by Jack Higgins
‘Who’s the lucky man?’
‘Harry Faulkner.’
‘Harry Faulkner?’ Ben frowned. ‘He must be pushing sixty.’
‘And then some, but he’s a big man these days, Ben. A big man. He has a finger in just about anything that pays off and he isn’t too particular. He and Bella live in a replica of Haroun al Raschid’s palace out at St. Martin’s Wood in the gin and tonic belt.’
‘Is Fred Manton still around?’
‘Sure, he works for Harry these days. Runs a club called the Flamingo in Gascoigne Square. I play the piano for him whenever I remember.’ He moaned suddenly and again his body was racked by uncontrollable shivering. ‘Christ, but I need that fix.’ He struggled for breath, his teeth chattering. ‘What time is it?’
‘About ten fifteen.’
Lazer’s face tightened visibly. ‘Too late for evening surgery. That means I can’t get a prescription till the morning.’
‘You’re a registered addict?’
Lazer nodded. ‘The only reason I didn’t go back to the States years ago. Over there, they’d sling me in the can. Here, at least they allow me to exist, courtesy of the Health Service.’
‘How long have you been on this stuff?’ Garvald said, picking up the empty heroin bottle.
Lazer bared his teeth in a ghastly grin. ‘Too long to be able to get through the night without a fix, Benny boy.’
‘You know where you can get one?’
‘Sure, outside the all-night chemist’s in City Square. Plenty of junkies getting their evening surgery prescriptions filled, but it could take money. Something I’m fresh out of.’
Garvald took a wallet from his breast pocket and counted ten one-pound notes out carefully on top of the bedside locker.
‘Enough?’
‘Plenty.’ Lazer’s eyes were suddenly full of light and he reached for the notes.
Garvald covered them with one large hand. ‘Sammy Rosco, Chuck. Where would I find him?’
‘Sammy?’ Lazer looked surprised. ‘He works for Manton around the clubs.’
‘The Flamingo?’
‘With his mug?’ Lazer shook his head. ‘Fred manages one or two other places for Faulkner, dives mostly. Bad booze and worse women. You know the sort of thing. Sammy goes where they need him most. Barman and chucker-out, that’s his style. I think he’s at Club Eleven this week.’
‘He and Wilma still together?’
‘He couldn’t manage without her. Mind you, things haven’t been the same since the Act pushed ’em all in off the streets. She mostly works from the house now.’ He frowned desperately, trying to remember. ‘Carver Street. Yes, that’s right – Carver Street. I don’t know the number, but it’s about half-way along, next door to a shop with its window boarded up. The whole street’s due down soon.’
Garvald gathered the notes in one quick movement and pushed them into Lazer’s open hand, closing the fingers tightly. ‘Good man, Chuck, I’ll see you.’
‘At whose funeral?’
Ben Garvald turned in the doorway and smiled briefly. ‘I haven’t quite made my mind up yet. When I do, I’ll let you know. You’d make a good mute.’
The door closed behind him. For a little while Lazer crouched there on the bed, the blanket wrapped tightly around him, the money clutched in his right hand and then, in one quick, positive movement that started off a chain action, he jumped up and started to get dressed.
Chapter 6
Carver Street was a row of crumbling terrace houses near the river in a slum area which, as Chuck Lazer had said, was due for demolition.
Garvald found the shop with the boarded window about half-way along. The house next to it looked as if it might fall down at any moment and he followed a narrow tunnelled passage that brought him into a backyard littered with empty tins and refuse of every description.
He stumbled up four steps and knocked at the door. After a while, footsteps approached, it opened a few inches and a woman’s voice said, ‘Who is it?’
‘I’m looking for Sam,’ Garvald said. ‘Sammy Rosco. I’m an old friend of his.’
‘He isn’t in.’
The slight German accent that had been one of her great attractions when he first knew her was still marked, and he moved closer to the door.
‘It’s Ben, Wilma. Ben Garvald.’
There was a sudden, sharp intake of breath, a slight pause and then the chain rattled and the door opened. As he stepped into the dark corridor, a hand reached for his face and arms pulled him close.
