The phone by the bed starts to ring. Four shrill rings and it goes on the machine, but each feels like someone’s sadistically tapping the nails in my temples. I pull the pillow over my ears. The message plays, then Jimmy Price’s voice starts booming out.
‘Are you there, son? Where the fuck are you?’
Without thinking I pick up the phone. ‘Hello, Mister Price.’
‘Oh, so you are there, son.’
‘Yeah, I’m here all right. I was asleep.’
‘What, at ten o’clock in the fuckin day? That’s no fuckin good, is it?’
‘I had a bittova night last night.’
‘Listen, I couldn’t give a fuck what you did.’
I wish I’d left the fuckin phone alone. It’s very unusual for him to ring anyone at home. ‘Listen, Jim, I ain’t usually in bed at–’
‘Don’t fuckin call me Jimmy, yer little prick. What’s the idea of tellin JD that those fuckin pills ain’t worth shit, who the fuck are you to be tellin anyone what those things are worth, yer cunt. Then you go runnin up north to your fuckin scouser pals and tell ’em they can fuckin have ’em for sixpence each. And what the fuck you think you’re doin gettin people at it, shittin your pants about some dead schwartza, spookin people, tellin ’em he’s been fuckin topped by fuckin ghosties . . .’
If I, or James Lionel Price, was under surveillance, being ear-wigged, by Crim Intel, the Regional Crime Squad, customs, the Drug Squad, the Fraud Squad or even the Metropolitan Police Latin-American Ballroom Dancing Team, he could not possibly make it any easier for them. They don’t even have to sit around in draughty old make-believe laundry vans with cumbersome headphones on anymore either. I’ve got a mobile phone over there, in that jacket, and it can do anything short of give me a blow-job. Ask any young kid who works in telecommunications what Mister Plod can do with a phone these days and it’ll make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. If anyone in law and order, maintenance department, has any kinda interest in who I chat me business to on a daily basis they’ve only gotta do their own little version of call divert. They can sit in the comfort of their offices in an anonymous building somewhere, feet up, doing The Times crossword, eating a tuna Sicilian sandwich, drinking Java coffee and listen to me and Jimmy, loud and clear, on the speaker-phone. If anything juicy occurs they can listen back, at their leisure, to the digitally recorded, automatically enhanced, crisp as you like, tape recordings.
‘And another thing, you dainty little pouf, “That’s an expansive question,’” he lisps. ‘You find a fuckin buyer for those fuckin pills or I’ll find someone who will, you fuckin understand, you cunt, and don’t fuckin leave it to some up-his-own-arse fraudster to be findin that fuckin bitch, you fuckin go and you fuckin find her, yer little prick. Get off yer fuckin arse and get to Brighton, and don’t be getting too fuckin cosy with those fuckin irons down there either . . .’
Mister Price, I have a question for you. Why don’t you fuck off, Fuck Right Off, you Mister Price, your slag of a wife with her two-bob pretensions and her complete collection of Rod fuckin Stewart records, your double-moody, over the top, make-believe respectability with your pretend mock-Tudor house, why don’t you just go fuck yourself. Of course I don’t say that. I ain’t got foolishness mixed up with bravery.
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ I say.
‘Don’t be lying in bed all day, pullin yourself about.’
‘I’m ready to walk out the door right now.’
‘Don’t fuckin lie to me, yer little prick,’ he spits.
‘I ain’t doing –’
‘Stay off the fuckin booze as well. I don’t like havin laggin boats round me.’
He’s gone, thank fuck. What was that tirade all about? It’s been four days since he wanted me to find the princess, who’s now ‘that fuckin bitch’, and three days since I got the word about the pills and now he’s fuckin panicking cos he can’t get his own way, like a big fuckin baby.
What I need’s a horny little nurse like Tammy to coax me back to life. What I don’t need is a day spent driving in circles in a hot, stuffy motor with unpredictable Morty and Clarkie, who never stops fuckin talking, trying to find a buyer for a lorryloada pills with a seriously dodgy recent history. Of all the mornings he picks to ring me up outta the blue, he has to choose this one. The one morning he’s gonna catch me out he rings. Well, fuck you, Mister Price, King Dinosaur, I won’t be sorry to see the back of you. Maybe I’ll skip school today.
