‘Sorry…’ he said, turning to look at her annoyed face ‘bit of a problem at work occupying my mind’
‘I thought you said everything was going fine…?’
I said I enjoyed your fucking company but that wasn't entirely correct either thought H ‘Sorry…where were we…?’
‘I was telling you about my new Gucci bag with detachable strap. It's wonderful…. they're very clever the French don't you think…?’
H looked at her and wondered what the hell he was doing there? An expensive meal, a conversation that lacked any intellectual stimulation and all this for a fuck? Ah well…he had already spent the money so one more good fuck and she could fuck off……
He watched the other table surreptitiously as the night dragged on and he knew he had to meet her. She was Latin, somewhere in South America. Brazil? Perhaps Venezuela? H smiled inwardly to himself. As though he would know the difference between women in South America?
Bullshitter!
Physically she was tall, slim, nice bust and long legs; which was nice but he could get that anywhere. There were lots of women with good figures, natural or paid for, and most would be more than happy to be fucked by H. But for the first time in his thirty eight years H wanted to be with a woman. That woman. The woman sitting over there with another man. His pulse was racing…. He made up his mind, excused himself from the tits in front of him and went over to her.
‘Excuse me’ he said to her.
‘Yes?’
‘This is difficult to explain so I will make it simple……..’ he took a breath and tried hard not to stutter…… ‘I don't know you, have never met you, never spoken to you, know nothing about you’ he paused ‘however……I would like to know you, be with you and I would like you to be with me. If you can do that, and you're comfortable, I will take care of you and make you safe for the rest of your life’
It was a peculiar choice of words ‘make you safe for the rest of your life….’
In fact the whole sentence was utter nonsense and he knew it but it was what he wanted, or even needed to say no matter how ridiculous it seemed and sounded. A wave of embarrassment flooded through him. Some part of H's brain wondered not only who had said that but should they be certified…..?
‘Excuse me pal’ said her dinner partner ‘I think you should fuck off before someone gets hurt’
H ignored him and continued to look into her eyes. He was trying to tell her something…….with his eyes. Please look at my eyes……
The man grabbed H's arm and tried to pull it towards him but it didn't move.
‘Excuse me’ said H softly to the woman and turned very slowly to look at the man. ‘My friend…….’
‘You're not my fucking friend’ said the man aggressively.
H paused, moved his face a little closer to her dinner partner, his eyes boring down into him, telling him to be very careful ‘Would you prefer me to be your enemy……?’
The man was about to say something but the part of his brain, honed over millions of years that preferred life over death shut him up immediately and he said nothing. He sat there defiant for a moment and then imperceptibly his body moved back in his chair…..
‘My friend’ H continued ‘you are right to be annoyed as I've invaded your evening but I am talking to this lady. Now she may be your lady but, according to her ring finger she is not your wife. If she had been your wife I would not have taken this liberty. I am not going to ask your permission to speak to this lady as I don't need your permission. She is your dinner date not your chattel and so I'm asking you politely to allow me to finish this conversation………… The lady only has to say yes or no. It won't take long.’
H stared into his eyes. Not blinking. Waiting……….
The man thought for a second about what to do and started going through the options. If he backed down now the woman would see him as some sort of coward; if he decided to make a play it was likely he would see tomorrow from a hospital bed……..or he could call for the Manager. The last option was very tempting but was almost as bad as the first. Whatever happened he was not going to come out of this in a white knight sort of way. Aaah fuck! The second passed and he moved even more imperceptibly back and lower in his seat.
He looked at H.
Looking at H made you realise why he was called H and not James. H was huge and the abbreviated version ‘H’ had stuck many years ago. It was not so much that he was actually huge but his presence was huge. He was six foot two and built like a Greek God; ruggedly handsome with an athletes frame, powerful but not bulky, menacing but not outwardly so. Men knew from looking at H that what he had available to him was an inner strength with an inner violence.
An inner violence that you didn't really want to unleash.
A voice squeezed its way between them and they both looked at her.
‘Thank you for your rather crude and untimely offer but no thank you’.
Before H had computed the words an old emotion reared its ugly head and fear and panic instantly flooded through him and immediately crushed him. His confidence gushed out of him as though a drain tap had been turned on, to be replaced by a pain and inadequacy that engulfed him and he fought hard to keep calm. H looked at her for a moment and nodded slightly several times as though he was trying to understand what she had said. He bowed his head towards her, nodded to her companion and walked back to his table and the waiting woman who had ordered a very expensive bottle of champagne in pique.
‘What an arsehole’ said the rich, sophisticated man of impeccable breeding ‘what an uncouth fucking arsehole’
H went back to the restaurant every three weeks for three months to try to meet her again but she was never there.
He gave up; without giving up.
Six months later in his large, modern, expensive apartment overlooking the Thames H, a little worse for wine, was screaming abuse at his monitor as yet again that night someone had caught a card on the river, when the phone rang with the ‘internal’ tone.
He pressed the button ‘Yes?’
‘A lady to see you sir’ said the concierge.
‘Who is it?’
