White Knight/Black Swan

by David Gemmell

  ‘My, my, we are jittery.’ The ex-boxer sat down and poured himself a generous measure of Scotch. ‘Looks like you’re doing good business tonight. Must be a dozen tables in use out there.’

  ‘Friday’s a good night,’ said Reilly, pushing the gun back into its holster.

  ‘That should get the job done,’ said Green. ‘If you get a chance to use it.’

  ‘You sent two piggin’ maniacs!’ said Reilly. ‘You’ve no idea what they bloody did.’ He poured himself a Scotch and drained it.

  ‘They did what they were told – what they’re good at.’

  ‘A broken arm and a few bruises would have been just as good,’ said Reilly, filling his tumbler. ‘There was no need to damn near kill the poor bugger.’

  ‘You want to tell that to Reardon?’

  ‘I’m telling it to you. About the same thing these days, isn’t it?’

  ‘Don’t get flash with me, Reilly,’ said Green, softly. ‘It don’t pay. You’re frightened of Bimbo. Well, believe me, I’m ten times worse.’

  Reilly nodded. ‘I don’t doubt that for a second. I’ve seen men like you before. They never last. The police’ll stand back for a few rackets. But they won’t take the likes of you. Fucking mad dogs filling the streets with blood.’ Green rose from his chair, his face white. The snub-nosed Python flashed up, the black eye of the barrel pointing at his forehead. ‘If I had to do it again, Jackie, I wouldn’t tie in with Reardon. I thought he was a businessman. But he wants to be a gangster. Now get out of my office.’

  ‘You aint got the nerve to pull that trigger,’ said Green, locking his gaze to the older man’s. Reilly smiled, and, just for a moment, the old Liverpudlian street fighter rose from memory.

  ‘No? Then it’s lucky for me you haven’t got the balls to try me. Piss off, Jackie.’

  He eased back the hammer. Green said nothing, but he turned and left the room, pulling the door closed behind him. Reilly sank to his chair. It was all getting out of hand. A cold shiver passed through him, like someone walking over his grave. Events had moved out of control now, like a runaway train heading downhill. Nothing was going to stop it.

  And someone was going to die.

  Bimbo sat in his flat staring at the fire, unsure of what to do. Adrian was hanging on to life by a thread. The only thing the doctors were sure of was that, if he did survive, his hearing would be impaired in his right ear, and one of his kidneys was damaged. Bimbo was lost. He couldn’t march around the manor with a machine gun. He wasn’t Charles Bronson. And if he thrashed Reilly what would it achieve? Who would be next? Stepney? Esther? Sherry? Maybe it was time to leave, to find a job in some other city. A tap at the door disturbed him. He thought it might be Esther, then remembered she was in Sussex with her doctor boyfriend.

  ‘Who is it?’ he called.

  ‘It’s me. Stan.’

  Bimbo opened the door. Stan Jarvis stepped inside. Bimbo closed the door behind him and put on the kettle. Jarvis joined him in the small kitchen.

  ‘Sorry, mate. What can I say?’

  Bimbo shrugged. ‘I reckon he’ll pull through. Tough little bastard.’

  ‘Everybody’s talking about it. They’re all wonderin’ what you’re gonna do.’

  ‘What can I do, Stan? Ade started it all by refusing to pay. I got involved and I made things worse. I can’t make ’em no better. I aint no one-man – bleedin’ – army.’

  ‘You don’t have to be. There’s two of us.’ It was said simply and Bimbo looked into the man’s square face and nodded.

  ‘I know you mean that, and it’s good to know. But there aint no point, Stan. Stay out of it.’

  ‘You aint gonna let ’em get away with it, are ya?’

  Bimbo didn’t reply. He made the tea, handed Stan a mug, then walked past him and back to his chair by the fire. Stan joined him.

  ‘I know you aint scared, Bim, so what is it?’

  ‘I can’t stop it. They got me beat. I aint a killer, Stan. I’ll crack a few skulls if necessary, but that aint it anymore, is it? I’m on me own. No offence, Stan. I know you’ll stand with me, but there aint no point to it. We aint a gang. We aint the Krays. We got the muscle, but we aint got the evil, know what I mean?’

  ‘No, mate, I don’t. All I know is a friend of mine’s had the shit kicked out of him. You don’t do nothin’, then I will.’