I realise that while I’ve been talking to him I’ve absent-mindedly picked up the shooter, so I’ve got the receiver in one hand and the gun in the other and I’m waving it round, taking a lazy aim at the light fittings, the cactus plants, the Gucci loafer on the floor and talking to him as well. When I put the phone down I’m left with only the metal. I wonder if it’s loaded. I try to remember how Gene did it last night. After some pushing and pulling, fiddling with some catches, the magazine drops out onto the bed and, yes, it’s loaded, very loaded. I push the bullets out onto the bed, one by one, and count them all the way up to sixteen. There’s sixteen plump bullets in a pile on the bedclothes and the clip’s empty. This is all a bit of a mystery and it’s getting deeper all the time.
Then, bang, like a knee in the guts, this evil sense of foreboding. What if I’ve been out with this fucker last night and shot some poor bastard? I’ve heard tales of geezers being well pissed, or well out of it, doing some crazy but serious shit and remembering nish the next day. They’ve been captured later and they honestly don’t know if they’ve done it or not. They go ‘Not guilty’ but get a guilty. They’re sitting in the shovel for years not even knowing if they’re really guilty or not, not knowing if they should be barricaded up on the roof of the nick protesting their innocence and mobilising the friends and family into a campaign to prove them non-culpable. It’s the kinda thing that Crazy Larry woulda done. I’m panicking and sniffing the chamber of the tool. My heart’s racing but it only smells of machine oil and metal. I’m relieved that it hasn’t been fired. Thank fuck for that. I had some very nasty scenarios kicking about in my nut, some very heavy gravy. Panic over.
I start to push the bullets back into the gap and they fit so snugly, almost sexily, back into the chamber. Someone’s been at these, filing the tops flat. I wipe my prints carefully off each one in turn, cos you never know where they could end up, do you. I don’t wanna leave any bullets hanging about either, so I double-check by counting them back in, fifteen, sixteen, done. I flick the magazine back into the pistol. It all fits together so perfectly. It’s so beautifully engineered, such a lovely weight in my hand, heavier than the ones last night, almost twice as heavy, a useful bitta kit, some might say. Right now I need a shower, shave and my arse in gear cos I really just wanna be out of here, maybe get an omelette, get a steam and a rub-down over Porchester Hall. I wanna day off after my striping from that old cunt.
In the shower I’m like a cat with hydrophobia but it slowly gets better. I give myself a pep talk in the mirror while I have a shave. I’m unsteady on my feet, still a bit pissed from last night as well as very hungover. I manage to down half a pint of water and a selection of vitamins and keep them down, so I make myself a cup of coffee. Maybe I need a hair of the dog. I pour a hit of brandy into the coffee. Maybe some of that flake coke behind the medicine cabinet would make the concoction complete. I get it out and sprinkle some into the brandy-coffee. All this misery is self-inflicted and that makes it worse. I put on a black suit, well cut but not at all flash, fine lightweight wool, to compensate for feeling like a paraffin lamp waking up among the dustbins. I put it with a beautiful gold polo-neck sweater in Merino lambswool by some guy in Barcelona. I tip over the other loafer in the front room, pair it up, put them back in the wardrobe. I’ve decided that they’re definitely jinxed, definitely bad karma. I ain’t thinking very straight today and at least I know it. I get out a pair of black Prada brogues and just as I’m lacing up the second shoe, the phone goes. If it’s Price ringing
back to go another few rounds I’m gonna tell him to go fuck himself, I’ve decided. I’m starting to feel much, much better. It’s not so bad, this, being half pissed in the morning, the feel-good effects of coke are seriously over-estimated, though. I don’t know how we get away with selling it.
‘Hello?’
‘Good day to you,’ says a German accent in perfect English.
‘Who’s this?’
‘My name is Klaus.’
‘Should I know you?’
‘Perhaps. I believe you may have some property belonging to me and my associates.’
‘I think I know who you are, Klaus.’
‘Mister Van Tuck gave me your number, eventually.’
Better English than me. A credit to their education system.
‘Don’t know how he could have had it in the first place,’ I say. He was a collector of drug traffickers, a fuckin narcotics dealers’ anorak.
‘Well, he did. And he vouched for your organisation to my organisation.’
‘What organisation? I don’t have an organisation.’
‘Led by your colleague name of the Duke, your personal and firm friend, I believe, no?’
‘I never met this Duke in my life, Klaus.’
‘They came to Amsterdam and quoted your name, and Mister Mortimer, Mister Clark and Van Tuck vouched for your credibility as honourable and noble men.’
‘Listen, Klaus, why don’t you come round? I’ll have the maid prepare a bitta breakfast, we’ll ground some coffee and we’ll discuss this like grownups. How does that sound?’
‘It sounds very hospitable, very adult.’
‘Do you know where I live, Klaus?’
‘No.’
‘Well, fuck off then.’
Much Needed Rest and Recuperation
I’m just going out the door when my mobile rings. The display shows Clarkie’s mobile number so I answer it.
‘Listen. Go to the outside one, you know the one I mean?’ he says. I can hear tannoys like he’s in a mainline railway station.
‘Yeah, gimme five minutes.’
‘Okay,’ and he’s gone.
There’s a bank of three phone-boxes about five minutes’ walk from my flat. Clarkie will have all three numbers and he’ll ring the first one in five minutes. If that’s engaged, he’ll ring the next one and so on until I pick up the phone. It’s a beautiful spring morning, sunny, so I’ve got my shades on, but I’m already starting to piss sweat. I’m sure it smells of Irish whiskey. The phone’s ringing as I arrive. I walk in the box and pick it up.
‘Alright, Clarkie?’ I say.
‘How’d ya know it was me?’
He’s on a payphone too.
‘You’re back from outta space then?’ I say.
‘Those pills. Fuckin ‘ell. I’ll tell ya when I see ya.’
‘I’ll look forward.’
‘Listen, let’s make this quick. Wassa industrial wardrobe?’
‘Fuck knows. I woulda thought that it was a kinda locker affair that they use in factories and on building sites for overalls and that.’
‘Like an ordinary wardrobe but made a steel?’ asks Clarkie.
‘Exactly, Clarkie. Why?’
‘Old bill fished one outta the River Lee last night about sixish with two bodies inside. Get this, they had to use a crane on wheels to get it out. The thing was packed full of hundred-kilo bags of just-add-water cement to weigh it down.’
‘That would sink a long fuckin way. How’d they find it?’
‘A barge hit it cos it settled too upright in the water. Whoever dropped it in there, dropped it too straight.’
‘How do ya know?’
‘Some of it’s on the news. Where you been? I been ringin ya.’
‘Out and about. I’ll tell ya when I see ya. Why did I have to come outside to hear that?’
‘There’s more. My old man got a bent gather. Two bods, right? No hands or heads, right. Geezer, huge fucker apparently. Bird, skinny as fuck, nothin of her. They reckon this geezer’s mobbed up with you-know-who from outta town. You know who I mean?’
‘Yeah.’
‘They’re both wanted for questioning about a shootin and weapons charges,’ says Clarkie.
‘We’re not talkin JD, are we?’ I say, but I already know the answer to that.
‘No. The geezer’s AKA the Duke, like John Wayne.’
‘Do they know or are they guessing?’ I ask.
‘It’s almost nailed on. All that lot have gone low-profile and maybe moved up town. See, Morty still wants to do a trade but if those fuckin Germans are on the rampage it might be better–’
‘One of those fuckin Germans rung me up.’
‘What!’
‘Fuckin rung me up this mornin. Somehow Van Tuck had my number. This Duke’s firm went to the Dam and used our names as credentials.’
‘Fuckin ‘ell, mate. What, me and Morty as well?’
‘Yep.’
‘Was they screamin and shoutin about their pills?’
‘Nah. The geezer I spoke to was dead polite but I told him to fuck off.’
‘You told him to fuck off? Are you all right?’ says Clarkie like he can’t believe it.
‘Not really. I’ve had a funny coupla days.’
‘You’re usually the one wants to sit down and sort things out, chat, chat, chat, till it’s sorted.’
‘Clarkie, believe me, I’m regretting it now. I can see it wasn’t such a smart fuckin move.’
‘I hope we don’t all live to regret it, brov.’
