The Baby And The Brandy (Ben Bracken 1)

by Robert Parker

  Felix still looks the same quaint, respectful gentleman he always does. Carefully pottering around his kingdom, never seeming flustered, always an epitaph of control. What I would give to hear his thoughts. His character is so complex, and his duplicity is scary. That is, if everything is to be believed. He looks every inch the grandfather figure of every story ever told, an amalgamation of stereotypes, but inside is coiled a serpent so vindictive and controlling that it’s a miracle his frail body can play carriage to it’s might. His eyes never gave it away, and neither did his conduct. A career criminal playing the role to perfection.

  The queue moves, and as I shuffle I see a girl walking in the opposite direction, heading for the back of the queue while talking into her phone. She will fit the role I have in mind perfectly. I think modern vernacular might class her as ‘fit’ or a ‘babe’. She is alone, dolled to the nines, perched on impossible stilettos. She must have been vacuum-packed into that dress, and the make-up she wears makes her look positively ceramic. Her hair is in that overly-tousled style, with some sort of buoyant quiff at the front. She looks like a fucking Jim Henson creation. If that’s what you like, I suppose. I try to tune in.

  ‘...you can’t expect me not to ask that. That’s exactly what I told him. They’ll be inside there now, and he’s probably flirting with that obese bitch as we speak.’

  What a charming specimen. She speaks like her mouth is simply discharging waste, verbal diarrhea spluttering out. I would very much like to tune out again, but her presence will prove useful if I can get her to join me. I’ve never known how to talk to women - certainly never when sober like I am now - but now is as good a time as any. I pick a stock phrase, and hope it applies.

  ‘Hey,’ I say, hopefully. ‘Want to come in with me? I’m getting VIP.’

  ‘Oh, thank you sweetheart!’ she says. She pats my arm, swishes her hair and joins me in the queue, immediately linking arms with me and shutting her phone. She is clearly used to getting her own way, being fawned over by adoring men, and revels in my adhesion to her expectations. Well, not this time, sister. At least, not for real.

  I check my phone for the time, and realize I have plenty. My anger has given way to precision, as it always does when objectives are set. I have timings and a chronology to stick to, but everything largely is in place. I am on a mission, and being where I am makes me feel like I am already out in the field, flirting dangerously with enemy lines.

  ‘That guy,’ I venture, ‘that you were talking about on the phone? He doesn’t know what he’s missing.’ She likes that, a lot, her smile widening to reveal perfectly-formed but unmistakably discolored teeth. It gets her talking again, about what I’ve no idea since I’m tuning out, and my mind wanders again.

  I had remembered today that the Berg were expecting me to drop by, and the thought crossed my mind that they won’t have taken kindly to my rebuff of their advances. It was a rebuff by out and out rejection. I answered by failing to attend. I wonder whether them killing Jack, and Zoe, was in order to punish them. I certainly can picture that they knew of Jack and Zoe’s relationship, and their plans to leave. Maybe Jack had started turning Zoe against the Berg, and Felix knew it. Maybe he thought, enough is enough, and these loose ends need tidying. Either way, Jack was never going to rest until he had exacted some kind of bloodshed for his father’s death, and if it came back to him that Felix himself had something to do with it, Jack would certainly try to get revenge. Maybe Felix just wanted to get in there first.

  Hang on. Felix has a pattern of behavior I can’t ignore. He had killed Royston to try to cajole Jack into joining them with the promise of revenge. Surely he wasn’t doing the same with me? I had asked for more time while deciding whether to join them or not, and Felix may think that Jack dying under mysterious circumstances might align me with the Berg in some way, and make me want to join them more to get revenge myself. He knew that in doing so would mean the murder of his own granddaughter, but that would helpfully remove yet another fly in the ointment. If that’s the case, there is nothing that this man won’t do to further his own prosperity. Absolutely nothing.

  Him killing Jack to get to me, or to elicit some reaction from me seems no longer simply a possibility, but a certainty. People are creatures of habit and routine, and the more psychotic the mind the more these characteristics are accentuated. It’s habit for him to use people in the way he has used me, Jack, Zoe, and Royston before, and there only the ones I know about. God damn it.

