Blood City

by Douglas Skelton

  He spun his chair towards the French doors and looked out onto the garden. The sun was beginning to set, bathing the bushes and the ash trees in a pale pink glow. As he watched, first one then another black bird landed on a branch and seemed to stare towards him. Crows, he thought, or Jackdaws, more likely. Not Ravens, he’d never seen a Raven here. Joe looked to the sky and saw dark clouds gathering against the red sky. The weather would break soon and a storm was coming.

  * * *

  Jazz heard the music floating through the rooms and up the stair to where he sat in a dark cupboard. He had broken in earlier that afternoon and had wandered round Joe the Tailor’s house for hours before he saw the car pulling up outside. That big bastard McClymont had been driving and for one panicked minute Jazz thought he was coming in with the old man, but he relaxed when he saw him head down the drive and Joe walk towards the door alone. Jazz had run up the stairs to settle in the cupboard. It seemed to be a storage area, and not one he thought the Tailor was likely to enter. The young man sat on the floor and listened intently to the sounds of movement on the floor below.

  He wondered if he should have done the business as soon as the Tailor had walked in, just waited behind the door and put a couple in him before he even knew what was happening. Yes, that’s probably what he should’ve done because then it would all be over now and he’d be away. But he hadn’t and now he was growing nervous. The gun suddenly felt very heavy and he could feel his palm sweating. He hadn’t noticed how heavy it was when Fat Morrie, the armourer, had put it in his hand. Perhaps it was something to do with that thing screwed onto the end, the silencer. It was big, a lot bulkier than the ones he saw on the telly, and it had cost him extra, but he knew it was necessary. Even though Joe’s house was larger than Jazz was used to and had a fair bit of garden around it, a couple of gunshots would echo up and down that street like a bloody explosion. Morrie had no idea what Jazz wanted the gun for – he never asked – but he warned Jazz that if it should go off he shouldn’t be surprised at the noise because the silencer doesn’t suppress everything, just enough to ensure the neighbours didn’t wet themselves. Morrie had warned Jazz that he’d have to get close to the target before he pulled the trigger.

  Jazz laid the weapon on his lap and wiped his hand on his trousers. Up until now, it had all seemed somehow abstract. He had thought about killing Joe the Tailor almost constantly since Johnny had mentioned it, but like the planning of Barney Cable’s murder, it hadn’t seemed real. But now, here he was in Joe’s house, gun in his hand, and suddenly it was a reality.

  He knew Boyle and Johnny would be wondering where the hell he was, and smiled in the darkness. They would shit themselves when they heard what he’d done. He knew they didn’t think much of him but with this single act, just a couple pulls of the trigger, he would become something else in their eyes. This would make him a man. So though he felt fear fluttering in his belly, he knew he would go through with it. This was a game changer. This was going to be the making of him.

  He hefted the gun again – Christ, when did it become so bloody heavy? – then rose as softly as he could and with a shaking hand pushed open the door.

  Sinatra was still singing as he eased himself down the stairs, the weapon stretched out before him. He couldn’t recall if any of the steps had creaked earlier and prayed that he would make it down without any noise. Reaching the hallway below, he stopped and listened. The music was coming from the old man’s office and he moved slowly in its direction. Jazz had been in there earlier, sitting in the big chair at the dark polished desk, poking around Joe’s things. He’d been sitting there when he caught sight of the picture of the old man with the singer and he’d gone over and lifted it off the wall for a better look. That had impressed the hell out of him, it really had, Joe meeting Sinatra. A new track began and Jazz recognised All the Way, one of his mum’s favourites, and he had to stop himself from humming along. He smiled as he moved because it couldn’t be more fitting. He was going to go all the way with this. He crept towards the open door and glanced in. The room was washed in red as the sun sank, as if there was a neon light outside. He could see the big, dark wooden desk beside the French doors that led out to the garden and a half empty glass of milk on the blotter. The big chair was turned away from the door and facing the garden. Jazz couldn’t see him but he knew Joe the Tailor was sitting in it, probably looking out at the dying of the light. That was something his mum used to say about the sunset, the dying of the light. He took a deep breath, held it, and stepped into the room, the gun raised ahead of him, his hand shaking. Just do it, Jazz son, he told himself, another few seconds, get it done and get the fuck out there…