‘Ben, liebling. I can’t believe it. Is it really you?’
She drew him along the dark corridor and into a room at the far end. It was reasonably clean and comfortable with a carpet on the floor and a double bed against the far wall.
She turned to face him, a large heavily built woman running dangerously to seed, make-up too heavy, the flesh under the chin sagging. Only the incredible straw coloured hair was as he remembered it and he smiled.
She coloured and her head went back. ‘So, I look older. It’s been a long time.’
‘You’ve still got the most beautiful hair I’ve ever seen.’
Something glowed deep in her eyes, and for a moment she was once again the young, slender German girl that Sammy Rosco had brought home after the war. She moved close to Garvald, her arms sliding up around his neck, and kissed him firmly on the mouth.
‘Always, you were worth all of them put together.’
Garvald held her close for a moment, savouring with a conscious pleasure the feel of a woman’s body against his own, the first in a long time, then he pushed her firmly away.
‘Business, Wilma, business. Is there a drink in the house?’
‘The day there isn’t will be the day.’
She moved to a cupboard, took out a bottle of gin and two glasses and Garvald sat in a chair at the table. He looked around the room. ‘Still on the game?’
She shrugged as she sat in the opposite chair. ‘What else can I do?’
‘Ever thought of going home?’
‘To Bavaria?’ She got to her feet, went to a corner by the window, lifted the carpet and produced a white envelope. She opened it and took out a passport which she threw on the table. ‘I keep it well out of Sammy’s sight. Last time I tried to use it, he beat me up so bad, I was in hospital for a week.’
‘You didn’t prefer charges?’
‘Do me a favour.’ She shrugged. ‘Since then, I haven’t been able to scrape more than a fiver together at any one time. He sees to that. Waits in the kitchen for the clients to go, then he’s straight in for the cash.’
Garvald picked up the passport and opened it. ‘It’s still valid, I see?’
‘So what? It’s about as much good as a ticket to the moon.’ She swallowed her gin and refilled the glass. ‘What brought you back, Ben? There’s nothing for you here. I suppose you know Bella married again.’
‘So I’m told. Where’s Sammy now?’
‘The Grosvenor Taps, that’s a boozer at the end of the street.’
‘Expecting him back?’
She glanced at the clock and nodded. ‘They’ve been closed about five minutes. He usually looks in before going on to work.’
‘And where would that be?’
She shrugged. ‘Various places. This week he’s at Club Eleven, that’s a clip joint about half a mile from here that Fred Manton runs for Faulkner.’
‘Who’s in charge?’
‘Molly Ryan.’
‘Girls, too, eh?’
Wilma shrugged. ‘You know what these places are like. Anything goes. Do you want Sammy for something special?’
Garvald lit another cigarette and blew smoke up at the shaded lamp. ‘When I came out of Wandsworth yesterday morning, a couple of hard cases tried to take me, Wilma. They made a bad mistake.’ He grinned coldly. ‘So did Sammy.’
The outside door crashed open and steps sounded along the corridor. A moment later, Sammy Rosco lurched into the room. He was a squat ox
of a man with arms that hung down to his knees. His face was sullen and bloated with whisky and he stood there, swaying, a nasty gleam in his eye.
‘What’s going on here, then?’
‘Someone to see you, Sammy dear,’ Wilma said, a deep, ripe pleasure in her voice. ‘An old friend.’
Garvald turned his head and smiled gently. ‘Now then, Sammy, you old bastard.’
His face was very calm, but the grey eyes, changing constantly like windswept smoke on an autumn day, told Rosco everything he needed to know. He swung round, lurching for the door, but Garvald was even quicker. His hand fastened on Rosco’s collar and with a tremendous heave, he sent him crashing across the room.
Rosco came up from the floor in a rush, and Garvald coolly measured the distance and booted him in the stomach. Rosco keeled over with a sigh, falling across the bed, writhing in agony.
Wilma sat watching, no pity in her eyes, and Garvald emptied the gin bottle into his glass, sat down and waited. After a while, Rosco turned, his face the colour of paper.
‘Feeling better, Sammy?’
