I studied the building as I waited at a set of traffic lights outside. This was it. Last chance saloon. If the old bastard wasn’t here then the hunt was over. I was as exhausted as my leads.
I had discovered my fathers whereabouts six months ago. The gollywog money was burning a hole in my pocket and so I decided to drop some into the lap of a private investigator, to see if they could tell me more about my long lost loser of a father. It was more curiosity than a burning desire to meet up with him. I wanted to know if he was still alive and, if so, what kind of guy he was.
I found one in the yellow pages. She was good, a little young (I used to call her a bubblegumshoe) but she didn’t mess about. I expected her to take a couple of months but within days she forwarded Mallory Shill’s details and explained that she had already started to scope his movements, with a view to writing a full behavioral profile.
Everything looked great. All it needed was a few days more and I’m sure the investigator would have been able to tell me all about Shill Snr. However our business arrangement was cut cruelly and unexpectedly short when Katharine intercepted a call from her on my mobile phone. All it took was for a couple of her direct questions to be met with my indirect answers and the whole game was up.
It wasn’t the fact that I was trying to find my father that Katharine objected to, it was the underhand way in which I had gone about it. And where, she wondered, was I getting the money for a private investigator?
Like the spineless bastard I was, I lied and told Katharine that the girl was yet to start her work, and as such hadn’t incurred any costs. And, of course, she was absolutely right: it really was best to let those sleeping dogs lie, that I was opening myself up, inviting to be hurt, that my father would’ve found me already if he had wanted to be found and, after all, didn’t I already have all the family I could possibly need?
In truth, I was glad Katharine made such a fuss. Back then I didn’t have the nerve to meet him, so her reaction became the most convenient of reasons not to. And so, once I’d paid the investigator a couple of hundred pounds for her efforts, the address remained an untouched secret. It sat in the envelope, along with the remaining golliwog money, and it waited. Waited for today. Not that I was feeling any braver as I limped into the Dog and Duck. In fact, approaching the bar, a large part of me wanted this to be a dead end.
The night before had clearly been a good one, because it was still waiting to be cleared away. There were dirty glasses and cigarette stubs stuck to the long mahogany bar. The hooped earrings and pushed up tits slouched behind it took their time to react to my twenty, but they eventually stopped texting long enough to serve the large VAT my throat was in no shape to cry out for.
Although according to the large clock hanging above the optics I was officially the first customer of the day, there were more than a dozen young people nestled into the darkest corners of the room. From the way they sat slumped in the balding upholstery, I could tell they had been there all night. Probably longer.
On the walls above them hung black and white photographs of the nearby streets, presumably filled by their ancestors. The pictures were taken over a century ago, but both generations wore exactly the same angry, resigned expression. Like captured soldiers walking back from the front. Careful not to provoke the animals, I scanned the room.
Since I’d never actually met my father or seen any pictures of him, all I had to go on were the images that I’d made up in my mind: a blurry patchwork of guises, which altered depending on the generosity of my mood. The one thing I did know was that he had to be in his mid to late fifties. Unfortunately no one in the bar fit that description. They were all kids.
I was about to ask the barmaid if there was another room when a flushed, dark-suited man flung open an adjacent door and walked furiously through the bar. A second later he was out on the street.
This was enough to rouse the slumbering rabble, and they stood on the seats and chairs so that they could get a better view of his departure above the frosted glass of the windows. They jeered, as if to congratulate each other on finding someone apparently less fortunate than themselves. However, their bleating was short lived.
Almost as soon as the man disappeared, a second emerged. He was so broad he needed to turn sideways in order to fit through the doorframe. He wore a burgundy polo shirt, sporting two dark stains of sweat around each armpit and the crest of some local amateur rugby team on its breast. The spotlights around the bar reflected off his shiny bald head, revealing a scalp dented and scarred. At the sight of him the louts fell back into place and the bar became hushed.
‘You see Trapper?’ he asked the girl behind the bar.
‘Yeah, just been through. Looked well pissed off, man.’
‘Not surprised. He’s just thrown three grand down the swannie. That mouthy fucker Shill, he’d better watch his step from now on, I can tell you.’
At the mention of my name, I turned my body slightly towards them.
‘Why, what’s he done this time?’ the girl asked.
‘He just cleaned Trapper out – single-handed.’
‘It’s allowed, innit?’
The landlord raised his eyebrows at her. ‘It’s one thing to rake out a rozzer, love, but it’s another thing to take the piss while you’re doing it.’ He leaned back and checked the clock. ‘Fuck me, is that the time already?’
‘Yeah. Look, you nearly done, Dad? I couldn’t half do with an ’and down ’ere.’
He ignored her request and rolled a hospital ward of fractures out of his fat neck. I wasn’t the only one who’d had a long night.
‘Not long now, love,’ he replied. ‘Just the three of us left, so it could break up any minute.’ He surveyed his manor again.
‘You just keep this lot quiet. If there’s any sign of trouble, give me a shout. Oh, and tidy this place up a bit. If you leave me in peace I might just do some damage up there. There’ll be a nip in it for you, then.’
