Hitmen I Have Known

by Bill James

  Normally he sat at a particular spot behind the bar next to a kind of small desk in case he wanted to look over some paperwork. He’d had a thick, steel bulwark made to hang from the ceiling between the club’s main door and his seat. It gave a degree of protection in case someone slipped in and tried a quick burst of gunfire to kill him. To make the steel buffer look a bit less stark he’d had it covered with enlarged, colourful illustrations from William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Some members found this showy and pompous, and occasionally one of them would open fire at it, usually when drunk, causing very real danger from ricochets. This was another on-the-spot expulsion matter. Ralph knew it would be ineffective to ban all handguns. He recognized that members must be able to threaten what was once called ‘massive retaliation’ if attacked inside or near the club. Deterrence, he believed in it totally. But if someone actually fired a gun in The Monty, and especially if they fired at the Blake and damaged it, as had certainly occurred, they could no longer be regarded by Ralph as fit members of the club, even of the club before its promised renewal.

  He thought nothing like that was liable to happen that night, but those two, Mavis and Tasteful, had put him on edge. He decided he’d do two more very brief affability sessions with members in respectful honour of the Bastille overthrow and then get back behind his rampart. The price of liberty, fraternity and equality was eternal street-savvy.

  FIVE

  Next afternoon, Ralph drove over to see Mansel Shale. Yes, that stuff about Iles from Mavis and Tasteful had badly disturbed Ralph. It would also trouble Shale. As Ralph saw things, although Iles was unquestionably a loathsome bastard, he was a loathsome bastard who unquestionably kept the streets, pubs, caffs, massage parlours and disco dens of his domain more or less peaceful and more or less safe, except for occasional routine splinter-group turf battles, of course.

  Ralph wondered sometimes if it was actually because Iles rated unquestionably as such a loathsome bastard that the streets, pubs, caffs, massage parlours and disco dens stayed reasonably peaceful and safe, and therefore good for business – including, Ralph’s and Mansel’s busy, nicely parallel companies. Most likely on account of being such a loathsome bastard, Iles scared many villains into deep, timid, furtive caution and they tried not to provoke him by causing trouble and danger to ordinary law-abiding folk in the city’s streets, pubs, caffs, massage parlours and disco dens.

  Ralph certainly hated Iles, but Ralph – and Mansel – also depended on Iles. Ralph recognized this as a juicy paradox, and did everything he could to keep it sweetly alive. That would entail keeping Iles alive if the situation ever required it, and definitely entailed keeping Iles in his gorgeously powerful and magnificently unregulated job. The Operations in brackets behind his rank description – assistant chief constable (Operations) – could be a fucking monstrous pest, but they also helped preserve Ralph’s and Mansel’s incomes at a very useful and improving level, despite persistent national economic deficit and general financial troubles. For their firms to boom and continue booming Ralph and Mansel needed civic calm and no fussy interference by the police. Iles saw to both.

  Ralph and his family could not live on Monty returns only. He paid big fees for his two daughters at private school, even though, to his disappointment, no Latin or Greek was taught there. Then there were the costs of their ponies, stabling and riding, plus heavy repair and re-design work at Low Pastures, and some basic smartening up at the club, a small start on his all-out redemption project.

  He wondered now and then whether he should change the name of The Monty once the transformation was complete to The New Monty. Would that be brash, though? Brashness Ralph detested. Also, the point about those top-rate clubs in London that he yearned to imitate – such as The Athenaeum or The Carlton – was that they had a long, impressive history. In fact, this helped get them their terrific reputation. They were not jumped up. If The Athenaeum re-launched itself as The New Athenaeum it would sound gimmicky and vulgar. And if Ralph rechristened The Monty as The New Monty it might suggest there had been something wrong with the venue when it was simply The Monty. There had, in fact, been something wrong with The Monty – some things wrong with The Monty – or Ralph wouldn’t have felt the need for a change. But he thought it would be harsh to behave as though the present Monty and its membership were somehow lacking and inferior, although they obviously were.

  ‘I’ve had some intimations, Manse,’ Ember said. ‘I wouldn’t put it more definitely than that, but, yes, intimations. TV might be involved.’

