The Vanity Game

by H. J. Hampson

  "I'd like a double room, just for a couple of nights," I say, still putting on the yank accent, "you take cash?"

  The man stares at me for a second before replying: "I'll have to look at what we have available."

  He's got one of those bland European accents that seem to be the default for staff in the service industry. I wait, the anxiety rising, as the stuck-up prick taps away into his computer. Yes, he tells me, they have a room for two nights, and yes, I can pay in cash. But it's at this point that I realise I have absolutely no plan beyond tonight.

  Then he asks for a name.

  "Er, Alex… Alex Crystal," I say, the first two names that come into my head. Alex Crystal… It sounds like a film director's name or something, maybe that's what I'll pretend to be. I like it.

  The receptionist pushes a piece of paper over the counter and asks me to complete it. I make up an address – one apartment above my tattooist/ dealer, Kiro, in New York, and I scrawl a scruffy signature and hand over the money.

  The receptionist slides the plastic key card over the counter. I scoop it up with relief, this is the key to some sanctuary at last; and I hurry towards the lift.

  I get out at the third floor and the smell of hotel – clean carpets and dry air – fills my nostrils. I slide my card into the door and listen for the blissful click as it opens.

  I close the hotel room door behind me, lean back against it and sigh with relief. The room is pretty big and light but the atmosphere is heavy with that silent, hotel-anonymity. For a moment I'm overcome with that sense of boredom that I usually get in hotel rooms. I've waited in too many, the nervy boredom of the nights before big games, the sickening boredom of waiting for the drugs or the girls. But then the exhaustion hits me so I put the chain on the door and fling myself onto the bed. I turn over on my side, pull the pillow over my head and listen to the quick beat of the blood chugging round my skull. The reality of the situation hits me. What are they doing in my house now, I wonder? That fucker Serge, and this new woman, and whoever else was behind this. But the thoughts start to merge into each other and begin to make no sense at all as I slowly slide into sleep.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  A loud banging noise. I'm startled and confused as I sit up and wonder where the hell I am, and then I remember and realise there's someone at the door. Fuck, who could it be? I sit there breathing heavily, wondering what to do. What if it's them? Have they hunted me down? Fucking hell ... but the knocking seems to have stopped; the soft buzz of the London rush hour, muffled by the triple glazing, is the only sound. It seems to hang in the space between me and whoever is on the other side of the door. But then the knock comes again. The chain's still on and there's a spy-hole that I could look through before opening it. Slightly reassuring, but what will I see? The knock again. I get up slowly, then move towards the door as quickly as I can.

  I don't dare to breathe as I put my eye to the spy-hole. Jesus-fucking-Christ… I'm totally shocked because there through the spy-hole I see, not Serge or a strange looking gangster as I expected, but the distorted head of the original hunter, DI fucking Dante! I stand back, away from the door. Dante. What the hell is he doing here? And how has he found me? Another rap at the door, and then:

  "Come on, Beaumont, I know you're in there. Open the door, I just want to talk to you." That thick northern accent.

  So this is it, the final scene played out in a hotel room, how tacky, how clichéd. I'm out of options now. There's no escape. I'm three floors up and the windows don't open anyway. I'll have to open the door before Dante knocks it down. There's probably a team of policemen in bullet-proof jackets, poised with a battering ram behind him, out of the vision of the spy-hole. I go back over to the door and turn the handle, leaving the chain on so it only opens a few inches. I peer round and meet Dante's face, old Owlface. Is that a glint of relief that flashes across his eyes, below those thick grey eye brows?

  "Can I come in? Please? I'm here on my own."

  Mellow, almost pleading … is this actually happening? DI Dante, begging to be let in. He takes his hands out of his pockets and raises them, palms upwards, and shrugs.

  "What do you want?" I whisper back, leaning my head on the door. I feel like some maniac serial killer in an American motel.

  "I need to talk to you, I've got an offer for you."

  "How did you find me here?"

  "I…oh Christ, Beaumont, just open the flipping door, this isn't a bloody Quentin Tarantino film."

