by Simon Jenner
“I’m sorry,” she said returning to her hanging coat. “I thought I’d picked up a five hundred pound note.”
What had she just said? She knew there was no such note, right? She looked at John whose mouth had disappeared behind his hand but she could see the laughter in his eyes. Bastard. This time she took small and slow steps on her way back with two fifty pound notes in her hand. She looked into the old man’s eyes. There wasn’t a hint of emotion in there. She handed him the cash.
“Keep the change,” she said.
This time a thin-lipped broad smile stretched across his face giving him the look of a man ten years younger, although, what age that placed him at, she wasn’t at all sure. She was a dither with acute embarrassment which the heat from her cheeks confirmed.
“Thank you very much, Madam,” he said, backing away. “Thank you very much indeed.”
When the door closed behind the waiter John removed his hand from his face to reveal cheeks full of air. Savannah delivered her fiercest stare.
“Don’t say a bloody word,” she said.
*
A chilly wind greeted John and Savannah as they turned off Piccadilly and into the side street where Aphrodite’s Angels was situated. The sun appeared intermittently between fast-moving, cotton wool clouds. As expected, the street was quiet, offering little to attract the masses at this time of day.
John’s new and improved Rolex Daytona told him it was 9:15 A.M. He unscrewed the smaller button above the winder on the watch. Unlike his original this did not enable the stop/start function but sent a signal to agents Johnson and Wilson. Hopefully, if the need arose to set off the transmission, the pair of agents would make good on their promise of rapid assistance. With the button already unscrewed he could now activate the watch without making it too obvious. They stopped one door down from their destination and peered into the window of the independent travel agents.
Savannah wore John’s black coat over her new black dress. John wore the jacket, shirt and trousers from Harrods. He could have done with an extra layer to protect him from the cold but his anorak didn’t suit the image he was looking to portray. Savannah fiddled with her earlobes in which she had inserted simple gold stud earrings bought on route. Her fidgeting was clearly down to nerves and John could hardly blame her. He put his need to urinate down to the cold but he knew he was kidding himself.
“Remember what I said and we’ll be fine,” John said, gently taking her hand from her ear.
“They itch. They’re probably not even real gold for ten quid.”
John spoke slowly and clearly. “Keep calm, Savannah. It’s just nerves. You’ll be perfect. It will all be over before you know it.”
Savannah’s reaction was far from calm. “That’s easy for you to say. If this goes wrong, I could be in Saudi Arabia tomorrow.” She pleaded with her eyes, which conveyed emotion more readily and powerfully than any other part of her face. “Couldn’t we just run with the money that we’ve got? Wouldn’t that solve all of our problems?”
“And go where?”
“I don’t know.”
“How long do you think the money would last?”
“I don’t know.”
“Come on, Savannah. You’ve been a victim all your life. This is your chance to take a chance on me. I’m scared too, believe me, but stick to the script and we’ll get through it together.”
She grabbed his hand and held it with both of hers. Her grip was tight and her eyes still begged him to take care of her. “You promise?”
“Trust me,” he replied. He had said the same words many times to his parents and probably to others, but for the first time in his life, he actually meant them.
The shop front of Aphrodite’s Angels consisted of two large glass panes, from floor to ceiling, and a pair of electric sliding doors with long vertical brushed-aluminium handles at their centre. The glass alone looked thick enough to stop bullets but in addition there were steel security shutters and an alarm system for after-hours protection. Did the escort business have after hours? Wasn’t it a twenty-four-seven kind of industry?
Each spotlessly bright pane had a larger-than-life, large-breasted silhouette of a model in hot pink below ‘Aphrodite’s Angels’, which was written with an exotic font in the same brash colour. Savannah slid her arm through John’s as they entered the escort agency. It wasn’t how John had planned it but it didn’t look out of place. He gritted his teeth, hoping that her action was down to nerves and she would keep to the script from now on.
As the doors swished together behind them, Savannah nudged John at once to signal that it was Christos’s wife behind the large contemporary desk. The plump woman with long straight dyed-black hair looked up when they entered. John reckoned she was in her mid-thirties. A quizzical look appeared on her face but she said nothing and soon returned her attention to the glossy magazine she was holding.
A plasterboard-walled office to the right of Christos’s wife took up one-quarter of the available space. The remaining floor area formed an ‘L’ shape around the office where the more secretive business was undoubtedly processed. The floor was covered in a cream carpet so thick it significantly gave when John walked on it, like old wooden flooring but without the spring. The walls were painted in a soft pink and carried large framed photos of the prize girls on offer. A black leather sofa leaned against the right-hand wall a few feet away from the office. The office door was to the right of Christos’s wife. John wondered if his plan had backfired and Christos was waiting inside.
Wandering around the floor area, they stopped occasionally to look at the hanging photographs. The women were obviously made up to the nines and airbrushed before being given their space on the wall. Such creatures were not natural beauties but the result of breast implants, beauty products and Photoshop effects.
John gently tugged Savannah in the direction of the desk where they occupied the two soft-cushioned black chairs. He felt her tremble through the big coat. He hated himself for putting her through this but the fear suited her role. John spoke in a thick Russian accent, stolen and spliced from many an old Cold War movie.
