by Shaun Hutson
Now he closed the door of his office, relegating the music behind him once again to nothing but a dull thud. He walked across to the window and peered out again into the street. It was raining heavily now; the street and pavements were wet. The sparkling neon reflected up off the slick concrete. It looked as if someone had spilled fluorescent paint on the thoroughfare. Across the street, in the doorway of an empty shop, a man was sitting, wrapped in a dirty coat, sipping from a bottle of spirits. When it was empty he hurled it into the street, where it shattered in front of a passing car… The driver slammed on the brakes, leapt out and ran across to the man, kicking him twice as he shouted his annoyance.
Scott returned to his desk and sat down, pulling the drinks inventory towards him, scanning the columns of figures.
They bought in bottles of whisky and vodka for about three pounds each. They sold them for seventy. He had one of the menus on his desk and he flipped it open, looking at the prices.
Five pounds for a coke. Ten pounds for a pint of lager. Then there was the list of cocktails. A screwdriver was thirty pounds. It went as high as eighty for a Tequila Sunrise.
Beneath the list was a line which read: ALL COCKTAILS ARE DE-ALCOHOLISED.
You didn't get drunk but you pissed a lot.
If you chose to have the company of a hostess it cost you thirty pounds for a conversation with her. Anything beyond conversation was negotiable, but Scott knew the girls had their own price list for their services. Thirty for a hand job. Fifty for a straight fuck. Eighty for one without a rubber. One hundred quid could even get you a blow job without a rubber. Risky, these days, but then money was money, wasn't it? The entrepreneur always had to take a few risks.
He would take a trip down to the cash-and-carry in the morning, after he'd checked his stock of drink. He'd give Don, the barman, a call in a minute. He doubted if they needed much. The vodka was three parts water, as were most of the spirits. Scott sat back in his seat for a moment, his hands clasped on his lap. At least Don was reliable; he always turned in, no matter what. Not like that fucker Rick. He should have been there tonight.
I shouldn't have to throw punters out. It's not good for my image. The manager is here to manage, not get mixed up in rough stuff.
When and if Rick ever came back he'd find his cards waiting for him. Cunt.
Scott returned his attention to the inventory.
He was about to start work when there was a knock on the office door.
'Who is it? I'm trying to bloody work,' he called.
The frown on his face rapidly disappeared as the door opened.
NINE
'Sorry if I'm disturbing you, Jim,' Carol Jackson said apologetically.
Scott got to his feet.
'You're not,' he told her. 'Come in.' He smiled at her, relieved to see the gesture reciprocated.
She closed the door behind her and moved towards him, pausing as she looked down at the remains of the pizza. She wrinkled her nose and smiled again.
'Dinner,' he announced almost ashamedly. Then he took her in his arms and kissed her. Carol draped one arm around his shoulders perfunctorily and broke the kiss first. She perched on a corner of his desk and Scott looked at her appraisingly.
She was about three years younger than him. About five-two but slim. Blonde hair framed her face and cascaded just past her shoulder blades. As she stood close to him she toyed distractedly with the ring on her right middle finger. It was gold and held a small onyx.
One of Scott's gifts to her.
The metal was going black in places.
They had been seeing each other for almost fourteen months; the relationship could be called erratic. She worked at the club. Scott worked at the club. They saw each other almost every day during work. They had been seeing each other out of work for nearly as long.
She was wearing jeans and a baggy sweatshirt, a red one. Another gift from Scott. He liked to see her wearing things he had bought her. Now he looked at her and smiled.
You're beautiful.
He didn't even attempt to say it.
'I heard that Zena had a bit of trouble earlier on,' she said.
'It was nothing,' he told her. 'I sorted it out.'
'Manager's duty?'
He nodded.
'Do you want a drink?' Scott asked.
'I should go and get changed, I…'
'A quick one,' he insisted, smiling.
She agreed and he reached into the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out a bottle of Southern Comfort and two glasses. She watched as he poured.
