Freddie clears his plate and pushes it away. He’s sitting back in his chair and starting to relax. In fact he’s getting a bit too cocky, a bit too confident. I can see his brain clicking over. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and reaches over and takes one of Morty’s Bensons but he leaves a nasty greasy thumb-stain on the gold packet. Morty clocks it. Only his eyes move. Freddie lights the snout, takes a drag and blows it out like it was a big fuckin chunky cigar and he’s celebrating a pools win. He rolls the fag between his greasy thumb and forefinger, with a silly grin on his boat, but then he’s up and leaning on the table with his elbows, sucking bits of debris out from between his teeth.
‘Morty, how ya fixed for a coupla quid for old times’ sake? I can’t get to work cos the gathers got my card marked,’ he says.
Morty don’t say a dickey-bird but like a robot goes into his trouser pocket, pulls out a wedge and pulls a couple of twenties off and drops them on the tabletop.
‘Ya couldn’t make it a nice round sixty sovs, could ya, Mort?’
Mister Mortimer goes back in his kick and brings out another score note and drops it on the table. This is very fuckin strange cos Morty won’t usually entertain mackerels. He’ll give people readies but not if they ask.
‘This on you, Morty?’ pointing at his plate. ‘For old times’ sake, ay?’
This Freddie’s tearing the arse outta things. Morty just shrugs like he’s mute. Freddie gives Morty a tiny wink with a sideways flick of the head. He’s got a smug little smirk on his face. No disrespect to ya Freddie mate, I’m thinking, but you’re a complete cunt.
‘All right, Mort,’ he says and gives him another sly wink. There is an unspoken ‘All right, Mort, you muggy-cunt’. Some people think kindness is weakness. For a split second Freddie is blatantly taking the piss outta Morty to his face and Mort’s just gazing over his shoulder into space, like he’s had a draw, with a thin smile on his face.
Then it all goes horribly wrong. Freddie, probably the story of his life, sees it too late. His eyes suddenly fill with terror, his arms come up to try to protect himself but Morty is up and in a flash snatches the hair on the back of his head, wrenches it back one time and brings it crashing down onto the tabletop and plates at a million miles an hour. Fred’s nose explodes with a damp thud and I hear the crushing of bone. Morty pulls it back and does it again. Blood sprays over my raincoat. I jump back as the table gets thrown across the floor. Fred’s just paralysed with shock. He don’t even make a token feeble attempt to get away, he just falls against the wall. Morty’s got him by the throat and he’s hitting him around the head with everything that ain’t nailed down. The sauce bottles have got smashed into his face. The heavy glass ashtray’s bounced off his jaw, face and skull, once, twice, ten times. Freddie’s trying to cover his head with his hands but Morty’s totally lost it and the shit’s raining down on Fred’s head. Morty’s moved in close on him, halted for a split second to steady his feet, and then kneed him once, twice, hard in the guts, right in the middle of the ribcage, pushing all the wind outta him. Freddie’s gone crimson. His head’s thrown back in the air. As he comes back down he’s vomiting, doubled over. Morty’s held him up by the back of the collar and given him two rapid, one two, knees in the face and let him fall backwards to the deck. His face is smashed to fuckin pieces, a bloody mess. He’s dazed and starts pleading with Morty, ‘No! no! no!’ he’s begging, but Morty’s just pulling him to bits. He’s standing over him screaming, ‘You cunt, you wanna laugh, do ya? Wanna laugh at me, do ya? I’ll kill ya, ya cunt.’
Now he’s kicking him in the side of the head with the heel of his shoe, screaming ‘Cunt’ as he connects each time. It’s almost become rhythmic, ‘You cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt’. Morty’s trying to break Freddie’s neck and Freddie’s head is flying off at different angles. His face is pain and disbelief, his eyes rolling back in his head. As Morty’s stomping him, Freddie for some strange reason keeps trying to get up, like a drunk struggling to get upright. He doesn’t wanna fight, he just wants to get up. Stay down, for fuck’s sake, you stupid cunt.
