by P. J. Adams
“So why would Markov have me killed just for having a drink with you?” Lee was studying Imelda closely, trying to work her out.
“You met him, yes? Hristo is a man who doesn’t fool around.”
“And you’re with him?”
She looked away.
A waitress came over for their drinks order. When Imelda looked up again, Lee was studying her, still waiting for a response.
“It’s complicated,” she said, finally.
“Isn’t everything? I’m learning that. On the face of it everything’s so easy here. Laid back. But scratch the surface...”
“...and you find Hristo.” It was like talking to Fearless the other day. She didn’t know where to start, how much to say. “In answer to your question, I was with him, yes. But not now. It is just... he is not an easy man to leave, if you understand?”
“Possessive.”
She nodded. Their drinks came, and she took a long sip of her Negroni, savoring its sharp bitterness. Lee had whiskey on ice.
“We don’t... you know.” She felt the need to explain, to excuse what had happened before.
“I could tell.” He was joking. Teasing her. He knew – she’d thought she had disguised what had happened as he held her, but clearly not.
“I could have just walked,” he said. “Out there, when you told me about Markov. I don’t need complications.”
“What stopped you?”
“Your eyes.” He paused, drawing her into his look. “Something in them. I couldn’t just walk away.”
“You could walk away now. You should.”
Instead, he raised his drink again, took a sip, clenched his jaw as the spirit burned his throat.
She realized then that she had come here to use Lee Bailey. That thing where a part of her mind understood what she was up to, but hid it. Did she have a split personality, or was it simply that she had many protective layers, a defense built up over the years?
Use him for that raw, animal response he had woken within her. He had stirred up needs she had long since suppressed and forgotten. Responses she had never even known she had.
But use him also for who he was. Lee Bailey. One of the Bailey Boys. A gangster who might just prove to be a match for Hristo Markov. She didn’t know how, but...
She looked at him. He said he had seen something in her eyes. Well she had seen something in his, too. Something that stopped her now, made her feel that setting out to use him was not right.
Why must things be so difficult?
She sipped at her drink, studying him closely.
“What is it?” she said. He’d been flexing one fist: straightening the fingers, then clenching again. “What did you do?”
He smiled, something that transformed his battle-hardened face into that of a small boy.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” he said. “I’m just out of practice, that’s all. I had to hit someone tonight. Hard.”
“Give.”
She waited until he’d placed that big hand in both of hers. Delicately, she ran her fingertips along each finger, pressed at the knuckles, smoothed the flesh.
“It is okay,” she said, finally. “No breaks.”
“Don’t stop.”
She met those blue-gray eyes again, ran a fingertip down his forefinger one more time.
“I...”
This was crazy. Every look so freighted with desire. Every touch a hair-trigger.
Was it the danger that heightened everything? Or was it simply that their connection was one of those rare things: immediate and extreme?
“Tell me,” she said, trying to deflect. “Tell me about London. I have never been.”
“London... My London’s not what the tourists see. It’s not Buckingham Palace and Harrods and Trafalgar Square. It’s narrow East End streets. It’s Yiamas, a Greek taverna in Poplar run by my old mate Kostas. It’s watching the football in the Old Duchess on a Saturday lunchtime with my brothers. It’s cage-fighting in an abandoned warehouse in front of an audience of gangsters and coppers. It’s walking through the wasteland by the Thames where your old man used to bury the bodies, back in the good old days before the Russians moved in and started taking over.”
He was being half serious, half self-mocking, she decided. “Everywhere is complex and rich beneath the surface,” she said, and he shrugged, then nodded. “You like it here?”
He thought before answering. “I love the lifestyle,” he said, finally. “I love the weather. I love the possibilities.”
“But...?”
“I don’t know where I fit. You know what I mean? I don’t know who I am here.”
If you’d asked Imelda if she liked it here, and if she’d been able to even come close to finding the words, those are the ones she would have used.
And maybe that explained what she had been struggling to understand earlier: the attraction, the power of their connection. The two of them were, when you scratched at the surface, cast from the same mold.
§
Another whiskey, another Negroni.
For a time she allowed herself to forget how dangerous this was. They talked about everything and nothing. About London and the Costa; about Tenerife, which she had never discussed with anyone since she had left at nineteen; about Lee’s brothers, and his father in jail, and about Imelda’s street family in the Playa de las Américas, for that ragged assortment of hucksters and thieves had been more family to her than anyone else had been.
“It’s late,” he said, and they both laughed. It had been late even before they had come through here to the bar’s back room.
Just two words, but loaded with far more meaning. It’s late, so what now? More drinks, or head out into the night? To my apartment, or do you have somewhere we can go?
For that they would go somewhere was inevitable now, an undeniable rule of nature.
They would go and even before they got there they would kiss again, because it was all she could do not to lean across that small table and kiss him right now.
She wanted the hardness of his lips, the pressing of his tongue. She wanted to taste that whiskey in his mouth. Wanted to give herself up to that strength.
