Harry moved to a fruit machine and spied on Kinski around the edge of it. He looked older and sicker but Harry could see the same man he had known twenty five years earlier. Now he sat with his bleached blonde hair looking stringy and thin, his face red and swollen and his stomach pushing against what was once an expensive suit jacket but was now dated and frayed.
Harry could see the dark thing that hung like a leech on the man’s shoulder; scarred and battered it was as fat and slug-like as the man it clung to. Harry watched Kinski’s hand beating out a tattoo on the table top and he saw the missing fingers from his right hand, the dent in the left side of the man’s skull.
For a moment Harry was thrown back through the years to the moment in a basement club where hard steel flashed under party lights and fingers fell to the floor like unwanted chipolatas at a children’s party.
Harry leant against the flashing lights of the machine and closed his eyes. He stayed like that for minutes.
“’Scuse me, mate.”
Harry turned and a man in a polo shirt stood before him.
“What?”
Harry held the pint glass tight and low, ready to launch it into the man’s neck.
The man held out his hands.
“Sorry, mate, just trying to get to the fruity like.”
Harry stood for a moment and then moved to the side.
“Sorry.”
He moved into an alcove opposite and took a deep breath. He felt disgusted that he had almost let the beast out from its cage.
He took a sip from his pint and threw another look at Kinski. The fat man sat with two other men; a light skinned man with a half-hearted afro and stingy beard and a thick boned meat head with an inch of neck and a shaved bowling ball for a head. They were dressed in the same manner as Kinski; pricey but life worn. A young guy stepped through the doors and moved to Kinski’s table. The newcomer was tall and slim. The talk was animated and there was a lot of gesturing outside.
Harry put his pint down and made an exit through the back. He cut around to Charing Cross Road until he stood opposite the front of the pub. A small yellow Fiat was parked at the curb. A young girl sat in the front passenger seat. Harry found himself crossing the road. The girl in the car was young, maybe fifteen, dressed in a neon pink tube dress and little else. She looked at Harry staring and she stared back. She wasn’t Rhian. The young man that Harry had pegged as Danny Carter exited the pub. He caught Harry’s eye and glared at him.
“The fuck you looking at, old man?”
Harry shrugged.
“Nothing here you can afford.”
“That so?”
“You want something or not?”
Harry smiled.
The kid stepped off the kerb and made to square up to Harry. As he stepped in Harry turned and dropped his foot hard into the kid’s knee. Danny fell forward letting Harry close the distance and throw a fist into his throat. He choked and dropped.
A car door opened and the girl screamed.
Harry dropped to one knee and rattled Danny’s head off the kerb.
“Tell Howie the past’s coming for him.”
He slammed Danny’s head down again and then ran across the road heading towards Seven Dials.
*
Harry sat on the bed in his room in the bail hostel, hands on knees, and remembered. The years seemed to roll back; Harry as a younger man, Nicola as a child, Marnie the most enamouring woman Harry had met.
Harry had dealt in debts, bad debts mostly. He collected for the owner of the casino where he worked, Mr Conway, and some of his Chinese friends across Shaftsbury Avenue. His name got around and he free lanced; collecting debts and making sure certain rules were enforced. The way Harry saw it the violence would get dealt out and the hurt put down even if he wasn’t there, so why shouldn’t he profit from it.
Kinski approached him as Christmas ‘87 loomed. A man named Kenny Logan owed him eight grand, gambling debt. Harry went round and had a word. Through broken teeth Kenny had offered Harry his twelve year old daughter in lieu of the debt. Harry broke his arm. Kinski had laughed and told Harry he should have taken the offer - soon after Harry began to see the dark things.
It seemed that even a trip to the supermarket showed Harry a dark underbelly of the creatures hanging on people and forcing them to do their will.
