Civvies

by Lynda La Plante

  'Sorry, love, what…?' Not drugs, the thing wasn't hollow. Not ivory. He couldn't think what else. He said, 'Aren't they with your Mum? Well – I'd have told you if they were with me.' He listened, nodding, pushing a hand through his hair. 'Okay, call me back.'

  Dillon put the phone down, still gazing at the elephant, now wondering about Kenny and Phil. He wasn't unduly worried, not at this moment, but it was yet another niggle he could do without, On top of this weird Nelly the Elephant business, the bank appointment in the morning, and now the damn GPO snooping around. He'd warned Jimmy, but Jimmy wouldn't be told. He knew all the angles. Which corners to cut. How to bend rules and regulations, con the VAT-man, dodge standing charges. Always shading the odds in his favour, living by his wits and a winning smile. Dillon looked at his hands, flexing his fingers. That's what Jimmy was to him, Dillon thought, like one of his own vital, indispensable hands that had turned rogue. Jimmy Hammond. His Bad Left Hand.

  Jimmy pushed the door open with his own left hand, edging in backwards. 'They were already connected, we just got the one line,' Dillon heard him telling the engineers. 'I mean, why do we have to pay a connection fee if we're already connected?' Puzzled, querulous, an innocent child falsely accused.

  He sidled round the door, and with a guarded look at Dillon, shoved one of the telephones into a drawer. Dillon slammed it shut. He hissed at Jimmy, 'We got to get all our references, we're in the bank ten sharp for the loan.'

  Jimmy's face registered disappointment, even hurt. 'I was gonna set that up…'

  'Well I've done it. So you sort them -' jabbing towards the passage. 'If we have to pay, then pay up.'

  Having given an order, Sergeant Dillon marched out, double-quick time, the elephant under his arm.

  He walked through his front door to hear Helen's voice from the living-room going on about calling the police or something. Then Susie rushed into the hallway, her face white as a sheet. 'Frank! Are the kids with you?'

  'No, why?' Dillon said, the telephone receiver in his hand. 'The ruddy phones in the office are off, I've got to contact Cliff -'

  It all came out in a rush.

  'They've been missing all afternoon Frank I've called everyone I don't know what to do Frank I can't…'

  'Al right, love.' Dillon went very still. Carefully he put the phone down. His voice was calm, his movements unhurried, even gentle, as he led her into the living-room. '… All right, I'm here now. How long they been gone?'

  There was a knock at the door. Susie tried to pull away from him but Helen got there first. Jimmy came in -'Hi, Frank, you still got it?' – his gaze fixed on the elephant, which Dillon had placed on the sideboard.

  Susie burst out, 'Nobody's seen them since four, a lad said they'd been picked up,' while Helen broke in, 'I been round the estate and back to the school three times-'

  'One at a time, Susie – picked up by who?'

  'What?' Jimmy looked quickly from one to the other. 'Somethin' happened to the boys?'

  'I don't know…' Susie bent forward, hands clenched, and screamed at the top of her voice, 'I don't know!'

  The phone rang. Dillon held up his hand as Susie made a move. 'I'll answer it.' He went into the hall.

  Susie watched him, her eyes large and bright, her body straining forward as if waiting for the starter's pistol. 'Oh please dear God, please let it be them…' She saw his shoulders tense. He turned then, and when she saw his face, rigid, the muscles twitching in his jaw, Susie nearly had heart seizure. Barely moving his lips, she heard him say, 'You touch a hair on their heads an' I'll swear I'll -'

  'What is it? Frank? Frank?'

  Dillon put the phone down. His teeth bit deep into his lower lip, forcing the blood out, while his dark hooded eyes bored into Jimmy's with an intense smouldering anger. He said hoarsely, 'Jimmy and me'll bring 'em back.'

  'Where are they…?' Susie whispered. 'Frank?'

  'Stay put, Susie, it's just a misunderstanding… stay here! Mum, look after her!' Dillon slowly brought his hand up and pointed at Jimmy. 'You, with me. Move.'

  Down on the second landing, Dillon said, 'That bastard's got my kids, Jimmy. He's got my kids.'

  They reached the courtyard just as the black Jaguar Sovereign was ghosting in from the street, Newman's chief minder Colin in the passenger seat, his bruiser's mug bearing the marks of Harry's night ops. Kenny and Phil waved through the rear window, loaded up with Indian temple bells, papier-mache masks, brass candlestick holders and sundry other Third World trash.