‘You get stuffed, you bastard,’ Rosco managed to squeeze out.
‘That’s better,’ Garvald said. ‘That’s a lot better. Now why did you sic those two tearaways on to me yesterday morning?’
‘I don’t know what in the hell you’re talking about.’
In one quick movement, Garvald seized the empty gin bottle by the neck and smashed it across the edge of the table. He leaned forward and held the jagged, vicious weapon under Rosco’s chin.
‘Maybe you’ve forgotten, Sammy, but I never liked playing games.’
Sweat sprang to Rosco’s brow in great heavy drops and his eyes widened visibly. ‘It was Fred, Ben. Fred Manton. He told me to line it up for him. Said he didn’t want you back.’
Garvald frowned and all light died in his eyes. ‘Why, Sammy? Why would Manton do a thing like that? It doesn’t make sense.’
He pushed the bottle forward viciously and Sammy screamed. ‘That’s all I know. I swear it, Ben.’
Garvald tossed the bottle into the fireplace with a quick gesture, then hauled Rosco to his feet. He opened the man’s coat, pulled the wallet from the inside pocket and opened it quickly. There was fifty pounds in five-pound notes, all new. He counted them quickly, then gave Rosco a contemptuous shove towards the door.
‘Start running and don’t come back.’
Rosco turned in the doorway, opening his mouth to say something, then obviously thought better of it. He stumbled along the corridor in the darkness and, a moment later, the back door banged behind him.
Garvald tossed the fifty pounds on to the table. ‘More than enough to get you back home there, Wilma. Unless things have changed since I was around, there are still night expresses to London.’
She flung herself into his arms, straining against him and when she looked up, tears shone brightly in her eyes, smudging the mascara.
‘I’ll never forget you, Ben Garvald. Never.’
He kissed her once, gave her a quick squeeze and was gone. She stood there listening to him pass through the tunnel at the side of the house, his footsteps fading along the hollow pavement.
She gazed around the room, filled with a sudden hatred of this place, of Sammy Rosco and the wasted years and what they had done to her. Very quickly, she started to pack.
It was almost midnight when she was ready. She pulled on her raincoat, picked up the suitcase, looked round the room briefly for the last time and walked out along the dark passage.
As she reached the door, someone knocked.
Oh, God, no. Oh, dear God, no. The cry rose in her throat and she turned and stumbled back along the dark passage to the room and behind her, the door opened.
She fell on her knees at the fireplace, her fingers scrabbling desperately in the broken glass. They fastened upon a large piece, curved like a dagger and as sharp. She arched her throat striking upwards and was aware of pain, pain like fire that flowed through the arm so that she dropped the glass with a scream. A hand pulled her to her feet, swung her round and sent her staggering across the room to fall across the bed.
She raised an arm to protect her face from the blow that always followed and then lowered it with a tiny whimper because it wasn’t Sammy Rosco who stood by the table looking down at her. This was a much younger man, someone she’d never seen before in an expensive blue raincoat with strange, dark eyes that seemed to look right through her.
Chapter 7
Charles Edward Lazer, 45, musician, 15 Baron’s Court. American citizen. Joined RAF October 1939, demobilized June 1946. Rank, F/Lieutenant Navigator. Record – Excellent. Awarded DFC in May 1944. Four previous convictions including conspiracy to steal, suspected person, larceny and illegal possession of drugs. Not deported because of excellent war record and fact of all offences being concerned with subject’s addiction to drugs.
Nick went through the facts again in his mind as he waited outside the door in the dimly lit passage. There was no reply to his knock, and when he tried the handle the door opened to his touch.
The window was open, the curtains lifting in the wind, and rain drifted through in a fine spray. Nick looked briefly around the dirty, untidy room, his nostrils flaring at the stench of the unwashed bedding, then he turned, left the room and went downstairs.
The noise from the flat on the ground floor was tremendous, a steady, pulsating beat vibrating through the night as a blues and rhythm group really started to move. Nick knocked on the door a couple of times without getting a reply, opened it and looked inside.