‘You wanna laugh, do ya? Let’s all ‘ave a fuckin good laugh, shall we, you fat cunt,’ screams Morty as he takes a swift four-step run-up and kicks Freddie’s head like a football. Fred crashes backwards and ends up spread-eagled except for one leg that’s tucked under him, on the slippery floor. His head’s off at a nasty angle to his shoulders, his nose pouring blood. He’s shaking and jerking around, trembling, like he’s throwing a fit. Morty kicks him twice more in the head.
‘Now fuckin laugh, Fredrick.’
It’s all taken about three or four seconds, top whack, and Morty’s standing over him slightly huffing and puffing. Freddie looks like he’s been dropped from a tenth-storey window. He’s lying awkwardly in the sauces and his own blood that’s smeared on the café floor.
‘You wanna cuppa tea, Freddie? Let’s all have a nice cuppa tea and a good laugh, ay, Fred? What do you think? Where ya been, ya fuckin cunt? I ain’t seen ya ‘round.’
Morty’s walked behind the counter. The owner’s just put his head in his hands, eyes down. He’s picked up the big steel teapot from off the hotplate and come back to where Fred’s lying.
‘Yeah, a nice cuppa tea, Fred. Don’t worry, this one’s on me, for old times’ sake, put your money away, Freddie.’
He starts to pour the scalding hot tea over Fred’s already bloody head. Freddie lets loose a terrifying scream. It’s complete agony, torture. He pulls himself into the foetal position, sobbing. I’m shittin myself at this sudden explosion. This is too much.
‘He’s had enough, fuck’s sake, leave him,’ I shout at Morty.
Morty stops pouring, turns, looks me right in the eyes, like cold. ‘You can fuck off ‘n’ all, okay? Don’t ever try and tell me when enough is enough, okay, son?’
I ain’t saying nothing. I ain’t risking a hiding on Fred’s account. Morty dumps the pot and remaining tea all over Freddie’s face in one hit and he screams even louder than the first time. The teapot hits Fred’s cheek with a clank, then goes spinning across the floor. He’s left with a steaming teabag by his ear.
An old geezer’s table has disappeared from in front of him but he’s still got the knife and fork held upright in his hands. The waitress has her hand held up against her throat like she’s trying to comfort herself, stroking herself gently, her eyes transfixed on Freddie’s body as he pulls himself even tighter into a ball and wraps his hands around his head. Morty looks about the near-empty café, just daring anyone to say anything or make a move. Nobody does. They’d wanna be mad cos he’s glaring, shaking with energy, spitting, walking backwards in a wide sweep towards the door. The tables and chairs have been scattered so he’s picking up the ones in his way and slinging them to the side. In all this shit, I’m standing trying to wipe Freddie’s blood off my coat but I only drag it across the cloth making it look worse. There’s a trio of builders sitting at a table looking straight down rather than at me and Morty. One of them musta sneaked a crafty look at him. Suddenly Morty’s walking back towards them.
‘What you cunts fuckin looking at? Ya fuckin mugs,’ he says low and cold. I spin round and the guys are back staring down, rigid, scared to breathe. The geezer behind the counter knows the score cos he’s very gently, very slowly, moving lower and lower until he disappears altogether. Another time, another place, it would be comical.
Morty walks back and opens the door but he’s still sweeping the café with his eyes, like a searchlight. I’m frozen, rooted to the spot. He points at me silently with his gloved hand, then jerks his thumb over his shoulder out the door. He’s still looking in every direction at once. The only sounds are the sizzling of the frying food, the hissing of hot water, the sobbing of the waitress and the groans and snotty crying of Freddie. As I step over him to get to the door he starts to gurgle like a baby on his blood. He’s got blood coming outta his ear as well, always a bad sign, poor cunt. I carefully pick my way through the u
pturned tables and chairs cos the floor is slippery with tea, teabags, red sauce, brown sauce and blood. I walk out the door and back onto the Cally Road.
We walk fast, trying to be inconspicuous, heads slightly down. Morty’s pulling his mac tight around him over and over again. We move rapid, looking directly ahead. The traffic’s moving and people are busy so we blend in. Morty abruptly shoots up a side street. I follow. He’s muttering to himself.
‘Cunt. Always got something to say, you wanna laugh at me you cunt, do ya? Always chat, chat chatting.’
