I was just loading the dishwasher when someone started plying the enormous brass doorknocker outside. There’s a perfectly good doorbell out there, too, but nobody ever notices it.
The usual things happened with the clatter of the knocker. I jumped. Spot and the cats all ran for cover. Roxanne said, “Matt, get that, I’m not dressed.”
Relatively prosperous and in London though we were, there was one aspect of what Americans perceive as British home life we were never going to adopt, and that was hanging around the house in smoking jackets and dresses.
When Roxanne said she wasn’t dressed, she didn’t just mean she wasn’t dressed for dinner. She meant she was wearing a baby blue flannel nightgown over which she had one of my old plaid shirts from L.L. Bean.
I was wearing sweat pants and a T-shirt, but by some arcane feminine logic, this made me more prepared to answer the door than she was.
“Just a minute!” I yelled, as I always do, though considering the thickness of the oaken door, I’m sure nobody ever hears me.
It certainly never discourages them from crashing the goddamn door knocker down again. I start to feel like Errol Flynn barricaded inside a castle, with Basil Rathbone and a bunch of henchmen outside having at the door with a battering ram. I should be buckling on a sword, but instead, I merely step into a pair of moccasins (also from L.L. Bean) and one of my own plaid shirts if Rox has left me any.
Then I open the door to reveal an earnest person shaking a can at me, collecting money to fight the ringworm epidemic on the drought-stricken Paphooda Peninsula.
I had one hand on the doorknob and one reaching into the ashtray we kept on the small table by the door for some change. The first thing I noticed was that the caller had no can. Then I saw who it was.
“Lady Arking?” I squeaked.
She winced and looked furtively around. I thought at first she might be overdoing things, but then I remembered that our neighbors on either side were a West End and TV actress and major solicitor from the City, and I reconsidered. Maybe I had been a little loud.
“Mr. Cobb,” she said. She was nearly whispering, probably to set an example for me. “I know the intrusion is unpardonable, but may I come in?”
“Huh?” I said intelligently. “Oh. Sure. Of course.” I stepped aside to make room for her, and she scooted in.
I waited a second as an old paranoid habit reasserted itself, and I took a quick look around the neighborhood to see if she was being followed.
The street was empty. I called myself an idiot and stepped inside. I took her coat and led her to what was called by British real estate agents the reception area but by me the living room.
And what to my wondering eyes should appear seated there but Roxanne Schick in a pert little green shirtwaist dress, stockings, and pumps, with a tasteful string of pearls around her neck. She looked as if she’d just come back from Sloane Square after tea with Di and Fergie and the rest of the girls.
She smiled at me sweetly, and suddenly I felt like a streaker. Great in bed, great cook, lightning-fast quick-change artist—there was no end to Roxanne’s talents. This from a woman whom I have personally seen take forty-five minutes to decide on a pair of earrings.
I smiled back, less sweetly. There wasn’t much to do but brazen it out, then strangle my beloved at a better time.
“Lady Arking,” I said, “this is Roxanne Schick, my, uh ...”
“Fiancée,” Rox provided. I could tell she had just decided to strangle me back.
Still, Rox managed to carry the ball where I would have been thrown for a loss.
“It’s such a pleasure to meet you,” Rox said sincerely. “I must tell you, I’ve been extremely impressed with you since before I knew who you were.”
Lady Arking had taken off the shades and the scarf by now and, with the gray mane loose, looked a lot more like herself.
Not totally, however. There was a diffidence about her, an uncertainty that didn’t suit her at all. This was a woman born to be imperial, not make a wan little smile and say she didn’t quite understand.
“Well,” Roxanne explained, “I was a little girl when Sir Richard died, but I know my grandfather had plans to try to take over BIC at the time. Then when he saw the job you were doing with the company, he said, ‘Forget it, that broad’s too tough to mess with.’ I’m in awe of anyone too tough for my grandfather.”
Lady Arking laughed with real humor and appreciation, but she was not cheered up, if you know what I mean.
