‘Shanks rang, actually, to say maybe wait a few days until Trevor’s in a better humour. Sounds like they’re all in mournin for their three tonne of black.’
‘Thanks for lettin me know.’
‘We’ve never punted skanked gear before, Mort, it’s aggravation.’
‘It’s big bucks. Let’s not get carried away here. You ain’t trying to get elected, are ya?’
‘No!’
‘Good.’
I think a healthy gung-ho attitude, a large drop of the old bravado, has its place in the jollying-along process but I think Mister Mortimer is starting to move into what Americans and West Londoners call denial, a blanking of unsavoury facts. Did the captain of the Titanic tell the passengers and crew ‘Icebergs, I piss on ’em’? I think not.
A waitress comes over to shift the plates and Clarkie goes to stroke her arm but she moves away frightened. She looks at us like we’re cannibals. Clarkie ain’t touched the juice, it’s still lined up in highball glasses in a perfect row. The waitress retreats back to the safety of the other girls. They’re having a little conference of their own, waiting for us to finish. We’re getting disapproving looks.
‘How many of those pills did he have?’ I ask, nodding at Clarkie.
‘Two. And you know what he says they’re like?’ says Morty, looking at Mister Clark like he’s behind glass at the zoo.
‘Don’t tell me. They’re just like the old days?’
‘He says he’s been doin pills since he was twelve and these are the best he’s ever had.’
‘I ain’t in the mood for one of Clarkie’s “I was shiftin ounces of charlie at primary school” stories this morning, Mort.’
‘He says if he usually does only two, it don’t touch the sides but look . . .’
Clarkie’s staring up, open-mouthed, at the white-washed, plasterboard, suspended ceiling, with neon striplights and sprinkler system, gazing like it was created by one Michelangelo.
‘Let’s get the fuck outta here. I’m having fuckin lunch in Soho, civilisation, if you wanna tag along,’ I declare, ‘and I think I better drive.’
Tuna Can Be Life or Death
This is more like it, this is what I joined up for. Me and Morty’s getting seated in this gaff in Soho that’s highly recommended. It’s the latest trendy spot for all the latest trendy people. It’s hard to get in, even on a Wednesday lunchtime, but Morty ringing every five minutes all the way down the motorway, driving ’em mad, has got us a reservation. They wanted to tuck us away in the corner downstairs but he’s either bribed someone or caused a fuss so now we’re sitting upstairs on the good tables, facing out into the restaurant so we can observe the comings and goings, nut the creamy women and do a bit of our favourite sport, people-watching. We like to get in the watering holes where the most exotic birds come to feed, simply sit back and soak it up.
This place is the nuts, with strange flowers in polished steel vases, orchids floating in crystal bowls on the tables and huge, nutty, a bit psychotic if you ask me, abstract paintings on the walls. Whole slabs of concrete walls are painted in primary colours, orangey red, Irish green, turquoise and a regal purple and whole walls are left bare so they look like an underground car-park. Daylight pours in through the skylight. It’s indulgent and luxurious but in a different way from Pepi’s Barn. Jimmy wouldn’t like it. He’d say there’s far too many pretentious wankers in the place. The clientele are mostly media, film, telly and advertising folk. Hopefully that’s what me and Mister Mortimer look like, a pair of film-producer dudes hatching a plot to make a movie, and not a porn one either. This is all very civilised, what I need, a nice spot of lunch. A lot of our product ends up going up the hooters of these good people but it’s still a bit early in the day for most of them. In fact, most of them stick to the bottled water at four-fifty a go. Maybe it would be different if this was Friday afternoon rather than Wednesday. The good folk of medialand would be letting off, getting nicely loosened up for weekend frolics and a right royal nose-up. Today it’s just the hubbub of talking business and gossip, doing deals, running shit up flagpoles, mixed with the gentle chinking of glasses, people coming and going with hugs and air kisses. I’ve seen these sedate people at full throttle and it’s one mad fucking party, nicely debauched.