Freddie ain’t even here. He ain’t met him in years. Morty’s gone psycho, twitching, eyes darting all over, turning round to walk backwards for three or four steps at a time to check to see if we’re being followed. He’s more crazy now than he was back in the café. He was spookily controlled back there, it was like surgery, it was genuinely callous. Now he’s into some kinda delayed-action tip, spitting on the floor, cursing Freddie. Now the adrenaline’s really pumping into every cell. I’m seriously scared I may catch some of it, he’ll go right into rogue-mode and trip out over some old or imagined slight now the paranoia’s rushing full blast, now the juices are flowing. I’m alight, shaking with it, myself.
Morty seems to know the area well, cos we’re zigzagging through little streets and housing estates, walking fast and sometimes breaking out into a trot for a dozen steps at a time. Morty’s always a few steps ahead, darting round corners, telling me to fuckin keep up for fuck’s sake. Suddenly he stops on a bridge by the entrance to a canal.
‘Listen, go through that archway there–’ He points at an archway leading into a council estate ‘– and keep going in the same direction, okay? You’ll come out on Upper Street eventually. Buy a paper, get a cab right away, head outta town, don’t go straight home, read the paper in the cab, cover your face, yeah?’
Morty doesn’t want us getting a pull together. I can hear the first of the wailing sirens. He doesn’t want some have-a-go-hero cab driver telling the law that they picked up two people who fit our descriptions.
‘Sure, sure, sure, Mort.’
I turn to go. I get three steps but he calls me back. I feel like ignoring it.
‘Listen, I’m sorry about Fred but he fuckin begged for it.’ He sounds sane but the eyes are on fire, raging.
‘I know, Mort.’
I can hear a helicopter overhead. That ain’t unusual for King’s Cross but maybe it’s looking for us.
‘I’ll catch you later. Remember what I said, lose yourself.’
I head off my way and he disappears down some steps onto the canal towpath.
‘Fuckin cunt, Freddie,’ I can hear him saying as he goes.
Aftermath
I came out onto Upper Street ten minutes later. I bought the Evening Standard with the exact right change, hailed a cab straight away and mumbled for him to take me up to Seven Sisters station. I did like Morty told me and held the paper in front of my face all the way so the driver didn’t even try to engage me in conversation. I couldn’t have read it anyway. I thought about Freddie, how one minute he’s like one of those big stupid dogs, licking its own bollocks, and ten seconds later he’s fucked, simply snapped in two, his life’s never gonna be the same again. From Seven Sisters I got on the Victoria Line all the way down to Green Park. I got out the tube and went and bought a new jacket in Bond Street. I had the old raincoat folded over my arm so only the lining’s showing.
I wanna wear the new jacket and put my mac in the bag so I slip down a little side turning. As I’m checking to see if there’s anything I need in the pockets, I come across the napkin with the address Cody gave me only a couple of hours before. I glance in a shop window and there’s a beautiful leather coat with a fur collar but a two-grand price tag. On Monday morning Kinky coulda walked in there and bought that but now he’s gonna be looking at modelling a two-quid grey plastic zip-up body bag. If he’s lucky. If someone, and it falls to me, makes the call.
Nobody notices me as I walk back down to Piccadilly and wait my turn for the phone-box. I tear the napkin so I’ve got the part I wrote the address on and use the rest to handle the receiver and not leave prints. I ring 999 and a voice answers immediately.
‘Which service do you require?’
‘Ambulance.’
‘At what address, Sir?’
I give her the address. I’m looking at the entrance to the Ritz at the same time. There’s a woman’s miniature poodle snapping at the doorman but everyone’s laughing, amused by the little whippersnapper’s antics.
‘There’s a body there, a dead one, but I think the door is open.’
‘And you are, Sir?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know your name?’
‘No, I don’t. Not at the moment.’
‘I’m going to need a name.’
‘Trevor Atkins,’ I say.
‘That’s you, Sir?’
‘That’s your name. You said you needed a name.’
I put the phone down, walk up Piccadilly and put the napkin in a litter bin, conscience clear. I stroll in Green Park for a while, have a coffee by the ornate lake and then finally get a cab all the way home.
