by Mia Dolan
Paddy ground his teeth, an annoying habit that even his wife complained about. None of the girls he slept with ever did. They wouldn’t dare. They knew from his lovemaking that he got off on violence. Giving him an excuse to lash out was tantamount to earning a week or two in hospital.
In all honesty, he wasn’t really angry with Linda. It was Marcie Jones that got his goat. The fact that Michael’s wife had rebounded with the challenge that they both go and see Michael annoyed him. How dare she throw a spanner in the works? The bitch!
Another plan hatched in his mind.
‘Now listen here, Linda. This is what you are going to do. You’ve seen the wife, now see the husband. I fully take on board what you’re saying. You don’t want to face the two of them. Well, my lovely, you’re quite right I think. Divide and rule. Get them separately and you’ll have played your part. Now this is what I want you to do . . .’
Linda Bell held her breath as Paddy outlined his plan. She was to go along to the Blue Genie. Michael was running all his businesses from a new office in the same building. She was to make a scene, to let everybody know what a louse he was both to her and his wife.
‘Being unfaithful to his lovely and very loyal wife, getting a talented dancer pregnant and fobbing her off with a few quid. That’s the line you’re to play, me girl,’ he said to her.
Linda exhaled all that breath she’d been holding in. ‘You can trust me, Paddy. It’ll be like the last scene from Gone With the bleedin’ Wind when Rhett Butler bows out of Scarlett’s life for ever.’
Paddy Rafferty smiled. ‘That’s right, my little pigeon. Make it that good and you’ll be up on the silver screen along with that bloke Stewart Granger in no time.’
‘Elvis Presley!’
‘Him too.’
On the other end of the phone, Linda’s attitude was changing. Should she really trust the roly-poly Irishman?
‘Don’t you let me down, Paddy. If you do I’ll tell – you know I will.’
Paddy couldn’t help his mind moving on to violent thoughts. The fact was he enjoyed violence and manipulation. There was a certain pleasure in destroying peoples’ lives. It made him feel so good, so powerful.
He imagined how he could better destroy that bastard Michael Jones, a bloke who had dared to say no to him.
Both Jones and Linda deserved to be punished, and he was just the man to do it.
‘Trust me, Linda. You’ll make front page news by the time I’ve finished with you.’
His man Baxter watched as he smiled into the phone. He knew that look and where Paddy’s plans were going. If he was a softer bloke he might have shivered. But he didn’t. He was Paddy’s man and would do his bidding.
Paddy Rafferty was still smiling when he put the phone down. ‘Stupid bitch.’
Baxter waited for orders. He was standing in front of him, his big hands folded one on top of the other.
Paddy’s chill blue eyes were unblinking as he looked at the man in front of him.
‘Baxter, I have a job for you to do. You are going to be my version of Rhett Butler, only instead of you bowing out, it’s my version and I’ll tell you now, son, in my story it’s Scarlett who’ll be gone for ever.’
Chapter Nine
THE LAST THING Michael Jones expected to see when he opened his desk drawer was a gun.
Perhaps he might not have picked it up if it hadn’t been resting on his diary. He was into the habit of checking his schedule every morning before doing anything else. The urge to maintain his daily routine was too strong to ignore. He picked up the gun and looked at it, then rang for Kevin.
Kevin McGregor was a thick-set Scotsman with a reddish beard and piercing blue eyes beneath reddish, arched eyebrows. In the habit of a man used to wearing a kilt and being proud of it, he stood with legs slightly apart, hands clasped behind his back.
Ex-army, it was rumoured that he’d killed a lot of Mau Mau in the rebellion for independence in Kenya. The broad Scotsman had never disclosed whether the rumours were true or false. Kevin McGregor, like a lot of ex-army types, never spoke of it.
Michael held the gun up. ‘You could have put it in the safe.’
Kevin frowned then shook his head. ‘Sorry, boss. Not sure what you mean?’
‘I presume that you or one of your team took it off a customer. Is that right?’
Kevin shook his head. ‘Not me, boss, and none of the others mentioned it either.’
‘Then ask them.’
Kevin nodded. ‘I will.’
Michael locked the gun in the safe but not before he’d sniffed the muzzle and detected the undeniable odour of spent cordite. He knew enough about guns to know it had been fired, a fact that unnerved him, that and its appearance in his desk drawer. Somebody had put it there and not told anyone. It should have been reported. Someone had been lax and he aimed to find out who it was.
Because of the gun and his security staff not knowing about it, Michael Jones was not best pleased when he walked out into the narrow vestibule that formed the reception. The fact that his doorman was sitting on his backside reading a copy of the Daily Mirror didn’t usually get up his nose, but it did today.
‘I don’t pay you to improve your reading standard, Jimmy. Put it away. It don’t look good. Right?’
Jimmy folded the newspaper up and shoved it under the counter. Not minding that he’d been caught out, he grinned affably. Michael was a good bloke to work for, easy-going for the most part unless someone had upset him. He looked upset now with that dark glower on his face. Jimmy Watkins surmised that the little Jewish guy – Michael’s lawyer – who’d come in with a briefcase full of paperwork had had something to do with it. Yesterday it had been a different lawyer, one representing that Irish git, Rafferty. The bloke had been as tall as a lamppost and sounded as though his mouth was stuffed with plums. What a prick!
