Heartman: A Missing Girl, A Broken Man, A Race Against Time

by M. P. Wright

  “Here . . . You come take a look at this.”

  I joined Vic as he pulled the photograph off the wall and held it closer to the strong shaft of light.

  It was a recently taken photograph of Cut Man standing with both Elrod Haddon and the white cop Mickey Warren, as well as a group of men and a woman I didn’t recognise. Cut Man, Haddon and Warren were standing either side of a white guy who was probably in his fifties and a well-dressed black woman. Vic stuck his big finger on the face of Mickey Warren and tapped at it repeatedly as he asked me a question.

  “Tell me who you think that ugly-looking honky is with the crew-cut trim job?”

  I looked back at him and smiled.

  “That’s the dirty cop that tried to put my ass out to grass with a slapjack.”

  Vic pushed the photograph hard into my chest and let it go. It stuck to my raincoat for a moment before it started to fall to the floor. I caught it as floated to my feet and looked again at the faces in the picture. Vic picked up the phone on Cut Man’s desk and began to dial a number.

  “I think we need to have a serious word with the fat man,” he said, the bloodlust in his voice barely hidden. “Hey, Cut Man . . . How you doin’, brother, it’s Vic.” I could hear the oily businessman complaining from across the room.

  He was banging on ’bout how pissed he was at being woken at such a ridiculous time of the day. My cousin interrupted his whining on the other end of the line by giving him a tall tale that he knew would silence the flabby old goat.

  “Man . . . Will you shut yo’ big, saggy-assed mout’ fo’ one goddamn minute. I just got to the gym to pick up a couple o’ boxes of hooch. Ting is, when I gets here I finds the back door ’as been jemmied open and all my Mount Gay rum has took a walk. The ting is, from where I’m speaking to you now and from the size o’ the hole in your office wall, so has your damn safe too!”

  Vic pulled the receiver away from his ear just in time as Cut Man bawled a series of crude expletives at him. The line went dead and we sat and waited in the semi-darkness of his stinky office for him to arrive.

  37

  The sound of a breathless Cut Man running up the stairs announced in no uncertain terms that he had arrived. He marched down the hallway towards us, continuing to swear and curse in between bouts of hacking and wheezing.

  “What muthafucka tinks he can come in my place and steal from me!”

  He stormed into his office and came to a grinding halt, looking straight ahead at his back wall expecting to see his precious safe gone only to find it untouched and Vic sitting at in his best leather recliner with his feet resting up on his desk. I stood out of sight behind the opened door, my back against the wall, and waited.

  “Hey, Cut Man, it’s good a you to show up so promptly, brother.”

  Vic smiled at him for a moment before his face became blank and stern.

  “What the fuck you playing at, dragging me outta my bed fo’ some damn stupid prank, how the hell you git in my office?”

  Cut Man gingerly walked towards Vic, angry but not stupid enough to challenge him outright.

  “One o’ the rats that you shack up here with let us in.”

  I closed the creaking door behind him as he moved forward, and a surprised Cut Man turned indignantly to face me. Livid, he snapped at me like a chained-up bulldog.

  “What the . . . ? Not you too. What is this, some kinda Ellington family git-together?” He pointed at Vic. “Next ting you’ll be telling me you got that miserable ole bastard of a daddy and uncle o’ yours in my shitter back there!” He crudely stubbed his thick thumb over his shoulder towards the WC to make his point.

  Vic bolted out of his seat, flew round the desk towards Cut Man and stood right up close in his face.

  “Now you mind your big mout’ what you saying ’bout my daddy . . . You hear me?”

  Cut Man backed away from Vic and found himself caught between the two of us. The original whiff of unpleasant body odour that had originally hit me when Cut Man first walked in had now erupted into the pungent stench of nervous sweat. At first the perspiration that was running down his forehead, nose and cheeks had been caused by the excursion he had made to get to his beloved coffer, which he thought had been fleeced; now it drained out of him from pure fear.

  “What the hell are you two pair o’ bastards playing at?”

  I leant over Cut Man’s shoulder and hung the photograph of him and Hurps Haddon with the bent copper in front of his clammy face.

  “Tell me ’bout the people standing with you in that photograph, Cut Man.”

