by Ken Bruen
Rachel, groaning, said:
‘It must be something I ate.’
‘Kebab. You have to pack those in.’
‘But you had one, no, you had two.’
‘See, Rachel, I can eat anything, but you’re so delicate, you have to be careful. Don’t worry about a thing, I’ll take care of you.’
Would she ever.
Angie had completely altered her appearance. Shorn the blonde hair, applied a jet-black colour and added hornrimmed glasses. When Rachel saw her she shrieked:
‘Oh my God.’
Sounding like Phoebe in Friends… which is sounding like horror.
Angie, pleased with her appearance, said:
‘I’ve met a new guy and he’s sort of conservative. I want to fit in with his job.’
Rachel’s reply was cut off by another bout of throwing up.
24
In Brighton, Ray was also sporting a new image. He’d dyed his hair red, also got glasses, a pair not unlike the ones Porter Nash had so recently abandoned. He looked like Ginger Evans’ brother, a nightmare of a whole other hue. He was staying in B amp;B near the pier… well, what used to be the pier till the storms blew it to fuck and away. Ray was grieved, he’d loved that boardwalk; reminded him of the childhood he wished he’d had.
Going down to the seaside for long summer days, riding the donkeys, buying the slightly naughty postcards with the fat lady saying rude things and sucking on an ice-cream cone. Then, candy floss and fish ‘n’ chips wrapped in newspaper.
The reality was a drunk for a father and a mother on the game. Once, after they’d got out of nick, Ray brought Jimmy down here and they’d spent a weekend getting shitfaced, taunting the gays who cruised the promenade, and trying jellied ells. Jimmy had loved that holiday and they’d sworn when they’d got the big score, they’d come down and stay in The Grand.
Sitting on his bed in the boarding house, Ray toyed with the. 38 and forced himself to wipe Jimmy from his mind. Jimmy was getting a cheap box in some pissy pauper’s grave and Angie was, no doubt, living it large. Sure, she’d got clean away. The whole of the police force was out looking for him and there wasn’t a minor villain who wouldn’t sell him out.
Ray had two objectives:
One, find and kill Angie;
Two, get Jimmy’s share of the cash.
He had Angie’s cellphone number and hadn’t yet called. She’d have kept the phone as she wanted the money too. The one sure thing about her, she worshipped cash and when she felt she was owed, she’d do whatever it took to get it.
He’d be calling her.
Brant was visiting Porter Nash.
They’d kept him in hospital until his blood levels settled. He was sitting in the corridor, sneaking a cig — hadn’t yet applied the patches as he’d been instructed. Brant was dressed in a dark navy suit, police federation tie (stolen) and heavy, handmade Italian shoes. He looked like a mafioso, had a cig in the corner of his mouth and had been cautioned twice by staff. Porter was glad to see him. They’d forged the most unlikely of friendships and it was a mystery to them both. But they didn’t sweat it and just figured it was beyond analysis. Brant handed over a book, said:
‘Thought you’d need some reading.’
Porter sighed, he knew it would be Ed McBain — with Brant it always was. Sure enough, a fat hardback with the title Fat Ollie’s Book.
Brant said:
‘It’s a cracker. Fat Ollie writes a novel and it gets stolen shit, all you’d need to know about writing is in there.’
Porter put the book aside, said:
‘I appreciate it.’
Brant stubbed the cig on the floor and Porter tried not to notice, asked:
‘What’s the news on McDonald?’
‘He’s still in intensive care, head shot, you know, tricky number.’
‘Will he make it?’
‘I think he’ll live, but will he make it? I doubt it.’
This was Brant at his cryptic best and Porter knew better than to go there. Porter was aware of the detestation Brant felt for McDonald but he’d never like to have a cop hit, no matter how big an asshole he was.
Brant asked:
‘So, what’s the deal with this diabetes gig? You going to be shooting up like some sort of civilian junkie?’
Porter didn’t rise to the bait, said:
‘I have type two, which means I’m on tablets for the foreseeable future. You want to know the hardest bit?’
