When she walked into the kitchen, George looked at her and said, “Jesus, which side of the bed did you get out of?”
She looked that bad? All she said was, “How do you work the fucking central heating?” She’d seen a plastic box in the halfway with a flickering digital screen and a row of buttons, but she couldn’t make sense of it.
George said, “You’re cold? Come on, it’s got to be the hottest day of the year.”
If it was, she was standing in a heat exclusion zone. She said, “Just fix the heating please George.’
He walked off, shouting from the corridor: “What do you want? Healing or water?”
“Both, put them on constant.”
She was hungry now. She thanked God or whoever that there was enough food in the flat to cushion her sulphate come-down. She had to eat before she could even begin to think about looking at the accounts. George had set four thick ledgers down on the kitchen table, his cigarettes placed on top.
She was half-way through a plate of fried eggs and sausages before she looked up and said, “You know George. It’s good to see you.”
“You too, you cranky bitch.” He said it with a. smile, softened by a cloud of cigarette smoked.
Now she was looking at him, her first impressions were solid. It wasn’t just that he was older and greyer, everything about him had gelled. And it wasn’t simply that his fat had hardened into bulk. It was something else entirely. He’d got gravity and he carried it off well. Except that he winced every time she put a fresh squirt of sauce on her eggs.
She said, “What is it? You can‘t stand the sight of ketchup now you’re such a big cuisine queen?”
“No, it’s not that.” He reconsidered, “Well, not just that. I’ve had one of those days, that’s all. There was something of an upset at the restaurant so I guess I’ve got that on my mind.”
“I thought you might be worried about showing me how badly you’d cooked books.”
He wouldn’t go that far. He knew he had some explaining to do. He said, “You’ll never break me, doll.”
“No?” She lifted an eyebrow: “There’s a Corby trouser press in the bedroom. Don’t make me use it.”
He put up his hands: “Okay, okay. I’ll talk.”
They both knew the accounts he’d been sending her these last twelve years were less than accurate, that he was guilty of something close to embezzlement.
She pushed her plate away: “Are you ready?”
He squared up, showing that solidity again. Growing old had done him nothing but favours. True, he needed reading glasses. Whenever he came to explain a line of figures, he would slide the glasses to the end of his nose and follow the columns down with his ring finger. That was an odd gesture, holding his hand so that it fluttered across the account book. But even that suited him, a hint of flash against his usual calm.
George Carmichael called himself a choreogapher when she first met him. Even when he began handling Frankie’s investments full-time, he was still Dancing George to her, a friend at the other end of a long distance line. Which was why she had never challenged him on any of his reports. Presumably he had his reasons and she trusted him not to jeopardise the whole account. But now it was time for him to get on stage and sing.
She never expected it to be so intricate. After ninety minutes listening to him explain where the money had gone, it was Susan who suggested they take a break. She had left her reading glasses in Spain and borrowing George’s stronger pair gave her a headache.
When she offered to make the coffee, he asked if she’d mind him going through to the front room. For some reason he wanted to watch the local television news.
She was still in the bathrobe. Her only clothes had felt unclean and until she bought more, she had to wash and wear. They were now coming to the end of their spin cycle. She stuffed them in the tumble dryer as she waited for the kettle to boil.
When she took the coffee through, he was watching a local news on-the-spot report from somewhere in Stoke Newington.
She said, “Anything interesting?”
George jumped. He said, “No. Nothing.”
He turned back quickly enough, as though he was scared to miss something. She looked over his shoulder and saw a close—up of a nightclub sign. The voice-over claimed the holes punched across its surface had been made by a semi-automatic weapon.
She said, “What is it? Something to do with you?‘
It wasn‘t. George shook his head and laughed. He guessed he must look distracted He pointed to the screen and said, “No, I was just thinking, that kind of thing never happens at gay clubs.”
“What kind of thing?”
“Gun-play. You know, it’s got so the police wish everyone in the country was a faggot.‘
She said, “You’ve never been so popular.‘
“I lap it up, believe me.”
