‘That’s right, Frankie, you see I’ve changed my . . . my . . . Tam?’
‘Investment strategy,’ Tam said, still standing just behind Tommy, so the boss couldn’t see how much of a kick all this was giving him.
‘Yeah. From here on in, see, no matter what I myself and the firm get involved in, we’re gonna be looking at not just long-term gains, but short-term too.’
Frankie just stared. He could feel himself sagging, like he’d just had the stuffing knocked out of him. Every involvement he’d had with Tommy before had had a fairness to it. A favour given, a favour repaid. First with Riley helping Frankie clear Jack’s name two years ago, and then with Frankie helping Riley get his goddaughter back from that prick in Ibiza last year. A quid pro quo. Wasn’t that the phrase? But this . . . this was different. This had nothing to do with equality or mutual respect. And everything to do with Frankie being told.
13
On the ride back into Soho, Tam Jackson sat in the back of Grew’s Jag and explained to Frankie the way the scam was going to work. Pat O’Hanagan, the Northern Ireland bookie and player-manager who Tommy had introduced Frankie to back at last year’s launch, controlled two of the top four seeds already entered in the tournament, one in each half of the draw. The plan was to guide them both through to the final, where the one Tommy had backed right from the start was going to win, frame per frame at the point differentials O’Hanagan and Tommy had already agreed.
So far so simple, but the smart bit was this: while O’Hanagan reckoned his boys were maybe good enough to get through to the final on their own merits, there was still the possibility they might not. That’s where Frankie came in. His job was to keep Tommy in touch, via Tam Jackson, about how each of the two bent seeds’ matches were progressing. Any sign of them losing and it would then be up to Frankie to arrange access to the players’ Green Room during one of the breaks, so that Tam Jackson and a couple of Tommy’s other thugs could pop in and have a little word with whoever the seed was up against, to deter whoever it was from wanting to win.
The only comfort Frankie had was hoping that this might not ever actually happen, in that Pat O’Hanagan’s two seeds might make it through to the final on merit, without anyone needing to have a little word with anyone in the Green Room. Because once that happened, well, Frankie wasn’t stupid . . . no matter how sneakily or terrifyingly Tommy’s thugs went about their business, it would only be a matter of time before the rumours started. Maybe just amongst the players at first. But then the agents . . . the federations . . . the fans. Until the Soho Open and everything Frankie had ever hoped it would turn into would instead be turned into mud.
*
But, of course, it wasn’t just the tournament’s reputation Frankie had to worry about, was it? But the very real prospect of the law getting wind of what he was up to as well. The prospect hit him in full three-dimensional horror vision as he stood outside the front doors of the Ambassador at one o’clock that afternoon, with a pleasantly clean-cut and sober Spartak Sidarov at his side, welcoming the punters in.
Snaresby was one of the first to arrive. Frankie spotted him near the front of the queue that had been steadily building over the last half-hour, before Spartak had opened the doors. He felt the same old burn of adrenaline he always felt whenever he clapped eyes on him. Fight or flight. But when Snaresby reached him, instead of his usual sneer, he actually smiled.
‘May I introduce my wife?’ he asked Frankie, as Xandra checked his tickets.
‘Er, sure,’ Frankie said, a little thrown.
Mrs Snaresby looked surprisingly normal, not remotely gangly or greasy-looking at all. Oddly pretty too. Or for someone who’d ended up with a human arachnid like him.
‘Congratulations on getting this off the ground,’ she said. ‘I’ve been looking forward to it so much.’ The way she said it, like she’d been following the whole story of how the tournament had come about and was progressing, right from day one. ‘I’m such a big fan of Stephen Maxwell.’
Maxwell. One of the two bent seeds. Snaresby’s face gave nothing away. Did he know? And if he didn’t, what would he do if he found out? Throw the bloody book at Frankie, no matter how much he might be smiling now. Unless he really was on Riley’s books.
‘Me too,’ Frankie lied. ‘We’re dead lucky he’s here.’ Or dead, anyway, at least.
‘Well, we mustn’t hold you up,’ Mrs Snaresby said, taking her husband by the hand.
