by Mark Timlin
That was a joke.
‘You’re not like I thought you’d be,’ he said.
‘Who is?’ I asked, and laughed, and so did he. The atmosphere eased and somewhere in the back of the building a bell rang. A couple of minutes later the waiter came in wheeling a trolley stacked high with food. We were silent whilst he cleared the empty dishes from our table and filled it up again, explaining what was in each dish as he put it out. He gave us clean, hot plates, fresh cutlery and more beers, and then split. We all loaded our plates and started to eat.
18
As I chased a king prawn, charcoaled almost black in the tandoori oven, around my plate with a fork, I took the opportunity to study Jack Dark a little closer.
He had a face like a weasel on heat with cheeks and chin shaved as smooth as the inside of a tin can even at that late hour of the day. He was wearing a black, roll-neck sweater under a blue double-breasted blazer with fine hand stitching on the lapels and gold buttons that gleamed like miniature suns under the spotlights in the restaurant. With it he wore houndstooth check grey trousers that he’d probably picked up in a little boutique in Romford or Ilford with just one subtlely lit Hugo Boss suit in the window and an assistant who doesn’t tell you the price tag until you’ve had the alterations done. And, man, if you had to ask, you shouldn’t have been trying it on in the first place.
With the combo he wore plenty of male jewellery. A gold chain around the outside of the roll neck supported a large gold medallion with what I thought was a likeness of Napoleon on the outside. On his left pinky he wore a gold signet ring. On his wedding finger he wore a thick, plain gold band. On his third finger right hand he wore a gold sovereign ring, and on that pinky, a thin gold ring set with rubies. On his left wrist was a genuine, gold Rolex Oyster with chips of diamonds set around the bevel and more chips of diamond for the numerals, so that the whole thing reflected the lights like a mirror. It was a little overstated for Gray’s Inn Road, I thought, but all right for Stringfellow’s after midnight to order drinks heliographically. I would have taken bets that skinny-arsed women in Spandex tights wet their G-strings over that particular male fashion accessory.
Although I couldn’t see them I would have put my winnings on the fact that he wore Gucci loafers with discreet gold chains. All in all, the boy was a walking gold mine. It was just as well he owned a string of jewellers.
There was only one problem that I could see. With all the glitter and the Italian clobber that cost a bomb, on top of his head was perched an Irish that wouldn’t have fooled a blind man in a heavy thunderstorm. I suppose he thought it made him look young or sexy, or both. It didn’t. It made him look old and foolish. It was sort of bright ginger that didn’t go with the grey hair that grew at the back and sides of his head. The heat of the food he was chucking down his neck was making him sweat, and the sweat had sort of floated the wig out of whack. I thought that one of his boys would have sent him a late news flash about that particular item. No points out of ten for that, Jack, I thought.
As we ate, he chatted away like we were old friends. He told me about his wife and daughters, but I really didn’t listen. When his plate was empty and carefully wiped with a piece of nan bread, he looked up. ‘Well?’ he said. ‘What do you say? Do you want the job?’
‘No, Jack,’ I said back. ‘It’s a nice offer but I think I’ll pass. I’ve got other things to do and I wouldn’t be able to give you the sort of attention you need. No hard feelings, I hope?’ It occurred to me that at this point in my life I was making enough enemies without adding Jack Dark and his little firm.
‘I’m not used to people saying no to me.’
‘I’m sure.’
He thought for a minute. ‘I’ll tell you what,’ he said. ‘Take the cash anyway, forget the job. Go on holiday. You can have a good couple of weeks with five K. Go to the West Indies. We had a cracking holiday in St Lucia last Christmas. Warm? Christ, I’ll say it was! You’ll love it. Take a sort with you. I’m sure you’ve got one or two tucked away, a good-looking boy like you. It’ll do wonders for your bad leg, the sun and that. You’ll be able to throw that stick away when you get home.’
‘Swimming,’ piped up Jim from his seat by the door, where he’d obviously been listening to every word. ‘Good for bad legs, swimming.’ And shut up.
‘Jim’s right,’ said Jack. ‘Do yourself a favour, take the dough and the holiday. Take Fiona away, she could do with a break. She’s been looking a bit peaky lately.’
