Dirty Game

by Jessie Keane

  No wonder Max had pissed off to the stockbroker belt to live, thought Jonjo. Jonjo knew that Max slept here sometimes when he’d had a heavy day, but Jonjo wouldn’t stay a night here if you paid him in gold bits. He had a flat across town where he took all his birds. Fuck this place. They had been in the process of selling it when Queenie died. At that point Max had taken it off the market. He refused to discuss getting rid of the old mausoleum now. It gave Jonjo the creeps to come here. He kept expecting his mum to appear at the door.

  They were all here. Him and Max. Jimmy Bond and Gary Tooley and Steven Taylor. Several other staunch men, all trusted lieutenants. Deaf Derek was down the bottom there, looking sullen since Jonjo had to give him a slapping over the Eddie business. Derek should have looked after Eddie better, thought Jonjo, watching the little bastard with distaste. If it hadn’t been for Max’s intervention, the little fucker would have had a lot more than a slap. Jackie Tulliver was there too, smoking his bloody horrible cigars. All the boys were neatly dressed and wearing black armbands. It was nice that they were showing respect, but Jonjo would have expected no less of them at a time like this.

  But Max. Max was as always immaculately turned out, in a black Savile Row suit, white shirt and black tie. His black vicuna coat, lined with purple silk, was laid over the back of his chair. Max’s eyes looked blank. Granted, Max had taken the brunt of Eddie’s death, he’d been on the spot when it happened. Jonjo felt bad about that, but he’d been carrying on with business while Max stayed down there in Surrey. Someone had to mind the fucking shop, didn’t they?

  And Jonjo knew he’d been doing good. The parlours were all running smoothly, the clubs were fine, all the halls and shops and arcades who paid protection to the Carters were behaving themselves and paying up promptly. There had been no insurrections, no lack of respect that would have had to be instantly cracked down on; no trouble at all. Well, some. The Maltese were always acting heavy and needing a sharp slap, but so what? Same old shit, easily dealt with.

  The dummy fiver and tenner plates he’d bought off Kyle Fox in The Grapes had been sold on to one of the Manchester mobs at a good profit. There were lots of new opportunities opening up in the West End and all the gangs were eager to get their slice of the action. The Barolli family from America had come over recently and there’d been a satisfactory meet. Constantine Barolli’s mob now paid the Carter firm three thousand sovs a quarter to keep any rough elements out of their Knightsbridge businesses.

  Rough elements like the Delaneys, for instance.

  The American mob had been very courteous to Max and Jonjo. The brothers had wined and dined Constantine Barolli and his family, and the Barollis had in turn introduced Max and Jonjo to George Raft and Judy Garland. Big stars. They were mixing with the best these days. Eddie had loved meeting all the stars, he’d been in his element. It pained Jonjo badly to know that Eddie wouldn’t get to do any of that any more.

  Jonjo watched his older brother sitting there, blank-faced. Eddie’s death had hit Max like a fucking pick handle. Max seemed to have lost his hunger for the business, maybe even for life itself. Jonjo hated to see him this way. He’d tried to brace the poor sod up, but no go.

  Now Jonjo knew he had to say something. He wasn’t the type to mess-ass about. Better to spit it out, say what he felt.

  ‘We should do something about what happened to Eddie,’ he said, broaching the subject that everyone else in the room was afraid to bring up. There was a murmur of assent from most of the other boys. Silence, of course, from Deaf Derek. Jonjo shook out one of his Player’s, lit up and kicked back in his chair to look at Max.

  ‘If we don’t, it’ll be seen as weakness,’ he said.

  Max was silent. He was staring at his clasped hands on the tabletop as if he might find answers there.

  ‘Torch the place where it happened,’ suggested Gary.

  ‘Do a few of their shop-owners,’ said Steven.

  Jimmy Bond, Max’s most trusted lieutenant, said nothing.

  Everyone in the room knew that ‘they’ were the Delaneys. Every one of them believed that this had been Delaney work. Even Max.

  ‘Well fucking say something,’ said Jonjo angrily.

  Abruptly Max stood up. He put his coat on and looked around at them all.