The canister’s seriously spun. When I sit down I wanna be up pacing around and then I just walk from room to room, talking into the mirror in the bathroom like some fuckin nutcase. It was some devastating, short sharp shock treatment I witnessed back there. I go back into the bedroom to try and lie down for a while but I spot the torn Rothman’s packet on the bedside table and ring Gene’s number. It rings about seven or eight times and I’m about to put the phone down when he answers. ‘Yeah?’
‘Hello, Gene, how you doing?’
‘Okay, son. You?’ His Irish accent seems exaggerated over the phone.
‘Well, I’m not really sure as it goes, Gene.’
‘Come over. Jump in a cab and come over. I need to talk to you anyway. You got a pen? A bitta paper?’
I take down his address. He says leave the car and jump in a cab, ring me again when I’m downstairs.
He lives in this Edwardian block somewhere down in Maida Vale. I get the cab to drop me on the corner and I walk up to Gene’s entrance. I ring. He buzzes me in. The lift’s a fuckin relic where you have to pull back the folding door yourself. The bits and pieces of shiny brass have been polished till they’re round at the edges but the halls seem dusty. Gene lets me in the flat, sticks me in the sparse front room and goes back to the bathroom cos he’s halfways through having a shave and he’s covered in foam.
There’s a hefty leather-bound copy of Blackstone’s Criminal Practice open at page 685, about halfway through. Gene walks in wiping his face with a towel and sees me looking at his book. ‘You know, a bloke I know in a bookshop once told me the most stolen books are academic ones.’
‘Really,’ I say. ‘It kinda figures. Students spunk the grant on beers and choore the necessary.’
‘Right. And you know what the most stolen academic books are?’
‘I’m gonna say law cos I think that’s a massive clue,’ I say, pointing at Geno’s light reading.
‘And you’d be right, young sir,’ he says, bowing his head graciously.
‘I actually think that’s an urban myth,’ I say.
‘Never let the truth get in the way of a good story,’ he says with a wink. ‘You hungry?’
I realise that I’ve not eaten in hours, not since the tuna sandwich standing on the pavement in Soho, but I ain’t all that hungry, I’ve got a twist in my stomach, but I reckon I better eat cos otherwise I’m gonna get more light-headed, more and more tripped out.
‘Why? What yer suggestin?’
‘I can have a Chinky sent up, real good gear, delivered.’
‘Sounds like a good idea.’
Gene wanders out and comes back with an open can of lager and hands it to me. Then he shuffles through an impressive collection of takeaway menus and rings the number. He orders a ‘D’ for four and a few ot
her bits and pieces. ‘There’s never enough in a set dinner for two,’ he shrugs.
He doesn’t give the guy his name. They seem to know it already. He asks them to collect forty Rothman’s on the way up as well. ‘Follow the usual form,’ he tells the Chinaman on the other end of the phone. Geno puts the phone down, goes into a cabinet and comes out with two chunky tumblers and a bottle of Irish whiskey. He puts the glasses on the coffee table in front of us and pours two very large drinks.
‘About half an hour,’ he says, nodding at the phone. ‘Now, I know you normally don’t drink the hard stuff but you look a tad perplexed, not your customary inscrutable self. This here is Irish whiskey. Like the bagpipes, the Irish invented it but the Scots stole the idea and got rich on the back of it. Only the Irish do both with more feelin. Here,’ he says, raising a glass to me, ‘it’ll take the rough edges off.’
‘I’ve had quite a day already,’ I say.
‘I know. I heard about Kinky and Freddie.’
‘You spoke to Morty?’
‘Very fuckin briefly but I’ll talk to him again, maybe later tonight.’
How come these fucking guys know everything that goes down almost as soon as it happens? What, they got their own fuckin radio station?
‘What about Freddie? Does anyone know anything about him?’
‘He’s in intensive care. He’s got a brain haemorrhage, like what boxers get, a couple in fact, touch and go, though. They took him in a helicopter to the London Hospital in Whitechapel.’
‘He looked real bad, really fuckin weighed. I thought he might be, you know, dead.’
‘Well, it does happen,’ says Gene.
‘It did fuckin happen, Gene.’
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