  Colin stood by the open door as they tumbled out with their spoils. 'Mr Newman just wanted to show you how easy it is, Frank.'

  Dillon stepped forward, fists bunched, and Colin held up his hand, smiling. 'Not in front of your boys, Frank…' He got back in the car, slid the window down. 'You've got something that belongs to our Guv'nor. Hand it over – simple as that.' His eyes shifted from Dillon's face. 'Tell him, Jimmy.'

  Dillon stood between the boys, hands on their shoulders, his face carved from stone. 'You tell Newman I'll bring it to him,' he said as the car pulled away. 'Personally.'

  Harry was trying for his good housekeeping badge, tidying up what was left of the office, when Dillon and Jimmy walked in twenty minutes later. Dillon got the tool box from the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet and took out a hammer, chisel and screwdriver.

  'I got me sister faxin' all the details direct to the bank,' Harry told them, sweeping rubbish into a nice neat pile in the corner. 'Cliff's out buyin' weddin' bells.'

  'If that bank manager was to come down here,' said Dillon grimly, 'we'd not get a post office savin' book, never mind a loan.' He gripped the hammer, a frown of concentration on his face as he stared at the broken elephant. 'Newman kidnapped my kids for this…'

  'For chrissakes, Frank,' Jimmy panicked, 'he just wants the bloody thing back!'

  Dillon angrily shook off the restraining hand. 'Nobody threatens me, nobody gets my kids, frightens my wife, and I just take it!' His fierce glare made Jimmy back off. 'What went down when you saw Newman, Jimmy? And don't give me any bullshit -'

  'Frank, I told you, I swear.' Jimmy held out both palms towards the elephant. 'He just wants that.'

  Dillon raised the hammer, ready for an almighty swing, and then slowly lowered it. He blinked, and his jaw dropped. 'Oh man…' he said softly, almost mouthing it, '… it's staring at us in the face. Newman deals in gems, right? What if these were real?' He tapped the beads and coloured glass woven into the headpiece. 'Look at the bloody size of them.'

  Taking the screwdriver, he prised out one of the fragments, a cold blue fire in its depths, and placed it in the centre of the desk.

  'Okay, Harry – hit that with the hammer!'

  Gripped in both meaty hands, Harry brought it down with all his eighteen stone. The desk split across the middle and caved in. All three down on their knees, muttering and cursing, scrabbling and searching. A glint amongst the debris. Dillon plucked it out and with a grin of triumph held it up – intact.

  'Bingo!'

  The warehouse was in darkness but there was a light burning in Newman's office. Dillon walked in without knocking. Under his arm he carried a shapeless parcel wrapped in newspaper. Jimmy stayed by the open door, trying not to look at anything specific, in particular Newman's face, a pale, gaunt death mask in the light of the desklamp.

  Colin uncoiled from his chair, and Newman made a tiny fluttering motion with his fingers. 'S'all right.' He motioned the minder to leave. Colin went out, giving Jimmy a hard stare, and shut the door.

  'Sit down, Frank. Want a drink?'

  Dillon placed the parcel in the middle of the blotter and folded his arms. Newman unwrapped it. His face didn't alter when he saw the battered elephant, nor even the empty headpiece, the stones plucked out. He merely sat hack in his chair, his pointed tongue flicking out across the wide slit of his mouth.

  Dillon took a small canvas bag from his pocket and dangled it.

  'Eight crates. That was a big shipment, Mr Ne
wman. Very decorative.'

  'Very lucrative.' Newman reached out. 'Hand them over, Frank.'

  'Five grand?' Dillon's face went ugly. 'We been caught, we'd have got more than five years each.'

  'I can pick your kids up any time, Frank – understand me?' The soft voice, dipped in acid, was back. 'This isn't some two-bit racket, this is an organised -'

  Enraged, Dillon said venomously, 'And I can have the law pick you up – Mister Newman – any time. You want to play it that way…' he nodded, 'fine by me. If I'm not out of here in ten minutes, I got one of my lads waitin' by a phone.' He held up the canvas bag, clutched tight. 'An' if you want to try an' get these by force -' Dillon lifted his head and bellowed, 'Harry!'

  The door was kicked open. Framed in the doorway, Harry and a mate of his, built like a brick shithouse, had a furious, struggling Colin pinioned between them. Newman stared at Dillon, tight-lipped with fury, a tiny muscle twitching near his left eye.

  'How much?'

  Dillon sat down and leaned forward, forearms flat on the desk.