  ‘Intimations re. what, Ralph?’

  ‘Iles.’

  ‘He’s the sort sure to set them off.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Intimations. If someone in a crowd said to me, “I can feel intimations nearby, though I can’t tell exactly what they’re to do with”, I would guess at once these intimations concerned Iles.’

  ‘This is not a matter of the immediate present,’ Ralph replied.

  ‘I can believe there’d be intimations about Iles whenever.’

  ‘And yet in some ways it is about the immediate present,’ Ralph replied.

  ‘Exactly my sense of things, Ralph.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Time.’

  ‘In which particular?’ Ember said.

  ‘Iles will be evil and dangerous regardless.’

  ‘Regardless of what, Manse?’

  ‘Time. Any time.’

  ‘This is a matter of the past suddenly coming back into play,’ Ember said, ‘so it does concern the present as well as the past. There could be a link.’

  ‘There’s a lot of that going on.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Links.’

  ‘There is,’ Ralph said. ‘It’s dangerous.’

  ‘If it’s to do with Iles it’s always going to be dangerous,’ Shale said.

  ‘You remember the garrotting?’ Ralph replied.

  ‘A garrotting is not something easy to forget.’

  ‘This is the then-and-now problem, Manse. Finding the link, if there is one.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Who what?’

  ‘Who’s searching for the link?’ Shale said.

  ‘There are people who think they have a sort of holy duty to dig into bygones, or seeming bygones. Authorities. Police. The government. They wouldn’t care about the difficulties they might cause us, Manse. You and I are not top of their worry list.’

  ‘Indifference is what we get.’

  ‘Worse.’

  ‘Worse than absolute indifference?’

  ‘Cruel,’ Ember said. ‘There’s a poem that deals with this. I had to study it. I expect you heard I was doing a university degree course.’ Ralph had decided that Tasteful’s mother wasn’t the only one who could cough up poems.

  ‘You’ve always been quite a scholar, Ralph. Famed for it.’

  ‘Ideas, Manse.’

  ‘Which?’

  ‘They’re what universities deal with. I make sure my mind is open. It’s as if I call out to ideas, “Come to me! You are welcome.”’

  ‘This is so like you, Ralph. Positive.’

  ‘It’s why I said cruel. A poem I had to study at uni mentioned April was the cruellest month because flowers started growing then out of dead ground. See any resemblances to the present state of things, Manse?’

  ‘Them poets, they have their visions, don’t they, Ralph, known as inspiration and they write them down? This inspiration comes to them whether they might be on a bus, or having high tea. They can’t control it. They don’t want to control it. That’s what inspiration is. It’s like a free gift suddenly arriving and not at all expected. Poets are well known for inspiration, plus rhymes.’

  ‘We usually think of April as a happy month, not a cruel one, but the poet says it’s wrong to start messing with something that’s over, such as the dead ground. Likewise, we most probably don’t want nosy sods poking about in, for instance, the past of someone like Iles.’

>   ‘I don’t think there is anyone like Iles, Ralph.’

  ‘Approximate.’

  ‘Does the poet know Iles?’ Manse said.

  ‘This is a poem called The Waste Land,’ Ralph replied

  ‘That would be just right for Iles. He’d really feel at home there. Did he do it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Make it a waste land.’

  ‘We have to look after him, Manse.’

  ‘Agreed. Looking after him we look after ourselves,’ Shale said.

  This was true, but Ralph wouldn’t have put it so direct and plain. Manse could be like that, though. He owned a converted rectory and they were talking in his drawing room. The big grey-stone villa with its long, hedge-lined drive had become too expensive for the St James’s Church to run, and Manse had told Ember he bought it at auction, cash down in elastic-banded bundles from a khaki canvas kitbag. Although Ralph saw some deep symbolism in this – religion routed by readies – he doubted whether Manse would understand. For Manse, a canvas kitbag was a canvas kitbag capable of getting stuffed by a noble quantity of fifties, twenties and tens.

  They were sitting in leather easy chairs, with glasses of what Ralph recognized as high-quality sherry, the kind that wasn’t asked for much by slurping members of the present Monty, but which would certainly be a favourite among the different class of clientele Ember wanted for the transformed, elevated Monty, or, possibly, New Monty.