She wanted to explore that ripped physique. The way the muscles moved against each other. The way he would respond to her touch.
She wanted to undo the buttons of those gray pants one by one, her eyes fixed on his. She understood the power of locked gazes, of eye contact. That look was one of the most powerful things.
She wanted to pull those pants open, find the waistband of whatever he wore underneath and ease it down.
There would be a tight fuzz of hair, the broad base of his shaft, his manhood straining to be free.
She wanted to see those eyes widen as she took him in her hand.
Wanted to see him gasp at the first gentle contact of her tongue, at the way her lips would press against the wet glande and then yield, taking him in.
She...
It’s late. Two simple words, waiting for a response.
“It is,” she said, in reply. Again, two words, loaded with so much more meaning. If his It’s late had been a question, her It is was the emphatic answer.
They were going to do this. It was undeniable.
That was when she heard the voices. Raised, not quite shouting, but angry. Coming from the main bar.
She knew immediately.
He was here.
Hristo.
“You have to go,” she said quickly, briefly placing her hand over his on the table. “He’s here. He’s looking for me.”
¡Sé que ella está aqui! I know she’s here.
Instantly, Lee’s demeanor changed. That alertness again, eyes darting about, assessing risk, assessing possibilities. Imelda pointed at an archway that led to the kitchen. “Through there,” she said. “There is another door that leads to the rear. Go now. Don’t endanger yourself – or me.”
At that he nodded. He was a man willing to risk himself, but not her.
&nbs
p; The two stood, Imelda made to turn, but–
A strong hand took hold of her jaw, turned her to face him.
Those hard lips she had imagined only a short time before pressed against hers and she tasted the whiskey on him and longed for so much more.
And then the moment had passed, she was stepping back, turning, striding towards the doorway to the main bar.
Pausing, she sucked in a deep breath, then passed through, trusting that Lee would do nothing stupid, that her appearance in the main bar would buy time for him to slip away.
And trying not to fear the consequences of Hristo finding her out so late when he’d clearly felt the need to come looking for her.
5
I couldn’t work out how she did this to me.
Only two encounters, and yet both had ended with her walking away leaving me standing there with my heart racing, my body bursting with need.
Nobody had ever taken over my thoughts like this.
I didn’t understand it.
But there was one thing I did know: this was not over. It was barely even started.
When I had passed through the kitchen – to the surprised look of an old man cleaning dishes – and out into the alleyway at the back of the bar, I paused.
There was no sound of pursuit.
Was this Hristo really as bad as Imelda made out?
I thought back to my two encounters with the guy at Hermanos earlier that night. Perhaps he was. There had been something about the man I had taken a dislike to – something that triggered alarm bells, and more than just the fact that he had coke eyes and all the erratic unpredictability that always went with that territory.
I moved to a window, standing back from the glass so I wouldn’t be visible from within.
I spotted them immediately, standing at the far end of the bar, close to the street. Two of Hristo’s sidekicks loitered nearby – one of them Georgi, who I’d worked with earlier.
Imelda looked a different woman when she was with Hristo. She stood differently, held herself more apologetically. A slump of the shoulders, a tilt of the head, a cast of the eyes.
Gone was the kid who’d grown up on the streets, hustling for a living and never accepting second best.
Gone was the stylish, sophisticated Latin beauty of my admittedly limited experience.
Gone was the woman who had taken a strange kind of grip on me.
I’d spent the past hour gazing into those dark eyes, but now she was doing anything but make eye contact with Markov.
They were talking animatedly, but I couldn’t make out the words. Or at least he was, as Imelda stood there submissively, looking down at the ground.
At one point Hristo took a step forward so that his face was right in Imelda’s. The threat was visible, even more than if he’d raised a fist, and it was all I could do to remain where I was, not to storm back in.
Imelda’s words from only a few minutes ago checked me.
Go now. Don’t endanger yourself – or me.
Anything I did now would put Imelda at risk.
And yet doing nothing now also put her at risk.
I felt powerless.
All I could rely on was her judgment of the situation: she had told me to go, implied she could handle this. Had that been because it was the best option, or had she done so to protect me? And what price might she end up paying for that...?
I was clenching and unclenching my fists, a nervous tic, a diversion. Rolling from the balls of my feet to my heels and back.
I was going to burst.
I...
Another change in body language, and Hristo spat out some more words, shrugged, turned.
Meekly, Imelda, Georgi and the other guy followed.
I stayed there. Forced myself not to move, for if I did I knew I would follow, too, and that was not something that would end well. I understood myself well enough to know that, while I might claim to be a thinker and a planner, there are times when the gut takes over, when I think with my balls and my fists rather than the gray stuff crammed into my skull.
I was still there when the last few customers drifted out of the bar. When the taverna’s staff had finished clearing the tables and hauling the furniture in from the street terrace. When the old dishwasher had waved everyone goodbye and shuffled round to lock up and turn out the lights.
Finally, I turned away, followed that dark alleyway through to another street that ran behind the bar, found my way to the seafront and turned left towards what was now my home.
