“Do you want the fare or not, dog-breath?”
“Yes, God help me, I want the fare. So where are we going?” he enquired, cagily.
“Just off the Finchley Road. I’ll show you when we get there.”
The yellow cab trundled off down the road. Twenty minutes passed in brooding silence, before Steffie spoke again.
“This will do.”
The cab pulled up in front of a neon-lit sweatbox. She climbed out and passed the driver a banknote.
“Don’t go spending it all at once, honey,” she teased.
“Take it easy, lady.” He felt like he had just released a leopard from his taxi.
“I always do,” purred Steffie.
She ascended the cast-iron spiral staircase at the front of the building in a few athletic leaps, pushed through the swing doors unchecked and bounded into the club like a coiled spring eager to unwind. Passing through the doors she was quickly devoured by the bright lights, body heat and pulsating high-energy dance music.
On the dance floor she became another person; a lithe and powerful force of nature, which no beat nor rhythm could control. She knew exactly what she wanted and exactly how to get it.
Steffie gyrated across the floor in ever wider circles around her handbag, while the butt of her favourite handgun began to rub against her inner thigh, sending her all too soon into paroxysms of pleasure.
“Oooooooooooooh! aaaaaaaaaaaaah!!”
“Who said dancing wasn’t as good as sex?” she murmured to herself.
A guy in his twenties stood before her, virtually drooling at the sight of her aroused body.
“Not me, goddess,” he said with a smile.
“Are you talking to me pretty boy?” She was laughing at him. Man as predator had no meaning for her.
“If the cap fits, wear it, I always say,” he continued, with practiced ease.
“Do you always come on so strong, honey?”
“Only when I like what I see.” It seemed to him that his luck was definitely in.
“Good, then follow me.”
She winked at him in slow motion and watched his self-assurance crumble, then lead him by his bootlace tie into the Ladies toilet, pulled him into a cubicle after her then slammed and locked the door behind him.
“Show me what you can do, honey.”
They kissed, a long slow passionate kiss that left him gasping for air, and caressed, gently at first but with mounting sensuality, until his senses were engulfed in the tidal wave of her desire. He ceased to be a person and became an object of self-gratification, rising and falling in the age-old choreography of sex. He became exhausted, she, momentarily at least, fulfilled.
“Wow! What’s your name?” he asked, dazzled.
“I don’t use names, lover,” she smiled.
“If I give you my number will you call me?”
“Only asshole.”
As a boy he had been advised to shun the frumious Bandersnatch, and now he knew why. There was no pleasing some people.
“Come on, lover.”
She lead him out of the cubicle and back into the club by the remains of his shirt collar. His clothes bore their dishevelled state like a badge of male pride; he had conquered this lioness of lust, although he knew in his heart she had conquered him.
“Hang on, babe,” he said, struggling to keep up.
“I’ll have a double brandy, with some crushed nuts…I mean ice,” she smiled, playfully. He was a nice boy really, the kind you could take home to meet mother; fifty years or so ago. It wouldn’t do, of course; just one complication too many.
He walked dutifully to the bar to get her drink, while she walked out onto the top of the spiral staircase. She looked up at the stars wistfully for a moment. We were never really free, she thought sadly; not like shooting stars in the great infinity of space, just so many birds in a gilded cage, hoping for the chance to spread our wings. Freedom came at a price; a price she would pay come what may. It was time to dispense with her alter-ego; Janis Turner, and anyone who had ever known her.
Part Twelve
The Pink Parrot was the definitive example of late 80’s bar room décor. You took a perfectly respectable pub, ripped its insides out and festooned it with fifty year old gardening implements. The pièce de resistance was a mock-up of the bonnet and bumper of a 1950’s Caddy which some public-spirited soul appeared to have driven clean through the wall above the bar. Clearly it didn’t pay to drink and drive. As if the décor wasn’t sufficiently challenging, the piped music was loud enough to wake the dead, as a quick glance at the clientèle readily confirmed.
Their scrupulous host no doubt felt sufficiently concerned about the level of bar prices to dream up a list of names for his cocktails, fit to adorn the children of A List celebrities. It was clearly essential to divert his clients’ attention from the second mortgage required to imbibe.
Mike and Hymie sat on their chromium-plated bar stools and looked down the drinks list for a laugh.
“What’s it to be Mike, a Brooklyn Sunrise or a Madison Marvel? No, wait, what’s this? How about a Yachtsman’s Willy?”
“No thanks mate, this place is already giving me the willies. I thought we came in here for a drink,” said Mike. Do you serve beer in here, sunshine?” he enquired.