Rox asked if her ladyship would be willing to risk tea made by an American, and she said she was, so Rox went off to see to it.
I sat there in my slob suit and waited for the woman to talk.
“Mr. Cobb,” she said at last, “I must apologize. I did check your story, and you were telling the truth in every particular.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Apology accepted. What else did Tom Falzet say?”
“How do you know I spoke to Falzet?”
“You’re used to dealing with people at the top,” I said. “Besides, you weren’t the slightest bit surprised when I introduced Roxanne. You must have been told she’d be here. I can’t see anybody but Falzet giving that information out.”
Just about then, Spot decided the door knocker was not some dogcatcher from hell, and crept out to make friends. He’s good at that.
“What a beautiful dog!” Lady Arking said, which is what everybody says on seeing Spot. “May I pet him?”
“He’ll be crushed if you don’t,” I said.
Spot closed his eyes and enjoyed it. Now the cats started creeping out. I explained the quarantine business. She said she thought that was a clever idea.
She was really taken with Spot. “Yes,” she said, “you’re a handsome fellow, aren’t you? What’s your name?”
Otherwise perfectly sane people are always asking Spot that, as though they expected him to answer. As usual, I filled in the awkward silence. “His name’s Spot,” I said, and then I had to explain how the Sloans had named him for the gigantic white spot that covered his entire body. She pretended to think that was clever.
Roxanne came back with some tea and some shortbread. I love shortbread. We had a nice little nosh and made small talk. Finally, I said, “Lady Arking, don’t you think you ought to tell me the real reason you came here tonight?”
“You don’t have to be brutal, Mr. Cobb.”
“I don’t mean to be,” I said.
“No,” she said, stroking a cat now, the gray Persian whose owner planned to bring it to a castle in Scotland. “I don’t suppose you do. It’s just that I am not used to being in the kind of situation I find myself in, and I don’t like it. Having to ask a favor. I’m much more used to being in position to give commands.”
I looked for a twinkle in her eye as she said that, and thought I found one. Could have been wishful thinking on my part, I suppose. “What’s the favor?” I asked. Then I thought better of it and said, “No. Wait a minute. Before you tell me—us—anything, there’s something I’d better say. I’m on a leave of absence from the Network, and Miss Schick, though she’s the largest single stockholder, has managed with great difficulty to keep herself off the board of directors at the Network, so that’s all right. But we’re both stockholders, and we have a responsibility to ourselves and our fellow stockholders. If something is truly wrong at TVStrato, once you were to tell us about it, we’d have to pass the news back to New York.”
Lady Arking nodded. “Of course. I would insist you do it, if that were the case.”
“So?” I demanded. “Is it the case?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“You’ve got to do better than that,” I told her.
“I have noticed something ... odd going on,” she said. “My stepson Stephen brought it to my attention at first. But whether it concerns just me personally, or TVStrato as well, I cannot say. No one at work knows anything about this except Bernard Levering, and he knows only what I’m about to ask you to
do, not why. I give you my word for this much. I am honestly convinced the odds are overwhelmingly in favor of the latter.”
I sighed the sigh of a man who is facing the fact that it is easier to try to swim in quicksand than it is to try to fight it.
“What’s the favor?” I said.
6
“You’re nicked, Sunshine.”
John Thaw
The Sweeney, Thames TV
THE FAVOR TURNED OUT to be nothing much. I was supposed to hand an envelope to an African man, about twenty-four years old, who would be standing in the queue outside Planet Hollywood, which happened to be just down the block from the Chinese restaurant in which Roxanne and I now sat belching with pleasure.
Having finally come out with the Big Request, Lady Arking spent the next ten minutes or so buttering me up, using the very finest English butter.
Not only, according to her, did I have a virtually godlike reputation at the Network, but the New York Police Department lost many management man hours repining the fact that such an honest and brilliant personage as I had not decided to become a cop.
That was the kind of person she needed, you see. Someone she could trust implicitly, yet whose name wouldn’t be connected with hers by the curious or worse. Someone whose resourcefulness and discretion were beyond question.
