by Bill James
‘Yes, I know, Benny. Well, one of your lads, isn’t it?’ Macey replied. ‘You worry about all of us.’
‘That boy, he had such gifts.’
‘Sure. But it’s done now. Look on the bright side, Benny. Think of this evening, God, but you’re going to be the belle of this ball in that gear. What I’d say you resemble is His Excellency somewhere, one of them colonies, in the old days, yes, His Britannic Excellency waiting for his rickshaw to take him to the club, but staying so cool even in the cuff-links and waistcoat, and all the maddening heat. Your missus is right. Benny wouldn’t do for what you look like tonight. It got to be Theodore, Benny. You need a name with dimensions.’
‘Must put on a show. They’ll all be there. Mayors and big business, MPs, swagger-stick cops and medieval pussy from the Women’s Voluntary Charity is a big call, gets everybody dressing up. Quite right, too. This is what’s known as a good cause. I’m definitely in favour.’
‘What charity, Benny?’ Macey asked.
‘What?’
‘What charity ball specific you going to?’
‘You know, one of them charities – collecting to save something, £60 a double ticket, before the rip-off booze and parking. Me and Alma went last year. She gets very concerned about . . . what’s it called? – them needy, yes, that’s it, them needy. Or could be whales. Well, a whale got feelings, quite probable. I’m very happy to help. I don’t mind turning out in these tiddly clothes, and the smiling at everybody and bent raffles, as long as no chamber of trade jerk turns witty and aloof, you know, smart arse, snide remarks about my business interests, where the money comes from, all that, like they was so spotless, all looking after each other, turning blind eyes. Historians will tell you three-quarters of the House of Lords was bandits or pimps a couple of centuries ago. Only time have given them the nice accents and prize rhododendrons in their grounds. But it upsets Alma if these pricks get uncivil, I can tell you. Is that humane, to load rough pain on to someone as sensitive as Alma?’
‘Diabolical. But you can handle it, I know, Benny. What you give them is that gentle but biting repartee? It seems gentle but when they have a think really it’s biting. Everybody says these sort feel that more than smashing their nose with a head-butt. Known as sophisticated.’
‘Maybe, maybe,’ Loxton replied. ‘Tell me about our boys handling the operation.’
‘This model’s no good for showing it, obvious, Benny, but here you got a long window, high up near the ceiling of the hall, above the little stage,’ Macey pointed. ‘Our boys are in an eight-floor office corridor next door, higher, looking right down on to that window and the stage. They’ll be firing through two lots of glass, but no trouble. Couldn’t be better. It’s going to be night, so nobody in the office building except an occasional bit of sketchy security. We can handle that, I mean, handle it in a subtle way, we don’t want no tangle with security. We don’t want any tangle at all, because this is a maximum precision job and the boys will need quiet. The darkness is all right, because the targets will be fully illuminated on that stage, like a spotlight.’
‘Bobby and Norman,’ Benny said.
The two men nodded.
‘Well, you know there’s not many people better with a rifle and telescopies,’ Macey declared.
‘Nobody,’ Loxton agreed.
‘That’s why we brought in Bobby Lentle, obvious. They both say it can be done and they can handle it and get out afterwards. It’s going to be a lot neater than Lee Harvey Oswald.’ Macey signalled to the two men, inviting them to speak, and went to sit on a low-backed settee while they took over. He was about thirty, big-jawed and powerfully made, with remarkably deep-set eyes that gave him a look of hair-trigger menace. Loxton valued Macey, but had learned to keep him in the background except during bad crises, because he upset people. Of course, there were times when people needed to be upset, or more than that, like Leo and his boys, and then Macey earned his keep. His dark hair was always very well done – skilfully cut and obviously clean – and he spent a packet on clothes, good clothes in fashion, not bin ends, fine suits and such, but he still looked what he was, someone who had shoved his way up from street fighting and chickenshit villainy to . . . Well, to Loxton’s prime operations. Somewhere during that career Macey had lost all his front teeth and received a set of false ones that fitted all right but which shone too white and were too even, except for an old Hollywood glamour boy movie, say some pretty moustache like Douglas Fairbanks Junior. Loxton found the teeth a bit of a laugh, but not a laugh he let Macey see.