  He didn’t hear Joe move behind him, but he did feel his fingers clamp over his mouth, then something hot burning its way into his back. He tried to turn but the old man was too strong for him and anyway, the pain jolting from his back was too intense. Something was jammed in there, he could feel it between his ribs, and it was still going in. The gun slipped from his fingers and he suddenly felt very tired. Pain raced through his body and his legs began to buckle. He wanted to say something, but the hand was too tightly wedged across his lips. All he could manage was a muffled mumble as he slid to the floor. As he fell, whatever it was that had been in his back slid from his body, but the pain was still there and it was still travelling but then it began to subside and he felt cold, so very cold, and then he felt nothing at all.

  Joe stood over the young man’s body for a full minute. He recognised him as one of Jones’ lads, and judging by the bruising on his face, he was the one Davie had battered. He felt the familiar sadness wash over him, realising with a sigh how young he was. Just a boy, really. But Joe, of all men, knew what damage ‘just a boy’ could do. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the blood from the knife.

  He stepped over the body, picked up the phone and dialled Luca’s number.

  * * *

  Luca hunched over Jazz’s body, his face impassive though his mind was working feverishly. This was a not-unexpected turn of events, but he was still somewhat shocked. He recognised the boy, of course, but he felt none of the sadness that Joe felt. Instead, anger caught at his throat. He moved back, careful not to step in the dark blood that pooled out from under the body and seeped into the thick pile of the Chinese rug.

  ‘He’s just a kid,’ he said.

  ‘Sent to do a man’s job.’ Joe was sitting at his desk, sipping a whisky. He had poured it straight after summoning his old friend. He would have no more than one, for that was his rule.

  Luca reached out a gloved hand and picked up the silenced automatic from where it lay on the rug a few inches away from Jazz’s hand. ‘Did you have to kill him?’

  ‘Old habits die hard,’ said Joe, and Luca nodded, understanding. When threatened, men like them often killed first and thought later. It was in their blood, something both he and Joe had come to terms with a long time ago.

  ‘The rug will have to go,’ said Luca matter-of-factly. Joe sighed and stood up to join the stocky Italian. It was a pity. He liked that rug.

  ‘Where did you park?’ Joe asked.

  ‘Just outside,’ Luca answered, but it was a lie. He had left his estate car further up the road, parking outside a row of shops, before walking down the darkened street to Joe’s house. The road was comparatively busy, but he knew no one in a passing car would pay the slightest bit of attention to a man walking alone. When news of this broke he was confident no motorist would come forward with a description.

  ‘Very well,’ said Joe. ‘We had better get this done then.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Luca as he raised the pistol to waist level and fired. He was only two feet away from Joe and there was no chance he would miss. He could’ve fired from ten times that distance and still be confident of hitting. The bullet took Joe in the centre of his chest and he staggered back, the whisky glass dropping to the floor, its contents splashing his shoes. He was still on his feet as he stared in surpri
se at the spreading dark red stain on his shirt, and then he slumped backwards against his desk, leaning on the top for support. He looked back at Luca, his eyes questioning.

  Luca took a step or two away to widen the distance from Joe, just in case there was life in the old dog yet. ‘You shoulda taken up Johnny’s offer, Joe,’ said Luca, the slight break in his voice the only sign that this was not easy for him. The question in Joe’s eyes died as he realised the truth.

  ‘Yeah, you were right, Joe – Jones don’t have the brains to come up with a scheme like this. Those trips I made to the old country? I made some detours, setting up the pipeline from Turkey, the lab in Paris, the import network to here. Jones is just a front, a buffer, someone to talk to the guys around here, draw them in, and the guys down south, your pals, Joe.’

  Joe slumped onto the desk top. ‘It is a dirty business,’ he rasped.

