Pretend We're Dead

by Mark Timlin

I shrugged, took Babaloo’s gun from out of my pocket and laid that on the stage too. Checkmate.

  ‘And everyone keep very still, or she gets it,’ he shouted.

  More scenes from the movies. Everyone’s in showbiz. Everyone’s a star. But it seemed to work.

  We all stood silently. Me, the few punters, crew, and hangers on that were still in the auditorium, and the cops who had come in through the doors. It was hot on the stage under the lights, and I could smell my own sweat and fear mixed in with the stink of the crowd, and the adrenalin and sweat of the band, who until recently had been centrestage.

  Now, a more dramatic show was unfolding here.

  I was the closest to Quinn, so I spoke. I tried to think of some B-movie dialogue of my own. ‘Don’t be stupid,’ I said. ‘Put the gun down, Lamar. It’s all over.’ It sounded like Broderick Crawford to me. I hope he had more luck with it than I did.

  ‘Shut up, Sharman,’ spat Quinn in reply. It was Sharman now. I wondered what had happened to ‘Nick’.

  My mouth was dry, and I tried to get some saliva going. I would have killed a puppy for a beer. A litter of puppies for a beer and a cigarette.

  ‘How far do you think you’re going to get?’ I asked. ‘Even with her.’

  The Virgin Mary locked eyes with mine, and I tried to reassure her with a look. I don’t think it worked.

  ‘Far enough.’

  ‘You’ve blown it, son,’ I went on. ‘Give me the gun. Let her go. She’s got nothing to do with any of this.’

  He laughed without a lot of feeling. ‘This bitch is worth a billion dollars. I can get anywhere I want to go with her in tow.’

  The Virgin looked at me again. She might have been worth a billion dollars, I didn’t know. But right then she was just a frightened young woman who needed my help. ‘Get me a plane to Cuba. Fuelled up and ready to go. Is that the deal?’ I asked.

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Forget it, son. There’ll be marksmen following you everywhere. Let her get a foot away from you, and one of them will blow your head off your shoulders.’

  ‘No. She’s too valuable. No one will be shooting anyone while she’s around.’

  ‘Get real, will you,’ I said. ‘You’ve got no chance.’

  He took the gun away from The Virgin’s head and levelled it at me. The bore hole looked to be about as big as a dinner plate and as black as an undertaker’s hat. I felt myself wince as I looked down it. I didn’t want to, but I did anyway.

  ‘I’ve got nothing to lose,’ said Quinn. ‘Nothing at all. I’m getting out of here and she’s coming with me. And you’re going to take us.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘The airport. It’s not far, is it?’

  I shook my head. ‘A few miles down the motorway.’

  He walked to the front of the stage, dragging The Virgin with him, but keeping the gun on me. ‘You cops,’ he shouted. ‘Who’s in charge?’

  A uniformed inspector walked down one of the aisles. ‘I am,’ he said.

  ‘What do they call you?’

  ‘Inspector Field.’

  ‘OK, inspector,’ said Quinn. ‘I want a fast car, gassed up and ready to roll, outside. And I want it there ten minutes ago. Get me?’

  The inspector nodded.

  ‘And no tricks. I’m not fooling. I want a phone in it. When we’re moving I’ll let you know what I want next. You know who this is?’ He squeezed The Virgin’s throat until she gagged.

  ‘I am aware,’ said Field. I am aware. Ain’t our policemen wonderful?

  ‘Then be aware also that this guy,’ Quinn gestured to me with the gun, ‘is going to drive us where I want to go.’

  ‘Which is?’ Field again.

  ‘Heathrow airport. And I don’t want to get involved in any traffic snarl-ups. So get the roads cleared.’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s beyond my authority –’

  ‘Fuck your authority. This is The Virgin Mary. If I get screwed, she dies. And this mook too.’ He gestured with the gun at me again.

  Mook. I ask you.

  ‘So get the authority,’ Quinn continued. ‘Or get someone with the authority. Come on, man, get moving. I ain’t got all day.’

  ‘There are people here who are hurt,’ protested the inspector. ‘At least let me get them some help.’

  ‘Fuck ’em. And you,’ said Quinn. ‘Now get moving or do you want this bitch dead?’ And he squeezed The Virgin’s face with his left hand until she squealed.

  With all the dignity he could muster, Inspector Field turned and walked back up the aisle.

  ‘And get those other cops outta here,’ Quinn ordered. ‘They’re making me nervous.’

  Field made a shooing gesture with both his arms and the uniforms melted away like snow on a sunny morning.

  ‘And you fuckers,’ screamed Quinn at the odd person standing around, ‘get lost.’

  They did. Until finally, apart from us onstage, a few still bodies by the doors were all that were left in the place.

  ‘So now we wait,’ I said.

  ‘Cor-rect,’ said Quinn, who seemed to be in a better mood after exercising a bit of authority.

