September Song

by Colin Murray

  There were three men in it. Four, if you counted Philip Graham. But I’ve always thought of him as a boy, and he didn’t present much of a threat as he was slumped in an old chair that had had the stuffing knocked out of it, much as he had, with his head lolling on his chest, giving a very passable impression of semi-consciousness. He’d been slapped about a bit and wasn’t looking quite as pretty as Les would like. The drool leaking in a thin line down his chin was flecked with blood.

  In any case, I wasn’t doing too much counting because one of the three immaculately groomed and expensively dressed black guys was pointing a sawn-off shotgun at my midriff. It was all a bit strange and exotic for me.

  ‘What ya doin’ here, man?’ he said in a curious lilting accent that I’d heard once or twice before, when I’d popped in to one of the black clubs in pursuit of an even less pleasant and more disreputable leading man than Philip Graham, and sort of recognized as coming from the West Indies.

  ‘Whoa,’ I said, ‘I’m just looking for the toilet. I must have got lost.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘you lost.’

  ‘Right,’ I said, ‘I’m on my way.’ I paused. ‘Do you know where the toilet is?’

  And I might just have got away with it, if Philip Graham, with that immaculate sense of timing for which he is renown, had not chosen that very moment to swim back to something approaching consciousness.

  ‘Tony!’ he said. ‘Tony, thank God.’

  A sawn-off shotgun is not something to argue with – at that range and with the spread there’s no way he could have missed me – and when the guy indicated that I should move away from the door and enter the room, I did just that. I even raised my hands, although he hadn’t asked me to. I really did not want my liver, or some other useful organ, nicked by birdshot.

  One of the others came over to check my pockets for lethal weapons. The tie he was wearing was pure silk, but the bright green and yellow stripes made it a bit flamboyant for my taste. Still, it probably cost more than my suit. He smelled of musky cologne, which was certainly better than the mouldy damp of the shabby room.

  I’ve never been patted down before, and it was a strangely intimate and embarrassing experience. I didn’t much care for it. Needless to say, he didn’t find so much as a soggy handkerchief. I’d left that with Miss Summers.

  The guy stopped feeling my waist and stepped back with a shrug. The one with the gun continued to point it unwaveringly in my direction as the third man spoke.

  ‘You wit’ Mr Fitz?’ he said.

  I shook my head.

  ‘Only, I think I saw you wit’ one of his men, yesterday,’ he said.

  He must have been talking about Malcolm. ‘Just a casual acquaintance,’ I said.

  He nodded slowly. He had a toothpick between his lips, and he moved it from one corner of his mouth to the other. Then he took it out and smiled. It was a dazzling smile, not least because one of his front teeth was gold. ‘So,’ he said, ‘who you wit’?’

  ‘No one,’ I said.

  ‘No one,’ he repeated. ‘So, how you know James Dean here?’

  ‘I do some work for a film company,’ I said.

  He started chewing on the toothpick again. ‘What sort of work?’ he said. ‘Can you get me into pictures?’ He laughed, and the other two joined in.

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘I’m just a bookkeeper.’

  He looked me up and down. He didn’t give me the impression that he was impressed by what he saw. ‘So, what you doin’ here?’ he said.

  I decided to come clean. Sort of.

  I pointed at Philip Graham.

  ‘Looking for him. The studio’s a bit worried. They don’t like their assets going missing.’

  He nodded slowly. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘I can dig that.’ He laughed again. ‘I don’t like my assets goin’ missin’ neither.’ He took the chewed toothpick out of his mouth and dropped it on the floor. There were about a dozen more lying there. ‘So,’ he said, ‘you ain’t a party to the business?’

  I tried to look suitably puzzled, and I probably overdid it. ‘What business?’ I said. ‘Like I said, I’m a bookkeeper at Hoxton Films, so I suppose I am a party to the film business.’

  He chuckled in what seemed like a friendly enough way. ‘So,’ he said, ‘you don’t know Ricky Mountjoy? Or where I can find him?’

  I decided to answer only the second question. ‘No,’ I said, as innocently as I could. ‘Sorry.’

  He reached into his jacket pocket and took out another toothpick.

