Jello Salad

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Jello Salad Page 13

by Nicholas Blincoe


  She took a right off Old Compton Street and started heading up Frith Street. She knew all the streets but very few of the places. George might have bought the leases but he wasn’t responsible for everything that went on. All the mobile homos outside the cafés were a definite improvement. Otherwise, the improvements were more ambiguous: no grocers, no tailors, nothing but film companies, trendy clothes shops and, still, the porn shops. Although the bistros outnumbered caffs, so she knew it had to be good real estate.

  Around the corner from a club where she once worked a fan-and-feather act, she found the restaurant. The name, La George, standing out-and-proud in italics. She tried the door but it was locked. Susan hung her finger on the doorbell, watching through the shopfront window and waiting for the little slap head sat at the bar to move himself. He never did, he lifted his head to look over, mouthed “We’re shut”, and turned away.

  She pushed the bell again. This time he just blanked her. If she held it for an hour, he wasn’t going to turn around. She stood in the street, holding her case and feeling impotent Letting the feeling wilt along her spine.

  There was hardly any traffic. Twenty yards away a delivery truck reversed from an alley and blocked the whole street. Its orange warning lights were lip-synched to a synthetic voice, programmed to dalek danger reversing over and over, loud enough to be heard over the horns of the cars it was delaying. Susan let the sound play against her nerves for five minutes before she remembered the passage running behind the restaurant She could get in through the tradesman entrance. Once inside, she’d fuck that little jerk at the bar sideways.

  There was a Volvo estate in the alley-way, parked next a pair of fire doors. Susan looked through the car’s rear window. On the inside, there was nothing but raw naked flesh on flesh, hunks of animal piled on each other.

  The fire doors opened with a bang and a kid dressed in white stepped out, holding a set of car keys in his hand. He asked Susan to excuse him, she was in his way. The first thing she saw when he opened the back of the car was a doggish snout, a torn ear slung at a coquette’s angle across its dead eyes. She hadn’t seen anything like it since she lived near Spitalfields market in, maybe, 1968 and again in ’74.

  The kid muttered, “Jesus, I’m supposed to lift that?”

  She said, “Is that goat?”

  The kid didn’t look up but he did answer, “Yeah. Chefs bought five of them.”

  From inside the kitchen, a low voice with a strong Manchester accent shouted, “All yous, get your arses out there and give the man a hand.”

  Susan peered around the door and saw a tall Asian boy in a chef’s hat wave his junior cooks towards the van. They came snaking out to the alley, struggling to pass the carcasses hand to hand into the kitchen. The Asian walked over to them, grabbed a goat by its legs and returned inside to slam it down onto the stainless steel work top. He pointed back to the van with a cleaver he’d unhooked from a rack, “There’s veg in there, too. Get it all out.”

  The little cookerboys and girls looked up at him with big eyes. “Yes Chef.”

  “And when you’re done, mince the lamb—they‘re the likkler ones. Make sure you don’t get no brains or nothing in the mix. I’m saving those for something else.”

  “Yes Chef.”

  The cleaver thudded into the sheep’s belly. The both; opened like an unzipped bag.

  Susan walked through the doorway, walking up to him saying, “You’re the chef?”

  The Asian didn’t look up, he was an artist with a cleaver and just carried on working through the bodies. He said, “I’m the Chef du jour. The regular guy’s done one, so I’m filling in. If you’ve got a problem with that, I’ll tell you what I told them.” He lifted his head slightly, nodding to his assistants, they kept their eyes down. “I’m not in the mood for any crap off anyone, less I personally beat it out of them, okay?”

  She could believe it. He was elbow deep in blood and the kitchen staff looked completely drained. She kept her voice firm and said: “I’m the boss.”

  That stopped him for a moment. Not for long. He looked up, caught her eyes and wiped his hands down the front of his white suit. When he held them up, they were still caked red but his smile was wide open.

  He said, “Better not shake, eh? But I’m pleased to meet you.” He paused, keeping the smile at full power. “That stuff I just said I’m sorry about that. I was up all night doing the market and shit. But I was out of line.”