Brant looked vaguely bored, said:
‘If you want to tell me.’
‘Salt.’
‘That’s it?’
Porter could have told him of all the dietary changes, the new regime of health, the constant blood checks, the fear, but Brant wasn’t the type to give a whole lot of attention to this. So, he said:
‘I love salt, in fact I adore it, cover everything with it and now, no more. I can’t taste my food now, isn’t that a bitch?’
Brant was staring at a nurse’s legs and said:
‘What’s a bitch is we can’t get a line on Ray. He’s gone to ground and believe me, we’ve pulled out all the stops; what we have got is a chick who used to hang with the brothers, but gee, guess what? She’s gone to ground too.’
Porter knew now that Ray was the guy he’d been on the phone with and he wanted this guy so bad, he could — as the Yanks say — taste it. He wanted Ray in his hands, up close and real personal; he tried to rein in the rage that had reared up — the doctors had emphasised that stress was perilous to his condition.
He took a deep breath and saw that Brant was smiling, asked:
‘What?’
Brant peeled the wrapper off a Juicy Fruit, split it in half and offered a wedge. Porter shook his head and Brant said:
‘You’ve got a hard-on for this guy, no offence to your orientation by the way, but you want this guy so bad, you need to step back, cool off, ‘cos all you’re going to get is fucked. You can’t get them when you’re het up; trust me, I’ve been down that road.’
Porter Nash’s rage moved up a notch and he felt a twinge in his chest, he snarled:
‘Gimme a cig.’
‘Whoa, buddy, where did those famous manners go?’
He took out the pack of Weights, only available in the West End, and gave one over, if grudgingly. Lit him up with a battered Zippo that had the logo ‘1968’ stamped on it.
It still made Brant smile when he recalled how he’d nicked it.
A passing porter stopped. Demanded:
‘What are you people thinking of?’
He pointed his finger at the plethora of ‘No Smoking’ signs, and Brant said:
‘What I’m thinking is… will I sink my shoe in your hole or will I let my ranking officer do the honours?’
The porter took off quick.
Porter Nash looked at Brant, asked:
‘I need your word.’
‘Depends, old pal.’
‘When you get a line on Ray, you give me a bell.’
Brant seemed to consider, then:
‘What’s the barter?’
‘Excuse me?’
Brant laughed, he enjoyed this, said:
‘You’re my mate, no question, even if you’re a fag, but how I work is, I do something for you, you owe me, got it?’
Porter Nash nodded; he got it.
Big time.
25
Falls and Andrews were called to a domestic. The husband had been beating on the wife for two hours. The disturbance was at a block of flats in Meadow Road. Falls cautioned:
‘Follow my lead on this, these can get nasty very fast.’
Andrews nodded but Falls was uneasy about the gung-ho expression she was wearing. She emphasised:
‘I’m serious, watch the woman.’
‘Isn’t she the one who got beaten?’
‘Yes, but if you decide to cuff hubby, they suddenly have a change of heart.’
Falls banged on the door and it was opened by a small boy;
he looked petrified.
Andrews asked:
‘Can we come in?’
‘Dunno.’
‘We’ll just be a minute.’
‘But Dad is beating on Mum and he doesn’t like to be bothered.’
Falls moved him outside, said:
‘You wait here, we’ll only be a minute.’
They ventured slowly in, the sound of a woman crying in their ears. Turned into a sitting room, a scene of chaos. A TV had a hole in the screen and every stick of furniture was smashed. A woman was huddled in the corner, weeping. They heard the toilet flush and then the man appeared, zipping up his flies. He was small, about five four, dressed in a raggedy T-shirt, dirty jeans and barefoot. He was wiping his mouth and seemed unfazed by them, asked:
‘What you cunts want?’
Falls walked over and turned as if to address Andrews, used her elbow to hit him in the stomach. He went down with a whimper. Andrews was about to speak when the woman launched and landed on her back, sinking her teeth into Andrews’ neck. The joint screaming and howling would have put a banshee to shame.