Her eyes lit up. The prospect of an unexpected bonus was enough to remove the mobile phone from her hands and suddenly she was making a start on the stale glasses that surrounded us. The landlord turned to leave. He had just opened the door when I interrupted him.
‘Here, mate, there some action going by any chance?’
Maybe it was the lack of sleep, maybe he was casually sizing up the situation, or maybe he just couldn’t believe his ears, but it took the landlord a few seconds to acknowledge what I’d said. Then, the door still open in his hand, he looked menacingly across at me.
‘What’s that?’ he growled.
‘Because I might be interested if there is.’
This was the second time in the last twenty-four hours that I’d opened my mouth before thinking through the consequences. However, the episode with Carl was soon pushed from my mind when the landlord walked purposefully towards me, his expression ominously blank.
‘Don’t worry, I can buy my way in,’ I said, and pulled out the envelope containing the golliwog money.
The instant I brought it into the open, the mood in the bar changed. This was a depressed working class area and what little money these people possessed was either hard earned or easily claimed. It was fine for one of their own to have a few quid, but for a stranger to flaunt their wealth so openly wasn’t just asking for trouble, it was taking the piss. Like waving a Stradivarius around at a convention for the deaf.
The landlord was the only one in the room who took his time acknowledging the money, choosing instead to stare me out. His eyes looked how I imagined mine to be: hung, drawn and watered.
In the end I thought that I would be more likely to get what I wanted if I cried craven. I lowered my head and tucked the money away. It worked.
‘Alright, fella,’ he said, ushering me to the door. ‘Why not, you can join in. What you drinking?’
‘Vodka and tonic,’ the girl answered for me.
‘Right, bring us a bottle up.’ Then with one fat arm propping the fire escape open, he waved
me into the back.
‘Walk this way.’
Head pounds. Heartbeat crashes.
I’m out of body again. Watching it all from above. Third person.
Hold my breath. Squeeze past.
The area we pass into is being used as a ground level cellar. I see barrels, crates and various junk stacked up against the flaking bare walls. Behind an old glass-washing machine is a narrow staircase. Legs are numb with anticipation.
You are about to meet your father. The man who created you.
I wait until the landlord is some way ahead before following him. Even then I need support and resort to an infantile crawl to pull myself up the stairs.
You are about to meet the man who left you. Who walked away.
When I reach the top, my fingers are sticky from the carpet.
‘Fuckin’ hell, and I thought I was outta shape,’ the landlord says, mistaking my nervous panting for exhaustion.
I give what I hope is a smile and we continue along the landing.
The air feels heavy and sweet, as though we are trapped in a bin liner full of rubbish.
The landlord walks towards an open doorway.
Voices. Inside.
‘We’re just in ‘ere,’ he says and then disappears into the room.
Your father. One of those voices is your father.
Can’t go in there like this. Can’t face him. My heart is trying to escape, trying to beat its way out of my chest.
I wait outside. Slow everything down.
Get a grip. You’ve dreamed about this moment, waited your whole life for it. Don’t fuck it up now.
‘You comin’ or what, geezer?’ The landlord calls after me.
He’ll be out here soon. Then what will you say? Fucking get in there.
I take one last breath and open my eyes. Never in my whole life have I felt so afraid. I manage to make it as far as the entrance and then I collapse against the doorframe.
Inside, the low wattage bulb fights through the strands of tobacco smoke. It casts a wan triangle of light onto an old square table, which has empty bottles, loaded ashtrays and money lining the edges of its tattered green felt surface. Compared to the caustic daylight, this dusky environment is like velvet on my eyes.
Sitting with his back to me, at the near side of the table, is a middle-aged man, his arms outstretched in an attempt to revive himself.
Is that him? Is that Daddy?
His hair is the right shade, and with that tangerine short-sleeved shirt with seventies style epaulettes, he certainly shares my lack of fashion sense.
‘Who’s this?’ he asks at the sight of me. A pair of square-rimmed sunglasses hang on the end of his nose above a lazy cigarette.
‘Never mind him,’ a voice at the back of the room replies. ‘Has Trapper gone?’
That’s him. I know it is. I don’t need to see him. You don’t need to tell me.
‘You might know he’s gone, Shill,’ the landlord answers. ‘There wasn’t any reason for him to stay, was there?’
This makes the seated man curse and run a hand across his forehead.
‘Well, that’s fantastic, just fantastic. Well done, Shill,’ he glowers at my father’s shadow hugging the far wall. ‘Now he’s gonna be out for all of us. Fantastic.’
‘Oh shut up, Argyle,’ my father says.
‘You shut up, we’re not all grifters y’know, some of us have got businesses to run. The last thing I need is some twisted detective inspector with a grudge snooping around my books.’
Pushing back with his shoulders, my father’s thin silhouette moves casually away from the wall. He lets out a tired sigh, which sends a plume of blue smoke into the light. When he speaks, his voice is a hardened mixture of crème and cheap brandy, but with an unmistakable, bitter trace of cigar.
‘You run with the dogs then you have to expect the occasional lump of shit in the eye, Argyle. You know that, I know that, and he knows that.’