A story did the rounds in Soho; Kinski had gone to see Logan himself and he had taken him up on his offer. He had Logan’s daughter in a room up in Mornington Crescent and was charging every nonce and chester in Central London to jump her. Harry went to see them; Kinski and his partners Bernie Glass and Omar Sanchez. They laughed and Harry saw the mouths of the dark things that hung on their shoulders. They offered Harry a free go on the girl – he refused. They offered him a cut – he turned it down. The dark things began to whisper and then the men spoke. They asked Harry about Nicola; how old she was, how tight she was, did Harry want to trade. Harry left. He came back an hour later with a hatchet and when he was done two men lay dead and another was wheeled away.
No, Harry had never done anything for Nicola.
Swinging his legs off the bed Harry grabbed up his money and took one last look around his room. It wasn’t much but it had been home since he got out. He checked his watch, it was ten thirty. Harry’s curfew was eleven P.M.
Kicking open his door Harry walked out and headed for the stairs. Taking a deep breath of the night, Harry hailed a cab and treated himself to a chauffeured ride back into Soho – where it had started and where it would end.
Harry jumped out the cab on Tottenham Court Road and walked his way down through the wet pavements and neon lights. He stopped at a call box filled with the calling cards for brasses based in Bayswater, Greek Street, Pentonville Road and streets around the British Museum. Harry called Eddie first and asked for an address. Then he called Marnie.
“Hello, babes.”
“That you, Harry?”
“Wish we were still lying down together.”
“Even though you left me like sleeping beauty earlier?”
“You know I always loved you, don’t you?”
“I had my suspicions, Mr Sands.”
“I’ll try and see you later.”
“Whenever you can, Harry. Take care.”
Harry deaded the call and called Eddie back.
“You got it?”
“Do you really have to do this, Harry?”
“You know I do, Eddie. Imagine it was one of your grandkids.”
“Okay, they’ve got a flat in St. Anne’s Court. Blue door. You’re to say Perry sent you for Amy.”
“Thank you, Ed. I wish we’d got to play chess again.”
“So do I my friend, so do I.”
Harry walked the streets, coat zipped to the neck, a relic making one last move.
Tourists and drunken kids milled around the streets. Shall we go to another pub or straight to a club? Time to catch the last train or we staying out? Harry slid past them trying to think of a reason to just call the cops and leave it at that. He couldn’t find a reason but he found himself in St. Anne’s Court. He looked over the basement flats until he found the blue door. He walked down the stairs and knocked twice. A few moments passed and Harry wondered if he had the wrong door. Then it opened and Harry came face to face with the bowling ball head he had seen sitting with Kinski earlier.
“You alright?”
“Yeah, Perry sent me, said I should ask to see Amy.”
The big man looked him up and down.
“Yeah alright.”
The big man stepped to the side and Harry slid past him and inside.
Harry was ushered into a bedroom at the side of the hallway. He looked around; a bed, a TV with a porn DVD running on a side table and a couple of posters of jail bait girls in provocative poses. There was a knock at the door and a small woman with a pinched face and dirty bleached blonde hair entered.
“Okay, what you here for?”
“Usual,” replied Harry.
&nbs
p; “The usual, what the fuck’s that then?” asked the woman.
“Y’know . . .”
The woman eyed Harry suspiciously.
“A suck and a fuck, what d’you think?”
“Alright, that’s two hundred,” she replied.
Harry eyed the dark thing that hung skinny and mean from her shoulders and then he looked away quickly.
“Bit steep in’it?”
“Oh, this girl’s tight as fuck. Young ‘un, thirteen if that. A really good ride, good girl she’s no trouble.”
Harry tried to look like a nervous punter as he pulled out his roll and peeled off ten score notes.
“Go on then. Send her in.”
“Alright, lose the clothes and I’ll send her in, darlin’.”
The woman left and Harry took off his jacket, he put it carefully on a chair. He waited a few moments and then pulled his jumper over his head. He threw it on top of his jacket. Harry stood in vest, jeans and boots and waited. Moans came from the TV but Harry tried to listen beyond them to the rest of the flat. The door opened and a girl stepped into the room. To Harry it was the antithesis of the sexual come on he knew from the working girls in Soho – the girl was dressed younger than her years in a T-Shirt with a cartoon bear on it and a tight pair of pastel coloured shorts. Harry recognised her from the off. It was Rhian.
