White Lines

by Mel Stein

  Being with the England team he’d been exposed to players from the major clubs, Manchester United, Liverpool, Newcastle and the old-established London pairing of Spurs and Arsenal. There was a common language amongst professionals in which only certain subjects tended to surface; clothes, cars, women, music, football and money. The odd experienced pro was tight-lipped about what he was earning, but most of them seemed quite happy, if not proud, to boast of their achievements of their agents and all the good things they had in their contracts. Barry had sat silently and listened. At Hertsmere he was considered anything but shy, but Peter Ranson had felt the need to tell Kenny Cunningham how quiet and withdrawn he’d found the young Geordie. Yet, his silence had advantages as people began to speak around him as if he were invisible. He was learning all the time, and as a full England international with every chance of retaining his place in the squad if not the team itself, he was beginning to have a reasonably good idea of what he was worth. He just needed Mark to advise him as to how to put it all together. He was definitely going to need the money.

  The doctor returned to interrupt his train of thought before it went down that particular path, a path that had given him so many sleepless nights.

  ‘You can go now. We get the results from the laboratory tomorrow.’

  ‘We’re leaving tomorrow,’ Barry said.

  The doctor shrugged.

  ‘No one will be stopping you from going. These things are a formality. Football is not like athletics. Nobody I have ever tested has been positive.’

  ‘Always a first time, mate,’ Barry said. ‘Still, it’s not going to be me. Sorry to have kept you waiting.’

  He followed the noise and bustle and arrived back in the dressing room.

  Nearly all the rest of the players were changed and ready to go. The Colombian FA in conjunction with the government had arranged an official dinner. None of the players were looking forward to it with any relish.

  ‘Can’t get pissed when you’ve half the old farts from a dozen or so FAs there, can you?’ Dave Collins, the keeper said. When it came to hard drinking, he had a certain reputation amongst his peers.

  ‘What time’s our flight tomorrow?’ Barry asked.

  ‘Noon. You can have a bit of a lie-in,’ Collins replied.

  Peter Ranson put a friendly arm around Barry’s shoulders.

  ‘He’ll want to get up early to read the papers even if they’re all in Spanish. Probably bribe the pilot to drive faster so that he can get home in time to buy the English ones as well. We’ve got the coach outside, but half the world’s press is waiting to talk to you. I’ll get the driver to wait for ten minutes. You can use that as an excuse to bugger off if they get too persistent.’

  ‘Thanks, Pete.’ Barry looked really appreciative.

  ‘No problem. You’ll do the same for me when I’m as famous and good-looking as you, or score those sort of goals.’

  Barry wasn’t ready for the reception. Nothing had prepared him for the flash of cameras, the booms of the mikes, the sea of faces, the cacophony of voices all asking different questions. The Press Officer, Jim Kelly, was already at the reception, dealing with the authorities who were wondering just what time they were going to sit down and eat, or if they were ever going to see their beds that night. He’d left Jenny Cooper in charge and she was doing a pretty good job of getting the howling masses into some semblance of order, barking orders with a ferocity that belied her looks.

  ‘Can you hold up this shirt, Barry?’

  ‘Put the ball on your head.’

  ‘Hold this jar of coffee.’ That from somebody a little more inventive than the rest.

  ‘Take the England flag in your left hand and punch the air with your right.’

  ‘Just a bit to the left.’

  ‘This way, this way, this way. And again.’

  Again, and again and again. His eyes hurt from the bulbs popping in his face. His leg hurt from the tackle that had brought him down for the penalty. He wanted to get to a phone. There were people he needed to talk to.

  The photographers had their five minutes and, despite their plea for more, Jenny shooed them outside. The regular travelling journos had already agreed between themselves who’d ask the questions. For the most part they were a decent bunch, hard-drinking, womanising, creative with their expense accounts, but fair with the players. A far cry from the rat-pack of feature writers and news reporters who latched on to them and were there for any dirt that might arise.

  The sports journalists would all write down the same answers, only they’d be interpreted in a different way depending upon the publications in question. The TV camera crews came last. Mark held back. He had no problems. He knew Barry would talk to him, would find the time to give him the exclusive footage he’d been promised. He didn’t need to fight alongside the rabble.