Clarkie got dropped off at Kilburn station, got a cab over to see some Richard and we commandeered the Rover. I can’t seem to raise Geno on the phone anywhere, home or mobile, but that ain’t really unusual. We need to talk to him and let him know about the business with the pills, circumstances of origin, but if he can’t be found we might as well relax, take our boots off and have some decent grub. Maybe Morty’s denial’s rubbing off on me, maybe I feel better being back on familiar turf, I felt like kissing the pavement outside Kilburn High Road tube, but the business about the Germans, the Yahoos, Van Tuck, don’t seem like the naughty problem it was when I got out of bed this morning.
We order tomato and orange soup with toasted fennel, tuna Niçoise, steaks well-done cee-voo-play, an olive bread for the soup and a ciabatta garlic bread to come with the main and a bottle each of sparkling and still water. We’re simple folk us.
‘I was in this gaff Saturday night with this bird,’ says Morty. ‘I’ve ordered the tuna Niçoise and when it’s arrived it’s come with tinned tuna flakes.’
‘That’s a bit cheap.’
‘Not when they’re charging about a tenner a go.’
‘No, I mean it’s cheap of them.’
‘Dead right. A tuna Niçoise should have iceberg lettuce, new potatoes, green beans, anchovy, right? Boiled eggs, dressing and a fuckin grilled tuna steak, not fuckin tinned shit. Or better still, a griddled tuna steak.’
‘Fuckin dead right. You backed it, yeah?’
‘Fuckin right I backed it. I got the head man over and he was dead embarrassed, no fuss, no threats, the bird’s well impressed.’
‘Did they sort you out?’
‘Yeah. I could’ve stronged it and got the whole turn-out for nothin but I didn’t. I just told ’em they got me mixed up with some other geezer, some muppet who pays a cockle for a tuna salad.’
‘It’s not the money it’s the fact that they’re takin the piss.’
‘Not outta me, they ain’t. No fuckin way.’
‘So what did you eat?’
‘Oh, they found me a tuna steak from somewhere, maybe they sent out for it. Fuck knows.’
‘Any val?’
‘Very good, it was, after the wait.’
Our soup arrives.
‘I knew this geezer once, in the shovel, got killed over a can of tuna.’
Here we go.
‘How come?’ I say.
‘All those guys who pump iron save their wages and buy stuff, you know, tins of tuna and that from the canteen. They open the tuna, eat it outta the can and straight away work out and that way you pump up cos it’s pure protein, tuna. That’s how it’s done. You can bang away for ever on them weights but if you ain’t got the right fuel on board it’s a fuckin waste of time.’
‘Is that right?’
‘Oh yeah. So this can of tuna’s gone missin from this guy Vinny Taylor’s cell and Vinny’s got it into his nut that this other guy, Frankie Brown, has choored it outta the cell so he’s got himself all wound up, marched into Frank’s cell and plunged him in the throat, straight in the fuckin jugular, no fuckin about, crash! Blood’s sprayed out everywhere.’
‘What, you was in the cell?’
‘Yeah, we was havin a little smoke. This soup’s cold.’
‘It’s meant to be.’
‘Yeah, three or four of us were just sittin about when in marched Vinny, straight over to Frankie in three big steps, one, two, three and crash–’ Morty does a cutting motion with his soup spoon ‘– all over in about a second, two seconds tops. He’s done him twice, either side. He held his head back and he knows exactly, ex-zact-lee, what he was doin so there was fuck all anyone could do about anything.’
‘So
you scarpered?’
‘Right, cos Vinny stood over him so we couldn’t do shit. The claret’s gone up the fuckin walls, over us, it’s gone fuckin everywhere.’
‘Where did the blade come from?’
‘Everyone had a chiv, it was that kinda neighbourhood.’
‘All over a fuckin can of tuna. What’s a can of tuna cost? Sixty pence? Eighty?’
‘Fuck knows. Anyways, it wasn’t just about the tuna –’
I’d kinda worked that out on my own.
‘It’s about all sorts of shit, you know, respect, status. And all that body-building crap.’
‘Who’s got the best definition and that.’
‘Yeah, it’s all a bit queer, really. Anyway, it had all been simmering for some time. They’re slowly windin each other up, nothin you can put your finger on, but you know . . .’
‘So what’s happened?’
‘Oh, the big lockdown, outside old bill brought in, Vinny’s been ghosted down to the Moor.’
‘The what?’
