by Ted Lewis
Walter gives Maurice the eyeball treatment and says, “We’re talking, son,” and because of the way Walter snaps up I realise he’s not as drunk as he appears to be. But of course that’s typical Walter. Even when he’s out with the family he has to keep a part of himself cold and wide open so that no one gets ahead of him.
He turns back to me and says, “Yes, my son, I hope you never wish you’d done that.”
What he’s talking about is the time when Gerald and Les had set about Charlie Akester with a couple of iron bars and the pair of them had got carried away and they’d had to go to the trouble of driving out to Epping and leaving Charlie in the forest. They’d had bad luck and some ramblers had found the grave and it had been touch and go whether Finbow was going to be forced to do Gerald and Les because of the size it had been given in the papers. Walter had been certain they were going to go down and he’d got to me one night at the Stable and in front of the overcoats that walk behind him he’d put his proposition. When I turned him down he’d nearly lost his bottle but that had been his own fault for bracing me in public. He could have stood it if he’d been discreet. And ever since then he’s been looking for the day when he can get his face back by seeing me nose down in a pile of shit. But the news for Walter, and he knows it, is that that day will never come, and the knowledge makes him even more screwed up than ever. But then what Walter doesn’t know is that the reason I turned him down was that if Gerald and Les had got topped there would have been no need for me to seek alternative employment. Audrey and me would have carried on the Old Firm, running it on their behalf, which with Gerald and Les away for twenties would have been the same as having a firm of my own. But since they didn’t, I can’t move, not that I’d ever move to Walter. I can’t move, work a firm on my own, because if I did Mal, Gerald and Les would make sure their law would put me away just to teach me a little lesson.
So I say to him, “There’s only three things in life I regret, Walter. Not belting my old man harder when I left home, not going back and giving him another one, and the fact that he’s dead so I can’t give him any more.”
Walter forces appreciation onto his face and pretends to forget his passing remark and says, “In that case let’s have a drink with your old man. Maurice, get some more in will you? Jack’s old man’s buying.”
Maurice begins to get up but Maureen, who’s been giggling with Shirley about something, says, “No, don’t you; let Yvonne de Carlo behind the bar fetch them.”
Maurice looks a bit apprehensive but he can’t afford to put a foot wrong in this company so he calls to the bar for the drag queen to bring the drinks over.
“What you up to, then?” Walter says to Maureen.
“Fun and games,” she says. “Fun and games. All right?”
Walter shrugs and downs what’s left of his drink. Eventually the queen totters from behind the bar and manages to make it over to the booth and comes to rest next to Maureen and plants the tray down on the table.
“Who’s having what?” Maureen says.
The queen tut-tuts and Maurice says which drinks go to me and Walter and Eddie and the queen mutters something under her breath about ladies.
“You what?” Maureen says.
The queen bends over the table and starts passing the drinks out without answering Maureen which of course is just what Maureen’s hoping for.
“I’m talking to you, not your arse,” Maureen says.
There is still no answer so Maureen says, “I’ll show you who the bleeding ladies are,” and shoots her hand straight up the queen’s skirt and she must have fastened on to whatever equipment has defied the scotch tape because the queen lets out a shattering shriek and tries to loosen Maureen’s grip but all she succeeds in doing is to overbalance across the table. Shirley reaches forward and snatches off the queen’s wig. The queen stops trying to undo Maureen’s grip and flails out to try and get the wig back but Shirley flings it high in the air and the wig bounces off the ceiling and lands on the floor near the bar.
Maureen must have flexed her fingers even more because the queen shrieks again and begins to slide off the table until she is on all fours and still Maureen doesn’t let go and the queen begins to crawl in the direction of her wig, Maureen straddling her, still grasping whatever it is she’s got hold of. The queen groans and squeals and tries to grab the wig but when she gets within reaching distance Maureen puts one knee in the small of the queen’s back so that the queen is no longer on all fours but face down on the floor with Maureen sitting on her. Then Maureen rips the back of the queen’s dress so that it’s completely in two from neck to hem, leans forward and picks up the wig and stuffs what she can get of it down the back of the queen’s drawers.