‘Has Kevin had a word with you about what I found in my desk?’
‘He did. Somebody must have fallen down on the job. But it wasn’t me,’ he added swiftly.
Michael nodded. Nobody would own up to it. Nobody wanted to face the consequences, i.e. getting a roasting by the boss because they’d failed to report it.
But, newspaper aside, Jimmy was a reliable sort and Michael had other problems.
‘Have the electricians phoned back?’ Michael asked him.
‘Yeah. They said they’ll be here in the morning but not to worry. It was only a short and nothing’s likely to burn down until they get here.’
Michael’s glower was no less deep. Jimmy winced beneath his glare.
‘That bloody sign shorting out was no laughing matter. My wife could have been hurt the first time it happened. It should have been fixed properly then.’
He hadn’t told Marcie that the sign kept shorting just like on that first occasion. He didn’t know why he hadn’t told her. It was a bit like tempting fate; it felt as though it might be unlucky to bring up the subject.
‘Get back on to them again. I want this sorted out in daylight not tonight when we’re full of punters.’
‘I thought they might be still on their tea break or something.’
‘I don’t care if they’re having a three-course meal with the Queen, ring them and get them round here. And stop thinking. Leave the thinking to me.’
Michael didn’t usually snap at his employees. Jimmy looked suitably contrite. ‘Sorry, boss.’
He liked Michael. He still seemed to be in love with his wife so he could understand him being nervous about that blasted sign. Why the hell the thing kept blowing he didn’t know, but there was something funny about it. The electrician kept coming, kept scratching his head when it happened again and again.
‘A spanner in the works,’ Jimmy had said to him.
‘Something queer that’s for bloody sure,’ said the electrician.
Jimmy sighed. He hadn’t taken offence at Michael’s sharpness. He seemed like a decent bloke. He never played around like a lot of other nightclub owners wh
o thought it their God given right to sample the goods they sold – the booze and the birds. Michael didn’t do that. Sure the bloke liked a drink, but not to excess; he’d never seen him drunk. As for the girls, well, they were willing enough to give the boss anything he wanted, but he had never seen it or heard any rumours that he sampled the goods on offer. His wife seemed to be the only woman he desired – not surprising really. Jimmy sighed. If he had a wife like that he wouldn’t stray either. But he didn’t have a wife – not any more. She’d run off with a farmer from Lincolnshire. A farmer for Christ’s sake! He’d never understand that, but still, he was OK. The girls employed at the club liked big muscles – and he had them aplenty. He could take comfort in their arms if nothing else.
Michael came back out of his office just as he was putting down the phone from the electrician.
‘Well?’
‘He’s on his way. Reckons he should be here in about an hour.’
‘Good.’ Michael looked at his watch. ‘I’m off for a coffee.’
It was Michael’s habit to pop out midway through the afternoon for a coffee at the trattoria opposite. It was a small respite but gave him time to take a breather and think things through.
He weaved through the traffic and waved to the portly figure on the other side of the window, who was already pulling out a chair and smoothing down the chequered tablecloth.
The Italian owner always kept a seat free for Michael by the window. Most people – the café owner and his employees included – assumed that Michael liked to sit by the window so he could keep tags on the comings and goings across at the club. During the day, the comings and goings were restricted to employees and deliverymen.
The truth was otherwise. Michael did a lot of his thinking just sitting and looking out at the road. He also heard the gossip regarding his half-brother, Roberto and his father, Victor Camilleri. Roberto was still in jail. His father was carrying on running his many business interests, which stretched from rent scams to racketeering to nightclubs to the rag trade. It was Gabriella Camilleri who provided the legitimate front to the rag-trade side of the business, running up or buying dresses for selling on in her King’s Road shop, the Daisy Chain. The shop hid a more sinister aspect to the business; unknown to any of the assistants in the shop there was more than a single sewing room providing the dresses. Victor had sweatshops in the East End where girls newly arrived from Asia worked for long hours and meagre wages. The shop also provided pretty girls who wanted to work in London at any price. They also coveted the latest fashion to hit the swinging capital then found out it took more than the wages they earned serving in a shop. It was Victor who suggested they take jobs in his nightclubs as hostesses, only they ended up being much more than just pleasant to the customers. They ended up as high-class call girls – at least they were high class for a while. In time, once their innocence and their youth began to fade, they ended up on the slippery slope to street walking.
Michael had badly wanted his natural father to be proud of him. There was still a residue of that in his psyche. His brother he had merely tolerated and the feeling was mutual.
He sighed, glad to be away from them all and, although it was hard work, he was pleased with his life. Everything was going well. Rafferty was the only fly in the ointment. The man knew that Michael and his father had parted on bad terms and thus he was out from beneath Camilleri protection. He was vulnerable and Rafferty knew it.