  “What’d you wanna know that shit fo’, JT?”

  “Cos I’m t’rowing a party . . . Who are they?”

  “They ain’t nobody, just some moneyed-up honkies and an ole nigger bitch I met at the Masonic hall last year . . . What the fuck is it you on with? You bustin’ into my place, asking me questions ’bout tings that are none o’ your goddamn bidness!”

  Cut Man fell silent. He’d been directing his anger at me and he’d briefly forgotten Vic standing behind him . . . It was a big mistake. Vic swung him round by his lapels, then hammered two swift direct blows to his gut. Cut Man doubled over and threw up over his carpet as Vic pulled him over to his desk, pinned his head to the green baize ink-blotting pad with one hand, then pulled his right arm out straight, turned it so his palm faced upwards and angled the foul-smelling fat man’s elbow on the edge of the table. Vic held Cut Man’s wrist tightly and applied pressure, bending his arm towards the floor, making him cry out in pain.

  “Now you listen to me, you stinky fat bastard. You better start answering my boy’s questions with a little bit more accuracy and good manners, cause if you don’t then I’m gonna pop your elbow outta its socket like a fuckin’ chicken wing. You hear me?”

  Vic applied more pressure to Cut Man’s arm, making him squeal out like a pig.

  “Yeah . . . yeah, I hear you.”

  Vic loosened off the pressure, but only a little. I bent down so that Cut Man could see my face, then held up the photograph in front of him again.

  “Now . . . I’m gonna point at every one o’ these people in this picture that I’m interested in an’ I want a name fo’ them. You under understand me?”

  I watched as Vic pushed Cut Man’s arm towards the floor a little, making him wince.

  “OK, OK, I . . . I understand.”

  I pointed at the first face.

  Cut Man snapped at me. “Oh fo’ Christ’s sakes, you know who that—”

  Vic leant down on Perry’s arm again.

  “It’s Hurps . . . Elrod, Elrod Haddon.”

  Sweat continued to fall from Cut Man’s face onto the desk.

  “Like I said . . . every face I point to gets a name.” I directed my finger to another face, this time to one whose name I already knew.

  “That’s Mickey Warren, he’s a fight fan.”

  I looked up at Vic and nodded to him to do his thing. I heard the rim of the desk creak as Vic bent Cut Man’s arm hard down towards the ground.

  “It’s Warren . . . Mickey Warren, he’s a vice copper, works outta Bridewell station, we drink together sometimes.”

  “Is that so . . . is that so? You doin’ good, Cut Man. Keep this shit up, we going be out your hair in no time.” Vic grinned down at the squirming lowlife, then turned and cruelly winked at me.

  “That’s just nice, ain’t it, Vic? What you doin’ drinking with vice cops, Cut Man? You started adding police officers to your wide circle o’ friends now?”

  “In my game I have to drink with everybody . . . I’m a bidness man; you know that, JT, I mix with all kinds o’ folks.”

  I nodded, then pointed back at the print to a silver-haired white man dressed in a dinner jacket and bow tie.

  “Who’s this serious-looking dude?”

  “That’s . . . Terrence Blanchard.”

  “How’d you know Blanchard?”

  “Warren introduced me to him a while back at a prissy knees-up at th
e Masonic hall on Park Street . . .”

  Vic interrupted. “You a Mason, Cut Man?”

  “Hell no . . . ! Those bastards won’t let no black man be a Freemason, you know that.”

  “So how’d you git to be at a Mason’s Lodge fo’ some good-time knees-up then?”

  “I gits invited all over; Mason’s Lodge ain’t no different to the Speed Bird, if you got money to spend and a little juice!”

  “You do any bidness with this Blanchard fella?”

  “No . . . never.”

  Vic could smell Cut Man’s lies like he could smell the stink of his sweat. Out of nowhere my cousin forced himself down onto Cut Man’s arm; I heard an almighty crack as the portly gym owner screamed out in agony and fell off the desk and began to roll around in his own puke, cradling his broken limb in his crook of his other elbow.

  Vic dragged everything that was on the desk and threw it across the office in a single stroke of his massive hand, then grabbed Cut Man and hauled him off the floor. Slamming his back onto the desk, Vic delivered a vicious series of blows to his stomach, chest and face before grabbing the wrist of his other arm to repeat the process.