'Don't you ever get sick of this job, Jim?' she wanted to know.
Scott handed her the drink, looking bemused.
'It's a living,' he told her.
'I hate it,' she said, venomously. 'I hate what I do. I hate the people who come in here to watch me.' She took a long swallow of the drink and closed her eyes.
'Are you all right?'
'I'm okay. I'm just pissed off. Everyone has the right to be pissed off with their job don't they? It just surprises me you don't get pissed off with yours.'
'Like I said, it's a living. I don't hate it.'
It sounded like an apology. As if he should hate it and himself for doing it.
'You never used to be like this about it,' Scott said.
'I didn't think it would go on as long as this,' she snapped. 'I've been working clip joints since I was nineteen. That's nearly ten years, Jim. It's a long time. I wanted more out of life. I want more. More than being stared at by men with nowhere else to go. Fucking perverts. You know some of the ones we get in here. I hate them. And I'm beginning to hate myself for performing for them.' She took another long swallow and gazed across the room at the wall.
Scott got to his feet and moved closer to her, putting his arm around her, pulling her close.
'Do you want to talk about it later?' he asked, kissing the top of her head.
'What good is talking going to do?'
'I didn't know you felt the way you did. Perhaps if you spoke to me about it…'
'You don't understand,' she interrupted.
'Make me understand,' Scott asked.
She drained what was left in her glass and handed him the empty receptacle.
'Can I see you after work?' he asked.
She shrugged.
'Walk out and watch the show,' she said bitterly. 'You can see as much of me as you want.'
'You know what I mean,' Scott said, irritably.
Why do you make it so hard for me?
'Can I see you later?'
She kissed his cheek and turned to pull away but he caught her by the wrist and pulled her close to him. This time she responded with a little more passion, actually allowing his tongue to probe past the hard white edges of her teeth and into the moistness beyond. She touched his cheek as they parted in a gesture that was almost maternal. It wasn't the touch of a lover. He held on to her other hand, to the hand that bore the onyx ring.
The metal was turning black in places.
They were still holding hands when the office door opened.
'Can't you fucking knock?' Scott called.
The newcomer stuck his head around the door and looked first at Scott, then at Carol.
'Very cosy,' he said, noticing that they were holding hands. 'Sorry if I'm disturbing you.' He entered.
Scott swallowed hard as the door was pushed shut.
TEN
In all the years he had worked for Ray Plummer, Scott had never been sure whether or not to believe the rumours that his boss wore a wig. If it was a hairpiece, whoever had made it was to be complimented. There was even a patch of thinning hair at the crown to add authenticity.
Now, as the older man entered the room, pulling a cigarette from the gold monogrammed case he'd removed from his pocket, Scott glanced quickly at the lustrous black hair that covered Plummer's head.
Toupee or not toupee, that was the question.
Scott smiled a greeting, hoping it would mask his am
usement at his quip.
Watch it.
Carol stepped away from him slightly and also smiled at Plummer, who walked across the room and peered out of the window into the street below, puffing slowly on his Menthol cigarette. He hated the taste of the bloody things but his doctor had told him that if he didn't cut down from his usual forty Rothmans a day he'd be in line for lung and heart trouble before he was forty-five. And, with just seven years to go to that deadline, Plummer was taking no chances. He'd cut down on his intake of cholesterol, too. He'd even started jogging. He hadn't quite got to the stage of popping sunflower seeds but, if it made him healthier, he'd be quite prepared to start on all the organic shit, maybe even become a vegetarian. Although the thought of doing his weekly shop at a fucking garden centre instead of a supermarket made him wonder if he wanted to be that healthy.
He turned and smiled, a crooked smile exaggerated by the scar on his left cheek that reached from the corner of his mouth to the ridge of the bone.
'I was passing by,' he said. 'Thought I'd drop in and see how business was.'
Scott offered him a drink but Plummer declined.
'Got to watch the old liver, James,' he said, holding up his hands. And the heart. And the lungs.