‘Yes, it’s on,’ Bobby told them. ‘We had a dry run. The sighting’s perfect.’
‘All three? You can do all three?’ Loxton said.
Macey stood again and replied for them. ‘The weapons they got, they’ll be putting God knows how many shells into that little circle in only a couple of seconds. How many is it?’
Norman said: ‘We’ll be using –’
‘I don’t want to know,’ Benny told him. ‘None of the technicalities. If you say it’s all right, it’s all right. All I got to say is this is going to be the only chance ever of getting the three of them unchaperoned and together. Look, it got to work, got to.’
‘We can’t get close to even one of them usually,’ Macey said. ‘Lay-waste’s car, it’s like Reagan’s for protection, you ask me. And anyone getting close that he don’t like the look of, Lay-waste’s liable to start blasting away like D-Day. But three together, and no retaliation – it’s beautiful, no other word.’
‘So maybe four,’ Loxton said. ‘Three, plus one. That’s a grief, too, you’re right, Phil, but to get them three, I got to be willing to make sacrifices, no way out of that. Daphne, she’s not a bad old piece, but she’ve had a very nice and comfortable run, fat of the land for years, and the thing is, she’s one of them, nobody can get away from that.’
‘Leo didn’t have enough venom on his own to produce them two sons,’ Macey said. ‘Not even Leo. She helped. She’s more than just a pretty old face.’
Loxton spoke sadly: ‘Justin – I don’t understand why he had to go extreme and consider talking like that. He didn’t even know Daphne. A fact, didn’t know her at all. Me, I know her, known her for years. Daphne, me, Leo all at Marl View school the same time, not friends, but the same time. Leo always said he never touched her until they was properly married. Well, it’s possible. Things was different then, even for someone like Leo. Lived close, the three of us. Great old teacher at the school, Miss Binns, who did a lot for us, tried to keep me and Leo straight, really stuck her neck out. Lovely old duck, really. I still send her a Christmas card with something inside. It didn’t work too good, what she tried for Leo and me, things went a bit adrift, what with taking and driving away and the fighting, but she never gave up. Nice. Anyway, that’s how far back it goes, so I know Daphne real good and none of us wants her to get any damage, of course not, but she could be slap in the way for them couple of seconds, that’s the truth of it.’
‘I like that about the teacher, that’s real genuine, Benny, and heartfelt, on the side of education, which got to be good, but, like you said, Benny, the truth can be tough,’ Macey replied, ‘and Daphne could catch one, yes.’
‘The thing about Leo, he’s the only opposition left. It used to be different when Tenderness Mellick was operating, and Wrighty, and You-know-who. Well, it was what you’d call a community, a working community, a business community, say like the City of London or Hatton Garden and jewellers.’
‘Right,’ Macey said.
‘Them days, things could be spread out, and people kept to their own corner,’ Loxton went on. ‘There wasn’t none of this eyeball to eyeball, because we were all too busy not just watching one another, but two or three or more. Then along comes this thinker, Harpur, and The One Above, Desmond Iles, him with the horns, and suddenly people are disappearing, and now it’s just the two of us, Leo and me, and it’s a question, who gets the power, who’s in control – like after World War Thr
ee, only Russia and the States left. One got to see the other off, and the one who goes first and best takes everything.’
‘Polarities,’ Norman said. He pulled a folded copy of the Daily Telegraph from his pocket. ‘Did you see this interview with Ronnie Kray, the old London operator, inside now, Benny? He says he had thirty years for killing a couple of villains,’ Norman began to read from the paper: ‘“We had to kill them or they would have killed us, I don’t think we were evil. There is nothing evil about protecting your own life. It was the same as being a soldier in the war.” That’s the sort of thinking, isn’t it, Benny?’
Loxton did not greatly enjoy the comparison with a Kray, especially the one in a loony jail, but Norman had a point. ‘There used to be room for four or five of us operating on this patch. Now there’s not even room for two, only one. What numbers can do to you. If I don’t finish him, he’ll finish me, no question.’
‘Pre-emptive,’ Norman said, re-folding the paper.
‘Most likely,’ Loxton replied. ‘Leo’s had a try. Well, you know – a try at me twice, one very near.’
‘Only luck you’re still with us, Benny,’ Macey told him. ‘Leo been difficult, no argument.’