He took the coffee but only managed one sip. In small ways, at least, he knew it paid to be straight so he told her he never drank instant: ‘It’s like being dragged back to the seventies: instant cash, instant drinks, bad taste.”
Susan tasted her own cup. It was terrible, she wouldn’t have touched it in Spain. The speed come-down must have short-circuited her judgement. Either that or the apartment had taken advantage of her tiredness to pull a kind of Amityville stunt: haunting her with her bad old English habits.
George was right about the instant seventies when everything was quick, cheap and disposable. Money came in fat paper rolls, hauled out of tin boxes or paper bags. And because it could never be returned to a bank, it had to be spent quickly. Everyone in the life knew about inflation and the fastest ways to beat it. More than once, Susan had spent an hour in a shop and bought enough furniture for an entire apartment: vinyl sofa, mini bar, fitted melanine wardrobes and smokey glass tables—delivery included, deliver it this afternoon. It didn’t matter that she might only live there for a month. Frankie Ball was working every week, either a wages snatch or a building society. The money had to be spent.
George was the closest thing they had to a bank. He was not a quite a money launderer, not quite a loan shark. It sounded strange but even then he was an investment specialist If Frankie, or any of his friends, was carrying too much, George Carmichael would take it off their hands. They knew they’d get it back whenever they asked. In the meantime, they would have the run of his clubs: a bar tab, a few girls, anything within reason and always in lieu of interest. It was the blagger’s bank. A listening bank, because George knew everything. Before Frankie’s last job was even organised, George had spoken to Frankie and suggested that he handle the proceeds.
The television had turned to a new story. George had turned back to the screen. Now he was pointing to a figure hurrying across a carpark, flanked by two uniformed men. “Remember him?”
The guy on-screen was trying to hide his face but as he stooped into a police car something made him look up in surprise. The newscaster’s voice gave his name and rank, the man was a sergeant with the Stoke Newington police.
Susan said, “He was with the dirty squad in the seventies. What’s he done now?”
“He was caught selling crack.” As the camera froze, the copper’s face was framed in the car window, looking stupid and feral, caught bang to rights. George said, “He was a junior with the dirties when they were busted. I don’t know how he kept his job but it must have ruined his chances of promotion.”
“I remember him. He came into this club I was working in. He suggested to the manager—Flat Stanley, you remember him—that he’d take a pass on his money, he’d prefer an hour with me. Flat told him it wasn’t a good idea. That I was Ballistic Frankie’s wife. So the copper changed his mind and shagged another of the girls instead.”
“Were you working at the same time you were married?”
“Not at first. But Frank got sent down for a spell in ’73, so I went back for about eight months.”
George said, “You were a great dancer. The Queen of Soho.”
<
br /> Susan corrected him, “You and me both.”
Dancing George and the woman who could have been London’s Liza Minelli if she wasn’t married to an armed robber. And could sing rather than strip.
George said, “Seeing that ex-Vice cop’s brought it all back. I knew they’d be finished one day. Even when they were swarming all over Soho, pissed on free booze, dribbling spunk and stuffing envelopes I knew they’d be thrown out because a square mile in central London couldn’t stay a frontier town for ever. It was time for the cowboys in Vice to pack up and mosey along. But there was no reason for the gay scene to disappear with them. It was no longer a crime and was never exactly a part of the sex trade. Just because it thrived in Soho, there was no reason for it to remain semi-shady. It could be gentrified, too.”
This was his big idea: “There is no business like gay business a huge turnover, absolutely peaceable, and totally wide open because only a queer knows where a queer likes to hang out. And having to be queer was only one of the barriers to entry. There were other disincentives. Places that were theoretically legal after the law changed in ‘69 were still bribing the police i.n the late seventies. I bought every dive bar, every hole—in—the-wall club I could get my hands on and paid next-to-nothing. When the Vice Squad were sent down en masse and everything got more relaxed, I knew the time had come. I put all the spare money into redecorating and building huge neon signs saying ‘Poofs R Us’. It was beautiful, and only the banks were still too straight to get into bed with me. So, when Frankie’s money came along, I took it all and put it to work.”
