right?"

"Sure."

Felix stands to show me out, and his bathrobe falls open. His dick is the only healthy thing about him. It looks like a midget's wrist.

*

That afternoon I hit the juice pretty hard. For a while I was drinking shots in the Dirty Lemon with a woman with heavily-lashed eyes and an accent that was as thick as blood. She told me that she had a five-year-old son - fathered by a man who is now in prison. I asked where he was and she told me that she didn't know. Another dispatch from the bowels of hell. Her coke-stash looked like it had been cut with carpet cleaner, and when she returned from the toilet her nose and mouth were caked in blood. I stumbled out of the pub, tripping on the wheelchair ramp in my haste to leave. Later that night I remembered going to a strip club called Heaven's Basement. A woman who claimed to be Miss Teen Paignton 1987 invited me outside for a cigarette, but all I remembered were sweaty skin, thudding cocks and clenched yellow teeth.

*

The next day.

When I come to I'm lying on a greasy chenille bedspread. I have blurred vision and a dry mouth. A fat hooker called Ruby-Jean is sitting in an armchair puffing on a Dominican cigar. Her left hand is stuffed down the front of her queen-sized pantyhose. Her right hand pokes at a runny-looking cheese omelette with a plastic fork.

"Can I have a glass of water?"

"Sure, honey, help yourself."

As I stand up I notice that the stain on my pillowcase looks like a shadow on a diseased lung.

When I fill my glass full of cloudy-looking water the run-off fails to drain away due to the layer of hairy scum around the plug-hole.

"Joe. This is my sister, Tallaluh. The one I was telling you about."

A slightly fatter hooker enters the room wearing nothing but a pair of black mesh panties, and I already know what kind of vulgar dreams I will be having tonight. I look up at her face: it looks wrong, like it has been cut off and sewn back on too quickly.

"Motherfucker..."

I slump back onto the bed, fighting the rising taste of sick in my throat.

"Who did this to you?"

Her skin is reddened and puckered at the edges. Her whole face creases as she starts to cry. I look around the room for a drink. I see a tumbler on the bedside table. The brown liquid looks like coagulated blood. I hesitate, then wet my throat. It burns all the way down.

"My friend Khandi hooked us up. She said that it wouldn't hurt. She said that her boyfriend was a doctor. I only wanted a tummy-tuck."

I swallow back the bile once again, and start to get dressed.

It's time to get paid.