  ‘Why don’t you cut her some slack,’ I said, referring to The Virgin. ‘You’ll strangle her if you’re not careful. She won’t be much use to you then.’

  Quinn relaxed his hold on the singer’s throat and she leaned forward and coughed.

  ‘Lamar,’ she said in a choked-up voice. ‘What the hell are you playing at?’

  ‘Shut up, cunt,’ he ordered. ‘I don’t have to listen to your crap any more.’

  Old scores were being settled.

  ‘That’s no way to speak to a lady,’ I said.

  ‘She’s no lady,’ said Quinn. ‘I remember when she was hanging around the offices, screwing anyone she thought could do her some good.’

  ‘She must have screwed the right people,’ I said. ‘You pissed off because she gave you a blank?’

  He pulled her back tightly and ground the barrel of the gun into her head. ‘Shut up,’ he said. It seemed to be his favourite expression.

  Then, from the far side of the drum riser where she’d fallen, and behind Lamar Quinn’s back, Dawn appeared, clutching the letter opener that I’d given her, what seemed like a lifetime ago, in Julius Rose’s office. Her feet were quiet in her soft-soled Converse baseball boots. She had blood in her hair, a bruise on her forehead, another beneath her left cheekbone, and a wild look in her eyes. In fact I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d clamped the knife between her teeth, worn camouflage paint, and had a necklace of human ears around her neck.

  Quinn kept his gun on me, and I tried to catch Dawn’s eye without him realising she was there. I didn’t want her to do anything that would make his trigger finger tighten by reflex and blow The Virgin’s head off. It wasn’t her fault she’d got involved.

  ‘This isn’t going to work,’ I said.

  ‘It’ll work,’ said Quinn confidently.

  I shook my head, trying to get through to Dawn that I meant her. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Not yet.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Quinn.

  ‘I know British coppers,’ I replied. This time talking directly to him, to keep his attention on me. ‘They don’t like being talked to like that.’

  ‘Fuck ’em.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘I do. And I’m getting tired of listening to you.’ He took the gun away from The Virgin’s head and pointed it at me again. Which was just what I wanted him to do. I looked over the girl’s head, and Quinn’s shoulder, and Dawn was less than a yard away from his back, and I saw that her knuckles were white on the handle of the knife.

  ‘Don’t screw around,’ I said. ‘You won’t shoot me.’

  ‘Won’t I?’
/>
  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Who’ll drive you to Heathrow?’

  ‘I’ll find someone.’

  ‘Dream on, son. I’m your only hope.’

  ‘Don’t you believe it.’

  Now I was getting tired of listening to him. ‘Do it, Dawn,’ I said.

  Quinn laughed again. ‘Do you expect me to fall for that old one?’

  ‘No. Not if it was that old one. But it’s true.’

  ‘You jerk. I think I might just finish you off anyway. I don’t trust you.’

  ‘But of course. I, on the other hand, have the greatest faith in you,’ I said, and I saw his finger tighten on the trigger. So did Dawn, and with an unearthly shriek she covered the last few feet between her and the American and drove the point of the letter opener into the side of his neck. Blood jetted from the wound, and the force of her attack knocked his gun arm round and away from me. The gun went off and the bullet slammed into one of the huge speakers at the side of the stage.

  Quinn dropped the gun, let go of The Virgin Mary, and put his hand up and tugged the knife out of his neck, which only allowed the gush of blood to increase. He stood for a moment looking down at the weapon that had wounded him, then he made one step and dropped to his knees, let the knife slip from between his fingers and fell on to his face, where he kicked two or three times before lying very still, the blood still pumping out from the puncture under his jawbone.

  The Virgin Mary looked down horrified at Quinn’s body, then at me, then at Dawn, until her face crumpled into tears and she reached for my wife who held her tightly.

  Inspector Field appeared from the back of the auditorium and I went to the front of the stage and said, ‘Cancel the car. He won’t be needing it.’ Then I sat on top of one of the monitor speakers and tried hard not to cry myself.

  35

  When the smoke finally cleared, the body count was pretty high, and someone had to be held responsible.

  Guess who?

  Dawn and I were both arrested and taken to Hammersmith police station in separate cars. We were searched, our personal belongings confiscated, and after Dawn had been seen by a surgeon who treated the wound to her head, we were allowed to make a telephone call each.

  Dawn called Chas at home and told him what had happened. I’d said he’d be the first to know. He probably wasn’t, but I did my best. I called Chris Kennedy-Sloane on his mobile and filled him in on the details. He was at the station within half an hour with his own personal brief in tow. Apparently, so too were the world’s press, who laid siege to the place. The Virgin Mary was big news. So was the fact that Jay Harrison had been alive for the past twenty years.

  Dawn and I were interviewed separately with the brief in attendance. He told us not to answer any questions.

  We concurred.

