Double Kiss

by Ronnie O'Sullivan

  ‘Yeah. Aerobics. Yoga. Need I go on?’

  ‘No,’ Jack said, swivelling round on his chair now and looking a little bored.

  ‘Great. So you’ll do it?’ Listerman’s eyes fixed on Jack, as he swung back round to face him.

  ‘Me?’ Jack looked aghast. Christ, he really hadn’t seen this coming at all.

  ‘Well, who else am I talking to? I don’t mean Frankie here, do I? He’s got his hands full already with the Ambassador and his tournament.’

  ‘But I don’t know shit about this,’ Jack said, ‘about running somewhere.’

  ‘So you’ll learn, like a duck to water. After all, you practically grew up in a club.’

  ‘And I’ll be on hand to advise you,’ Frankie said. ‘You know, help out any way I can until you find your feet.’

  ‘But what about what I already do for Tommy?’

  ‘Oh, don’t you worry about him. This is his idea. And don’t you go worrying about your money, either. This is a bump up the ladder, see? A promotion, if you like.’ Listerman sat back in his chair, nice and easy, reminding Frankie of the Old Man, the way he’d used to love going sea fishing on holiday, getting himself strapped into one of them chairs on a charter boat, knowing it was only a matter of time before he’d get himself a bite. ‘And this here,’ he said, tapping the desk, ‘would be your desk.’

  Jack whistled.

  He got up and looked round the room, like he was getting a proper feel of the place for the first time. Frankie smiled. There was a definite sparkle in Jack’s eyes. One that had nothing to do with narcotics. Or bloody aerobics classes either. It was the spark of genuine excitement. Possibility. Power.

  ‘Well, you know, now that you come to mention it,’ Jack said, ‘maybe I do have a few ideas about how to improve things. Like, for example, we could –’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ Listerman said, ‘and we can go into all those details later. But, for now, can I just take it that your answer is yes?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Jack smiled again. Even puffed his little chest out a bit. ‘Deffo. For sure.’

  He walked over to the desk and stretched out his hand. Listerman rose and shook it. Deal done. Frankie’s smile hardened a little. More like the easy bit done. Now he just had to keep Jack on the straight and narrow and make sure he didn’t screw this opportunity up. Or get screwed.

  ‘Well, I must say, Tommy will be delighted,’ Listerman said, flicking another dry-roasted peanut into his mouth. ‘I tell you what, Jack, why don’t you head back downstairs with Tam here and get a feel for the place. I need a quick word with your brother here about some other business. Just some paperwork. Boring stuff. The kind of thing he’s got to deal with over at the Ambassador, but you won’t need to worry about here, because I’ll be taking care of all of that.’

  Frankie felt a tingle of alarm from the way Listerman said it, but Jack just smiled. Trusting, too trusting perhaps.

  ‘I’ll wait for you downstairs then, Frankie?’

  ‘Su—’ Sure, Frankie had been about to say, but didn’t get the chance.

  ‘No need for that. Tam and Jesús there will give you a lift home. I’m going to need to borrow your brother for a bit longer.’ He looked at Frankie pointedly. ‘Take him for a little ride.’

  Frankie shifted uncomfortably, spotting the almost imperceptible crinkle at the corner of Listerman’s mouth that was probably the nearest he ever got to an actual smile.

  ‘And where would that be to?’

  ‘All in good time, Frankie. All in good time.’ He nodded curtly at Jack. A dismissal.

  Tam walked Jack out and the door swung shut behind them with a heavy click.

  Frankie stared down into the gym below. The Spaniard – Jesús – had got changed and was now in the ring, helmeted and gloved up and ready to fight. Then a big lad, twice his size, lumbered out from the opposite corner, fists the size of whole hams.

  Listerman’s half-reflection loomed up alongside Frankie’s in the glass divide. ‘I’m betting you’re thinking it’s adiós muchachos for our dirty dago friend down there?’ he said.

  ‘Quite the opposite, actually,’ said Frankie. Something about that Jesús. The way he was just standing there watching. Like he could walk on water if he chose.

  The big lad didn’t even see the first punch coming. Or the second, or the third. The fourth one put him on his back.

  ‘But back down to business, eh?’ Listerman said, steering Frankie back over to the chair where Jack had been sitting.

