by Ken Bruen
She was finished and asked:
‘You give up what, love?’
‘The song, the one you’re humming, what is it?’
She seemed lost for a moment then:
‘Oh… it’s “Feel”.’
The sleep had retreated and he near barked:
‘And that tells me what exactly?
She gave him a playful pat on the shoulder, said:
‘It’s Robbie Williams, he’s gorgeous. Don’t you listen to the radio?’
‘I listen to classical music. Like, for example, yesterday, when I got home, I had Avro Part and then Gorecki.’
Heard himself, realised he sounded like his father, like a complete prig. His dad was a highly successful businessman, had remarried the previous year. A memorable event to which Porter had taken Brant.
The father has asked Brant:
‘How come you’re hanging out with a fag?’
Or words to that effect.
Then he’d offered Brant a job. To Porter’s everlasting delight Brant, in typical form, had said:
‘I’d never work for an asshole like you.’
Brant had brought a hooker to the reception and told all her occupation. She’d done major trade in the afternoon: they weren’t called working girls for nothing.
Porter had listed his father as next of kin on the admission sheet. And here he came, striding up the ward, looking like he couldn’t believe people were actually taken to public wards. He was wearing a Burberry raincoat, open to reveal a blue blazer, grey slacks. A silk cravat was carelessly tied around his neck. This was his father’s casual gear.
He glared at Porter in the bed, near roared:
‘What’s all this nonsense?’
‘Hi, Dad.’
‘Is it one of them faggot diseases? I don’t want to catch anything.’
‘They think it’s my heart but they moved me out of Coronary Care, so that’s a good sign.’
His father turned his head, searching for someone to order. Then said:
‘You always were an idiot; only you would think there’s some good sign in being hooked up to monitors.’
Porter Nash was trying to remember the name of the new wife, but no, it wouldn’t yield. So he went with:
‘How’s the wife?’
Not a tactical plus. His father’s face clouded and he said:
‘Women! She thinks a credit card means free money. Your mother wasn’t much better.’
‘It’s going well then?’
His father raised his arm and Porter smiled. How would it look if his father beat him in the bed? Then his father changed tactics, smiled his evil smile, said:
‘Why am I talking to you about women? What would you know about them?’
Before Porter could answer, the doctor came and said he needed time with his patient. Falls was walking along the ward and Porter said:
‘Dad, there’s one of my colleagues, will you get her some coffee?’
He stared at her then said:
‘She’s a nigger. I’ll come tomorrow and have you transferred to a private clinic.’
Porter sighed, said:
‘Don’t bother.’
‘What? You don’t want the best care money can buy?’
‘No, I don’t want you to visit tomorrow or any other day.’
“At daylight I thumbed a ride with a gaunt gypsy trucker with shoulder-length hair and a death’s head earring. It was 6.30 and his eyes were wide open, and he was listening to a metal band sing about the highway to hell.
‘I know that highway pretty good,’ I told him.
He grinned and handed me some crystal.’
Fred Willard, Down on Ponce.
17
Roberts came to with the highway to hell pounding in his head. He’d had hangovers, he’d had bad hangovers but this was the motherfucker. This was the reference point, the level by which all future pain could be measured. He was in a bed, sorta. Hanging over the side, bile dribbling from his mouth, vomit congealed on the floor. And he was naked. He dragged himself to a sitting position and saw a woman… also naked, in the bed. He thought:
Oh God, did I?
He did.
She mumbled then suddenly sat up, opened her eyes, peered round then fixed her gaze on him, said (or rather, croaked):
‘Well hello, big boy.’
Oh, Christ.
She fumbled for her bag, got it opened, pulled out a pack of Superkings, said:
‘Where’s my fecking lighter?’
Touch of an Irish lilt there. Found the lighter, fired up, dragged deep — one of those skull ones, where your cheekbones disappear — and then the coughing began, ratching death-knell variety.
She said:
‘Shit, that tastes great.’
One felt that irony was not her forte but if it had been…
Roberts looked round for his clothes and the door crashed open. Brant appeared, dressed in an immaculate suit, his face shining, spit and polish oozing out of him. To coin a cliche, he looked like a million dollars…or Euros, if you wanted to lean on the Irish connection. He surveyed the damage, said:
‘Yah dirty dog, you sure went for it, me ol’ segotia.’
Segotia?
It’s an Irish word meaning… either mate or eejit.
The hooker coughed some more, then eyed Roberts with something resembling affection, asked:
‘Hon’, you married?’
Brant smiled, answered:
‘My guv’nor was recently widowed. Tragically, we lost her.’
This was true in more senses than one. Mrs Roberts had been cremated and the two of them had gone on an almighty skite. Somewhere along the way the urn was stolen. Wherever she rested she was certainly, if not at peace, then in pieces. Rumour had it that a well-known drug dealer out of Brixton had her on his mantelpiece and stashed coke in the urn. Roberts ignored the hooker and turned to Brant:
‘How come you look so dapper?’
‘Got to, guv. We’re the establishment, got to make an impression.’
Roberts should have known better than to expect coherence but he persisted:
‘And what? You keep a change of clothes here?’