§
I got the call from Dean a few days later, and immediately I knew it was serious. My brother was in trouble.
He didn’t say as much, but he didn’t have to.
There are three of us – the Bailey Boys, as people took to calling us back in London as our reputation grew. I’m the youngest, Dean’s a few years older, and Owen’s ten years older still. Owen’s always been a bit separate, a bit aloof, but Dean and me are close. We’d always looked out for each other. Always been able to read between the lines, too.
So when Dean calls and says, “Hey, bro’, how’s things? Listen, we’ve got a bit of a situation here. Could do with some advice, know what I mean?” Well, when you get a call like that, you don’t hang around.
I met Dean and Jess at their place in San Pedro, a small development ten kilometers west of Puerto Libre. I found them on the terrace behind their bar, the New Duchess, a small area where a cluster of canopied tables overlooked the bay.
It was still odd seeing Dean dressed down like this, in pale gray linens and a short-sleeved shirt. Back in London it had been rare to see him out of a suit and neck-tie. He’d taken to this new life well.
Jess had adapted well, too. She was at his side, tanned and fit-looking, her blonde hair cropped short, the elaborate tatt of a blackbird peering out from among twisting vines and roses creeping out from around the neckline of her cropped top.
The two of them made the perfect couple.
I know when Dean fell for Jess he did so hard and fast. A part of me couldn’t help wondering if that’s what I was experiencing with Imelda – or if, perhaps, that was what I was craving. Was I deluding myself?
Among the happiest times of my life was that journey down through France with Dean and Jess in a battered old Fiesta cousin Ronnie had acquired for us, no questions asked. A safe, nondescript car chosen not to draw attention to us. A ‘drive and burn’ as Ronnie had called it.
We’d stopped off in little market towns along the way, not in any kind of hurry. We stayed overnight in a succession of small hotels and guesthouses, enjoying the ambience and change of pace, and all the time knowing our future lay in wads of used twenties and fifties in the trunk of that car.
We’d never said out loud where we were heading – just that we would cross the Channel and follow the sun, heading away from the mess we’d left behind in London, the aftermath of a clash with one of the new Russian mafioska gangs and a few bent police officers. It had been pretty much time to leave, in any case; we had all been ready for something new.
Crime just wasn’t what it was, we had joked more than once on that trip fueled by sunshine, liberation and cheap French wine.
And later: the change to Spanish wine, as we crossed the border at Irun and kept heading south, until each of us knew exactly where we were going to end up: the magnet for just about every English villain on the run, at one time or another, the Costa del Sol.
Now, on the terrace of the New Duchess, we greeted each other with hugs and kisses to the cheek (Jess) and shoulder bumps and claps on the back (Dean).
“Hey,” I said, drawing the word out. “Looking good. Looking good.” Referring to it all: the two of them, looking so fit and chilled; the bar, which they’d transformed from a tacky beer and fish’n’chips place to something about halfway between that and Fearless’s Los Cojones bar in Puerto Libre, a classy joint but still retaining its rough and ready English charm.
I always felt uplifted when I visited
them here. It gave you some kind of faith in the world. But...
“So what’s up, bro’? What’s this ‘situation’ you mentioned?”
Jess leaned in and kissed me again then headed back inside, confirming to me that this was something heavy. She knew all about the Bailey Boys, of course. She understood what we’d left behind and what we still were. But she also knew that when things got violent Dean worked better if he didn’t have to say things out loud in front of her.
“So what is it?”
My brother looked at me with eyes that were a darker version of my own. “It’s the fucking Russians again, isn’t it?” he said.
“Who? What’re they doing? What’s happened, Deano?”
“Russians. Latvians. Ukrainians. Whatever. We’ve never had any trouble here. No more than you’d expect, at any rate – there’s always a few drunken holidaymakers and the like.”
He waved a hand. “You’ve seen this town, Lee. It’s not exactly Fuengirola or Puerto Libre, is it?” The two places he mentioned were opposite ends of the same broken scale: one the heart of the seedy 24-hour street drug scene, the other swanky Gangster Central. This sleepy little seaside town where Dean and Jess had put down roots was a million miles from both of those places.
“We just want to run a nice place, you know what I mean?”
“So what changed?”
“About a week ago we picked up a new regular. Eastern European guy, close-cropped hair, scar on one side of his skull. Had that look in his eye: daring me to challenge him. I had him sussed the minute he walked through the door.”
I knew immediately where this was going. “Dealer?”
Dean nodded. “We had words,” he said. “I encouraged him to move along.”
“Old-style?”
Another nod.
While I was the one who’d been the semi-pro cage-fighter, all three Bailey Boys knew how to handle themselves, and had never shied away from getting involved.
“You know those 4000-volt stun guns?” Dean asked me. “You ever used one? It overrides every muscle in your body. You freeze, you go rigid, your bladder and your guts let go. Your fucking hair stands on end, bro’.”
“Sounds like you’ve got things under control, Deano.”