  ‘What you gonna do, Stan?’ asked Bimbo, softly. ‘You bin watchin’ too many videos. You wanna take on Reilly? Or Reardon? They’ll be waitin’. Knives, pickaxe handles, maybe a shooter or two. You wanna take on Jackie Green? He don’t even need no weapons. Go ’ome, Stan.’

  ‘Stuff it!’ said Stan. ‘Don’t lie down and die, son. You’re worth more than all the rest of ’em put together. And anyway, you said it yourself, you can’t stop it. You bought the ticket. Now see the ride out.’

  ‘Don’t get me wrong, Stan. I aint runnin’.’

  ‘Didn’t think you would. Now hear me out. Reardon’s movin’ off the manor. Chiswick, Hammersmith, the Bush, Ealin’. They say he’s even moving in on Southall. And he’s bought a club up west. Big Time Frankie!’

  ‘So? The rich get richer. What does it prove?’

  ‘I said hear me out. I’m in business now. I know the way these things work. He’s borrowin’ money to finance his operations. Now’s the time to hit him.’

  ‘With what?’

  ‘Trust me, Bim. Each to his trade.’

  ‘Your trade’s videos.’

  ‘No, that’s just what they call a vocation. My first trade: arson.’

  Bimbo closed his eyes. ‘That’s what got you put away in the first place.’

  ‘Only cos some bastard squealed. Now, I done some checking. Reilly is under-insured. Place is a fire trap. Fire brigade went in and gave him two months to bring the place up to scratch. He won’t get a piggin’ penny if it comes down.’

  ‘You can’t torch the Seagull. There’s flats above it.’

  ‘Empty. Waitin’ for renovation. I told you, I done some checking.’

  ‘It aint worth the risk.’

  ‘He’s just had sixty grand’s worth of new tables and electronic gear. Paid cash up front. Know where he got the money? Borrowed it from Reardon. Now that should hurt.’

  ‘But the insurance?’ said Bimbo.

  ‘You don’t understand the insurance business, son. Legalised theft. If the building is unsafe they’ll void the policy. They’ll find any way they can not to pay up. They’ll claim contributory negligence.’

  ‘And you’re sure no one’s going to get hurt?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘I don’t know, Stan. You can’t be sure about a thing like that. Some dosser asleep round the back. Squatters in the flats.’

  ‘No one will get hurt.’

  ‘What about the fire brigade? Some fireman going in?’

  ‘Trust me.’

  Bimbo thought about it, and pictured Adrian in the hospital bed. ‘Where will it end, Stan?’ The video club owner spread his hands.

  ‘It’s like buying a ticket on a runaway train. You never know.’

  ‘Okay. Let’s do it.’

  ‘Jeez, I’m glad you said that. That’s a weight off my mind.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I torched the place before comin’ ’ere. It was goin’ a treat when I left. Fancy a beer?’

  Stepney rubbed at the numbed fingers of his right hand and carried on reading. The young reporter had been very kind allowing him access to the files for his book on royal visits to the town. She had brought him a cup of tea and shown him the filing cabinet marked L-R. He had thanked her and removed the ‘ROYAL’ file, settling down at the small iron desk in the filing room.

  ‘If you want anything just shout,’ said the girl.

  ‘I will. Thank you so much.’

 
When she had gone he returned to the cabinet and tugged open the drawer, pulling out the file marked ‘REARDON, FRANK’. It was mostly full of old cuttings, but someone had added a foolscap page of notes, giving basic details like date of birth, army record, and business interests.

  Stepney carefully copied the dates of interest into a small, leather bound notebook. The times may have changed, but the methods never vary, he thought, with a wry smile. Mussolini had known how to deal with enemies. Goebbels had learned from him, and refined his methods. Now, half a century later, Frank Reardon was to learn a terrible lesson.

  ‘But only if you live long enough, Heinrich,’ he told himself. It was difficult making the notes. His fingers felt swollen and numb, the writing was spidery. But he persevered. At 3.40 p.m. he returned both files to their place and left the office. It was cold outside, frost in the air. He thought of the geraniums in his window box. Time to take them in.

  What for? He would never see them bloom again. Still, someone might.

  He hailed a taxi and arrived home at 4.20 p.m. He was tired and weak, his strength fading. He wanted to sleep, to rest. But there was no time. Life was now measured in days. In his flat he fed a sheet of paper into an old typewriter. Just like the old days. A sense of deep pleasure swept through him as he thought of Frank Reardon’s face. Stepney worked for an hour, revising, polishing. The secret was not to go over the top. No adjectives. Simple statements always seem more real, and therefore retain the illusion of truth.

  It was something the Party understood from the very earliest days. You didn’t need a gun to destroy an enemy. What was it the Führer had said? Faced with a choice between the truth and the big lie, people will always believe the big lie. With men like Reardon it was easy to find the weak spot. Everything they had was built on their strength and their ruthlessness. There was a certain glamour, Stepney knew, that attached itself to gangsters. So then, destroy the glamour, and create … what? Contempt, disgust, and outrage.

  Oh yes, Frank Reardon, you have some surprises in store.

  The big lie is going to bring you down.

  At last satisfied, he folded the three sheets and lifted the telephone receiver. Beside the phone, on a large note pad, he had written the number he had found in Yellow Pages. He dialled it slowly.

  ‘Hedges,’ came the disembodied voice.

  ‘Mr Hedges of Oriol Printing?’

  ‘Yes, who is this?’

  ‘My name is Stepney. Be so kind as to call upon me at six-thirty this evening. My address is … do you have a pen?’

  ‘I’m a very busy man, Mr Stepney.’

  ‘Too busy to earn a swift, tax free thousand pounds?’

  ‘How swift?’

  ‘That will depend on you. But there is a second thousand to be earned almost as swiftly.’

  ‘Give me the address.’

  Hedges arrived five minutes early. Stepney watched him from the upstairs window, smiling as he saw the man step from a five year old Ford Capri. The old man walked to the top of the stairs and called down.

  ‘Come in, Mr Hedges, the door is open. Shut it behind you, if you please.’ Stepney waited as the man climbed the stairs. Hedges was a man in his mid-fifties. His face was red and blotchy, his eyes sunken and dark-ringed. He looked a man with troubles. Stepney hoped they were financial. ‘Follow me, please.’ He led the printer into the back room and sat down, beckoning him to a straight-backed chair.

  ‘Mind if I smoke?’ asked Hedges, pulling a pack of cigars from his pocket.

  ‘Yes I do. You may smoke in five minutes when you are away from here.’

  ‘Okay, down to business then: you mentioned two thousand pounds.’

  ‘First tell me of your printing set up.’

  ‘I can do anything you want. Posters, leaflets, small magazines, cards. You name it.’

  ‘I want a single page leaflet set in 12pt. Times Roman.’

  ‘I see you know your type. How many words?’

  ‘Four hundred and fifty.’

  ‘How many leaflets?’

  ‘The first run will be one thousand. The second the same, but different text. The third need only be five hundred.’

  ‘Sounds simple enough. What else?’

  ‘That is it.’

  Hedges leaned back, his face taking on a sad expression. ‘That’s not cost effective for me.’

  ‘Do not insult my intelligence, Mr Hedges. It will take you one hour to set the type, another two perhaps to run off the thousand. You could handle all three in a night, for which you would quote me perhaps three hundred pounds. But we will not quibble. You will receive five hundred pounds for the first printing. Two hundred and fifty more for each of the others. And there is a bonus, as I said, of another thousand.’

  ‘There is?’ said Hedges. ‘Why?’

  ‘Read this,’ said Stepney, passing the sheet to the printer. Hedges fished in his pocket for his glasses and settled back to read.

  ‘Jesus, Joseph and Mary!’ he whispered. ‘I can’t print this.’

  ‘You can,’ said Stepney firmly. ‘You will deliver these to me tomorrow morning at nine. No later. Here are the other two pages.’

  ‘I don’t even want to read them,’ said Hedges, rising.

  ‘That’s where the bonus comes in,’ said Stepney. ‘Call it danger money.’

  ‘Do you know what could happen to me if word got out that I printed these? Stuff me gently! I’d be wearing me nuts as a necklace. Get somebody else.’

  ‘Firstly, there will be no way to trace the leaflets to you, because there will be no way to trace them to me. Secondly, you will set the type yourself when everyone else has gone home. You will work alone. No one need know you had a hand in the production.’