  I feel a wandering hand on my stomach, and Jim Henson girl seems to have a bad case of the gropes. So this is how you attract girls - ignore the hell out them, it’s like catnip. She can’t be that bothered about whichever poor sod she was talking about inside, judging by the circles she is tracing with her fingers on my abdomen. I don’t want her hand to wander any lower. Not because her actions have created a stirring in my loins, but because she will surely interpret it that way - since I have the Glock wedged in the front of my underwear, alongside my manhood. Places like these, with the attractions of drugs, glamour and socialites, more often than not have metal detectors and a rough pat down. I’m expecting both, given the organized crime connection. The only way to get my weapon in is alongside my other one.

  I’m still not listening to her, but on the surface I am giving all the signs that I am. She looks half-cut, so the task is easy. I can feel her hand dropping lower, as feared. She grazes something solid with her fingertips, and, mistaking the handle of the gun for something else entirely, giggles. Jesus, what kind of girl is this, who will touch up a bloke in a nightclub queue? She pulls herself closer to me, angling up my neck, and I smile politely. I literally don’t know what else to do.

  We are at the front now, and the bouncer is smiling at me. I wink back, and shrug ‘c’est la vie’, getting him onside in an instant. Good. At least the girls limpet routine is doing me a backhanded favor. The bouncer gives me a nod and we move forward. Thank fuck.

  I put my arm around the girl’s back, and usher her forward. She exclaims something routine about me being a gentleman, but I’m already blueprinting the place for a layout, the VIP area and exits. I feel a burly man approach from behind me, and he starts running his hands along my back. It’s one of the most half-hearted pat-downs I’ve ever experienced, as he clearly does it a few hundred times a night never finding a single thing. Now the legs as well, the chest and my arms. All done. No attention to the groin whatsoever. I suppose I wouldn’t want to go fishing through drunkards crotches every night either, but his oversight here will cost the lives of two of his employers, of that I have no doubt.

  The girl is ignored by the bouncer, and we are ushered along the dimly lit hallway from the door. There is a little ticket booth up ahead, spotlit by a solitary booth, and the bass throbs even more. I take the girl by the waist, as I clock one fire escape door to my right, and further along from that a large double door manned by two more thick set security men. I tell the girl that I’ve got this, and a hand flicks up to my chest again. I hear some garbled words of thanks, but I choose not to hear them. I’m gathering information at top speed.

  I put a twenty over the counter, to a girl who looks the polar opposite of the one I have on my arm. Conservative, meek, polite, naturally beautiful - much more my cup of tea. I smile warmly at her, hoping to build an immediate rapport.

  ‘It’s £25,’ she says, blushing for me. ‘Each.’

  Fifty quid?! Bloody hell. No wonder my arm candy fancied a free ride. I smile and tell her it’s no problem, while taking my wallet out rather obviously. I take a second to animatedly take a sheaf of notes from an even healthier wad, making sure they both notice, and hand more over.

  ‘I’m interested in some VIP action tonight, what can you offer me?’ I ask. ‘I’m not after much, just somewhere quiet to enjoy some champagne.’

  My companion can barely contain herself. She must think she’s won the shallow-person’s lottery.

  ‘We have a private VIP bar overlooking th
e main floor, if you’d like that? I can call up and see if I can get you a table?’ the girl in the box replies.

  ‘Please do, that sounds fantastic,’ I reply.

  Jim Henson girl takes my lapels, tells me her name is Krystal ‘with a K’, and pulls me in for a kiss. Inwardly, I’m grimacing, but our lips meet. Oh God, it’s a sloppy one. First kiss in ten years. Not how I envisaged it. Tastes like fags, old mint gum and the muddy sweetness of weed. A classy dame, to be sure. I close my eyes and think of England.

  Finally released from her grip, I look back at the girl in the booth and shrug, smiling sheeply. I am embarrassed deeply, because in an ideal world, these girls would have swapped roles. But there’s a reason I’m clinging onto this one, and I’m hoping it will have proved a prudent decision.