‘With dum-dum bullets. I mean, is that civilized?’ Loxton asked. ‘Them hit you, hole as big as a frisby and more colourful. Can I go on risking something like that? And him so sweet-talking and worried after, saying he heard about the “dastardly attack” – that’s his words, “dastardly” – and wanted to offer sympathy. Oh, sure Leo’s older now, but that don’t make him no kinder. He knows how to run his firm and how to give the orders. Somebody went out and bought them dum-dums, and somebody wrote out the shopping list. And who named the target? That what they call the fucking old school tie? So, it’s just like Mrs Thatcher says, the market place – only the sharp ones survive, simple as that. Yes.’ He nodded a couple of times, thoughtfully.
‘Leo wouldn’t be weighing up the rights and wrongs the way you are, Benny, if he had a real chance to finish us,’ Macey told him.
‘Leo Tacette and his missus going to be at this occasion tonight?’ Bobby asked.
‘Leo, charity? You crazy?’ Loxton replied. ‘Leo worries about the whale? I’m telling you he probably never spent even five seconds all his life considering whales, or even the needy. Anyway, who’d let him into a class affair like this? Leo in a penguin suit? You ever seen his collars at all? I seen cleaner coalmen. Leo would be like a fish out of water, a whale out of water.’
Macey laughed first, then the rest quickly afterwards.
‘A whale out of water in a penguin suit,’ Bobby said. ‘Deep-sea fancy dress.’ He was solid, going plump, his fair hair cut very short, fresh-faced and clean-shaven, around thirty-five.
Loxton said: ‘It would be pitiful to put Leo into a decent social do, cruel to him, and Daphne. Socially, Leo don’t even get started, and Daphne less, scratching her arse in public. The only one from our line who might have got there beside me was Tenderness Mellick, he was really working hard on the mixing, and inviting non-rough elements and even genuine titles and OBEs for amontillado sherry and vol-au-bits to his big, smart, debt-heavy house up the Enclave, and so on. But this time he can’t get away from Gartree, I understand, nor for about twelve years after, even with remission.’
‘That’s friend Harpur, also,’ Macey said.
‘He knows too much, thinks too much. Always have,’ Loxton agreed. ‘But, listen, I didn’t want it to get to this situation, having to see off a local boy like Leo, or even blot his sons. And then, losing a good kid like Justin, what seemed a good kid, anyway. I mean he was no age at all, and he knew about numbers, very good.’
‘There’ll be others, Benny,’ Macey said. ‘Others, maybe not so leaky.’
‘He was talking to Lamb? We know that? I mean, know it.’
‘Well, no, not hundred per cent sure,’ Macey replied. ‘What we know is he used to call him. Like I said, Norman found the number at Justin’s place when he had a bit of a look and turn-over up at his place, and traced it to Lamb.’
‘No problem,’ Norman said.
‘You spoke to him?’
‘I rang him, but no talk. Speaking didn’t seem a good idea, Benny, not at the time.’ Norman was about forty, thin, lined, with receding grey hair and rimless glasses. He spoke quietly and looked like someone arguing out a tricky point about gays or lady vicars at a serious, top church meeting.
‘No, you could be right,’ Loxton said. ‘That means we don’t know whether he’ve told him about the silver wedding arrangements, nor how many leaks he give Lamb in the past.’
‘Well, we aren’t certain whether he leaked to him at all, Benny,’ Norman replied. ‘We gave Justin a lot of very heavy pressure but he wouldn’t say why he had Lamb’s number. Or, he did say, but what he said was that Lamb was just a mate. It could be. Yes, just about could, although we think Lamb does some big grassing, maybe to Harpur. As a matter of fact, we were seriously asking Justin about Lamb when he broke away, and we never had another chance to work on him because he went under fast after the knife.’
‘The uncertainty is just another of them risks we got to live with, Benny,’ Macey said.
‘We can blow all the buggers’ heads into hundreds and thousands as long as we got it right and they group at that mike,’ Bobby said.
‘Certain,’ Macey told him. ‘Our information –’
‘So Mrs Iles, and her stud? I worry about her being at the Monty,’ Loxton said. ‘Where are we with that? She talk to hubby and we’re into difficulty. Police might go poking about at the Monty and maybe find it was Justin. That leads to us. Even if they couldn’t prove anything, we’d get limelight, they’d watch us continuous, and no chance at all of giving full attention to the silver wedding. I don’t want to miss that, we mustn’t miss it.’