  ‘No, you’re all right, thanks. I’ll stand.’

  Listerman walked back behind his desk. ‘So how do you feel about it then? About’ – he clicked his fingers – ‘Alakazam . . . us having turned your brother from blue collar to white?’

  ‘Yeah, good,’ Frankie said, ‘so long as this is for real. A proper bump up, right? Because what you said just now about you taking care of the business side of things . . . you are still going to give him a chance to learn the ropes?’

  ‘Of course. Of course. Because that’s the arrangement, right?’

  ‘Right . . .’

  ‘The very essence of the favour.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘The one Tommy wants to call in right now.’

  ‘Right now?’ Frankie wasn’t sure he’d just heard right.

  ‘Here,’ Listerman said, sliding a stapled A4 document across his desk. ‘Allow me to explain.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘A contract,’ Listerman said.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘The cost of all this – your brother’s bump.’

  Frankie had known it couldn’t be as easy as just asking Tommy Riley and getting exactly what he wanted.

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Twenty.’

  ‘Grand?’ Frankie couldn’t hide his surprise – and horror. Where the hell was he meant to find that kind of money? Everything he’d been working for . . . this was going to wipe him out.

  But Listerman smiled, a proper one this time – all teeth. ‘No, Frankie. You’ve got it all wrong. We’re not talking money. We mean per cent.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Well, what do you bloody think? Your tournament, of course. Or our tournament now. Because Tommy likes it, really likes what you’ve got planned. We both do. He wants in.’

  16

  The ‘little ride’ Listerman had planned for Frankie turned out to be not nearly as scary as he’d thought. Because words like that, ‘little ride’ . . . well, Frankie had seen enough gangster flicks over the years to know they sometimes ended in short, sharp swimming trips in concrete boots – and the weather still wasn’t quite hot enough for that.

  Perfect, on the other hand, for bazzing around London in a nearly new BMW 3 Series convertible – albeit one with some transit damage to the front bumper and a nasty little oil stain on the upholstery in the back.

  Listerman had dropped Frankie round at the showroom off the Great West Road before the ink of his signature had even dried on the last page of that contract he’d drawn up. A ‘sweetener’, that’s how he’d described the Beamer. Something to show how seriously Tommy Riley was going to be taking his responsibilities as a silent partner in the Soho Open from here on in.

  Listerman told Frankie the car was another favour owed by someone else to Tommy. He’d be able to put it up as an additional players’ prize for the tournament, to hopefully help tempt some seriously quality entrants. But for now Frankie had it to himself for a couple of hours.

  But as what? That’s what he wanted to know. A sop? Something to help him get over the fact he’d just signed 20 per cent of his future away? And maybe something much bigger than that too. What he’d wanted most of all. Control.

  He caned it down the Westway and onto the M4. As his foot pressed down on the pedal, he tried not to think about Riley, the tournament. As he eased off the gas, his mind wandered to the postcard, and his mum. He didn’t want to think about her, or the Old Man for that matter – for once in his miser
able bloody life, he just wanted to be.

  But as the exits flashed by and the petrol gauge dwindled, Snaresby kept on popping up in his mind. And those two cops too, including the one he’d said was dead. Frankie had to find out more about them. But how?

  Something else about Snaresby was bothering him too. What he’d said about keeping in with the right people and protecting their interests . . . The way he’d phrased it was just too good a fit with what had just happened with Riley. Had Snaresby somehow already known that Riley had wanted a slice of the action, even then?

  Frankie turned the car round at Reading services and headed back into London. Too many questions, not enough answers. For now all he could do was keep driving, keep his eyes on the road, and hope that whatever came next was better than what had come before – with a soundtrack of Pulp’s ‘Common People’ blaring from the state-of-the-art CD player to guide him back home.

  He dropped the car off at the dealer, then cabbed it back to the flat, so he could call the Old Man. Finally he could focus on the here and now, what with Jack getting offered his new position down the gym. Of course, the Old Man still had a blue fit, didn’t he, when Frankie broke the news to him about Jack having been hospitalized. But the gym news tempered that a little. Even the Old Man had been impressed with that, so you could say one good thing had come out of today.

  But at what a cost.

  *

  ‘Déjà vu, old bean?’ Mackenzie Grew said, glancing across and flashing Frankie a clean white smile in the rear-view mirror.