  ‘It’s a fuckin gold mine, Joe, but you just don’t have the sense to see it. You’re like the old Moustache Petes in New York – out of date, out of time. They wanted nothing to do with drugs either, until they were forced out, one way or another.’ At that Luca waved the gun slightly to emphasise that some ways were more permanent than others. ‘Edinburgh showed you the way but you were all too dumb to see it. The cash from narcotics makes your take look like chump change.’

  ‘… people’s… misery…’ muttered Joe as he clung to the desk, desperate to remain upright. But he was fighting a losing battle. He could feel what little strength there was in his legs beginning to ebb.

  ‘Fuck their misery,’ spat Luca, suddenly angry. ‘Those suckers wanna pump it into their veins, it’s their choice. It’s not like we’re gonna go out and force people to get hooked. There’s a demand out there for what I’m gonna supply, Joe. You see it in the States, you see it in London. Simple fuckin economics, Joe – supply and demand. Sooner or later, someone was gonna do it here. It might as well be me. It’s what Mrs Thatcher wants – free economy. Entrepreneurs. You coulda been along for the ride but you had to develop morals, for shit’s sake. And what’s up with that, eh Joe? Where’d a guy like you get so all high and fuckin mighty? You ain’t so lily-white you can afford to look down at an opportunity like this. You’re a fuckin pimp and an extortionist, for God’s sake. You’ve stolen and you’ve killed and you think you can say that this business is somehow beneath you? Jesus fuckin Christ, Joe, wake up and smell what you’ve been shittin.’

  Joe found his legs no longer had the strength to hold him and he slid down the side of the desk into a sitting position. He couldn’t feel the pain now, just a deep, penetrating cold that he hadn’t experienced since the blizzard in Poland all those years ago. Something was floating past his eyes now, something white, and he realised it was snow. He could feel it on his flesh. Luca’s voice was muffled and he had difficulty in making out his words, but he no longer cared. He knew he was dying this time, knew it with a certainty he had never felt before. He considered praying but decided against it. He would not know how to pray and anyway his sins were too great, too great.

  And then he saw her: little Rachel, just as she had been in 1940. She was standing behind Luca but he could not see her. He never would. She was smiling and beckoning to him. He reached out to her and she took his hand. Her touch was warm and inviting and he felt her tug at his fingers, encouraging him to rise.

  Come, she mouthed.

  It is time, Josep.

  Come.

  Joe Klein smiled as he slipped away and became Josep Wolfowitz once more. He rose and took Rachel firmly by the hand and they walked past Luca, Rachel giggling with delight at being reunited with her brother.

  Luca stepped back and hefted the gun instinctively when Joe slowly raised a shaking hand but quickly realised that the man posed no threat. He seemed to be looking at something else in the room but Luca didn’t know what. Joe smiled, and Luca frowned.

  ‘What the fuck you grinning at, you dumb son-of-a-bitch?’

  But Joe just kept smiling and the hand fell down to his side. Luca saw what little light there was in his old friend’s eyes gutter and die, like someone softly blowing out a match.

  ‘You stupid fuck,’ he said to the corpse, ‘You stupid, dumb, Polack fuck. Why didn’t you just see sense, huh? Why couldn’t you have just for once played ball? Why did you have to make me do this? Huh? Why?’

  Luca realised then that he was crying.

  23

  BANNATYNE stood on the polished wooden floorboards at the door of the study and gazed at Joe Klein’s body with sadness, sure that he was witnessing the end of an era. Joe was still propped up against the side of his desk, the thickened, dark blood staining the front of his shirt, his skin pale and waxy. A police photographer leaned over the corpse and snapped his camera, the sudden flash momentarily bleaching the skin even more. It was after midnight and the gangster had been dead for over three hours.

  The other corpse was in the process of being loaded into a black body bag. Bannatyne took a final look at the young face as the zip was fastened, then watched as the two attendants hauled the bag up and manhandled it from the room. He had seen babies dead in cots, strangled by their mother or beaten by a drunken lover. He had watched the mangled bodies of children being removed from a car wrecked by a parent who had been driving too fast, or too drunk. He had stood over the bodies of young girls and boys who had been raped and murdered by some sicko. He had watched teenagers who had died in a pointless street brawl being dissected in a drab, clinical mortuary. He was, like most coppers, hardened to such sights, but still he felt sadness over the tragedy of a young life being snuffed out.

