15 June: mother dress, Savoy, mother!!! Big night, big mess, beautiful couple, wrong time!!!! PG gate crash, mad, mad. D saw watcher, too late, always too late, must stop!!!
Then in clear English a week later:
23 June: Horrible day. Danny saw the watcher again and attacked him. I pulled him off and denied everything. Told Danny we had to break for a while. But it’s over, has to be. How did we get here? What am I doing? So sad…
Then back in code again except for the Latin:
25 June: saw midge saw stan, d watcher now!!! Quis custodiet!!!
30 June: all gone. All quiet, waiting. Alone again. Waiting for them.
That was her last entry a week ago. She knew something was about to happen to her. I could see her sitting in her room in a period of quiet before the storm hit. It tore my heart out. Why did she hide it from me? Why couldn’t she turn to me? All her notes seemed to be telling me she was trying not to fall in love with me, but she wasn’t succeeding. So why did she lie about the watchers? I could have helped. I could have saved her. Maybe.
Did she want to be taken? Was she protecting me? I’m certain the reference to PG was to Pauli Gambatti. That was more than coincidence. I flicked back through her notes. I was right; there were other PG references before my time. She’d feared him and decided that he was having her followed. But why would he? An East End thug? If he wanted to harm her, why didn’t he send one of his hoods round to her flat and pick her off there? And why did she walk into the lion’s gambling den? Did her nerve snap and she had to confront him, face her fears? Like the mad bastard who storms a machine gun nest?
My head was reeling. I’d had enough. I needed time to digest it all. I handed back my books to the librarian and made her blush just by smiling at her and saying how sweet she’d been. I needed her on my side; there was more to uncover in this book, much more. For the moment it was time to act. In the absence of any better target, I wanted Gambatti in my sights. But before I could pull the trigger I had to flush my bird. There was no returning to Carlyle’s; they wouldn’t let me within a hundred yards.
Over the next three days – more exactly, nights – I put the word out. It was easy enough. I went on a pub crawl. I was careful to drink only in the East End and only in Gambatti’s patch. Wherever I went I bought a half of bitter and began asking questions. I would smile at the landlady and ask if Mr Gambatti ever frequented her fine establishment, and watch her face crumple in fear or irritation. Sometimes they flat out denied everything. Never heard of him. Sometimes I was told to drink up and piss off. Sometimes they asked why I wanted to know. When I explained I had a bone to pick with him, they were as likely to laugh in my face as to tell me to clear off. Whatever their reaction I made sure they knew my name and I always used my loudest voice. Drunks have big ears.
I made a particular point of buttonholing Fast Larry when he slid into the George on night three. The lads were as startled as Larry was when I called him over to our corner of the snug.
“Let me buy you a drink, Fast Larry.”
He looked at me like I was dispensing hemlock. “I’m fine, Danny. You want to place a bet?”
“Sit down. I want a word in that shell-like of yours.” I ignored his protests and made the boys move over so that he could sit by me. He was twitching like a diviner’s rod, his eyes rolling everywhere except near mine.
“I want to talk to Pauli Gambatti.”
Fast Larry’s eyes stopped swivelling and he looked at me. “You’re fucking mad, Danny. Why d’you want to get your balls cut off?”
“I’m mad all right. Mad as could be. It’s his balls I’m after unless he has a cast iron alibi for his whereabouts at the time of the disappearance of a dear friend of mine.”
Fast Larry’s eyes were whirling again. “This bint of yours?”
“How do you know about that?” I asked sharply.
He shrugged. “It’s in the paper.” He tapped his shiny jacket pocket.
“Show me!”
He drew out a distressed copy of today’s Racing Mirror rolled inside a copy of the Trumpet. He disentangled them and laid the Trumpet out on the table, trying to flatten its folds in the pools of beer.
“Give me that!” I grabbed it from him. Her photo was on the front page. TOP REPORTER MISSING! was the headline, and underneath glowing words of praise and speculation about a gangland kidnap. Fearless reporter Eve Copeland abducted by very men she’d named and shamed. I read it twice. It said nothing I didn’t know, except they were offering a reward for news of her. I prayed someone was already phoning in to collect. In the meantime…
“Fast Larry, I want you to get a message to your mate, Gambatti. Tell I’m coming after him, and I’ll wreck his whole bloody organisation just like I wrecked his team at the warehouse job. Got that? Now bugger off and tell him.”
