by Ted Lewis
“That’s why they stayed and finished the bottle with you, is it?”
“The Americans were ready to go. Even Gerald and Les move when the Americans move.” He pours some of the champagne into a spare glass. “So have a fringe benefit. I know you earn your perks.”
“Don’t we all?” I say as I sit down.
Hume pushes the glass towards me and I pick it up and take a sip.
“You see?” he says to his girlfriend. “Even the heavies are used to champagne these days.”
“But do they appreciate it?” says the girl.
I take another sip.
“The good stuff, yes,” I say, pushing the glass away.
“I don’t think you’ve met,” Hume says. “Lesley, this is Mr. Jack Carter.”
“Pleased to meet you, dearie,” she says, doing what she thinks is a knockout impersonation of a tart.
“I already know somebody called Lesley,” I say. “Only he’s going thin on top.”
“Which can hardly be said for the present company,” Hume says, slipping his hand in the front of Lesley’s dress and easing out one of her titties and giving it a squeeze. The girl looks at me all the time, a clear cool gaze to impress on me how together she is about everything.
“Lesley’s in television,” Hume says. “Ever get time to watch much television, Jack?”
“Not really,” I say. “Only Thunderbirds. You’re not in Thunderbirds, are you?”
This time the cool slips off. “Cunt,” she says.
I smile at her. Then I say to Hume, “This your night off, then? Caught your quota of thieves and robbers for today?”
“That’s right, Jack,” he says, still giving the thumb to Lesley’s nipple. “Just hanging round here to see if I can boost the numbers.”
Of all the coppers on Old Bill’s wages sheet I hate, Hume’s the worst. It’s not just the image, the way he styles himself with his Cecil Gee suits and his Italian barbering, his TV policeman’s pose. All that would be painful enough without taking his record into account. In terms of arrests and convictions he’s London’s most successful copper. Always in the papers, always on the box, striking dread into the hearts of villains, as the media puts it. Which is quite right, because of the way he does his work. The way he works is this: a firm pulls a job and he’s got a good idea of which firm’s pulled it. But he’s got nothing to take to court because everybody’s alibi’s up and after two or three fiascos of trying to get impossible convictions he’d lose any credibility he ever had. So what he does is pull in some operator who wasn’t even on the job, but because of his past record he could have been. The surprise element precludes the operator setting up an alibi, even though being innocent he doesn’t feel he needs one. Then Hume, in a very honest way, puts all his cards on the table. He tells the operator that he knows he had nothing to do with the job, but that is beside the point; he is going to be charged anyway. So what it boils down to is that in return for Hume saying in court that the operator was not carrying a shooter, which will make all the difference to his sentence, the operator gives Hume a few names that will break the alibis of the people who were really involved. Hume’s very careful only to drop on people who’ll wear shopping their mates. He’d never touch anybody at my level, with my kind of involvement. He chooses the chancers, the ones who are more frightened by the thought of an extra three years than by a visit from friends of the people they’ve turned in. Hume’s made a great name for himself in the papers and he’s always being talked about as London’s Number One thief-taker, the iron man and all that crap. Luckily for both him and us his pitch is different; his reputation wouldn’t wear so well on our patch or even on the Colemans’. And what really boils up in my chest is Gerald and Les wheeling the champagne out for him, whatever the reasons, making him even more convinced of his big reputation. I only hope to Christ they weren’t oiling him with the champagne to try and get something on Jimmy Swann. If it’s straight law that’s pulled Jimmy then Hume would be the last person to be in the picture. Any questions Gerald and Les put to Hume could only do Hume some good, like Hume finding out who’s in charge and playing his own game to his own advantage, complicating things for us.
I lean over to the corner and pull the silk rope and wait for the service. Hume pours himself some more champagne and the girl tucks her titty back in her dress.
“Gerald and Les appeared to be in very good spirits,” Hume says. “Business picking up? Christmas rush and that sort of thing?”
“I wouldn’t know,” I say. “I only work for them.”
Hume takes a sip of his champagne and instead of taking the glass from his lips he goes rigid and his face becomes chalky and drops of sweat begin to squeeze out of his forehead. I shift a little bit to one side so that I don’t get caught if the signs are what I think they are. The girl lights a cigarette, unaware that Hume’s about to honk his lot.
Then the curtain is drawn back and the service appears and I say, “I’d like a large vodka and tomato juice and Mr. Hume would like a small tin bowl.”
The service gets well out of it and Hume sets his face and tightens up his muscles and manages to hold it down. When he’s settled himself down he takes the cigarette from the girl’s mouth and grinds it out in the ashtray.
“What was it you said on the box the other night?” I ask him. “Villains made you feel sick?” Hume leans across the table and frames his mouth to say something and then decides to say something else.
“One day you’ll shoot your bolt where I am,” he says. “That day I’ll be the happiest man in England. You and the Fletchers are like all the rest; you’ve only got so much luck.”
“So long as we don’t have you making our luck, we’ll survive. We’ll see you out, anyway.”
The girl puts her cigarettes in her bag and stands up.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Hume says, looking up at her.
“Nobody treats me like that,” she says.
