by Ted Lewis
Con nods and pushes Mrs. Abbott in the back of the yobs’ car and I unload Charlie into the seat alongside her. Con waits while I get the car started so that Mrs. Abbott doesn’t try to get out again and as I move off he dives for the Scimitar as the sound of the law gets nearer.
--
The Garage
I pick up the phone and dial Gerald and Les’s number, and while I’m waiting for them to answer I take out a cigarette and light up and look at Charlie and Mrs. Abbott and try not to get too angry. Mrs. Abbott is looking round the room as if she’s paying a visit to her least favourite relative and totting up the dust particles to pass the time. Charlie is half conscious and has no interest whatsoever in his immediate surroundings.
The Garage is a little haven that Gerald and Les have set at one side where they can go to avoid any strife that might come their way. So far they’ve never had to use it themselves but it’s come in handy as a halfway house for one or two of their American friends. Downstairs it’s just a garage in a row of garages at the back of a row of big Victorian houses, but upstairs it’s been kitted out like a nuclear shelter only more comfortable.
Only Gerald and Les won’t be too pleased about Charlie’s addition to the pattern on the settee.
Mrs. Abbott is sitting next to him, her arm round his
shoulder, holding an unlit cigarette in her free hand. The ringing tone carries on ringing and in the end I put the receiver down and stand up and walk over to the settee and flick my lighter at Mrs. Abbott. She gives me her long look but she accepts the light anyway. Then I go back to the telephone and try Gerald and Les again. Still there’s no answer so I press the tit down and dial the club’s other number.
Billy answers and I say, “It’s Jack Carter here. Are Gerald and Les downstairs?”
“Hang on, Mr. Carter,” Billy says. “I’ll check up for you.”
The receiver rattles down and Billy goes away and checks up and while he’s doing that rain begins to rattle against the broad skylight. Mrs. Abbott’s ash falls from the end of her cigarette and I have that feeling that I’ve lived through all this before, even down to the answer that Billy gives me when he comes back to the phone.
“No, Mr. Carter,” he says. “They’re not downstairs.”
“Mrs. Fletcher about?”
“No, not at the moment.”
I thank him and put the phone down and swear. Then I get up and go over to where the drinks are kept and for the twentieth time since I left Fourness Road I think about
the two heavies and why it was them who arrived instead
of the law involved in protecting Jimmy’s family. It had been known in the past for Old Bill to offer tenders for something he didn’t want to do himself but this wasn’t that kind of area. This was a grass and his family, all legal and above board.
So I pour my drink and I turn to Mrs. Abbott and I say, “Who did you phone, Mrs. Abbott?”
She looks at me and she says nothing.
“It wasn’t the law, was it?”
She shrugs. “You’re so bleeding clever, you bleeding well find out.”
I walk over to her. “Why should you get in touch with mugs like that to bail you out?”
“Why not?” she says. “I don’t want any more to do with the law than I can help.”
“Yes, but they weren’t friends of yours. They weren’t even friends of Jimmy’s. And you didn’t meet them at Bingo. So who were they?”
“Ask them.”
I sit down again and pick up the receiver. “There’s a lot of things I want you to tell me, Mrs. Abbott,” I say to her. “And when I’ve finished on this telephone I’m going to start asking the questions. So while you’re waiting I should think about that, and about how I might go about getting the answers.”
Some more ash drops from her cigarette but her expression doesn’t change. I dial the number of the flat in St. John’s Wood and this time somebody answers the phone.
“Yes?” says Audrey.
“It’s me,” I tell her. “Don’t settle back for a nice chat. Either of those two flossies with you?”
“No. Why?”
“Any idea where they might be? And don’t say at the club.”
“They were there earlier. I spoke to Les.”
“So did I.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Never mind. Could they have gone down to the house?”
“What for?”
I don’t answer that one.
“If you hear from them tell them to call me at the Garage, sharp.”
“The Garage? What you doing at the Garage?”
