by Ted Lewis
“They say why?”
Wally shakes his head. I indicate the American.
“He say why?”
Wally shakes his head again.
“All he been saying since he got here last night is asking when you’re going to be getting here. Been fair getting on my tits, he has. What with that and his fucking walking about. Jesus, he never stops. Kept me awake all last night, he did—”
“All right, Wally. All right. Where’s the phone?”
Wally looks at me as if I’ve just asked him for the tenner I lent him that time in 1963.
“The phone?” he says.
I close my eyes. Wally doesn’t want to chance it too far, so he says: “Oh, the phone. About that. See, we had a rainy week last week. You get the rains this time of the year. Comes down something shocking it does. A monsoon. Come down so hard last week it put the phone on the blink, didn’t it? Been on to them no end, haven’t I, but you know what it’s like out here, bleedin mañana and all that, ain’t it? God knows when it’ll be on again.”
I give Wally a long look and then to his great relief I turn away from him and walk back to the drinks table and re-fill my glass. Here we all are, the American still chanting the words as if he’s trying to summon up the Geezer at a black Sabbath, Wally sticking to the wall as though he’s in a queens’ bar and me, looking at the slices of lemon in my glass that remind me of the two lemons back home I know and love so well.
The American finally runs out of ideas and the room is silent again. Wally doesn’t move. I sit down in a chair. The American turns round and looks at the drinks table. It seems to remind him of the real world because after a moment or two he wanders over to the table and pours himself another drink. He looks at his glass as if he’s trying to evaluate its molecular structure. Then he takes a drink and turns to face me and looks at me for a long time.
“You don’t know who I am,” he says.
I look at him.
“You are Joe D’Antoni and I claim the five pounds,” I say to him.
There’s a short silence and then he says: “They didn’t tell you I’d be here.”
I don’t answer him.
“They didn’t tell you why I’d be here.”
That’s not worth answering either.
“They didn’t tell you why you’d be here.”
Neither is that. There’s another silence. Then D’Antoni says: “So just, you know, why the Christ are you here? I mean, how would you kind of describe that?”
I take a sip of my drink and raise my glass and wave it in the air.
“On my holidays, aren’t I? It’s Wake’s Week, Mediterranean Style. I come to see if the paella and chips is any better than what they do down the Elephant.”
D’Antoni looks in Wally’s direction but mere looking doesn’t seem to give him any satisfaction whatsoever, so he moves across to within an inch of where Wally is and stops up the eyeball treatment.
“This is the guy, huh?” D’Antoni says. “The guy you been telling me about. The man. The guy the Fletchers picked out for the job. The guy who’ll take care of things like you never seen.”
At this point D’Antoni’s voice rises to a screech.
“Christ, he don’t even know I’ll be here.”
I could swear Wally’s bottom lip begins to tremble a little bit.
“Leave it out,” he whispers.
D’Antoni changes pitch again. Softly he says: “The phone. Get those two comedians on the phone.”
I begin to feel quite sorry for Wally, but not sorry enough to be unable to smile at his current expression.
“I was just saying to Mr. Carter—” Wally begins, but D’Antoni doesn’t let him finish.
“The phone,” he says. “Get the phone.”
Wally tries to look over D’Antoni’s shoulder for some help from me but D’Antoni crowds him even more and Wally’s eyeballs are resting approximately on D’Antoni’s clavicles.
“The phone’s off, D’Antoni,” I tell him.
D’Antoni turns round very slowly but somehow his big gun has appeared in his hand, like as if it had been there all the time.
“The phone’s off?”
“That’s what I hear,” I tell him.
There is a long silence.
“How’d you get to hear that?” D’Antoni says.
“I listened,” I tell him.
D’Antoni continues to look at me.
“While you were casting your mind through Webster’s dictionary for the correct description of my bosses, Wally told me. See, seems like they have this rainy season. Hard rains. Affected the lines, hasn’t it? Isn’t that right, Wally?”
