by Timlin, Mark
‘A little more?’ I asked him.
‘Not a thing.’
‘Sure I can’t tempt you?’
‘Quite, but maybe an Irish coffee?’
The coffees arrived and got drunk in a second. Algy had cream all over his moustache and we called for another round. Jo and I had a Marlboro each and I treated Algy to a double Corona.
As we drank our second coffee, Jo and Algy started talking about America. He’d been all over in his days as an equipment roadie and they were soon chatting like old friends. It appeared he’d stayed in her home town and they’d even drunk in the same bars.
‘Old home week,’ I observed drily.
‘Just because you’ve never been,’ said Jo, ‘don’t get a hissy fit.’
I showed her my teeth and we all giggled drunkenly and ordered more Irish coffees.
‘You know, Jo,’ said Algy, ‘you remind me of a girl I took to Vegas once to play the tables. Her name was Jo and you do favour her. She was good luck for me. Little Jo from Kokomo I used to call her. She sure was pretty.’
‘Kokomo is in Indiana, and I come from New Jersey,’ said Jo.
‘What the hell,’ said Algy. ‘She came from Wyoming.’
For some reason that cracked us up too and we had to have more coffees, just for badness. It was Little Jo from then on.
‘Where are we going next?’ asked Algy after we’d plumbed the depths of coffee and fancied something a little less sweet.
‘You do like to make a night of it, don’t you?’ said Jo.
‘It has been known, Little Jo. It has been known.’
So we went back to the boozer. Algy wanted to play pool and what Algy wanted Algy got. Jo shrugged acceptance and I didn’t mind.
Of course the state we were in, we were bound to get into a row, and we did. In spades.
We rolled into the public bar and Algy called for large Remys. There were a few faces about that I knew and I nodded hello to one or two and spoke to a couple more. But being Saturday night there were a lot of strangers and as it was around ten a few bevvies had been sunk and to be fair I’d sunk my share of them. Algy put his name down for a game and we rescued a table in the corner from some punters who were cabbing off to pastures new just as we got our drinks.
There were a bunch of the Chaps in another corner who seemed to have monopolized the pool table and didn’t seem too pleased at the arrival of a new, unknown player. Casuals I guess you’d call them, all designer jeans and polo shirts or pastel jumpers with crocodiles or tigers or some other silly little animal crawling across the chest.
At last Algy got a game. He slaughtered a kid in a powder blue shirt and left him with six balls up. The kid’s mate, who fancied he was Fred Perry, racked up the balls and Algy broke and sank all seven of his balls and the black straight off. The big man was some pool player.
The Chaps in the corner were discussing the state of play and decided to send in their best player. He was a skinny guy with a thin brush cut, a pink polo and a particularly nasty borstal tattoo on his forearm.
He racked up and Algy broke off again. He opted for spots after sinking the number two ball off the break. He sunk the one ball, then in quick succession the three and five. Algy went for the seven ball, messed it up and let the skinny kid in.
He put his striped twelve in the middle pocket, then the nine and fourteen followed. That was when the trouble started. Algy’s seven ball was an inch or so away from the side cushion where he’d left it and the white had rolled up to the baulk when the fourteen went down. Skinny’s ten ball was over the far pocket blocking the seven so he obviously wanted that one to stay put, but he had the thirteen dead at the end next to the ten. With the seven and the white where they were he couldn’t cannon so he went for a double on the thirteen and he almost pulled it off. He slammed the white ball down the table but it shivered Algy’s seven before hitting the thirteen and smashing it back to end in the top pocket by his shoulder.
‘Foul shot,’ said Algy and went to take his two-shot advantage.
‘No way,’ said Skinny.
‘Yes it was,’ said Algy mildly. ‘You touched my red ball.’
‘No.’
‘Yes.’
One of the chaps butted in. It was Fred Perry. ‘The shot was good,’ he said.
‘Foul,’ said Algy. ‘What about it Nick?’
‘Looked like it to me,’ I said.
‘What’s it to you?’ asked Skinny.