“I haven’t time to tell you all about that. Just try and get hold of those two fairies, will you?”
I put the phone down and get up and go over to Mrs. Abbott again. There’s no more time left for fucking about.
“Right,” I say to her. “You’re going to tell me all I want to know. The reason you’re going to tell me is because if you don’t I’m going to start by seeing off your Charlie. Now I’ve already seen off one mug this morning so your Charlie’s going to make no difference at all to my immortal soul. I know you can’t stand the sight of him, but blood’s thicker than water, isn’t it, and you don’t want me to prove it, do you?”
She doesn’t say anything so I take out my shooter and poke the barrel in Charlie’s mouth and pull back the hammer. Mrs. Abbott stares at the hammer, mouth open as wide as Charlie’s, then she clamps it shut and nods. I uncock the hammer but I don’t remove the gun.
Instead I say to her, “Why the heavies?”
She shakes her head. “I phoned the number, didn’t I? The number Jean asked me to phone. She told me to phone her there if I wanted to get hold of her, if I needed to. So I did. She told me to get packed up and I’d be collected. That’s all I know.”
I give a sigh. She’s probably telling the truth. And by now Jimmy and Jean and the kids will probably be well away from where the phone number was. I should have thought of that before I pulled her and Charlie back here. If it hadn’t been for Old Bill maybe I’d have left them where they were. But here they are and there’s sod all I can do with them. All I can do is get Mrs. Abbott to phone the number, even though they’re sure to be gone by now. In this situation there are so few alternatives I have to try everything.
“All right, then,” I tell her, “pick up the phone and dial the number and talk to Jean.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“Just tell her you and Charlie are in a bit of a spot and you’ll only be out of it if she shops Jimmy.”
“I won’t get to talk to her straight away, you know. There’s always somebody else answers the phone first. Now they might not let me talk to her at all.”
“Just dial the number and remember where the gun is.”
She gets up and goes over to the phone and I take her place next to Charlie. She dials the number and I take the gun out of Charlie’s mouth and go and stand by Mrs. Abbott. After a while I take the phone off her and have a listen myself, but of course nothing happens, so after a while I put the phone down on its cradle.
“So what you going to do now, smart arse?” Mrs. Abbott asks me.
I don’t answer her. Rain splatters against the skylight.
“Never going to find out where they are from me, are you? Not now.”
She goes back to the settee and thumps herself down on it in satisfaction and the heaviness with which she does it causes Charlie to groan but she takes no notice of him. She just folds her arms and glares in triumph at me. I look at my watch. Con should have been here by now. And I’m getting nowhere sitting here looking at Charlie and his dear old mum. So I pick up the phone again and I dial Tommy’s number. He’s not there but his old lady is and he’s got her well trained and she gives me at least half a dozen places I can try. I get him second t
ime. I tell him to call Kirk and fetch him over to the Garage straight away. Then after I’ve talked to Tommy I try the club again but it’s the same story and so I try Audrey again and this time she isn’t there either. Fucking Jesus, I think to myself, the fall of the Roman Empire’s nowhere in it. So I get up and pour myself another drink and while I’m pouring it I ask Mrs. Abbott if she could do with a drink. She doesn’t answer but instead folds her arms even tighter. I pick up my drink and go and sit in the chair opposite the two of them and listen to the wind pushing the rain against the skylight. Mrs. Abbott continues glaring at me and Charlie gives the occasional moan. At one point he lolls onto his side so that he falls onto his mother’s lap but Mother, instead of giving him some comfort, straightens him up and then gets out her hankie and wets it and goes to work on the stains he’s left amongst the leopard spots. When she’s done what she can she resumes the folded-arms glare.
Another five minutes pass by and for something to blot out the sound of the rain I say, “Why’d Jimmy do it then?”
No answer.
“I mean, it could have been fixed, before the trial or after. If he’d stayed tight he’d have been sprung and pensioned off. Old Bill’s bread better than ours these days is it?”