  He stepped towards me and held the toothpick close to my left eye.

  ‘I hope you telling me the trut’,’ he said. ‘Cause if you ain’t, I will take your eye out.’ He paused, and we stood in silence, staring at each other. He wanted me to know that he meant it.

  I believed him.

  Thin, red threads ran across the whites of his eyes, and the dark-brown pupils were slightly dilated. His sharp eau de cologne didn’t disguise the earthy, sweaty smell of him, or the strange, sweet smoky reek of his clothes.

  Something about my response must have satisfied him, because he stepped back and smiled that golden smile. ‘What’s your name?’ he said.

  ‘Tony,’ I said. ‘What’s yours?’

  He laughed, and the others chuckled. ‘I tell you what, Tony,’ he said, ‘you can call me Boss.’

  He seemed to find this thigh-slappingly amusing, because he roared with laughter and slapped his thighs. The other two continued to chuckle.

  Right, I thought, now that you’ve convinced them you’re no kind of threat and they’ve dropped their guard, it’s time to do the ‘with one bound he was free’ stuff. The only problem was that I couldn’t think how to do it.

  And then there was the only other problem: I didn’t know how long Charlie would wait before he came looking for me. I really didn’t want Charlie to walk into this. I couldn’t be sure, but I rather thought that Charlie would come in punching, and that could end up with one or more of us with a gutful of birdshot, or whatever was in the sawn-off.

  ‘I’ll just get on my way then,’ I said, ‘if that’s all right . . .’

  The man who suggested I call him Boss cocked his head to one side, a bit like a budgie before it says something its owner thinks is cute. ‘Now, Tony, I could let you walk out that door. And I could let you take this rassclart wit’ you.’ I assumed he was talking about Philip Graham, and I assumed he wasn’t describing him as a nice young man. ‘But I ain’t gonna do it. You see, your friend here, he’s been messin’ wit’ my business, and I can’t be doin’ wit’ that.’

  ‘I’m sure there must be some misunderstanding,’ I said, going for the authentic bluster of the pukka white man. ‘I’m sure that we can sort this out in a friendly fashion. And impress upon Mr Graham that interfering in your business – whatever that business is – is really not on.’

  ‘Oh, we can sort it out, all right, and we can make sure he doesn’t interfere in our business again,’ he said. ‘And the t’ing is, we don’t need your help to do it.’

  He beamed at his two companions. They both chuckled again. Though, worryingly, these chuckles edged towards the sniggering of playground bullies.

  ‘Oh, I don’t imagine that you need my help,’ I said, still blustering away like a good ’un, ‘but I thought I’d offer.’

  They chuckled away again.

  I could only see the one firearm, but I wasn’t sure. There were no suspiciously large bulges in jacket pockets that suggested impressive handguns, but I assumed they carried knives as standard kit.

  I suppose I heard the sound of light footsteps on the landing outside before they did because I expected to hear them. And they, of course, were busy wetting themselves with merriment at my expense at the time.

  So I was ready when someone cautiously opened the door.

  And, happily, they weren’t.

  All three of them glanced at the door as Charlie’s tousled head appeared around it.

  I charged across
the stained and ragged carpet and slammed the heel of my hand into the top lip of the guy with the gun. I’d aimed at the base of the nose, but I missed. My old unarmed combat instructor would have been appalled. I could still see him, a wiry little bruiser in his singlet, shorts and plimsolls, all sinew and gristle and varicose veins, standing on a coconut mat in a freezing church hall, barking instructions on how to kill someone with a rolled-up magazine.

  Still, I may not have killed him – as Sergeant Wilkinson would have desired – but the blow seemed to have done the job I wanted it to as the bloke clutched at his bleeding mouth and loosened teeth and forgot he was riding shotgun. I poked a decent short left jab into his now unprotected stomach, and as he doubled up I hit him hard in the side of his face with my right forearm. He went down, bleeding all over his expensive suit, and I wrestled the gun away from him and turned back into the room.

  The guy who’d patted me down was sprawled on his backside, feeling his jaw, so I was guessing he had experienced Charlie’s very impressive right hand.