And so on. It got to be embarrassing, and it was a mighty letdown when the task for which this paragon was needed was the simple delivery of an envelope. Still, with the butter laid on so thick (and the fantastic fact of her arrival on our doorstep to prove that whatever was going on here, it was desperately important to her), I decided to go along.
She took a sip of Roxanne’s tea and pronounced it quite good. She took another sip. I could see her muscles loosen as the tension drained from her.
I got the particulars of my mission. They were simple enough. About 2 P.M. I was to be walking along Wardour Street in Piccadilly, where the line curves around the corner to get into Planet Hollywood.
There is always a line to get into Planet Hollywood. The one in London is part of a chain—they have a couple in the States, too—that’s partially owned by a bunch of movie stars.
Now, working for the Network, I’ve met a lot of celebrities and I haven’t gotten over being starstruck yet, so it would be understandable, it seems to me, to stand in line if Sly were going to bring you to your table, or Bruce was tending bar, or Arnie would sit down and jaw with you for a few minutes before Demi brought you the bill charging you six pounds (about nine bucks) for your hamburger.
But the stars haven’t been anywhere near the place since the grand opening. These people (to be fair, they’re mostly tourists, a lot of them Americans, who, if you ask me, ought to know better) wait in line every day for the privilege of eating a hamburger that costs nine bucks.
If Lady Arking’s favor had called for me to stand in line out there, I would have refused on principle. As it was, I simply had to find the guy, bump into him, make us both drop our envelopes, then bend over and pick up his.
It was Amateur Night in Dixie, but I’d already signed on to play and it was too late to change the script. I considered pointing out that the whole thing could have been handled more efficiently by the Royal Mail (which delivers twice a day, by the way, U.S. Postal Service take note) for the cost of a pair of twenty-nine-pence stamps. I decided against it on the grounds that it wouldn’t do anybody, least of all me, any good, and would make Lady Arking so nervous she’d move in with us.
After numerous reassurances on our part and thank yous on hers, we finally got her out the door. I wish we could have sent a couple of the cats home with her.
So now, I was moving in on my quarry. He was easy enough to spot. He was a six-foot-four-inch black man wearing a red, gold, black, and green dashiki and a round cap to match. His name was Joseph Aliou, and he was from Cameroon. Lady Arking had told me that, even though I had begged her not to.
I hustled down the street, pretending I was late for something or other. Aliou made it easy for me by standing on the edge of the pavement, practically in the street. I was heading downhill with a good head of steam, and I gave him a good, solid nudge. Basically, I wanted to make sure he dropped his goddamn envelope, which I did not see anywhere.
I did better than that, I practically knocked him off his feet. And of course, I nearly forgot to drop my envelope.
I let go of it in time, though, and I saw something flutter out from under his dashiki.
There were some comments from the crowd, including some imputing racist motives to my “assault.”
Great, I thought. TVStrato was doing fine, thanks, but most of Lady Arking’s money in the UK came from a sensationalist tabloid called The Orbit I could just see the headline now: YANK AGITATOR IN PICCADILLY RACE RIOT SHOCK HORROR.
I instantly became Contrition personified, helping him steady himself, picking up the envelopes and carefully giving him the wrong (that is the right) one, brushing him off, and apologizing constantly, trying very hard to give the impression that I would have to be specially told before I even noticed the guy was black.
He, in the meantime, was Human Brotherhood, forgiving me even more quickly that I could apologize, his musical African-French accent soothing the rumblers in the crowd. It even made me feel better.
The exchange made, I gave him one last “sorry” and was on my way.
Five seconds later, someone shot him.
This was real-life gunfire as opposed to TV gunfire—short, sharp pops that didn’t sound dangerous at all. I turned my head toward the sound just in time to see Joseph Aliou leak blood from a couple of places in his chest and begin to sink to the street.
