George Amberry edged a few yards further into the hall, then stopped.
“Holy shit!”
“Yeah, maybe, but even if JC himself evacuated it, I don't think they'll be handing that out at Communion on Sunday, do you?” I quipped.
George spluttered with laughter.
The pile of faeces in front of Morris Hargreaves' nameplate was copious and horribly pungent. A few flies were already in attendance.
I whistled softly and looked over at our chairman, staring back at me ashen-faced and dumbstruck.
“Oh dear, Morris. Looks like somebody tabled a motion - literally!”
12. Leo the Lion
Leo Corantelli was very upset. Very, very upset. What occurred in Cardoza's qualified as the single most humiliating moment of his life. The restaurant staff were intolerably smug when they found him; the paramedics and hospital staff snickered, pointed, talked behind his back. This was not paranoia on his part, this was fact.
The removal of the phone left him sore, and for the first few days afterwards, taking a dump was no laughing matter. But, he wouldn't be leaving it there. Oh no! The distress, discomfort and ignominy was eclipsed by a raging fury. The prick responsible for his unhappiness had made the biggest mistake of his soon-to-end-painfully life.
Leo was the youngest son of Carlo Corantelli, one of the the city's best connected gangland bosses. His father could never have imagined a mobile phone would be pulled from his son's butt, even though he thought the sun shone out of it. What Leo wanted, Leo got...and Leo wanted this guy dead. Luckily, violent notoriety prevented anyone from the hospital or restaurant from contacting the press about his admission. Leo also made sure none of his father's crew knew exactly what happened to him. As far as they were concerned, this would be the usual no-questions-asked revenge for crossing the spoilt son of their boss. Questions were unnecessary; they did as they were told.
The attack had been bad, the reaction of the restaurant staff and medics angered him, but the message the guy left on Leo's answering service caused his rage to spiral up towards the stratosphere. This guy would be very, very sorry that he ever crossed Leo.
Leo walked into Cardoza's at ten o'clock in the morning with three, large goons in tow. The duty manager, newly arrived, was returning to lock the front door after cancelling the alarm.
“Hey guys, we're not open until midday. Do you want to make a reservation?”
His sunny disposition smacked of someone well-drilled in customer care. Unfortunately, this did not prevent him being punched to the ground.
“How about that for a reservation?” spat Leo. “Do you remember me, you little prick?”
The hapless manager, head spinning, blood dripping, looked up and it dawned on him who he was dealing with.
“Yes, sir, Mr Corantelli, I remember you. You're a very good customer.”
The platitude failed to make any dent in the violent intentions of his one-time patron. Leo booted him heftily in the midriff and the young man folded in half, winded and disorientated.
“Damn right I was a very good fucking customer! But you ungrateful shitbuckets let someone attack me on your premises and then laughed at me after it happened!” Leo stood with hands on hips, glowering with seething contempt. “Well, you won't be laughing any more!”
He aimed another kick at the prone manager, then signalled to one of the goons to pick him up.
“Right, get me your reservation book.”
The manager led them (if you count being roughly shoved as leading) over to the bar where he pulled out a large, leather bound book.
Leo snatched the oversized diary, flicking through the pages until he found what he needed. Friday the ninth. He tore out the page, letting the rest of the book fall to the floor, and scanned down to table fourteen - a surname, nothing else. Although it hardly seemed possible to boost it any further, this setback increased his displeasure.
“Is this all you've got? Do you slack bastards never take a mobile number or an address from customers who make a booking?”
The now whimpering, trembling manager tried to speak, but it just came out as a sort of whispered squeak. He got a slap round the face for his trouble.
“Speak up you pathetic sonofabitch!”
“I'm sorry, Mr Corantelli. We store the number on the phone in case of a no-show and we can black list them but, if they turn up, we delete it,” he managed, shrinking back defensively once he'd finished.
Leo simmered. He'd been sure this would be his way of finding the bastard but, a surname, with nothing else to embellish it, was bordering on useless.
“Do you know this guy? Is he a regular?”
“I don't think so, Mr Corantelli. I've worked here for six months and that's the first booking I remember seeing from him and his wife. He definitely doesn't come here as often as you do.”
“Ha! Well you can kiss my arse from now on, pal. Leo Corantelli will no longer be frequenting this shitpile.
“Did you talk to him? Got any information I can use to find him?” barked Leo.
“No, I didn't deal with him personally, sir, other than greet him and show him to his seat.”
Leo looked around the restaurant, thinking.
“Do you have security cameras?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where do you keep the tapes?”
The manager's anxiety deepened significantly in advance of the answer to this question. An answer that seemed a dead cert to bring him the next instalment of hostility.
“We don't keep them here, sir. They're backed up electronically and downloaded to our central computer in New York.”
Leo looked up at the ceiling, a low snarl turning to a deep growl, then a howl of rage.
“FUCK!”
He grabbed the manager by the lapel, pulled him in close and stuck a business card into his shirt pocket.
“If that fucker comes back here, I want to know right away. Do you understand?”
The young man nodded vigorously. “Yes, sir, I do and I will.”
