Dave Hart Omnibus

by David Charters

  A steel band is playing, and the beach is beautifully lit with burning torches, under a clear, starlit sky. I’m feeling so good about life that I even gaze on benevolently when some of the Germans and the Scandinavians start to heal the tension with a little friendly limbo dancing.

  The reason I’m so particularly happy is sitting opposite me, her view of Trevor blocked by the bulk of the Human Pudding, and we’re talking as if no one else is around.

  ‘Investment banking is a tough business.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Sure. The hours are a killer, when we’re on a deal we work till we drop. I once did three all-nighters in a row. You work weekends, you start by seven in the morning, and if you’re lucky you finish by midnight. You travel all over the world, everywhere the business is. It’s brutally competitive, everyone’s bright, everyone’s hard-working, everyone wants to win. Imagine a whole trading floor of alpha males – and females, we have women investment bankers too – and every one of them is convinced he can run the firm. Testosterone on steroids.’

  ‘Sounds exciting.’

  ‘You bet.’ I pause to drain my marguerita, then raise the glass and signal to a waiter for another. ‘You never know what’s going to happen from one moment to the next. It’s the market, you see. The market’s bigger than any of us. War, terrorism, politics, everything’s reflected in the market. You need perfect news flow, and seconds, not minutes, make all the difference. Blink and you’re left behind.’ I smile in acknowledgement as another glass is placed in front of me. ‘But it takes its toll.’

  ‘Oh?’

  I put on my sad, mournful look. ‘Things didn’t work out at home. I’m getting divorced. That’s why I’m here… alone.’

  ‘Really? Because of your work?’

  No, you silly cow, because I’m a shallow, greedy, philandering piss-head without a decent bone in his body. ‘I’m afraid so. And the worst of it is, I won’t be able to see my beautiful Samantha again.’

  ‘Samantha?’

  ‘My daughter. She’s three.’ I could add that she’s the one I haven’t even thought about until now, when I realised what a great sympathy card she is, and sympathy could be a great way into those no doubt brilliant white, practical cotton panties.

  ‘Won’t you be able to see her?’

  I shrug and stare into the darkness. ‘You know what it’s like. It’s not exactly an even-handed system.’ And thank God for that – what would I do with Samantha for a whole weekend without Wendy around?

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Her voice is a whisper, and it looks as if she has tears in her eyes. She glances around to check on her own boys, as if to reassure herself that Toby, Jasper and Monty are not in danger of being whisked away.

  ‘Don’t be. I’ve learnt to be tough. You have to be in my business. I’ll get through it. It’s just that sometimes you have to let your guard down, you have to open up to someone. It’s pretty rare that you find someone you can trust, or feel close to.’ As I say this, I look into her eyes. Even in the light of the blazing torches I can see her blush as she glances away. Time for a change of mood.

  ‘Anyway, that’s enough about me. Let’s talk about you.’

  I smile reassuringly. ‘What do you think about me?’

  That’s when somebody screams.

  For once it isn’t something I’ve said. We turn and see a group of tall, rangy men with dreadlocks standing on the makeshift dance floor built out over the sand. The band have stopped playing and in the silence we can hear someone moaning. There’s a body lying on the dance floor, and I think I recognise it as one of the hotel security men. There are six or seven men standing over him, and they are all carrying weapons – knives, baseball bats, and one of them has a machete.

  Suddenly Sally screams, as the man with the machete leans forward and sweeps up a small bundle from the floor beside him. Toby, aged four years and three months, screams ‘Mummy!’ as the man shouts at us in a spaced-out, half-crazed, vaguely sing-song Jamaican accent, ‘Ladies and gentlemen – please be so kind as to hand over your wallets and your watches and your jewellery to my associates. Please be so kind and we all be cool…’

  A surprisingly strong hand grasps the sleeve of my collarless white Armani evening shirt and yanks me out of my chair.

  ‘He’s got Toby – come on!’ Sally Mills might only weigh a little over fifty kilos, but she has the strength of a man possessed. She pulls me out of my chair and drags me forward alongside her as she charges towards the dance floor.