‘What’s it to him?’ I asked, nodding at Fred Perry.
‘You talking to me?’ asked Fred.
‘No, about you,’ I replied truthfully.
‘Don’t get lippy,’ said Fred.
‘Or you,’ said Algy.
‘Shut it, you big cunt,’ said Fred, and that was it really.
I cracked up, I couldn’t help it.
‘Who are you laughing at?’ asked Skinny.
‘You, you prat,’ I replied.
‘Take the breaks and lose the game.’
‘Or else?’
‘Or else,’ said Algy, ‘you’ll go home wearing a cue.’
Game, set and match. Some people won’t be told. Skinny swung his cue at Algy’s head that suddenly wasn’t where it should have been. The big man was quick, I’ll give him that, and the cue whistled harmlessly through the air and Algy picked it out of Skinny’s fist like it was a toothpick. Algy dropped it on the table and hurled the skinny guy off the ground and held him up against the wall with as much effort as you or I would lift a baby.
‘Not nice,’ he said easily.
The three or four chaps sitting decided to get into the act and stood up.
‘Sit down lads,’ I said conversationally.
‘Bollocks,’ said the one in powder blue and made for Algy’s back.
‘Beat it Jo,’ I said, jumped up and caught powder blue by his shoulder, spun him round and pushed him back towards his mates.
Then all hell broke loose. Someone lobbed a glass at Algy which missed and went straight through the window of the bar into the street. One of the barmen vaulted over the bar and came at me. I put up my hands to show I wanted no trouble and he tried to chin me. I stepped back and put up a defensive left. The barman countered with a left of his own to my ribs, so I punched back and connected a right-hander to his jaw. It was a good clean shot that knocked him down. Then the chaps came at me mob-handed. I threw a few but one of them grabbed me round the neck and dragged me across the pool table. I put my hand down for balance and felt a pool ball. I clenched it in my fist and lashed out. I heard the hard plastic connect with someone’s face and there was a lot of hooting and the grip on my throat eased slightly.
Lying as I was across the table with my head on the cushion, my view of the bar was upside-down and I saw Algy lay a good wallop into Skinny’s belly and drop him down, or up if you see what I mean, to lie on the carpet rolled up in a ball clutching at his stomach.
Algy waded through the crowd towards me picking up bodies and tossing them aside like bags of waste-paper. He grabbed whoever was holding me down and lifted him over his head and lobbed him at the chaps who were still standing. I’ll never forget the sight. People were going down like skittles, and staying down.
‘Where’s Jo?’ I choked.
‘Behind the bar.’
‘Let’s go then.’
Algy took off, roundhousing through the mob and I followed in his wake. We reached the bar and dived through the gap. Jo was leaning on the polished top casually viewing the mayhem like a veteran, which perhaps she was. I grabbed her round the waist and we dived through the doorway into the saloon bar, pushed through the crowd and out into the car park.
‘Wheels,’ I said.
‘Right there!’ shouted Algy.
I might have guessed. Parked like the QE2 next to a bunch of tramp steamers was a Bentley in the midst of the Cortinas and Avengers.
Algy hit the door, yanked it open and all three of us dived into the front. He keyed the ignition, smacked
the column change into ‘Drive’ and took off in a spray of cinders. He aimed at the exit and hit the South Circular doing forty and accelerating. We narrowly missed a Sierra estate and surged through the one-way system.
I massaged my throat and asked Jo how she was.
‘Recovering,’ she said bitingly.
‘Anyone for a drink?’ asked Algy and even she smiled.
‘Why not?’ I replied.
‘See if we can liven the evening up,’ he said.
‘Any livelier and we’ll be dead,’ remarked Jo.
‘Just about average for a Saturday evening, eh Algy?’ I asked.
‘Just about.’
He drove us up West and we spent the rest of the night in a confusion of neon and alcohol. We clubbed it until the last club closed and then we went to a club that catered for club workers and ladies of the night that didn’t open until the last club had closed, and that suited us just fine. At nine a.m. we were the last drinkers in the place except for an old grandmama dolled up like Regent Street on Christmas Eve and who only had eyes for Algy.