  Somehow, she liked him. She let him off the hook, telling him he wasn’t to know who she was.

  “No. I got to apologise. But I tell you, last night was just one fucking thing after another. I guess the pressure got to me.”

  It wasn’t a problem. It wasn’t his head she was after.

  While he washed at the sink, she told him about the bald kid she saw earlier. The one sat at the front of the restaurant.

  He said, “That’s Cheb, the maitre d’. I been thinking, he doesn’t have the personality for a gig like this. What do you reckon?”

  “I agree. I’ll go and sack him.”

  Naz watched her walk ahead of him. She had style. And whatever she was going to do, he didn’t want to miss it. He hurried after her, it had been a hell of a night but this just might make up for it.

  *

  Cheb was expecting the party decorators to arrive any time but it was a tense wait. Every time the front bell rang, he looked up. But the last time it had only been some woman, standing in the street with a suitcase, probably looking for a hotel or directions or something. He couldn’t be doing with that, so he turned back to the television.

  Before the party decorating people even started, they were going to have to convince him they could match the visions that were playing across his skull He had to say, they were getting wild, given an extra boost by the newszak on the TV he’d set up on the bar. Ordinarily, he would never watch a local news programme. He didn’t care what was happening anywhere in particular—only what was passing through every city in turn on its way to oblivion. Today was different, the news was speaking to him.

  A reporter was walking around what she was pleased to describe as the site of the a[palling incident outside South London’s popular rave club the Comecon disco. As she skirted the blue and white police tapes that sealed the area, the cameras zoomed in on the drinks van or focussed on the door of the nightclub. Her voice-over said that the police had appealed for witnesses: anyone who’d seen a group of heavily armed Jamaicans in the vicinity of Wandsworth should come forward.

  An interview with the police chief had been promised, right alter this break. Cheb turned away from the ads, just in time to see the redhead woman come storming through the kitchen doors. He’d only glanced at her when she’d been hanging on the doorbell. Up close she was a whole lot more forbidding. He knew he’d made a mistake, leaving a woman like her stamping out on the pavement. Naz was following at her shoulder, grinning for the first time in hours and saying, “Do you want to meet the boss?”

  Cheb closed his eyes, feeling them swivel beneath the lids like the cylinders in a fruit machine. When he opened up again he Wm all ready to creep. Since daybreak, he’d been telling everyone he was running on superhero confidence but the truth was, it was beginning to swamp him. Even superheroes need to sleep between gigs, just to get their powers in perspective.

  It didn’t mean he couldn’t drag up a piece of diplomacy in an emergency, though.

  She said, “Are you Cheb?”

  He nodded. Naz, still behind her, was saying, “She’s going to sack you. You want me to put in a word?”

  Cheb decided he’d go with the pressures of work excuse. It was the truth, however you cut it. When all Hogie could do was roll around the floor, weeping in shame and promising that he’d come good, it was him and Naz that had to run around the market, organise the team of chefs, make sure the party went ahead on time.

  The woman was still there: “I didn’t hear you?”

  He said, “Yes, I’m Cheb.�
��

  “The New Age freak?”

  Yes, that was him, he guessed.

  “Well you look like a dick to me. Fetch me a drink.”

  There was his superhero confidence-a distant speck disappearing over a tall building. ‘Yes, ma’am. What do you want?‘

  “G & T.”

  As he reached for the optics, a new story started breaking on the telly. A body had been discovered in Grays, Essex, nailed to the floor of a coach parked in a local depot. The newscaster was saying that the identity of the victim wasn’t yet known.

  Naz stared at the screen. He said, “Nailed?”

  Cheb nodded, making sure to avoid his eyes.

  Susan looked up, grimaced and flicked the TV off. She said: “That’s sick. What the hell’s happening to this country?”

  His eyes still down, he told her he really didn’t know and passed her a drink.

  She said, “Now get out, I want to make a call.”

  Cheb pushed back into the kitchen. Naz was right behind him, hissing into his ear. “You nailed it down?”

