Girls

by Bill James

  And, Ralph would admit, usually this might be correct. But he, Ralph Ember, or Ralph W. Ember, was not covered by that ‘usually’. Ralph Ember, or Ralph W. Ember, did not see himself as a ‘usual’ kind of person. It would be beyond the WPC and her sergeant to realize that some men followed intense, kindly, constructive impulses, and, yes – since this girl came from abroad – kindly, constructive impulses of an international dimension.

  When he felt the armagnac start to take him over, Ralph came out from behind the bar and did some of the security checks and preparations he made almost every night before shut-down. He fancied a bit of normality. It would always console him to tour sectors of his ground. Ralph felt certain George V was heartened as King Emperor when he visited India for the ‘Delhi Durbar’ in 1911 at the start of his reign. Ralph often thought of British India, because of the age of Low Pastures. He went to close the main Monty door, preventing any more customers entering, though people could leave by using the inside handle. Yes, leave, leave, leave, now, you fucking soaked limpets and limpettes. As he pushed the door he was aware of someone standing shadowed in the club car park nearby, a man, short, burly, perhaps wearing a cravat rather than a tie and a broad-brimmed, Stetson-style shiny black hat. This visitor had put himself close against a people carrier – perhaps his own – and was difficult to spot. He must know about such things. He did not move but stood very solid looking at Ember, who was framed by the open door and lit from the bar behind. He realized at once what a beautifully outlined sight and target he must be and wanted to shove the door shut. Company rivalry might not be confined to Chilton Park.

  But, because he realized at once what a beautifully outlined sight and target he must be, a giant panic grabbed Ember, rushing in to cancel all the happy, soothing armagnac, and bringing twenty seconds of paralysis, plus other routine symptoms. The door remained open. His brain worked all right, though, and came up with something perceptive and obvious: God, what use a fucking shield if I stroll out from behind it and present myself unarmed? After those twenty seconds he still didn’t shut the door but as a priority got his right hand up to touch the jaw scar, almost as those two women – Eva and Brinn – had touched it earlier. But Ralph didn’t caress and reverence the long blemish. His was a standard, ludicrous twitch. Whenever a full panic encompassed him he believed that as part of general break-up his scar had opened and was weeping something obnoxious on to his neck. The scar never did open, naturally, but this involuntary rigmarole always kicked in. Yes, absurd, obsessional, but it did mean the paralysis had begun to pass. He could raise a hand to confirm the scar stayed scar and had not reverted to a wound. This nonsensical, craven action he could regard as an advance. His body worked.

  ‘Excuse the cold call, but I hoped I’d be able to get a word, Mr Ember. I didn’t think you’d want me to come in, though.’

  Would Ember’s voice function? A panic sometimes knotted his throat muscles. ‘What word?’ he said. Not bad.

  ‘I know you’ve had a difficult encounter tonight. The police unpleasantness.’

  ‘A mistake.’

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘It’s their job, I suppose. One has to see it like that.’ He had begun to loosen. So, should he slam the door now? He might have, but three long-term, the-night-is-young, piss artists were on their way out. In any case, to cower behind the door would be entire Panicking Ralphy, wouldn’t it, a contemptible relapse? ‘What word?’ he said.

  ‘Of course, I’m familiar with your name, Mr Ember – as a major figure in this city.’

  ‘More folk know Tom Fool than Tom Fool knows,’ Ember replied. He thought it stupendous to get this bunkum from his memory in conditions like these.

  ‘And I’m interested in the attention you’ve been giving the Morton Cross area. Up there tonight, and before that with Manse Shale when Tirana got his. This was remarkable – I mean the cash to the Alb kid. A colleague observed that, but the police pounce tonight I witnessed for myself. It looked to me as if you kept wonderfully calm during that affront.’

  ‘I see composure as an essential in such circumstances, a sort of duty to selfhood.’

  ‘Few could manage it, though. Afterwards, I had some talk with Eva.’