  'I want a legit lease on the premises – four years'll do. We'll pay you a fair rent.' Newman tried to interrupt. 'I'm not finished. Plus, we want it re-wired, telephones installed, and an agreement to run a business on the premises. Then the damages to the furniture, re-decoration…'

  'An' that's it?' Newman said after a little silence had collected. He reached for a cheroot and moistened the end of it.

  Dillon nodded. 'One more thing,' and the husky softness in his voice made Newman pause in the act of lighting it. 'I see them near my kids -' Dillon turned his head and looked deliberately into Colin's face and deliberately back again ' – then it becomes personal. I'll do ten for you, Newman, understand?'

  CHAPTER 27

  I'll do ten for you, Newman, understand?

  He'd understood all right. In the flare of the match as he lit his cheroot, Dillon had seen it in the flat grey eyes. And Dillon had meant it. Not big, empty words, running off at the mouth, but the complete, literal truth. One more move like that and he'd gladly, willingly, definitely do for the bastard.

  Dillon blamed himself. Everything Newman touched was corrupt, rotten, and yet he'd allowed Jimmy to get them involved, given way easily and weakly just at the moment when he should have toughed it out. Better to go to the wall, jack it all in, than sink into Newman's pit of slime. He wanted nothing more than to provide for Susie and the boys, but he'd be doing them no favours stuck in a prison cell for five years, Barry Newman's prize mug and fall guy for one of his crooked enterprises. And that's what would happen, as inevitable and predictable as clockwork.

  He was still tensed up, an odd mixture of anger and elation jumping inside him, when he arrived back at the estate just before midnight. Driving into the courtyard, Dillon saw Jimmy sitting in the jeep. He was slumped down in his seat, as if he'd been waiting for some time, holding a quarter-full bottle by the neck. There was something going down; Dillon didn't know what, and he wasn't keen on finding out. His skin felt prickly, as if charged with static electricity, his chest tight. He locked the Granada, taking his time, and strolled across.

  'I just dropped Harry off, then went to see if Cliff's all clued-up for the bank manager.' Dillon snorted ruefully. 'He's at his soddin' weddin' rehearsal.'

  Jimmy wasn't pissed. He'd drunk himself beyond that, into a kind of sullen, dead-eyed edginess, just this side of hysteria. His voice wasn't at all slurred, but it was sneering.

  'Ah ha! Cliff goin' into the bank, is he? I don't believe it. I get the premises, get everythin' set up…' He stared. 'Why, Frank? It should just be you and me at the bank, those two assholes'll screw up!'

  He jumped out, suddenly manic, jabbing his finger into Dillon's chest. 'This was us – partners.'

  'The deal was the four of us, Jimmy. We're in it together, but we want it legit – no scams.'

  'You came out on top, an' you could have asked ten times the amount.' Jimmy's tone was scathing, as if talking to a cretin. 'Newman was laughin' -'

  'You can't stay away from him, can you?' It was an effort, but Dillon kept his temper. 'Sooner or later you'll go down.'

  Jimmy turned away, as if to get back into the jeep, then he hesitated. He didn't seem to know what to do, where to put himself, so he swung back, thrust out the bottle of vodka.

  'No thanks.' Dillon watched him throw his head back, take a long swig. 'There's no easy money, no easy way, we got to do it by hard graft,' Dillon said. He looked into Jimmy's eyes, bloodshot in the corners. 'If it's not for you-'

  Jimmy said nastily, 'Oh, I see – this is the kiss off, is it?'

  Dillon's barely-controlled temper went up a notch or two.

  'Nobody's kissin' anybody off. You want out, say so, you'll get whatever dough you put in.'

  Jimmy swallowed hard, as if what he really wanted to do was cry. 'Have a drink with me, Frank.' Quiet, plaintive. 'Frank!'

  'No, Jimmy, not tonight.'

  'When then? When Frank?'

  'I'll see you tomorrow.'

  'You won't, I'm gone,' Jimmy said. 'I'm out of here.' He hurled the bottle against the wall.

  Dillon tried to take his arm. 'Don't be like this, Jimmy…'

  Jimmy yanked free. 'Get off me! Go in to your screechin' wife and kids -' He blundered forward swinging, a clumsy punch that knocked Dillon backwards. Jimmy's eyes were hot and wild, urging him to take a swipe, goading him on. Dillon wiped blood from his mouth. He said quietly, 'You're pissed, Jimmy.'

  'Am I? What about just pissed off!' All of a sudden he seemed to cringe down, abject, pleading. 'I want you to have a drink with me.'