Susan said, “I believe you’re a genius but Frankie wouldn’t see it that way. He didn’t sweat over a hot shotgun just so bumboys could lead a better life.”
George snorted; “The only difference between a straight criminal and a queer one is half a bottle of scotch.”
Maybe he was right, Britain’s first Out celebrity was Ron Kray. But Frankie had got more conservative as he grew older.
She said, “So we own Soho?”
“Most of it, the freeholds at least.”
It was worth a toast. They could drink to their chances of keeping hold of it.
She said, “How about it, partners?”
George said, “I can’t promise anything over this coffee. Wait a moment, I’ll go and buy some gin.”
Susan remembered seeing ice cubes stacked in the freezer, left over from the previous tenants and dusted white with age. She did not believe ice went off. There were no lemons.
George said, “I’ll get all the ingredients. Five minutes.”
She didn’t just wave him out, she applauded him. Then she turned to the kitchen and went to check the tumble dryer. Her clothes were dry and wearable but too crumpled for a millionairess property tycoon. She started searching the apartment for an iron. At the end of the corridor was a second bedroom that she hadn’t even looked at yet. She gave it a try.
Opposite the bed was a mirror. For some reason, she sat down and stared at herself. Framed there, hands in her lap, looking at herself in the bathrobe, the scene looked so strangely familiar. Then she got it: she looked just like one of Call1un’s overnight girls, posed in his trophy album. She’d just been too dazed to recognise his bathrobe when she put it on. She stood up, pulled open the doors to the wardrobe and found her suitcase: just one new flight sticker attached and her name printed neatly on the label in Callum’s own hand.
She hauled it onto the bed, unzipped the zipper and started pulling out her clothes. There had to be a reason Callum took her bag. When she found the six kilos of cocaine, heat sealed in polythene and wrapped in her party clothes, she felt something surge through her. hate shaking her like a cheap drug: Who did she hate the most: Frankie for letting their boy smuggle the stuff or Callum for using her case to do it‘? She was still shaking when George came hallo-ing back into the apartment.
TEN
Jools took just one look at him and stormed to the bedroom. Hogie was there, standing in his own flat, feeling like the stranger who turned up to dinner with a cowl on his head and a scythe in his hand. Only the ringing of the phone pulled him out of it.
Mannie on the other end. Hogie said, “Jesus Christ, you’re a fucking life-saver man. What the fuck’s going on?”
Mannie was hanging on a pay-phone at Euston station. He said, “Don’t ask me, I’m just her brother. What I need to know, what’s your address?”
“Don’t worry about that. I’ll pick you up. I’ve got to get out the flat before Jools turns psycho on me. She’s not said a word, just locked herself in Cheb’s room, but I can feel the vibes. I got the stereo on full blast and I swear I can hear her pounding round the room and crying.”
Mannie said, “She’s not said one word?” Maybe it was serious.
“Just wait there, I’ll be down in ten minutes.”
Hogie hung up. Mannie didn’t even get a chance to tell him he wasn’t alone. As he spooned the receiver, Naz came up behind and said, “So, we getting a taxi or what?”
“No. Hogie says to wait. He’ll pick us up himself.”
“Sweet. And your sister’s there?”
“Yes. She’s there. How did you know?”
Naz smacked his lips and didn’t answer. Just said, “Looks like I’m sorted then. Where do you want us to wait?”
Mannie looked round. There was a clump of steel tube chairs, welded into the floor at the centre of the grand hall. It was as good as anywhere. They would be out in plain View so even Hogie should find them. Naz loped off, leaving Mannie to pick up the cases as he followed on.
The whole journey from Manchester to London, Mannie had sat slumped, inert, listening as Naz explained just how bad his situation was. He already knew. Maybe he’d looked a little dazed but that was only because spending any length of time with Naz sent him into spins of hyper-ventilation.
