Amphetamines and Pearls

by John Harvey

  The face at the door didn’t like the look of a guy standing in the shadow of the young lady in the dark fur. When it saw me at closer quarters, it liked me even less. We were told to wait. The next face was even less impressed and distinctly rude. Until Jane tried some of her girlish charm: he didn’t say anything nice, but at least he stopped being nasty and went away.

  The face which appeared next belonged to Patrick. Although he recognised me, he wasn’t any too pleased to see me there. Perhaps I should have said because he recognised me. But this time Jane’s smiles were more successful. The door opened and we stepped over the threshold.

  Patrick led us to the bar, excused himself and left for what were obviously more important matters. I got Jane a gin and tonic and myself a double whisky—all courtesy of Dragon Records, no doubt—and took a careful look around. Most people were standing in little knots, drinking and waiting for something to happen. They mostly looked Kings Road trendy—which made me look like an exhibit from a V and A retrospective. I suggested to Jane that we wander around to see what we could see. Or who.

  The next room looked more promising. For a start there was hardly any light, though when your eyes became accustomed to it you could see a little more than shapes. A stereo played a watered down version of black soul and the atmosphere was sweet with the scent of cannabis. A few couples were dancing in the middle of the room; or they were holding each other and checking out all the vital parts were present. I stared harder at one of these groping couples: a disc jockey of supposedly virile appetites was fondling the tight little arse of a fair-haired boy in baby blue denim. No one seemed to think it extraordinary, least of all Jane, who pointed to a gap in the floor cushions and suggested that we went over and sat down.

  We sat for a while and drank and she began to tickle the edge of my ear with the tip of her tongue. Every now and then people would get up from the floor and head in the direction of the door at the other side of the room from where we were. I guessed it was the bedroom, though it could have been the communal bathroom. The end of Jane’s tongue had now begun to explore the inner reaches of my ear and I shivered with what I could only suppose was pleasure. I sure wasn’t cold.

  I was on the point of suggesting that we go across the room and take a look at what lay beyond the door when Patrick came up and started talking to us. Not that he had anything special to say, but he was very interested in what I was doing there. I mumbled something about being curious about how the other half lived but it didn’t go down too well. So I left him with Jane and went looking for a little more scotch. Hell! I needed a lot more scotch!

  There were more people milling around now and more faces that I half-recognised. Maybe if you were good enough or big enough to be known straight-off you didn’t need to hustle your business with a load of free booze and sex. Not that there had been much of the latter yet. Though I was still to penetrate beyond that much used door.

  When I got back to Jane and Patrick, two other guys had joined them and Patrick was busy selling product as though his life depended on it. Which in a way I suppose it did. Just a little more air-play, sweetie, and it’s bound to break big.

  I pulled Jane to her feet and as I did so I wondered why I had never kissed her. When I had, I wondered why I had waited so long. I kissed her again and took hold of her hand, firmly. We went over towards the famous door.

  On the other side it was darker still and I had the sense of having stepped into a Chinese puzzle and hoped that I had the key. I nudged down with the inside of my left arm against the weight of my .38.

  There appeared to be a large bed in the centre of the room and a lot of writhing around going on top of it. More movement was evident around the sides of the room, along the floor. Just down by Jane’s foot I could see fairly clearly a figure half out of a dress, whom I guessed was a woman, though who was I to make such rash assumptions, being serviced—I can think of no better word—by two other figures which were quite evidently male.

  On one wall someone had erected a screen and the flickering light from this lit up forms and faces for seconds at a time. One epic had obviously just finished and the coloured titles advertised the start of another. It was called ‘Hot Pussy’ but it was not about to appeal to cat-lovers everywhere: not even roast cat with orange sauce.

  The scene opened with a white girl in a short polka dot dress going to the front door and gasping with surprise at seeing her coloured friend standing at the other side. At least, I assume she was her friend as she kissed her full on the mouth for some time and in close-up; she certainly wasn’t the milk-lady as she wasn’t carrying any bottles.

  In the next scene they were in the bedroom and whitey was showing her friend the contents of her wardrobe. Then—what do you know!—her friend started to try on some of the clothes. Whoever scripted this should get a Nobel Prize for originality above and beyond the call of duty.

  She took off her white blouse to reveal a hefty pair of tits bulging out of a little coffee-coloured bra. She took off the bra and they sagged down a couple of inches; this must have worried the hostess as she spent the next few minutes trying to revive them with various manipulations of her hands and lickings with her tongue. I’ll say this for her—she tried hard. But it didn’t seem to work. So they forgot about the new blouse and lay down on the bed.

  The coloured girl began to unbutton the top of the other’s dress. Well, fair’s fair. They played with each other’s tits for a while and just as this was getting pretty boring—for us as well as for them, our hostess sneaked her hand under the hem of her friend’s skirt. And would you believe it? She wasn’t wearing any knickers. This was soon reciprocated and they lay back along the bed kissing each other and pushing their fingers inside each other with practised ease.