I didn’t like him mentioning Fiona one bit. ‘What do you know about her?’ I asked. He didn’t reply, just sort of smirked which really pissed me off. ‘No, Jack,’ I said. ‘I don’t like the feel of this one bit. Bodyguards and dirty money and buckshee holidays in the sun, and you knowing about my girlfriend. It’s too strange for me to comprehend. And when things get strange, I get going. Keep your money, I don’t want it.’
‘You’re not going anywhere,’ said Ronnie, and all of a sudden I knew why he was armed and we were in a private room. Five grand for my life. Good fucking deal, Jack. But I’d turned the deal down, so I was in trouble. I wondered if they were going to have coffee served before they took me out, and that pissed me off more.
‘Who’s going to stop me?’ I said, and looked over at Jack. ‘Neither of these two Herberts, I’ll bet. I was watching you tonight when you arrived, Jack. It was all very moody with the big car and the two minders checking the street. But they didn’t check me and I could have been sitting in my car with a sniper’s rifle and blown your kidneys away before they even realised I was on the same planet.
‘Also, it’s not a very good idea for it to be known that you have a regular Saturday night nosh up here. Let’s face it, anyone and his uncle could pop in for a quick take out chicken biriyani and stick their hand around that door there –’ I looked down to where Jim was sitting, listening, and then back to Jack ‘– and blow your fucking head off before either of these two berks could stop them.’
‘Who are you calling a berk?’ said Ronnie.
‘You,’ I said, and pushed the dish with the remains of my raitha on to his lap with my elbow. The yoghurt and cucumber mix splattered the blue serge of his trousers. He jumped up awkwardly in the confined space between the bench seat and the table and pulled back his suit coat to save the material. He spat out a one-syllable word that I didn’t hear properly but I’m sure rhymed with ‘hunt’. I stood with him. I put my right hand inside his jacket and found the butt of the pistol I knew was there. It slid smoothly out of its talcum-powdered holster. I pulled it free and stuck the barrel in the fleshy part of his neck between ear and jawbone, and hooked back the hammer. It was a big old Smith and Wesson revolver, a real Dirty Harry gun, probably chambered for .357 or .44 magnum ammo, with the front sight smoothed down and the rear sight removed so that it wouldn’t snag. It hadn’t. There was no safety catch on that beauty and the action engaged with an oily click. The last time I’d stuck a S&W into someone’s face, they’d pissed themselves. At least, I think it was the last time. In my exciting world one tends to lose count. I was pretty sure that Ronnie wasn’t going to do the same.
I resisted the temptation to make like Clint Eastwood, I didn’t need to. Ronnie wasn’t stupid. He stayed stock still, one hand holding the skirt of his coat back and the other flat on the table, supporting himself. Jim, however, was a different matter. As soon as he saw what was going off he hit the floor and started crawling towards the cover of the nearest table. His big arse encased in tight grey serge trousers with a VPL that would make your eyes water was a tempting target but I simply said, ‘Freeze, you scouse git.’ He kept going like a beached whale making for an enticing breaker across a beach of patterned Wilton, and I said, ‘Jim, stop or you’ll have two arseholes, I swear.’ He stopped. ‘Lie flat and spread your arms. And, Jack, hands where I can see them please.’ He obligingly put his hands palms down on the tablecloth. ‘Has Jim got a gun?’ I said to Ronnie. ‘Tell me the truth or else.’
&
nbsp; He nodded.
‘Jim,’ I said, ‘sit up and take the gun out. Slowly now, using just your fingertips.’ He did as he was told and pulled out a Beretta 934. He held it like it was hot. ‘Take out the clip, and put it on the floor.’ He did. ‘Now put on the safety and clear and action, and don’t touch the trigger.’ He did that too, and showed me. There was nothing in the breech. ‘Stand up and put the lot on the table.’ He obeyed.
I reached over with my left hand and picked up the gun and full clip and pushed them into one of the big pockets in my leather jacket. ‘Now sit down somewhere quiet, Jim, not too close, not too far away, and put your hands flat on the table in front of you.’
He pulled out a chair from the next table and sat down. I looked around the quiet room and wondered what to do next. When you’ve got a gun stuck in someone’s face, there’s not a lot more you can do. You’ve got everyone’s attention, which presumably was what you wanted in the first place, and that’s it. Unless of course you want to get extremely brisk and use the thing. I didn’t.
