Bloody London

by Reggie Nadelson

  I was conscious I had about ten minutes before Pru reappeared. A waiter brought a menu, I ordered some cheese and a glass of Merlot. Keir and his friends, jackets on the backs of their chairs, sleeves rolled up, discussed leases and profits, a six-part sell-and-buy deal they were celebrating, the shortage of decent space in London, the necessity of surveys and conveyancing deals. One of them mentioned rumors of a small downturn, a sell-off, another said it was temporary, insignificant, and they toasted themselves again. It was a foreign language, so I just sat and ate and listened in. I thought about the letter under the door and I leaned over to Keir. “Ever come across the Joint Eurobank?”

  “Yes,” said Keir. “They’re crooks.”

  But Isobel suddenly arrived, breathless, face red, hair wet, said she had been kept in court late and ordered a glass of Champagne.

  She kissed everyone at the table, then sat next to me. Keir was on her other side. Without turning away from me, she reached back and touched her husband’s hand and I was jealous, of both of them.

  Iz Cleary was prettier than I remembered, an impish woman, short hair, freckles, Irish accent. She told some very funny jokes, and I bought everyone some more wine and hoped Pru Vane had disappeared for good. While the men huddled and finished their business, Iz turned her chair so we were facing each other.

  The candles on the tables flickered. The rain drummed on glass overhead. Isobel sipped her drink, looked around and smiled at me.

  I said, “So how about leaving your husband and marrying me?”

  She laughed. “You American guys don’t beat around the bush, do you?”

  “Not like here,” I said.

  She wolfed down some bread and cheese now, then drank more Champagne. “Tell me about it. I was in law school at New Haven for a bit. Americans normally mean what they say. They say ABC, they mean it. The English, they say ABC, you say, oh I get it, it’s ABC, and they burst out laughing. Sarcasm, diffidence, self-deprecation, lying, spying, betrayal. Of course, post-Diana, they, and I mean they – the non-verbal classes – have been released from all of this. Now they say everything. They’re like Americans now. They spill their guts on the telly. They hold vigils for the hopeless. They talk about how they feel. We’re a caring sharing nation now, we use words like proud, like Americans or John Bull Brits of a century ago. Outstanding, we cry. Proud to be you and me.” She laughed.

  I said, “What about you?”

  “I’m Irish, not English.”

  “It’s so different?”

  “You bet it is.”

  “What’s Lily?”

  “Lily’s a complicated woman, you know? She feels at home here and not at home. She loves that child – Beth, I mean, of course – to distraction but she’s restless. She’s crazy about you, Artie. In her way.”

  “Yeah?” I was unconvinced.

  “Yes.”

  I felt like a kid. “How do you know?”

  “She talks to me. She sends me pictures.”

  “What of?”

  “Of you, you idiot. Look, we’ve known each other twenty-five years, I met her in the States, she came to London for the network, we shared a flat for a while, we worked for the cause.”

  “What cause?”

  She grinned. “Peace and Love. Women’s Rights. Anti-nukes. Anti-war. Amnesty. South Africa. Homeless. Black Panthers. Whatever there was. She’s lovely, but she’s troubled, Artie. Ease up on her, if you can. Meanwhile, come and have lunch with me tomorrow. Maybe I can help. I’ll be in court.”

  “You work much with the cops here?”

  “A bit.”

  “Guy name of Jack Cotton?”

  “I’ve met Jack once or twice. In London, it’s hard to avoid. Jack gets around.” She was only half sarcastic.

  “Is he an OK guy?”

  “He’s a policeman. He’s maybe a little right-wing for my taste, but by the nature of what he is, you’d expect it.”

  “I’m a policeman. Was.”

  “I know. But my friend’s in love with you.”

  “So you forgive me.”

  “Look, Jack is a black man who’s made his way, we’re talking a pretty fucking racist country, OK? Cotton stands out. There are only three per cent of the police who are ethnic minority all told. Worse still, he’s Jamaican.”

  “So?”

  “So around here, Jamaican means criminal. Yardies. Jack’s got a tough row to hoe. If there’s a black problem, Jack Cotton has to show his face. You’ve met his wife?” She pursed her lips.

  “No. Should I?”

  “Nina Cotton wouldn’t be my first choice of port in a storm, but then you never know, do you?”

  “You trust Jack?”

  “As much as I trust any cop.” She gestured at the low-lit room full of wine-flushed people making happy talk. “We can’t really talk with these guys around, so why don’t you meet me tomorrow? Give me your number. I’ll call you as soon as I can break out. Meet me, Artie, OK? I want to talk to you about Lily.”

  “You’re busy later?”

  “Yes.” Without turning around, she leaned back against Keir and blushed. “The kids are all in the country and I expect to be busy.”

  “Too bad.”

  “Fuck off.” She laughed. “Meet me tomorrow.”

  I took Isobel’s hand, which was small and warm. “You’ve known Lily practically forever, Iz. Did you know Thomas Pascoe? His wife Frances? Did you know Phillip Frye was Pascoe’s nephew?”

  She picked up her glass and held it in front of a candle. “Lily doesn’t give a rat’s ass about Phillip Frye.”

  “Then tell me why Lily had Pascoe’s picture in her kid’s closet and how come I know if I ask her about it she’ll lie.”

  Before Isobel answered, her husband reclaimed her attention. But not before I got a good look at her lucid brown eyes. She was worried. Isobel was a woman with rosy skin, but when I mentioned Pascoe’s picture, the color drained away, literally. A sheer film of sweat appeared on her forehead.

  “What is it?” I said.

  Iz shook her head. “Just leave it until tomorrow. Just go back to where you’re staying and we’ll talk then.” She looked up and saw Pru Vane coming towards us. Iz leaned over and whispered, “Stay away from Prudence Vane, Artie, OK? You tell her stuff, she’ll use it. She’ll mess you up, darling. She’s poison.”

  “Well, what’s like eating Isobel?” Pru Vane said when we were in a taxi.

  “Forget it.” I put my arm around her and said, “Forget about it and tell me who’s stealing Frye’s stuff, the names, the contributors. Tell me.”

  “You ask a fucking lot of stupid fucking questions, don’t you, sweetheart? You drive a hard bargain,” she said.

  I swear like a sewer, so does Lily. Everyone at home in New York swears plenty, but in London, it was an epidemic. “Fuck” lived its own life here, adjective, verb, noun. There was enough of the Moscow puritan left in me that I was still startled by the mouth on Pru Vane.

  We got to my place. I paid the taxi. She was all over me. By the time we got upstairs, she had half her clothes off. I was a sucker. She had a great body. She was on the floor now, naked, cross-legged, looking through her bag. She found a baggie smudged with white powder. Pru turned the bag inside out and rubbed the plastic along her gums.

  I faked disinterest for a while. “I’m getting bored, Pru, so why don’t you tell me who stole Frye’s address, OK?”

  She licked the crumbs of cocaine off the plastic.

  I crouched down next to her. “Who is it?”

  “It’s bloody Phillip Frye.”

  “Frye?”

  “He’s stealing his own stuff. Do we have to talk about Phillip?”

  “Yes.”

  “OK. He makes it look like someone’s doing it, but he’s faking the theft himself.”

  “What for?”

  “It’s superb. A ruse. Gets him attention. He makes a fuss, calls the police. Free PR for the cause. Meantime, he plays fast and loose with the nam
es. He leans on people who think the request is coming from somewhere else. From someone who stole the names.”

  “The calls, the pressure, he does it himself?”

  “Of course not. He has people.”

  “For money.”

  “What else?”

  “That’s extortion.”

  “So? Do you think Phillip’s incapable? You think that?”

  “You’re in love with Phil Frye and he fucked you over. Didn’t he? He rejected you.”

  “You’re not listening. I don’t care who Phillip fucks, he fucks everyone. He’s obsessed. He’ll take anything from anyone. It’s a big deal here, this aid business, ever since she died. Diana, you know. Very competitive. I mean, Christ, Phil sent me on a course for philanthropists.” She lolled against the sofa now. It was the second time I’d heard about the course. Irina Kievskaya, now Pru Vane.