  I tried to catch a look at Jane’s face in the flashes of light, but I couldn’t tell if she was aroused or embarrassed. Whatever effect it was having on her, it was working on the others all right. The figures on the bed were moving around as though they had suddenly found a nest of fleas. The lady to our left was now less in her dress than out of it and the two young studs were working hard.

  All the while I was looking around me I was trying to imagine how Candi would have reacted to the situation. It’s difficult to imagine someone with whom you have experienced sex in the most private and personal of ways indulging themselves in public in a place like this. But when she got high perhaps she hadn’t cared. Still it wasn’t a thought I liked: orgies were okay as long as you didn’t get your emotions messed up in them, Į guessed. So what was I doing here with Jane?

  I must have missed the end of the movie, because when I looked at the screen again the film was in black and white and it looked as if whoever had made it had switched on the camera and fallen asleep. No movement from that area at all; but plenty on the single bed against the wall. They hadn’t even bothered with the excuse of a plot—just three people screwing and sucking.

  A girl lay on her back, buttocks slightly raised. A man lay half over her, penetrating her from above. Alongside the girl, whose face I could see, lay another girl, incongruously wearing stockings and a suspender belt. The two girls had their mouths open and were touching tongues. The girl whose face I could see had her eyes shut and was smiling.

  There was a blundering cut in the film. Now the man was lying on his side and I could see that he still had his socks on. The girl in suspenders was lying behind him, leaning over his body and kissing his side. The other girl was lying on her back, with her left arm holding her left leg in the air so that the man could find his way inside her. Her leg was thin and covered up to the top of the knee by a shiny plastic black boot; the other leg hung over the edge of the bed. Her vacant eyes were staring straight at the camera as if she were lying there taking a rest before dying. The eyes of Buffy Thurley.

  I grabbed hold of Jane’s arm and pulled her out of the room. I wanted to find Patrick and fast. He was l
eaning against the bar looking as if cold cream wouldn’t stain his nylon sheets. I tried hard to look a little excited but basically unconcerned.

  ‘Great stuff, Patrick. The films, I mean. Really good—better than the usual run-of-the-mill thing.’

  I leaned over away from Jane and tried the old man-to-man bit.

  ‘I’d like to get hold of something like that for a little home consumption. Where do you pick them up from? Or does somebody bring them along?’

  He looked at me as if I were proving to be an even greater embarrassment than he had feared. I asked him again, pretending to be rather drunk and getting louder by the minute. I hoped he would say something if only to shut me up. He did.

  ‘They’re brought along, old man, I just ask for a fresh supply each time. They seem to keep some people happy.’

  He looked at me with something near contempt, and then behind me to where Jane stood, wondering what the hell was going on and wishing she had never come in the first place—had never brought me.

  ‘Look, there’s the chappie over there. Standing with his back to us talking to that girl in blue.’

  I thanked Patrick and told Jane to go and powder her nose. She didn’t like it, but she went all the same.

  I walked over and stood behind him. Put my hand firmly on his arm, just by the elbow. Excused him from the conversation. Led him to a corner.

  He was wide-eyed with a mixture of astonishment and fear and I could see the expression magnified through his glasses. I wondered what classification this little experience was classified under.

  ‘Well, Martin. I didn’t expect to speak to you again so soon. Or did I?’

  He was looking wildly around himself now, looking for someone who would come and get him off the hook. But I was hoping that everyone else would be too concerned with their own peculiar reasons for being there to worry about us.

  ‘Do you come here often? Or is that too corny a question?’ He spluttered and stumbled over his words: it was really his first time. I tightened my grip on his elbow and smiled into his glasses in case anyone was looking.

  ‘You liar! You’re often here, Martin. You often come here because you’ve got business here. And the sort of business you’ve got involved in brings all kinds of pleasures on the side. Doesn’t it?’ My grip was stronger still and the sweat was starting to run down his face; his mouth was twisting into a grimace of pain.

  ‘It must have been very different from all those dry and dusty volumes, Martin. Very different. Lots of willing girls only too anxious to drop their knickers for some of that extra cash you found yourself with. Not just any old girl, either. Some important ladies, Martin, some important people. Stars, even, stars, Martin. You creep! I bet that really turned you on—the idea of getting inside the knickers of somebody famous. Like Candi, Martin. Like Candi. She was good, Martin, wasn’t she? You don’t have to tell me though, Martin. I know how good she could be!’

  I let go of his arm and pushed the flat of my hand into his stomach. I began to increase the pressure and I held him as I did so. I didn’t want him going down yet.

  ‘You weren’t only into leather-bound classics, Martin, your export business brought you in touch with more than that. Like some nice pornography. That’s where the big money was, wasn’t it? A little filth for the expense account taste. A little sex for those who can’t get it straight.