‘Dartmoor. This went off in the Scrubs, D-wing, right, and as far as anyone knows he got moved that night down to the block and then on to the Moor, poor fucker, and he’ll have trouble gettin’ out of there.’
‘They question you?’
‘Next day, couldn’t tell ’em nothin, but Vinny put his hands up straight away anyway, mainly cos he was caught red-handed stood over Frankie and he wouldn’t let the screws in to help him, so there you go. Such is life.’
‘Such is life,’ I shrug.
‘Strange guy, Vinny, but people wouldn’t take liberties with him.’
‘So he gets lifed off?’
‘Well, he was doin life anyway for serving some geezer over a bird so what can they do except give him another life sentence and tell him he can’t apply for parole until about the year two thousand and fifty when he’s about ninety fuckin five anyway. Double-lifer.’
Morty shrugged and tore at some olive bread.
‘It was too late for an anger-management course,’ I say.
‘Too late for Frankie Brown,’ says Mort.
‘Too late for Vinny Taylor. Did they ever find out who nicked the can of tuna?’
‘No, thank fuck.’
It took a couple of seconds.
‘What, you nicked the tuna, Morty?’
Morty stays silent, finishes his soup, pushes the bowl away.
‘Well, strictly between me and you, yeah–’ He lowers his voice and looks about just in case any of the good folk should be earwigging ‘– it was me. I was hungry.’
‘Did you ever, like, let on it was you, tell anyone, like?’
Morty raises an eyebrow slightly then looks up at the ceiling like he can’t believe what he’s hearing. He talks slow like he’s speaking to a stupid child.
‘Well, it was, how can I put this? Er, it wasn’t like a group-therapy situation, yeah? You understand, brov?’
‘Yes, Mort.’
Our main course arrives.
‘Well, well, well. Now that looks like a proper tuna Niçoise.’
My phone rings. I don’t know the number. It’s a land-line number, maybe it’s Geno. I push the receive button.
‘Where are you?’ asks Cody.
‘We’re in Soho, me and Mort, havin something to eat.’
‘You got a pen?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Write down this address.’
I grab a paper napkin and write it down. ‘What’s this, Cody?’
‘Block of flats, other side of the Euston Road from King’s Cross mainline. Come over as soon as, okay? Low profile, hands in pockets, yeah? You drivin?’
‘Yeah.’
Cody sounds all business.
‘Park right off the plot but ASAP.’
‘Is this good news?’
‘How long you two gonna be?’
‘Half an hour. One or both?’
‘The ice cream.’
Freezer. Kinky. ‘You should sound pleased, that’s three ’n’ ‘alf.’
‘Might need a steward’s. Listen, thirty minutes then I’m gone.’
He’s off the phone already. Sounded a bit bottley, not like Cody at all.
‘That was Cody. He reckons he’s found the boyfriend, Kinky.’
‘That’s a touch, then, ain’t it. No bird?’
‘No. He says we gotta go over there like right now. We better stick that tuna steak in some of that bread, grab a bottle of water and a cab and go and see what he’s got.’
‘What, leave the motor in the NCP? Where is he?’
‘King’s Cross. Might be easier.’
‘Fuckin lovely. You can pay for this, seein as I’m givin you a hand.’
I pay and we walk out with a very expensive tuna sandwich and a bottle of water each. The taxi won’t take us anywhere until we’ve finished eating so we could’ve relaxed and finished in the restaurant.
We get the taxi to drop us in front of the station like we was going on a trip. We go through the subway so now we’re on the side of the Euston Road that we want. Addicts and boozers are sitting on or draped over the crash barriers looking for a clue. It’s busy round the front of the station with travellers, office workers and a few tourists even. Mort pulls one of the drunkies over and asks him where this street is. The guy, who’s a Jock or a Paddy, spots the name of the block of flats written on the napkin, points it out, incoherently mumbling and swaying at the same time. He’s trying to focus on me and Mort but it just looks like he’s pulling faces, grooning. We laugh. Far from being offended the geezer laughs too. Morty gives him a handful of change and the lagging boat wants to shake Morty’s hand but Mort ain’t keen.