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Everyone stay calm and no one will get hurt. Ronnie, go and sit next to Jim, and wipe your trousers. If that dries you’ll never get the stain out.’ Much to my surprise, he did. Sit down that is, not wipe his trousers. He must have had more than one suit.
See, that’s another problem with guns. In the movies, if someone pulls out a firearm, everyone does exactly as they’re told. In real life, sometimes they just look at you and laugh. I thought I’d better go with the flow, whilst the going was good.
‘Jack,’ I said, ‘I don’t even know if you’re who you say you are, and I’ve got a feeling I’m going to want to see you again. Empty your pockets.’
‘Make me.’
See what I mean?
‘Don’t fuck with me, Jack,’ I said. ‘I’m not in the mood.’ And I leant over and stuck the muzzle of the S&W right on to the medallion he was wearing on his chest. ‘Are you going to do what I tell you, or what?’ He licked his lips and I knew I had him. ‘Do it,’ I said. He did.
‘I’m definitely going to have your bollocks for door stops,’ he growled.
I didn’t really listen. I would have said the same under the circumstances. I pulled the gun back and he went to reach inside his jacket. ‘No, Jack,’ I said.
‘It’s my wallet,’ he protested.
‘Fine. Just pull the jacket open, both sides, slowly.’ He did. No weapon. ‘Get it,’ I said, and he tugged a wallet from his inside pocket. He pushed it across the table and I flipped it open. Money, plenty, which I left untouched. Credit cards, lots, in clear plastic holders that opened like a concertina. MR JACK P. DARK was embossed on the front of each one. ‘Good,’ I said. ‘At least the name’s the same.’ I found business cards in a pocket under a flap. On the front was his name, the name of the jeweller’s and an address in Hatton Garden. On the back was an address in Emerson Park and an Essex phone code. Emerson Park, I knew it. An Essex boy if ever I saw one. Fucking Essex, what a dump. It’s a pity some transport minister or other hadn’t concreted the whole county over years ago, and made it into a parking lot for the rest of us.
I put the card in my pocket and threw the wallet on the table. ‘I’m going now, and I don’t want anybody to follow me,’ I said, and picked up my stick and cigarettes and car keys. I left the envelope full of money on the table and made for the door. I know I should have asked more questions, but it was a tricky situation, three on one, even if I did hold the firepower, and the waiter could have come back at any moment and raised the alarm. So like before, when the going was good, I went.
Ronnie turned his head and studied me closely as I walked across the room. I felt like a specimen on a slide. ‘One day, you and me are going to meet again,’ he said.
‘But until then, Ronnie,’ I said, ‘be good. And if you can’t be good, be careful.’
‘You be careful, Sharman. Don’t go walking down no dark alleys alone at night.’
‘Ronnie, like I told you before, I’m not that kind of girl.’
And on that note I opened the door and split. The pistol I was holding went in my other jacket pocket.
The temperature seemed to be dropping again when I left the restaurant. I limped into a run and got to the car, started it and pulled away as fast as I could. No one else left the restaurant, not by the front door anyway. I played the radio softly as I drove back across London and the weather man told me that within a couple of hours we were due a small blizzard. I looked through the half-open window beside me and saw the stars and shrugged off the idea.
I turned up the volume on the radio when it started playing music again.
I wondered what Jack Dark’s game was. It had to be to do with Emerald. But how and why? Emerald didn’t know him. Teddy didn’t know him. Dark himself hadn’t mentioned the case. He just wanted me otherwise engaged. Doing some spurious job, on holiday or dead. Were Jack Dark and Bim connected? I doubted it. I’d believed Bim when he’d told me he had nothing to do with Emerald’s trouble, and I still did. He was an elderly man getting older every day. He seemed to be mellowing, if you could call his behaviour mellow. What he must have been like in the old days didn’t bear thinking about.
I parked the Jaguar on the forecourt when I got home and let myself in. The telephone was ringing when I opened my flat door. I dropped my keys and grabbed the receiver without putting on the lights.
The moon shone through the open curtains and turned the skin on my hand the colour of a fresh corpse. ‘ ’Lo,’ I said.