There must have been at least thirty or forty people packed into the room, mainly students from the look of them, eating, drinking, dancing to the three-man group in the corner. In one case even making love on the floor behind the old-fashioned sofa.
A young man with tangled hair and a fringe beard was moving through the crowd, refilling glasses from a large enamel jug. As he turned from one group, he caught sight of Nick and came across.
‘Sorry, old man, no gate-crashers. Strictly private this time.’
Nick produced his warrant card and the other’s face dropped. ‘Now what, for Christ’s sake?’
He opened the door and Nick followed him out into the corridor, closing the door behind him, effectively cutting off most of the din.
‘No trouble,’ he said. ‘I’m just trying to trace a bloke who lives upstairs – Chuck Lazer. He wouldn’t be inside by any chance?’
The young man grinned, took a cigarette from behind his ear and stuck it in the corner of his mouth. ‘Chuck? I should say not! Moves in his own narrow circle, God help him.’
‘Is he still on junk?’ Nick said.
‘As far as I know, but he’s a registered user now.’ The young man frowned suddenly. ‘Look, what is all this?’
‘Nothing to get worked up about, I’m not trying to hang anything on him. I want his help with a routine enquiry, that’s all.’
‘That’s what you lot always say.’
Nick shrugged. ‘Suit yourself.’
He turned towards the door and the young man said quickly: ‘Oh, what the hell. He overslept, missed the evening surgery. Someone came looking for him about half an hour ago.’
‘What kind of someone?’
‘Big man, dirty raincoat, Irish looking.’ The young man grinned suddenly. ‘That cap’s the coolest thing I’ve seen in years. Where can I get one?’
‘Any good men’s shop in Hamburg. Did they leave together?’
The young man shook his head. ‘Lazer went out about ten minutes ago. I was having five minutes with one of the birds up at the end of the passage when he came down.’
‘Was he in a hurry?’
‘They always are when they need a fix. I’d say he was on his way round to see his quack about a prescription.’
‘And who would that be?’
‘Dr Das, just round the corner in Baron’s Square. He’s about the only one in town who’ll take junkies on his
list. Say, are you really a copper?’
‘As ever was.’
‘Crazy!’ the young man said, frank admiration in his eyes. ‘If I join will they guarantee me a uniform like that?’
‘I’ll mention it to the Chief Constable in the morning. We’ll be in touch.’
‘You do that, man.’
He opened the door and returned to his party as Nick went down the steps into the rain. There was a touch of fog in the air, heavy and acrid, catching at the back of the throat, and he climbed behind the wheel of the Mini-Cooper and drove around the corner to Baron’s Square.
Dr Das lived at number twenty and a brass plate on the door disclosed the surprising fact, considering the district and circumstances, that he was not only an MD but also a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.
Nick rang the bell and after a while heard footsteps approaching. The door was opened by a tall, cadaverous Indian with high cheekbones and serene brown eyes.
‘Dr Das?’
‘That is correct. What can I do for you?’
‘Detective Sergeant Miller, CID. I’m trying to trace a patient of yours, a Mr Lazer. I’ve just missed him at his home and one of his neighbours thought he might have intended calling on you.’
‘Come in, please, Sergeant.’
Nick followed him along the passage and the Indian opened a door at the far end and led the way in. A cheerful fire burned in a polished grate, there was a desk in one corner and the walls were lined with books.
Dr Das took a cheroot from a sandalwood box on the mantelpiece, lit it with a splinter from the fire and turned with a smile. ‘You will excuse me not offering you one of these, Sergeant, but the supply is limited and I can only obtain them with great difficulty. You’ll find cigarettes on the desk behind you.’
Nick helped himself and the Indian stood with his back to the fire, his. face perfectly calm. ‘Mr Lazer is in trouble?’
Nick shook his head. ‘No question of that at all. It’s just that I’m trying to trace someone rather urgently and I think Lazer might be able to help me. I understand he’s a drug addict and registered with you.’
‘That is perfectly correct,’ Das said. ‘Mr Lazer has been a patient of mine for two years or more now. I take a particular interest in people in his unfortunate condition. Very few doctors do, I might add.’