“I’m pulling a bank job in three or four months,” Mason said, “and I want you to help set it up for me.”
Scams were Arnie’s line, bank jobs were a bit out of his depth. But you didn’t just turn down somebody like Frank Mason out of hand. Arnie tried to will James Bond back to help him with his problem, but the secret agent had gone into hiding.
“Why me?” he asked, his deep voice coming out slightly choked.
“Two reasons,” Mason said. “One, to make this work, we need a con man.” He saw that Arnie, despite his nervousness, was scowling. “Sorry, Arnie, not a con man, a what-do-you-call-it, a thespian.”
Arnie nodded.
“You’ll have to visit the place,” Mason continued. “Don’t worry, you’ll be away long before we hit the bank. The second thing I want is somebody who knows all the faces – who can get me a team together. You’ll be a sort of recruiting sergeant.”
Arnie looked at Tony, who was still standing by the door. “I thought he did that.”
“Normally, yes,” Mason agreed. “But this one has to be top-bleeding-secret. I don’t want anybody outside the team getting even a whiff of what’s going down. Money: I take twenty per cent plus operational expenses off the top, and the rest is divided up equally. It should be a big haul.” He leaned forward until his face was almost touching Arnie’s. “If you want to, you can leave now, but if you stay, and I tell you all the details, there’s no backing out. Think about it.”
Arnie did think about it. The idea of violent crime scared him, even though, as far as he knew, Mason’s firm had never actually hurt anybody. His wisest move would be to leave while he had the chance. On the other hand, Mason had always been big-time, and this robbery seemed bigger than most. With his share, he could set up his own theatre company.
He gulped. “I'm in.”
“Christmas,” Mason said. “Madeira. We don’t know which bank yet, but we will soon.”
“But that’s an island,” Arnie said. “How are you going to get away?”
Mason’s eyes suddenly became cold and hard. “You’ll be well away yourself by then, Arnie,” he said, “so that’s not your bloody problem, is it? You just do your job, and leave all the thinking to me. Right?”
As he spoke, he jabbed a thick heavy finger in the actor’s direction, emphasizing each point.
He could finish me off with that finger alone, Arnie thought. He had not seen Mason for a while, and had forgotten just how tough he was. Now he remembered the night in The Duke of Clarence – the football hooligans with the broken bottles in their hands – and he shuddered. “Right!” he said. “No offence intended, Frank.”
“None taken,” Mason said. “Just remember what I said, and we’ll get on. I want you to recruit a team, a bit tricky this one, because I don’t want anybody I’ve ever used before. Look round, see who's available, then check back with me and …”
Mason always used a team of four. Himself, Tony Horton …
“You’ll need a driver and one other shooter,” Arnie interrupted.
“You’re thinking again, Arnie,” Mason said menacingly. “I’ll tell you what I want.”
“Sorry, Frank.”
“I need three shooters and a driver.”
“Christ!” Arnie said in spite of himself, “must be a bloody big bank. I mean …” He trailed off with a weak, “Sorry again, Frank.”
“And one of the shooters,” Mason said. “must be a married man who’s just done time for armed robbery.”
Was this some kind of joke? Arnie asked himself. Anybody who’d just done bird for a stick-up would have served at least an eight-year stretch. Some of them recovered, but a lot were never the same again. Why, when there were so many young men who’d give their right arms to work with Frank Mason, did he want an old lag?
He looked at Mason's face, desperately searching for a flicker of humour, and found none. He wished to Christ he’d walked out while he’d had the chance.
“There's one other person I definitely want on the team,” Mason continued, “Portuguese Pedro.”
That was even worse than the idea of the ex-con. Arnie was frightened of arguing with Mason, but he was frightened of going to jail, too.
“He’s nothing but a gas-meter bandit,” he said. “What the hell do you want to use him for?”
“They speak Portuguese in Madeira. Right? Portuguese Pedro speaks Portuguese. Right? So we need him. There’s no point in threatening people with shotguns if the buggers can’t understand what you’re saying.”