  “OK, you lying, miserable prick. You gonna be having to pay somebody to git yo’ next handjob, cos I’m going break this other fuckin’ arm off if you don’t start being straight with us!”

  Vic pressed down on the other outstretched arm.

  “Stop . . . stop! What you want from me . . . what you want?” Cut Man shouted out. He began to bawl, panic set in his eyes like he was a rabbit trapped in front of the beam of a motor car headlights, his legs began lashing out all over the place. Vic applied more pressure, and as he did Cut Man’s bladder gave out and a stream of yellow piss fell down from between his legs and flowed along the inside of his trousers, spilled out onto the carpet and began to mix in with the puke.

  “Blanchard . . . Tell me everyting that you know about him and his connection to Mickey Warren and the whoremonger Papa Anansi.”

  Cut Man blew spittle and blood from his mouth; he coughed then spat out a mixture of the two across the desk and wall. He was close to passing out. Vic gave him a slap to bring him round. His eyes sparked up in their sockets and he reconnected with the conscious world and, looking, at me began to talk.

  “He’s a big-time player . . . a real piece of work, loaded. He owns thousands of acres of prime undeveloped land here in Bristol and further out into Somerset.”

  “Oh c’mon . . . ! Tell me someting ’bout him I don’t know, Cut Man.”

  Vic slapped him across the face again, only harder this time; the sound of skin connecting with skin recoiled around the small office, which was starting to stink like a latrine.

  “He knows Papa cos he’s into whores, but not just any kind: rumour has it he like ’em young and clean.”

  Vic applied a little more force to Cut Man’s other outstretched arm to keep the information flowing.

  “And it’s not just girl’s he’s into. I heard talk that he’s game fo’ anyting that moves, a real sicko!”

  “That’s rich coming from you, Cut Man,” Vic interjected.

  I shook my head at him and he went back to pushing on the fresh arm.

  “Tell me ’bout Warren.”

  “Warren is on the payroll from Papa, has been fo’ years. Warren gets a cut from the dope and girls that Papa peddles and he’s got a couple of guys on the force who moonlight fo’ him when he needs some grunt work doing, but as far as I know they’re pretty low grade . . . they ain’t players, not like Mickey is.”

  “What’s your end, Cut Man . . . ? You gotta have an angle to know all this.”

  “Me and Hurps, we let Papa use the Speed Bird fo’ private functions: you know, gala nights, soirées, somewhere with a bit more class than the shebeen Papa hangs out in on Richmond Road.”

  Vic laughed. “Yeah, I could see all that class last time I was hanging down at the Speed Bird, Cut Man.”

  I shot Vic a pair of hard eyes and shook my head at him again.

  “You ever hear of a place called the Erotica Negro Club?”

  “Yeah . . . some gentleman’s club . . . Blanchard’s behind it; he holds these hot parties at his country pad, gave it some jazzed-up name, but it’s just a place fo’ him and his rich honky cronies to fuck black bitches.”

  “And Papa Anansi?”

  “Papa makes his money outta Blanchard; he scours the streets, clubs and pubs lookin’ fo’ fresh meat fo’ him fo’ his damn club!”

  “What you know ’bout a girl called Stella Hopkins, Cut Man?”

  “The deaf mute that went missing from round these parts? Nothing . . . why?”

  Vic went to break Cut Man’s other arm.

  “No!”

  I shouted at Vic and pushed my hand against his tensed shoulder, holding him off from doing any more damage. I leant down towards Cut Man’s face and hung the photograph in front of him one more time.

  “Who’s the woman standing in between Blanchard and you?”

  He squinted at the photograph and blew out warm air, his appalling halitosis almost knocking me on my back.

  “That’s the alderman’s wife . . . That’s Alice Linney.”

  38

  I sat a petrified Cut Man in his plush chair, grabbed the telephone from off of the floor and put it in his lap. He stared down at it as if I had just presented him with some kind of strange, poisonous fruit that I was expecting him to eat. I perched myself on the edge of his desk and he looked up at me with eyes that told me that he was beat. Vic stood behind me, leaning against the door of the office. I noticed him staring at Cut Man, his eyes hard and dangerous. I looked back at Cut Man, rocking in his seat, holding his broken arm against his chest. Beads of heavy sweat dripped from his brow. He gave a little scared smile when I eventually spoke to him again.

