Edward didn’t reply, but Skye appeared to read his thoughts. ‘It’s imperative, you know, if two people are doing a con trick, that they trust each other, have something on each other. You even attempt your little scam without me and I’ll know. Understand me, man?’
At his hotel later in the morning, Edward looked through the newspaper. He glanced only fleetingly at the front page, then flipped back to it. There was a photograph and he recognized the girl’s face. The article was by no means prominent, just a small bulletin, but the girl had been arrested with her black lover. There was no name to the article, but Edward knew it had to have something to do with Skye. He was also very aware of the importance of the information he had just gained. If he were to tip off the blacks about Skye Duval’s secrets, the man would be a walking target. This made Edward think hard. Why had Duval opened up to him? Was it simply, as he had said, trust? Or had he in actual fact bitten much harder on Edward’s offer than he had thought? Edward concluded that Skye was indeed a manipulator, and even though he joked about it, he would be in the scam whether Edward wanted him or not.
Edward knew he had Skye when they met that evening. The girl in the newspaper had hanged herself. Yet another death lay at Skye’s feet and he was in a nasty, belligerent mood. ‘Get me out of this shit-hole country, man, before I put my head in a noose like everyone else. A voice keeps whispering louder and louder, “You’re black, Skye Duval, you’re a fucking black.” And you know what? I wanna be black. The whites here are made of vomit, one day they will all spew their guts out and we will rise up and swamp them.’
Edward knew he had to get Skye on to a different subject, so he asked about the woman called Julia.
‘This woman, the one holding your birth certificate, is there any way we can get to her? If we have that you’ll be off the hook.’
Skye shrugged, and said she kept it locked in her safe.
‘At her home? Couldn’t we get it somehow?’
Skye had been sceptical about Edward, but now he looked at him with interest. Even more so when Edward suggested that the two of them together could surely break into the woman’s safe. Skye went to telephone Julia and then returned to the table. ‘She’ll see me tonight . . . we can at least try.’
Julia Keevy was overweight, and wore her dyed blonde hair in a tight, lacquered set. She wore rings on every finger, and a kaftan to hide the rolls of fat drooping from her body. Her small eyes were like speckled duck’s eggs, and her skin had been exposed to the sun for so many years that it was as wrinkled as a walnut. She was grotesque, welcoming Skye with a glossy, thickly lipsticked smile. She had dismissed her servants for the night, and had the champagne on ice.
Edward waited outside. Skye had described the exact layout of the low, sprawling bungalow. Skye would open the back door, and had warned Edward to be careful of the screen door squeaking.
He moved stealthily into the kitchen, banged his shin on the fridge and held his breath. Had she heard? He could hear a deep, throaty, gin-sodden laugh from the bedroom. He slipped into the dining area, took stock of the rooms, and eventually found the lounge.
The safe was like a vault, with a heavy combination lock. He scratched his head – no way could he open it – and jumped as Skye appeared silently beside him.
‘We’ll never open the bloody thing, look at it.’
Skye gritted his teeth and swore, squinted at the numbers.
‘Baby, what you doing? Skye, honey, what you doing?’
Skye muttered to Edward to keep still, they had come this far and he was not going to give up. He walked to the bedroom, smiling sweetly as he carried the bottle towards the beached whale on the bed. ‘Sorry, the first one I took out wasn’t chilled enough, just let me open it . . .’
When Skye popped the cork out of the bottle with a loud bang, Edward nearly had a heart attack in the next room. Suddenly Skye went crazy. He leapt on top of her, ramming the neck of the champagne bottle into her mouth so hard that she gurgled and flayed the air with her hands. He sat on top of her and pushed the bottle to the back of her throat.
‘What’s the combination of the safe, you fat bitch? The combination – now!’
She tried to fight him off but she was choking, the bottle being forced further and further to the back of her throat. The champagne frothed and bubbled down her chins and her eyes bulged, then she flopped. Her body went limp, and a horrid gurgling began in her throat. Skye removed the bottle and slapped her face from side to side.
