Bloody London

by Reggie Nadelson

  “My God. Frye’s supplying bodies?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You think Warren was in the middle of this?”

  “A sideshow.”

  “But Frye’s contributors ain’t gonna be happy if he was supplying homeless dead guys for Warren’s art. Least we can hope for is getting Frye some lousy publicity.”

  “I’ll call you tomorrow, Jack. I’ll have some stuff for you. Probably we can do business.”

  “You want a lift?”

  “I’m all right.”

  “Do you think, Artie, I should put someone on Phillip Frye straight away?”

  “It’s your call. Me, I wouldn’t. I’d give him another couple days, see if he jumps overboard all by himself.”

  “Anything else?”

  “I hear Philly’s having a big party tonight, and I got myself an invite, I figured they might cancel because of Pru’s death, but I checked. So you want to be my date?”

  Jack smiled. “A lot of excellent women will attend.”

  I grinned. “How old before we outgrow this shit?”

  Jack said, “When our dicks drop off.”

  “So what’s the poster?”

  Jack leaned back in his chair. “I’m thinking of quitting this.” He gestured at the room. “I’ve been putting the word out quietly.”

  “You want to tell me about the poster?”

  He reached over to the desk and unrolled it. It was a rough drawing in crayon that showed a black cop with Asian features. It was addressed to the “Eleven Black and Asian Cops” and said they should have their heads cut off.

  Jack tore it in half. “Forget it,” he said. “I’m way past this kind of shit, you know? Hey, I had a boss who told me straight out – I mean, we’re having breakfast – he says most black men are uneducated and uneducable and because there’s no overt violence in Britain like there is in America, there’s only a simmering rage. He said, you give me any seven-year-old black male, I can write his future for you right now because he doesn’t have one.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Yeah, well, fuck them all, Art, you know. I’m busy with other stuff. So one more thing.” He picked up a thick brown envelope and opened it, then pulled out a gun.

  “What’s that?”

  “You don’t have to say anything, OK, just take it as from a friend, which I am, but they picked up this weapon near Warren Pascoe’s studio. A Gluck. Brand new. Never been used. No serial number. Sadly for us, the prints got wiped off.”

  “Thanks, Jack. Thank you.”

  “I didn’t hear that, so if you know anything about it, don’t tell me, just think about it. OK?”

  “OK.”

  Gilchrist’s club was in a building on a grand scale, high ceilings, pillars, beautiful woodwork, a library, men in leather armchairs. Soft voices. Old books. Gilchrist sat in front of a fire. The flames were bright, warm. He held out his hands.

  I said, “So the KGB kept it all going for you. All this.”

  He laughed merrily. “Absolutely. Fees paid, post collected, friends memorialized even. If I asked for flowers to be sent to a funeral, it was done. They understood. It was all much more banal and much more surreal than people imagined, but I suspect you know that. It’s in your blood.”

  I sat down next to him. For a moment he seemed lost in his history. “Do you know, Artie, that there was an occasion when I was summoned by the conductor of the KGB house band. Someone had discovered I had a liking for swing music, and could play a little clarinet. They were keen on Glenn Miller, you see.” He hummed “In the Mood” and looked for a waiter.

  I looked around the room, then at Gilchrist; it didn’t get a lot more surreal than this, and I leaned closer to him and watched the fire. I pulled the cash Sverdloff gave me out of my pocket and put it on the low table in front of us. Geoff picked it up slowly, then put it in his pocket.

  “Listen, Geoff, I took your previous advice. I went to see Warren Pascoe.” I tossed his keyring with the bronze hands on the table. “And Warren was dead as his models. I don’t know if you sent me to Warren Pascoe’s to fucking set me up or not, or whose errand boy you really are, and I don’t really give a crap right now. I got you some money. So either you have something to tell me or not.”

  Gilchrist said, “I sent you to Warren because I think Warren knew where the bodies were buried, so to speak. I didn’t set you up. If someone followed you from my house, I am sorry. I want you to believe me.” He leaned forward and added, “I don’t want to lose you. Can’t I get you a drink?” He rose from the chair and padded across the carpet.