  Ten minutes passed, then fifteen. The coach-driver impatiently sounded his horn. Barry looked anxiously at his watch and pulled away from the penultimate interviewer to make his way over to Mark, waiting patiently at the rear of the room. He’d only taken a couple of steps when Jenny intervened.

  ‘Sorry, Barry, I’ve just had Jim on the phone from the reception. There’s hell to pay down at the civic centre. I’m afraid you’re going to have to leave it for now and get on the bus.’

  ‘But I’ve promised Mark a few minutes.’

  ‘No can do, honeychild. Be a good boy and do what mummy says.’ The expression on her face and the tone of her voice were anything but maternal.

  Mark, who had been standing within earshot of her, tried to control his anger.

  ‘I didn’t hear your phone ring.’

  ‘Didn’t you? Well then, I suppose you’re none too good at hearing things, are you, Mark? I mean I tried to tell you something back in England and you certainly didn’t hear me then either.’

  ‘Come on, Jenny, this is business, not anything personal.’

  ‘Everything’s personal, Mark. What’s that they say? All’s fair in love and war.’

  Mark made one last effort.

  ‘Let the bus go and I’ll bring Barry down myself.’

  She shook her head, a look of triumphant power in her eyes.

  ‘More than my job’s worth to split the lads up. So sorry, Mark. Still it’ll give you an extra few minutes to spend with your little journalist friend, won’t it?’

  Mark looked helplessly at the crew and then at Barry. For a moment he thought the boy was going to argue, but Jenny took him firmly by the arm and hurried him to the door.

  ‘What am I going to tell the studio back in England?’ It was a question to himself, but it came out louder than he intended.

  ‘Tell them you lost yourself the right to special privileges,’ she said. Then turning back towards him, she said in a whisper that only he could hear, ‘Tell them you fucked yourself.’

  And then she followed Barry out of the door, pushing him towards the waiting bus like a beautiful, porcelain shepherdess rounding up the last of her flock.

  CHAPTER 19

  It was two in the morning and Mark was getting really worried. He’d arranged for Patti to join him at the reception if they weren’t able to meet up after the match. He’d assumed that, because of the delay in the game and the further fruitless wait for Barry, she’d simply cadged a lift down there with someone else. By midnight, it was clear that she wasn’t coming and, with two telephone calls to the hotel producing no result, all the horror stories he’d heard from Luis Cano were racing through his mind.

  He looked for Luis amongst the throng and it took him a good five minutes to locate him and tell him what had happened. A shadow crossed the Colombian’s face before he spoke with a reassurance that was not entirely convincing.

  ‘If she arranged to do an interview the odds are that she is still waiting for her subject to turn up. I keep telling you about timekeeping here. It bears no resemblance to what you know of in Europe.’

  ‘I’m not so sure. Have you ever waited for an
Italian?’ It was a light-hearted comment, but Mark felt anything but light-hearted. ‘She didn’t say anything about doing an interview.’

  ‘She tells you everything?’ Luis asked in a tone that suggested he already knew the answer, but Mark gave it to him anyway.

  ‘No, she doesn’t tell me everything.’

  ‘Then don’t worry my friend. That is unless you think she is with another man. She is a very attractive lady, your Patti.’

  ‘I don’t think she’s with another man. But you’re the one who told me what a dangerous city this was, yet you don’t seem to be in a panic.’

  Luis gripped Mark’s arms, and he realised that the Colombian was a little the worse for drink. If that explained his apparent calm then there was even more to worry about. Mark could stand the tension no longer and decided to give the final speeches of the evening a miss. Barry had been more than apologetic, but security had refused to allow Ball Park’s cameras inside and Mark wondered whether that too was on Jenny’s instructions. He’d actually been surprised to find himself on the invitation list when none of the rest of the English media party had been similarly honoured. He could only put it down to knowing Kenny Cunningham, or being potential flavour of the month with Jenny when the guest list had been drawn up.