Edward was searching the desk when Skye appeared with a gun in his hand. He walked to the safe and blasted at the lock, bullet after bullet.
‘Jesus, you crazy? For Chrissake . . .’
Letting the gun fall to his side, Skye stared as the safe door swung open. He began to hurl the contents out. Bundles of bank notes fell around his feet as he scrabbled and searched. He checked inside envelopes and folders. ‘Where is it? Where the fuck is it? The bitch, the bitch!’
Edward stood frozen at the window – what if someone had heard the gunshots? There was silence, ominous, but it gave Edward confidence that no one had heard. He went into the bedroom, leaving Skye searching like a madman. The scene that met his eyes made him want to vomit – the grotesque sight of Julia on the bed, mouth wide open, eyes popping out of her head. The sheets and body dripping with champagne. He shouted to Skye, ‘Get in there and clean the bottle and glasses, your prints’ll be all over the bloody room. I’ll look for it, go on, move, those shots could bring the law any minute.’
Edward filled a carrier bag with jewels and cash, then dragged Skye out. They left by the back way, wiped the door, then ran across the gardens and down two streets to the car. This time Edward drove, slowly and carefully, so as not to attract attention.
They returned to Skye’s bungalow and Edward tipped the contents of the carrier bag on the bed. There was at least fifteen thousand in cash, but the jewels and the gold bangles were worth, he knew, at least twenty to thirty thousand more. He examined Skye’s birth certificate and slipped it into his pocket.
The newspaper reported that Julia’s houseboy had been arrested and charged with her murder. The motive for the killing was obviously robbery.
Neither Edward nor Skye waited around to hear the outcome of the murder trial. The houseboy was jailed for life.
Book Three
Chapter Fourteen
The last eight years had been good, no one could deny that, Dora least of all. She and Alex had moved into the lucrative years of the flourishing London clubland. She had changed her looks – now she went in for the Diana Dors style, with pencil-slim skirts, shoulder-length hair and pale lipsticks. She always wore thick, false eyelashes, with midnight-blue mascara, and she had made sure she kept her figure. She squeezed herself into the skirts, wore uplift bras to help her sagging tits, and still looked younger than her age, but only at a distance. The small lines had deepened and the more she tried to cover them the more aware of them she became.
The club just about ran itself, but they had to deal with a lot of aggravation from villains demanding protection money. Alex always paid without a murmur, as he had seen what happened when other club owners didn’t. The places were ‘fired’, or fights broke out among the guests, uninvited guests who drank a skinful and then picked rows and broke mirrors and noses. Dora had been all for fighting the thugs, calling in the police, but she had as usual given way to Alex.
After the first few months Alex had realized he was not a good front man. His scarred face didn’t actually add to the ambience, and so he left it to Dora. He was always working behind the scenes, though, always there when needed, and the club ran like clockwork. He had fingers in many other small businesses – he had bought out Harry Driver years ago, and ran his sweatshops and betting shops as well as his small drinking clubs. As he did at Masks, Alex paid protection money to keep things quiet, but there was a growing undercurrent of violence as gang warfare raged between rival East End gangs for territory. Alex played no part in t
he violence, and became known as a ‘steady’, a man anyone could rely on, a man who always kept his word. He was an honourable man and it paid off. He was left to run his clubs and his offshoot businesses without much trouble.
After resisting at first, Dora gave way as she watched many clubs being taken over by the gangs. She also complied for her own safety. She had branched out, no longer living in Johnny Mask’s old place, and had bought herself a three-storey house in Notting Hill Gate. Johnny’s flat was known as the ‘dossing pad’, where the hostesses from the club took back their tricks – all part of the club’s ‘social benefits’.
Dora kept her own special stable of girls clean and on a quick turnaround, but like Alex she also had a second string to her bow. The Notting Hill Gate house became known as a ‘party’ place, with girls even more beautiful than those at Masks. They were from all kinds of backgrounds, but classy, and all in it for the fast money. The films and ‘private cabarets’ were expensive, and only for those with a lot of money or connections. Dora was a ‘madame’, and a tough one. She tolerated no nonsense and her house was tasteful and, above all, well run. Even more important, it was safe. The law was paid off; politicians, magistrates and the aristocracy were welcomed along with the odd chief of police and foreign diplomat. The Notting Hill Gate house was a very lucrative business on its own.