The barman looked at him as though he were a visitor from another planet, or something unpleasant he had found attached to the sole of his shoe.
“Beer, sir? This is a cocktail bar. All we have is there on the list.”
“Let me see now…we’ll have a couple of Dental Drills and help yourself to a Big Greeny on me.”
“A Big Greeny, sir?”
“Just my little joke. We’ll be sitting at that corner table over there” he said, pointing.
“So, you’ve got your own firm of private investigators, Artie. Any money in it?”
“Do I look like there is?” queried Hymie. “Incidentally, I’ve changed my name for business reasons.”
“What business reasons? Have you done a runner with the VAT?”
Hymie appeared to be considering it momentarily as a new source of income, before coming clean. “I don’t earn enough to charge VAT…although the clients won’t know that I suppose.”
“What name do you use now then? Albert Fincklestein?” asked Mike.
“Close, Hymie Goldman.”
“And are you any good?”
“I get by. How about yourself Mike? What have you been up to for the last twenty years?”
“A bit of this, a bit of that and a bit of the other…you know how it is”
He knew exactly how it was. You did what you could and lived on dreams of a bright tomorrow.
“I’m working on a big case right now. It could set me up for life.”
“Sounds good. I could use some extra cash if you need an extra pair of hands.”
“I can’t pay you until the case is solved, but I’m meeting a representative from the Total Disaster Insurance Corporation tomorrow. Perhaps you could join me?”
“You’re kidding me, what kind of insurance company would call itself that? Still if it’s on the level, I’d be glad to Art.., sorry, Hymie. As long as there’s a decent few quid in me kick at the end of the case. I’m a night worker, so the days are usually quiet. Where do they hail from, the Total Disaster guys?”
“America apparently. We’ll find out more tomorrow.”
“When and where?” asked Mike, eager to close the deal.
“You know Benny Baker’s place on the Finchley Road?”
Mike nodded.
“Well, it’s there at 11am,” concluded Hymie.
“You’re telling me you run an investigations agency from a fast food restaurant?”
“No, of course not, Mike, it’s just neutral territory.”
“Why, are they trying to kill you, these insurance guys?”
“No, but I’ve had a bit of bother at the office lately so I thought I’d steer clear for a few days. How about you, Mike,
have you been doing security work for long?”
“I was in the Army for twelve years; the Gunners.”
“You’re not still an Arsenal supporter are you?”
“Of course! Well, you can’t be in the Royal Artillery, grow up in North London and support Chelsea, can you?” he grimaced.
“At least Chelsea have the occasional British player, it’s like going to watch a United Nations’ Eleven at Highbury these days,” complained Hymie.
“Highbury? Jeez, where have you been Goldman? it’s called the Emirates Stadium these days.”
“Yeah, that’s because you have to be an oil sheikh to afford the ticket prices. I miss the old days though. You know, my granddad used to tell me he saw England beat Italy at Highbury in 1934, when there were seven Arsenal players in the England team!”
“I know; I am a true supporter you know, although I admit I probably wouldn’t believe you otherwise, H. Anyway, as I was saying, I was with the old ubique quo fas et Gloria ducunt…”
“Who’re you calling a cu…”
“…boys for twelve years. Save it, H. There’s nothing funny about being in the Army. Eventually I got fed up of taking orders from cocky young upstarts who didn’t know their epaulets from their elbow and decided not to re-enlist. Since then I’ve been throwing people out of a succession of nightclubs. It ain’t a bad crack really, or at least it wasn’t until the Triads moved in and used the clubs to front their drug pushing. That doesn’t sit too well with me, see. I’ve seen what drugs can do to kids and it ain’t pretty.”
“How do you know about the drugs?”
“I’m not blind. They have couriers going back and forth all the time. They do a good job and don’t ask questions and they stick around, otherwise they don’t last long,” explained Mike.
“Say, there was something I meant to ask you,” said Hymie. That girl you were talking to at the club earlier…”
“Steffie?”
“That’s the one.”
“Have you taken a good look at yourself in a mirror lately, H? You’d have no chance.”
“Very funny. No, I wondered if you knew her surname as she looks familiar.”
“Part of the case you’re working on?” asked Mike.
“Could be,” remarked Hymie, noncommittally.
“Sorry H., I don’t know her last name, I just know her as Steffie. She’s as smart as paint though…lovely girl.”
“Do you know who she was after at the club?”
“A guy named Tony Lee, a croupier. I haven’t seen him lately though.”
“Thanks for the gen.,” said Hymie appreciatively.
“No worries. Does it help?”