“You are Helen, no?”
Helen was taken by surprise. She put the magazine in a drawer and sat up straight.
“And you are?”
John held out his hand.
“I am Dmitri Varushkin from Moscow. It is pleasure for me and for you too, yes?”
It took four or five stuttered movements for the chubby hand to grip John’s. The woman forced a smile.
“How ... can ... I help you?”
“Straight to point, I like this.” John turned to Savannah. “You should be more like this.”
John whipped his head back around to the woman behind the desk.
“As you don’t like to beat up the bush I will say now what I say.” John pulled out a roll of fifty pound notes in the sum of one thousand pounds and planted it on the edge of the desk. He flicked the roll with his finger into the middle of the desk.
“It is like agreement. I pay one thousand British pounds and the girl is mine, okay?”
Christos’s wife shot a glance at Savannah and noticed her for the first time since they had entered.
“I think Christos has plans for this one,” she said, as she reached for the phone.
John shot forward, scaring the woman into dropping the phone. “So girl is lying?” he asked, fury in his words. He turned to Savannah, his lip curled in a sneer. “In my country we cut out tongues of liars and make liar eat tongue. It is good job you need tongue to give pleasure to man.”
John dry spat at Savannah, who looked truly scared. Good girl, Savannah. John tapped the desk and stared into the fat woman’s blinking eyes. She looked completely out of her depth. He knew how she felt.
“You have money, now we go. All is good, yes?”
“I have to call Christos.”
“He is close? I have business.”
The woman’s bottom lip trembled as she spoke. “I
think he is collecting money nearby. I’ll call him if you like?”
John banged his fist down hard on the desk and the woman shot back two feet on her wheeled office chair. “Yes, we make drink together to celebrate business,” he said.
Both hands of Christos’s wife shook as she struggled for her words. “I will call him from the office.”
Not a chance. Forewarned would most definitely be forearmed. She must not leave their sight. John leaned over the desk as far as he could stretch without his bottom leaving the seat. He pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes in an attempt at conveying utter meanness.
“Use this phone,” he spat, tensing his face and neck muscles.
“I need the toilet,” she whimpered.
“You are trying to renege from deal. In Russia we cut off ears of those who do renege.”
“You ... you need to talk with my ... husband. I will call from here, but please ... let me go to the toilet.”
Gone was the rosy face and uninterested expression from earlier. Christos’s wife was teetering on the brink. But John knew that now was no time for backing down. If this was going to work he had to be worse than the enemy and be willing to go way beyond his comfort level. It was the only way to be sure. He picked up the handset of the phone and threw it down on the desk at the woman.
“Call husband here. Piss in bin,” he said.
As a trembling fat arm retrieved the handset from the desk, John felt a sharp elbow in his ribs. He barely resisted the need to exclaim. Bloody Savannah. Didn’t she remember what was at stake here? He couldn’t look at her and risk discovery. One wrong look and their scam was blown out of the water.
Christos’s wife dialled her husband. “There is a man here to see you,” she said.
John reached over and punched the hands free option on the base of the phone. Christos’s wife flinched and put down the handset.
“Chistos, your good wife she tell me you have plans for girl I have paid debt for.”
“What? Who is this?”
John sat back looking confident and in charge, at least that was the intent. His insides moved around of their own accord and his heart raced. This part was make or break. He imagined how the words sounded before he let them escape from his lips.
“My name is Dmitri Varushkin from Moscow. I pay girl’s debt. You agree, yes.”
“What girl?”
“Savannah Jones.”
The air went silent and thick with anticipation.
“I can be there in fifteen minutes,” Christos said, eventually.
“Too slow. I pay one thousand. The girl is mine, do you agree?”
“No.”
“You say she is liar?”
“What?”
“Girl tell me you agree, if she pay one thousand she is free.”
“She is lying.”
“I think you lie, Chistos.”
“It’s Christos, and the girl is a lying bitch, but she’s mine. I have a buyer, and I’ve taken a deposit for her. I can’t let you have her.”
“Girl tell me when I have cigarette to eye that you agree one thousand. Waitress also confirm what she say is true.”
“What waitress?”
“Waitress at my Pizza Hut.”
The air turned quiet again. It was John’s turn to elbow Savannah. Savannah immediately began to shriek.
“Christos, don’t let him take me! He’s an animal. I’ll go with the Arabs. I’ll do anything but please don’t let him take me!” Collapsing on the desk, Savannah broke into sobs just as they had planned.
John looked at Savannah and shook his head. “Look she is much trouble,” John said, looking directly at Christos’s wife. “I will swap her for your fat wife and ten thousand British pounds. I think your wife like the rough stuff, yes?”
Mrs Christos gasped and the line went silent once more. John shot a glance behind him to see if somehow Christos had contacted someone to go to the agency and check on his wife. He knew it couldn’t be Christos himself because Savannah had called him earlier to make an appointment in Shepherd’s Bush. However it didn’t stop Christos from contacting his employed thugs to take care of things. John’s heart thumped quicker and harder as the silence lengthened. The game was up, surely?