Arnie glanced longingly at the door, and at Tony Horton blocking it. His stomach was turning to water, but he knew he had to press on.
“But Portuguese Pedro! The man’s a no-count, a loser. He’ll be a liability on the job. Let me look around, Frank,” Arnie pleaded, “and see if I can come up with anybody else who speaks Portuguese.”
“I want Pedro,” Mason said firmly, “and I don’t want any bloody arguments. Right?”
Arnie’s heart was thumping in a way it never did when he was pulling a con. His own line of work was logical, and he was always in control. Now he seemed to have fallen into the hands of a lunatic.
He looked up at Mason’s face. That seemed normal enough, no crazy flashing eyes, no maniacal twist of the lips, just a hard, immovable blankness.
His gaze fell down to the other man’s powerful knuckles which he knew could pulverize him in a matter of seconds.
He forced himself into one last desperate attempt to make Mason see reason.
“You’re the boss, Frank,” he said. “No question. Only …”
“Yes?”
“… only it looks like you’re planning a deliberate disaster.”
For a moment, under Mason’s stony gaze, he thought he had gone too far. Then the other man’s expression changed and his lips formed, not a mad smile, but a normal, rational, amused grin.
“Yes,” Mason said. “It does look like that, doesn’t it?”
FOUR
Her name was Susan. She reminded Mason of the girls in the shampoo advertisements; the ones whose faces are young, pretty and, above all, innocent, and who run barefoot across cornfields, their dresses billowing around them.
“I’ve got to slip out for twenty minutes,” Tony had told her after he’d brought the drinks at the bar. “You don’t mind, do you? Frank will keep you amused.”
And with that, he’d gone – as arranged.
“Tell me about yourself, darlin’,” Frank said.
“How do you mean, Mr. Mason?”
She had a nice voice – soft, warm.
“Just your background. Where you’re from. What you’re doing in London.”
She smiled, puzzled but not suspicious. “What’s this all about, Mr. Mason?”
“Call me Frank,” Mason said. “What’s Tony told you about this holiday?”
“That it’s abroad, somewhere hot, and that you want me to … to tell a lie to the police.”
“Not a lie,” Mason said. “We just want you to refuse to tell the truth for a while. So, if I think you’re suitable, we’ll be giving you a holiday, all expenses paid, just for keeping your mouth shut for a few hours. Don’t you think we’re entitled to know a little bit about you first?”
“I … I suppose so,” Susan said. She looked into his eyes. Her own were wide, doe-like. “I’m from the north and I’m twen … nearly twenty-one.”
Half my age, Mason thought.
“And why did you decide to come down to the Smoke? Looking for a new job?”
“I never had a job before I came to London,” she said. “Me dad died when I was little, so there was just me and me mam. She’s never been what you might call well, and for the last few years she needed constant nursing.”
“She’s dead now, is she?” Mason said, sympathetically.
Susan nodded, and a small tear fell from the corner of her eye, landing on the Formica table top.
“It was for the best, really, she was in a lot of pain. Anyway
, after she died, I couldn’t stand Accrington. Everything about it seemed to remind me of her. So I came here.”
“And do you like London?”
“It’s all right, Mr. Mason … Frank. I mean, it’s a bit of a struggle. By the time I’ve paid for me digs, there’s not much left over for luxuries … like food.” She smiled again, a self-deprecating grin. “And until Tony came along, I hadn’t got any friends. I suppose it’s me own fault really, I’ve not had much practice in making friends, not with having to look after me mam.”
You poor little sod, Mason thought.
Her eyes flashed with anger, as if she had read his thoughts.
“Not that I’m blaming her,” she said. “Me mam was very brave.”
“How did you meet Tony?”
“He came into the newsagent’s where I work. He was very nice, very kind. We started going out together.”
Mason chuckled involuntarily at this description of the relationship. Going out was the last thing Tony had in mind when he picked up a girl.