  “Last night I went to see Hurps down at the Speed Bird and, like you, he wasn’t too hot ’bout me paying him a visit. Got himself all worked up and nasty just because I wanted to ask him a few damn silly questions that he didn’t wanna answer. I had to do some serious persuading with the man to get him to answer what I wanted to know. Now, I told ole Hurps to git a message to Papa Anansi ’bout how I wanted to meet up with him at the Star and Garter later last night, only he didn’t come in and face me; the nasty piece o’ shit waited outside in some back street hoping to take a knife to me in the dark when I left the pub. Ting is, in his eagerness to take me out he gits the wrong guy. He guts Carnell Harris and leaves him to bleed out in the gutter like a stuck pig.”

  I paused for a moment, giving Cut Man time to take in what I had said.

  “Now as you can imagine I’m pretty eager to reconvene that engagement I shoulda had with Papa and I need you to help me reschedule it. You getting my drift, fat man?”

  Cut Man winced and began rubbing at the top of his shoulder with his hand, hoping that it may offer some relief from the pain he was in.

  “Yeah . . . yeah, I git it. But Papa don’t take too kindly to people putting the screw on him, making him do stuff he don’t wanna.”

  “Yeah, I kinda got that feelin’ as I sat in the pub last night. That’s why I want you to ring that bent cop Mickey Warren. “

  “What, Warren? Why the hell should I call him up?”

  “Cool it, Cut Man, I don’t wanna have to let Vic git heavy on your knees cos you starting to git all shirty with me again. You’re gonna call Warren and I want you to tell him ’bout how I’ve been here this morning, what I’ve said to you ’bout Stella Hopkins and how I know ’bout him being on the take and his dirty work fo’ Terrence Blanchard. Tell him I know he’s up to his neck in it and if he wants to settle this with me then he needs to drag his worthless ass and Papa’s out to meet me out at Blanchard’s place at six tonight . . . You got that?”

  “Yeah . . . I got it.”

  Cut Man wriggled uncomfortably in his seat and slouched forward, grimacing in pain as he did.

  “Good . . . Then do it now, brot
her.”

  I nodded towards the phone, which was resting on his knees.

  “Look, JT, I’m in pain, I ain’t thinking straight, I can’t talk to no police . . .”

  Vic shut Perry up as he walked towards the desk, took out his knife from the back pocket of his jeans and released the blade, then slipped the razor-sharp edge up underneath Cut Man’s throat. He nervously lifted the receiver and made the call to Mickey Warren.

  It was a short phone conversation, but it was done. Mickey Warren sure got the message real quick. The fear in Cut Man’s voice and his repeated insistence that this was serious got across to the crooked copper, and the line went silent. I leant towards the phone in Perry’s hand in time to hear Warren suddenly shout, “You see that black bastard befo’ I do . . . you tell him he’s dead meat, you hear me?” before slamming the phone down on him.

  The portly gym owner looked up at me, his face etched with pain and dread, the receiver still gripped in his trembling hand. Vic withdrew the knife from Cut Man’s throat and turned to me; he rested his huge hand on my shoulder and whispered into my ear.

  “I’ll be back in a minute; I just need to git me a few tings outta my office. Befo’ we leave I need to have a private word with my friend Mr Perry there.”

  Vic smiled at Cut Man and walked out as I took the receiver from him and picked the phone out of his lap.

  “OK . . . Now give me Terrence Blanchard’s number.”

  Cut Man gave a heavy, pained sigh before bringing himself forward and nodding over the desk towards the carpet.

  “It’s in that grey Rolodex that ape of a cousin o’ yours just t’rew across my office floor.”

  I rescued it from underneath a heap of paperwork, set it down on the desk and leafed through it until I found two numbers for Blanchard: one his home number with a Somerset dialling code and the other his business contact details in Queen Square in Bristol. I tapped down on the phone’s cradle to get a new line. The receiver made a familiar burring sound as I spun the numbers on the rotary dial and waited for a reply.