  Only she trips up on the sand and falls headlong, releasing her grasp of my shirt in time to catapult me into the dreadlocked gangster holding Toby. I’m wearing a brand new pair of navy blue Gucci loafers and shouldn’t slip on the dance floor, but someone’s spilt a drink there and as I step forward I skid and fall, throwing my hands out desperately for support. My outstretched hands hit the Yardie full in the chest and he goes down with me on top of him. As he falls, he swings the machete around and I feel something slice past my forehead, which is suddenly wet with some slick, warm liquid. He drops Toby, who scampers off the dance floor into the arms of his sobbing mother, who is crawling towards us across the sand. I cling to the bad guy, too scared to move, sick with fear and adrenaline, not knowing what to do next.

  Behind me there’s a great roar and I manage to turn my head for a second to see Mick running towards us, holding a chair over his head, which he throws towards the gang members standing on the dance floor. Claire is hard on his heels, screaming with thirty years of ugly bovine rage, a broken wine bottle in one hand. She looks like she’s done this before. Trevor the teacher is still sitting in his seat, looking on with a curiously detached air, as behind him a dozen or more large, bearded Scandinavians decide this is not the time for neutrality.

  Mick slams into one of the Yardies, bringing him crashing down next to where I am lying on top of their leader, who is dazed but awake and starting to struggle to get free from under me, pushing me away and wriggling towards the edge of the floor, where I can see he has dropped the machete. I grab his arms and hang on for dear life, not daring to think who he will carve up first if he gets his hands on it. Claire comes pounding onto the dance floor and lunges towards another of the gang with the broken bottle. He sidesteps her and swings a baseball bat into the back of her head. She staggers forward a few steps, her eyes rolling heavenwards, and crashes down on top of the Yardie leader, who has reached the edge of the dance floor, dragging me whimpering with him. I hear a distinctive crack and he jerks once, then lies completely still. Claire’s full weight has landed across his neck on the edge of the raised floor, forcing his head backwards and sideways towards the sand some twelve inches below. She groans and rolls away, and then there is a rush of heavy, pounding feet as Sven and Olaf and Jerker the Berserker lead the Viking charge, a brief clash of improvised weapons and the Yardies break and flee.

  Something sticky is covering my face as I lie on top of the Yardie leader, sick with fear, and black out.

  I AM a hero.

  I am in a private room in a hospital in Kingston, where a police guard and a member of the consular staff from the British High Commission are keeping the press at bay, while I am stitched up and have the chance to recover. Scattered around my room are press reports from the Jamaican and British press:

  BANKER KILLS YARDIE THUG

  British Tourist Fights off Yardie Gang, Saves Toddler

  and in the Daily Post,

  BULLDOGS: 1, YARDIES: 0

  There are flowers in my room from Mick and Claire, who were the first people allowed to visit me, Claire with a heavily bandaged head, along with Jason and Kennie, who declare me both ‘cool’ and ‘wicked’.

  There are flowers too from Sally and Trevor, who visited me briefly – he obviously had not been to a hospital before – and who brought with them Toby, Jasper and Monty, who had made me get well cards with felt tip pens and crayons, and asked how many stitches I’d had in my forehead, and would it leave a scar. Sall
y held my hand, and I squeezed hers, but luckily there was no chance to say any of the things that were swimming around in my head, like the fact that I did it for her, and was there any chance of a blow-job?

  I’ve had a phone message from Wendy, who had no idea I was over here until she heard my name on the radio and read what had happened in the papers. She’s offering to fly over and talk. Talk? Who’s she kidding?

  More promisingly, Dan Harriman sent a couple of hookers round dressed as nurses, but the Jamaican policeman on the door was nobody’s fool and ordered them away. Good old Dan – at least he tried.

  I’ve had lots of messages from people in the City, including some of my old team at Bartons, who seem baffled by what’s happened. In fact, the common theme among everyone who knows me seems to be sheer bewilderment at what on earth got into me.