  ‘We have a table,’ says the pretty girl, ‘Minimum spend for the table is £250.’

  ‘No problem,’ I reply. Ordinarily such a sum would churn my guts, but when I’m long gone I’ll be leaving way more problems than an unpaid tab.

  ‘Take this to the man on the door, he’ll look after you,’ she says, handing me a black, wood-carved stiletto. It’s actually kind of a cool piece, perhaps best suited as a doorstop at the Playboy mansion. I take it, and thank her.

  ‘Is there anyone interesting up there tonight? I hear you get football players in here all the time,’ I say.

  ‘No footballers tonight yet, but the owners are already knocking about. They usually say hello to the VIP guests so you may see them,’ she says.

  Oh, I am sure of it. They are here. I knew they would be. I tailed them here after all. We get moving.

  It turns out the wooden stiletto is kind of an access-all-areas pass to this place, and we are ushered into the club with ‘good evenings’ and smiles from the security staff. They won’t be smiling at me in a minute.

  We enter through the main double doors, and if the bass doesn’t nearly knock me off my feet, the sight does. The place is rather something.

  It feels like an undersea kingdom. We are on a balcony overlooking a dance floor covered in thick purple smoke, drifting sensually between grinding revelers, like a rich sheet of velvet, whirling in a slowed, sub-aquatic state, replete with ecstatic love-makers writhing within it. Strobe lights dot the seascape like neon tetras, punctuating the ecstasy. The balcony has stairways dropping down into the inky murk, and there appears to be a hefty bar directly below us. Hanging above it all, is a large perspex tank, housing chairs, tables and a bar all it’s own. The VIP section. We head for it.

  The benefit, I felt, of getting this girl to come in with me, was so as to draw attention from myself. It has worked very well so far, but now will be the ultimate test. I don’t where Samson and Leonard are, but I’m hoping that the first thing they see, or anyone looking for me for that matter, will be this girl, not me. She is eye-catching, in that bombastic sort of way, and will have a broad lads-mag style appeal. As we start descending the stairs, she does attract eyes from both sexes. As a single man, wandering about in here, I may have looked more conspicuous, but now I have someone with me who will draw attention actively away from me.

  Nobody gives me a second thought. Krystal is stealing the show, as planned. All I need, is to get up in that VIP.

  I scan for green. The color of exits. I find three, one by the bar, two either side of the back wall beneath the VIP tank, with another stairway between them, dimly lit, and foreboding. Security staff either side suggest we have found the VIP entrance. I direct us that way, and we descend into the mist of the dance floor.

  The girl starts to sway, her shapely figure in perfect time to the heavy beat. My eyes are locked on the VIP, desperate for an ID of either of my intended targets. I spy security cameras, but that doesn’t sway me in the least. They will be for the use of the owners and nobody else. There is no chance any of the tapes from here will ever make it to any official police avenues, since I’m more than sure that Samson and Leonard use this place to peddle some of their more illicit wares, as it is a ready-made customer base with immediate market demand. And I refuse to believe that the pulsating crowd on this dance floor, with their fixed gazes, pin-prick pupils and slack jaws, are all sober as judges. I begin to sway with the girl, joining in with my cover story.

  My eyes are drawn to a column over on the far left of the dance floor, that has a cage atop it, designed like an upscaled bird coop. In it there is a pole, with a bikini-clad dancer going through the motions. There is something about the dancer I cannot fathom, but cannot ignore. As I sway, and Krystal herself pushes into me, I recognize her. It’s Tina, Samson’s other half, theatrically made-up like a burlesque goddess. Is this how they met? Most probably.

  If she’s in on things, she will know I’m definitely not supposed to be here. I pull Krystal in close and bury my face in her neck, pretending to nibble on her shoulder, a move that feels horribly forced (because it is) but she responds well to it, and throws her head back. My face is buried in her hair, and we look just like any of the other twisting couples. She grinds herself into me, and I swear she brushes the gun again. It delights her, it seems - or at least the thought of what else it might be. What a strange girl. Her dad would have nightmares if he knew what she was like. Christ, I’m old-fashioned.