“Perhaps he felt he’d rather talk to a better class of people,” says Mrs. Abbott.
“Oh, sure,” I say, and put my drink on the floor in front of me so I can take my cigarettes out. While I’m lighting up Mrs. Abbott leans forward and with great expertise directs a great gob of spit into my drink, so accurately that it doesn’t even touch the sides.
I blow out the smoke from my cigarette and I say, “I’ve been meaning to ask you, how’d you get so good at that? I mean, it’s a real talent. I bet you can get your dentures in a wineglass at twenty paces.”
She gives me her smirking glare again and that is that for another five minutes. I finish my cigarette and stub it out and look up at the skylight. Beyond the rippling rain, clouds the colour of lead pencils boil across the sky, and every time the wind gusts, the ripples on the glass alter the clouds’ shapes, like a receding tide on seashore sand. While I’m staring up at this there is the sound of a car drawing up outside. I get up out of my seat and walk over to the stairwell and go down the open plank steps and cross the garage and stand by the inset door and listen.
The door is rattled and then a voice says, “It’s Tommy. You there, Jack?”
I draw back the bolts and Tommy steps inside, followed by Kirk and his little black bag.
“Hello, Jack,” Tommy says, grinning the grin which is his only expression. “Patient upstairs, is he?”
Kirk shrugs his overcoat on his shoulders and stamps his feet as though he’s frozen and I nod and walk back to the stairs. Tommy and Kirk follow behind me. When I get to the top of the stairs I am greeted with the sight of Mrs. Abbott balancing on the back of the settee, reaching up to the skylight, trying to find if there’s some way she can open it. She only becomes aware of my presence when I walk over to the settee and put my arms round her waist and lift her down to the floor and then of course she kicks and screams and tries to give me a few round the head but I manage to get out of it and by that time Kirk has got Charlie properly laid out on the settee and has got his bag open and ready for work.
This attracts the attention of Mrs. Abbott who says, “Here, what’s he bleeding think he’s doing?”
Kirk takes no notice of her and so she starts marching round to the other side of the settee but Tommy and I catch hold of her by the elbows and lift her over to my chair and sit her down.
“We’re doing Charlie a favour,” I tell her. “So button your bleeding lip.”
“Oh yes,” she says. “Oh yes. I know the kind of favours you do for people.”
I look at Tommy and Tommy looks at me.
Mrs. Abbott eventually quietens down and so I take Tommy over to where the drinks are and I say to him, “Listen, don’t ask, but when Kirk’s finished I want you to stay here and look after Mrs. Shufflewick and her partner. I don’t know how long I’ll be. The only other person you let in is Con and make sure it is Con. All right?”
Tommy grins and pours himself a drink. “So long as I’m not here for the duration,” he says.
“You might be, my old son,” I tell him. “You might be.”
I put my coat on and with Tommy following I go downstairs. Tommy opens the big doors and I get in the yobs’ car. It’s what you would have expected of them. Every ashtray is full and there are some crumpled fish-and-chip papers on the back seat and the whole car has a faint aroma of B.O. I roll the window down to let some air in and I hear Charlie cry out from upstairs so I turn the ignition key and rev the engine and drive out into the narrow alley. The doors swing to behind me and I drive up the alley and turn left and make for Hampstead. I find a nice quiet street in the direction of Swiss Cottage and leave the motor there then I walk through Haverstock Hill and find a taxi and tell the driver to take me to the club.
In the bar there is the usual after 11 a.m. crowd: the swell of drinkers who are all steamed and pressed and smelling of aftershave, and except for the runniness round the rims of their eyes you’d never guess that they’d had to pour themselves a sherry before they could get out of bed and most of them will have spent an hour shaking on the toilet (or over it) before restoring some kind of humanity to their bodies. And now they’re all smoothing themselves into a day exactly the same as the last one with the help of Pink Gins and Bloody Marys and Buck’s Fizz. The bar smells like a barbershop with a license. And of course Peter the Dutchman is there adding his perfume to the lacquered atmosphere. Today he’s all open neck and medallions and suede jacket and cords and moccasins. He’s perched at the bar studying the gin and tonic and fresh orange juice he’s making a production out of holding. I walk over to the bar and the only opening is next to Peter so there’s no way of avoiding him. I should have gone straight upstairs because that’s where Alex told me that Audrey is. But as I’ve also found out that there’s still no Gerald and Les I feel like having a bracer before telling Audrey what I think the good news is.