‘We got here nice and early,’ Snaresby said, ‘to give us the best possible view. I wouldn’t want to miss a thing.’
Something threatening about the way he said it? Something else for Frankie to worry about? Like he didn’t already have enough. Or maybe he was just being paranoid? Christ, he hated this. He’d been looking forward to this afternoon for months, but now he just wanted it done. All because of that bastard Riley. Yeah, all because of him.
Stephen Maxwell was already back there in the Green Room and would be the first player up on table one. Frankie was already feeling sick at the prospect of what might happen if he started to lose.
And right on cue, Tommy Riley and his boys were the next faces to turn up. Grew and Jesús too. Eight in all, including the same Chinese woman who Frankie had seen at the track. But none of that queuing malarkey for them, thank you very much. Bosh. Straight to the front, with Tam Jackson leading like a bull in search of a china shop. Nobody else who’d been waiting in line dared say diddly squat.
‘Looking good and busy, then,’ Tommy observed, peering past Frankie and Spartak into the club beyond.
‘Yeah, it’s a sell-out.’ Hah, and in more ways than one.
‘Hello, Frankie. I’m Chenguang,’ said the Chinese woman. Tommy’s new girlfriend then, way too beautiful and young for him, of course. An American, from her accent. He’d not been expecting that.
Mrs Riley not joining us this evening? Yeah, if only Frankie had the balls to ask. Imagine Tommy’s face. Seeing that might even make up for some of the damage that he’d done.
‘Welcome to the Ambassador Club,’ he heard himself saying to Chenguang instead.
‘Thanks.’ Chenguang was dressed, just like at the track, in head-to-toe purple silk, matching Tommy’s tie. Sponsored by Ribena again, then, eh? He remembered what Listerman had said. For luck. She took out a small purple corsage from her Hermès handbag, as if reading his mind, and reached up and pinned it onto the lapel of his black suit.
‘Thanks,’ Frankie said, meaning it, because bloody hell, he couldn’t have enough luck tonight, ‘and now, if you’ll follow me, I’ll take you through to your seats.’
He led her, Tommy and the rest of them through to the reserved VIP section on table one, where the first of today’s first-round matches would be starting in just under half an hour. A bit of banter with Grew and Jesús and he called one of the hired-in waiters over and left them to it.
The six competition tables were divided by high walls covered with the various sponsors’ logos, with the seating around each already filling up. A nice buzz of excited conversation was building too. The bar was good and busy, with Slim on top of everything and extra staff drafted in. Andy ‘The Topster’ Topper was over on table two, chatting to the match officials the snooker federation had sent round. He was bossing all that, so there was nothing for Frankie to do there. In fact, everything looked good, but it wasn’t what was out here on show that was the problem, was it? Christ, his heart was hammering hard.
‘Are you feeling all right?’ Kind Regards asked, seeing Frankie leaning back against the bar.
‘Eh? Er, yeah. Of course.’
‘You sure? Only you’re looking rather pale.’ Kind Regards looked far from convinced. He waved across at his wife, Mary, who was sitting right down the front of the seating overlooking table one, next to Jack and Tiffany and JoJo. Even better seats than he’d given Tommy, with a nice lateral view from where they’d be able to catch all of the action.
‘We’re both so proud of you,’ Kind
Regards said. ‘And your mum would be too. And of course the Old Man.’
Frankie was gutted he couldn’t be here. Her too, wherever she was. He could feel his heart hammering even more. Sweat was breaking out across his brow.
‘You nervous about your speech, is that it?’ said Kind Regards, still frowning. ‘Just remember what I told you before the launch last year.’
And, oh yeah, Frankie remembered it all right. How could he forget? You’ve got to own it. Make it yours, was how Kind Regards had put it. Or one day someone else will take it away. Only it hadn’t made any difference, had it? Because that’s exactly what Tommy Riley had just done. Taken what Frankie had built. Taken it and broken it and ground it under his boot.
‘I’m just going to go upstairs and have myself a couple of minutes,’ Frankie said. ‘I need a glass of water, a breather for a sec.’
‘Yeah, good idea, you do that.’ Kind Regards patted him on the back.