“Take the girl and keep the money. She’s yours,” Christos said.
“Are you sure? I don’t mind to take your wife.”
“I’m sure. Please don’t hurt Helen.”
“Okay I am happy. My new bitch will learn to be less trouble in time.”
“Noooooooooooo!” wailed Savannah.
“Please take her and go,” said Christos.
“Chistos, you don’t want to have drink and make party? You play with my bitch and I’ll play with yours?”
Savannah stomped hard on John’s foot. This time a small moan escaped him. His big toe throbbed. He hoped it wasn’t broken. Of course this time she was right, they needed to wrap this up. She could have just tapped him though.
“Perhaps another time. Like I say, I have business,” he added, reaching over the desk and disconnecting the call, all the time commanding his facial muscles to ignore the pain in his toe.
He grabbed Savannah roughly by her arm and lifted her from the chair as he rose.
“Go make piss now,” he said to Christos’s wife, whose colour was returning to her cheeks. She looked physically exhausted from her experience, slumped in her chair like she had run a marathon. One more nail was required. “Tell husband if he renege, I will suffocate him with own penis.”
She nodded frantically. “I will, Dmitri, I will.”
“I like way how you say my name, Mrs Chistos.”
John picked up the money and with his arm around Savannah’s shoulders, bundled her towards the doors. Each time John’s injured toe met the floor the pain flared like a miniature explosion forcing him to take most of his weight on the other foot.
An approaching customer, wearing a smart, velour, ink blue Parker jacket with the hood up, moved to his left so that the joined couple could pass through the electrically operated doors unhindered. The man’s eyes lingered on John, thin lips offering an oddly crooked smile and for a second John wondered if he knew him. The shadow from the hood prevented John from getting a good look at the man’s eyes so he couldn’t be sure.
“Later,” the man said, as he turned and passed through the open doors.
What an odd thing to say, thought John. Perhaps he did know him.
17: Sunday 25th September, 10:50
I pass Savannah Jones and her companion as I enter Aphrodite’s Angels. The man has a limp and an arrogant look about him. He is not the pimp Black described to me. I have told Black to follow the girl and to keep me informed. A large woman sits at a large desk, applying makeup as she looks into the mirror of her compact. She is fighting a losing battle. She is unaware of my arrival. A horse could approach silently on this carpet.
“Where is Christos?” I ask.
The black-haired woman jumps in her chair, dropping her compact. She stares at me in terror. The fat on her arms trembles with fear. Her mouth is open but she is silent. I have not started to interrogate her. She has been worked over already. The young man with Jones is not to be underestimated.
“Who was that leaving?” I demand.
“My ... my husband will be here any minute,” the woman says, looking past me at the outside street. She is not in a good way. There is no value in distressing her further. I say nothing and wait. It is Christos I want to speak with.
Ten minutes pass before Christos runs in. He is solidly built and dressed only in black, an attempt at macho no doubt. His hair is oily and he is unshaven. I immediately dislike him. He rushes behind the desk to the fat woman, ignoring me completely. He leans over and puts his arms around her.
“I’m here,” he soothes.
She looks up at him, tears rolling down her cheeks. “He said he would suffocate ...” She takes a tissue from a desk drawer and blows her nose loudly. “ ... you wi
th ... your own penis.”
I smile. “Who was the man that left with Jones?” I ask.
The couple turn to face me like they had forgotten I was there.
“Who the fuck are you?” Christos snarls.
I raise my hand. “Calm down. I have a feeling that we can help each other out.”
“Like I said, who the fuck are you?” repeats Christos.
“I’m somebody who can help you get the girl back.”
“From the Russian mob? I don’t think so.” Christos strokes his wife’s head while she dabs her eyes.
I pull my stiletto knife from its ankle holster. Christos and the fat lady jerk backwards. I throw the blade at a framed photograph of a big-breasted girl with platinum blonde hair on the wall above the sofa. The glass explodes, covering the sofa and carpet. The blade twangs as it reverberates between the eyes of the airbrushed escort. Impressive. I have their attention and I have my patsy.
“Tell me about this Russian,” I say.
My mobile rings before Christos can speak. I am bored with Queen now. I must remember to change the ringtone. It is Black with interesting news.
*
Back at the Ritz, John and Savannah were sitting on the bed, buzzing like two highly charged particles. They had raided the miniatures from the mini bar and were having an impromptu party on the bed.
Savannah attempted a Russian accent. “Chistos, you don’t want to have drink and make party?” She had to admit it was nowhere near as good as John’s. “What were you thinking?”
“I don’t know,” John said. “I got carried away I guess. My adrenaline was pumping, and my heart was beating like I’d sprinted a mile. It was a real rush. That elbow and foot stomping really hurt by the way.”
“You were out of control. I mean purposely getting his name wrong. You are a dangerous man to know.”
“Heh, we did it, right? At least I didn’t try to pay him off with five hundred pound notes.”
Savannah laughed louder and longer than she could remember. Their lives were still in danger yet she had never felt so awake, so alive or so grateful. When a shortage of air to the lungs brought her fit of mirth to an abrupt halt, she looked at John as she breathed in.