  ‘There’s nothing to say,’ he said quietly. ‘Not until after we’ve laid Eddie to rest, then we’ll see. Until then, shut it the lot of you.’

  ‘What about the heist, Max?’ asked Jimmy.

  Max paused. Over the past few weeks they had been discussing a planned heist on a department store that paid protection to the Delaneys; they’d been going to hit it in January, after the Christmas rush and the January sales, but all this shit had hit the fan over Eddie and now it looked like it was going to have to be next year instead.

  ‘It’ll keep,’ said Max.

  And he left the room. They all listened, gob-smacked, as he went down the stairs and out the front door. There was an uneasy silence. Then Deaf Derek once again lived up to his reputation of being a prat.

  ‘Word on the street is that Mr Carter’s losing it,’ he said.

  Stupid fucker, thought the others, although each of them had entertained the same thought over the past few months. Jonjo moved fast, launching himself down the table at Derek. In an instant Jonjo had the squirming idiot pinned to the wall and was banging his stupid head against it.

  ‘What did you say, you ponce?’ roared Jonjo.

  ‘Nothing!’ bleated Derek. ‘I didn’t say nothing, Jonjo.’

  Jonjo gave his head another knock and then nutted him. Derek sank dazed to the floor, where Jonjo put the boot in.

  ‘Watch your mouth, you cunt,’ said Jonjo, brick-red and bulging-eyed with rage. Then he was following Max out the door and down the stairs. The others sat there shaking their heads and looking at each other. Only Derek would be thick enough to disrespect Max in front of his brother Jonjo.

  ‘Tosser,’ said Steven, as he passed Derek by.

  Gary and Jimmy and the others followed too. Derek sat hugging his guts. All he’d said was the truth. He knew it. And so did they.

  20

  Like most, Annie Bailey hated funerals. It was bad enough when a person was old and frail, death wasn’t so hard then. A bit of a mercy, really. But when it was the death of a young man, and a death so bloody and vicious, then you started to say to yourself: if there’s a God, why did he let something like this happen?

  When she got up on Friday morning and took a bath and styled her hair, she thought of Eddie. Eddie as she had last seen him, bloody and broken on the bed in Darren’s room. As she dressed she tried to get a grip. Think of happier times, she told herself.

  She thought of dancing with Eddie at Max’s and Ruthie’s wedding. It was no good. She remembered not Eddie’s tipsy laughter but the tight misery gripping her throat and chest on that day. Max ignoring her. Ruthie, who should have been so happy, looking distraught and confused. When she’d got home that night, it had been a mercy to lock herself up in her room, alone. Even then there had been no real relief. All she could think about was Max and Ruthie in bed together. All she could feel in her bruised, aching heart was it should have been me.

  She put on her neat black suit with the cream piping and gold buttons. It was a Chanel rip-off, elegant and understated, one of Celia’s selections.

  ‘A Madam may have to mix with whores but she doesn’t have to look like one,’ Celia had always told her. ‘The right clothes give a woman authority.’

  Annie looked in the mirror and knew that Celia was correct. She put on the black pillbox hat she’d bought specially, and black stockings, black court shoes. Her dark hair she tucked up in a neat chignon. She picked up her bag and went downstairs. Darren was making tea and toast.

  ‘Want some?’ he asked as she came into the kitchen.

  Annie shook her head. ‘I’d throw it straight back up.’

  Darren looked her up and down. ‘You look great. I’ll come with y
ou if you want, you know that.’

  ‘No, I’m best on my own,’ said Annie.

  Christ, that would really put the cat among the pigeons. Darren, the male prossie Eddie had been attacked with, turning up at a Carter funeral.

  ‘Are you sure you should go?’ asked Darren.

  ‘Celia would go,’ said Annie flatly, and was relieved to hear the taxi tooting away outside. She didn’t want time enough to talk herself out of this. It wouldn’t take much to make her bottle it altogether. But she owed it to Celia to at least show up and pay her respects. Dig deep and stand alone, she told herself.

  ‘Take over, Darren,’ said Annie, and left.