Trusted and well liked, Dora was paid handsomely for her small parties. She was also earning a fortune. Alex, of course, knew about her little ‘perks’, said that as long as she didn’t involve him it was fine, but he refused to take part in any of the activities although he kept an eye on her books.
Dora also ran a team of girls known as the ‘cash and carry’, who were planted in the casinos with ready money supplied by Dora. The big, high-rolling gamblers, the female ones with only a certain amount of money to spend each week, would sell off their jewels to continue gambling when their cash ran out. The women were mostly foreign, Arabs, Lebanese, and whenever they removed a bracelet or a ring Dora’s girls would move in and buy it for cash at a quarter of its value.
Wrapped in her white mink coat, Dora sat in the back of her Rolls. She was nervous, wondering what Alex would say. She knew how much he depended on her, and she chain-smoked, stubbing out the cigarette after one puff and lighting another immediately. The Rolls stopped at a traffic light, just a short distance from her home, on the corner of Ladbroke Grove. She leaned forward and pressed the button, the glass slid back. ‘Pull over, just for a minute.’
The Rolls glided to the side of the road and stopped, engine ticking over. Dora thought it was fate – it had to be – all these years and not a word, and tonight of all nights she saw him, knew it was him just from one look.
Johnny Mask, wearing a filthy raincoat and with a hat pulled down over his straggly, greasy hair, was picking through a wastebin at the side of the road near the traffic lights.
‘I want you to do something . . . You see the guy, the dosser on the side of the road by the wastebin? Take your hat off, put your collar up.’
Dora lowered the window and watched the chauffeur walk behind Johnny Mask and drop two twenty-pound notes on to the wet pavement. Johnny had stopped rummaging, was staring at something he had taken out of the bin. The chauffeur tapped Johnny on the shoulder, pointed to the ground.
‘You drop something, mate?’
The chauffeur walked on, crossed the road and returned to the Rolls.
Johnny Mask looked down at the folded bills, gave the chauffeur a look and then a smile, his old smile, patting his pockets. He bent down and picked up the wet notes, gave a shifty look round and beetled off down Ladbroke Grove.
Down and out, Johnny was still the same. Dora pressed the button and the window glided up. She knew he would be drunk out of his already addled mind within the hour. So much for the past, she was now sure where her future lay.
Dora entered the club. It was early, so there were few punters about. Those that knew her smiled, and Arnie gave her his usual welcome.
‘Hello, Lana, how’s things?’
Arnie had a fixation on Lana Turner, and as Dora looked like her he had always called her Lana. She smiled and patted his arm, knew she would miss old Arnie. She weaved her way through the tables, stopped to fix a flower arrangement, looked over at two of her girls and gave a small wave. Then she opened the door to the inner sanctum.
Alex was at his desk as she knew he would be. She tossed her mink over the easy chair and poured herself the usual iced water, and leaned on the small corner bar.
Alex barely looked up from the accounts. He had not changed much – he wore his hair slicked back, oiled with Brylcreem, but he didn’t seem to have changed. His thick-set shoulders and heavily muscled arms were still courtesy of George Windsor, as they still worked out together regularly. Because he frequently had considerable amounts of cash to bank, he carried a gun in an underarm holster, and his suits were cut by a skilled East End tailor to disguise it. He did not bother applying for a licence; with his record he was sure to be turned down.
Always immaculately dressed, Alex looked more like a City gent than a club owner in his pale blue shirts with detachable white collars, and dark, pinstriped suit. Dora often wondered if he only had the one suit, as he never wore any other colour or style. Only his face distorted the image.
Dora had never been to Alex’s flat in the East End. At one time she had wondered what it would be like, but when she dropped hints for an invitation they were ignored. Eventually she put Alex down as a skinflint because he showed no outward signs of his new-found affluence. He did not smoke or drink, and seemed to have no friends apart from George Windsor. However, he did buy a Jaguar every year, and listed it as a company car for tax purposes, although no one else was ever allowed to drive it. Alex paid Arnie a tenner a week to make sure it was waxed regularly and remained in pristine condition.
Dora sipped her iced water, thinking what an oddball he was. ‘Alex, do you mind if I ask you something personal?’
He didn’t even look up from the books, just lifted his pen towards her and carried on writing.
‘You got a girl hidden at your place?’
Alex laughed and said there were enough around the club without having one at home. She knew he occasionally took girls up to the old flat, but never twice, or if he had she didn’t know about it. Sometimes the girls talked to her, asked about him.
‘That your personal question, is it?’
She clinked the ice in her glass and perched her bum on the edge of the desk. ‘Nope . . . You’re not gay, are you? I mean, really gay, sort of a closet queen?’
He jabbed the pen into her side then dropped it on the desk. ‘No, I am not a closet poofter, what’s all this leading to? What d’you really want, Dora, come on, out wiv it.’
Dora saw him grimace. He tried so hard to speak correctly, but still he used words like ‘wiv’ and ‘somefink’ when he wasn’t concentrating. She found the way he tried to copy the toffs’ accent endearing. She herself had taken elocution lessons for years, and had suggested Alex do the same. Her voice now had little or no trace of her own East End origins.
Alex tapped the books and asked again what she wanted. She sighed, chewed her lips. ‘Is this all you want out of life, Alex? This place, your little sidelines – don’t you want a family, kids – you know, the things most people want?’
He picked up her hand, her left hand, and looked at the ring. He laughed, but didn’t let go. ‘What’s this? Don’t tell me that Texan wants to make an honest woman of you? That what all this is leading up to? Well, don’t ask me to walk down the bleedin’ aisle.’
Dora snatched her hand back. ‘Do me a favour! You think I’d get married here, with all these apes looking on? Oh, he knows all about me, don’t get me wrong, but we’d get a quickie licence in Nevada, or some place like that. What you think of him, Alex?’
Alex shrugged and picked up his pen. ‘I’m not marryin’ him, you are. Seems an all right enough bloke.’
/> Dora paced up and down for a moment, then sat on the edge of the desk again. ‘It’s my chance, Alex. I can make a new life for myself, no worry about running into some “john” I had God knows how many years ago . . . He lives in Houston, don’t think I ever laid anybody from there.’
Alex stared at her, knew she was serious, and he rubbed his nose. ‘So how much do you want? I’ll buy you out.’
Just like that, no arguments, no recriminations, no sarcastic remarks. She wanted to cry.
‘What’s the matter, I said the wrong fing?’
‘No, no, you great big idiot, you said just the right thing and I love you for it, I really love you, Alex.’ She hugged him, but he gently pulled his arms away and opened up the safe.
‘I saw Johnny Mask tonight – he looked like a dosser, thieving out of a wastebin. It must have been fate, sort of helped me make up my mind.’
‘You’d never end up like that. Here you go, let’s sort through the contracts.’
Watching him laying out the documents on the desk, taking out the chequebooks and cashbox, Dora thought to herself that he wasn’t wasting a minute. ‘You think I’ll make a good wife?’
‘No, lousy. Yer can’t cook, can’t do nothing ordinary – but then, you never could . . . Yeah, I’d say you’ll make ’im a great wife. Now put yer name on the dotted line.’
‘Alex, if you asked me, I’d stay. But you don’t need me here any more, do you? Place runs itself, more or less.’
Alex twisted the pen, then suddenly held out his hand to her. He fingered her tiny white hands with the long, blood-red nails. She knew he was the best friend she would ever have, and began to get tearful. She really cared for him. ‘You know, Alex, you should take a break. Everybody has to at some time. He won’t come down here now. I know why you’re always here. But Eddie’s not coming back, not here.’
The Talisman Page 32