“It’s too…early to tell.” Hymie paused to reconsider his words. Were the cocktails beginning to take their toll, or was it the cumulative effect of sleep deprivation and poor diet?
It looked like Janis or Steffie Scarlatti, as she probably was, had been in cahoots with this guy Tony Lee; one of the croupiers at the club. Something had happened to him as he hadn’t shown up and people rarely failed to show up for Steffie.
“So tell me about this case you’re working on, H.”
“I’d be happy to tell you Mike, but first you’ll have to sign the Official Secrets Act in triplicate…oh, go on then, buy me another drink and we’ll call it quits. Make mine a U-Bend…easy on the mara..chino sherries, and have one yourshelf.”
The booze, credit and bullshit flowed freely as Hymie shared his recent life-story, theories and aspirations with his old friend.
“Well, you never could hold your drink” said Mike at the end of the session, bundling the inebriated investigator into a passing taxi.
“What kind of detective are you anyway?” he asked.
“The old fasshioned kind that never sholves cases and shpends mosht of his shpare time in hoshpital.” he slurred.
“I’ll see you at Benny’s tomorrow morning at 11am, Hymie,” said Mike, waving him off. “Let’s hope you’ve sobered up by then, or the insurance company will think we’re a couple of right charlies!”
Part Thirteen
The following morning the papers were full of the suspicious death of the croupier Tony Lee; found, by an unfortunate dustman, with his throat slit; the croupier, not the dustman. News being what it is, a competitive process, he only managed to make page 7 of “The Times”, but he made the front page of the “Hendon and Finchley Times”, with photos, and an editorial on the decline into gangland violence of large parts of North London. Sensationalism sold papers, especially in Hendon and Finchley, where it made a welcome change from tedium.
In her luxuriously appointed first floor apartment Steffie Scarlatti cut out the column inches devoted to the murder of Tony Lee and pasted them into her scrapbook. So, she hadn’t actually wielded the knife this time, but he was surely dead because of her. She kept a grisly record of all her killings like an actor collecting rave reviews.
Meanwhile, Hymie Goldman sat in the grottiest flat he’d ever seen, and he was something of an authority, drinking black coffee and reading the “Finchley News”. The news of Lee’s death would have made more of an impression had he been less hung over.
“You sure you didn’t know Tony Lee, H?”
“Poor slob, no I never met the guy. Got any orange juice Mike?”
“Never use the stuff.”
“What time is it?” asked Hymie. His own watch had been broken for months, although he still wore it to suggest punctuality.
“Nearly ten.”
“We’d better be making tracks if we’re going to keep that appointment.”
“I’ll ring for a cab,” said Mike, lifting the receiver.
“’Ello dere man, Ramjam Taxis here, weir jawanago?”
“My name’s Murphy and I want a cab from 62 Swanswell Road to Benny’s Bakery on the Finchley Road, pronto Tonto.”
“Fiftine minutes mon.”
Mike slammed down the phone. There was only one thing worse than taking a cab in London; public transport. Hymie was beginning to regret parting with the Zebaguchi 650. It hadn’t been from choice. He’d somehow neglected to ask Janis for the keys back at their last meeting. He didn’t even know exactly where it was, but it was too late now.
Half an hour later the “cab” arrived. They heard it before they saw it; the sound intimated that a large and well attended reggae concert was being held in a nearby park by the legendary Bob Marley. The volume seemed to grow exponentially from just south of Zion and then a black “R” reg. BMW 3 series pulled up outside. It had clearly been a quality car in its day, but its day had been and gone. Try telling that to its owner, Elroy Moses Zachariah Smith III; a fully paid-up member of the Cabbie subculture who lived by just three golden rules: keep no written records, always arrive ten minutes late, and most important of all, “be cool”.
“Hey mon, getta move on, you’re wastin’ my gas!” said Elroy Smith, uninhibited by any notion of customer service.
Mike toyed briefly with the idea of beating the crap out of him but then remembered that this would necessitate a trip on public transport and thought better of it.
Hymie noticed that one of the cab’s electric windows seemed to be freaking out; flying up and down at will, but like his friend before him decided that beggars couldn’t be choosers.
“Ehh man, is your name Murty?” asked Smith.
“No, Murphy.”
“Murty, Murphy, whaddever…dats it, git in de car!”
They climbed into the back of the cab. The cabbie put his foot down and they sped off to join the nearest traffic jam. Every time the car stood idling in traffic for a few minutes the faulty electric window seemed to suck in every noxious exhaust fume for miles around so that they were glad to bail out at journeys end.
The Golden Pig Page 7