  Later we were charged with the following: Murder; Attempted murder; Possession of unlicensed firearms; Possession of a deadly weapon; A couple of offences under The Prevention Of Terrorism Act that I’d never heard of; Criminal conspiracy; ABH; GBH; Wounding; Assault; Breaking and entering; Trespass; Criminal damage; Robbery; Possession of controlled substances, because they found half a joint in Dawn’s leather jacket, and they even did me for obstruction with the Caprice when they found out who’d been driving it.

  After that they put us into separate cells, and as far as I could tell, wanted to throw away the keys.

  Lifetime Records had more money than God. They also had more lawyers than God, if God had been into litigation They also had The Virgin Mary and Dog Soldier signed up to the label. When the powers that be learnt that Lamar Quinn, their vice-president in charge of Jay Harrison’s royalties, had been systematically looting the account for years to the tune of over eleven million dollars, and had threatened The Virgin’s life to boot, they also realised that they had a huge embarrassment on their hands.

  Within three hours, their British lawyers started arriving on the scene. Within ten, their US lawyers, jet-lagged, weary, and red-eyed showed up, assistants, secretaries and all. Within twenty, a coterie of Japanese super-attorneys jetted in.

  Within twenty-four, the murder charges had been commuted to manslaughter, and after a brief court appearance, Dawn and I were out on bail.

  Lifetime stumped up the not inconsiderable amount of money it took to get us out. I think the coppers were glad to see the back of us, and of the newspaper and TV reporters who were blocking the road outside the police station. We were rushed in secret to a safe house that a film company subsidiary of the record company kept for starlets to recover from their abortions, and that top executives used for a bit of nookie on the QT.

  When she heard about that, Dawn insisted on the sheets being changed.

  That’s my girl.

  In fact the safe house was a vast penthouse, on top of a block of offices near Victoria Station.

  Chris Kennedy-Sloane’s retainer was increased, and he moved in with us. Lifetime hired a security company to give us 24-hour-a-day cover. I told Kennedy-Sloane to make sure it wasn’t Premier. They might have a grudge to bear.

  Dawn and I stayed there for the three months until the trial came up. It wasn’t a bad life. We had a live-in maid and blue-ribbon chef. There was a huge roof garden and a gym with jacuzzi and sauna. The place was wired for cable, and Lifetime opened an account for us at Harrods for books, videos and any records that Lifetime themselves couldn’t supply.

  And they continued to pay us our grand a day plus expenses. Mind you, the expenses by then were minimal, but the wages came in handy. We got a cheque every Friday, regular as clockwork, and Kennedy-Sloane paid it into our bank for us.

  The Virgin Mary came to visit a couple of times. She was convinced that Dawn had saved her life. She was right. She was good fun. And she had a very fine coke dealer.

  Lifetime’s lawyers worked diligently, night and day, on our defence. Their publicity people worked diligently, night and day, on getting us good press.

  Tracey looked after our flat and watered the pot plants.

  I even took Dawn back to Highgate cemetery one day as I’d promised what seemed like an eternity ago. The tomb had been splashed with red paint the colour of blood. There was no sign of Chrissie, Bird, Malcolm or Dandy. Obviously they hadn’t appreciated that their hero had just pretended to be dead. On the way out I asked the attendant if he knew anything about them. He just snorted and said, ‘Good riddance.’

  On the day that the trial started at the Bailey, the Crown Prosecution Service offered no evidence on any of the charges. The Virgin Mary was in the public gallery. She was dressed all in black, including the veil on the little hat that was tilted over her red fringe.

  Dawn and I walked free out into the street to a blinding greeting of exploding flashbulbs.

  I took Dawn on the promised second honeymoon in Hastings on the bonus that Lifetime paid us not to sell our story to the papers. I’d be embarrassed to tell you how much it was.

  The moral of the story is that on the day of the incident at the Hammersmith Apollo, The Virgin Mary had one single and three albums on the Music Week charts. The single was at number four, going down. The albums stood respectively at numbers five, fourteen and thirty-eight. Dog Soldier were a no-show.

  Ten days after Dawn saved The Virgin Mary’s life, and Jay Harrison died for real, The Virgin Mary’s single was number one, and her albums had climbed to numbers one, four and seven. Dog Soldier’s Greatest Hits had crashed in at number two on the album charts, and the band had another six entries on the top seventy-five. Lifetime Records reported increased interest and sales of both acts in every territory on the globe, including the old USSR.

  That’s what you get for dying, or almost dying, if you’re in show business.

  C’est la vie.

  copyright

  This ebook published in 2015

 
; This edition published in 2015 by No Exit Press,

  an imprint of Oldcastle Books

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  ©Mark Timlin, 1994

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  978-1-84344-628-6 (print)

  978-1-84344-629-3 (epub)

  978-1-84344-630-9 (kindle)

  978-1-84344-631-6 (pdf)

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