In the best tradition we made our excuses and left, weaving drunkenly into Sunday mid-morning.
Algy offered to drive us home but we declined and fell asleep in the back of a black cab somewhere near Vauxhall Cross to the sound of church bells.
22
Owing to lack of interest the rest of Sunday was pretty much cancelled.
Jo and I slept until two and she crawled down the road for any papers that were left and some aspirin. I was sitting in bed nursing a hangover and a cup of unsweetened black instant, half-watching the bumper edition of ‘EastEnders’ on the tube when the phone rang and I spilled half the hot liquid down my bare chest.
I fielded the phone and juggled it under my chin ‘Sharman,’ I barked. ‘And this better be good.’
‘Nicholas,’ said an effusive voice. ‘Chris Kennedy-Sloane. Sorry to bother you at the weekend but I’m off to sunnier climes on the morrow and won’t have another chance for a chin-wag for a while.’
‘I’m ill,’ I said.
‘You might get iller.’
‘Why?’
‘I suppose you’ve heard.’
‘What exactly?’
‘The Divas are opening McBain’s accounts to an expectant world.’
‘I heard.’
‘Well, be careful.’
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘Use your noggin, old boy. Mogul Incorporated are not pleased with you. Not one little bit pleased.’
‘So why are they prepared to spill the beans?’
‘Nick I didn’t say which accounts they’re opening. They’re buying time, that’s all.’
‘For what?’
‘For you, my dear. That’s the reason for this call. I like you Nicholas. You have a wry sense of humour and seem to be a cut above some of the others in your profession that it has been my misfortune to meet. If indeed one can honour it with the word “Profession”.’
‘Cheers.’
‘Don’t mention it. I also heard about young Steven’s - how can I put it? – slight misfortune in the waterworks department, and I must confess it raised you highly in my estimation. It’s good to hear of a reptile of that ilk getting his just rewards. But beware, my friend, he won’t forget the incident in a hurry, and I’ve heard that some of his methods of revenge are barbaric in extremis.’
‘Fuck his luck,’ I said.
‘Precisely. Anyway, enough of all this. We must meet for a sherbert upon my return and you can tell me the whole story.’
‘Don’t mention sherbert to me.’
‘Heavy night?’
‘And morning.’
‘That bad?’
‘Algy.’
‘Ah, the animalistic road manager.’
‘He’s OK,’ I said.
‘Have it your way, but I don’t really see him as the ideal companion for an evening’s soirée.’
‘Do you ever use one word when three will do?’
‘Rarely. Oh my, I just did.’
‘No, you didn’t.’
‘Quite, and there I go again. Now when I get back I’ll give you a bell and if you’re feeling better, as I’m sure you will, I’ll treat you to a small lemonade and a bite of lunch.’
‘I’ll look forward to it,’ I said.
‘Cheers then, and I repeat, be careful.’
‘Cheers,’ I said and dropped the phone back onto the receiver and fumbled a cigarette out of Jo’s packet and lit it. I felt nauseous as the smoke bit and swallowed some coffee, then shrugged. I heard Jo shuffling up the stairs and hoped that everything would turn out all right. What else could I do? And that was that for, I suppose, a fortnight, when I finally got a twinge of conscience about just sitting around and decided to go out and chase up some business. So one chill morning I put on my prospector’s hat and took a tour round to see what I could see.
It was a quiet morning and no one seemed to need anything in the debt-collecting or detecting line. It seemed that everyone was paying their bills on time and only sleeping with their own wives.
In a pig’s ear, they were.
I stopped off at lunchtime for a small lager and a microwaved one hundred per cent pure sawdust burger then pointed the car towards home.
23
I got back to the office around two. I’d left the gas fire on for the cats and all the windows were steamed up. I had my key in my hand, but the door was already unlocked. I froze with one hand on the door handle and one on the key in the lock. I left the key where it was and pushed the door gently open. I stood outside for a moment. Everything seemed quiet so I sidled in and stood in the doorway.