'I'd better go,' said Carol. 'I'm due on in ten minutes.' She smiled thinly at Plummer then at Scott.
'I'll see you later,' he said softly, but she had already gone.
'Nice girl,' Plummer said. 'Lovely arse.' He blew out a stream of smoke.
'Is this a social call?' Scott said, changing the subject.
'You sound suspicious, Jim. Think I'm checking up on you?'
'I only asked.'
'Like I said, I was in the area, thought I'd pop in and -see how business was.'
'It's good. We took over two grand last night. Mostly on drink, of course.'
Plummer smiled.
'Of course,' he echoed. 'I wish all my bloody joints were doing as well as this one. Old Benny, you know Benny Fox runs one of my places over in Dean Street, he's lucky if he sees two grand in a fucking week.' Plummer shook his head. 'It's the quality of the girls, you know. I mean, some of them in the other places, they're not top quality, if you know what I mean. There's one bird over at Benny's I swear to Christ he got her from Smithfield. Arse like a fifty-dollar cow. Face to match.' He shook his head. 'We need more girls like that Carol. She's tasty.'
Scott eyed his boss warily for a moment, anxious to change the subject again.
Plummer sat down at Scott's desk and glanced at the remains of the pizza.
'Not exactly haute cuisine, is it?' he said, wrinkling his nose.
'If I had as much money as you, Ray, I'd eat better,' Scott told his boss.
'Perhaps you could do with a raise. I can afford it. Most of the shops and clubs turned a profit last year and my other business concerns are ticking over nicely.' He took a final puff on the cigarette, then ground it out in the middle of the pizza. He smiled that crooked smile again.
Plummer owned six clubs in Soho, most of them providing live sex shows. Four also showed imported films and sold a range of soft and hardcore magazines. The shop upstairs at 'Loveshow' dealt in that kind of literature. It came in on containers three times a month, carried in by lorry drivers paid to smuggle the banned material in the cabs of their trucks. He also owned a couple of gaming clubs in Kensington (the more respectable side of his business) and he had just bought into a syndicate responsible for opening a large outdoor sports arena in Fulham. With an annual profit of over ten million pounds, Plummer was one of the underworld's wealthier barons. He disliked being compared to a criminal gang boss, though. He had men working for him, some of them armed, but he wouldn't have called them a gang. Associates was a word he preferred. He didn't own clip joints, he operated adult entertainment emporia. To Plummer this wasn't a lie. He saw himself as a businessman, not a crook. There were those on the other side of the law who would disagree.
He had a criminal record, but the most he'd ever been charged with was possession of cannabis. That had been ten years ago. Now he made sure he went nowhere near the cocaine and heroin that had formed the bedrock of his little 'empire'. The passage of time had made him wiser, more cautious. More manipulative. Ray Plummer, in his own eyes, was an upstanding member of the community. For Christ's sake, he even had a firearms certificate for the Beretta automatic he carried in his car. It wasn't wise to cross the law.
Besides, it cost too much to pay the bastards off.
He ran a hand over his hair, smoothing down a piece that was sticking up.
Be careful or you'll have the whole lot in your lap, thought Scott.
Plummer got to his feet.
'I've got to go, Jim,' he said. 'Other calls to make.' He shook hands with the younger man. A firm grip.
'I'll walk out with you,' Scott said.
'No problem; you stay here, finish your work. I might, have a look at the show on the way out.' He smiled. 'Maybe that Carol, or whatever her name is, will be on.' He winked and was gone.
Scott glared at the closed door, then pulled the bottle of Southern Comfort towards him and poured a large measure. He downed it in one, bringing the glass down so hard on the table it almost cracked.
Beyond the closed door the thud of the music continued.