  ‘You are?’ Ember loved this phrasing. No panic touched it, not a fucking trace. He thought it made him sound assured, capable of total, kiss-my-arse insolence to a stranger. That seemed the right way to respond to someone who arrived for a chat in a car park at nearly 2 a.m., and acted uppity by showing straight off he knew plenty plus. Hit back.

  ‘Eva’s one of mine,’ he replied. ‘She said she called herself that with you tonight. She was impressed by the hundred.’ He held up one hand. ‘And I don’t want you to fret about where the extra twenty goes. You obviously intended that for herself. Would I touch it? Never, you can rely on this. She kept the twenty and her usual cut of the eighty.’

  But Ember remembered what Eva said about the need for sex if money passed, so a girl could not be accused of selling information. ‘She’s a useful little piece,’ Ember said. ‘Clean. We went to Easy Lay.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A hundred seemed right. I really liked her.’

  ‘She felt the same about you – and not just thanks to the money.’

  ‘One thing I’ve learned in business – reward good service, because good service is rare,’ Ember replied.

  ‘And she enjoyed the conversation.’

  ‘I think these girls should be treated as if they’re more than . . . more than receptacles. Some preliminary courtesies are simple decency.’

  ‘They don’t always get it, Mr Ember – decency from clients.’

  ‘That’s so regrettable. Look, I’ve got things to do here. I don’t think –’

  ‘Do you know what I say to myself, Mr Ember?’

  ‘Should I?’ Again, Ember really prized the ‘Fuck off, Mr Big-gob’ quality in this.

  ‘I say, learn from the Albs, Mr Ember. All right, they’re new, they’re unBritish, some of them probably shouldn’t even be here. And they have what could be seen at first as unusual methods – working around suburbia heaven – Morton Cross – for instance, and dealing girls not just substances. Yes, these are abnormal, even freakish, at an initial view. But why? I’m not one to reject good ideas because they’re Alb good ideas.’

  ‘You run a firm?’ Ember had deduced who he was.

  ‘Cologne,’ he replied. ‘Adrian Cologne.’

  ‘The name’s around, yes.’

  ‘Only one of several, so far.’

  ‘Yes, several.’

  ‘Not a name like Ralph Ember’s,’ Cologne said, with a very jolly, modest laugh. ‘The resonance. Not yet. But they didn’t build ICI overnight.’

  ‘I like to think I’ve contributed to the development and status of this city, and will go on contributing.’

  ‘I can see why you’d want to pay off that young whore in the car with Tirana,’ Cologne replied.

  ‘More of that simple decency we’ve spoken of. I hope I have always – and will always – uphold such decency.’

  ‘I’m not saying you or Shale popped Tirana and wanted any witness gone. My feeling is, if you’d killed Tirana you’d have killed the girl, too, for silence’s sake. That would be only logical. Who wants blabs around? Police would get a translator for her soon enough.’

  ‘Look, I –’

  ‘I see it as clever to send that girl away, all the same. There could have been misunderstandings – maybe deliberate misunderstandings by that scheming major cop – Vials?’

  ‘Iles.’

  ‘I’m still learning the scene.’

  ‘You might be infringing on a girl of his.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Honorée.

  ‘Oh, her. She’ll learn.’

  ‘Iles is liable to –’

  ‘And Iles’s henchman. The thug one. Harpur. If that kid had started blurting a description of you two, it could be trouble. I know Iles has been kindly in some a
spects to you and Shale – why I’m here, as a matter of fact – but he would not be able to ignore that kind of information, would he? Not even Iles. All right, you might knock down his case eventually but by then all kinds of damage would have been done to your name. My view is, you and Shale were up there at Morton because you’d heard the trade openings might be brilliant, and you ran into the Tirana situation by accident. In that quick, resolute way I gather you’re famed for, Mr Ember, you saw what was best to do and did it. I’m told Shale took much longer in assessing things. Well, that’s believable. Who thinks as fast as Ralph Ember?’

  The last customers left the club. Ember said: ‘Let’s go inside briefly, Cologne. It’s more civilized.’ Ember had decided this visitor might have some thoughts worth a glance. And the bugger was knowledgeable to a creepy degree.