Her eyes were as big as dinner plates and her pupils were so large they eclipsed the colour in her eyes.
She walked like a zombie towards him.
“Do you want to be my daddy?” she asked.
Harry felt a tear begin to trace a line down his face.
“Rhian, baby, I need you to sit here for a minute.”
She was loose limbed and pliable. Harry sat her on the bed and then picked up his coat. He took the meat cleaver out and laid it on the bed while he wrapped the coat around her skinny shoulders. She didn’t say a word she simply sat there and stared at the wall. Harry took the cleaver and stepped out into the flat. He crept down the corridor.
The first door was the kitchen and he saw the madam watching a soap opera on a small TV set. He leant the cleaver against the door frame and stepped in quickly behind her. Harry’s right forearm slid to the front of her throat and his left slammed into the back of her neck. Once the choke hold was in place Harry locked his arms and stared at the ceiling. The woman’s legs kicked against the floor but Harry held her up and applied continuous pressure until she stopped moving. He threw her to the floor and watched the inky blackness of the dark thing as it tried to crawl away. Harry stamped down on the woman’s head. The animal made of the dark bucked and twisted as its host slipped away. Harry headed towards the next door.
The door opened as he reached it and the meat head who’d let him in stepped out - Harry put a kick in between the man’s legs and hit him with the flat of the cleaver. Harry stamped his foot twice on the head of the prone man. Three of them sat in the room beyond; Kinski, his light skinned partner and Danny Carter resting his leg on the coffee table. Makeshift crack pipes fashioned from empty lager cans littered the table.
Danny sat up. “What the fuck do you . . .?”
Harry cut him off by hacking the cleaver into his jaw. The room turned to pandemonium.
Kinski jumped to the right and his partner hurtled into Harry. Harry caught him with the back sweep of the cleaver and the man crashed into a wall. With blood running from this face he pulled a knife and slashed at Harry. He cut Harry across the shoulder. Harry kicked out and the man scuttled back. Danny writhed on the floor attempting to get up and Kinski was throwing papers out of a drawer in a sideboard. The man with the knife rushed at Harry. Harry let go of the cleaver and caught the man’s wrist. As they tangoed around the room Harry pushed the knife back towards the man and grabbed at him with the other hand. Once he had hold of him Harry threw himself backwards and let the man’s momentum do the rest. The knife ended up buried in his gut – the dark thing on his back squealed as blood spilled out onto the carpet.
Harry dragged himself up and then the room filled with noise.
The first bullet took Harry in his left elbow and spun him round so that the second tore across the flesh of his back. Harry screamed and grabbed for the cleaver. The third shot tore a chunk from the wall.
Harry turned and rushed at Kinski. A bullet punched through Harry’s chest. He screamed again and chopped down at Kinski’s head. Steel cut flesh and smashed bone. Harry hacked again, a bullet fired off into the floor and it was Kinski’s turn to scream. The gun fell to the carpet and Harry chopped down again and again until chunks of Kinski lay on the floor.
He stepped off and surveyed the room. Danny tried to pull himself up. Harry picked up the pistol and shot him behind the ear. The smell of blood and gunpowder filled the air. Harry grabbed a suit jacket from behind a chair and threw it on as he walked back out of the room. He paused in front of a mirror in the hall and looked at himself; past sixty with a face aged by a hard life that was rapidly paling as blood fell onto the floor. A dark face appeared over Harry’s shoulder, the dark thing he had kept in check for so long seemed to throw him an inky smile. It looked as tired and worn as Harry.
He took a breath, bit down the pain and headed back to Rhian.
“Come on, baby girl. Time to go.”
Harry helped Rhian from the flat and hailed a black cab once they hit Wardour Street.
He pressed notes into the cab drivers hand and gave him Nicola’s address. He sat down on the kerb and watched the cabs lights disappear into the Soho night.