Leo shook him loose and headed for the door. He stopped just short of it and turned around.
“You know I can make things a lot worse for you if you mention a word of this to anyone, don't you?”
The manager nodded.
Leo and his companions swept out of the restaurant and into the crowded street. The manager, Myles Gilmore, slumped to the floor and put his head in his hands, guts churning, nose throbbing, head spinning. A bona fide gangster just threatened him with violence and he'd probably become an accessory of some sort in the murder of one of his customers. He'd definitely experienced better starts to a day at work.
13. When Push Comes to Shove
The hives of London were emptying and the airless station swarmed with its usual rush-hour influx of drones. People impersonating sardines, eyes glazed over, desperate to escape the tin. Sweat, anxiety, claustrophobia, bad breath, fractious children and frazzled parents, business men checking watches, and pickpockets sizing up potential victims. A heaving throng of eye contact being avoided and wish-I-was-anywhere-else moroseness.
I hated having to use the Tube. A necessary evil - I always needed to psyche myself up to embark on whatever journey might be required. The way so many people accepted such things every day of their working lives totally confounded me. No salary could ever compensate for enduring this hideousness with any degree of frequency.
Tube stations are always warm but at the height of summer they are something else. You could see folks wilting as they alighted from the escalator. On this particular evening, I could swear the temperature inside was greater than that found in the bowels of Hades. In fact, it seemed entirely plausible to me that once you reached the platform, you really had stumbled into said bowels. There was no doubting it was a crap way to spend my time. Only as a train approached, and air was drawn through the tunnel, did people find relief forthcoming.
My train pulled in, the temporary draught evaporated and the mad scramble began.
Incredibly, I managed to board the carriage nearest me almost straight away. But, as ever, my travails did not end there. It is, I suppose, human nature to want to get out of a bad situation as quickly as possible. However, the irony was, in jamming onto the train itself, people merely recreated the hellish discomfort of the platform they were so desperate to escape.
The guy looked about fifty and really should have known better. In a mind-boggling display of bad manners he barged onto the train with an out-sized suitcase, big enough to pack away a small planet. He shoved a pregnant woman so hard she nearly fell to the ground but he paid her no heed - or that of the protesting onlooker who tried to offer her assistance. As the doors closed, he continued to push and prod anyone unfortunate enough to be in range. Outrage surged though me like an electric shock.
That's the thing. The morale-sapping experience of Tube travel is exacerbated and magnified by the likes of that wanker. Rudeness and selfishness tipping off any scale used to measure it. Well, today, this particular ill-mannered tosser picked the wrong train.
As we hurtled between stations I kept an eye on Rude-boy as I decided to call him. It was too much to expect he was going to the same station as me and, sure enough, he wasn't. I stuck with him though. My wife would understand when I explained the reason for my tardiness; she's a very reasonable woman. My son, unaware of a specified rendezvous time, wouldn't notice.
I edged toward Rude-boy whenever there was a changeover of passengers at a station. After one such stop and the resulting minimal increase in space, he managed to bag a seat: this miracle achieved by barging a frail, elderly gentleman out of the way. His smug expression afterwards suggested pride in doing so. Insult, piled upon injury, piled upon insult. I was going to enjoy sorting Rude-boy out.
Eventually, I got close enough to subtly reach down and remove his luggage tag. If I lost sight of him in the mob of a crowded station, I would know where to find him later.
The station where he disembarked was less crowded than the one where we both first boarded. The number of passengers on the train had also thinned out - we were no longer melded together as if one homogeneous lump of humanity. I waited for him to step to the platform, then followed closely behind, confident there was little chance he'd become suspicious of me. Grudging tolerance of uncomfortable closeness to strangers was the way he'd just spent the last thirty five minutes. My hunch proved correct and, as we left the platform, he was oblivious to me shadowing him.
At the top of the escalator, sunshine bathed us. It was a different kind of heat up top compared to underground; somehow more bearable and with the welcome relief of fresh air being wafted on a gentle breeze. I could feel my shirt sticking to my back and longed for a refreshing shower.
This was one of those affluent areas of the city less familiar to me. Folks living here - and presumably that included this pushy bastard - were in an income bracket several notches above me. Just like the mobile phone guy, he was proving money alone could not buy you class. Rude-boy stopped to mop his brow and put on some shades. I also popped on my sunglasses: the brightness of the outside dazzling in comparison to the artificial light of the tunnels.
He set off again at a brisk pace. I accelerated and, once within range, tapped his heel, causing him to trip. He sprawled full length, exclaiming loudly as he did so; shades clattering ahead of him on the pavement. I deliberately tumbled on top of him, making sure my elbow dug heavily into his ribs.
“Hey, mate, are you ok?” I asked, in as concerned a voice as I could muster.
As we disentangled ourselves and I offered my hand to help him up, he shouted with vehemence and no small degree of indignation. “What the fuck?! You just tripped me up!”
“Whoa! No way, mate. I was walking behind you and you suddenly slowed down. I couldn't get out of the way and we fell together. If anything, you tripped me up! I suppose that's what you get for trying to help these days.”
Warming to my part as the real victim, I withdrew my hand and folded my arms.
Rude-boy got to his feet rubbing his knee, his trousers torn, blood spreading darkly across the light coloured fabric. He nursed his (hopefully heavily) bruised ribs. Unfortunately, the impact hadn't been sufficient to inflict any serious damage to the prick.
“I'm sorry...” he said in a rather suspicious, unconvinced tone.
A female passerby pretended to take no heed; probably unwilling to get involved in what looked like a heated disagreement between two big blokes.
I stepped back in the full knowledge of what I was about to do. The very expensive eye-wear crunched under the heel of my boot. Oh, that felt good!
“Hey, watch where...oh for fuck's sake! Those cost me a fortune!”
He scrambled to the floor, desperately trying to reassemble them - but I had done my job with a finality that would render repair impossible.
“Shit, sorry about that. I didn't see them there.”
“Yeah? Look, just leave me alone will you. If this is your idea of helping people then I'm not impressed!”
The pitiable wanker cradled the shattered shades like a precious child, looking like he might actually start weeping over their passing. I shook my head, trying hard to suppress the laughter straining to burst forth.
“Ok, whatever, mate.”
With that, I continued up the street a way before doubling back toward the station. I left him checking himself over and reaching for a mobile phone to make a call of some kind. The disorientation of a random encounter with a stranger worn like a fluorescent tabard. My satisfaction tempered slightly by the lack of involvement from any paramedics. Never mind, it was a small victory and a necessary release on the valve. A cuff round the ear of bad manners and the blinded insularity of some city dwellers.
As predicted, once united with the family, my wife was very reasonable and my son easily placated with ice cream. I could get on with enjoying one of my weekend's with the boy. Wife number one away doing whatever she did when given this temporary fortnightly freedom.
When I told him about it, Garry thought the whole thing hilarious.
14. Night-time
I have been patiently waiting for this opportunity. A character trait that has always stood me in good stead. Patience ensures mistakes are avoided. Persistence ensures jobs get completed regardless of obstacles, inexperience or difficulty. The precise, requisite set of circumstances for this lesson have not been easy to come by. But, here and now, all the essential elements are aligned. Patience and persistence, my comrades and confidantes.
This one's not as apprehensive as the others. He doesn't realise how wrong he is to be so casual. Still jostling, still entirely focussed on number one. Still unaware of the wrong, the danger, the wrath.
My power is uncomfortably low. This flickering ember is alien to me. I'm used to it burning like a thousand suns. I almost feel too weak to see this through. I crave the dark, I need the dark, but it cannot be dark in here. I have no choice, no influence over this. I take solace from the darkness nearby until it's ruptured by headlights. Light is my kryptonite.
I don't like crowds - it's risky. Privacy affords time to tidy and repair, make good any spillage or oversight. An audience might mean a witness but there's no other way to make the point which needs to be made. It has to be here, in the light. It has to be now. Yes, I'm weakened, but far from impotent.
I move slowly; like wading through human treacle.
The heat rises.
The lights burn.
The wind blows dragon's breath.
I am fighting against the light.
I move forward and, this time, the tap on the heels is final.
A surge of bodies, voices, grinding metal screeching in protest, hysteria.
I melt away.
He won't be the only one to get the message this time. I've made sure of that.
15. Blood On The Tracks
Stark yawned like a hippo, giving the Bobby an uninterrupted view of his epiglottis. He held up his badge and crossed the tap
e. It was far too early in the morning to be dealing with this kind of shit. He was not a morning person. Mornings were for the birds and the paper boy, and they were welcome to them. On more than one occasion, he pined for the certainty and solace of constant back shifts. Great for the guy who can't get out of bed unless someone sets fire to it, but not exactly a boon socially. Ah, the job giveth and the job taketh away.
The station hummed with activity. White-suited forensics guys, uniformed cops, a couple of plain-clothes and, unfortunately, a journalist. He recognised Floyd Callahan from The Daily News even from behind. A bean pole of a man - by all accounts six feet seven inches tall - with a shining bald pate. An ex-NBA professional player who retired early due to serious injury and a rumoured fondness for falling down water. Like many guys in his position he started out as a TV pundit, then qualified as a sports journalist, but gradually branched out into other areas over the years. The opposite of that Sting song – a New Yorker in England.
His physicality and accent were not the only things that made him obvious. Floyd Callahan had a penchant for wearing brightly coloured trainers in combination with a designer suit. Stark thought he might have taken the concept of smart/casual a little too far. Callahan insisted it allowed him to sit at a dinner table and look good, but when a story broke, he'd be first there because he could run. A logic...of sorts.
As Stark approached, Callahan swivelled instinctively on his heel, broke out his best Cheshire Cat grin. It was no use, as much as Stark disliked the majority of journalists, he couldn't help but warm to this gangly, eccentric hack. After all, he wasn't a proper journalist - well not in the sense of what most people would consider one to be. Stark reciprocated.
“Hey, Floyd. How the hell did you find out about this?”
The goofy giant's smile stretched to breaking point and he tapped the side of his nose.
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