  “To stop it rolling around, man.”

  “I don’t believe it. You actually hammered nails into it?”

  “Fuck, don’t hassle me. I reckon I’m hitting a tiredness trough but it’s probably just a blip. I should bounce back before the party.”

  Naz said, “Well, lay off the trips. Better just stick to the whizz.”

  Maybe not. He thought perhaps it was the whizz that was to blame. He was on his third gram since last evening and it just wasn’t doing the trick anymore. He said, “Is there anything we forgot?”

  The kitchen staff were working like Lego automaton, the food getting chopped and parcelled according to the menu Naz was carrying in his head.

  “Don’t worry Cheb. It’s sweet.”

  “They’ve not asked about Hogie?”

  “I haven’t given them time to ask.”

  Cheb was still worried. “What about Hogie? When he promised to make it up to us, what do you think he might have meant?”

  Naz shrugged. He was there when Hogie started making the promises but all he said was, “I don’t know, it wasn’t my mother he was shagging.”

  Yeah, well she had to be the only one he missed.

  *

  Susan had the idea of calling her hairstylist in Spain. The woman was a friend. Even better she wasn’t in the life, she was married to a golf pro whose only handicap was the DTs. Between her salon and his club house, there wasn’t much she didn’t hear and Susan wanted to know the latest on Frankie.

  As the woman answered, she said, “Cassie, it’s me.”

  “Friggin’ hell, it’s Susan Ball. What’s the matter with you, did you watch Shirley Valentine on rewind? You’re supposed to leave England for the Mediterranean, not the other way around.”

  Cassie was having a real giggle over that one. Susan had to hold on the line and wait before she could ask about Frankie.

  “He’s in Manchester, chuck. Hunting you down.”

  Susan was so pleased to hear it: Callum hadn’t told the bastard a thing about her real plans. She could see Frankie now, trudging round Flixton and trying to find her mother’s house. She’d like to see his face when he finally remembered she’d been dead almost six years.

  Cassie was still on the line: “What about you, love? Are you okay?”

  ‘Just fine, everything’s wonderful.”

  ‘Where are you staying?”

  “I’m between places at the moment. But it looks as if I’m going to have to move into a brothel—don’t ask. Listen Cassie, I’ve got to go. I promise I’ll speak to you later.”

  Before she left, she opened the case and called the chef back. He returned with the little baldie boy, looking sheepish and still calling her Ma’am.

  “You two, you’re going to be ready for the party, tonight?”

  “Should be.”

  “Yes ma’a.m.”

  “And you think it will be a big success.”

  They nodded.

  “Well, just to make sure, dish this out to the guests. Okay.”

  She put a one kilo bag of cocaine on the countertop, giving it a friendly pat as she did it. “It’s cocaine, boys.”

  The two of them stood there, eyes popping: “Yes ma’am.”

  SIXTEEN

  The London plane was late but only Frankie could get torn up over a fifteen minute delay. No wonder they called him Ballistic. Cardiff offered to buy another round of drinks and left Frankie to kick around the first class lounge on his own.

  The previous night, when they arrived in Manchester, Frankie had booked two rooms but didn’t even let Cardiff see his. Instead, he sent him straight out to look for his wife. Cardiff had stood in the lobby like a twat, saying, “I don’t even know this fucking town. Where am I supposed to look?” Frankie wrote Susan’s maiden name on a hotel post-it note and told him to use his initiative. There was no use arguing, Frankie was mad as hell. If he didn’t get to a telephone, he’d probably explode. He’d been aggrieved ever since the cab from the airport, when he found out his Spanish mobile wouldn’t work in Manchester.

  Cardiff spent all night on the job. It was past seven in the morning when he returned, flat-footed and nerves frazzled from the lack of sleep—and more than a mite anxious about telling Frankie there was no trace of Susan anywhere. He was almost relieved, then, to find that Frankie had a new problem. Not only his wife, but his son had disappeared as well. Now there’s a double fucker. Frankie told him not to bother unpacking, they were heading back for the airport-London bound, this time around.