  Dante looks up and down the corridor, he obviously doesn't want anyone else to see him. So I let the chain off the door and slowly open it. Whatever he's got to say, at least he's inside the law unlike Serge and the gangsters. Dante walks quickly in and shuts the door behind him. We stand there staring at each other, not sure what to do, like a father and son who meet again for the first time in years.

  "Mind if I sit down then?" he says, after a few seconds.

  I shake my head and gesture towards the armchair near the window. I go back to sit on the bed, facing him. He pulls the curtains closed, flashing me a look that says I should have known to keep them closed myself. Now the room is cave-like with no light on. I feel like that dude in Apocalypse Now waiting for the lecture from Colonel Kurtz. Thinking about it, Dante does have a look of fat old Marlon Brando about him.

  "Right well …There ain't any whisky in that mini-bar is there?"

  What can I say? I go over to the mini-bar and take out a miniature bottle of JD.

  It's the first time I've opened it, and here I am giving old Owlface, of all fucking people, the first bottle.

  I don't have one myself. I want to keep my mind as clear as possible because I still don't feel totally comfortable with this bastard in my hotel room. Strange though, because when I first met him I thought of him as the lion looking for its kill and now here he is, like a big, fluffy pet cat asking for a drink. He takes a sip of the whisky and then starts talking again.

  "How did you find me here?" I ask again.

  "You think we weren't keeping tabs on you? I've had my guys trailing you as you faffed around in London. It was a piece of piss. Anyway, as I said, I've come to make you an offer. Now, I know two things. I know firstly, that you killed Krystal McQueen."

  I'm about to protest but he waves his hand.

  "Let's not get into that now. Just listen to what I've got to say. I also know that you didn't kill your agent Serge…"

  "What?"

  Kill Serge…what's he on about?

  "Ah… You don't know?" says Dante slowly.

  I shake my head. What the fuck…

  "Serge Kilkenny was found dead today, in his office. He'd been murdered." Dante pauses, and stares at me.

  The blood is rushing through my head now, in torrents, a loud roaring sound like an ocean crashing around high walls. Serge. Dead. Murdered.

  "He was found by the office cleaner, in a bit of a state."

  "What … what happened to him?" I stammer, the words won't come out. Serge. Murdered?

  Dante exhales the air through his mouth, making a kind of whistling sound.

  "He was shot in the head, pretty much point blank range, still at his desk … he'd been tied up, tortured. Wasn't very pretty."

  "Jesus fucking Christ."

  We seem to sit in silence for ages. I try to picture the scene: Serge, gun shot to the head at point blank range, the expression that would be on his face. I just can't believe it. I can't process it.

  "Yeah… I'm sorry Beaumont, I know you'd worked with him a long time."

  "He was trying to set me up," I say, adding quickly, "I mean he was involved in something really dodgy."

  "Aye, we've gathered that," Dante says. "We found something in his office which referred to an organisation called The Substitutors. You know anything about that?"

  "I just know they were going to kill Stella… I mean Krystal—"

  "Stella's the girl who replaced Krystal, yeah? One of Dean's girls?"

  "Yeah…" I say slowly, try
ing to figure out what information I should give away and what he already knows.

  "Don't worry Beaumont," he says, like he can tell what I'm thinking, "I know all about that fucker. He's the one who put us on the scent. He was bribing one of my officers. What happened to the bastard anyway?"

  He asks this casually, but I'm starting to panic now. What the hell does Dante want? Sitting there swirling the whisky around his glass. Is this an interrogation? He's virtually got a confession out of me for Krystal and now he's after one for Dean.

  He's probably taping the whole thing. I can't say anything else, I decide, I've got to compose myself and think carefully about what I'm telling the bastard.

  "Oh, erm, I dunno. He just disappeared one day, thank God. We never heard from him again."

  "Yeah, well, maybe he fell out of favour with his bosses. But that fucker deserved everything coming to him."

  Nice try, Owlface, but it's probably just a ploy to get me to let down my guard.

  "And now they want to get at you. Listen, Beaumont, we think this is a massive crime ring, agents everywhere. There are some dangerous people involved. You don't go round doing things like that to people on a Thursday night in central London. Whoever did that to Serge was insane, daft or just sick in the head … or possibly all three.