  ‘What happened once you’d started, Martin? Found you’d taken a liking to it, did you? Well, they say a man should be interested in his work, don’t they? Maybe someone thought you would be a good front man for posh set-ups like this one. Perhaps they looked a bit rough—your contacts over here—for this sort of trade. So they thought you would make a nice smart messenger for them. Here, Martin, just drop these films round to the party tonight, will you? Collect the cash while you’re there and grab yourself anything that’s going while you’re there.’

  My voice was louder now and I was conscious that people were listening. Patrick called across and started to come over towards us. Martin shook free of my grip and began to run across the room, heading for the door. He made three paces before my foot tripped him and sent him sprawling. I reached down and yanked him to his feet. I wanted something in return. I wanted to hear him shout with pain. Now. Here. Here where he and Candi had …

  My fist smashed into his face and his nose poured red blood out on to the carpet. He went back against a trolley of glasses and sent it flying. I dived down among the broken fragments and held him by the throat; then I shook him and drove my knee hard between his legs as he threshed on the floor. Hands pulled me up and I took Martin with me. I jerked free and lashed out at him again, splitting his mouth at its edge. We were both splotched with his blood.

  I wasn’t sure why but I wanted to hit him again and again. Then something made me stop hitting him and I looked round and Jane was standing to one side. She looked as though she did not believe what was happening. I looked down at my fists, clenched hard. Looked at Martin’s shattered face: the terror in his eyes. The fear of someone who thinks he is about to be killed. All around us was silence, stillness. A crowd of people watching. For some perhaps it was another part of the entertainment

  Martin’s glasses were on the floor. I reached down and picked them up. I handed them to him and his hand took them but it didn’t put them to his face. Just held them in front of him like some strange gift.

  13

  My dream was all glasses and eyes, moving, interchanging, slipping in and out of focus. Pink eyes, white eyes, eyes staring with fear at their centre. The cracked lenses and twisted rims of a pair of spectacles. Lying in the middle of an all-black room. Dangling from the hand of a corpse. Looking. Looking into me. Jane’s eyes looking at me. Not knowing what she saw. Not knowing if she saw. Hating what she saw. Closing, moving away. Blind.

  A smash of glass and I thought it was in my dream. But then I sensed that it was not. I opened my eyes and looked at the digital clock. Five-ten. The glass must have been the small window downstairs near the door. I jumped out of bed fast and grabbed for my pants; then for my gun.

  I pulled open the bedroom door and they were half-way up the stairs. This time they too had guns and they were pointing straight at me. I stood poised with one hand on the bannister rail and the other holding the Smith and Wesson.

  ‘Put your gun away and get dressed, Mitchell. You’ll catch a cold.’

  It was the chatty one; back in command. His friend wore a plaster across his nose and a nasty expression all over his face. I turned around and went back into the bedroom.

  One of them took my gun and I let them take it and pulled on my trousers and a sweater. I didn’t like what was happening: not one little bit.

  ‘We warned you.’

  ‘Yes, we even offered you money.’

  ‘But you wouldn’t listen.’

  ‘You just kept getting your nose in the way.’

  ‘Where it didn’t belong.’

  ‘And now we’re going to have to put it out.’

  ‘Permanently.’

  Oh boy, now when they both talked they were something else. If only they had had the build for it, these two guys would have made the next Laurel and Hardy—or was it Old Mother Riley and Kitty MacShane?

  ‘Did you know she was a man?’ I asked them.

  They exchanged blank looks: something else they had a talent for.

  The one with the plaster said: ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’

  ‘The lady in the picture, of course.’ I pointed at the wall behind them. They fell for it; only the slightest of movements towards the wall away from me, but I hoped it was enough. It had to be.

  I kicked at one and chopped down on the gun arm of the other. The gun fell to the floor but the man still stood in my way. My kick had landed high on his partner, but he was holding himself as though winded and his gun was against his ches
t. As I kicked again I wondered if it was free of the safety catch. The explosion told me it had been. He had tried to bring it back round to face me but the underneath of my foot pressed it back into his body as his finger squeezed down on the trigger. He fell back with a scream.

  His friend grabbed my arms from behind and I butted back hard with my head. It must have caught him on the forehead as that was where he was holding when I turned. I punched him twice in the belly and dropped to one knee to grab his gun.

  He was game. He didn’t give up. He lashed out and booted me over against the bed, then jumped for me. I rolled aside and raised the gun high and fast. Then brought it down. The noise as it struck the back of his skull was as empty as a hollow drum. I did it again to make sure.

  Then I looked at the boy with the plaster and the new gunshot wound. The bullet seemed to have gone into the meat of his shoulder and there was quite a lot of blood. He looked at me and spat in my face: I let him have it with the barrel of the gun and it raked away the plaster and gave him a new cut to add to his collection. I took his gun off the floor and gave him a lecture about safety. Then I went downstairs and phoned the law.