  Cologne came forward into the Monty and Ralph closed the door. There would be staff around for another half-hour clearing up. Cologne removed the Stetson. On Monty premises, Ralph would generally discourage business conversation about anything other than routine club matters, but he thought that as the bar was virtually empty, and this cold caller actually here, he could allow a brief meeting on other topics. They sat at a corner table and Ralph brought the Kressmann bottle, his own glass and another. He poured. Ember had been right about the cravat – a wide swirl of red, cream, ochre and violet. Cologne had on a brocade waistcoat that picked up some of these colours under a blazer striped red and navy worn open. Several bangles circled both wrists, possibly gold.

  Ember liked jokey clothes but found the methodical way Cologne talked strange after all this gloss. He was thick-necked, round-faced, button-nosed, dark-haired, his eyes dark and jumpy, his lips very pale and too thin against the rest of his features. Ember could see why he might go for lurid cravats to get attention away from his mouth. The bangles would also help. They clinked mildly when he moved his arms and gave off a wholesome glint. He looked to Ember like a racecourse tipster needing to stand out among punters. Or maybe a humanities university professor keen to seem picturesque and appear on TV as an expert.

  ‘And I think you’re on the ball, Mr Ember – if I may so venture!’ He laughed again. More modesty. The laugh said that Mr Ember was never in error. Ralph read the flattery, but this climber, Cologne, wanted to sell something, so smarm would be natural and excusable.

  ‘On the ball, how?’ Ember replied.

  ‘The future.’

  ‘In what respect?’ Ember said.

  ‘Morton Cross. Your instincts.’

  ‘Which?’

  ‘That this is where our kind of trade will flourish best.’

  ‘Our kind?’

  ‘Oh, I know you don’t run girls. I didn’t myself until lately. That’s what I mean – learn from the Albs, earn like the Albs. And then there’s the other side of business. All right, that Chilton Park episode – immensely regrettable. Yes, it will set back developments at Morton Cross and around for a while, perhaps even a substantial while. It’s awkward there now, hence your grief tonight with the prowl car. These emergency conditions won’t continue, though. The police will tire. They have other problems. And then . . . It’s obvious, isn’t it, that the Valencia is no longer a tolerable area for dealing – too run down and déclassé, even now when seeing some redevelopment? The trade is changing. Professional people want their commodity supplies, but they don’t want to go to somewhere like the Valencia for them. It’s forbidding. It’s frightening.

  ‘Oh, yes, The Eton Boating Song is down there and attracts some very select nostrils, but generally speaking the Valencia ambience is negative. That’s why I want to bring a girl like Honorée up here. It’s true that some trade people from Morton Cross are so nervous now after Chilton Park that they talk of transferring to the Valencia. But I regard this as very rushed and alarmist thinking. Hardly thinking at all. They’re panicking. I try to look at long-distance prospects, and I’m sure you do, too. In fact, I’m sure your whole life path is like that or you would hardly be where you are now. You would despise panic judgements.’

  Was this bastard on the mock? Ember knew that normally people did not use the word panic or panicking in his hearing, because of the way they might use the word Panicking out of his hearing. But perhaps Cologne, a fresh eye, had quickly spotted Ralph’s true qualities and ignored the abusive rumours and the filthy nickname, the way Eva did. Cologne got some things grossly wrong, of course. Ralph and Shale had not been at Morton to survey sale possibilities but to see off Tirana, and put an eternal stop on Morton as a competing trade site. But perhaps Cologne did not get everything wrong. He might sense Ralph’s huge actual worth and solidity behind occasional momentary spells of breakdown. ‘Things are extremely volatile,’ Ember replied.

  ‘That Chilton Park mess – not ultimately important. Not typical in any way – started by some gun-happy kid working for Tommy the Strong, as I hear it. Virtually an accident. The kid starts firing, so everyone does. I’m going to locate him and make sure he can do nothing similar again.’

  ‘What does that mean? Locate who?’ Again Ember recalled Manse Shale’s speculation about the Harpur girl’s boyfriend, Scott Grant. Ralph had noticed that Cologne got Harpur’s name right straight off, though not Iles’s. Had Cologne been concentrating on Harpur, trying to make a link from the Park to Harpur?