Someone had hung Cat up from the light fixture with a length of thick piano wire. She swung almost imperceptibly to and fro above my desk. The wire had tightened around her throat and pulled up a tiny ruff of fur under her chin. A solitary ruby bead of blood shivered under one nostril.
I stood and looked in sheer disbelief. I gripped the door frame hard to regain some feeling of reality and choked back a cry or word or something, I can’t remember. What can I say, except I’d grown very fond of that damned cat.
I looked around for the kittens. They’d been kicked into a bloody heap under the desk. When I touched them they were already beginning to stiffen.
I cut Cat down with a pair of pliers and cradled her body in my arms. I don’t think I’d ever held her so close when she’d been alive. Her fur felt cool and damp. I stroked her head for the last time, then laid her on the desk and went into the back room to get a black plastic garbage sack. I put Cat and her kittens together in the sack and secured the neck with tape. I went out and across the road to some council workmen digging a hole, and asked to borrow a shovel. They acted as if they thought I was going to steal it, but a couple of pound coins soon straightened them out. I went back to the office and let myself out through the back door into the handkerchief-sized yard. There was one spot where the sun touched at noon in the summer. Some wild flowers straggled there in defiance of the stony ground. I dug deep and buried Cat and the kittens that had never even been named. I didn’t say a prayer. Who needed it? It was just a stray cat and some bastard mongrel kittens. Not worth a toss, except to me. I tapped down the earth firmly and returned the shovel. The way the workmen looked, I think for another couple of quid I could have leased the generator they were using to drive their pneumatic drill.
I went back to the office and sat and stared at the insides of the misted windows and wondered who had killed the poor bloody things. But really I knew from the moment I’d seen Cat’s body.
I don’t know how long I sat there nursing a slow burning fury before I heard a rustle and squeak from behind the filing cabinet. I went round to investigate. Jammed in tight between the cabinet and the wall was a live kitten. It was the little black-and-white runt of the litter. I couldn’t believe it. It was just a scrap of fur crying for its mother but it was warm and alive.
I gently lifted it f
rom its hiding place and tucked it inside my shirt where I could feel its tiny heart beating next to mine, locked the office and took it home. I went back up to my flat and mixed some warm milk and water and fed the little thing from the finger of a rubber glove with a tiny hole poked in the end. The kitten seemed to enjoy its feed and soon fell asleep on one of my pillows stuffed into the bottom of a brown cardboard box. It wasn’t ideal but would have to do until something better came along.
I wandered the carpet, running the event through my mind. I wanted to be sure I was right in my suspicions but there had been no hint at the office, no scribbled note or mysterious telephone call. But I knew. I just couldn’t prove it. I should have done something about it then, but I didn’t. I just kept wandering the carpet and drinking too much vodka and shed a tear for the poor dumb thing that had befriended me and, like every friend I’d ever had, came to a tragic end. So in the end I did the worst thing I could have done. I did nothing.
24
I didn’t know what to tell Jo about Cat. What the hell do you say to someone who’s father is a Mafia Don when your only pet has been hung up like a side of salt beef. I’d seen The Godfather, twice in fact, and I remembered the horse’s head in the bed, and all of a sudden it wasn’t so filmic somehow. It was bloody real and it bloody scared the shit out of me.
And it wasn’t funny, not one little bit, but somehow, thinking about it as I made a groove in the carpet, it had the taste, the tinge of the blackest of black comedy.
As I walked and as I drank I had a brainwave about what to do about the surviving kitten. When I was on the squad cars I’d been called in on a burglary at a terraced house round the back of Brixton Prison. The victim had been Wanda something or other, but my partner and I had nicknamed her Cat Woman. The house was overheated to the point of tropicality, and on the ground floor all the interior walls had been knocked out to make one big room. All sorts of exotic plants thrived in the heat, climbing the walls and hanging down from the ceiling. She had cats like other people had cockroaches. They sat on every available surface and the noise of their purring was like the sound of waves breaking on a sandy beach.