  Frankie was in the passenger seat of the classic shiny red Jag. Grew was Tommy Riley’s driver, and God only knew what else besides, and the car belonged to his boss. Not that you’d think it from looking at the slickly dressed ex-Mod behind the wheel. He was sporting a flash suit, bespoke snakeskin shoes and a Toni & Guy-priced haircut, straight fringe à la Oasis mode.

  Grew was talking about how he’d picked Frankie up last year to go see Tommy, at a meeting where Frankie had ended up asking for Riley’s help in clearing Jack’s name.

  ‘I guess that all depends,’ Frankie said.

  ‘On what?’

  ‘On what Tommy wants.’

  Grew pulled the Jag up outside the four-storey, sandblasted town house in St James’s. Every bit as classy-looking as Frankie remembered it. The kind of place you’d expect to find barristers hard at work in their chambers. Not Eastern European hookers dressed up in chambermaid outfits servicing them and City boys who were playing away from their wives.

  ‘Well, then, until the next time,’ Frankie said, unbuckling his belt to get out.

  ‘Oh no, pal,’ Grew said, checking his watch – a Breitling, expensive as, the very same model that DI Snaresby wore – ‘this time I’m coming too.’

  The way he said it gave Frankie food for thought.

  Riley was waiting for them upstairs, in the same dimly lit bar area Frankie had met him in last year. He wasn’t alone. Two twenty-something women in translucent negligées were perched either side of him on a red and black velvet sofa in the centre of the room, both of them looking well stoned. Tam Jackson was here as well, leaning against the glinting chrome bar, a bottle of classic Coke in his hand. He looked up as Frankie and Grew came in and didn’t offer a smile as they approached.

  A Doberman glared at Frankie from where it was sitting on a giant purple velvet cushion over in the corner. It bared its teeth and started to snarl.

  ‘Shut the fuck up, Whitney,’ Riley shouted, sending the dog whimpering into silence. ‘Sorry, son,’ he told Frankie. ‘She’s not yet been fed and I think, between you and me, she might be on the blob.’

  The what? Christ, Frankie couldn’t even bring himself to ask. ‘No worries,’ Frankie said. But, God, he hated big dogs.

  ‘Good game yesterday, wasn’t it?’ Riley said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Frankie agreed.

  ‘England four, Netherlands one. My only regret is I wish I’d had myself a little bet.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Frankie. Even though, of course, he had. One that had bought that holiday of his one step closer to reality.

  Grew fixed himself a tumbler of Smirnoff Red from the bar. Didn’t offer Frankie one. Knew he didn’t drink. Lit himself a smoke with his little silver lighter that was shaped exactly like a German Luger. Leant back next to Tam. A swishing at the back of the room. The bead curtain there parted as the big, chubby figure of Riley’s nephew, Darren, sauntered through, grinning and buttoning up his flies.

  ‘I heard the Ambassador was chocka for the match,’ Riley said.

  ‘Yeah. Rammed,’ Frankie said. A record till day, in fact. Not that he was planning on telling Riley that. He’d dipped into Frankie’s pockets enough already for one week – one life.

  ‘Pirates,’ Riley said.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘The Dutch. Historically, they were just like us. Made a fortune bashing Catholics and nicking all their gold. We’re natural allies, actually. I still like doing business with them today.’ He smiled flatly and nodded at the sofa opposite, before giving it the Barbara Woodhouse: ‘Sit.’

  Frankie did as he was told, conscious of both girls looking him up and down . . . something Riley clocked too and clearly didn’t like.

  ‘Go on, you two, scoot off upstairs,’ he said, giving them both a shove. ‘And get yourselves warmed up, eh? I’ll be up in a bit.’

  He watched them sashaying side-by-side past the hanging drapes and tapestries on the wall to an arched doorway off to the left.

  He turned to Frankie. ‘So what did you think of it?’

  ‘The match?’

  ‘No, we’re finished talking about that bollocks. I mean the gym.’

  ‘Oh, I think it could be all right.’

  ‘Not could be. Will be.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Riley cupped his hand round his ear, like he’d just missed something.

  ‘And, yeah, I mean, thanks,’ Frankie said.

  Another flat smile. ‘My pleasure, son. Always happy to help out a friend.’