  ‘We can’t risk having people like that around, kid or not,’ Cologne said. ‘One of the essentials at Morton Cross will be harmony and peace. And that’s really why I’m here tonight, Mr Ember. These are your specialities, aren’t they, via ACC Iles? That’s what my research tells me.’

  ‘Mr Iles and I, we share certain attitudes.’

  ‘Tranquillity on the streets, and especially on the kind of cachet streets we have at Morton Cross?’

  ‘Such tranquillity – yes, Mr Iles and I both seek that. Who sane would not?’

  ‘Exactly. It is Iles rather than Harpur who puts tranquillity so high as a requirement, isn’t it?’

  ‘Mr Iles, yes. Harpur less so, or even totally against any intelligent, unspoken agreement between trade folk and the police. Harpur’s no great mind, you know. He looks at things too simply, because that’s all he can manage. His brain’s cloudy from too much womanizing.’

  ‘I’m glad it’s only Iles.’

  ‘Why?’

  The thin lips grew thinner. ‘I don’t want to make much of it at present. That OK? But let’s say some action will be necessary which could affect Harpur – if my information stands up.’

  ‘Affect him?’

  ‘Unfavourably.’

  ‘How?’ By removing the boyfriend of Harpur’s daughter?

  ‘Could we leave this now?’ Cologne drank and the right wrist bracelets rustled charmingly as he raised the glass. It struck Ember that Cologne had probably never been arrested and handcuffed or he wouldn’t like having his wrists under metal like that, even gold. These bangles could indicate big luck or tremendous carefulness. Cologne reeked of talent and threat. On the whole, Ember felt glad he had let him in. Cologne said: ‘I’m here to explain that I see a partnership opportunity – you, myself – at Morton Cross in due course, Mr Ember, perhaps also incorporating Mansel Shale. I know you two have an arrangement. I would supply the trade structure already in place up there, suspended for this period of crisis, yes, but ready always to be reactivated, and not entirely dormant, anyway, or you wouldn’t have met Eva tonight, would you? And, then in exchange for this, you could bring to this new area – new, that is for you – yes, you could bring the wonderful influence you have with Mr Iles, built so patiently during your glorious, continuing career.’

  Might he be correct about the Valencia? Had it started a trade decline, despite the marina-style rebuilding under way there? Was he correct also about the eventual promise of Morton Cross? Ember said: ‘Harpur to be affected somehow? That interests me.’

  ‘Possibly to be affected. I’ve got people doing some further research for me, as you’d expect after somet
hing like Chilton Park. At this stage, it’s uncertain. They’ve had difficulties keeping their observation unnoticed. Tailing secretly in a car – a very rare skill. But we progress. What is it they say – “Time spent on reconnaissance is never wasted.” ’

  ‘Reconnaissance where?’

  ‘I don’t like to talk about crux matters, though, until I’ve got things wholly clear.’

  Ember felt once more the contrast between Cologne’s Mardi Gras outfit and the discipline of his mind. Ember wondered if it had been a mistake to ask again about the impact of things on Harpur. In fact, Ember had asked because Harpur knew how to get rough in response if he considered he’d been messed about, and Ralph had wondered about warning Cologne. But to Cologne the question might sound like concern for Harpur, despite what Ember had said about Harpur’s simple, fuck-flustered mind. Perhaps Cologne distrusted Ember, feared leaks, suspected some network that, as a new boy, he did not understand and could not penetrate, yet. So, no details. And, of course, those suspicions would have good basis. Hadn’t Shale proposed that he and Ember should whisper advice to the boyfriend – advice to give up the trade and the weaponry? Like Cologne, Shale wanted Scott Grant to do no more gunnery around Morton Cross and Chilton Park, suppose he had taken part last time. Cologne proposed a killing. Shale proposed preaching. Cologne might upset Harpur. Shale yearned to please him. Ralph said: ‘Look, I must get home now. I’ll give your ideas a mull soon. Have you got a business card?’