“Oh don’t be so fucking stupid,” Hume says, pouring the dregs of his champagne into the bucket. The girl stands there for a minute.
“Are you going to let me out?” she says.
Hume ignores her. The service returns and slides my vodka and tomato juice across the table and nips off sharpish.
“Move,” the girl says.
Hume twists round on the seat and takes hold of her dress where it supports her titties and yanks her down onto the seat.
“Listen, you bitch,” he says, still gripping the front of her dress, “you cock-sucking whore. Just fucking shut it or I’ll shut it for you. You’re here on my ticket.”
The girl spits at him and tries to scratch the side of Hume’s face but Hume grabs hold of her wrist and fetches her a hard one across her mouth then pulls downwards and rips the front of her dress down to the waist, causing her titties to fall out all over the place. The girl throws herself face down on the table and bursts into tears but Hume doesn’t leave it. Instead he takes hold of the remains of the dress at the back and rips that off her too so she is completely naked from the waist up.
“Now then,” Hume says. “Now then. Try leaving like that.”
The girl stays where she is, face down on the table, sobbing.
Hume leans back in his seat and relaxes, looking like a runner after winning a sprint, chest heaving, nostrils dilated, glassy-eyed.
“Get your kicks that way, too, do you?” I say. “As well as at the verbaling sessions?”
Hume is still looking as though there’s nothing between him and the wallpaper behind me.
“I used to know a bloke like that,” I said. “A boxer he was. Big name. Got to be a personality on TV, just like you. Great sense of fun he had. Always laughing and joking. But offstage he used to get his thrills sorting out the weaker sex. Only one time he went too far and so as to keep out of it he cut her up and left her in various deposit boxes aro
und London. Only one of your mob got a bit smart and put it on him. But seeing as the charmer was who he was and his club was favourite with your lot, rather than splash it all over the papers he was given the tip-off that your lads would be collecting him around eight o’clock the next morning. So instead of waiting for that he takes his shotgun out to the shed in his garden and splashes himself over the plant pots instead. Which is exactly what your mob expected would happen.”
As I’m speaking Hume has gradually come back from wherever he’s been.
“Yeah,” I tell him. “I remember that little sequence
particularly well. Used to know a little bird who fell into his scene once. Said he used to like cutting up her knickers with scissors while she was still wearing them. According to her he couldn’t make a proper job of doing what comes naturally, either.”
By now Hume’s fully aware of what I’m saying. A smile begins to spread over his face.
“Noble,” he says. “Noble Jack. Defender of the weak. Only why don’t you back your mouth?” He touches his chin with his forefingers. “Why don’t you put your opinions there?”
“No,” I tell him. “You’ve just got to keep on sweating, for me. Eat your fucking heart out, Hume.”
I finish my drink and stand up.
“Are you coming, darling?” I say to the bird.
The bird lifts her face from the tabletop and stares up at me.
“It’s all right,” I tell her. “He’s come once already tonight. He won’t want you for anything else.”
I take my overcoat off and pass it over to her. She doesn’t touch it but instead she looks at Hume.
Hume shrugs and says, “Yes, piss off with Jack. Go home with the rest of the rubbish. Only better make sure you’re not around him when I pick him one morning at eight o’clock. Because then we’d really have some fun.”
The girl stands up and wraps my coat round her and climbs over Hume. I part the curtains and go into the corridor and walk along to the Stable Room and cross the carpet.
--
Lesley
By the time I get to the foyer the girl has almost caught me up but before she can get to me Minton materialises and takes my arm and assists my passage across to the exit.
“I’m very grateful,” he says. “I really am. I should never delegate when I hire, it’s always a mistake. Anyway, those two won’t be making the same mistakes in here. I hope you’ll accept my apologies.”
The girl gets to where we are and Minton has another blue fit when he sees the state of her and uses it as an excuse to melt away again.
“Were you going without this?” she says, touching the coat that’s wrapped round her.
“You must be joking,” I say.
“What do you want me to do, then? Take it off here?”
“I’ve already seen the sights, thanks.”
“Then you won’t mind waiting while I get my own from the cloakroom will you?”
“No, I won’t mind waiting, not for that gear. I waited long enough to get it.” She gives me her fiercest look, stoked up not only by the fact that she didn’t like me in the first place but also because I’ve been a witness to the treatment Hume’s just given her. There’s only one way a girl like that can get her face back and I wonder if she’s going to be bothered enough to try.
After she’s given the look everything she can she turns away from me and makes for the ladies room. While she’s off reorganizing the coat situation I go over to the now deserted reception desk and dial the number of Terri Palin’s establishment. The phone rings for a long time and then the receiver is lifted and this very snotty, very businesslike female voice twangs the wires and says, “Yes?”
“Listen, I’m Jack Carter, and I know who you are as well. So don’t give me the wrong-number crap. I want to speak to Terri straight away, all right?”
“I’m sorry,” says the voice at the other end. “I think you must be mistaken. This is—”
“Oh for fuck’s sake. Tonight I can do without it. If you don’t recognise my voice just get Terri, will you, and she’ll set you straight. Tell her if she doesn’t come to the phone I’ll be round in five minutes flat kicking in windows.”