The delicate brown freckles on Susan's nose were suddenly swamped in a sea of redness. She lowered her eyes to the table, and with her index finger began to draw lines from a puddle of beer.
“I’m not cheap, Mr. Mason,” she mumbled. “Tony’s the first real boyfriend I’ve ever had. I don’t let everybody … I’m not a common …”
“I know you’re not, darlin’,” Mason said, ashamed of himself.
She looked up, smiling gratefully, then her face became earnest again.
“Mr. Mason,” she said, “I really need this holiday. I hope I’ve not said anything that might disqualify me.”
“We’ll talk about it again when I’ve seen Tony,” Mason said. He looked at her – this earnest young woman in a cheap worn dress – and reached for his wallet. “Here’s a hundred quid,” peeling off the notes, “get yourself some decent clobber.”
She shook her head.
“Come on, darlin’. You’d accept the holiday in Mad … you’d accept that. How is this different?”
“I’d be earning that. Oh, I know you claim there’s nothing to it, but if it’s costing you that much, it won’t be easy. Do you know what we say in Lancashire?”
“No.”
“You don’t get owt for nowt in this world.”
“Have the money,” Mason urged. “I can afford to give it to you.”
“I know that,” Susan said quietly. “But I can’t afford to take it.”
*
“You’re a bit of a bastard, aren’t you?” Mason said, as he pulled up at the traffic lights on Kensington Road.
“Why?” Tony asked, sounding surprised, and a little offended.
“That girl, Susan. She’s a nice kid. What made you pick her up in the first place?”
“There's something special about unbled meat,” Tony said. “It’s very willing, and it does what you tell it, even if it doesn’t fancy the idea itself.”
Mason glanced at his lieutenant, and saw a leer on his face. When had this begun to happen? When had the fresh-faced lad who’d first joined the firm changed into this experienced – what was the word? – roué?
Mason felt like a father who, still expecting his son to be interested in model railway magazines, finds a Penthouse hidden under his mattress.
The lights changed, and he eased the car forward.
“I told you at the beginning that I didn’t think she was right for this job,” he said, “and now I’m sure of it. Once the shit hits the fan, the women will be under a lot of pressure. It’ll be all right for the others, they’re tough and they’ve been brought up to it, but it could hurt her. She’s so … innocent.”
“That’s why she’s so perfect,” Tony said gleefully. “The police will never believe that anybody could be that naive. They’ll put all the pressure on her, and leave the others alone. And don’t underestimate her, Frank. She may not be very bright, but she’s stubborn. If she’s promised us she’ll do it, she’ll keep her mouth shut for a long time.”
“She’ll crack in the end,” Mason said.
The endless hours of interrogation, the same questions over and over again, the feeling of isolation – and the way the police played on it – would break anyone but the toughest man. Who knew what damage it could do to the girl?
“Of course she’ll crack in the end,” Tony said. “That’s the beauty of it. When she does crack, what’s she got to tell them? Nothing except what we want them to know anyway!”
Mason signalled, and overtook a tourist bus unloading a few dozen eager, camera-swinging Japanese at the entrance to Hyde Park. He turned down Sloane Street.
Just what kind of mind had Tony developed?
“I thought we were going back to your place,” Horton said.
“I’ve changed my mind," Mason replied. “I fancy a trip south of the river. Listen, Tony, I really don’t want to use her.”
“Well, I do,” Horton replied, and there was a dangerous edge to his voice. “You said it was up to me, and she’s the one I want.”
They were inches away from a fight, Mason realized, and one that had nothing to do with Susan at all – at least not directly. He had treated Tony like a growing son over the years, gradually giving him more and more responsibility until the young man had become his second-in-command. And now he was playing the stern father, pulling the rug from under Tony, telling him that he didn’t trust his judgment. And the judgment was right – it was a clever plan to use the girl. It just didn’t feel right.
He couldn’t afford to antagonize Tony, not at this stage of the operation, not when everything was so delicately balanced.