  Dillon said nothing. He just shook his head slightly, as if his tolerance level had finally, at long last, been breached. He was as confused as Jimmy in a different way, feelings of anger, contempt, pity and compassion all jangled together, making no kind of sense.

  As if realising he had overstepped the mark, Jimmy hesitantly reached out and touched Dillon's burst lip.

  'I'm sorry… Frank, come on, you know, know I care about you. You need me…'

  'No,' Dillon said, muted, 'you got it all wrong, I don't -'

  He went stiff. Jimmy had his arms around him, hugging him. He was crying, sobbing, like a broken-hearted child. Dillon felt Jimmy's hot tears against his cheek, the scrape of his chin, and then the slobbering mouth as Jimmy tried to kiss him. Dillon stepped back, shuddering. He hit jimmy open-handed across the face. Jimmy took it and stood, head bowed, tears dripping down, and Dillon slapped him again, as hard and viciously as he could.

  'I've always covered for you, Jimmy, now I'm warnin' you, you're out. And don't you come anywhere near my kids.' He wiped his mouth where the blood had smeared. 'You sick bastard.'

  Dillon turned his eyes away from the wretched sight and walked towards the concrete stairwell.

  'It was a joke!' Jimmy called out pathetically, attempting to laugh. 'No harm done, eh? I just wanted you to have a last drink with me…'

  Dillon kept going.

  'I've signed on the dotted line, Frank, I'm going to… Frank!'

  Dillon entered the stairwell and started to climb.

  'Stuff you – stuff the security crap!' Jimmy shouted. 'This time next week I'll be in Colombia,' his voice bouncing and echoing round the brick tenements and concrete landings. '… Frank?' Then raising both fists to heaven, he shouted with all his might, 'FRAAAAANK!'

  The echo boomed and died away. Jimmy let his arms flop down. 'I love your kids, Frank,' he said, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.

  On the second floor landing Dillon stood with his back to the wall, head resting against the concrete, listening to the jeep revving up in the courtyard below. It set off with a squeal of tyres and screeched round and round, like a lone dodgem car in a deserted funfair, headlights flashing against the buildings opposite, flashing this way as it turned, making a swirl of patterns on the underside of the walkways.

  Flashing lights of ambulances and fire engines on the ceiling
of the upstairs room in Hennessey's Bar. Smoke seeping through the floorboards. Downstairs an inferno. Taffy, Jimmy, Steve, Harry, Dillon's lads, crawling through the smoke and flames, searching for the injured. Taffy lifting a beam to let Steve get through with Billy Newman. Harry holding up a table while Jimmy dived underneath to get the girl clear. All of them risking their necks, laying their lives on the line, not because of duty, not because of Queen and Country, but because that's the kind of blokes they were. While the Malones of this world shat their pants and scarpered, this breed of men put their bollocks in a vice and got the job done. It was a privilege to know them, an honour to have served with them, a matter of pride that he was one of them, his mates, his lads. Nothing could ever break the bond, whatever the crap Civvy Street threw at you. Nothing was worth breaking it for.

  Dillon was running. He leapt down the stairs three, four, at a time. He cleared the last flight in a single flying jump and came charging into the courtyard as the jeep rocked on its springs in a last crazy turn and shot off into the street and vanished into the night.

  Dillon heard it screeching far, far away in the distance. Jimmy Hammond. His Bad Left Hand. But he would sooner have cut off his own right hand than lose him.

  'Jimmy… ah! Jimmy,' Dillon said, staring into the darkness, his face wet. 'I didn't mean it.'

  Dillon waited in the hope Jimmy would make one last trip back, wanting, needing to tell him, he didn't mean it. The jeep never came back, and Dillon sat on the wall and looked at all the graffiti. He lit a cigarette, and inhaled deeply, letting the smoke slowly drift out of his lungs. He wondered if Jimmy would just forget it, waltz in the next day, give him that wink of his… Dillon knew that telling him not to see his kids would have cut into Jimmy's heart, he did love them, half the postcards on their board were from Uncle Jimmy. Every Christmas the gifts came, he never forgot one of their birthdays. Jimmy truly loved Frank's boys, maybe because he knew he'd never have any himself.

  Dillon pulled on his cigarette and wondered if he should call Jimmy until it dawned: he didn't even know where he was shacked up, but that was Jimmy, his private life was always kept well out of access. It has been a strange sort of agreement they had made, even though it had been years ago.