Wally looks really pleased I’ve invited him into the conversation.
“Seems it rained stronger than usual last few days,” I say. “Interfered with the service; well, I mean, it would, wouldn’t it?”
The American turns back to Wally and Wally says, “Look, honest, leave it out; oh, I mean, I wouldn’t take the phone out, now would I, I mean to say, do I look as if I would?” but none of this vocally: it’s all expressed totally through the eyes. D’Antoni’s gaze does nothing to reassure Wally that his silent monologue is getting through. The silence continues until Wally speaks, as if he’s been speaking all the time.
“Honest,” Wally says.
D’Antoni looks at him a little longer and then he says: “You got it made here, don’t you?”
Wally nearly nods his fucking head off, glad at last to be able to agree instead of deny.
“It’s a great set-up,” D’Antoni says.
More neck-work from Wally. D’Antoni continues.
“I mean, a layout like this. The climate. No worries. No hassle. A fairy tale. A guy like you, you must keep pinching yourself.”
If Wally nods any harder he’s going to beat a hole through the plaster.
“But then,” D’Antoni says, “I don’t know. Maybe there’s a flaw. Maybe it’s so great. You get the need to own something like it yourself, instead of just being the janitor. What do you say, Wally? Maybe you’d like the kind of loot’d buy you a set-up like this of your own.”
“Eh?” Wally says, too shit scared to grasp D’Antoni’s meaning.
“Maybe somebody offered you the kind of loot you could use for a place like this, if you did them maybe a couple of favours.”
This time it sinks in. Wally says: “Leave it out. I mean to say. Gerald and Les’d have my guts for garters. They’d have a face like Jack here tell me I’d taken a dead bleedin’ liberty and I wouldn’t relish that, I can tell you. Stroll on.”
D’Antoni’s look remains hard but Wally seems to have convinced him because he says nothing else on the matter although I could have provided him with my own theory, that being that it’s likely that my bosses, the eggs that go by the name of the Fletcher brothers, have had Wally interfere with the telephone so that I can’t communicate to them my views on the situation with which they have presented me, and also, should I refuse to accept what that situation appears to present, my refusal won’t fall on their ears. Typical of the brave bastards. They probably agreed to the set-up in Terri Palm’s knocking shop, drunk with Dom Perignon and gym-slips. No wonder the cunts were so keen to see me on that plane. The whole fucking issue is an object lesson on how those two eggs behave. But as eggs go, I reflect, they’re not as big as I am; I’m working for them, not them for me. And I’m the one that got on the aeroplane.
The room is full of silence again and it’s my turn to have D’Antoni gaze at me.
“So you know nothing,” D’Antoni says.
I light a cigarette.
“That’s right,” I tell him. “And that’s as much as I want to know, my old son.”
D’Antoni frowns but I answer him before he can say the question. Standing up I say: “In fact, I’m not even guessing. Fuck all is all right with me. I’m knackered. All I want right now is my pit and I’ll work out what I can’t guess on the flight tomorrow morning. You got clean shee
ts laid out for me, Wally?”
Wally’s given up. His dentures are about to slip out onto the floor and chatter away across the parquet.
“What are you doing?” D’Antoni asks me.
“Nothing is what I’m doing,” I tell him. “Nothing except finding my bedroom and staying in it until I wake up.”
D’Antoni stares at me.
“Where’s the bedroom?” I say to Wally and now Wally’s caught between the devil and the deep blue sea because D’Antoni says to me:
“You’re not going anywhere, friend.”
I pass my hand across my eyes.
“Yes I am,” I say to him. “And I’ll tell you why I am. Because you’re not going to stop me. Because the only way you could stop me is by using your shooter, and you’re not going to do that. I mean, it stands to reason, doesn’t it, when you think about it?”
D’Antoni stares at me some more.
“The bags, Wally,” I say.
Wally stays where he is. So I walk over to Wally and grasp him by the back of his scrawny neck and walk him over to where the bags are parked.