  Ralph thought Shale didn’t really have the kind of face suitable for a former rectory, or, really, for any sort of dwelling with more than two bedrooms, but the rectory had seven. Looking at Manse’s face, though, you could believe that he was exactly the sort who’d go to a property auction with enough cash in a kitbag to buy anything he liked that came up. Oh, I think I’ll stick this lot on a rectory today. Ralph realized it wasn’t Manse’s fault he had his sort of shambolic face, and he would absolutely never say anything that might make Shale feel uncomfortable about his home. Ralph thought faces were a gamble, with a lot of losers.

  ‘How do we look after him, Ralph?’ Shale said.

  ‘That’s what I came to chat about.’

  ‘Did he do it?’

  ‘Nobody has ever been charged.’

  ‘I know. But did he do it?’ Shale replied.

  ‘Never charged, Manse. That’s what we have to keep in our minds, isn’t it?’

  ‘Is it? It’s why they want to dig into it, isn’t it, Ralph?’

  Ember thought Manse could sometimes sound pretty stupid. He wasn’t though. He wouldn’t have had a kitbag full of enough cash to buy a rectory otherwise.

  SIX

  Between them Ralph Ember and Shale controlled virtually all the city’s recreational drugs business. To ensure equality they divided the districts between them, using a detailed, nicely sensitive system. This obviously allowed for varying population size, but also factored in the apparent wealth, or not, of particular localities, the number of clubs, pubs, cafés, higher-education centres, seminaries, conference halls; and the racial patterns and general age range. Some of these calculations were guesses, of course, but Ralph and Mansel tried to make them intelligent guesses based on careful observation and long-term knowledge. They frequently revised the arrangement to take account of new information. Flexibility – as Ralph said, they couldn’t have believed in it more. This civilized understanding between him and Mansel made for a generally peaceful trade scene with both firms operating in their own similarly profitable areas and avoiding border trouble. Ralph especially was very alert to changes and potential changes that might put this excellent but fragile scheme in peril.

  Anything that seemed likely to damage Assistant Chief Constable (Operations) Iles or remove him from his post here darkly threatened this happy, productive Ralph–Manse alliance. Ember knew Iles thought the drugs game should be legalized, and so did many others in positions of influence and power. To Ralph, it looked as though the assistant chief (Operations) had privately decided Ralph Ember and Mansel Shale could be allowed to get on with their businesses as long as they stayed clear of serious violence – ‘serious’ meaning murder, attempted murder, kidnapping, torture, eye-gouging, grievous bodily harm, wounding.

  Ralph and Mansel did all they could to satisfy this condition, and especially concerning murder, attempted murder, kidnapping, eye-gouging, torture, grievous bodily harm, wounding. ‘No blood on the pavement,’ was their bonny, comforting shared logo. OK, there’d admittedly been some very bad episodes in Ralph’s past, but now he detested what he called ‘the vulgarity’ of turf wars and their ‘disgraceful animalism’ and ‘appalling waste’. Apparently, Glasgow had brazen, daylight killings by drug gangs openly in built-up areas. Well, Glasgow was Glasgow and a long way off, but when he read press reports of these murders it made him even more determined to maintain decent tranquillity and order here – a kind of bargain, unspoken but strong, with ACC Iles (Operations). Ralph might detest Iles as much as Ralph detested turf wars, but Iles offered smart compromise and helped crucially with Ralph’s good livelihood. Ember recognized that he and his family might not have been so pleasantly settled in their manor house, Low Pastures, except for Iles (Operations), the strutting, unchummy sod.

  Ember realized, though – and maybe Mansel also realized it – that if Iles were replaced, his successor would possibly – probably – do some rough new-brooming and ditch the Iles policy of limited, quid pro quo tolerance. In fact, Ralph feared that the replacement might be deliberately picked by the Home Office to piss on that Iles policy and reverse it, perhaps savagely reverse it. The minister is minded to give Assistant Chief Constable (Operations) Iles a merry kick in the bollocks. That might be the kind of briefing for the new boy or girl. Ministers often got ‘minded’. TV grew alert when a minister got ‘minded’. The government didn’t favour legalization, and most likely would not feel lovingly towards Iles.