  I can’t think about what actually happened without needing to throw up. I still feel sick with fear, which the doctors, who clearly admire me enormously, are putting down to concussion. They tell me gravely that I will have a prominent scar across my forehead, that it may fade somewhat over time, but only plastic surgery can hope to reduce this savage mark. It is a high price to pay for courage, but it was only a fraction of an inch from slicing through my skull. They assure me that a machete blow that connected firmly to the head would have caused unthinkable consequences. I agree. I can’t think about them either.

  I’m still not taking phone calls – claiming headaches – and the doctors won’t allow the press to talk to me, so Mick and Sally are the people who get to tell the story. When I see them interviewed on the cable television in my room, I wonder if they are talking about the same incident, or if they are, how much they had had to drink.

  It seems I not only charged the Yardie leader holding Toby, knocking him to the ground and wrestling with him, but in a desperate life and death struggle fought him to the bitter end, all the while bleeding copiously from the machete wound that had split my head open. When the Yardies fled, they left their leader dead on the edge of the dance floor with a broken neck, with me lying unconscious on top of him, weakened by loss of blood, but still clinging to him desperately. The news coverage includes photographs of me being helped from the scene, my face and my white Armani shirt soaked in blood, still looking shocked.

  I can’t quite believe it, but the story’s all over the media, so it must be true.

  My only bad moment comes when a superintendent from the Jamaican police comes to call. He is respectful, almost wary in my presence. First, he assures me that I’m not going to be charged with anything.

  Charged? I almost leap out of bed and grab him, so that I can scream at him that I don’t need to be charged because I didn’t do anything.

  But he goes on to say that there will be a coroner’s enquiry, much as there would be in the UK, and that he believes the coroner will return a verdict of lawful killing. I can swear a deposition now and with luck, it will not be necessary for me to return for the hearing, although men like me are always welcome in Jamaica.

  Men like me? This man knows nothing. I made three New Year resolutions this year: screw more beautiful women, smoke more cigars, and try to be more shallow. Okay, I’m joking about that last one. Oh, and get a bigger bonus, but that goes without saying. And now he thinks I’m a hero. He tells me that it’s rare for tourists to make a stand as the guests of the Bay Club did that night. Tourists generally just panic and scream and hand over their valuables. I nod. Makes sense to me. But he tells me that I inspired them. A number of guests have said that when they saw me take the leader down, they thought they’d have a go.

  Then he gets to the bad part. He tells me the Yardies are a dangerous group to cross. The man I killed (that’s right – I killed) was a well-known gangland figure over here, and they have connections in London, where they play a major role in the drugs trade. I may feel I can look after myself, but I should still take ‘sensible precautions’. Sensible precautions? I’m a man who thought sensible precautions meant wearing a condom. He totally freaks me out, and when he’s gone, I cling to the bedcovers, pale and trembling.

  ON THE FLIGHT home, I get VIP treatment. I could get used to this. It’s actually even better than Rory would get. The Minister of Tourism escorts me out to the plane, bypassing formalities and taking me directly airside. He shakes my hand, and promises me a warm welcome and a more peaceful stay next time I come to Jamaica. I ignore the photographers, because I’ve got used to them by now, and anyway they’re only the locals. Once I’m on board, back in seat 1A, the cabin crew can’t do enough for me, and the other passengers look at me with awe. They know. One of them, an American business type, comes over and shakes my hand.

  ‘I was a marine. Two tours in ’Nam. But I never did anything like you just did. Sir, it’s a privilege to shake your hand.’

  At Heathrow, there are more photographers, wanting to get a close-up of my battle scar, and some reporters wanting a quote about how good it feels to be home again. The airline has laid on a couple of people from Special Services, who escort me through to immigration. It’s only when I’m in a taxi heading home that I begin to take stock and think what on earth I’m going to do next.

  There’s a pile of unopened mail in the flat. Lots of kind notes from well-wishers, messages on the answer-phone… and a letter from Rory:

  Dear Dave,

  First, let me welcome you home and congratulate you on your very courageous act in Jamaica.

  Act? How does he know it was an act? How could he?