Naz was still making his point three hours on. As Mannie struggled over with cases, he looked over and said, “I gotta say, losing one sheet of acid is a fuck-up. Losing two sheets of acid is taking the piss.”
Mannie sat down. He knew he’d made about as big a mistake he could ever make. The way business worked: he took Naz’s merchandise on trust with a verbal guarantee that he had them on a sale-or-return basis. In practice, nothing was ever returned because there was never a shortage of customers. Come their next sales meeting, if there was anything Mannie hadn’t sold, it was only because he’d taken it himself. He’d spent two whole weeks thinking the system was not just fair it was even equitable. But after a month, holding the drugs had fermented so much paranoia and amnesia that he spent half his time devising elaborate hiding places for his stash and the rest forgetting exactly where it was. If there was some special talent to drug dealing, Mannie didn’t have it. He’d proved his uselessness for sure. But Naz still had uses for him.
Naz said, “Worrying about you is so much fucking stress, it’s no wonder I need a holiday.“
Mannie couldn’t see how the guy looked stressed, stretched out on the seat, but he nodded anyway. Or tried to. He was in so much pain himself he could barely move his head. Hypertension had turned his neck into a gnarled stump and the tight pain across his heart extended all the way down his left arm. If this was a declared holiday, it was strictly unilateral.
When Hogie came wandering over twenty minutes later, he had to say Mannie looked bad. With a face like that, he could model for the Droopy dog in those Tex Avery cartoons. At one hundred paces, he’d seen the little storm cloud that always hovered over Mannie’s head… figuratively, but visibly. But then, when he yelled out Mannie’s name and saw the Paki look around, he grew his own baby storm cloud too.
“Hiya. Naz.” Hogie’s arms were hanging by his side. “I didn’t expect you.” ’
“No?” Naz didn’t see it was his problem, saying: “Cheb asked us down for a bit of R&R. You know. Spend some time relaxing without worrying how I’m going to put the gangster shit on this cunt and the other useless fuckers working for us.
” He jerked a thumb over at Mannie. “It should be sweet. Just enjoy a bit of a smoke, go to this party you got coming. Maybe later take a pop at Mannie’s sister.”
Hogie misunderstood. What did he mean, take a pop?
Naz said, “Seduce her.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. She looks cool.” He turned to Mannie. “You don’t mind, bud?”
Mannie said, “Fuck, no. Whatever you want Naz.” He shot Hogie a helpless look as Naz started walking for the exit.
“This way, huh?”
Hogie said, “Yes. Straight outside, Naz.”
Hogie’s estate car was parked at the edge of the taxi ramp, somehow free of parking tickets although it had drawn interest from the local cabbies. Hogie centrally unlocked and they all climbed in, Naz making himself comfortable in the front, Mannie sitting in the back: skinny and weak looking among the torn maps, Lucozade bottles and empty crisp packets. Hogie circled around the front of the station and turned left, taking the smaller road that also led to Camden High Street.
Naz found his armrest and pulled it down. He said, “Expensive car.”
Hogie wasn’t sure what to say, it was quite expensive.
“So why’d you buy a Volvo?”
“Cause its safe. It’s got side impact stuff and a crumple zone at the front. You know, all the features so you don’t get killed.”
“Why didn’t you get an automatic as well, so you could still drive no matter how wasted you got?”
Hogie nodded. It was the idea. Just sit down, put it in D and as long as he kept an eye on the speed, it would be smooth all the way; He flashed a smile at Naz but Naz didn’t seem to be smiling back.
They were approaching the big V in Camden where the underground station jutted out into the junction: its sign shining in the dusk, one side of the station’s white walls colouring with the setting sun. Hogie pushed on his indicators, trying to claw his way back to the right-hand lane. He found the space to drift across the junction, moving at the same pace as the scraps of paper and cardboard that dossed across the foot of Kentish Town Road. He ignored the horns around him, keeping it slow until he saw the space that a stopping bus would leave, then ramming for the opening as it appeared. He told them his flat was coming up on the right, the next turning off Camden Road.
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