Then Maureen gets up and says, “Who’s the bleeding lady now, then?”
All the time this has been going on Walter and Eddie and Shirley have been clapping and cheering and Maurice has been wetting himself but not daring to do anything about it. The boys at the bar have been watching all a-twitter but none of them dared to interfere because they all know who Walter and Eddie are. Maureen comes back to the table and a couple of the boys help the queen to her feet and offer hankies but the queen rejects them and rushes into the ladies’ room.
“Looks like Maureen’s solved your problem for you,
Maurice,” Eddie says.
“I only kept her on because there’s a shortage,” Maurice says. “Where am I going to get another from?”
“Advertise that the wig comes with the job,” says Walter. Just as Walter’s speaking the club door opens again and Leo the doorman comes in and walks over to our table and gives me a sealed envelope.
“Whoops,” Maureen says. “Looks as though Wally was right.”
Leo goes away and I ignore Maureen and open the envelope and the note inside says:
I am in Poland Street in my car.
F.
I put the note in my pocket and get up.
“Here,” Maureen says, “he’s off for a cuddle in the cloakroom.”
“Yeah, he’s going to kiss Leo behind the hangers,” Walter says. “Get it?”
They all start falling about again but I don’t bother to say anything because I’m too interested to see what’s so important that Herbert Finbow can’t speak to me about it in Maurice’s Club.
--
Finbow
The car is full of Finbow’s cigarette smoke. Finbow’s sitting behind the wheel, staring in the direction of the girls across the road who are trying to drum up custom for the near-beer palace they’re out in front of. But Finbow’s not seeing them. Finbow’s seeing things in his mind that are making his complexion worse than the sodium shining into the car ever could. He looks like a cod on a slab. I ease into the seat beside him and close the door. Finbow carries on staring in the direction of the girls so I get my cigarettes out and he takes a fresh one from me without altering the direction of his gaze. I light his cigarette for him and then I light mine. Finbow inhales without taking the cigarette from his mouth and instead puts both hands on the steering wheel and bows his head so that the cigarette smoke wreathes upwards round his ears making his head look like a boar’s that’s just been served up on a plate. He stays like that for a minute or two then he raises his hand and pushes it into his inside pocket and takes out a snapshot and passes it across to me. I look down at the photograph. It’s not a very good one, considering the camera that’s taken it. The group of figures that’s sitting round the wrought-iron terrace table is all to one side, and a little bit out of focus, not quite as sharp as the bottles of champagne and the glasses on the table in front of them, but then Audrey never was much good with a camera. Although for anyone who was interested, the faces aren’t blurred enough to disguise the identity of their owners; me, and Gerald and Les, and Finbow, on the terrace of Les’s house outside Camberley. Everybody’s smiling although Finbow wouldn’t
have been if he’d known the picture was being taken.
I turn the picture face down on my lap and I don’t really have to ask but I ask anyway. “What are you showing me?”
“I’m showing you the picture that’s going to be on the front page of the Daily Express tomorrow morning.”
I nod and turn the picture over and look at it again.
“Somebody owed me something and they brought it over,” Finbow says. “Not that it’ll do me any good. They didn’t owe that much.”
“Do you know how they got it?”
Finbow shakes his head.
“And we thought you were in with Swann,” I tell him.
“I wish I fucking well was.”
“Why didn’t you get in touch with us?”
“I’ve been trying to find out what’s going on.” For the first time Finbow turns his head and looks at me. “But I can’t. Nobody’ll talk to me. Not one of the fuckers. They must have known this was coming off. The cunts must have known and not one of them talked to me.”
I don’t say anything.
“I’m finished, Jack. I’m fucking finished.”
I roll down the window and let some air in.
“Did Gerald and Les send the picture in?” Finbow asks.
“You must be fucking joking.”
“Then why the picture? Why take it?”
“Gerald and Les like a record of the celebrities they
mix with.”
“Yes.”
“So what’s going to happen?”