  The streets all around the cemetery were thronged with people turning out to show respect to the Carters. Annie paid the taxi driver, told him to come back in an hour, and decided to walk the rest of the way. She caught snatches of the conversation of other mourners.

  ‘See,’ flu can be nasty. Carry you off in a minute.’

  ‘Our Gillian had it last winter, she was fucked. Too weak to lift a finger.’

  ‘And he was so young.’

  ‘Yeah, but never strong.’

  ‘Just goes to show.’

  So that was the story. Eddie Carter had died of complications brought on by influenza. She went into the church. It was already nearly full, and she was pleased about that. She tucked herself away at the back, glad to be lost among the crowds.

  Annie thought that organ music was the most depressing thing in the world. All around her people were talking in whispers, scared to appear disrespectful by raising their voices in a place of worship. She looked up at the stained-glass window. Angels were clustered around Christ on the cross. Candles glimmered on the altar. It was pretty and serene in here. When she thought of how Eddie had died, it pained her to look at any of it.

  There was a rustle of louder whispering now. The hearse had arrived. The music changed, swelling with Saul’s Dead March. There was movement and lowered voices from the porch, then the coffin came, beautifully draped in white lilies, borne aloft by six men. She saw Jonjo Carter and Gary Tooley, Jimmy Bond and Steven Taylor, Jackie Tulliver – and Max.

  Annie felt her heart kick violently in her chest. She hadn’t seen him since he’d chucked her out of his car. Christ, such a lot had happened since then! She’d changed. She could see that he’d changed, too. He’d lost weight. His face was sharper, his dark skin almost pale. Every pulse in her body seemed to have speeded up. She quickly looked away from him, it hurt too much.

  All her stupid unvoiced hopes for this day had proved worthless. She had almost convinced herself that his power over her would be gone, that she would look at him and not feel what she had always felt. She didn’t know what this was – love or lust? More like a fucking obsession. Whatever it was, she had to get rid of it.

  Then the six grim-faced men were moving slowly on up the aisle. They stopped in front of the altar and placed the coffin carefully on the dais. The music stopped. The vicar told everyone to be seated. Annie sat numb throughout the readings then stood up to mouth the words of hymns. She lost track of time, it was like a waking nightmare, but at last the coffin was coming back down for the interment. This time she didn’t look at Max. But she saw Ruthie and Mum following on behind the coffin.

  Mum looked fucking awful, but then she always did. Black drained her, made her look scrawnier and pastier than ever. But Ruthie was a shock. She was so skinny now, and her expensive dress hung on her like a rag. Where had Annie’s plump, warm-featured sister gone? Ruthie looked like a mannequin, painfully thin and cold.

  It was better outside in the air, even if the wind cut like a knife near the grave. Queenie’s headstone was huge and elaborate, a tribute from Max and Jonjo and Eddie. Now Eddie was joining her, to lie beside her for eternity. The many mourners, Annie among them, stood back and let the close family cluster around the grave. The vicar was saying the ancient, soothing words. Ruthie was crying and dabbing at her eyes. Connie put her arm around her and Annie felt her guts clench in sympathy. Jonjo was a big, bulky presence, standing with head bowed beside a rigidly upright Max.

  Annie allowed herself to look at him again. One look, one last guilty moment of pleasure before she stopped this silliness once and for all. She stared at his face. The hooked nose, the dark hair being tossed by the wind, the steely blue eyes that raised and now looked – oh God – straight into hers. Annie’s breath caught with the shock of it. Their eyes locked for a long time, then Max looked down at the grave again.

  ‘It’s a fucking shame,’ someone was saying behind her. ‘Not that long since the old lady went, and now the boy.’

  Then it was over. Thank God, thought Annie. She rushed out of the cemetery gates to the waiting taxi. She didn’t look at Max Carter again. She didn’t dare.

  21

  Redmond Delaney sent over an ex-boxer called Chris Brown for the job on the door. He was an ugly bald man, six-and-a-half feet tall and eighteen meaty stones of muscle, with a battered nose and misshapen ears. Chris had a gentle, respectful way with women and a hard but polite way with men. He dressed immaculately. Annie took to him at once, but was appalled to realize how much he expected to make out of her. She hammered him down to the lowest possible basic, adding that there would be perks to the job.