‘Like the song goes, “wherever I lay my hat”.’
Roberts found his clothes and they were fucked: traces of vomit and ash on them. He looked at Brant, asked:
‘Any chance you’d have something I could wear?’
“Course.’
Brant disappeared and a few seconds later returned with a white tracksuit, its gold logo reading:
‘I’m the business.’
Roberts said:
‘Tell me you’re kidding?’
‘It’s that or the ruined suit, guv.’
Roberts headed for the bathroom, got in the shower, turned it to scalding and steamed for five minutes. What it did was wake up his hangover, which had been in a semiholding phase.
Not any more.
It was up on its hind legs and howling. He checked his reflection in the mirror, bad idea. Red eyes, white stubble and he thought:
How’d I get to be a wino?
Searching around, he found a lady-razor and hacked at the bristles… which hurt like a son of a bitch. There was a pounding on the door and he shouted:
‘Jesus, give me a goddamn minute.’
You hung with Irish people, you ended up swearing like them. Brant, sounding highly amused, said:
‘A minute you don’t get… Porter is down.’
Roberts pulled on the lurid tracksuit and grabbed at a perfume bottle, splashed a sample of the contents on to his face. Big mistake, it burned like the fires of hell and he had to bite his lip to keep from crying out.
He checked the name: POISON
Roberts opened the door and Brant handed him a mug of steaming tea, said:
‘Get that in you.’
He gulped it and the heat lit the roof of his mouth.
He asked:
‘Is Porter shot?’
�
��No, heart attack. Seemingly there was another bomb and the guy called in. Porter lost it and gave himself the big one.’
Roberts was getting too much information and the Poison fumes were enveloping him. He tried to focus, said:
‘Slow down, Brant, give it to me as it went down.’
Brant lit a cig, wrinkled his nose from the perfume or the smoke, or both, answered:
‘There was a bomb, last night or this morning. I’m hazy there — the same MO so it’s our boys all right. Then they phoned and Porter got het up, you know how fags get, and wallop, his ticker took him down. He’s at St Thomas’ and the shit has really hit the fan as the Super’s on the warpath. He wants to know where the hell we are.’
Roberts ran the events of the night in his head, then asked:
‘They’re still watching the left luggage place, tell me they haven’t fucked that up?’
‘As far as I know, guv.’
Roberts drank more of the tea. The strangest thing was happening: he was beginning to feel better. How could that be?’
He stared at Brant who had an enigmatic smile and asked:
‘I feel a whole lot better, how could that be?’
Brant shrugged his shoulders and the hooker gave a knowing wink. Roberts smelled the tea — it was different, almost minty. The penny dropped and he snarled:
‘You shithead, you spiked it, didn’t you?’
‘Yo, guv, time to wake up, join the revolution. You couldn’t show up hung-over, could you?’
Roberts slung the tea across the room and the hooker said:
‘Hey, the carpet.’
Roberts grabbed Brant’s shoulder, always a dodgy move as Brant was not one to handle, said:
‘I need help, I’ll ask for it, you got that, Sergeant?’
‘We better get a move on. The Super’11 be at the station.’
As they took their leave, the hooker handed Roberts a plastic bag and he looked the question at her. She raised her eyebrows, said:
‘So I gave your gear a spin in the machine, just dry them and you’re in biz.’
He was strangely touched and for a moment nearly put out his hand, but shaking hands with a hooker is not in God’s scheme of things. He said:
‘Thank you.’
She beamed; men showing gratitude was not a common event and said:
‘My cellphone number is in there. You get frisky, you give me a call, ask for Shirl.’
They were at the door now and Brant said:
‘That’s it?’
‘What?’
‘You say thanks!’
Roberts, as per usual, was lost in the myriad turns of Brant’s mind. Near shouted:
‘What, you want me to send her flowers?’
Brant, who almost never showed his impatience with his boss, threw his hands up, said:
‘You think they live on goodwill, on fucking food stamps? She needs paying.’
Roberts was flustered, fumbled for the right words, then:
‘But didn’t you do that? I mean, I thought you were their guest, the party was for you, as a return for some shady favour you did.’
Brant was hailing a taxi and said:
‘Of all people, you know there’s no such thing as a free lunch. How’s it gonna be when you call her? She’ll think, Oh, here’s that cheapskate again.’
They got in the cab and Brant said to the driver:
‘Waterloo station and before Friday.’
The driver, not long out of Bosnia, knew cops by smell and didn’t argue. He also didn’t turn on the meter. An ikon of the Black Madonna and worry beads hung from his mirror with a large sign thanking customers for not smoking. Brant lit up and Roberts had to know, asked:
‘How much should I have given?’
‘How good a time did you have?’
‘I dunno.’
‘You should have given large, like you obviously did last night. Double up when you see her.’
Roberts waved away the cig smoke and said with indignation, a difficult move to pull off when you’re wearing a tracksuit that P-Daddy would shun:
‘I won’t be calling her. Jesus, are you crazy?’
Brant smiled, said:
“Course you will, you just don’t know it yet.’
18
Waterloo Station was chaotic. Most of the end platforms were sealed off; the bomb damage, though minor, looked dramatic. Superintendent Brown, surrounded by cops, was giving it large.