  Boss, though, was wielding a nasty-looking blade, swishing it about in front of him, and had Charlie backed up against the wall.

  As I fiddled with the sawn-off, to my utter amazement, Philip Graham, who, it seemed, had not been tied to the chair, jumped up and grabbed Boss’s knife arm – who would have thought he had it in him? – allowing Charlie a free hit. Which Charlie duly made the most of, following a left jab with a cracking right cross. Boss dropped with all the grace and dignity of a sack of potatoes. Philip Graham kicked him in the ribs, hard. I looked at the blood clotted around young Philip’s nose and caked around his mouth, and I couldn’t find it in my heart to chastise him.

  The man who Charlie had taken out first, the one who’d searched me, was struggling to his feet, and I walked over and pointed the sawn-off at him. His tie was looking a bit more garish than before, as a little blood had dribbled down his chin and splashed on it. He was still a bit glassy-eyed and finding it difficult to focus and even harder to stand still. His legs wavered a little, as if he was too heavy to support.

  I pointed the gun at the crumpled heap of tailoring that had called itself Boss.

  ‘Tell him this is all over,’ I said. ‘There will be no more interference in your business from him.’ I waved the gun vaguely in the direction of Philip Graham. ‘I guarantee it. Do you understand?’

  He nodded.

  ‘You take this any further with him,’ I said, ‘and I will personally see to it that you regret it.’

  He nodded his understanding again and dabbed at his mouth with his tie. His business must have paid a lot better than mine if he could treat a silk tie like that.

  The nodding head did not reassure me. As I stared at him, he gave me the kind of hard-eyed, contemptuous look that left me with the distinct impression that he was more than prepared to risk my wrath. Then he spat bloody spittle on to the floor.

  Charlie, Philip and I left that room at a trot, and we were down the stairs in a few seconds.

  I took a detour to the cold, damp loo out the back where the only sound was the gurgle of running water. I broke the sawn-off and unloaded it, dropping the cartridges into the gutter of the pissoir. The steady trickle from the leaking pipes swept them quickly towards the drain. I then climbed up on the seat of the WC in the one cubicle and stuck the gun in the cistern there. Dirty-brown water slopped over the edge. Whoever risked sitting there in the near future would suffer a very damp bum.

  ‘Blimey, Tone,’ Charlie said when I emerged into the dull, grey, very ordinary afternoon, ‘what was that all about? Who are those devils?’

  ‘I’ll explain later, Charlie,’ I said. ‘Let’s get Mr Graham back to his hotel and cleaned up. Better let Mr Jackson know we’ve found him. Can you handle that?’

  ‘Course I can,’ he said.

  We started to walk briskly back to the car.

  ‘Mr Graham,’ I said, ‘are you all right? Apart from the obvious . . .’ I waved my hand in the general direction of his facial injuries. ‘You don’t need a doctor or anything?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m all right.’

  We reached the car, and I opened the door for young Philip.

  He stood still and looked at me. ‘Thanks,’ he said.

  I shrugged. ‘Just doing what Les Jackson pays me for,’ I said. ‘No thanks necessary.’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘I understand that. But thanks, anyway. Especially for not giving me a lecture.’

  ‘Think nothing of it,’ I said, helping him on to the back seat. ‘I imagine Les’ll give you quite an earful when he sees you. You don’t need me adding to your misery.’

  He had the grace to hang his head sheepishly.

  ‘It was my own stupid fault,’ he said. ‘Instead of going home last night, after . . . you know, I went to that bloody club where they play that Caribbean music. Do you know it?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Blokes in bright shirts and gold jewellery and girls in very tight dresses.’

  ‘That’s where they found me. I didn’t know . . .’

  ‘It’s all right, Mr Graham. It’s all sorted,’ I said, surprising myself with my confident tone. ‘And what isn’t sorted, I’m about to deal with.’

  I watched the car disappear and then looked around for any sign of pursuit.

  There wasn’t any, and I walked quickly along towards the Acropolis, hoping that the dodgy reassurance I’d offered Philip Graham could be turned into something approaching reality.