Falls marched over and pulled her baton, lashed the woman on the skull. You get a biter, you can’t fuck around; it’s not the time for negotiation. Let the stick do the therapy.
The woman fell off like a downed Man-U prima donna. Andrews, in shock, was sobbing. The man on the floor began to sit up so Falls gave him a tap to the side of the head and finished his song.
She got out her radio, shouted:
‘We’ve got an officer down, two perps in need of aid and SEND SOME FUCKING BACK-UP!’
She moved into the kitchen, spotted an open bottle of scotch, brought it out, tilted it to Andrews’ neck, and poured. If Andrews had howled before, it was nothing to the cry of anguish she gave now. Falls tried not to think of Rosie, her best friend, who’d been bitten by a junkie and after Aids testing, took her own life.
The booze revived Andrews and she managed to complain:
‘What were you thinking, that hurt more than the bite?’
Falls was seriously angry, pulled Andrews round, said:
‘What did I tell you? What the fuck did I tell you? Not to turn your back on a woman in a disturbance… and what do you do?… You turn your friggin’ back… Do you know how serious a bite can be? Do you have any bloody idea of how that can go, you stupid bitch?…You think I can afford to lose another partner?’
And realised she was shaking Andrews so violently that the WPC was returning to shock mode. She let go and grabbed the bottle. Took a huge wallop. The guy on the floor opened an eye, asked:
‘Could I maybe get a snort of that?’
26
Brant had to get a new snitch. Despite the new technology — DNA testing, computer databases, profiling, door-to-door enquiries — nothing could touch the informer for results. It was the very lifeblood of the deal. Brant had a shocking record with them. Not that they didn’t pay dividends; on the contrary, they had helped break many a case but the fatalities were massive.
His last two had, respectively, been kebabed and drowned in a toilet. Word was out that if you talked to him, you ended up dead and in horrible fashion. Plus, the villains were an added peril; they heard you were talking to him, sayonara sucker.
Alcazar was a well-known character around the watering holes of south-east London. Known as Caz, he had a history of hanging paper, dealing in dodgy traveller’s cheques and his latest venture — the cyber-cafe racket — had done very nicely for a brief time. But that had gone belly up and a stint with hot cellphones hadn’t lasted.
His history was the stuff of legend. Various times, he was from Puerto Rico, South America, Honduras, Nicaragua. What made him stand out from the herd was that he’d never done time. Brushing as close to the line as he did, it was a bloody miracle he’d never been sent down. And people liked him, he had a way of ingratiating himself to everybody. He was short, with coal-black hair, pitted skin and the body of a dancer. Hooded eyes that some hooker, in a bout of absinthe, termed ‘smouldering’.
The boy could dance, no argument. A woman will forgive a rogue for most things if he can do that. Flamenco, Salsa, the Margarena, he had all the moves. Jiving, that old neglected classic, he could do to perfection. You want to make a woman laugh with delight, get her to jive, and if she’s delighted, bed is already made. He could swing a woman halfway round the floor, with a perilous edge of almost losing her and therein is the art, to bring it right to the precipice and hold on. A joy to behold, it was most fascinating to observe men as he did his thing. They sneered and muttered ‘faggot’, wishing with every fibre of their being that they could have the balls to dance like that.
The streets being the danger they were, Caz had to have some protection. A lot of irate husbands eyed him. His weapon of choice was the stiletto, much forgotten since the appearance of the Stanley knife and, of course, the obsequious baseball bat. In the heyday of the Teddy Boys — was there ever a more fun time? — you packed a flick-knife along with the Brylcream. A cold fascination in the way you hit that little button and the blade snapped out like the worst kind of lethal news.
Caz had the sex and danger to a fine craft. Got the woman to the bed, slipped out the stiletto and snapped the bra-strap with the steel, then said:
‘You want me to hit another button?’
Did they ever — and often.