Habeas Corpus
By the time I got there they had already taken three of his fingers. Hammer and chisel, me I’d have preferred bolt cutters but then I’ve been known to be a soft touch. Sometimes. At least they had cauterised the wounds with an iron so he hadn’t passed out from blood loss. He didn’t look too clever though.
When I got the call I was propping up a bar in Angel while talking to a woman with dyed red hair and legs that were longer then her dress. The intruding chirp of my mobile was as unwelcome as a razor’s kiss on a cold morning but when I saw the caller ID I knew I’d have to take it. I excused myself from the pouting red head and stepped out.
“Boss?” I flipped the collar on my Burberry and wished I’d brought an umbrella.
“They’ve got him.”
“What d’you want me to do?”
“What you do best. Supervise.”
He disconnected the call and left me looking for a cab on a rain slicked Upper Street.
They had him in the underground parking area of a half constructed apartment block in Silvertown. We’d used the place before when we needed to have a quiet word with someone. I tapped in the security code and walked across the harshly lit bare concrete. The kid was tied to an office chair with wire and two of the lads, Kyle and Carl, were going at his hand with the hammer and chisel, the chair sat on a sheet of clear plastic. They let up on the meat carpentry as I approached. Kyle and Carl looked like they were brothers, cousins at least. They weren’t, just birds of a feather; gym bulked bodies, perma-tans from the electric beach and a penchant for dark clothes and violence. They’d kicked the shit out of the kid tied to the chair; broke nose, eye puffed shut, bloody mouth looking short of a few pearlies, not to mention his hand.
I strolled over and surveyed the damage. I whistled.
“He told you yet?”
A shaking of heads, the lads looked sheepish.
“Go on, take a breather.”
They walked away, probably going to compare triceps and tips on which whey protein is best for building knuckle mass. I slid my Burberry off, took out my Marlboros. I lit two and stuffed one into matey boy’s mouth. I took a good tug on my cigarette and watched the kid. He managed to pull in a lungful of smoke and the filter clung to the sticky blood of his torn lips.
“Wha’sh thish then? Good cop time?” He laughed to himself. It sounded hollow, like he was already dead.
I picked up the hammer that Carl had left
and I rapped him over the knee.
“Nah I reckon you’ve had enough, son, you want to spill it.”
He spat the cigarette out.
“Go fuck yourself!”
Proper hard case.
How’re you meant to respond to that? After I took the remaining finger and his thumb he still wouldn’t talk. I pulled his jeans down and let him feel the chisel. Then he spilled it.
*
“Boss, we’ve got a problem.”
“I don’t like problems.”
“I know.”
“I take it he didn’t tell you where?”
“Sort of… Reckons he was off his face and can’t remember the name of the place. Says he’ll know it when he sees it.”
“You believe him?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah?”
“He wouldn’t hold anything back, boss. We’ll throw him in the car and go find this place.”
“I just want my boy back.”
“I know, boss. I know.”
The boss terminated the call and I looked over at Carl and Kyle.
“Get him cleaned up. We’re going for a drive.”
After they’d hosed the kid off Carl splashed bleach on the floor while Kyle went to get their BMW X5, black of course. It had smoked windows which was all for the good as I secured the kids hands with a zip tie and pushed him into the back. Carl got in next to the kid, Kyle drove and I rode shotgun – except I had a nine millimetre Walther in the pocket of my Burberry.
We hit the motorway and I watched the kid in the rear view mirror as the orange lights slipped by in bright streams beyond the windows. The kid had his eyes shut as though asleep. No way could he have been sleeping. We’d tossed some codeine down his neck but his hand should have been screaming at him. I tapped the radio on and got some of the bass heavy shit that Carl and Kyle listen to and re-tuned it to a station relaying the Tottenham game.
*
When we reached the outskirts of Gravesend I gave Carl a look and the kid got a slap. His eyes snapped open, wide and pink the colour of a bloodshot sky.
“What’s your name, kid?”
“Jamie.”
“Well, Jamie, you want to come up with something?”
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