  I tried to shake off any forebodings by the kind of positive thinking advocated by some American minister I’d read about somewhere – possibly in an advertisement in a copy of Enzo’s Daily Mirror – and there was much to be positive about.

  After all, I’d done my job: I’d found young Philip, as Les Jackson had requested, and rescued him from the bad guys. Young Philip was more or less intact, and I’d walked away from the rumble with nothing worse than a bruised forearm. The blood on my jacket wasn’t mine.

  Life was sweet.

  FIFTEEN

  Nothing much had changed in the restaurant. It still wasn’t open, but James Fitzgerald now had a selection of small dishes in front of him.

  He looked up when I came in, a piece of bread dipped in something white and squidgy held delicately an inch or two from his mouth.

  ‘Tony,’ he said, ‘you’re back rather earlier than I was anticipating. Surely an hour hasn’t passed yet.’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘but I know who did your boys.’

  Malcolm and Stanley, who were sitting either side of him, suddenly looked less bored.

  ‘So do I, Tony, so do I,’ Mr Fitz said. ‘Do you mind?’ He waved the piece of bread around, and something dripped off on to the tablecloth. Even in the poor light, I could see that the white dip was shot through with little green flecks.

  I shook my head, and he popped the morsel into his mouth and munched contentedly. I was reminded of a big black and white cow I’d come face to face with in a field in Normandy, chewing away, more or less oblivious to me. I hoped that Mr Fitz wasn’t going to completely replicate the memory by dropping a large brown cow pat. Happily, he didn’t. He picked up his glass of wine and took a swallow.

  ‘I’ve always known, Tony,’ he said. ‘Your lanky friend, the piano player.’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘it wasn’t him.’

  ‘Yes, it was, Tony. Think about it. What do the police look for?’ He looked at me slyly. ‘Motive and opportunity. He had both.’

  ‘But he couldn’t have done it,’ I said. ‘There were two of them.’

  He smiled at me benignly. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘who can tell what a human is capable of? You must have seen things in the war, Tony, that are difficult to account for.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, ‘but this is different.’

  He shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think so. And nor, I’m sure, do the police.’ He indicated the chair opposite him. ‘Sit down and I’ll explain something to you.’

&nb
sp; I paused for a moment, but then I reluctantly sat.

  Mr Fitz leaned back and steepled his fingers in front of him. For a moment I thought he was going to invoke the Almighty.

  ‘What you have to understand, Tony,’ he said, ‘is that Soho is a little bit like a medieval country; it’s a collection of fiefdoms. Or, if you like, it’s tribal. For the most part, the various tribes all rub along, but, occasionally, someone does something silly and treads on a few toes. That person has to be reprimanded, and then the status quo is restored and everyone rubs along again. I’ll admit that I made a mistake. I thought that young Ricky was a likely lad who deserved an opportunity. I had no idea that he would set up on his own account – how could I possibly know that he would have access to a supplier and be able to find adequate financing? Nelson Smith and I have an agreement. He supplies the black clubs and pubs around here with what he calls weed and what the Dangerous Drugs Act calls ganja. I leave that market to him.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Needless to say, he doesn’t take kindly to his fiefdom being invaded. Or, if you prefer, to finding his prices undercut in his own market. If only young Ricky had spoken to me, all this unpleasantness could have been avoided. Of course, I would have had a stern word with him and instructed Malcolm or Stanley or Harold to keep an eye on him, but all would have been well.’

  ‘So, let me get this straight,’ I said. ‘You know perfectly well that this Nelson Smith – I’m assuming he’s the bloke with the gold tooth?’

  Mr Fitz smiled his agreement.

  ‘You know perfectly well that this Nelson Smith “reprimanded” those two boys. And you’re not going to do anything about it.’

  ‘I’m not going to do anything about it because I know nothing of the kind, Tony. In any case I much prefer a quiet life,’ he said. ‘I’m happy with the status quo, and I can’t see much to be gained by doing something barbaric by way of misguided revenge. Anyway, your piano player gives us all an easy out, and Nelson knows he owes me a favour.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘Anyway, lessons over for the day. If you’ll excuse me, I’d like to get on with my lunch. Would you like to join me?’