Fast looked at me pityingly for a long moment then got up, refolding his papers like a bad example of origami. “You’re round the twist, Danny McRae. Fucking doolally.”
The lads thought so too when I explained my plan.
A couple of days later my madness paid dividends. Of a sort. I walked into my office, wiping my forehead from the heat and the climb, and found a man sitting at my desk with a gun trained on my belly button.
I didn’t think he was going to kill me. Not right away. In my experience, if someone sets out to shoot you, they just do it; they don’t hang around and discuss it. That only happens in movies when they want the killer to reveal why he stole the falcon. And killers don’t usually sit in your chair with their feet on your desk, drinking beer from a bottle. Your beer. They wait behind the door and shoot you from behind. Much smarter and safer. For the killer.
But that didn’t mean that this guy wouldn’t kill me; it just wasn’t the first thing that was going to happen. I stuffed my sweat-stained hankie in my trouser pocket. My jacket was over my arm – the hottest day of the year, they reckoned – and I reached out and hung it on the coat rack behind the door. I turned and waited for him to get round to telling me why he was here and why the gun. Though I had an idea.
“Comfortable?” I asked.
“In a shit hole like this?”
He waved the gun round my room. I wasn’t hurt or offended. No one would mistake the offices of Finders Keepers for a palace. But then why would you need fancy décor if most of your work took place on the street? And my customers weren’t the sort to be impressed with pictures on the walls or Persian carpets; they wanted results, fast, and as cheaply as possible.
“It may not be what you’re used to, pal, but it works for me. And unless this is a takeover bid, that’s what matters.”
I walked towards my desk as nonchalantly as a man can with a gun on him. I did it smoothly, no rush, hands well in sight, holding his eyes and smiling my best I’m-harmless-don’t-kill-me smile. I gingerly pulled the chair back – the one in front of my desk for clients – and sat down slowly in it. I sized him up. He was the heavy type, dark suit tight round his thick shoulders and biceps. The hand was steady and experienced holding the gun – a familiar gun, a Beretta M1935. Out of Gambatti’s armoury. The goon’s face had been roughened by better men than me. And his eyes wouldn’t have looked out of place on a fishmonger’s slab.
“They said you’d be a funny guy. I don’t like smart arses.”
“Then maybe you’ve come to the wrong place.”
“An’ I don’t like what you did to my pals.”
“Then don’t get in my way.”
He rubbed his face wondering if he could get away with killing me and saying it was an accident. “The boss wants to see you.”
“Oh, and which boss would that be?”
“Mr Gambatti. Pauli Gambatti.”
“You see that thing on the desk?” I pointed at my phone. “Doesn’t Pauli have one? All he had to do was lift the other end and ask me to drop by.”
“In your own sweet time. And it’s Mister Gambatti to you.”
“Can we put the gun away
? I get the message. Tell Pauli I’ll come by tomorrow.”
The muscle sighed. “You’re not getting the message. Mr Gambatti wants you now.”
“I’d planned to have a beer first.”
“Too bad, jock. It’s drunk.” Muscles picked up the bottle that I’d been keeping cool in a basin of water and drained the last mouthful. He burped and slammed the empty down on my desk. “Now you’ve got no excuses.”
“Put the gun away and I’ll get my coat.” I waited.
He wiped his lips and reluctantly lowered the weapon. London was flooded with souvenirs brought back by our boys. He gazed at it briefly, sorry it hadn’t been used, and slid it inside his jacket. A fancy holster under his arm. James Cagney had a lot to answer for.
“Let’s go.”
“I hope you’ve got a car. My feet…”
“It’s waiting. Let’s go. And no fucking tricks.”
I had no intention of attempting tricks, not with a gun in my side and a second muscleman driving. Especially when the driver turned round and showed me his face. The eyes were still black and blue and the nose looked as though it had gone ten rounds with Joe Louis. He grinned at me, not in a friendly way.