  All around Bannatyne the controlled tumult of a murder investigation flowed and ebbed. Officers, clad like Bannatyne in white disposable coveralls, searched the room, looking through all the books on the shelves, peering into drawers, probing into cupboards. The photographs on the wall were studied, surfaces were dusted for fingerprints. A half-finished glass of milk sat on the desk and was marked with a number and photographed, as was the tumbler lying on the carpet beside Joe’s hand, the remains of its whisky having long since soaked into the carpet. And then there was the knife, a big, heavy old weapon lying on the floor, the blood that had dripped from its blade long since dried on the hardwood. It too had been numbered and photographed for posterity.

  Frank Donovan and Jimmy Knight stood behind Bannatyne. ‘The boy’s James Sinclair,’ said Donovan, just inside the door. ‘Known as Jazz.’

  ‘One of Johnny Jones’ boys,’ said Knight.

  ‘Back door’s been forced open,’ Donovan continued. ‘We reckon he broke in earlier, waited for Joe to pop him before he knew it. Didn’t work out that way, though.’

  ‘Aye, looks like Joe got the drop on him, stuck him with the knife, but the boy got one off before he died.’

  It was plausible, but Bannatyne remained unconvinced. He knew Joe Klein and he was unlikely to have been taken unawares – and equally as unlikely to step away from the boy until he knew he was dead. ‘Who called it in?’ He asked.

  ‘Anonymous,’ said Donovan. ‘From a call box down the corner.’

  ‘We’ll not find anything, but get the call box dusted anyway.’

  ‘Getting done, boss,’ said Donovan.

  Bannatyne pointed to the phone on Joe’s desk. ‘And get Joe’s phone records, see who he called tonight, if anyone.’

  Knight said, ‘This is gonnae cause ructions, you know that, don’t you, boss?’

  Bannatyne looked at the big detective. ‘Jimmy, “ructions” is an understatement. This is going to rip this bloody city apart if we don’t stop it.’

  * * *

  Davie was in his flat with Audrey when he learned of Joe’s death.

  She had asked him earlier in the day if he fancied going to the opera as she had been given tickets by someone in the office. Naturally, Davie had never been to the opera before – the truth was, neither had Audrey – but he agreed without any hesitation because the chance to spend more
time with her was too good to miss. It was a production of La Bohème at the Theatre Royal and although it was sumptuously staged, Davie couldn’t help but be bored.

  ‘What did you think?’ Audrey asked as they came out into the night and Davie paused a moment, wondering if he should be honest.

  ‘It was different,’ he said, finally.

  Audrey gave a small laugh. ‘You were bored.’

  ‘No,’ said Davie, ‘it was interesting. Some nice tunes. What’s the guy’s name again? Puccioni?’

  ‘Puccini,’ said Audrey, ‘and admit it, you were bored.’

  ‘Well, maybe just a wee bit. But it was still interesting. One thing, though – if that woman was dying of cancer or TB or whatever, how come she looked so bloody healthy?’

  Audrey laughed again. ‘That’s the opera for you,’ she said, for all the world as if she was a season ticket holder.

  They walked arm in arm to Albion Street, still joking about the opera, and reached Audrey’s car.

  When they reached Sword Street, they kissed again. This time he initiated it because he had decided it was time to stop Audrey having to make the first move. When they broke apart, he asked her if she wanted to come up for a coffee. He did, of course, have ulterior motives because he knew Rab was out. The coffee was duly made and they were in the flat’s living room with the TV on. A political talk show was on when the first kiss came. It was particularly passionate because this was the first time they had done this indoors. Her tongue darted between his teeth and they fell back onto the couch.

  What followed was awkward, ungainly even, a tangle of uncoordinated elbows and knees as their hands explored each other. Buttons were unclenched, zips unhitched and clasps untethered as they struggled to reach bare flesh. Neither of them cared much how clumsy they were. Abe’s head came up as their breathing rasped, but saw nothing much in their inelegant fumbling to engage his canine mind and he settled back down again, although he continued to watch them from under active brows.