‘Is that Nick Sharman?’ It was a male voice I didn’t know, and it occurred to me how many new, fun people I’d met over the past few days.
‘That’s me.’
‘You don’t know me, but I need to talk to you.’
‘Really?’
‘That’s right.’
‘And you are?’
‘My name’s Taylor, Lawrence Taylor.’ He sounded nervous.
‘You’re right, Lawrence,’ I said. ‘I don’t know you.’
‘But I still need to talk to you, now.’
‘About?’
‘Not on the telephone.’
‘That narrows the options, Lawrence,’ I said. ‘I’m a bit larey of meeting strangers at night in strange places. Can you come here tomorrow?’
‘No, that’s impossible. It has to be tonight.’
‘Where then?’
‘Here.’
‘Where’s here?’
He gave me an address in Kennington, and told me it was the top flat. ‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘I’m in the dark.’ I put down the receiver. I drew the curtains and switched on a table lamp and found a pad and pencil and went back to the phone. It was dead. I tried to summon him from the air, but it was no go. I hung up and jotted down the address he’d given me, and went and got a beer from the fridge. I drank it as I smoked a cigarette and paced the floor and wondered if he’d ring back. He didn’t. There was something about it I didn’t like. I turned off the light and pulled back one curtain and looked into the street. It was a beautiful night. I was all alone and felt like shit. That’s life. I toyed with the idea of going out again, but nished it. I told myself I didn’t need the aggravation. But really I think I was scared. I felt I was running out of luck. How right I was.
Eventually I undressed and got into bed and took a pill and fell asleep listening to the radio. I hardly even noticed that the other half of my bed was empty.
19
I slept badly and dreamed that I was tangled up in a telephone line that went on forever. I could only get through to strangers who couldn’t understand me, and the only people I could understand whispered down the line about my death. I woke up with a start, all caught up in my own damp bedsheets. The first thing I saw, on the bedside table next to the lamp, was the piece of paper with the address in Kennington. I knew that I should have gone there when Lawrence Taylor had phoned the previous night.
I looked at the clock. Seven oh five it read, and someth
ing was out of kilter. Even with the curtains drawn the room seemed strangely light. I got up and drew them back. The weather man on the radio had been right. The snow was thick outside and the street was bright from the reflections of the street lamps even though the sky was still dark. My car was just a white hump on more white. The road and pavements were hardly touched by tracks that early on a Sunday morning and I knew I’d never make even the short run up to Kennington in the Jag.
I called Teddy. The telephone rang and rang and I was just about to give up when he answered.
‘What?’
‘And a very good morning to you too, Teddy.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘Nick.’
‘Christ, what time is it?’
‘Time you were up and out, my son.’
‘What? Where? Why?’ He seemed to cover most of the possibilities.
‘Have you seen the state of the weather?’
‘No, what’s the matter with it?’
‘Never mind. Is that vanilla slice of yours gassed up?’
He hesitated. ‘Yeah.’
‘Then get it over here, right away.’
‘Why?’
‘Take a look out of the window. They do have windows in Peckham, don’t they?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Then look,’ I said patiently.
The phone went down with a bang. He was back in a minute, sounding a bit more alive. ‘I see what you mean,’ he said. ‘Where are we going?’
‘I’ll tell you when I see you. Now get her out and yourself too.’
‘Who? There’s no one here.’
‘A celibate Mister Super Bad. That’s a novelty.’
‘A fact though, if it’s any of your business. Who were you sleeping with last night that was so special?’ he asked nastily.
‘I give in,’ I said. ‘Just get here, it’s important.’ And I put down the telephone.
He arrived just before eight, just as it was getting fully light. I was watching the wind blow powdered snow to fill in the few footsteps and tyre tracks that marred the smooth surface of the street when the Suzuki pulled up. I went down to meet him. He was standing in the street with snow past his ankles when I got downstairs. He was wearing a jean jacket over a thick sweater and blue jeans tucked into black, calf-length, sheepskin-lined boots. I wore last night’s jeans and my Schott with a pair of hightop Doc Martens and black leather gloves. I had pulled a thick, black, woollen watch cap over my hair to keep in the heat. I carried a loaded gun in each jacket pocket.