  Cardiff had no reason, no joy, no feelings nor nothing to be back in Blighty. True, London was better than being stuck up North, but he’d have preferred to stay on the Costa. When he saw the two women sat astride stools in the first class bar he was only trying to make the best of it.

  He said, “Watch yerselves, you pair. Make room for a little ’un.”

  He could tell they didn’t think much of what they saw but he kept his end up anyway: “Here, you sisters or what?”

  They kind of looked alike, in their late forties and both of them northern birds. He’d met a lot of northeners in Spain. Like he always said, the Costa was a fucking melting pot.

  “Can I buy either of you a drink? The name’s Sean Doherty.” It was the name on his passport but as he stuck out his hand he thought, What the fuck, I’ll only confuse myself. “But my mates all call me Cardiff.”

  They took his hand but immediately said they’d better be going. He hadn’t even managed to find out their names. He decided to give it one more spin, trotting around to their side to shout, “Service, por favor. A couple of vodka sodas and whatever the girls are drinking.”

  Then he turned to them. “Please, ladies. I’m an old fool but there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for a pair of beauties like you.”

  He had their names now. They were written on the front of their tickets, face up on the bar. “I hope I got ’em the right way round, not mixed nuffing up or nuffing, ladies. Which of you beauty’s Manning and which is Beddoes?”

  The smaller one set him straight, saying I’m Mrs Beddoes and this is Mrs Manning. Gloria Manning nodded, that was her.

  Cardiff said, “Been anywhere nice, eh? Just back from the old Club Eighteen-to-Thixty, then?”

  That always got a giggle in España, asking some old girl if she was down with one of those teeny-bopper package tours. It got a laugh off Mrs Beddoes anyway. She said, “No, worse luck. We’re just off for a party in London.”

  “Party, eh? Can’t be bleeding bad. Jet-set lifestyle. I’d be doing alright if I flew down the smoke every time I fancied a knees-up.”

  Cardiff felt he was moving along smoothly now. Mrs Manning hadn’t said much but he never wrote the quiet ones off. That was one of his mottoes. They were always grateful to anyone who could keep up a bit of banter.

  Mrs Beddoes said, “My son’s friend organised it. He paid for the flight and everything. We’re going t
o the opening night party of a restaurant.”

  Cardiff said, “Nice. Nice. Sweet. Restaurant, eh? I’ll let you into a secret. I like my nosh. What’s this gaff called, then?”

  “La George.”

  Cardiff thought that was a fucking funny name, he was ready to make them spell it when the flight announcement came over the tannoy and they were off. He doubted he’d get a chance to speak to them on the plane. He didn’t know how they’d managed to sneak into the first class lounge but he was pretty sure they wouldn’t be travelling up front with the high rollers. Anyway, now he had their names and destination, he might even take a look in at their party. Always assuming Frankie let him have some time off. You never knew, maybe Frankie would be up for a bit; if he was, he could take his pick. The geezer was single at the moment, after all.

  When he got back to the lounge area, Frankie said, “Where’ve you been, you cunt? We’re boarding.”

  “Yeah, sorry boss. I got pulled off course by a couple of birds. You know me.”

  “Fucking arsehole. What were you going to do? Slash them up like you did that whore?” ’

  That was below the belt Cardiff said, “Fair do, Frankie. The cow was my wife.”

  “You were her pimp.”

  Cardiff was ready to plead. “Not so fucking loud, eh, Frankie?”

  Frankie gave him a shove towards the gate. The final call was flooding through the airport speakers. Cardiff picked up their bags and followed Frankie towards the gate and the transport cop guarding it. When a man was wanted for murder, he could do without that kind of aggravation.

  Officially, the woman he killed Wm only his common-law wife but Cardiff always thought of himself as a family man. That was what he couldn’t understand about Frankie. Why did he let his son smuggle six kilos of cocaine into the country. That really was heart-stopping stuff and to do it to your own flesh and blood… well, some people would think it was out of order, that was all Cardiff could say. He would never have done that.

 

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