“I’ll tell you what,” he said. “You try and get another woman – try really hard, Tony. But if you don’t find one, then it’s Susan we’ll use. Fair enough?”
“Fair enough,” Horton said.
If the police really put her through it, he would see that she was well compensated, Mason promised. He’d give her a few thou out of his own cut. She could leave the dingy boarding house they’d dropped her off at, and could get somewhere decent. And buy some new clothes. For a few hours’ discomfort, he’d be giving her more money than she could earn in a couple of years. That was a fair trade – wasn’t it?
For the second time since he’d met the girl, Mason felt ashamed.
“I used to live there,” Mason said, pointing across the wasteland to the billboard announcing the imminent construction of a block of flats. “Right there, just under the word ‘luxury’.”
Tony merely grunted noncommittally.
Well, he didn’t know what to say, Mason thought. Brought up on the ‘good’ side of Greenwich, he had no idea what it had been like to be a kid in this district – the corner shops, the narrow streets, the decaying houses.
Memories …
Dad, coming home from the pub, his breath sour with alcohol, his face creased with frustration and disappointment. Dad, swaying with the drink, looking down at his young, half-starved son and saying, “I’ll teach you, you little bastard.”
Teach him what?
What had he done?
And then the beating. Maybe in other homes the father actually did strip off his leather belt and lay in with that, but Spike Mason could never wait that long – it was the flat of his hand if Frank was lucky, fists if he wasn’t.
Mum, shaking him roughly as he lay shivering in his bed on cold winter nights and saying, “You’ll have to get up. Your Uncle Reggie’s here, and he wants to lie down for a bit.”
Uncle Reggie? Uncle Charlie, Uncle Walter, Uncle Stanley … a succession of men who had a few quid in their pockets, felt like a shag, and knew Peggy was always willing to oblige.
“Why do I come back?” Mason asked himself.
Because this was also the neighbourhood in which he’d joined Ted Sims’ gang, gradually becoming a respected figure, a man to be reckoned with. And that was still true. However much he felt his life was a failure, however much he considered that he had tak
en the wrong turn and was now trapped by the consequences – driven down the narrow tunnel of crime from which there was no escape – he was still regarded as one of the area’s success stories. And now and again, on days like today, he felt the need to be looked up to.
Mason was surprised to find, among this blight of urban decay, that Spooner’s Snooker Hall was not only still standing, but even appeared to be open.
“Fancy a quick game?” he asked.
Tony said he didn’t mind.
Mason opened the door.
“Watch the steps,” he advised. “There’s three of them.”
The place hadn’t changed at all: the same barn of a room, gloomy apart from the brilliant lights over the tables, the same peeling green paint and flyblown notices; the same old Greasy Spooner too, standing in front of the refreshment counter, his bony elbows sticking out of the holes in his knitted green cardigan – and he’d been older than God when Mason was a lad.
Frank walked over to the counter. Faded cardboard signs advertised cigarettes the tobacco companies had long since ceased making. The milk machine whirred erratically, its central propeller hardly stirring the yellowing liquid that surrounded it. The box of contraceptives, which Greasy used to keep under the counter, was now on open display, but looking at the packets it seemed likely that all the rubbers were well past their shag-by date.
He took a five-pound note out of his wallet.
“Give me some change, Greasy.”
“Right, Frank … er … Mr. Mason,” Spooner said, diving for the wooden cash drawer. “We … er … don’t often see you round here nowadays.”
People in this neighbourhood were never sure whether to treat him like a long-lost friend or a visiting superstar.
Mason grinned good-naturedly.
“You know how it is, Greasy – I’ve been busy.”
The hall was empty except for five young lads, all dressed in sleeveless jean-jackets, who were crowded round the far table.
Just like in my day, Mason thought, except that back then they'd have been wearing cheap snazzy suits.
But their motive would be the same as his generation’s. Snooker was not only a way of killing time: it offered them a chance, a slight one, of being the next Hurricane Higgins, of an escape from poverty and tedium.
The Madeiran Double Cross Page 4