  Right now the invitation meant nothing to him. He was worried about Patti and he was also very angry with her. If she’d got herself into trouble then this was no place in which to do it. If she’d just got herself involved with something more important than meeting up with him then she could, at least, have let him know. It had not been easy arranging an extra seat for her at the dinner when he was merely a fringe guest himself. He rehearsed the sort of argument they were likely to have when she refused to admit she had behaved in anything less than a reasonable manner. He’d actually begun to miss those sort of arguments, but now that the storm clouds were once again overhead he could think of no good reason why that should be.

  He was getting ready to leave when Nathan Carr and Alissa Bland came across to speak to him. They’d never been formally introduced but anybody who worked for or with Mo Halid could not fail to know exactly who they were. Carr was bonhomie incarnate.

  ‘We’ve never had the chance to talk, you and I, Mark. But let me say how impressed I’ve been with your TV coverage for Ball Park. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a natural like you. Lineker, Waddle, Hansen, Francis, they all grew into it; but you look as if you’re talking directly to the bloke in the lounge in front of his TV.’

  ‘Maybe that’s because there’s only one bloke watching,’ Mark replied with a smile.

  ‘Good sense of humour as well. When we get back to London I think we should meet up for a chat. When I get the ESL rights, I reckon we could find a job for you heading up the team.’

  Mark’s mind was racing ahead, still thinking about Patti, but he could not help but note that Carr had said when rather than if. Was he truly feeling that confident or was he just being given a message to deliver back to Mo, albeit in an oblique way?

  ‘I’m not unhappy where I am,’ Mark said, his eyes firmly fixed on an escape route through the door.

  ‘Not unhappy? Surely you being a person of, how shall I put it, independent means? Surely you’re entitled to be deliriously happy if you’re going to work at all. Otherwise, why bother?’

  ‘Look, Mr Carr …’

  ‘Nathan, please.’

  ‘Nathan,’ Mark responded, not wishing to argue, ‘I’m sure you’ve got my best interests at heart, but I really don’t have time for a philosophical conversation at the moment.’

  ‘Ah, of course, you want to be hurrying back to the lovely Patti Delaney. Alissa and I saw her after the match, although we didn’t have the opportunity to speak to her. She appeared to be otherwise engaged.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Mark asked sharply, concern and jealousy hitting the pit of his stomach simultaneously and making an uneasy combination.

  ‘The man, Alissa, what did you say his name was?’

  Alissa had dutifully complied with Nathan’s instructions in the few hours since the match had ended and had found out the name of Patti’s companion.

  ‘Branco. Riccardo Branco.’

  Luis appeared by Mark’s side as if he knew what information was about to be related. He sparked into life, any suggestion that he might be drunk instantly wiped from his demeanour.

  ‘Are you sure? You did say Riccardo Branco?’

  The next question was how Alissa Bland had come to recognise him, but he did not bother to ask that one. His mind was several paces on. He turned to Mark and pulled him aside, out of earshot of Carr and Alissa.

  ‘I know she is a beautiful woman, your Patti, but I did not think she could also be this stupid. All through dinner last night she asks about drugs in this country and I tell her, because she is your friend, and she is curious and everybody is curious about drugs in Colombia. You remember?’

  Mark remembered only too well. Luis had told them how a relatively honest administration had gone about eliminating the Cali cartel, a group of seven men. Not the magnificent seven either, but possibly the seven most deadly criminals in the world. Six of them were now behind bars, the seventh had been killed in a shoot-out. But their disappearance from the scene had no immediate impact on the drug trade. Instead of the sophistication of the computer-organised cartel there were now hundreds of splinter groups all producing cocaine within the camouflage of the jungle. The terrain was a natural. The eastern region of Guaviare consisted of some 26,000 square miles of savannah and jungle reachable only through the airfields operated by the traffickers. And out of the chaos that the destruction of the cartel had left behind, sprang up Second Division leaders all fighting for their share of the cocaine market that supplied some 80 per cent of the world’s demand. And of all the Second Division leaders the one who had emerged triumphant, who had shot to the top of the Premier League, who perhaps merited the title of drug baron more than any of his predecessors, was Riccardo Branco.