A muffled sound. ‘She won't give me her name but the lady says you are going to look after her for ever sir’
‘Tell her to fuck off; I've already got a mother’
More muffled sounds…. A woman's voice came on. ‘You were going to keep me safe for the rest of my life’
‘Eh?’
‘If you make me repeat it I'm leaving’ said the voice.
The wine which had dulled his head and fucked up his poker suddenly cleared. ‘Stay there….Don't go!’ he screamed into the phone and hurtled to the door.
Ignoring the lift he started to run down the ten flights of stairs to the lobby. Three quarters of the way down he stumbled and slid on a step, his legs rearing into the air, levelling him out and crashing him down onto the hard tiled steps. His head banged against a sharp edge and he saw stars in his eyes. Dizziness enveloped him and he knew there was blood coming out of the back of his head. He wanted to sleep but thought fuck this, shook his head and dragging himself up he hung on grimly to the banister and lurched on down. At the bottom he stumbled again and smacked his head on the door and went down in a heap.
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! he screamed to himself.
Picking himself up again he opened the door and almost fell into the lobby. Blood streamed across his face and he tried to focus through its red mist. She was there! My God it was her!
H was oblivious to the fact that he looked like an escapee from the Texas chainsaw massacre and ignored the look on the concierge's face which was one of some concern. For who was debatable…..?
Benny stood there dressed in jeans and blouse and holding an overnight travel bag. H shuffled over to her and she handed it to him but he was close to passing out and dropped it.
‘Can I help you sir?’ asked the concierge moving towards H but he growled like a big angry cat, shook his head, picked
up the bag again and walked to the lift.
The concierge watched them get in, the lift start to move up and he immediately erased it from his memory. He knew in this block of apartments you saw nothing and knew nothing so he went back to his paper. Page three reminded him of his wife; not the one he had, the one he should have had…..
In the lift she looked at him but said nothing. H's head was clearing but it buzzed like a wasps nest and although the blood was flowing less he felt like shit.
In the apartment H took her coat and wondered what to do with her travel bag. He put it on a large couch that sat in front of towering floor to ceiling windows that looked up the river Thames. Desperate for something to say H asked ‘Drink?’
‘Coffee please’ she replied ‘medium, small amount of milk and no sugar.’
H wandered into the large hi tech poggenpohl kitchen with its gleaming stainless steel and his mind filled with questions. Firstly what the fuck did ‘medium’ mean and what was a ‘small amount’ of milk? Was there a scale somewhere that he should use? A measuring thingy with small, medium and large on it?
Secondly what was her name?
Thirdly she's arrived but with few clothes. What does that mean?
Fourthly how did she know where he lived?
Fifthly that may not even be a word am I going mad?
Sixthly am I brain damaged? He poked the back of his head with his finger, felt the caked blood, took some kitchen towel, wet it with cold water and wiped his head then rinsed it out and wiped his face
She looked around the room. The Greenwich location had much to offer and through the enormous windows she could track the river Thames; through the windows on the other side of the room the Natwest Tower loomed in the distance. She reckoned he had paid about a million and a half pounds, maybe two for the apartment and spent a fair amount furnishing it but it looked like any expensive pad that you would see in a ‘house and homes’ magazine. She debated whether he had bought the ‘show apartment’ and just kept all the furniture……
The odds and sods that made up the rest were a completely eclectic assortment of what she would call bric-a-brac and at odds with the up market, state of the art, apartment. Objects bought from holidays abroad that he had taken a shine to but had no idea they did not ‘fit in’ with anything at home. Surprisingly the complete naivety of the ‘eclectic’ acquisitions and their total lack of pretence quite charmed her and the very expensive Brioni jacket thrown over the back of a chair, in an absolute who cares fashion, made her smile.
H went back in the lounge to find it empty and the bag gone. For a second he panicked as he thought she'd left; but he also noticed his feeling was tinged with a tiny amount of relief. Why, he had no idea…..? She walked in from the second bedroom.
‘I've left my things in there for now, I hope that's ok?’
It was a question that wasn't looking for an answer. She indicated to the opposing sofas. ‘Sit down’ she said quite assuredly as though it was her place, ‘and let's talk’
‘My name is Benshima Reyes. My friends call me Benshee or Benny. I am from Colombia; thirty four years old; divorced a long time ago with no children and don't like swearing.’ She glared at him. ‘I worked in publishing until four weeks ago until I told my boss what he could do with his suggestion’.
Her voice was just a touch husky, even earthy, but very feminine and warm. H found the word ‘safe’ coming to mind for some reason. She was ‘safe’……. His body flooded with a peculiar tingle and he felt emotional but controlled his outward demeanour. Her hands animated her words and made her look almost child like as she expressed herself.
‘And you’ she continued ‘are James James. You own nightclubs and have a company that provides….. protection.
She said the last word slowly suggesting that she thought it provided quite the opposite. ‘I assume that is not all you do…………………?
She waited for a response but it was not really a question. And it was not going to get an answer…
‘Obviously I know very little about you but it seems that you are one of those rare people…………a thug with brains………….’