ELEVEN
Zena Murray pulled off her stockings and balled them up, tossing them into the waste bin nearby. Then she took off her basque and G-string and sat naked in front of the mirror, taking her make-up off. Beside her, Carol Jackson was busy applying hers. The two women sat in front of the mirror which stretched the length of the wall in the dressing room. The term was rather grand for what was little more than an enlarged cupboard with lights and a mirror. Clothes were hung on hangers and suspended from hooks on the peeling walls. The lightbulbs which surrounded the mirror were flickering in places; some had blown completely. A drawer beneath the dressing table contained the girls' props, a selection of vibrators and dildos. There was a pay phone on the wall. One of the other girls had stuck a postcard of Mel Gibson on the side of it. There were other pictures sellotaped to the wall by the phone, cut from magazines. One of Jon Bon Jovi, another of Mickey Rourke.
'I'll be glad to get home tonight,' said Zena, wiping eyeshadow from her top lid with a cotton ball. 'Did you hear what happened with that bastard earlier on? Ruined my stockings, then didn't want to pay.'
'I heard,' Carol affirmed.
'Scotty gave me the money for another pair. He's a nice bloke.'
Carol smiled into the mirror. The gesture looked strained, artificial.
'Are you still seeing him?' Zena wanted to know.
'Sort of,' Carol said, applying the thick red lipstick she always wore when she worked.
'Either you are or you aren't. You've been going out with him for a while now, haven't you?'
Too long.
'It's not like it used to be between us, but I don't think Jim realises that,' said Carol.
'Then don't you think you ought to tell him?' Zena said, looking at her companion in the mirror.
'Tell him what? That I don't want to see him any more? It's going to be a bit difficult while we're working together.'
'So you're going to keep the poor bastard hanging on? Thinking that you still feel something for him, just because it's not convenient for you to split up with him. Is that it?'
'It's not as simple as that, Zena. I like him. He's a nice guy. But he's going nowhere and he doesn't even realise it.'
'And where are you going, Carol?' She looked at her companion. 'Out in front of another audience, just like you do most nights. Just like you will be doing until your tits sag and your bum drops and you get fat and no one wants to come and see you any more. Then you'll probably start working the hotels and the streets full-time. Just like the rest of us.'
'Are you telling me I'm wrong to want more out' of life?' Carol snapped. 'Do you honestly enjoy what you do here, Zena?'
'No, but it pays the rent, and that's
all that matters to me at the moment. Look, Carol, it might not be much of a life but it's all we've got.'
'That's shit, there's more to it than that. There has to be.'
Zena wiped some foundation from her cheeks with a moist tissue.
'So, Scotty's only crime is that he's going nowhere. Is that it?' she said.
'I don't know how to tell him it's over. I don't know how he'll react. I know he thinks a lot of me. He's told me he loves me. I don't want to hurt him, Zena.'
'Well, you're going to hurt him a fucking sight more the longer you leave it,' Zena snapped. She got to her feet and started to dress, pulling on jeans and a T-shirt, stepping into a pair of ankle boots.
'Am I wrong to want more out of life?' Carol asked the other girl again.
'No, but I think you're dreaming, Carol. I'm not sure there is that much more. And if there is, it wasn't meant for the likes of you and me.' She smiled thinly, then opened the door of the dressing room. The sound of the music was suddenly louder as Zena paused there.
'… skin tight leather on satin sheets…'
'Don't hurt him, Carol. He doesn't deserve it,' Zena said, smiling.
'… Now she's got me surrounded…'
Zena said goodbye and closed the door, shutting out the music once more.
Carol turned back to the mirror and studied her own reflection. She ran both hands over her breasts.
Starting to sag yet.
She reached for a cigarette and lit it, sucking hard, allowing the smoke to burn its way to her lungs.
There is more. There has to be.
The clock on the wall ticked soundlessly, the hands crawling around inexorably. Showtime.
She would tell Scott it was over. Zena was right. She shouldn't hurt him. She would tell him.
Eventually.
The phone rang.
For a moment Carol was startled by the ringing, then she turned and picked up the receiver.
She recognised the voice immediately.
'Hi. I'm just about to go on,' she said.
'I know,' the caller said. 'Where shall I pick you up tonight?'