  ‘Tips on the door, food and drink, a bed if you should need it, and the use of the facilities.’

  ‘The facilities?’

  ‘The girls. Or Darren. Work out any charges with them.’

  ‘No freebies?’ Chris smiled.

  ‘This is a place of work, not a dating agency,’ said Annie firmly. ‘And the golden rule here is discretion. We get on okay with our neighbours, because they don’t know our business. I don’t want them to, either. Keep inside, don’t make yourself obvious out in the street. Break that rule and you’re out. And Mr Delaney will be told why.’

  ‘Mr Delaney said you were tough,’ said Chris, unruffled. ‘I respect that, Miss Bailey.’

  ‘Good. Then we’ll get along fine.’

  With Chris installed from late afternoons to early morning, she felt safer. Poorer too, but still – everything came at a price in this world. He was handy as well. He reviewed their security, telling her she needed better locks front and back, security chains, a peephole on the front door, locks on all the windows and a firmer line on house personnel. She needed to monitor more closely who was in and who was out. He hit on the idea of a book on the hall table. When someone, staff or punter, left, they were signed out. When they came back, they were signed in. That way, Annie insured against any nasty surprises. And keys must be more carefully guarded.

  ‘See to it,’ said Annie. More fucking expense, but she knew he was right. ‘But remember …’ ‘Be discreet. Got it,’ said Chris, squeezing into his Zodiac and roaring off to the hardware store.

  Kieron was still being a pest. A week after the funeral, he phoned and at last she agreed to sit for him again – and this time in the nude. She wasn’t happy about it. Her mind was in turmoil. The pressures of Eddie’s death, seeing Max and Ruthie, preparing for the first of the parties and not knowing whether it would pay or not, wondering where the hell Celia was and if she was okay – it was all getting to her.

  And now – this.

  ‘I’m not sure about any of this,’ said Annie when she got to his flat at Shepherd’s Bush and stood there in the paint-spattered room with the smell of turps and linseed oil nearly choking her.

  Kieron was busy putting a prepped new canvas on the easel, not taking any real notice of her. As usual. What was the matter with the bastard? she wondered in sudden fury. He’d pushed a tatty, red velvet chaise to the centre of the room, ready for her to recline upon. Probably heaving with nits and all sorts by the look of it, she thought angrily. For God’s sake, did she really need this?

  ‘There’s a robe on the door, get changed in that little room through there,’ he said, not even glancing at her, tossing boxes aside as he hunted for fresh
charcoal.

  The ‘little room’ turned out to be a broom cupboard. She barked her shins on a metal bucket and knocked over mops and brushes when she tried to turn round.

  ‘Fuck it!’ she muttered.

  ‘Okay in there?’ he trilled.

  ‘Oh sure. Marvellous,’ said Annie.

  She got stripped off and put on the grubby, red silk robe, then went back out and looked at him expectantly. He didn’t even look up. This time he was cleaning brushes. Fuck! she thought and took off the robe and threw herself down on to the dirty chaise. Dust plumed up and she started to cough.

  ‘When did you last clean in here?’ she asked him.

  ‘I clean up,’ said Kieron defensively, adjusting the easel. ‘That sink over there gleams like pools of piss in the moonlight.’

  Annie realized that, like all men, Kieron had selective vision when it came to dust. They cleaned one bit of the room intensively and ignored the rest.

  ‘Look.’ Annie was getting irritable. ‘I hope this isn’t going to take long.’

  ‘Sure, you can’t hurry the creative process,’ said Kieron, straightening up. ‘Right, I’m ready.’

  Kieron looked at the woman on the red chaise for the first time and nearly dropped his charcoal. Christ alive, but she was a beauty. Her skin was luminously pale, her hair long and dark, her eyes as deeply green as tourmalines.

  ‘Right,’ he said, staring.

  ‘Let’s get on with it,’ said Annie. ‘How do you want me?’

  ‘Right.’ Kieron swallowed hard. ‘On your front then, if you will. Look back at me over that shoulder. Like that, yes. Put that arm down a bit. That left leg up slightly.’