  ‘You don’t think Reardon is going to check all the printers? I’m not risking my balls for a piddling two thousand.’

  ‘How much then are your balls worth?’

  Hedges sat down, and Stepney held back the smile of triumph. ‘What you want these for?’

  ‘To be read, Mr Hedges.’

  ‘I take it it’s all true. I suppose it must be.’

  ‘I suppose it must. How much?’

  ‘Give me a minute.’ Hedges pulled a cigar clear and tore off the cellophane wrapping. Stepney did not stop him. Hedges lit the cigar with a Zippo lighter and drew deeply on the smoke. ‘Five thousand,’ he said at last, but his eyes betrayed him.

  ‘Two thousand five hundred,’ said Stepney.

  ‘It’s not enough.’

  ‘I think so. For a little danger? It is enough.’

  ‘How can I be sure he won’t find out?’

  ‘Nothing is certain in this life, Mr Hedges. That is why the rewards are greater than normal. But if it will make you feel happier let me tell you that I am negotiating for a third party, who does not know where the printing is being done. He has been commissioned by a fourth party. You understand? By the time the leaflets arrive at their destination you will be twice removed from the scene. Also, there are five printers in the immediate area, and another fourteen in outlying areas. You are from the far end of Chelsea. They will not come to you first. They may not come to you at all. There are over fifty small print shops in this part of London.’

  ‘Three thousand. That’s my lowest.’

  ‘I am sure you have bills to pay. And I wonder, in these days of recession, when next you will have the opportunity of earning this amount for one night’s work?’

  ‘I must be mad,’ said Hedges. ‘What are you offering up front?’

  ‘Ten per cent. Two hundred and fifty pounds. The rest on delivery.’

  ‘And no one will ever know?’

  ‘No one but you and I.’

  ‘Are the other two sheets as bad as this one?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Jesus! Reardon will go apeshit.
’

  ‘One lives in hope, Mr Hedges.’

  ‘I’d better get going if I’m to be working all night.’

  ‘You better had.’

  8

  Stan Jarvis unlocked the shop door, turned on the light, switched off the alarm and prepared the start-of-day discs in his computer. Every customer, every film, every transaction was fed into the new Amstrad 8512, and Stan knew, almost to the penny, how much he’d made in the last year. He was on the verge of becoming rich – at least by his standards. He’d opened a second shop in Fulham, which was doing nicely, and had taken lease on a third in Ealing. The Porsche was getting closer all the time.

  ‘Not bad, Stanley,’ he told himself. Especially for the boy who went through school labelled ‘stunningly stupid’ by his headmaster, and was the butt of many jokes by his contemporaries. Three weeks before his school ordeal ended, a young, gifted teacher had finally diagnosed the reason for Stan’s torment. He was dyslexic, unable to memorise letters, or recreate written words from sounds.

  Stan had left school twenty-five years ago at fifteen and journeyed out into the wild East End with no qualifications and no future. He had taken several casual jobs, working on the lorries, or building sites, but money was tight and his £2-a-day was no great help to his widowed mother. Then he had met up with some schoolfriends who had other ideas about wealth, and Stan found himself heading for degree honours in burglary. He was careful, swift and cunning. And he was never caught. Then, twelve years ago, he had discovered his real talent. A timber merchant facing financial ruin needed a fire to cover his stupidity. Stan supplied it, and from the heat earned a cool £1000. It was a straight paraffin and rags blaze, but it was a beginning. Before the end of four years Stan Jarvis was the best professional ‘torch’ in London. Electronic igniters, failsafe cut outs, and clean alibis left Stan owning a nice house in Perivale, a solid bank account and guaranteed foreign holidays in places like Miami and Barbados. It also brought him a wife, Cora, and a Dobermann called Prince.

  Prince was a strange dog, incapable of being trained, lacking all loyalty, and a permanent cause of devastation in house and garden. But that still put the dog ten points ahead of Cora. She had been – probably still was – the best screw in London. And she’d certainly screwed Stan. She and her latest lover now had the house, the bank account and the foreign holidays. She had also ‘grassed’ on her husband and earned Stan Jarvis five years at one of Her Majesty’s less salubrious hotels.