I hear the receiver rattle as the phone is laid to rest at the other end and while I’m waiting I search my pockets for a cigarette only to find I’m completely out. The foyer is empty so there’s nobody I can burn off and I start to get that stupid uncontrollable need for something I can’t have. And the longer I wait the more I channel the anger caused by my desire at Gerald and Les. What a pair of fucking ponces. What fucking eggs. Out tonking in the candy-floss fantasy world of Terri Palin’s Disneyland. Hosting the Yanks to scenes from an English kindergarten while there’s twenty-five years apiece waiting to be shared out to the stupid bastards. They’re so high on their own reputations they don’t really believe it’s going to happen to them. And the more I think about it the more I get cross with myself for chasing about for them. If it wasn’t for the fact that Jimmy Swann could score me for at least fifteen I’d just walk away from the stupid sods and leave them to sort it themselves.
I start going through my pockets for the third time when Terri Palin’s voice comes over the line.
“Yes?” she says.
“Terri,” I say. “It’s Jack.”
There is a short silence and then there is a sigh that for once isn’t a piece of Terri’s stock in trade.
“Jesus,” she says. “I had this feeling, you know? I’ve had it all week, just this feeling that I’m going to get a visit, that somewhere somebody’s been chewing away at something and something’s going to fall over, with me on it. Even that a tip-off would only be a gesture.”
“What makes you think like that?”
“I don’t know. A feeling. Sometimes the people that come here affect you with what’s going on in their minds. You never get anything more specific, but sometimes you get the shits for no reason at all.”
I’m really dying for that cigarette by now. Terri knows nothing and she never did, but that’s beside the point; I’ve known her to have these fucking stupid feelings before.
“Well,” I say, “relax. This is no useless tip-off. I’m only phoning to jerk Gerald and Les out of whatever scene they’re into.”
The girl called Lesley reappears from the ladies’ room and walks towards me, holding my coat. Now she could do one of two things; she could put the coat on the
reception desk and walk out of the club or she could wait, holding my coat, until I finish my phone call.
“I couldn’t do that, Jack,” Terri says. “You know that.”
“Just try, will you?”
“Impossible. If I was to pull them out of what they’re into at the moment Christ knows what would happen. You should know, Jack.”
I put my fingers to my eyes and close my lids and squeeze my eyeballs about in my sockets. I open my eyes again and the girl is standing by the reception desk, holding my coat. I look at my watch. It’s three o’clock. At least five hours before Gerald and Les get back to the club for a wash and brush-up and their breakfast. Now there is no longer any point in trying to give them the good news. I’ve done all I can. If the filth gets to them before I do there’s nothing I can do about that.
“Oh, well,” I say to Terri. “Fuck them, then.”
“I believe that’s being done at the moment,” she says.
The line goes dead and I put the receiver down. I look at the girl who is staring back at me with the same kind of expression she was wearing before she went into the ladies’ room. Only this time it’s a little better made up.
“Got a cigarette?” I say to her.
She keeps the look going for a few moments more then she dumps my coat down on the desk and fishes in her bag and takes out her packet of cigarettes. She takes one out and puts it in her mouth then offers me
the packet and lights herself up.
After I’ve lit myself up, I hand her back the packet and I say, “Nice coat you’ve got there. Suits you.”
She blows out her smoke and she says, “Coat fetishist, are you?”
“No, I’m a funny one. I like women. But promise you’ll keep it to yourself.”
“I can’t imagine a situation where I’m likely to want
anyone to know I know anything about you.”
“Oh, I don’t know. When you go home to Grimsby for Christmas you might want to give your younger brother nightmares.”
That throws her a little bit. “So you’re good on accents.”
“Better than you are. That elocution’s lousy.”
Now she’s got more colour in her face than she’s had all evening.
“You think you’re really something, don’t you?” she says. “You really think you’re something special.”
“And what do you think?”
She tightens up her mouth and doesn’t answer.
“But you’d still accept a lift with me, wouldn’t you?” I say.
She still doesn’t say anything so I pick up my coat and put it on and begin to walk towards the door. She can follow me or she can stay there all night or she can wait until I’ve left the premises depending on which bunch of thoughts she’s having at the moment. I pause at the door and hold it open for her. She’s still standing by the desk, watching me. Then suddenly she stubs out her cigarette and walks towards me. After she’s passed me by I let the door swing to and I begin to walk down the steps. She’s standing at the bottom of the steps looking down the street as if she’s expecting a Silver Shadow to ghost up to the curbside and transport her off in the manner to which she thinks she ought to be accustomed. I take no notice of her and turn left and walk down the pavement to where I’ve left Con’s Scimitar. I unlock the door and get in and start the engine. She doesn’t appear at the curb so I look in the driving mirror and see that she’s still standing at the bottom of the steps, pretending I’m going back to collect her. I stay there idling the engine and she has another choice to make. Eventually she swishes herself round and starts walking to the car. It occurs to me that she’d make a lousy poker player but on the other hand I’d hate to think she was all bluff. She stands by the car waiting for the door to be opened and I think, Why not, let her win one for a change, and lean over and flip the handle and push. She gets in and slams the door and I pull away from the curb.