For a moment H bristled. Who the hell was she to judge what he was? He was not used to being talked to like this. Had a man said that he would now be apologising. And the word thug riled him. He was not a thug; what he did was done professionally with detail and planning. How was that thuggish? He knew the word had been bastardised. The thuggees from the Hindi word tuggee who were prominent in the seventeenth to the nineteenth century were organised and painstaking but now the word included every drunken, punch throwing fucking idiot at a football match!
‘Does that description bother you? She asked.
‘A little. A touch harsh perhaps when you don't know me?’
‘Which bit made you uncomfortable? Thug or brains?’
A huge grin spread over his face. He liked this woman. A woman you could talk to, be with…….be safe with……..?
She removed a speck of fibre from her Williams jeans, picked up her coffee and sat back, daintily sipping. H watched her full lips touching the cup.
‘Just one more thing’ she said. ‘You are a man of means, power of a dubious sort and contacts. Why didn't you try and find me if you wanted me so much?’
H paused for a moment. It had been his first response as he could easily have found her. The restaurant would have told him and he could have found her in minutes…… but he didn't. H knew the answer.
‘I didn't want to. It seemed to me that to find you would have been a bit……..businesslike. This wasn't business. There are times when I need to find……..associates……. and I didn't really want to go down that route’.
She smiled ‘You softy’.
Another wide grin creased his face.
They continued with small talk for a while but any probing from H was met with very little in the way of startling information. What did he expect? Later he took her for a meal and when they returned she thanked him, kissed him softly on the cheek then turned to the bedroom she had commandeered, left the door open and went to bed.
H was a bit lost. When a woman comes into your house, gets in a bed and leaves her door open you fuck em. What else? But Benny? For some reason H had had the impression that if he went in he would come straight out with a knife in his eye. Why would he think that? Jesus! Was she a psycho? Why would he think that? He shook his head to clear it. Come on Jimmy boy, get your act together.
He wandered into the study, turned on the computer and played poker for an hour and a half. Only part concentrating and with no patience he played bad hands, chased cards and lost money quickly. Then he went to bed.
Sleep eluded him so he put on a tracksuit and went to the gym in the basement of the building where he ran, cycled and hit the shit out of a punch bag for an hour, showered and then went back upstairs.
He still couldn't sleep and in the morning his head ached and he still felt like shit…..
H Chapter 4
Big Tony
…………….She went out of the room; he watched her hips sway and her long, wavy, jet black hair follow her as though she had several tiny black lambs gambolling on her shoulders as she went to make a cup of tea and he went back to find Rico.
He fucking hated Rico! Rico beat him at poker and H didn't like it. Rico was the luckiest bastard in the whole of the fucking world. When he was about to lose the river would always save him. One day, if H ever found out who he was, the river wouldn't save him, it would be his grave.
H felt himself becoming destructive and stopped dead still. He didn't move for several minutes. He thought about his feelings and what they related to and knew it was nonsense to wish someone dead just because they beat you at poker. Killing and violence didn't bother H but there had to be a specific reason. It may be self defence or it may be planned but there had to be a rational reason. And getting beat at poker wasn't one no matter how lucky the cunt was!
H started to s
cour the two poker sites that he knew Rico used. One was quite specialised and catered for more expensive games that the City boys, celebs and footballers used. He was distracted when the phone went and he pushed the speaker button ‘Yes?’
‘H’ said Marty, the manager at one of H's five clubs ‘we have a problem’
‘Go on’
‘Big Tony's dead’
‘What? What the fuck do you mean big Tony's dead? Why is he dead?’
‘We have no idea why. There was no fight, no disturbance. The cameras show a couple walk up to Big Tony, talk a moment and then walk away. After a few seconds Big Tony drops to the floor and he's dead!’
‘Marty, you're starting to piss me off. Tell me how he fucking died!’
‘We're not sure H but it looks as though he was stabbed in the heart with something very long and very thin. A bit like a stiletto’.
Fucking great thought H
‘With you in thirty minutes’
He explained the problem to Benny and told her he would get back as soon as he could.
H Chapter 5
The Cabal
Several thousand miles away on the roof garden terrace of a nearly completed ten storey holiday hotel five men sat round a table. It was the only furniture in the whole building and the small table and few chairs made the ten thousand square foot floor look enormous. The three Russians and two swarthy Albanians all had expensive black leather jackets, large aviator watches and were partners in several lucrative businesses; prostitution, extortion, people trafficking and supplying little children to those that had need of them. They regarded themselves as businessmen but they were essentially animals who traded in flesh, violence and misery, and human life meant nothing to them. To them there was a direct correlation between misery and profit.
The more the pain and suffering the more the profit. No pain…..no gain.
Their main area of operation was Russia, or at least a small part of it, but Russia was getting a bit difficult. The ‘mafia’ in Russia were now incredibly powerful and didn't take kindly to local competition. In the old communist days it wasn't a problem but the mafia, now with their vast wealth and enormous influence, bribed government officials quite openly and had ‘competitors’ shut down for some technical planning reason. It was easier than blowing the place up and you could move in afterwards…….
H When Hell Is the Favourable Option...... Page 2