Frankie weaved his way back through the crowd to the door and out into the street. Better. Not so hot. He hurried up into the flat and guzzled down some water straight from the tap, then filled himself a glass up too, and headed through to the bedroom.
Diazepam. Boom. He popped one out of the blister pack and necked it. Whiskey. Boom-badda-boom. He dug that half-bottle out from the back of the drawer under his bed. Because that was one of the brilliant things about hiding things from yourself, wasn’t it? Especially when you’d pretended you’d cleared them out. You always then remembered where they were.
*
Even just after he’d finished it, Frankie couldn’t remember much about making his speech in front of that crowd on table one to open the tournament. Applause, yeah. A few laughs. But not a lot else. That pill and the whiskey had both kicked in nicely by then, so the whole thing had passed in a kind of a blur. Had it gone well? Hard to tell. But a few hours later, and no one was bitching, so he was guessing that maybe it had. Thank God then, eh, for all that practice he’d put in.
By five o’clock, thanks to a shedload more water and a couple of nice, icy Diet Cokes, the effects of the booze had worn off completely and he was feeling nicely straightened out and surprisingly unstressed. Well, not that surprisingly really, considering that that pill was probably still doing its thing. But on a level, yeah, for sure. Happy. In control.
He’d managed to chat, in between sessions and watching the various matches taking place, with most of the people he needed to: the announcer, the sponsors and most of the players – apart from Stephen Maxwell, he’d not been able to bring himself to do that. The Topster was on top of his game too, working the club like sodding Jerry Maguire. Only with Aussie surfer hair topping that perfect Mighty White smile of his. Yeah, it looked like the whole event was shaping up to be a proper success.
The best news of all, though, was that Stephen Maxwell – much to Mrs Snaresby’s obvious and vocal delight – had gone through in six straight frames on table one. Looking good, then. On form. With no need for any interference from Tam Jackson’s lads at all. The same went for the other bent seed, who’d been playing his opening round on one of the tables across at the James Boys Gym, and was winning 5–3. His name was Huw Watkins. A Welshie. Jack had headed over there right after Frankie’s speech and had been keeping him informed about all the matches’ scores on the blower ever since. Not that Frankie had told him why he needed to know, only that he did.
Yeah, so everything was looking good then, right up until when Frankie ducked back upstairs into the flat, to check in on the phone again with Jack to see that Huw Watkins had finished polishing off his opponent, which he had – and that’s when Frankie heard a siren pull up wailing in the street.
Bloody London. Sometimes he wished it would just shut up. He hurried back downstairs to see what was going on. Here all these people were, settling into his club for an evening of serious high-pressure matches, where, apart from the clack of balls, you should have been able to hear a pin drop, but instead you got this.
Ah well, it was what it was, right?, he told himself opening the door, that siren raging even louder. And half the people inside the Ambassador were from London anyhow and would be well used to its Friday-night soundtrack by now. The best city in the world . . . wasn’t that what Frankie had said in his speech at the tournament’s launch party last year? Yeah. Well, maybe he should have warned them it was the noisiest too.
Only – what the hell? – as soon as he stepped outside, he saw that the bleedin’ ambulance wasn’t here on Poland Street for anywhere else. It was parked up right outside the bloody Ambassador Club’s main entrance.
Frankie hurried over. Shit. His heart started racing again. What the hell was going on? Something to do with Tommy? Or Dougie? Something violent? Please, no, not here, not today. Not with all these people inside that he knew.
But right away, on reaching the doors, whatever it was, he saw it was going to be OK. Or if not OK, then not a disaster either, right? Because no one was panicking. Two of Spartak’s lads on the door were covering their ears because of the siren, but otherwise smiling, and that was kind of it, and the same went for further inside.
The crowds were still there, watching their various first-round matches. No one freaking out. In fact, the only problem at all was that the crowd round table one – where the tournament’s top seed and its only real household name, Adam Adamson, was due to be playing – were looking bored. Why? Because the match there hadn’t yet started – Frankie checked his watch – and should have. So why the hell hadn’t it, eh?
‘Bollocks. Shit. Piss. Fuck. Wank,’ said The Topster, hurrying up to Frankie. ‘Come on, quick now, Frankie, in here, with me.’
‘What the hell is going –’ Frankie started to say, but then realized The Topster was leading him dead ahead towards the players’ Green Room.
He could already see the paramedics gathered outside and he couldn’t stop that feeling of panic from rising again. But both of O’Hanagan and Riley’s players had already got through, so why the hell would Tam Jackson even need to . . . no, Christ, no, he couldn’t, because the guys on the door would have been freaking out, right? But what if Jackson had done something? What if he’d just decided to move early on nobbling Adam Adamson instead? To get the main obstacle to them winning out of the way? And what if he’d refused to be warned off? What if they’d –
But no . . . the second Frankie stepped inside the Green Room, he saw Adam Adamson was fine – it was his opponent, Damon Reed, who was lying on a stretcher, clutching at his side and groaning.
‘Will someone please just tell me what the bleedin’ hell is going on?’ Frankie said.
‘Appendicitis, this lot reckon,’ said The Topster.
The nearest paramedic looked up and nodded. Another hideous groan from Reed only seemed to confirm what The Topster had said.
‘Good luck, mate,’ Frankie told Reed a few seconds later, as they wheeled him out.
‘Let us know if there’s anything we can do,’ The Topster told Reed’s manager, who was walking out grimly by his side.
Adam Adamson followed, with his own manager at his side.
‘Bloody hell . . .’ Frankie said.
‘Yeah, and bloody bollocks too,’ Andy replied, as soon as they were out of earshot. ‘We’ve got a whole fee-paying audience out there on table one who’ve not got nothing to watch.’ He clawed at his hair in frustration. ‘And, even worse, that ITV lot I’ve been talking to?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Well, they finally called an hour back to say they would be able to find a slot for it on the evening news.’
‘But that’s brilliant.’ The kind of publicity you just couldn’t buy.
‘No, that would be brilliant,’ Andy said, ‘it’s just they’re only prepared to do it if they can film Adam Adamson there in action, on account of him being the only one here most of their viewers will have heard of.’
Frankie felt his stomach lurch. ‘Christ, you mean the match Reed’s meant to be playing i
n now?’
‘Yeah, the TV crew have just finished setting up. Only now they’ve got nothing to film except an empty bloody table.’
‘But isn’t there a reserve?’ Because that’s how it worked. There was meant to be someone on standby, right?
‘Well, there was, but he’s pissed off home, hasn’t he?’ Andy said. ‘Because he thought he wouldn’t be needed. And now he’s not answering his tossing phone.’
‘Shit it.’
‘Shit it, indeed. Unless, of course . . .’ Andy said, a sudden twinkle in his eyes.
‘What?’
‘Just wait here a second, mate. Leave it to me.’
Frankie felt suddenly exhausted. He gazed around the Green Room, at the sofas and chairs, the posh new TV, silver American fridge and the coffee machines. It all looked so real, this thing that they’d built. It was gutting they were now going to miss the bloody news.
‘Just follow my lead,’ Andy hissed, stepping back into the Green Room, and holding the door wide open, so down the corridor they could still see the empty table and part of the gathered crowd.
‘Eh?’
But Andy just held a finger up to his lips. Then Frankie saw the ref who’d been due to officiate Reed’s match being led down the corridor by Spartak, who steered him in and checked his watch, before walking back up the corridor towards the gathered crowd. The referee looked Frankie up and down.
‘But you’re the gentleman who made the speech,’ he said in confusion. ‘You’re running this tournament, aren’t you?’
‘Er, yeah . . .’ Where the hell was all this going? Frankie looked to The Topster for guidance, but got nothing from him.
‘But you’re also a registered member of GLOPSA?’ said the referee.
‘Eh?’ Frankie pretended he hadn’t heard. He looked to The Topster again.
‘The Global Professional Snooker Association, yeah, of course he is,’ Andy grinned.
‘Yeah, of course,’ Frankie said, turning back to the ref with a shit-eating grin of his own. ‘What of it?’
The Break Page 15
