The Gigolo
Page 10
They all wanted revenge, in one measure or another. Maybe not death, but violent affrays were hard to control once they got started and the blood was up.
“Right, let’s go through it again,” Clive said, sounding exasperated, having explained it four times now to Karl.
Clive had read a copy of the woman’s profile, which was on Trudy’s desk. He knew where she lived. They would wait outside the bar Paul took her to and wait until Paul was walking back to his car, then pounce. Clive knew when Paul was meeting the woman, because she’d mentioned the date to Trudy and Trudy was breaking glasses again.
It was all set up for tomorrow night; Clive continued explaining his tactics to Karl.
“I’ll confront him, at first. You’ll come around the side of him. Now be on guard, because he might be carrying a gun, or a knife, or whatever,” he warned Karl. Clive continued, “When he sees me, he’ll know something’s up, so he’ll be startled. Hit him in the face, straight away, with the bat”.
Clive and Karl looked at the baseball bat, leaning against the wall.
“Don’t hesitate, Karl. If you do, it’ll give him the chance to pull a gun and maybe start shooting at us.”
“Once he goes down,” Clive added, “it’ll be all over for him. You can stand back, me and Geordie will take over… We can take our time and enjoy ourselves a little, teach him a lesson or two, in manners,” Clive ended, laughing towards Geordie.
Geordie couldn’t laugh back; Geordie couldn’t laugh at all, it hurt too much. Karl smirked, but he was scared; he hadn’t the stomach for this, that’s why Clive hadn’t told him the full story, what they were really going to do.
Karl thought they were just going to give him a quick beating, show him he couldn’t fuck with them, teach him a short, sharp lesson in manners.
He was young and naïve, but he was more scared of Clive, than Paul, so he went along with what was said and kept his mouth tightly shut.
Paul got up the next day, cooked breakfast, drank tea and let the day slip away. He lounged about and chilled, even having a short snooze, in the afternoon. As the evening drew close, he started to change his clothes, blue suit, black shoes, black belt, and for this evening his overcoat. He put it on and admired himself in the mirror. Very sartorial, he thought. He looked at himself again, and approved his choice of attire.
Paul had arranged to meet his newest woman in a bar on the far side of town. He drove for about half an hour, parked and started to walk towards the bar.
He’d got within a couple of hundred yards, when suddenly Clive, of all people, stepped out of the shadows, in front of him.
“Hi Paul, what are you doing here?” He asked a mock question.
Paul wasn’t stupid, he sensed something was wrong and looked to his right quickly, where he thought he’d heard a slight rustle.
Too late! Karl’s bat hit him squarely on the nose, breaking it and knocking Paul to the ground, unconscious.
Clive had said previously to Karl, “When he goes down, it’ll be all over for him,” and indeed, it was.
Karl stood back as he was told, he could and Clive kicked Paul’s bollocks as hard as he could. Paul unconsciously groaned and moved over onto his side.
Clive kicked him again in the kidney area, then the ribs, then another in the head. It was easy kicking a man while he was unconscious, but Clive didn’t care about being sporting – fighting wasn’t a game of sport, with rules. It was about power and winning!
He kicked and kicked at the slumped body, feeling his boot make contact, time and time again, feeling powerful, a big man again, wiping out the memory of Paul, belittling him, making him feel so small.
He kicked and stomped on Paul’s head, trying to tear the scalp out, leaving large red patches, where hair wouldn’t grow again; he wanted to ruin his face and his looks forever.
He’d always been jealous of the escort’s looks, something he himself lacked, and their seemingly glamorous lifestyles – money, women, cars, sex.
But Paul’s had been a particular thorn in his side. Paul was superior and arrogant and always rubbing people up the wrong way. He seemed to set himself up for a challenge, tempting people to knock him down.
So now, Clive, or Karl actually, had indeed, knocked him down, and Clive could vent his anger and his frustrations and redress the balance of power a little.
He stopped kicking now, he felt his honour was satisfied and his hurt pride had now been fully appeased.