Argyle picks up a bottle of whiskey. ‘Maybe, but even so–’
‘Even so, nothing. Trapper’s got bigger problems than us now, we both know where that money came from.’ Then he leans across the table to extinguish his cigarette, and I get to meet my father for the first time.
Mallory Shill no longer enjoys the tension of his youth but age cannot hide the classical lines of his face. His long hair is frosted, but still retains the fullness of youth and curls elegantly over the collar of his black silk shirt.
Already I hate him more than I ever imagined. It doesn’t help that the two grooves, which glide from his nose to the side of his mouth, keep it lifted in a permanent, cocky sneer, and he has a casual, non-committal way of addressing the world that I might say was condescending, were it not for his furtive eyes. It seems to me that he is constantly sizing up the world and everything in it. No, the sneer is nothing more than an insurance policy. Just in case he miscalculates and gets the angles wrong.
‘Now,’ he says, in what I soon discover is his normal sarcastic tone, ‘are we going to finish this game or not?’
‘Absolutely,’ the landlord pipes up, ‘and I’ve found us a replacement.’
At his signal, all three men look over at me. I’m glad to have the light from the corridor at my back.
‘Replacement?’ Argyle says, ‘No one said anything about new personnel being brought in.’
‘I know they didn’t, but I think an exception should be made in this instance.’ Then the landlord turns away so that his face is hidden from view.
‘See, this young fella is particularly well-qualified.’
In other words, sharpen your claws gentlemen, for I bring you raw meat.
Whatever he does, it works. The frowns melt and the vacant chair is pulled out for me. I shrug off my jacket and make the most graceful descent that my legs will allow.
As I sit down, all three of them seem occupied. To my left, my father is flicking the deck of cards around in his hands; to my right Argyle is draining his glass; and the landlord picks impatiently at the frayed green felt on the opposite side of the table.
When I look up, however, I see that they are studying me fervently, each of them trying to pick up on the smallest clue, which might give them an insight into my character and an edge in the game ahead.
I glance uncomfortably at Argyle. For some reason he’s fascinated by my hands. What’s he reading in the soft palms and nicotine stained skin? Surely nothing that my face can’t tell him a thousand times louder and clearer. Nevertheless he continues to study them intently.
To halt his analysis, I pull the gollywog money out. Again it brings a focus back to the room. Eight eyes stare at the brown envelope.
The room exhales confidently. For them to see so much equity in the hands of such a wreck is an encouraging sight. Argyle smirks at the landlord sitting next to him. He has done well. My father, on the other hand, is prepared to be much more direct with his intentions.
‘That’s a lot of money for a lad of your age to be carrying around. So what’s your name then, latecomer?’ There’s a thick sardonic inclination at the end of his question.
I instinctively open my mouth to reply, but stop myself just before I start to say my real name.
My name? Shit. With the rusted mechanism of my mind refusing to produce an alternative response I opt to stall for time. I bend over to loosen my shoes.
A name! Pick a name! Any fucking name!
But it’s no use. My mind is a white haze.
With my head tucked below the table, I glance nervously around at the other men’s legs and try to think of an appropriate answer. Argyle has on a pair of black leather shoes, round toed and functional. The landlord, sitting opposite, is wearing battered old trainers. To my left, my father is wearing a pair of stylish brown brogues. The leather uppers shine like new, but the soles, which are almost worn through at the ball, betray their age. They were evidently a luxury bought during better times and one which has subsequently been made to last. Punched into the leather a
re two overlapping letters: L.V.
Bingo!
‘Erm, Louis,’ I reply, rising from the depths.
My father chuckles to himself and starts to deal.
‘Lou-wee, eh? Very good.’
I ignore the jibe. ‘What are we playing?’
‘Texas hold ’em,’ the landlord replies. ‘It’s twenty for the maximum blind, ten for the minimum and no limits.’
I stare down at the two cards in front of me. Texas what?
My father slaps the rest of the deck down and looks across at me.
‘Normal house rules suit you, Lou-wee?’
I light a cigarette and nonchalantly ask, ‘Remind me again?’
My father laughs a little harder. ‘Is this your first time? Oh, we – I mean, you – are going to have fun.’
The landlord takes pity on me.
‘What happens is, each player gets two cards which they bet on. Then, five more community cards get dealt out to all the players and you have to make the best five card hand that you can using all seven. Got that?’
‘Yeah, I think so.’
I haven’t. I’m blind. Groping. Sweat is trickling along the channel of my spine. Beneath my belt.
The men look at their cards and then into the middle of the table. They seem to be waiting for something. Is it me? Are they expecting me to make a play?
My bottle of vodka arrives. I use it as a reason for inaction. I pour a drink and wait to see what the others do. Thankfully, the landlord is the first to get things started.
He checks his cards, waves a hand over them and turns to Argyle who, after some deliberation, does the same. All eyes fall on me.
Holding nothing but a three of spades and an eight of hearts, I see no reason to buck the trend and do likewise.
Felix Shill Deserves to Die Page 26