  Pru sucked up the dope and put her hand in my pants. Then she giggled. “I swear to God. Learn how to give. Learn how to sucker the rich, you ask me.” She climbed on me and said, “It’s like cool, you know what I mean? Like Phillip says, charity’s the new rock and roll.”

  It was three in the morning and Pru Vane lay on her side, naked, asleep, and I had been real careless. Sometime during the night we’d moved to the bed. I didn’t remember much.

  I got out of bed and looked back at her. Her hair was a mess. Face smeared with make-up. She said she was twenty-six. I was betting less. She looked like a kid. Like jailbait. Jesus, I thought, and yanked on some jeans, prodded her, got her up and made coffee.

  She was hung-over and pissed off at me. I looked in the phone book and called a taxi, got her downstairs, sent her home. Not exactly romantic, but she was too drunk to care. For now. I went back to sleep for a few hours, woke up, saw the gun on the table and thought how much I hated it all.

  I hated dealing with a Russian creep to get an illegal gun, I hated feeling vulnerable without a weapon and suspect having one. I hated knowing the language and not knowing it. I knew Phillip Frye was up to his tight ass in Tommy Pascoe’s murder and would get a pile of dough out of Tommy’s will. Frye ripped off his own contributors if I believed Pru Vane. He had offered Lily a job and Lily had jumped for him.

  I believed Pru.

  I pulled a blanket over my shoulders and stood in front of the window. It was raining. It was always raining. The phone rang. It was Sonny Lippert.

  I said, “What time is it?”

  “What difference does it make?”

  “Where are you, Sonny?”

  “It’s daytime, OK, New York City daytime, man, I’m at work like you should be, OK, now shut up and listen to me. You called me, you wanted to know about Leo Mishkin and somebody name of Kievsky?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Eduard Kievsky, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yeah, well, you suspected right. Irina Kievskaya is Leo Mishkin’s sister. Which makes Eddie Kievsky his brother-in-law. That what you wanted?”

  “Which is why she resembles the kid.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “When are you coming home?”

  Mishkin and Kievsky were connected. Tolya Sverdloff did business with Leo Mishkin. I felt swamped, stuck in the mud, and I said to Sonny, “Find me Sverdloff if you can. Tell him I need him. And fast.”

  Sonny was distracted. “He’s not mine to find.”

  “He’s in bad trouble, Sonny. Real deep,” I said, and thought: so am I.

  A few hours later, I went out. Steel shutters were down on a couple of restaurants that faced the promenade. A pair of cops, bleary-eyed from lack of sleep – they’d been up half the night, one said, picking crud from the corner of his eye – inspected a damaged railing along the embankment. A couple of others unlocked a storage box, dragged out an inflatable boat and looked it over. More sandbags had appeared overnight, stacked neatly against the wall of the museum further down the promenade.

  London looked rough. A police boat heaved up and down on the heavy river. Some workers appeared and started on the damaged railing. One of them grabbed his blue hardhat, but it blew off his head and into the water, where it bobbed up and down like a toy. I knew I’d been stupid with Pru Vane; she was loose now, like the hat in the river.

  Jack Cotton showed up at the apartment around ten – my watch had stopped – and I followed him out and saw Tessa Stiles was in the car. She was looking at the cops working on the sandbags and the boat, and snickered. “They’ve got boats like that stored all over London, and they reckon that’s meaningful risk prevention in case of flood. Fools.”

  Jack said, “Get in.” We drove over the bridge. The traffic was a mess. We sat in the car, Jack and Tessa swearing and tense, me silent.

  Up by the Parliament buildings, near the river, the cop cars were parked everywhere. A gang of TV people hovered close by. Sound men hugged their furry mikes against the wind.

  Stiles leaned over the ledge of the Embankment. “It’s what I was telling you. It wasn’t a hoax, not this time. Take a look.”

  A small, brutal hole had been blown into the embankment wall just above the water line. Cops in uniform and plain clothes, and divers in rubber suits, were hanging over the edge. Hurriedly, some electricians rigged special lights. It was morning, but the sky was the color of graphite.

  “Jack?”

  “No one knows who set the device.”