Billy brings me my usual and I tell him to double it and while he’s doing that Peter says to me, “That’s what happens to a lot of them when they become famous.”
I look at him.
“They take to drink. Can’t stand the success when they become star personalities.”
Billy brings the drink back and I drink most of it and tell him to take it away again and fill it up.
“Mind you,” says Peter. “It’s quite a good photo. Makes you look quite handsome.”
I could put one on him no bother, but it wouldn’t be worth the trouble. Bracing Peter would be like having a fight with a damp salad. Not that he can’t be hard. Like
a lot of queens of his age, he’s looked after himself. The hairy chest and the firm jaw and the muscle isn’t just part of the package. But against me he’d fold because he’d know I wouldn’t just plant him once. I’d keep going so that he’d wish he’d never heard of himself. But the barman brings the drink back and I settle for that instead.
“So what’s happening?” Peter says. “Some young reporter down from the provinces all set to embarrass his editor out of his job?”
“I wouldn’t know,” I say. “Gerald and Les never tell me anything.”
“Oh well,” Peter says. “It was a nice firm while it lasted.”
I drink my drink without saying anything. The less said to Peter the Dutchman the better.
I’m just about to turn from the bar and go upstairs when the bar extension rings and Billy picks it up and then hands the receiver to me.
“Who is it?” I ask him.
“Sounded like Lesley, Mr. Carter.”
I put the receiver to my ear and in my exhausted state I imagine I’m going to be talking to Les but of course it’s the mad bird from the night be
fore.
“Is that Jack Carter?” she says.
“What do you want?” I ask her.
“Charming,” she says. “I’m only phoning to tell you you left a cuff link here last night.”
“ ’Course you are.”
“I wish I hadn’t bloody well bothered.”
“ ’Course you do.”
“Listen,” she starts, but I say to her, “No, you listen. You listen. I want to tell you I’ve got lots of pairs of cuff links and one more or less doesn’t make any difference to my general way of life. And the same, more or less, goes for you.”
I put the phone down and turn away from the bar to find that Audrey is standing behind me looking at me as though I’m something the dog’s just delivered. Now although she’s guessed I’ve been talking to a girl there’s no way of knowing how much she heard but she can’t blow up right now in front of everybody unless she’s drunk. And of course, she’s drunk.
“Audrey,” I say. “I’ve been looking for you.”
“Oh yes,” she says. “I can see you have.”
She begins to go a different colour to the one the booze has made her and so before she explodes I get off my stool and take her arm and luckily for me she allows me to escort her out of the bar and over to the lift and when we get there I say, “A bird I pulled last night. She’d been with Gerald and Les before they moved off. I chatted her to see if she knew where they’d gone. She thought I was coming on strong. All right?”
Audrey opens her mouth but before she can speak the lift has arrived and I bundle her into it.
“Listen,” I tell her as the lift begins to rise. “We’ve got more to worry about than some tart phoning me up. Until I can get hold of Pinky and Perky and put them in the picture I’m in dead lumber.”
“You won’t,” Audrey says, leaning against the lift wall. She’s relaxed now. All the violence seems to have gone out of her. “Not until their plane lands, anyway.”
I close my eyes.
“Les phoned me up,” Audrey says. “He was at the airport. He just said it’d be best if Gerald and him went to the villa for a while until everything quietened down. Told me I’d be able to look after things because I’d got nothing to worry about from the law. Said that it’d all be over in a week, once you’d copped for Jimmy.”