It never occurred to him that it had taken two people to do what Paul could do on his own. Paul was quite prepared to take Geordie and the two bouncers on, on his own. That was the difference between Paul and other men and it angered other men to know it.
Karl had dropped the bat and was motionless; he was scared now he’d seen all that blood pouring out of Paul’s face, all that red life oozing out of him and onto the pavement.
He was feeling queasy, the sick was beginning to well up inside him. He wasn’t used to violence, not like this, and suddenly, he didn’t want to be like Clive.
There was another sound now, just up the street. Karl could hear it coming towards them. A tinkling, almost musical sound. It was Geordie and he was drunk, staggering up the road, in their direction.
He was drinking beer from a bottle and running the bottle along the iron railings that fenced in that part of the street.
Clive saw him coming and moved quickly.
“Give me a hand, Karl, grab his arm and lift him up.”
They both grabbed one of Paul’s arms and lifted him up as high as they could. Paul’s legs were dragging on the floor; he was still unconscious and his face was a bloody mess.
His eyes were swollen shut and ten times bigger than their normal size, all black and blue. His nose had been completely flattened, thanks to Karl.
He was losing blood through his nose and through his mouth, he was moaning and gurgling, spitting out the blood he was gagging on.
Geordie got closer and closer; the tinkling got louder and louder. Karl was getting more frightened by the minute, he hadn’t agreed to this.
The tinkling stopped, the sound changed. Geordie broke the bottle on the iron railings.
It was a horrible, ominous and final sound that only meant one thing, someone was going to get scarred for life, or maybe worse.
“Hold the bastard up,” Geordie shouted…
He jabbed the broken bottle into Paul’s face, into his left eye, with the intention of blinding him, making blood pour out of Paul’s eye and now unrecognisable face.
Then the right eye, even more blood and Geordie’s helpless victim tried to moan in vain; he was still unconscious and mercifully, wasn’t aware of what was happening.
Geordie jabbed again, but missed and hit Paul’s lower cheek. It made him drop the broken bottle. The bottle resounded with a crash, smashing into a thousand pieces.
The sound alerted people from the nearby bar. They’d heard what they thought was a scuffle or some sort of a commotion and the bottle breaking made them think it was more serious, which it was.
Two black bouncers ran over to see what was happening.
“We’ll check it out,” they said.
They saw three men running away – three big, heroic men.
They walked around the railed fence and then they saw him, Paul, lying there…
His face was smashed, his head had been kicked and was cut to the bone, his bleeding and broken face cut to shreds, and his life’s blood was pouring out of him.
Down the pavement it went and into the gutter, like a little piddle, trickling towards a nearby drain.
One of the bouncers, the big one, was the bouncer that had chased Paul previously. He knew tonight was going to happen and was prepared for it.
He had changed his shift and managed to get himself placed at this particular bar, just for tonight. He worked for a company that supplied bouncers to the different bars and clubs all over town and he had worked the ‘doors’ in all of them.
&nbs
p; He knew Geordie and was sympathetic towards him, and he was another man that didn’t like Paul.
The younger bouncer looked on in disbelief…
“Let’s help him up, get an ambulance, get the police!” he shouted panicking slightly.
The bigger bouncer was motionless, he just stared at Paul without a flicker of emotion.
“Let’s do something, for God’s sake,” the smaller one pleaded again.
“Leave him, it’s white man’s business,” the big one said… mimicking Paul’s earlier remarks to him.
He motioned the smaller bouncer to go back to the bar with a slight nod of his head, and they both walked away, the younger one briefly looking back, the bigger one holding his elbow, making sure he didn’t go astray.
It was deadly silent now. Paul lay motionless, still breathing, but only just.
His battered body twitched and jerked to the effects of the overly violent onslaught. His mind was seeking solace elsewhere, somewhere far away, deep inside himself, and it was singing a song, his favourite tune.
I give my love to a stranger, to a stranger every day.
I give my love to a stranger… that pays
For the love of a whore…
For the love of a whore…
For the love of a whore…
THE END