  “Is it bad?”

  “Not in itself. It was a very small explosion, nobody was hurt, not yet. The old brickwork is really soft, some of it’s already eroded. It’s contained now, but when it blew, water flooded a tube tunnel. Underground. Subway to you,” he said.

  “It’s OK, you don’t have to translate for me all the time,” I said.

  Jack’s mild stutter got worse when he was wired, and he said, carefully now, “District Line. The weather gives this place a pounding.” He glanced at the Parliament building. “Government doesn’t like it when the water level rises around here,” he said, and a couple of cops near by laughed and gave Jack a thumbs-up.

  Tessa Stiles had disappeared into the clutch of cops and reporters. I said to Jack, “What’s Tessa’s business with this?”

  “The river. Contingency planning. She always has her hand in.”

  “You know who did it?”

  Jack shook his head.

  I said, “So what’s your business with it, Jack?”

  He looked at me. “You. I thought you might have some idea about this. Do you, Artie? Do you have any idea?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Jack said, “The creep who phoned it in was Russian.”

  28

  “Someone murdered Pru Vane.” Isobel Cleary took off her wig. I met her later that day in a locker room at the Old Bailey courthouse and she looked plenty rattled. I had a bad taste in my mouth like someone stuck a pistol in it. I slept with Pru, I sent her home, she was dead. Jack Cotton didn’t mention it that morning, but maybe he didn’t know.

  “How? When did it happen?”

  Isobel was whispering. “Late last night. This morning, really, early. She got home, someone was waiting, they beat her up. They took her to hospital. It didn’t help. They say she had a lot of stuff in her system, coke, heroin, I’m not sure. No one’s sure if she died from the beating or an overdose.”

  “Any marks on her?” I thought of the Russian thugs who liked to cut their victims.

  “I don’t know. Do you know anything at all about this, Artie?

  I was silent.

  Around us in the hallway, people came up to Iz, tried to talk or joke, she forced a smile, pointed out famous judges and lawyers in black robes and crusty wigs to me, but her attention was somewhere else.

  She hurried me into the street, then into a pub. A woman there looked up and waved eagerly.

  I said, “Who was that?”

  “Nobody. Let’s get out of here,” Isobel said, and went back outside where she snapped up
a black umbrella, held it over us and said, “Come on, Artie. Please.” We walked to a hotel near by.

  The hotel lobby was full of tourists. Isobel skirted them, found a bar, sat at a table in a dim corner, ordered a bottle of white wine and sandwiches. “Is this OK?” She draped her coat over the back of the chair, and asked for a cigarette. I ordered a beer.

  Isobel wore a plain black suit and a white shirt; her face was creased with worry.

  I lit her cigarette and said, “Who killed Pru? What’s going on?”

  “She was with you last night, Artie. Pru’s the kind of woman who puts herself in harm’s way, but this was different. Someone hurt her. It made me think that everyone who comes into contact with Phillip Frye’s organization gets into trouble.”

  Everyone who came into contact with me, she meant.

  Isobel put her hands on the table, palms up. “I am scared for Lily, which is why I wanted us to meet.”

  The food and wine came and Iz gobbled half a sandwich and gulped a glass of white wine. “You heard about the bodies that washed up this morning?”

  “What bodies?”

  “This storm is much worse than they’ve said. There’s flooding near the river. Some of the homeless are living down there.”

  “Frye’s shelters?”

  She nodded. “Keir’s on a couple of boards of big property outfits, so he hears. From what I can tell, London has got itself into trouble over bad property deals. Everyone’s lost money, the government as well. They were supposed to change the laws to keep some kind of handle on the market, but there were political contributions and hacks asked the wrong questions and foreigners came into London in droves and bought everything. Flats, houses, buildings, old warehouses, even the less desirable stuff and the prices went up. Like New York. Is that right, Artie, like New York?”

  “Yeah. There’s people say they’re related.”

  “Global markets, right?”

  I thought of Sverdloff.

  She said, “The real panic buying in property started a few years ago. It’s out of control now.” Iz stopped for breath, stubbed out her cigarette, pulled another one from my pack, tried to smile. “I quit.”