  "You went on the run today, didn't you? Because you knew they were gonna move, replace Stella with another Krystal look-alike? But it's more dangerous for you here. It's not you they were trying to get, but if you don't play their game they'll come and find you. You don't wanna end up like Serge or worse. Believe me, some of the lines we're investigating suggest death would be a mercy. Stella Garvey boarded a plane last night to Sydney didn't she? They thought Serge had tipped her off, that's why they had to kill him."

  Dante says all this quickly, leaning in towards me and looking me in the eyes, and my doubts start to go away. Maybe he's not here to arrest me after all. And Stella – if what he's saying is right – she made it onto the plane. I'm glad to hear that. But fuck, that's kind of funny they reckon Serge tipped her off. As if, but the poor bastard died for it. I think that's what they'd call 'ironic'.

  "So what can I do?" I reply, and Dante leans back and smiles a little.

  "Well, first off you need to go back. The new substitute is already there. Go with the flow, see what this girl is like. Chances are she'll be shit-scared too. See what you can get her to say. See who's running her. And then call me, and tell me what's going on. We need as much evidence as we can get. And then…" Dante pauses and bites his lip, "we need you to confess … to killing Krystal."

  "Wait a minute, I never killed her," I interrupt trying to sound as real as I can.

  "Oh come off it Beaumont, look, something happened to her. We found a knife with her blood on it buried in your fucking garden."

  I shudder at the thought of that carving knife in the plastic bag on the police table.

  "Either you co-operate with us and confess or we'll have to re-visit the evidence and move in ourselves. I still want to get justice for that girl but there are bigger fish to fry now, and you can help me fry them, you understand?"

  I hang my head and don't say anything.

  "You co-operate, and I'll make sure you get off lightly. Say she was involved with Dean and that, hassling you for money way before it all kicked off. She had a coke problem, yeah? And then when we get these gangsters you can be our star witness. You'll get a suspended sentence for manslaughter, I'll get my hands on these criminals and everyone's a winner. What do you say?"

  He leans forward with his hands on his knees. His beer belly protrudes and the cheap shirt is stretched to bursting point. He must be about the same age as Serge. As Serge was.

  "I don't know. I need to think about this," I tell him, which is the truth.

  "OK, well just don't go and do anything daft like try to board a plane to Rio or owt. I'll be right on your tail and so will they. Like I said, you're not exactly hard to find. If the inept fools I work with can follow you, they sure as hell can as well."

  They. The whole fucking world, there's nowhere to hide.

  "Here's my card, if you've not still got my number," he says, handing me a bit of cardboard.

  Then he hoists himself out of the chair and to my surprise pats me on the shoulder, like he's my fucking coach or something. I get up and follow him to the hotel room door. He opens it slowly, looks both ways down the corridor, gives me a quick nod then hurries out, pulling the door shut behind him.

  Silence.

  I stand there, fingering the card he gave me and noticing how the lettering is slightly raised: 'Detective Inspector G Dante, London Metropolitan Police'. Can he really rescue me?

  THIRTY-NINE

  I'm holed up in a hotel room, drunk; a double murderer on the run. A random girl who is pretending to be my murdered girlfriend is living in my house. Another random girl who also looks like my murdered girlfriend but also was my actual girlfriend will be landing in Sydney about now, if she made the connecting flight in Kuala Lumpur. The cop who tried to get me sent down for murder has made me an offer; my only chance. And my agent of eight years, the man I'd come to see as a father figure and who'd betrayed me just like my real dad, has been tortured and brutally killed by the psychopath gangsters that are potentially also after me. These are the stark facts of the situation, and they ain't good.

  "Are you bleedin' mad?" Serge would have said if he was alive and had heard about Dante's offer.

  "Never, ever, ever trust the Old Bill. Never."

  I can hear him saying it so clearly it's as if he's actually in the fucking room. Jesus, maybe he is, his bastard ghost, come here to haunt me. But fuck that, I'm the one who should seek revenge on Serge, not the other way round.

  I'm sprawled on the bed. Leftovers of the burger and chips I ordered from room service are on a plate next to me, as are several empty miniature bottles.