  Suddenly, it was the other Gilchrist, the Geoff of my childhood, the sprightly man in his forties who got up out of the old man’s body. He was light, easy, agile. I thought he might do a little dance step on his way across the floor.

  I saw Frank Sinatra do that once at a concert a few years before he quit singing. He was already an old man, but he got up on stage and pulled his own fabulous youth out of a hat and, for one number, sang like he was forty. I miss Frank.

  Gilchrist disappeared into another room, then came back with a waiter in his wake. There was Scotch for me and brandy for him, and a bowl of potato chips that he placed on the table between us.

  “You always liked snacks as a boy, I think. Have I got that right? You ate all my Twiglets,” he said.

  Animated, Gilchrist sipped his drink. He looked at me as if he could divine some secret in my face, could find something he’d lost. “I said I owed you. I meant it. I’m not sure I would have managed those first couple of years in Moscow without your father’s kindnesses.”

  “No more nostalgia, please.”

  “I never thanked him.” He craned his neck towards the door.

  “Waiting for someone?”

  “Always. I’m not privy to everything that goes on. I’m an errand boy, as I’m sure you’ve worked out. But I do errands for all of them, you see. I take whatever I can get from them, the creeps, as you call them. The other side too. Everyone’s terribly worried about the Russian mafia, so-called, and after all, who knows the Russians as well as I? I’m quite good on the new mafia, you’d be surprised, an expert witness, actually.”

  I looked into the fire.

  “None of them trusts me particularly, but they can’t give me up entirely and with what time I’ve got, I thought I’d help myself to a few of the goodies. I was always rather good at getting information.”

  My pulse started racing. Someone in the corner of the room, someone with too much muscle for such a civilized venue, was watching us. I shifted my chair out of his sight lines. “And what’s the information you’ve got now?”

  He smiled a little triumphant smile, and said, “Someone has been waiting for this opportunity.”

  “What opportunity?” I hated the games. “What?”

  He laughed, the tinkly, charming laugh again, and gestured for the waiter, then saluted a youngish man in a pinstripe three piece on the other side of the room. Playing the conspirator, voice low, eyes alight, Gilchrist giggled and said, “The weather.”

  “What?”

  “It’s marvelous, isn’t it? I loved the Russian winters. It was proper weather, sharp, clean. London soaked your bones and made you a crank.”

  He was on a roll. The waiter brought refills. The man in pinstripes stopped by to chat. More people, on their way to eat or drink, came by. Gilchrist soaked it up. And I watched the man in the corner whose eyes never left us; Gilchrist had his back to him.

  I said, “What did you mean by opportunity?”

  “You know, in my business, there are always a dozen plans on the back burner. Opportunity. Natural disaster. Nuclear spills. Someone trips up or a diplomat goes to bed with the wrong woman or the wrong man or there’s a murder, but if something happens, you ought to have a plan so that you can exploit it. Opportunity.”

  “You’re losing me,” I said. “I thought we were talking about the fucking weather.”

  “We are. That’s the poin
t. Someone is planning, has been planning for years maybe, various tiny little terrorist acts if the opportunity arises, which is perhaps to mess about with the soft brick embankments along the Thames. You heard about the device set near Parliament the other day?”

  “Yes.”

  “Greenwich was to be next, where the Dome is. One of the options. Do you understand now?”

  “No.”

  “Certain conditions, spring tides, usually in November. It doesn’t take much, either; in the right conditions you get floods. London is built on reclaimed marshlands. Britain’s got a pretty stable climate, but it’s sinking quite fast. Global warming. Overbuilding. We’re not vulnerable to volcanoes or earthquakes, but there are the floods.” He laughed and laughed and drank the brandy. “Britain is sinking.”

  Tessa Stiles said it was how she saw it: a wall of water coming down on London.

  Gilchrist added, “Anyway, it’s yours, the information.”

  “Why? Who are the hostages? What’s the point?”

  “Oh, Artie, you don’t understand. It’s never so clear cut, never so obvious. This isn’t about ideology, it’s about money. Greed. This is about land. Think about it. The property market was overcooked. It went sky-high. Volatile. You’ve heard there have been some sell-offs, a few foreclosures.”

  I thought of Sverdloff. Him and his cronies buying up Docklands. Buying everything. Push the market up. Sell. Watch it fall. Buy again.

  “A bad flood, even the threat, suddenly depresses property prices. Someone starts a rumor. It’s like dominoes. And Artie?”

  “What else?”

  “I don’t care, actually. I’ll be happy to watch the whole bloody place sink, a nice way to end it for me, but not for you. If you want to stop it – unless the weather breaks – you’ll have to find someone in power who will believe you.”

  I changed the subject. “You’ve heard of Phillip Frye?”

  “Possibly. Tell me.”

  I told him. Gilchrist stayed in his deep chair, eyes half-closed, until I mentioned Thomas Pascoe. Until I said that Frye was Pascoe’s nephew.

  Geoffrey Gilchrist leaned forward, put his hand on my arm and said, “If this man Frye is involved and if he profited from Pascoe’s death, I’ll get you anything you need.”

  “Why the sudden enthusiasm, Geoff ?”

  Gilchrist looked up. The watcher in the corner seemed to have moved closer. I said to Gilchrist, “Your muscle? Over there in the corner?”

  He looked up. Saw the man. Tried to hide his fear. He lowered his voice, “Eddie Kievsky’s.”

  “And you’re Eddie’s boy?”

  “Yes. I am, as you say, Eddie’s boy. Finish your drink, dear, and we’ll go.” He patted the pocket where he’d put the money and moved slowly towards the door. When we got there, he picked up his hat and coat from a little room. Kievsky’s guy stayed a few yards back.

  Gilchrist said, “I’ll get you your proof, if I can, but check the weather forecasts.” He held out his hand.

  “Do we have any time left?”

  “Not a lot.”

  Gilchrist suddenly hugged me and I had the feeling I’d never see him again. We went out of the front door, he opened his umbrella, trotted down the steps, then looked over his shoulder. “Goodbye, Artie.”

  The dark-blue Jaguar was waiting for him in the street. He climbed in with a wave, leaned out again and laughing to himself, called out, “The weather.”

  I looked at the sky. I was sick of it. Sick of the rain and wind, sick of the heavy sky, sick of the bloody weather.

  32

  The band on the barge played “Blue Skies” that night. Everyone laughed. People danced, drank pink Champagne, strolled in and out of the restaurant, through the sand-blasted glass doors, on to the broad planks of the deck.

  Gilchrist was wrong. The weather had changed. It was windy, but clear and very mild. The sure-footed waiters carried trays of Champagne aloft, and the decks of the barge were lined with fruit trees in tubs. Oranges and lemons, like Christmas tree balls, bounced merrily in the breeze.

  WATERCLUB, the name of the restaurant, was picked out in a silver neon banner that seemed to change shape like water. The river barge had glass walls and ceiling, and a mirrored bar. The glass rippled with reflected water and sky. There were stars and the moon out, and after days of vicious storms, lead-colored sky, a sodden city and swollen river, it was a soft seductive night.

  “It won’t last,” I heard someone say. Someone else laughed and said, “Who cares?”

  It was opening night. A party for HOME. A brand-new restaurant that was moored near Butler’s Wharf. In good weather it could sail too. On the deck, people stood, glasses in hand, yakking. A dinner boat sailed by and partygoers waved to us and called out. It was surreal, the sudden mild night, the stars.

  Jack Cotton looked up from his glass. “French probably, that boat. They sail right out the Thames Estuary and back. Corporate shit. Names like Symphony, Silver Sturgeon, Golden Salmon. A hundred quid for a bad meal and a boat ride,” he added, not quite bitter.

  “Where’s Nina?”

  He shrugged. “We’ve got some problems, like I said.”

  There was plenty to drink; Jack was drinking his share. In my time, I put plenty away, but London – Christ, they really knocked it back. Jack stopped a waiter now and pulled a bottle of Lanson off the tray, resting it on the railing of the deck.

  I leaned against the side of the barge and stretched. The volatile weather that had made me nuts really was over. Geoffrey Gilchrist was just a paranoid old man looking for a handout. The weather! Come on, Geoff, I thought. But it left me hanging on the Pascoe case all over again. Frye was a prick, but what kind?