“The bags,” I tell him again, exerting the pressure on the back of his neck so that he has to bend forward, his arms dangling like Tarzan’s best friend. I let go and it’s almost a reflex action when he picks up my stuff. It certainly isn’t a conscious decision on his part, seeing as how he doesn’t want to provoke a hiding by a mere thought process. He straightens up and his legs manage to start moving and he begins to walk towards the broad steps that lead down into the room from the hall.
“Hold it,” D’Antoni says.
Wally snaps up as if he’s on a parade ground.
“You,” he says to me. “You’re right. You’re not expendable. The same does not go for him, or for his kneecaps.”
“Jack—” Wally says.
“Wally,” I say to him, “just keep walking, will you? Nothing’s going to happen.”
“That’s right,” D’Antoni says. “If he keeps walking, nothing’s ever going to happen to him ever again.”
I turn to face D’Antoni and start walking in his direction and while I’m walking towards him I say:
“Have you ever been tired? I mean, really tired? So tired that you don’t give a fuck about anything, so that anything can happen to you, just so long as you get your head down?”
D’Antoni fixes me with his look but I don’t stop walking and although I can’t see him I know Wally is standing in exactly the same position. D’Antoni’s gun is just as rigid as Wally’s pose, but I don’t give a fuck about that. I’m pissed off to the gills with the whole fucking situation. I keep going and D’Antoni starts backing off but still holding the shooter level with my chest.
“Back off,” D’Antoni says.
“I’ll leave that to you,” I tell him.
“You got a job to do.”
I shake my head.
“You came here to protect me,” he says.
“From what? The midges?”
“The midges? Who are the midges?”
“The fucking mosquitoes, you cunt.”
D’Antoni now stands his ground but his gun hand isn’t as steady as it was before.
“No, come on,” he says. “These midges. Who are they?”
There’s nothing for it; I have to laugh. I sink down in a nearby chair so I can do it in comfort. It’s a weak, soundless laugh, the vocal equivalent of the after-effects being worked over by a good masseur. In my amusement I forget about Wally but I’m reminded of his presence by the unison sound of a snort and a fart; I look towards him and he’s still facing the same way, still holding my luggage, still holding the same pose, but in spite of his macaroni state the humour of the situation has got through to him and the snort and the fart are as a result of him trying to prevent himself from laughing, like a hysterically frightened kid at his first Grammar School Assembly. But even after he’s cleared his throat he doesn’t alter his stance, doesn’t even put the luggage down. “I’d suggest you open the window to let the warm air out, Wally,” I say to him. “But on the other hand Mr. D’Antoni might be afraid that you’d let the midges in.”
Wally convulses again but this time all his pipes stay silent.
“Listen,” D’Antoni says, “I had enough. I was guaranteed. Instead I get the Smothers Brothers. I may as well take you two out right now for all the use you’ll be.”
“Oh, yes?” I say to him. “And how much ravioli and chips does it take to get as hard as you?”
“Listen, you cockney craphouse, we saved your asses in the last war and we’ll do it next time around, you bet we will.”
Whether to slap his teeth out for his allusion to the last war or for his calling me a cockney, that is the question. I begin to rise while I’m deciding which motive will give me most satisfaction and while I’m getting up I say to him:
“I was born in Lincolnshire, friend, not London, and in Lincolnshire there’s an airfield called Scampton which you’ll never have heard of, the reason being that many of your B-29 flying heroes could never keep their guts inside their flying jackets after they’d flown their first mission from there; which of course is why you’d never have heard of it.”
D’Antoni says: “No, and I suppose you never heard of a place called Dunkirk, either, did you?”
I’m all ready to connect but the sound of my luggage being dropped on the floor stops me from moving.
“Now look here,” Wally says, “you’re nothing but a fucking mouthy yank and you know fuck all about anything like that. It’s about time one or two of you was set straight. My Uncle Henry was in on that Dunkirk business and I’d just like you to know if there’d have been any yanks there they wouldn’t only have surrendered, they’d have been manning the guns for the other mob, I can tell you.”