My head spun around and I just caught a glimpse of Rox ducking into a stone doorway. Smart lady. She’d be okay. I looked back around—there’d been no more shooting, and most of the would-be burger buyers still had no idea what was going on.
I started to make my way through the crowd to see if I could help Aliou, but two things made me stop.
One thing was that plenty of people were attending him. One person had whipped out a portable phone (listen, rubbish collectors in London have portable phones) and was already calling 999 for help.
The other thing was that as I was trying to make my way in toward the victim, I saw somebody trying to make his way out. He was a short, light-skinned black man, maybe twenty to twenty-five years old. He was wearing Air Jordans, black chinos, a Chicago Black Hawks shirt under an L.A. Raiders jacket, topped by a Florida Marlins cap. It was a bizarre combination, but it was the fashion among lots of London youth to wear what they called American sports kit. Most don’t even know which team plays what—they just like the designs.
What I didn’t like was the way he was elbowing his way through the crowd trying to get to open sidewalk. That is, he was using one elbow, and one free hand to shove people out of the way.
The other hand was tucked firmly into the jacket pocket, holding something ominously heavy.
“Hey!” I said, and he started to run.
Sometimes I’m an idiot. It’s dumb to startle someone you think has a gun in his pocket, a gun he had moments before used to strike down a fellow human being. It’s a lot dumber than that to start chasing him when he runs away.
I did it, though. He dashed around the corner and headed along the two short blocks to Piccadilly Circus itself. I followed, with cries of “There he goes!” in fifteen different accents echoing after me.
Running along that stretch of London street was like trying to run through a hedge or a bamboo forest. The pavement was thick with people trying to get into Rock Circus or the London Pavilion to play video games.
It was supposed to be off-season for tourists, but you couldn’t prove it that afternoon on that street.
I almost caught him six times, but he was small, shifty, and ruthless, and he kept eluding me, mostly by knocking people over. I didn’t actually deck anybody, but running in his wake, I didn’t have to—they were still d
own when I got there.
It was obvious where he was trying to go—to the end of the block and the entrance to the Underground. The Piccadilly Circus tube stop is such an incredible rabbit warren, once he got in there there’d be no catching him.
Miraculously, seven feet of open space appeared between him and me. With a spin move worthy of Michael Jordan, I got around a pensioner and closed the gap. I was going to catch him.
I was as close as that. I had my right arm raised to grab him by the shoulder.
Then something hit me, low and hard in the back of the knees, wrapped around my legs. I went halfway down the stairs on my chest and chin.
I got up ready to slug the SOB who’d tackled me and let the killer get away. I stopped the fist in mid-flight.
The helmet was askew and showed bright yellow hair. They eyes were blue and determined. The truncheon stood ready.
“Right,” the bobby said. “You’re under arrest for murder. Anything you say will be taken down and may be used in evidence.”
7
“So this is the famous Scotland Yard.”
John Lennon
Help!, EMI Films
HAVING BEEN ARRESTED FROM time to time in the past, in two different countries, I’ve picked up a few pointers.
First of all, don’t panic. Most cops, even in big cities, go through life without ever arresting anybody for a felony. It’s possible that the cop is more nervous than you are. He’ll get in trouble if he overreacts to your nervousness and shoots you or beats in your head, but by the time he’s punished for it, you could be well past caring.
Secondly, don’t explain yourself. He’s not listening anyway. He’s making sure he gets the wording of the warning right, watching you for an excuse to shoot or beat your head in, or daydreaming about the wording of his commendation. He (or she, I don’t want to be sexist, here) doesn’t want to hear, “But, Officer, you’re making a big mistake.” For one thing, the cop involved doesn’t think she (or he) is making a mistake. For another thing, if they have stepped in it, there’s no way to wipe it off now, so they might as well tromp on. Yes, I know that while PC Nigel Staines (he showed me his warrant card after he slapped the cuffs, quaintly called “nippers,” on me) was processing me for a ride to the local nick, the real killer was zooming away on the London Underground, but that battle was lost the moment Staines knocked me down the stairs.
Killed in the Fog Page 4