  I spin her slowly away from the bird-cage, so that our backs are to Tina, and usher her to the VIP.

  ‘Champagne,’ I whisper to her, trying my best to be sexy, but just hearing me speak in that way makes me cringe.

  The stiletto gives us immediate access to the rear private stairwell, the bouncers eyes roaming my companion without even glancing at me, and we are permitted to ascend.

  ‘I’ve never been up here before,’ giggles Krystal, while making heavy weather of the steps. The stairs double back on themselves after a short landing, and we enter into the tank. I let the girl go first. Ahead of us are a few tables pressed up against the glass, and a bar to the left. There are a few people about, but, even though it’s the middle of the night, it’s still kind of early in hot nightclub terms. No sign of my targets just yet, but I’m liking what I’m seeing so far. We are approached by an attractive girl, dressed all in black.

  ‘Good evening. I’m Alice, I’ll be taking care of you this evening. Would you like a table or booth?’ she asks.

  So there are booths up here too. Where are they?

  ‘Where’s the toilet?’ asks Krystal.

  ‘Just past the bar,’ comes the reply.

  ‘I’ll be right back,’ says Krystal, as she scampers away. Thank God for that.

  ‘I’ll just have a drink please and wait for her?’ I say, motioning for the bar.

  ‘Of course, I’ll keep an eye out and you can decide when she gets back.’

  ‘Perfect.’

  I head for the bar, pretending to adjust my belt but secretly pop the butt of the gun up over my waistband, for easy access.

  I start a purposeful walk, and notice that the VIP itself has an emergency exit along from the toilets. Exactly as hoped for.

  There are booths along the left rear wall of the tank, which I couldn't see from the stairs. They are slightly elevated, sunken and dark, wedged in before the toilets. There are three, and I have to pass by each one to get to the bar. No one else in the VIP is looking. The music is still blaring from below, permeating the glass like auditory osmosis. The barman over there looks bored to tears, staring out of the window. My gun has a silencer, but considering the thumping bass, I could probably get away without it. No time like the present, and I’m upon the first booth...

  Empty. A leather wraparound bench with no occupants, a low dim chandelier illuminating nothing but a menu card.

  I keep pressing for the second one.

  Empty. Same result.

  If they’re in the third one, I might as well ready myself, and I place my hand around the grip of the Glock. I round the edge of the third booth.

  Two pairs of eyes immediately search out to me from the seat, surprise etched on their fac
es. I’ll soon make that surprise permanent. Samson and Leonard, drinks and a dusting of cocaine on the table in front of them, look back at me agog. Leonard actually has a sprinkling of white powder in his pencil mustache, like a kid who got at the icing sugar.

  I immediately train the gun on them, not caring who sees anymore. At this range, their fates are sealed, and they will die enacting their own ludicrous fantasy.

  ‘I know what you did,’ I say.

  ‘Ben...’ Leonard says, but I cut him off. I fire a bullet into his forehead, a purple puff clouding up behind him. He slumps, his eyes still fixed on me. Samson sits arrow-straight.

  ‘Jesus Christ! We didn’t know!’ he shouts, pleading. It’s funny to see a stacked man reduced to a whimpering wreck in a t-shirt six sizes too small. It will be his final indignity.

  ‘Yes. You did. You knew about it all.’

  I shoot him over his right eye, a neat precise dot. He slumps heavily into the booth, against Leonard, and to the casual observer, it looks as if they have had one too many sherbets and are having a little brotherly snooze. The staff might not even notice their fate for a while.

  The noise of the suppressed shots were perfectly muffled by the music. At the bar, the barman is still staring out over the dance floor, daydreaming while he waits for a drink to pour. The rest of the patrons are lost in their own little worlds.

  I stick the gun in my pants again, and head for the toilets, just as Krystal emerges, smoothing her dress. I grab her arm.

  ‘We need to get out of here, sweetheart,’ I say, and usher her to the green exit door. She protests a little.