  For both Ralph and Mansel the present masterminding by the ACC (Ops) produced about £600,000 each a year, and improving. Naturally, it was untaxed. How could it be taxed when the trade was still in theory illegal? To tax it would be to endorse it. Iles did quietly endorse it, but Iles was not the Home Office. He’d gladly confirm this. So would the Home Office, in fact, more gladly.

  ‘Can we find these people?’ Mansel said.

  ‘Which?’

  ‘Find them in time,’ Shale replied.

  ‘Which people?’

  ‘Before they can do real damage. Once something like that gets started it can go anywhere, like wildfire.’

  ‘Damage by which people?’

  ‘The law crew trying to get Iles for the slaughters. Do we see them off, Ralph – put an end to their unnecessary, dirty plotting?’

  ‘See them off in which sense, Manse?’

  ‘In the eliminate sense. Remove them one to one or as a group. Either way, we provide the right quantity of rapid fire to finish them and finish the poking about. Kill. It would be a sort of … you know … what-they-call-it?’

  ‘What they call what?’

  ‘Like it was in the Balkans. Wiping out a whole lot.’

  ‘Cleansing?’ Ralph said. ‘Ethnic cleansing.’

  ‘Yes, cleansing, not ethnic but getting rid of the unwanted. Destroy them and others won’t want to come in case they get the same. Yes, cleansing. Necessary. Purifying.’

  There were times when Ralph did wonder briefly how the fuck he ever got associated with someone as periodically demented as Shale. ‘I don’t think it can be done quite like that, Manse,’ Ember said, his voice gentle and instructive, as if explaining things to a half-stunned child. ‘It has to be a lot more … well, roundabout, more schemed.’

  ‘That’s like you, Ralph,’ Mansel replied.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Roundabout. It’s plain you been to that uni down the road. They like what are known as topics, don’t they, and then there’s discussion in a roundabout way so as to keep it going until the bell says end of lesson. Lots of “but on the ot
her hands” and “in that kind of ballpark”. Myself, I never went to the university, though people might not realize that and, in any case, I’d rather do it with .9-mm Heckler and Koch shells these days. They sort of wrap everything up neat and tidy. I think Des Iles would like this idea. It don’t leave any doubt.’

  This was the thing about Mansel. He wanted to run his companies without violence, as Iles required, but if there was a threat from outside he would react in one way, and only one way: gunfire. His mind could get taken over. For this, there was a terrible explanation, and because of it Ralph always tried to be sympathetic, patient and tender – attempted to get him back to something near what was, for Mansel, normality.

  Not long ago Shale’s second wife and his schoolboy son, Laurent, were shot dead in a botched car ambush. Shale’s teenage daughter, Matilda, had been in the Jaguar with them but survived, and she and Mansel lived alone in the St James’s ex-rectory now. To Ralph this didn’t seem healthy.

  Mansel was real target of that attack, but the hired gunman obviously panicked, rushed the job, and made deadly errors. Ralph was sure the deaths had pushed Mansel’s mind askew. He had retreated to religion, seeking strength and consolation. This didn’t seem to have worked for long, if at all, though he’d told Ralph he didn’t blame vicars because they had to keep their minds on litanies and that kind of ‘sing-song, dignified malarkey in churches.’ Now, he had returned to commerce, but with a frightening belief in the ever-ready power of small-arms fire. He had seen this power used against his family. It had been a mistake, but Ralph realized that didn’t matter to Manse. He wanted some of it so he could defend his interests and himself. Plus, he seemed to be set on retaliation and a sort of revenge. It wasn’t against the people who killed his wife and son. They were not around. But it was as if he had fashioned a general hatred for the kind of world and type of life that could wipe out his loved ones, wipe them out by accident. This made it worse – the disgusting randomness, as though his wife and son should be annihilated just for the sake of it, no real purpose. He seemed instinctively to think salvoes, rapid bursts, strafing, volleys, perhaps, in fact, some form of perverted reprisal. Mansel considered this was how to make things ‘neat and tidy’.