His face turned purple as Roberts and Brant approached. Roberts’ tracksuit seemed to glow against the dark police uniforms.
Brown shouted:
‘What the hell are you wearing?’
Brant said:
‘We had a lead, sir, and the Chief Inspector felt a disguise was called for.’
The Super glared, snapped:
‘Did I ask you, Sergeant?’
Roberts, going with the flow, said:
‘We thought we had them but it turned out to be a drug thing.’
Brown, not believing a word, said:
‘And… the disguise? You couldn’t bear to part with it… is that it?’
‘No time, sir. As soon as we heard about the explosion, we rushed over.’
Brant enjoying the nonsense, asked:
‘How is Porter Nash?’
It seemed to take Brown a physical act of will to dredge up who that was, then:
‘How the bloody hell would I know? Nobody tells me anything.’
PC McDonald, on the outs for a long time, tried to gain some brownies, said:
‘WPC Falls is with him.’
The Super rounded on him.
‘That’s supposed to be some sort of reassurance, is it? A nigger visiting a pooftah. Christ, the Force is gone down the shitter.’
The Tabloid’s chief crime guy was called Dunphy. He’d recently shone in a serial cop-killing saga. He was home sick with a strep throat. His sidekick, named Malone, was filling in. When Roberts and Brant had arrived, he’d switched on his DAT-recorder. He knew those guys were always gold, he couldn’t believe his luck. Moving back slowly, he slipped away, got out his cellphone. Thought: Dunphy, you prick, you are history. This story would make his career, he could already envisage the headline:
TOP COP CALLS UNDERLINGS NIGGER AND POOFTAH.
Un-fucking-believable.
Roberts strode over to the left luggage office. The Super asked:
‘Where are you going?’
‘Checking on the ransom.’
The assembled cops looked at each other. Brown allowed himself a low chuckle, asked:
‘You think we didn’t already consider that. McDonald says the bag is still there.’
Brant creased his eyes, asked:
‘Did he open it?’
A groan spread through the cops and a chorus of:
‘What’s…?’
Brant, enunciating each word as if he were chewing on them, asked:
‘The bag… did he open it?’
A mad scramble to the luggage office.
Bill, the attendant, still suffering from Friday’s hangover and the after-effects of the bomb blast, shouted:
‘Hey, take it easy.’
As Bill was trampled by cops, Brown tore open the bag. They could see it was empty. He pointed at Bill, ordered:
‘Arrest him!’
Bill’s arrest was a sensation. Reporters, TV crews besieged the police station. Roberts tried to reason with Brown, said:
‘It’s not him.’
The Super, flush with pride, relief and a mad belief that the nightmare was over, allowed himself a supercilious smile, answered:
‘Oh, it’s him all right. When you’ve been in this game as long as me, laddie, you just know.’
Brant, behind Roberts, was more than happy to have Brown expose himself as a horse’s ass. It might even result in them getting shot of the bastard. Not even the Masonic Lodge would save him. But Brant didn’t want Roberts to go down with the fuck, tried to pull him away. Robert
s, his hangover resurfacing, was livid, said:
‘Sir, with all due respect, this is balls. We’re going to appear extremely foolish.’
Before, Brown would have slapped down his Chief Inspector for the tone of impertinence. But drunk with success, he turned to the other officers, his hands, palms outwards in the mode of ‘Lord, grant me patience’, said:
‘Did you hear that, men? Our Chief Inspector believes we’re going to look foolish. I ask you, man to man, can a policeman dressed in a white pimp tracksuit truly appreciate the term “foolish”?’
It got the required jeers, guffaws, derision. Though the officers liked Roberts and were afraid of Brant, they went with the Higher Authority. Brown was elated; he couldn’t recall the last time he’d felt camaraderie with the troops. He said:
‘Drinks on me, lads.’
Big hurrahs and cheers of ‘For he’s a jolly good super’.
Roberts was left with Brant.
He wanted to shout after Brown:
‘You ignorant prick.’
Brant, his body relaxed, got his cigs out, fired up, said:
‘Let’s have a look at the other employee.’
‘What?’
‘The other guy in the left luggage office, I see he didn’t show up for work. What do you say we pay him a visit?’
Roberts gave a large grin.
‘Mignonette,’ repeated the waiter, thinking visibly.
Which would be worse, thought Bobby; telling Eddie Fucking Fish, known gangster associate, that he couldn’t have the fucking mignonette with his oysters — or approaching a rampaging prick of a three-star chef in the middle of the rush hour and telling him to start hunting up some shallots and red wine vinegar?
Anthony Bourdain, Bobby Gold.
19
It took a time for Roberts and Brant to get the address for Jimmy Cross. They put his name in the computer and Brant said:
‘Bingo.’
Jimmy’s previous was burglary, petty theft and a little light mugging. He’d done time with his brother, Ray. Roberts made a note of where Ray lived, turned to Brant and summarised:
‘Jimmy hasn’t been too long in the luggage biz and only recently moved to the bedsit in Kennington. Seems he’s not the brightest tool in the box.’
Brant continued to read the files, added:
