Sick On You

by Andrew Matheson

  I call him and tell him to grab Sonja and a few au pairs and come over to our new pad on Saturday night. It’s party time. The only requirement for entry is that you must be dressed in a stunning outfit or you’re not getting through the door. Unless, of course, you’re an au pair, in which case you can wear whatever you want.

  We concoct a fabulous bash. Great food, gallons of intoxicants, poundingly perfect rock ’n’ roll, beautiful drunk babes in every nook and cranny, their own personal nooks and crannies on display for everyone’s viewing pleasure.

  Mirror, razor blades, and straws in the kitchen.

  Brady rolls up dressed in black velvet with Tina, the tart he plucked from the Greyhound. She’s dark and petite, with Cleopatra eyeliner apparently applied with a butter knife, pink-frost lipstick, and an overall suspicious look in her eye. He tells me he’s just found out that she is considerably younger than he was first led to believe. Nevertheless, he somehow finds it in his heart to forgive her for withholding this saucy information.

  Casino shows up with a couple of bottles of Norwegian Hell Hooch and a bevy of blonde beauties. Scandinavian au pairs, more than enough to go round. This man knows how to enter a party.

  As one of three hosts for the evening, I’m resplendent in top hat, tails, and the ubiquitous Mr Fish blouse (35 quid well spent all those months ago). Ken and his missus drive over in the purple MG. He’s wearing a white dinner jacket, sporting a pink rose in the lapel. Turns out he plucked it from a garden down the road. Ten minutes after he arrives, his lapel is green with ten thousand aphids abandoning ship, pouring out of the rose, and crawling down his front. The image of Ken’s legendary sangfroid is forever ruined by his squealing Houdini-like contortions as he tries to rid himself of his jacket.

  What follows is a bacchanal of Ancient Rome proportions: gyrating, fornicating, screaming, singing, smashing glasses, fighting, dancing, the obligatory puking—and then the party enters its second hour. Three times throughout the evening the police pound on the door; three times Lou uses every ounce of his statesmanlike skills to placate all and sundry, sending the constables away thinking the neighbors must be utter philistines to complain about this charming young man in the mascara.

  Halfway through the festivities, we hold the world premiere of film footage shot on our barge voyage. Foul weather, larking about, swastikas, sailor suits, and a Wehrmacht helmet perched jauntily on Derek’s bonce. Guests desirous of further unfettered bar privileges applaud loudly. Just like in Hollywood.

  While Lou deals with the bobbies a second time, someone, who shall remain shameless, seizes the opportunity for a quick shag on the back porch with a mate of Brillo’s. Brady catches them at it when he runs out the back door and vomits past them onto the neighbor’s petunias.

  The police show up a third time at 2 a.m., after Ken calls them to report that his car has been stolen. Hearing Ken’s slurred, outraged complaint, the two bored but impeccably polite coppers turn around and point. “Would it be that purple MG over there, sir?” Ken is, in fact, so drunk that he merely forgot where he parked the sports car with the subtle paint job.

  After the constabulary depart, Ken hooks his infested dinner jacket over the aerial like a flag of surrender, pours his sloshed missus in the passenger seat, sheepishly gets in the MG, and weaves his way back home, erratically, menacingly through the streets of Ealing at a stately two miles per hour. At 3 a.m. the girl from Clapham calls a taxi and goes home.

  Finally, in the wee small hours, I conk out, flat on my back in bed up in my attic room: two walls pink, two walls and ceiling black, painted by my own hand. During the night, I go back downstairs for a glass of water and hear voices in the living room. Upon investigation I see Derek and Lou at the dining table with two blondes. They are playing strip poker. Derek and the girls are fully clothed.

  Lou is stark naked.*

  Back in bed, exhausted but awake, something nags. Earlier, when Ken was at that stage of inebriation that is pre–violent vomiting but post-discreet, he threw an arm across my shoulder (overly familiar—we’re not on these terms) and, in a blaze of foul breath, began slurring away about hoodlums, mafia, Ronnie Biggs, organized crime, and other forms of general underworld skulduggery. He tapped the side of his nose meaningfully, or perhaps he was crushing a stray aphid.

  “The Krays.”

  “What?” I ask, moving my ear politely away from his wet lips.

  “The Krays, the Krays. You know.” He widens his eyes for emphasis.

  “Oh, the Krays, gangsters, sharp suits? Of course I do.”

  “Yeah, gangsters, sharp suits. Sharp suits, definitely. Gangsters? Hmm, yes and no, yes and no . . . but mostly yes.”

  “Are the Krays scary?”

  “Scary? Nah, not as such. They’re lovely chaps. Gentlemen, really. Complete gentlemen. Unless, of course, you actually come into contact with them. Then . . . well, yeah, perhaps they could be construed as being . . . ah . . . maybe just the slightest bit . . . ah . . . terrifying.”

  “They’re in prison, right?”

  “They are, they are indeed, serving at Her Majesty’s pleasure. It’s just that . . .”

  “Just that what?”

  “Well, it’s just that, when it comes to Reggie and Ronnie, being in jail is just a . . . how shall I put this . . . to them it’s almost a minor inconvenience.”

  “Inconvenience how?”

  “Well, they wouldn’t let a trivial thing like a life sentence for murder stop them running their . . . ah . . . various businesses.”

  “Who did they murder?”

  “You know, the Blind Beggar thing.”

  “Do you know these guys?”

  Ken ignores the question and presses on. “This bloke, fellow villain, called Ronnie Kray a fat poof, which is just not done. Anyway, Reggie took exception, tracked him down to the Blind Beggar, demanded retraction and a pint of stout, and when neither were forthcoming he put a bullet through the bloke’s skull. The barman was spared. Wet his drawers, though.”

  He pauses for what I assume must be dramatic effect then knits his brows over bloodshot eyes and stares at the floor, pondering. “Yeah. I think they took a blade to Jack the Hat, as well, but the point I’m making is . . .” Ken lowers his voice. “That business goes on as usual.”

  “Does it?”

  “What I’m trying to say is certain people, here on the outside, certain people at certain companies, certain clubs, get it? Clubs? . . . wink, wink.”

  “Yeah? What’s ‘wink, wink’ mean?”

  “Well, you know . . . the Speakeasy?”

  “Yeah, the Speak, of course. What about it?”

  “And Worldwide Artists?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, a nod’s as good as . . .” Ken taps the side of his nose again.

  “As good as?”

  “A nod’s as good as a . . .”

  “As good as a what? What are you on about?”

  “As a wink to a blind horse, for fuck’s sake.”

  “What is?”

  “A fucking nod. A nod’s as good as a wink to a . . . Oh, for Christ’s sake. You’re signed to the Krays, is what I’m trying to say. The Hollywood Brats are signed to the Krays.”

  Since George Raft was asked to vacate the Colony Club in Berkeley Square the “Italians” had problems getting into the UK. So now Wilf, infatuated by the Mafia, gets introduced by Laurie O’Leary to Joe Pagano, a capo in the Genovese crime family. They see I’m in with a UK public company, movies (Hemdale), rock ’n’ roll, etc.

  Everyone at Worldwide/Hemdale thinks Wilf’s dreaming and indulge him until these sinister-looking characters begin to arrive at the office.

  Ken Mewis

  Bali, 1989

  They were puffed-up would-be gangsters who fancied themselves, along with so many other striped-suited, greased-up spivs, as impresarios.
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  But breaking people is not the same as breaking into the charts.

  Worldwide Artists did not know what they were doing, therefore the Hollywood Brats got lost.

  Andrew Loog Oldham

  Bogotá, 2012

  IV

  The following week, Ken tells us more about Worldwide Artists’ business partners. They are twins, they look great, they dress sharp, they are terrifyingly lethal, they love their mum and Judy Garland, and they are currently banged up, doing Her Majesty’s pleasure for life. Tales of swords and pliers, hammers, impromptu dentistry, and, of course, that old standby, bullets, and something called a “cigarette punch” abound.

  Ken further asserts that Laurie O’Leary is part of the Krays’ operation. Laurie O’Leary? Mr. O’Leary? That nice chap who made time to talk to us when we dropped in unannounced last year and then gave us a gig at the Speakeasy? The gig that changed our lives? That Laurie O’Leary? Oh, yes.

  Ken also tells us the big news that Wilf is not only a certified villain (not quite with a diploma on the wall, but you get the drift), but he’s part of the Krays’ inner circle, a trusted lieutenant, if not more, he hints darkly.

  Eventually, it begins to dawn on us. Perhaps this is why, or if not why then at least a contributory factor, people are reluctant to touch us with a ten-foot barge pole.

  I’m a bag of nerves. Ken called on Friday to tell us that Wilf wants to meet me on Monday. Today. That made for a relaxing weekend. What does he want? What have I done?

  I take Lou with me. Well, wouldn’t you? On the bus to Dover Street we discuss the Mob. What images come to mind? New York turkey shoots; abattoir clam bars; the customers of restaurants—stuffed with fettuccine and lead—and barbershops—freshly coiffed and perforated—stretchered out into meat wagons. Marlon Brando; Guccione, the sucker-punch king; Charles Bronson in The Valachi Papers; Sicily; what do we know? It all blends in.

  We come to the conclusion that this afternoon’s agenda probably doesn’t include a hit. We doubt I’m going to get shot. What we do think is that maybe we’re in for a diatribe cunningly disguised as a chat. And soon enough, here we are, splayed on the white sofa. Lou chews gum and smokes. Off to one side, Ken is plonked in the armchair, sloe-eyed and smoking too. Chain-smoking, in fact. The scene is very smoky.

  Wilf doesn’t just sit at his desk. He wears it like King Kong’s tutu. He thumps a fist upon it, making the perfectly sharpened, unused pencils jump in fright and cigarette butts leap in dusty terror from the heaped ashtray. Tattooed fingers drum on the desktop. One digit now points, Lord Kitchener style, at me. “A single. I’ve heard your tapes. We need a fucking single. Why can’t you fuckers write a fucking single? Eh?”

  “What about ‘Sick On You’?” I ask.

  Lou snickers and blows an insolent smoke ring that sails forth then dissolves in fright midair between the sofa and the desk. Ken wipes off the first trace of a smirk and fumbles in his pocket for another French fag. Unable to locate Jean Genet, he settles for Gauloises and does a palms-up shoulder shrug in Wilf’s direction. What can I do?

  But Wilf is in the middle of a speech. His mouth emits a sharp explosion of spittle-flecked air. “Do what? You fucking . . . that song’s disgusting. Don’t you come the cheeky bastard with me, Andrew. I’ll rip your fucking intestines out, I will. That song’s fucking profane.”

  Imminent disembowelment being something of a constant threat at Worldwide Artists, I let the remark pass and instead offer, “Actually, we consider ‘Sick On You’ to be our best song. Besides, we don’t write singles. The word ‘anathema’ springs to mind and—”

  “Ana what?” shrieks Wilf. The word “apoplectic” springs to mind.

  “Ana fucking what? Fuck you and your fucking words, you little poofter shite. We need a fucking hit fucking single from you fucking nancies to get you on Top of the fucking Pops, and we need it in two fucking weeks. You got that?”

  “But we hate Top of the Pops.”

  “We like Pan’s People,” Lou interjects.

  “True,” I concede.

  A big vein, reminiscent of Tony McVein’s, throbs hypnotically on Wilf’s temple. He snarls, “Am I hearing things? Are my fucking lugholes deceiving me?” He looks over at Ken, exasperation laced with malevolence, and hisses, “Ken, can you talk to these fucking cunts, what you brought into our midst, and tell them if they don’t stop playing the shite they play and write me a couple of fucking hit singles I will personally tear their fucking balls off, starting with you, Andrew, and give ’em to the fucking secretaries for fucking Christmas earrings. Can you tell ’em that, Ken? Eh? Can you fucking inform them as to this?”

  Ken is slouched, legs crossed, shoes white, wrists delicate. He flaps one as if to demonstrate that it’s broken. He opens his mouth, aims for laconic, and lands just south of coherent. “Welll, ahhh . . . it’s cooool . . . I’lll jusss . . .”

  Wilf’s face gets even redder, his eyes narrow to slits, and his mouth opens wide. He is cut off in mid-bellow—face frozen, mouth agape—by the doors of the office swinging open.

  No warning. No intercom beep from Mandy, one of the “fucking secretaries” whose lobes apparently await my globes. Through the doors stride two lower primates in double-breasted suits and sunglasses perched on noses obviously not unfamiliar with fists, with jowls wrapped in permanent five o’clock shadow.

  They don’t say a word. They stand to either side of the door and stare straight ahead at the far wall, past Ken’s alarmed head. They clasp their paws together in front of their procreation equipment and stand deathly still.

  Wilf’s mouth closes with a wet clop, and in a voice mixing query, quandary, and threat, asks, “What the fuck?” Through the door walks a smaller and older, though no less menacing, version of the two doorstops. The guy is wearing a $10,000 suit, beige patent loafers, and dark sunglasses, and is smoking a cigarette in a whittled-down elephant-tusk holder. He stops just inside the room and looks at Wilf. Then he holds his right hand out, a ring glinting ostentatiously on his pinky finger. The rock responsible for the glinting is the size of a camel’s gonad.

  Wilf murmurs something unintelligible but reverent, leaps from behind his desk, and, before our astonished eyes, falls to one knee in front of the visitor and with another murmur kisses the proffered hand. He never greets us like that.

  And I know why. It’s because the guy who just wafted through the door is the real deal. If this guy isn’t Mafia then he has missed his true calling in life. This is no cotton-in-the-jowls Brando goombah. This is one of those made guys, and judging by the reaction he is way up there, too. It’s a sure bet no concrete gets poured, no liquor or gaming license gets doled out, no whore’s legs spread, no garbage can gets emptied without this guy wetting his beak. Fari vagnari u pizzu. Whatever that means.

  And what do you get for the crime lord who has everything? A slice of the British music industry. And, by extension, me and the boys.

  Wilf heaves himself upright and begins spluttering about flights, schedules, and such, with a couple of “my apologies” thrown in for insurance purposes. The old guy withdraws his hand and, without looking, extends it to the gorilla on his left who, also without looking, places a silk handkerchief in the palm. With Howard Hughes–like attention to detail the mobster wipes his hands and, in a voice like a man swallowing a rusty hinge and asking for a glass of oil, says, “In our business sometimes it is unwise to stick too close to schedules.”

  Wilf, uncharacteristically flustered and grasping at cordiality straws, shuffles two steps backward, points at our manager, and says, “You remember Ken.”

  Ken is immobile, frozen in place, but he’s a man who knows a capo di tutti capi when he sees one. He rockets from slouch to momentarily vertical, before lurching forward, tripping, and collapsing, prostrate and eating carpet at the old guy’s loafers. The gorillas react as one, right hands disappearing under left armpits.<
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  Ken bounces back up, bumping the back of his head on the old guy’s now- outstretched hand. Grabbing the fingers for balance, Ken bends and pokes himself in the nose with the pinky ring before staggering backward to the safety of the armchair.

  The dignified old gangster, trying to make sense of this spectacle, now repeats the silk hanky bit with the right-hand gorilla. The gorilla complies, though his trigger finger is still flooded with adrenaline. The old guy rubs, wipes, and polishes with true vigor.

  Well, there is no avoiding it. Now Wilf has to, can’t see a way not to, deal with the introduction of the two creatures from inner space sprawled on the sofa. I’m in red velvet strides, white canvas coolie shoes, and a fifties purple cocktail dress scissored up the middle. Lou sports black patent pumps, black denim pedal pushers, a pink sweater, a pair of Vincent Price in The Fly sunglasses, lipstick, and two red rouge spots on his cheeks. He looks like Annette Funicello on smack.

  Now, this impeccably presented gangster has probably seen some odd sights in his long and colorful career, has probably even been responsible for some of the more colorful ones, but he is certainly giving us some serious eyeball at the moment. Almost horizontal in our recline on the big white sofa, in this increasingly film-noir tableau, we give him some serious eyeball right back.

  Wilf, aghast and sweating a metaphor as appropriate as bullets, waves a meaty paw in our general direction. “Ah . . . these are two of our . . . artists . . . uh, musicians. Just leaving, in fact. Weren’t you, lads?”

  To Wilf’s utter horror Lou and I simply stick our hands out, as does the old guy, and we shake. How you doing? Pleased to meet you. Musician to mobster. No ring smoochers, us. Wilf dry-gargles and regards us with a bug-eyed, ever-mounting fury.

  “Yes, they’re leaving. Good talk we had though, lads. Glad we got it all straightened out. See you soon, then.”