We cut down the Old Kent Road and then picked up Jamaica Road. Once through the Rotherhithe Tunnel we were in the badlands of Stepney. Everywhere we drove I could see how they’d taken a hammering. Goering sent his planes into the docks night after night, and it showed. Wide areas flattened and cleared. Plenty of football pitches. England should have a fine team in about twenty years.
“Here. Put this on.” The thug beside me had drawn a thin scarf out of his pocket and was holding it out to me.
“I’m not cold. It’s summer.”
“I told you I don’t like smart arses! Put the fucking blindfold round your fucking eyes!” This time he backed up his request with the Beretta jammed into the side of my head.
“This isn’t the bloody pictures, you know. Who am I going to tell?”
He pulled the gun back an inch then jabbed it into my ear. It hurt. And at that distance he wasn’t going to miss. I stopped arguing and tied the scarf round my head. He made me slouch down in my seat so that no passing copper would think it funny and pull us over. We drove for another five minutes, past a railway line, twice. I gave up trying to map our route in my head. At last we came into a yard; the traffic sound got cut off and our own exhaust note bounced back at us. My door was opened and I was hauled out still unseeing.
I heard big doors creaking open and was shoved forward. I sensed we were inside a big enclosed space. A warehouse of some sort. I could smell a burning cigar. The blindfold was ripped from my head and I was pushed forward so fast I stumbled and fell on my hands and knees.
“That’s where I like to see shit like you.” The familiar voice was dead ahead. Introductions weren’t going to be necessary. I got to my feet, brushed the dust and gravel out of my trousers and wiped my hands. I looked at the man who was sitting on a crate in front of me. He had nicked a cigar from Winston’s personal supply and puffed away on it as though he was in his private club. His black grey-flashed hair was so heavily greased it would deflect an axe. The double chin and chubby cheeks didn’t soften the face one bit. It was the eyes that threatened, dark and feral either side of a long shaft of a nose.
Beside him, on another crate, with his crutches leaning against the wood and his leg heavily plastered, was my other pal from the casino. He looked pleased to see me. Like a hyena finding a baby deer with its hoof caught in a trap.
Gambatti spoke again. “If it isn’t the geezer who upset my card game? You’re a bit of pest, sonny.”
“Nice to meet you again, Mr Gambatti.”
“It’s not mutual, Mister McRae. Who the fuck do you think you are, putting the word out on me?”
As he said this he nodded at the muscle who’d brought me here, each cast from the same mould: Gog and Magog. Gog leered at me from behind his broken nose. The pair of them stepped towards the crates behind Gambatti, took their jackets off and rolled up their sleeves. Suddenly I began to feel hot too. They came towards me and helped me out of my own jacket and flung it away. They pushed me down on the ground again and unceremoniously removed my shoes and debagged me. They grabbed my arms and began wrapping rope around my upper body and my ankles so that I was tied up like a Sunday joint.
I heard clanking and looked up to see a hook descend from the rafters above me. Gog held my body while Magog twisted the hook into my ankle ropes. He walked away and I heard the pulley cranking again and felt the rope begin to tug at my feet.
“Pauli! I wanted to talk! That’s why I sent out those invites. That’s all!” I cried out desperately as my legs were pulled from me and my weight was held by muscle boy for a few seconds until the hook had my ankles well above my head. The pulley went on cranking until I was suspended upside down with my head at face height to the grinning thugs. My shirt was falling over my head until he ripped it open and let the ends flap down past my shoulders.
They began to spin me and I started to feel sick. Maybe it was just fear. Maybe it was a throwback to the feelings of helplessness in the camp when all you could do was take the beatings. I tried to hold on to that thought: I’d had worse done to me. But it wasn’t helping. Hanging upside down disorientated and semi-naked, in front of three villains with a reputation for chopping bits off people, leaves you feeling a wee bit vulnerable.
They stopped me spinning and when my head caught up with my body, I saw Gambatti strolling towards me. He got within two feet of me, took a drag on his cigar and blew it into my face. I coughed. It hurt. But not as much as the fist he rammed into my exposed belly. I jack-knifed up and felt my stomach heave; then I threw up, or in this case, down. Sadly, I missed Gambatti. I guess he knew what to expect.
I hung there feeling like shit, with a trickle of vomit running up my face and waiting for the real beating to start. It was not a moment to cherish. One of the thugs stood in front of me and I tensed. Instead he took the tail of my shirt and wiped my face. Gambatti stepped closer again.
“Now we talk, McRae. Yes?”
“That’s what I’m here for,” I croaked. “It’s about the girl.”
“Always a girl.”
“Eve Copeland. The reporter.”
“I know the bitch.”
“Were you following her?”
“Why would I waste my fucking time following some bint who gets up my nose?”
That seemed too heartfelt not to be true, and fitted with my own view, even an upside down one. Now the big question.
“Did you take her? Have you… did you get rid of her? That’s all I want to know.”
Gambatti scrutinised me silently for a moment. “A girl like that, she makes a lot of enemies. I thought about it. After what she and you did in my club. In front of my friends. Showing me up like that. I thought about arranging a nice accident. Something painful. Something permanent. But I never got round to it. The filth would be round my door before breakfast.”
“You didn’t touch her?”
“You don’t believe me, you little shit!” He punched me in the belly and stood back while I retched and convulsed like a rat held up by its tail. I believed him. Now all I had to do was talk my way out of here.
“I believe you, Gambatti. I do. I can see you’re a man of your word. That’s it. That’s all I wanted to know. That’s why I put the word out. I didn’t know how else to get hold of you.”
The blood was rushing to my head and made me sound like I was talking under water. I felt I was going to be sick again. I saw Gambatti smile.
“You shouldna bothered, shithead. I was gonna find you. I owe you one. Maybe several. For what you did to my business down by the docks. I had a nice little thing going there till you fucked it up. That’s bad in two ways. One, I lose money. Two, I lose face. Every shithead in town knows you done us over. That’s not acceptable.”
“Pauli, I didn’t know it was you. This isn’t personal.”<
br />
“Oh no?” He stuck his piggy face close to mine. “Now it is, shithead. Now it is. I’m gonna let the boys get some exercise first. You owe them. Then you’re gonna join the sewage in the river. ’Cept shit floats. So we’ve got some stuff that’ll keep you down.”
Gambatti stood back and pointed his cigar at a large pile of chains lying by the crates. My only hope was that the beating would be so bad the drowning would be a relief.
“He’s all yours, boys.”
Gambatti stood back. Broken nose helped his mate to get down and on to his crutches. Then he picked up two long crowbars used to break open the crates. He gave one to the guy with the knee problem. It didn’t seem to inhibit his back swing. They were grinning like kids let loose in a toy shop. I closed my eyes, tensed myself and waited for the first blows. Already my skull was bursting where the plate was. It felt like one of my old fugues coming on me. It would be a mercy if it came quick.
Suddenly there was a crash behind me, and shouts. I heard running feet and saw three figures charging across the concrete. They shrieked like they were storming a Normandy beach with fixed bayonets. There was a brief clash of metal on metal, some solid thumps and then the three musclemen were on the ground nursing serious head wounds. It was no contest; combat-hardened soldiers versus spivs, one a cripple.
Someone grabbed me and lifted my head. Through bloodshot eyes I gazed into the ugliest, most beautiful mug I’d ever seen. My insurance policy.
“What kept you?” I managed. Midge just grinned.
“You said give it ten before interrupting. Maybe my watch is slow. Hang on in there, pal. We’ll have you down in a mo.”
He left me, then I heard cranking of chains and I was gently lowered to the ground. As Midge untied me, I looked up to see Cyril and little Stan poised with the crowbars above the groaning and thoroughly pissed-off gangsters. Gambatti, wisely, had his hands in the air and was chomping away at the cigar in his mouth. His minions struggled to sit up, trying to get their battered brains round this turn of events and what to do next. Midge helped them out. In his left hand he held the Beretta I’d confiscated at the casino. In his right was the crowbar.
The Unquiet Heart Page 10