Caz could move with ease in almost any company, which made him an ideal snitch; it would have also helped in an Inland Revenue career. Brant found him in a Mexican place, late in the afternoon, asked:
‘You know me?’
Caz tried to raise his famous smile, failed, said:
‘Senor Brant, of course. You are legend, is not so, amigo?’
Brant signalled to the waitress who was dressed in flamenco gear, with the name tag, ‘Rosalita’. She sashayed over, lisped:
‘Si, senor?’
She was from Peckham.
Brant looked at Caz, asked:
‘What’s good?’
‘San Miguel and the enchilada is muy bueno.’
Brant sighed, ordered:
‘Two of them Miguels and before Tuesday.’
Brant reached over to Caz’s cigs, read the packet — Ducados — took one, fired it up, coughed, said:
‘Jeez, what a piece of shit.’
He didn’t stub it out, said:
‘First off, I’m not your amigo, got it? You ever call me that, I’ll break your nose. Second, you are now working for me and I need information. Everything on Ray Cross and the blonde chick he ran with, I need this like yesterday.’
Before Caz could reply, Brant held up his hand, said:
‘This is not negotiable. I don’t want to hear dick about how hazardous it might be, ‘cos I’m the most dangerous item that can fall on you. Now, are we clear, amigo?’
They were.
‘It’s ungovernable… Psychosis is everywhere, in your armpit, under your shoe. You can smell it in the sweat in this room… we’re all baby killers, repressed or not… how do you measure a man’s rage? Either we behave like robots, or we kill. Why do you expect your police force to be any less crazy than you?
Jerome Charyn, The Issac Quartet.
27
Caz surprised everyone, especially himself, by coming up with the goods so quickly. He met with Brant at the Cricketers, said:
‘I got a result.’
Caz was wearing what could only be described as a garish shirt, something Elvis would have worn for Elvis in Hawaii. He was even wearing a large gold medallion on his exposed chest. Brant, yet again in a bespoke suit, asked:
‘Where did you get the shirt?’
‘Like it? I can get you one just like it, or would you prefer a more colourful shade?’
The horrendous thing was, he was serious.
Brant stared at the medallion.
Caz said:
‘It’s Our Lady of Guadeloupe… but I can’t get you one as my sainted mother, God rest her, gave i
t to me when I escaped from El Salvador.’
This was far too much data for Brant, who said:
‘El Salvador? I checked on you, boyo, you were brought up in Croydon.’
Caz looked defeated — crestfallen just wouldn’t do justice to how his face appeared — and he tried:
‘Not too many people know that.’
Brant gave him a hard slap on the face, said:
‘Get the drinks in. You behave yourself and you can be from fucking Nigeria if you like. Now hop on up there. A large Teachers for me, and some cheese and onion… go.’
Caz was attempting to focus, whined:
‘But don’t you want to hear my news?’
‘What’s the hurry?’
And Caz got the look. He moved rapidly to the bar. The barman had a pony-tail, a checked waistcoat and an attitude. The attitude, of course, would cost extra. Caz ordered and the guy kept the smirk in place.
So Caz asked:
‘What?’
The guy chuckled. It’s hard to credit that a human being in this era of global terrorism would seriously make such a sound, and worse, think it was clever. He said:
‘That’s Brant you’re keeping company with.’
‘And that means what?’
Another chuckle, then:
‘Don’t let the big boys hear about that.’
Caz didn’t do threats well, unless it was from Brant, which was a whole other country. But some git in a pub? He fingered his stiletto, said:
‘I’ll tell him what you said.’
And got the guy’s full attention. He pleaded:
‘Jesus, don’t do that. Tell you what, how would it be if I gave you these drinks as a treat from me, how would that suit?’
It suited fine. Caz told Brant anyway. Brant was delighted and raised his glass to the guy who busied himself with glass-cleaning and wished he’d kept his frigging mouth shut.
Brant asked:
‘Where is she?’
Caz produced a slip of paper and said:
‘She’s shacked up with a stripper. And Ray… Ray is in Brighton. Both of them have changed their appearance.’
