by John Harvey
I remembered this movie. There was a cop who was honest so his buddies didn’t like him overmuch. They gave him all the tough assignments; sent him in first and sat back, waiting for him to get blown away.
One time they were after some narcotics bust or other. There was a doorway on a landing. This cop, he went through that door; at least, his arm did. Someone grabbed it on the other side. While they were holding him they shot half of his face away.
Nice guys.
Nice movie.
The knocking sounded again.
I walked over to the little table and pulled open a drawer. Took out a Smith and Wesson .38. I didn’t carry it often, but there were times …
I wondered if this might be one of them.
Carefully, I slipped the bolt back and took hold of the handle with my left hand. In my right I held the gun and it was pointed straight into the centre of the doorway.
I pulled it open fast and pointed the gun some more.
He stood there with his mouth open and his face still managed to look pretty.
‘What can I do for you, Mick?’ I asked.
‘Dave wants to see you, don’t ’e. Reckons as ’ow ’e’s got somethin’ for you.’
8
Half-way up the stairs, Mick started running. I couldn’t understand why, but I ran after him anyway.
He was a lot younger than I was and he got into the place first. Found Dave. I stood inside the door and leaned back against it. Mick was kneeling in the centre of the room, kneeling beside a fat, flabby body. Holding it. Crying over it.
It.
I asked myself if he was alive or dead. Went over and made to take hold of his wrist, but Mick turned on me savagely and pushed my hands away.
‘Get out! Get out, you bastard! Leave him alone. Leave him with me.’
‘I want …’
‘Why don’t you think about something else? Not what you fuckin’ want!’
He stared up at me and his eyes were still full with tears; he looked at me with something akin to hatred; turned back to the broken and bruised body he was cradling and gazed down with disbelief and something close to love.
I got up and walked away. But I didn’t go out of the flat. I went into the kitchen and put on the kettle. Then I looked for the brandy; poured one for myself, drank it down and poured another, then one for Mick. The kettle was starting to make the familiar sounds: I went back into the kitchen and found a tin of ground coffee.
When I took the coffee through he was still kneeling there. I put the cups down and went over and stood behind him, looking down. Then I reached past him and tried again to find a sign of life in Dave’s body. This time the boy did nothing to try and stop me.
A pulse moved gently against the tips of my fingers, gently like the beatings of a tiny, dying bird. Coming from that huge body, how could it be enough?
Yet I wasn’t surprised. They would have been very good, very professional. And what they were doing their best to protect was not quite important enough to kill for. Not yet.
I went over into the corner of the room and rang for the ambulance. Then I went back to Mick. Picked him up by his shoulders and led him to a chair. Set him down; carefully. Gave him the coffee, the brandy. Went back to Dave.
Both eyes were closed, the flesh round them puffed up and swollen purple. The lips were cut and caked with coagulated blood. The skin on the right cheek had been torn away by something hard and abrasive and what had burst through seemed unnatural, unreal—the stuffing from a child’s doll.
A bump rose through the hair near the back of the head and clots of red had matted the strands together in random patches.
I knew that if I removed his clothes and looked beneath them, there would be more bruises, more cuts, more blood. But I didn’t want to see them.
The ambulance would soon be here. I went over to where Mick was sitting, coffee and brandy beside him. Neither had been touched. He sat there, numbed and still.
I squatted down beside him and lifted the glass of brandy to his lips. After a few attempts, I got him to drink a little. He coughed a couple of times, his eyes watered again. I gave him some more, then set the glass down.
‘Mick. Mick.’
He turned and looked at me without seeing me at all.
I reached up and touched his arm; ran my fingers slowly up and across his shoulder; felt the soft, cold skin of his face. The edge of his mouth. The first curls of his hair.
‘Mick.’ I said. My voice was soft, caressing. ‘Mick. What was he going to tell me? What was it?’
He was still looking at me; still staring through me to the beaten shape that might be dying, might already be dead.
I pushed my hand further up into his hair and moved myself closer to him. I felt his head edge away as his neck stiffened then something broke within him and he collapsed forwards, down into my arms, sobbing against me.
In the distance I could hear the siren approaching.
I held the boy to me and whispered in his ear: ‘What was it, Mick? What?’
I released him enough to be able to see his face.
His lips opened and moved. There was no sound. I continued to hold him, look at him. He tried again. This time words came.
‘It was about Blake. ’E used to be mixed up in some racket for bringin’ wogs into London, illegally. Pakis mostly. Used to come in from over the water in ’is charter planes, land at some disused aerodrome, then do the rest of it in ’is vans. Dave reckoned as ’ow it was still goin’ on.’
He stopped abruptly. He’d said it all. Without inflexion, without thought. Just repeated what he knew.
In the silence I knew that the ambulance had arrived downstairs.
I let go of Mick gently and he stayed where he had been when I was holding him. I reached for the glass and drank what was left of his brandy. I let in the ambulance men, then went over to the phone again.
I didn’t think Sandy would be in, but after four rings she picked up the receiver and said her name.
‘Hello,’ I said, ‘it’s Scott.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I know.’
I moved the earpiece a few inches further away from my face. The kind of chill that was coming down the line would freeze me as easily as a couple of nights in the Arctic.
‘Look. That place. The Internationale. Is it a Pakistani hang-out?’
‘It could be. I don’t know.’
There was a pause. Behind me, the ambulance men were lifting Dave’s body on to a stretcher.
I said, ‘Look, Sandy, keep away from the place. Don’t go round there asking questions for me. It might be nasty.’
‘Don’t worry,’ she replied. ‘I haven’t and I won’t.’
The door to the flat shut. I looked at the chair where Mick had been sitting: it was empty. From where I was standing you couldn’t tell the new stains on the carpet from the old ones.
‘Was there anything else?’ Sandy asked.
There wasn’t. I replaced the receiver and headed for the street. I knew where I was going and that it was stupid to go alone. I knew that I should get on the phone again and call Tom Gilmour and get at least a little back-up. Also knew there was no way in which I was going to do that. At least, not until it was over. One way or the other.
People were pushing me on one side. They had their reasons and they were usually good ones. I realised that but knowing it didn’t make any difference, didn’t make it any better. Not that I minded being on my own. It was what I’d always wanted: nearly always.
It was good. It had definite advantages. It meant you had all the time, all the space, all the money, all the food that should have been in the cupboard and all of the dust that collected underneath the bed.
It meant that you could go to bed alone: wake up alone: walk the lonely streets without anyone by your side: walk them a
ll the way to a lonely death.
What difference did that make?
In the instant of death we’re all alone, all reaching out for someone we can no longer see or touch.
Alone.
It was cold and getting colder. I hunched up my shoulders. It was always fucking cold. And it would soon be Christmas.
Great! Fucking great!
The Club Internationale was one of a score of such places within spitting distance of the centre of Soho. If anything, it was a little larger, plusher than most. The cellar was given over to a discotheque, the kind that is invariably filled by foreign students, most of whom gained admission from a free invitation given out in Oxford Street. The money for that operation came over the bar.
There was another, larger bar on the ground floor. Dark decor, a few subdued coloured lights strung around the walls; low tables and high prices. A number of girls who’d seen better nights sat at strategic intervals. There were a few men sitting around, mostly in small huddles, as though uncertain of whether they should be there at all.
At the far end of this room there was a bead curtain draped across a doorway. Above it, a sign: Private Members Club. That was where I wanted to be.
There would be some gambling; not very significant on the surface, but the stakes would be higher than I could manage. A little friendly conversation and a lot of hard bargaining. Bargaining about cafés and about slot machines; about hairdressers and sweat shops that turned out clothes sixteen, seventeen hours, a day; young boys and not so young girls; the traffic in dope and in human beings—so much a kilo, so much a head. The dope was better handled: it brought more on the market.
I had one hand between the beads when the coloured boy from behind the bar put his hand on my shoulder. Not roughly, not yet.
‘Members only, sir.’
I turned and faced him. He looked Indian, but I couldn’t tell for sure. Not more than twenty years of age and handsome if you liked that sort of thing.
He smiled. ‘It is private club, sir. Members only.’
He lifted his hand and pointed upwards, looking at the notice above the door.
He was still looking up when I hit him. Just once. He rocked back on to the edge of the bar, eyes dark and open wide. I thought he was going to make it and that I would have to clip him again. But I didn’t. He leaned back on the bar and slid down it to the floor.
In the bar, no-one moved. The huddles moved even closer together. Painted faces failed to shift their masks.
On the way up the stairs, my right hand shifted for a second to the butt of the Smith and Wesson that was clipped to my belt. It gave me a sort of inner ring of confidence.
There was another door at the top of the stairs, with a bell push and one of those tiny spy-holes. There wasn’t a handle of any kind. I pressed the bell and waited. Something moved behind the tiny circle at the door’s centre. I did my best to look like the cop I used to be. The eye still stared out, uncertain. I reached for my wallet and gave him a quick flash of a warrant card that was more years out of date than I cared to remember.
It worked. The door opened and I was in fast. I stood in front of him and pulled my jacket back far enough to let him see the gun. He saw it but his expression didn’t change.
I spoke quickly, quietly: ‘You’re going to take me in to your boss. No fuss. No trouble. Right?’
He still didn’t alter his expression, but he did think about it for a couple of moments. Then he said, ‘Yes.’ What an accommodating guy!
He turned away and walked past a few tables. I kept close to him and we made it to the office without anything else being said. There were a few cursory glances from the others in the room, but nobody appeared too worried.
He knocked twice then went in. Again I stuck with him and leaned back against the door so that it shut with a satisfying click. My left hand reached out and slid down the catch on the lock. But I couldn’t do anything to prevent the warning that must have come from the guy’s eyes.
The Pakistani behind the big desk shifted his hand to the drawer at his right. I shifted faster. With my elbow I got rid of the one standing by me, then leapt for the desk. I landed flat across it, the heel of my open right hand catching the well-rounded broad chin underneath the bone and slamming his teeth together with a clear cracking sound. My left hand banged down on the front of the desk drawer: the bejewelled fingers were still inside it.
There was a crunching noise, quickly followed by a scream of pain. I hit him again and let go of the drawer. He went backwards and came out of the swivel chair on to the carpeted floor. I grabbed the gun from the drawer in time to stick it into the doorman’s face. I don’t think he liked that very much.
At least, this time his expression changed. I preferred it as it had been before.
‘Against the wall!’ I snapped at him.
I stood to one side of him, so that I could watch all that good class material still writhing around on that expensive carpet. I frisked him and was surprised when he was clean. Turned him round and motioned him into the corner. Then I helped the boss man up from the floor.
He slumped his greased head down on to the surface of his desk, so I tucked the point of his gun underneath his chin and lifted it gently up until he was facing me.
‘I’m Scott Mitchell. I think you’ve been taking an interest in me. In some of my friends as well. And I want it to stop.’
The head tried to slip down again and I pushed the gun harder, until it was half an inch into the fat of his neck. He was sweating hard and his eyes were black with fear.
‘The guy with the blue overcoat. What’s his name?’
For a moment I thought he wasn’t going to tell me, but that would have been silly. He obviously came to the same conclusion.
‘Cole. Billy Cole.’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Call him.’
The eyes expressed surprise.
‘I said, call him!’
The barrel of the gun sank further into the fat, sweaty neck. Chubby fingers reached out for the telephone and pulled it towards him.
‘Tell him you want him round here and you want him here fast. Don’t tell him anything else.’
The hand shook a little as it held the receiver, but he was a good boy and did as I said.
I stood up from where I was leaning across the desk and backed off a little. His gun was still in my hand and it was still pointing at his head.
‘Right. There’s just a couple more things. The first is this: my only interest in Crosby Blake is to do with his daughter. I don’t care a twopenny fuck about whatever nasty little rackets you and he have been in together; I don’t even care if you still are. If it wasn’t you then it would only be somebody else.
‘The second thing is: keep away from me. If you ever send anyone after me again or if you get to any of my friends then I’ll be back here and I’ll ram this gun right up your arse before I pull the trigger!
‘Is that clear?’
From the way he looked back at me I thought it was clear. I emptied the chamber of his gun and tossed it back to him. He failed to catch it cleanly and it bounced off the top of the desk to land silently in the pile of the carpet. No-one moved to pick it up.
I pointed at the one in the corner.
‘Put your arms down. You’re going to lead me out of here and let me through the outer door just as though I’ve been paying a nice friendly call. Then you can both forget about me. Otherwise, apart from what I’ll do to you, I shall take great delight in passing on what Dave Jarrell told me to the cops. Got it?’
They had it. He came over and let me out of the office, then out of the upstairs room just as he was told.
When I got down into the bar, the barman was back on his feet and serving a couple of customers. I stood and looked at him and he looked back at me. There was nothing in his face to show that he had ever seen me
before. Not even a bruise.
I figured that there was only one way he could come so I parked my back against the wall and waited. The guy outside the strip club gave up inviting me into the all-live show of a lifetime and left me alone. Anyway, I didn’t have to wait long.
He parked his car half-way up the pavement and it still managed to block a good bit of the street. When he walked across towards the club he managed to look as big and as dangerous as he usually did.
I waited until he was outside, then shouted down the street to him. He froze, thinking maybe that I was calling him out there and then. I saw the right arm dip towards the pocket.
He saw that I was just leaning back against the wall, nothing in my hands which hung down alongside my body. He came slowly towards me.
When he was almost there, I moved easily away and turned into the alley that ran along past the side of the strip club. Apart from a dim red light at the far end, it was dark. The cobbles dipped at the centre to allow a thin stream of water and refuse to lie there unmoving. Here and there were empty wooden vegetable boxes from the market.
I went a dozen paces in before I bothered to turn around. He was standing at the entrance, partly silhouetted against the neon lights that flashed on the wall behind him and across the street.
‘You got things to say, pal?’ he asked.
I shook my head. ‘In a while,’ I said, ‘when I’ve taken you apart and before I send for someone to put you together again. Supposing that I bother.’
He laughed and the large frame shook with his amusement. He obviously thought I was making an oversized joke. I hoped that he wasn’t right. He began to walk down towards where I was standing. Waiting.
I thought I’d clip him with a good right hand to warm him up, but he was obviously warm enough already. An aim came up and swept away my punch as though it was brushing away a cobweb. Then he hit me. I jolted back and fell awkwardly on my elbow, the breath jerking out of me as I did so.