  I hope you are fully rested and well on the way to recovery, and that you will forgive me for raising a delicate business matter with you so soon after your return. As you know, before your departure, we were discussing the difficulties of accommodating your full potential within the firm, and I think we had both agreed that it was time for you to move on.

  The shit. I’m a hero and he’s firing me. How’s that going to look in the press, Rory? But there’s more.

  As part of the general restructuring plan currently being implemented at Barton’s, we are in a position to offer you exceptionally generous terms if you are still of the view that it is best to seek fresh opportunities elsewhere. At a minimum we would be looking at granting you three years’ total compensation, based on the average of your three highest earning years in the past five – approximately £2.5 million – as well as the immediate vesting of your options and employee shares. We would give you a very favourable reference, and be pleased to continue paying your basic salary and benefits until the earlier of twelve months or until you find suitable employment elsewhere. We would, however, naturally seek your agreement in writing that this concluded matters between us on a positive and final note, and that as a good leaver you bore no ill-will towards the bank or any of its employees.’

  I can’t believe it. He’s paying me off. He’s paying me off because he’s frightened. He’s offering to spend millions of the bank’s money so that he doesn’t have to worry about waking up one night to find me standing by his bed with a machete in my hand.

  On reflection, it makes good sense. It’s not his money he’s offering me. And he’s running scared. More than scared – he’s read the papers. He knows I’m a killer.

  There’s also a letter from Wendy. She and Samantha are staying with her mother in Buckinghamshire, and she’s had a lot of time to think. She acknowledges faults on both sides, and wants to ‘try again’. We’ve both made mistakes – like running off with the personal trainer, though she doesn’t say this – and after all I’ve been through I probably need a period of stability in my life. Could she have got wind of Rory’s letter? There’s nothing like a few million pounds to bring a woman round.

  I put both letters down and call Dan Harriman. He’s delighted I’m back, insists we have to celebrate and suggests we meet for drinks.

  The best dry martinis in London are served at Duke’s of St James’s, a small boutique hotel beloved of Americans (who know a thing or two about cocktails
) and sadly these days, hedge fund managers. The barmen here say that dry martinis are like women’s breasts: two are too few and three are too many. As far as breasts go, I’ve always preferred four myself, in two pairs, both at the same time, but that’s another matter.

  We are soon on number three, and Dan is starting to slur his words.

  ‘So you’re leaving Bartons?’

  I nod. ‘Need another challenge.’

  ‘Did they fire you?’

  ‘Course not. But I’ve had it with being Rory’s poodle.’

  ‘Never bothered you before.’

  I very gingerly finger the stitches on my forehead. I’ve developed a nervous tic in my cheek, which gets worse when I’m stressed, lying, or otherwise under pressure, which I’m finding is quite a lot of the time, and I can feel it now. Whenever it starts in my cheek, a pulse becomes visible on the side of my forehead where the scar is most prominent. I feel as if people can read me like a book. ‘That was then. This is now.’

  Dan nods, unconvinced. ‘So where will you go?’

  ‘No idea. Not a US firm – they work too hard. Not one of the old British firms either – too sleepy. Maybe I should start my own firm? Could you see me running somewhere? I quite fancy it. Maybe it’s time.’

  ‘Yeah, right. If I were you I’d get my arse back to Bartons in double quick time. Failing that, it’s a sayonara job.’

  ‘A sayonara job?’

  He nods firmly. Sayonara jobs are the last jobs taken by struggling has-been’s desperately clinging on to the City lifestyle, normally after a couple of divorces and a few years of the downward spiral at a proper firm. ‘If you’re not careful, you’ll be head of capital markets at the Korean Farmers’ Bank, running a department that comprises yourself and your assistant.’

  I’m tempted to tell him about Rory’s letter, but I don’t. I need to get it finalised first, and whatever happens I need to get more. I know he won’t see me, that I’ll have to go back to him through Human Resources, who must be baffled by his decision. But if I don’t squeeze another half a million out of him my name’s not Dave Hart. I raise my glass to Dan.