  ‘I made an error,’ Luis continued. ‘I did not ask your friend if her curiosity was merely idle or a matter of professional interest.’

  ‘Luis,’ Mark interrupted, ‘do you want to tell me what’s happening? Why’s Patti chatting up this mobster?’

  Luis put a finger to his lips.

  ‘I do not think it a good idea to be calling Branco a mobster. He has many friends.’

  ‘He doesn’t sound a friendly sort of guy.’

  ‘Maybe the word friends is wrong. Maybe I should just say that he has many people who fear him, who would do anything for him.’

  Nathan Carr and Alissa were drawn back to the scene by the men’s anxiously raised voices.

  ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’ Nathan asked.

  ‘No, I do not think this is a matter for anybody but a Colombian,’ Luis replied dismissively. ‘Perhaps it’s not too late. Perhaps I can still do something. Listen, Mark, go back to your hotel. Go to your room, lock the door and stay there until I call or come.’

  ‘I want to come with you.’

  As they argued, the two men were walking and now stood on the marble steps of the building.

  ‘No, believe me, I am not being dramatic and I am not trying to be a hero, but I know this city, I know Branco. If I try to take a gringo with me, then certain places will be barred to me, certain questions will not only go unanswered, but it will be as if they had never been asked.’

  ‘Tell me more about Branco then. Just tell me that and I’ll do what you say.’

  ‘Time may not be on our side, or on Patti’s side. This is not the moment for a history lesson. Enough to say that he is a bad man. He wants to be the new king of Bogota, maybe of all Colombia. As things stand he is the most powerful criminal since Escobar. If your Patti thinks she can handle him like some petty English criminal then she is very wrong. And your other English friend and his lady … who are they?’

  ‘They’re in the same business as my boss.’

>   ‘And they know Branco. I think they too may be looking to cause trouble; but I’ll leave the English troublemakers to you.’

  He paused for breath.

  ‘Don’t hail a cab in the street. Ask the man on the door to get you one. At least that way you have a ninety per cent chance of arriving safely at your destination.’

  ‘What sort of country is this, Luis?’ Mark asked with a hint of desperation in his voice.

  ‘Sometimes, my friend, even I do not know,’ the Colombian replied and the last Mark saw of him was as he headed towards the telephone booths in the corner of the lobby.

  CHAPTER 20

  At two in the morning, standing on a corner of the Plaza de Bolivar in the heart of Bogota, Patti Delaney was beginning to think she may have made a mistake. In fact, she had probably made several mistakes, like deciding to follow up on Jessica’s leads, like coming to Bogota, like not confiding in Mark and not listening to Luis Cano’s words of warning. She just hoped that they were all remediable. Arranging to meet a man like Riccardo Branco in the early hours of the morning, when nobody else knew where the hell you were, could very well be the last mistake she ever made. She cursed her Irish-Jewish genes, that combination of curiosity and stubbornness that always seemed to get her into trouble. And on this occasion she was not too sure how she could possibly rely upon Mark to bail her out.

  It had all seemed so simple, so straightforward, but then it always did. A couple of names from Jessica, a map, the coincidence that Mark was going to be in the very country where it all started. Luis had been helpful. He’d thought he’d been telling her what he wanted, when in reality he’d been answering her questions, questions she’d prepared carefully before she’d left England. She wasn’t quite ready to go on Mastermind with Colombian Drug Exports as her specialist subject, but she wasn’t far off it. Taxis cruised by, taxis that might well take her back to the safety of the hotel and a bed to be shared with Mark. But she resisted the temptation to hail one, justifying her decision with the threat of kidnap or robbery of which Luis had warned. She forced herself to concentrate on what she knew in an attempt to blot out the situation in which she now found herself, and blot out the time, blot out the men who ogled her from afar. One or two had tried to approach her, but she had seen them off with a hail of obscene Spanish. She ran through the history, as she knew it, in her mind, the same sort of mental exercise she had used in the past, often when her mother was in one of her more incoherent modes.