Of course he could go back to his father and ask him to intervene with Rafferty, to persuade him to lay off or else risk gang warfare between the Sicilians and the Irish. Sucking in his lips, he thought about it. It would be so easy to run back with his tail between his legs, but his pride wouldn’t let him do it. Besides, there was also the fact of what his brother had done to Marcie. He could forgive his dad perhaps but Roberto was another matter. And his father would always take Roberto’s side. There was nothing else for it but to stand up to Rafferty or place himself under the protection of somebody who was more powerful and more dangerous. He needed time to think.
Aldo’s Trattoria was an oasis of calm in his busy life. The atmosphere was unmistakably Italian, the windows steamy and the coffee hot and frothy. Aldo and his team spoke loudly and used their hands a lot. It was the in joke that if anyone ever cut off their arms, they wouldn’t be able to speak.
Wearing a massive white apron that covered him from his chest and past his knees, Aldo came over full of welcoming bonhomie.
‘You not look happy today, Michael. Your wife not love you any more?’
Aldo’s question broke into his moroseness. He had to smile. ‘My wife loves me very much – and very often,’ he added with a salacious wink.
Marcie was the one thing in his life that always made him feel good. He deeply regretted losing his rag with her the other night, but he had a lot on his mind.
‘Lucky man,’ said Aldo, returning the wink with the salaciousness only a true-born Italian could show. ‘I wish I had a wife like yours, but mine . . .’ He laughed loudly. ‘She prefer to be with her mother than with me. That is why I am in London and she is in Naples.’
‘That’s sad.’
Aldo laughed. ‘No, my friend! It makes me very happy that she is there and I am here. We get on very well when we are miles apart. When we are together we fight like – how you say – the cats and the dogs. She is the cat and I am the dirty dog – that is what she says to me.’
Laughing loudly, he landed a heavy slap on Michael’s back before returning behind his counter and his steaming espresso machine. Aldo and his relatives – because that was mostly who he employed – exchanged loud conversation in Italian which was interlaced with much laughter, much slapping of tea towels at each other and waving of hands in the air. It was pure theatre and the customers loved it.
Michael mustered a smile. Usually he would have laughed with them, but today his thoughts were elsewhere. Rubbing a circle in the steamed-up window, he looked out on the street. He wasn’t feeling happy, though not unhappy either. It was imperative he kept positive and didn’t let Marcie know how worried he was. All the same, it was difficult not to feel apprehensive.
He had been unable to shake off the feeling of foreboding he’d had since Paddy Rafferty had first tried to muscle in on his business. He realised now that hoping Rafferty would take no for an answer on that first meeting had been incredibly naive.
The tall streak of upmarket crap that was Rafferty’s lawyer was proof of that. He’d told him to shove off with a flea in his ear too, but he was less hopeful that would be the end of things. This lunchtime his own lawyer had arrived wearing a worried frown and carrying a briefcase that contained just one item – a contract that basically made Paddy Rafferty a partner.
‘That man has a bad reputation,’ Jacob Solomon had said. He’d raised one bushy black eyebrow as he’d said it, which made him seem as though he only had one eye, the other eye was habitually hidden behind an unruly fringe. Solomon always looked as if he needed a haircut and as if he were wearing someone else’s suit. But despite his casual appearance, Jacob Solomon was an excellent lawyer and he rarely missed a trick.
‘I’m not letting him muscle in.’
Jacob had nodded sagely. ‘Very noble.’
‘You don’t approve?’
‘Of course I do. But I fear that our friend Mr Rafferty is not noble. I fear he will use ignoble means to get your compliance – or more specifically, your property.’
Michael nodded. ‘I hear he’s a man who bears grudges.’
Jacob Solomon had pursed his lips and fallen silent. Michael took that to mean that he too had heard the rumour that the wife and children of the last man to refuse a ‘business partnership’ had died in a house fire. Person or persons unknown had poured petrol through their letterbox and set it ablaze. The police had failed to find the perpetrators and there was no evidence that Rafferty was involved. Paddy Rafferty had ended up with the property after the owner had committed suicide. A spurious cont
ract of agreement had turned up from somewhere.
Jacob Solomon had left quietly after warning Michael to be careful.
Sitting in his favourite seat by the window, he considered what Rafferty’s next move might be. He’d insulted the man as well as turning down his approach and no matter what he would still do it again. He’d worked hard to get his business up and running and nobody – absolutely nobody – was going to take a quarter, let alone a half, away from him.
He watched the action across the road. People came and went into the club – men and women. They didn’t really register; he was that absorbed in his thoughts.
He didn’t jerk out of them until the door opened and Jimmy was there. He’d been so preoccupied, he hadn’t seen him cross the road.
‘Boss. There’s some woman wants to see you. She says it’s personal.’
Michael looked up in time to see a tall brunette wearing a pink chiffon headscarf and matching lipstick pushing through the door.
‘I told her to wait in your office, boss . . .’ Jimmy protested.
The woman pushed past him. A cloud of what seemed to be expensive perfume fell over him along with the smell of face powder and hair lacquer.
‘You bastard,’ she screamed, pointing her finger at Michael. ‘You got me up the duff and now you don’t want to know me. Had your fun and now don’t want to take the responsibility.’
Aldo came out from behind the counter. Everyone, customers and waiters alike, stared open-mouthed, drawn by the sight and sound of the woman.