D’Antoni and I both stare at Wally, who is nothing but aggro, all directed towards D’Antoni. Then Wally’s heat begins to evaporate and with each drop down the temperature gauge Wally’s regret at the ferocity of his bravery begins to show in the lines on his face.
“Well, well,” I say. “The Bulldog Breed is alive and well and living on a mountain in Majorca.”
“Well,” Wally says. “I mean to say.”
“Shit,” D’Antoni says.
After that there’s another silence. D’Antoni breaks it.
“You know why you’re here,” he says to me.
“Sunshine,” I tell him. “All I can do is guess. But I don’t want to guess. All I want to do is to crawl into my pit.”
“They must have told you.”
“There is no must about Gerald and Les. If you’re a friend of theirs you should know that.”
“They fixed it. It’s been fixed for months.”
“Maybe. But I haven’t. Thank you and goodnight.”
I turn away, and walk over to Wally and my luggage and it’s time to forget Wally so I just pick up my stuff and begin to make for the upstairs part. D’Antoni comes after me but I keep on going. I reach the stairs that lead to the gallery.
“Listen, you bastard,” D’Antoni screeches. “You’re my protection. You’re here to protect me.”
I whirl round on the stairs.
“Just one question,” I say to him. “From what?”
D’Antoni looks at me and he’s quieter when he answers.
“Nothing, maybe,” he says. “Probably nothing at all. Just in case, is all.”
“In case of what?”
D’Antoni shrugs.
“Nothing. Maybe it’ll be a quiet two weeks.”
I put my bags down on the steps.
“Jesus Christ,” I say. “What you think I am, thick or something? You’re twitching like a stripper’s jock-strap and it’s just because of probables? You think I’m going to hang about on the side of a fucking mountain for two weeks and finish up my holidays getting it in the neck just because it’s probable? I mean, I can’t imagine anybody bothering to go to all that trouble just on account of you, but stranger th
ings have happened, and if it does, I’m not going to be here.”
I pick up my luggage and turn round and start climbing the steps again.
“You’re paid to do what you’re told,” D’Antoni says, following me up the steps.
“That’s right,” I say, “but the thing is you don’t pay me and I haven’t been told by those that do.”
I reach the gallery and stop.
“Wally!” I shout.
Wally appears from the lounge, peering round the corner as though he’s expecting to be shot at.
“Which room’s mine, Wally?”
D’Antoni is half way up the steps, deep in thought.
“They must have had a reason,” D’Antoni says.
“The opposite side, Mr. Carter,” Wally says. “Second door along.”
I start making for the opposite side, second door along.
“I mean,” D’Antoni says, “they must have had a reason.”
“ ’Course they had a fucking reason,” I tell him. “If they’d told me, the eggs, they knew there was no chance I’d even have come here in the first place.”
“But you work for them,” D’Antoni says.
I put my luggage down again and grasp the balcony rail.
“Oh yes,” I tell him, “I work for them all right. Just an employee, I am. I mean, all I do is sort the jobs for them, engineer the jobs, go out tooled up on the jobs to make sure they work in spite of the chancers around these days and then after the job’s over I take the money home and put it on the desk in front of them so they can have the fun of divvying it all up and holding it and all that kind of nice fun, before the other kind of fun which is where they put on their mohairs and go out and spend it. I’m just a cog in the wheel, that’s all. Like Dagenham. They don’t need me at all. They especially don’t need me when people in a similar line of business put it about that they might feel like slapping Gerald and Les’s hands for them. That’s the last time they need me. They’d be quite capable of sorting out a non-event like that, those brave fellows. They wouldn’t need me, would they, Wally? I’m just one of the works. Isn’t that right, Wally?”
Wally shuffles back a bit round the corner but not far enough to obscure my view of his usual expression, that is to say, looking down his nose from one slipper to the other. D’Antoni just stays where he is on the steps, looking up at me, silent. After a little while he begins to grin.