The block is like a fortress, with a wire fence all around and a private security guard sat behind a concierge desk reading the paper. There’s a panel outside and I push in the number of the flat and push the ‘Call’ button. Straight away the door buzzes and in we walk. The guy doesn’t look up as we walk past into the lift. It smells of piss, no surprise there. The flat we want is on the fifth floor. As we emerge outta the lift there’s a geezer I know, out on the landing. Tiptoes was rumoured to be able to walk without touching the floor. In reality he walks very light-footed, on the very tips of his toes, hence the moniker. He works in the same game as Cody, he’s good, but he ain’t in the same league as Billy Bogus. He has his finger over his lips, shooshing us, his eyes are sweeping the locale to see if anyone’s watching us. Me and Mort, who are quite boisterous after the grooner, suddenly have to get schtoom.
Tiptoes motions us in silently. He’s all gloved-up. He gives us a wink, nods over his shoulder and then shuts the door without making a sound. The gaff stinks, it’s fuckin putrid and stale, like something’s died. There’s an accumulation of trampled mail on the mat, bills and final demands, a scattering of envelopes that brought Giros, empty and slung back in the pile. There’s a commotion going on inside. Tiptoes leads us through into a front room where Cody’s got three geezers sat on a dilapidated three-piece suite in front of him. He turns to us.
‘Just one minute, Inspector, I think we may be getting somewhere at last,’ he says to us as we enter.
‘Crack is the devil and you suck his cock, Mister Policeman, you beg, steal and sell your soul to worship at his altar. Kinky is with the Angel Gabriel, safe from harm, gone to join the fight with the good angels against Lucifer’s forces, the forces of evil that you represent on this earth.’
The guy’s whacked out, frazzled, glaring eyes. He’s white and got the beginning clumps of dreads. Something in his voice says he’s middle class, home counties and educated, but he’s fallen a long way from grace.
‘Listen, Graham, maybe you could be quiet for a bit and let the others speak.’
‘You can try and silence the word of the Nazarene.’
‘Where did the money come from? Listen, I ain’t here to nick anyone. I just need to get to the bottom of this, trust me.’ Cody’s talking to a kid who looks about fifteen, street kid, ma
ybe a rent, dirty, snotty-nosed. Maybe the shunters like it like that. The kid says nothing, but he carries on absent-mindedly pulling the stuffing outta the arm of the sofa, rolling it up into balls and letting it drop to the floor. The religious freak with the hint of crack psychosis rumbles on and fuckin on. I start to tune him out, blank him, while Cody’s telling him to shut the fuck up.
I turn my back on the trio and whisper to Tiptoes.
‘Is Kinky here?’
Tiptoes nods very slightly.
‘One of them?’
He shakes his head but says nothing. I hope he ain’t escaped on us. I was getting my fuckin hopes up, could be on the home stretch. The floor in this room is scattered with empty purple and gold cans. In the corner there’s an old, discarded box of takeaway chicken that’s starting to chuck-up, smell, and it’s made worst cos the curtains are drawn and the windows ain’t been opened for ages. The gaff’s been totally trashed. I walk through the room doing my best impersonation of a police officer, moving things with the end of my pen. I notice that the television’s missing from its spot on the table that all the chairs in the room point at. There’s a total lack of dust in an oblong where the TV once was in pride of place. There’s an aerial wire, going nowhere, giving the game away. This place was never gonna be in any interior design magazines but now it’s had the arse torn outta it.
There’s burnt spoons, bloody works, cans, bent and punctured to smoke rocks, pipes made from water bottles, burnt Jimmy Boyle, lemons, squeezed, hairy and grey and half-eaten Kit-Kats where the brothers only wanted the foil wrap to have a little boot, empty wraps. All the ingredients, in fact, of a toe-rags’ picnic. The last of the trio that Cody’s trying to get sense outta is roasting, sweating and ill, a dozen-a-dime junkie, hustler, hoyster, burglar, mugger. The kinda kid Jimmy would call jail fodder.
‘All the devil’s disciples name is Satan, I am of the damned, this is our sacrifice, this is our sacrament. We must return to the anti-Christ before it’s too late.’
The geezer Graham is off again with more energy than before. It’ll take more than two aspirins to sort his head out. I catch Cody’s eye and motion him to come out into the kitchen.
Layer Cake Page 19