  The TV is on low. Images of pot-bellied black kids with big, sad eyes flash across the screen. Huge flies keep landing on their faces but they're too weak to swot them away. Famine in Africa, it makes me feel vaguely sick. Do these people actually live on the same planet as me? Our lives are so completely different. My life has more in common with that of a pampered Chihuahua than these skinny kids living in a desert out in Ethiopia, or Sudan, or wherever they are. And then a picture of a grinning young man in uniform and under him, '1000th soldier dies in battle'.

  "Private Terry Baines, 21, was killed by an improvised explosive device detonated while on routine foot patrol. Three other soldiers were seriously wounded…"

  I sigh and take another sip of vodka and lemonade. Could have been me. I'd probably have joined the army if I'd not become a footballer. What else could I have done? Maybe that would have been better, a real man's occupation, real camaraderie with your mates, not the back-stabbing bitchiness of the modern football game.

  I take another sip and try to figure out what to do. Can I really trust Dante? The look he gave me as he was leaving seemed so genuine. But he is the Old Bill, but then, even so, who else can be trusted? I've played the conversation I had with Dante over and over again in my mind. Each time I come to a decision, that yes, I will go along with his plan, be his spy, turn state witness, doubts start to chip away at its foundations and my decision crumbles as I think about the reality of prison, everything I've got to lose. And then I think about The Substitutors and Dante's words, "Now they want to get at you." Christ, if I don't play their game, what will they do to me? The same as they did to Serge? Or worse? What was it he said about killing being a mercy? Christ. Taylor Jones... If that shit is true, then I don't stand a chance.

  Now I can't think of either option enough to arrive at a decision because the alcohol has muddled my brain. How's it come to this? Beaumont Alexander, one of the greatest footballers of his generation, one of the most famous people on the planet, banished to this miserable hotel room, alone with fuck all to do but drink himself into oblivion.

 
I curl up on the bed, holding my knees against my chest. I feel awkward and huge, like a ball of muscle. This is what they've made me into, a plastic Action Man. And she had, of course, been Barbie. This isn't what I wanted. I can see the small boy playing football in the street with other boys. The towers of Wembley looming high above them all. The boy falls over, no, admit it, he was pushed, crashes down hard on the concrete playground. He grazes his knees, the stinging pain making him want to cry out but he can't look chicken, though the other boys laugh at him anyway, call him stupid names. His mum hugs him when he gets home, showering him with kisses, "Poor little Beaumont, one day you'll show them, one day". Always just me and Mum. The day Dad left, yes, I can remember it! Only four years old … the confusion, the strange, alien feeling of heartbreak. The taunts in the school playground… 'Where's your daddy? Swapped your mum for a prettier one?' Not even a birthday card. Then the bastard sends me a letter after he sees me on Match of the Day, saying how sorry he is. The hatred and anger feels as raw now as it did the day I got that letter.

  The tears are streaming down my face. I can't see any more or breathe through my nose, and I almost choke trying to breathe through my mouth as my whole body shudders with sob after sob. All those years of shutting it all out. Of course it had seeped through from time to time. I tried to blot it out by exercising, training until I was about to collapse, by spending thousands and thousands of pounds on pointless objects, and doing lines and lines of cocaine, drinking gallons of drink, fucking to oblivion. Now the huge, steel doors I created, with thousands of locks and bolts are flinging themselves open and the demons stampede through. And here's the worst, most ugly demon: it looks a bit like Beaumont Alexander, but it's shabbier and meaner-looking and on its forehead it's been branded, the blistering burns spelling out the word 'MURDERER'.

  I sit upright on the bed, and almost throw up. There's no way out except one. I've never thought about it before, or have I? Maybe I've not always wanted to die, but sometimes I've wanted to stop living. No messy suicide, just to disappear, to dissolve away and not inhabit this ball of muscle covered in gleaming skin any more. Now living isn't an option, there is no comfortable option. I look around the room. I could hang myself with a sheet … but no, I know I won't be able to bring myself to tie up the noose. I've got nothing to slit my wrists with … besides that would be too gruesome. I'd probably faint at the first sight of blood.