‘We won’t. Don’t you fret, Benny,’ Macey said.
‘Yes, I fret. All right, Mrs Iles is making it with someone else, the most recent someone else, but that don’t stop her having conversations now and then with her husband. We certain it was her?’
‘It was her,’ Macey replied. ‘We don’t think she talks, not about that, Benny. We don’t see how she could. What’s she doing in a flop-house like the Monty so late? Who she with? Well, we know who she was with, but does the Assistant Chief? I don’t think so. And Panicking Ralphy don’t think so. Like you said I asked him to go and say a word or two or two million to Mrs Iles and he tells me it’s fine, so confidential. Look, I’d worry myself, otherwise. She saw me there, didn’t she, and the other boys. We got no trouble unless Justin comes to light somehow, and that’s never going to happen, is it? What they got to go on – no body? They don’t even know he’s missing. He’ve moved on, the way people like him do – that’s how it looks. He’s not walled up in a monastery. All right, his girl’s tearful, I suppose, somewhere, but blokes are doing runners every day. Anyway, no bugger can find her. We been looking. Looks like she went to ground as soon as she knew Justin had disappeared.’
‘He got a mother, yes?’ Loxton asked.
‘Wales way. He rings her up once in a blue moon, never sees her. She’s not going to be asking questions for a long time yet.’
Loxton still felt uneasy. ‘Then, the other things; we sure Justin didn’t talk to this Mrs Iles, say something?’ he asked.
‘Pretty sure,’ Macey said. ‘He calls for a drink, and that’s about all. This is someone with two knife wounds and he was very poorly, Benny. Would he chat about all that with someone he don’t know? And Ralphy’s watching and listening, and he don’t think no conversation, except the drink.’
‘Christ, what else Ralph going to say? He wants this whole thing forgot, like it never happened.’
‘He seemed genuine,’ Macey said.
‘Panicking Ralphy?’
‘I mean genuine for somebody like him,’ Macey said. ‘He would see he’s taking a big risk if he give me bullshit, Benny.’
‘If that woma
n heard something from Justin, she might have a feeling she got to tell her husband, regardless,’ Loxton told them.
‘We don’t think so, Benny. Ralph made things very plain to her and Mrs Iles isn’t curious about all that any longer. Ralph knows it got to be watertight or his time’s come. He’s using his influence, bringing first-class leverage to bear. He don’t have no idea about what job we got in mind, but he knows it’s something major and grave, our one and only chance, and that we won’t take a mess-up on no account, Mrs Iles or anything else. Ralphy talks a lot and a lot of it is big and strong, but he knows it would all stop very sudden if marauders happened to take out his voice box one evening.’
Loxton said: ‘And then this piece of consolation Mrs Iles was with at the Monty, Ian Aston? He saw as much as she did, maybe heard something and went out digging around in the builder’s skip, yes? So he could have some angle. Suppose he hears from Justin it’s a silver wedding, say just those words, he can sniff around and find out it’s Leo and Daphne’s do and he got something very tidy to sell, yes? He’s into that sort of trading, as I hear. Then Leo and the boys put up a bigger security job than the Queen in Armagh.’
‘Yes, we’d like to talk to Aston,’ Macey replied. ‘Well, didn’t he see us as well at the Monty? So we been looking, real looking, but he’s gone out of sight. Not at his place since that night.’
‘That’s serious,’ Loxton said. ‘Gone where? Who the hell’s he talking to? Why was they both so damn nosy and interested?’ He stopped himself shouting.
‘We have Ralph asking around, and off and on we’re watching Sarah Iles, in case she leads to him,’ Norman told Loxton. ‘Our feeling is, he’s not going to spill anything because it might bring bother for Sarah Iles. They both need secrecy. We can count on it, Benny.’
‘Well, I might pick up a whisper or two at this thing tonight, who knows?’ Loxton said. ‘Mrs Iles will be there, probably. Others. Maybe Lamb, that bastard, I’ll keep an eye and an ear. You going to be at your place, Phil, in case I need to get in touch?’