‘Listen, Clarkie, me and Mort went to a meet with this Yahoo firm on Monday night in a gaff in Edmonton. Find Terry and go and see what’s happenin up there.’
‘The whole place’ll be smash-alive with cozzers, heavy mob, Edmonton’s where the two bods were found.’
‘If ya see any old bill, sound the retreat but I’d like to know what’s goin on, if anythin. I’ll give ya the address. Look on a street atlas and have a look at it. You’ll see there’s a fuckin great patcha wasteground overlooking it. Get some binoculars and–’
‘Binoculars!? Are you for fuckin real?’ says Clarkie.
‘Yeah. Big fuck-off ones from one of those shops on Oxford Street and go over there and see what you can see. Plot up and then drive round for a bit. Look for big flash, lemon motors. Look for clues. That’s what old bill do.’
‘And you’re gonna be doin what?’ he says with the zig as I give him the address.
‘I’m havin a day off. I’m goin offside for the day. I’ve had him, Jimmy Price, on the phone givin me a ruckin, screamin. I know he’s your old man’s mate and all that but he’s a–’
‘My old man don’t really like the geezer, reckons he’s losin the plot, between ourselves.’
‘Anyway, I’m havin a twenty-four-hour pass. You just made my mind up for me.’
‘What the fuck did I say?’
‘Nuffin personal, Clarkie, please don’t take it the wrong way, but I’d just like one day, today, where people ain’t tellin me all sorta unsavoury shit or wreckin gaffs or smashin people ‘bout or tellin me ‘bout two people chopped to fuck, without heads, in a fuckin industrial wardrobe in a fuckin river.’
‘I think you maybe need it, pal. You sound stressed.’
I can hear the pips going.
‘Don’t tell me I’m stressed, Mister Clark, and don’t be tellin anyone else either.’
‘Fuckin relax, brov, deep breathin-’
He’s gone. Clarkie’s on a fuckin wind-up but I don’t give a fuck and while I’m here I’m gonna give Geno a double-quick ring about his little baby back at the hide-out. I drop ten pence in, ring the number and he answers, sounding fresh as a daisy. ‘Hello, son. Good crack last night, wasn’t it. I didn’t know you knew rebel songs.’
Neither did I.
‘A fine voice you have when you allow yourself.’
‘Listen, Gene, when do you want to collect this bitta property?’
‘Start again, son, you�
��ve lost me.’
‘I think I took home one of your aids to meditation last night. You with me?’
‘No, son. I’m getting more confused.’
‘One of those things you use to concentrate the mind with, yeah?’
‘Son, this is as clear as Mother’s shit soup. Was I there when all this was taking place?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you sure?’ he asks.
‘Fuckin ’ell, Gene,’ I say, losing patience.
‘Now, now, son. You may have a sore head this morning but that ain’t my fault.’
Like fuck it ain’t.
‘Gene, straight question, do you know what I’m talkin about?’
‘I swear by almighty God I’m starting to think I’m getting a crank fuckin call here. I don’t know what the fuck you’re on about,’ says Gene with his edge.
Maybe he don’t and I won the metal in a tombola. Maybe I was out and about last night, on a mission, ended up in some asylum and got to thinking buying a tool was a good idea. Maybe at the time it was. Does happen.
‘Listen, Gene, where did I go from yours last night?’
‘Am I to believe you’re seriously ringing me up to enquire about your own whereabouts? Is everybody going mad?’ I can hear him tutting. I bet he’s shaking his head.
‘So you don’t know?’ I ask.
‘Well, it would appear that there’s two of us in the dark. Listen, I’ve got to march on. Maybe you should just go away home and get your head down for a couple of hours. You listening, son?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I’ll catch yer later, son.’
I definitely need a bitta rest and recuperation away from all this bollocks. I need a good charver, a bitta freestyle, a good bunk-up, doctor’s orders, to get me thinking straight again. Who’d be pleased to see me, a little tatty round the edges, at eleven-thirty on a Thursday morning? I start to walk back down the hill to my flat. Fate favours the brave. I’m gonna give Tammy a ring and see if anything’s going on, see if she’s about and work from there. I push her number on the mobile.
Layer Cake Page 23