  Inside, a band did a jazzy version of “Sunny Side of the Street”, and I looked for Lily and said to Jack, “Nice party.”

  Jack puffed on a little stogie and said, “Yeah, well, you’re either at the party, eating good, drinking plenty, or you’re out at some shithole hoping no one dies in the crossfire.”

  “Nothing else, huh?”

  “Yeah, sure, dying yourself, usually of boredom in the middle-class rectitude of a London semi or a suburban cottage and mortgaged for life,” he said.

  On the wharf below, people arrived in cabs, cars, limos. Jack pointed out the cast of characters as they disembarked in front of a stand of lights that had been rigged by a camera crew. A medium-size pack of paparazzi jiggled around the edge of the scene, calling the stars by name, popping their bulbs. “Over here, darling. Over here.” There was a buzz.

  I looked for Lily in the crowd again. The sight of her at Frye’s warehouse made me nuts, but I’d come to the party for her, dressed up, too. I’d seen the jacket in a store and bought it with some of the cash Tolya lent me after I lost my wallet.

  “Nice jacket, Art,” Jack said and looked at the crowd. He pointed out a large man in a dark-blue suit with a cigar in one hand. The owner, said Jack. Famous restaurant guy.

  Jack had an eye for style – you could see from his clothes – and he pointed out the features of the boat. I said, “You shoulda been in PR,” and he told me, half serious, that the ashtrays alone were a work of art.

  “Or a decorator.” I ribbed him some about it. He smiled coolly and we watched a woman in an orange velvet Gucci that probably cost three grand, watched her drop an ashtray casually into her Prada shoulder bag.

  By nine there were three hundred people on the barge. There was a toot from a whistle and a gang of sailors appeared suddenly – in outfits no real sailor ever wore – and cast off.

  The barge moved at a stately pace. The band played “Let the River Run”. The noise of the crowd grew.

  I said to Jack, “How come you’re so popular, Jack?”

  Jack laughed. “I told you. Celebrity cop. Celebrity black guy. Two for the price of one when it comes to these gigs. Anyhow, I’m a lot of fun, Art.” He raised an eyebrow. “Still, the drink’s free.”

  “And good.”

  “
Very good. What’s more, Phillip Frye’s our boy, isn’t he? Let’s go eat some of Phil’s food.”

  But we stayed on the deck, drinking, watching the crowd. Phillip Frye was the emcee. He stood in the middle of the room glad-handing all comers. He wore a purple velvet suit with bell bottoms and a red silk shirt embroidered with lurex houses.

  Jack saw me look. “Nothing like an Englishman trying for hip,” he laughed.

  I said, “Who’s that with him?”

  Jack said enviously, “The wife. Shashi. She’s Ethiopian.”

  Shashi Frye was very tall and ravishingly beautiful. A coffee-colored woman, her hair in corn rows, she wore a traditional gauzy white dress that blew around her like sails on a slender boat.

  We went inside and the noise hit me. The talk was loud, people greeting each other, laughing, kissing. Jack introduced me around: Benedict, Nick, Tristan, Georgia, Jeremy, names like something off of Masterpiece Theater. There were Russian voices in the crowd: Irina Kievskaya appeared and kissed me three times.

  I tuned in to the chatter. There was talk about property. I heard a man mention a rumor of sell-offs in Docklands, and a woman said in a piercing voice, “Don’t be a party pooper, darling, it’s nothing to do with us.”

  While everyone circled around Phillip Frye and praised his project for the homeless, they talked about leases and renovations and profit margins, and architects who charged a grand just to pick up the phone and corrupt estate agents and how you couldn’t get anything in W11 for under a mill.

  The irony wasn’t lost on them either; they were cool. They laughed at their own ambitions, but I knew Tolya Sverdloff was right: people would kill for real estate.

  Then I saw Isobel Cleary. Iz wore a green silk dress and high heels and Lily was with her, the two of them arm in arm, heads together. They were laughing uproariously at something, shaking with laughter. It was why I had come, but Lily had her back to me and then she walked off in the other direction before I could call her name or wave or get to her.