  A friend? Employee, more like. That’s how Frankie felt more and more every time he and Riley spoke. Particularly now he’d got his name in ink.

  ‘The name,’ Riley said.

  ‘The what?’

  ‘Of the club. I mean, it’s shit, isn’t it?’

  ‘Shit?’ Frankie quite liked Rope-a-Dope. The whole Ali connection.

  ‘Worse than shit. Old-fashioned. Old. No good any more, because now there’s been a change of hands.’

  ‘OK . . . so . . .’ Frankie still couldn’t see what this had to do with him. ‘. . . what were you thinking of –’

  ‘The Bloodthirsty James Boys.’ Riley grinned, watching Frankie’s face. ‘You know, after your grandfather and great uncle. More of a personal connection, see. Between the new management and the club. Because people like that, right? A story. A bit of history.’

  It was certainly that. Both brothers had been professional boxers in their early twenties. They might not have made the big time, but they’d certainly made a big impression round here. Word was they’d ended up working as enforcers for the Richardson gang back in the fifties. Though this was something Frankie’s dad had never confirmed or denied.

  ‘You know, I met one of them once,’ Riley said. ‘George. Built like a brick rhino, he was. He was there at your dad’s house one day when I called round.’

  Yeah, Frankie knew this already. How Riley and the Old Man had been the best of mates.

  ‘I know, Unc?’ chipped in Darren. ‘What about calling it Bloodthirsty’s?’

  ‘Hmm. Well, Darren, it does have a certain ring to it, excuse the pun.’

  ‘What pun?’ said Darren.

  ‘As in boxing ring, Darren.’

  ‘Ah, right. Good one, Unc.’

  Unc. Riley visibly shivered at the word. ‘But the kind of clients we’re hoping to attract to the private gym upstairs are more likely to be interested in how their bodies look on the outsi
de, than what’s going on underneath.’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ Darren said, and went back to picking his nose.

  ‘Which is why,’ Riley said, ‘I’ve decided to call it “The James Boys Gym”. A bit classier. And it’s got a nice flow to it. Memorable, like.’

  ‘That’ll be the alliteration,’ Frankie said.

  ‘Exactly so. And, of course, it could also apply to the current generation of James brothers too.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘You approve then? Because I’m sure your dad would like it too.’

  ‘Er, yeah. But shouldn’t you be having this conversation with Jack? I mean, he is –’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, and I will. But, you see, the thing is, there is one other matter I wanted to talk to you about,’ Riley said.

  ‘Yeah?’ Here we go. What he’d been dreading since he’d got the call from Grew. Because no way had Riley just asked him here to shoot the breeze about the gym. Or even the tournament for that matter. Because on-going business . . . that’s what Listerman was for.

  ‘The favour,’ Riley said.

  And Frankie’s heart fell proper hard then. The favour. Not a favour. The one Frankie still owed him for the information that had led to him proving Jack’s innocence. A massive favour.

  Whatever Riley was about to ask him to do in return, it was going to be no walk in the park.

  17

  ‘There’s a girl,’ Riley said. ‘A beautiful girl. I’ve known her a long time and she’s very fucking dear to my heart.’

  Well, he clearly wasn’t talking about Mrs Riley. Tommy was hardly the faithful sort. Word was, the only reason he’d been married for the last twenty years to the same woman was because she put up with his snoring, looked the other way where all his flings were concerned, and made a killer spotted dick.

  ‘She’s his goddaughter,’ Tam said, ‘before you go getting the wrong idea.’

  Riley’s dark eyes narrowed. ‘Eighteen years old. A beautiful girl who I held in my own arms the very day she was born. The only child of one of my very best friends.’ Riley ran his tongue across his very white teeth. ‘Now little Tanya – that’s my goddaughter’s name – she’s been a sweet little thing most of her life. Took after her mum, a model, the nice sort too – she kept her clothes on. Well, most of the time.’ He glanced sidelong at Tam. ‘Anyhow, little Tanya got packed off to a nice posh boarding school when she was eleven, to move the family up a rung. Cheltenham Ladies’ College, it was. Y’know, I went there for a Sports Day once with her mum, in lieu of her dad, him unfortunately not being around. All jolly hockey sticks, tweedy green uniforms and actual cucumber sandwiches on the manicured lawn, would you fucking believe?’