Finbow shakes his head. “It’s a setup. I mean, the Commissioner already knows about the picture. It’ll do him good, the incorruptible Commissioner winkling out the rotten apples, acting immediately, suspension pending an inquiry. Statements to the press giving him a chance to show everybody how straight he is. And of course I’ll resign before the inquiry, just to prove he’s right. No two ways about that.”
While Finbow’s going on about the prospects of his old age I’m thinking about the photograph and how it got to the Daily Express. Outside of me and Audrey the only person who knows about the Fletchers’ photographic collection and where it’s kept is Mallory. So, all right.
It’s Mallory who’s organised the picture being lifted and Mallory’s definitely in on Swann’s deal. So what extra does he get out of shopping Finbow? Not just to make things extra uncomfortable for Gerald and Les. When Jimmy Swann talks they’ll have all the discomfort they need.
I throw my cigarette out of the window and interrupt Finbow’s stream of consciousness by saying, “How did you find out about Swann if nobody’s talking to you?”
“What? Oh, yes. From the appearance register. They didn’t bother about that. I sniffed out all the secrecy, Christ, you couldn’t miss it. But by the time I found out it was too late.”
“Cross knew. It was him that told us.”
Finbow closes his eyes and smiles. “Sure. And by now he’ll be nose-first up the arse of whoever it is that’s shopping me.”
Over the road a punter who’s been walking up and down past the girls finally braces up and stops and the girls begin to go into their routine.
“So what next?”
“Tomorrow I get the press. Tonight I try and work out some kind of statement. The Express has been on already for quotes to go with the picture.”
“And?”
“Unavailable for comment, aren’t I? Until tomorrow. And then there’ll be no way I can dodge the bastards.”
“What are you going to tell them?”
“How about we’re all in the same lodge?”
Con McCarty’s Scimitar drifts past and continues on round the corner. There’s no doubt that he’s seen us. Con doesn’t miss much but he’d never stick his nose into a situation unless he was told to. He’ll go on to Maurice’s just like we’ve arranged.
“Anyway,” I say to Finbow, “I must be off.”
Finbow looks at me. “Just like that?”
“Sure. Sitting here with you isn’t going to make things better.”
“But what about afterwards? After I’ve resigned? I’ve got commitments. I’m not a rich man, you know.”
“You could have fooled me.”
“But if anything went wrong, it was always understood that I’d be seen all right, afterwards.”
“Then speak to Gerald and Les about it. Afterwards.”
I flip the photograph onto Finbow’s lap and get out and close the car door and begin to walk back to Maurice’s. Finbow makes me want to throw up. He’s made more out of Gerald and Les per year than the Chairman of
Woolworth’s makes out of his firm. And now he’s got to stop being one of the filth and he’s suffering from the shits. Christ, you’d think he’d be glad to be out of it, glad to be able to be a genuine villain for a change.
Leo opens Maurice’s front door for me again and Walter and Eddie are shrugging on their camel coats by the tiny cloakroom. There is no sign of their wives.
“Can’t stay away, can he?” Eddie says.
“I had to go out for a breath of fresh air,” I say, looking at Walter. “Now you’re going I won’t have to do it again.”
“Oh, Jesus,” Leo says, passing a hand across his eyes.
Walter takes a couple of slow steps towards me, fastening his coat as he approaches.
“One day, Jack,” he says, “you and me are due for a face-up. The only thing that worries me is that you’re such a fucking chancer that something might happen to you before I had my turn. I’d be really disappointed if it did, if something happened to you first.”
I smile at him.
“It might,” I say. “You know, like being pumped in the back, or run over on my way to work, or blown up in my car. Something brave like that. Eh, Walter?” Walter’s face loses any expression it may have had and his hands stop at the bottom button of his coat and he’s trying to come to terms with himself as to whether it should be here and now, but before he can reach a decision the door to the bar opens and Maureen and Shirley come through filling the small space with their high-pitched voices. Walter decides what to do and buttons the final button and turns to Maureen and Shirley and gives them his slow hard look and they shut up.
I turn my back on Walter and walk through into the bar. The boys are still twittering about what happened to the queen. Con is sitting at a table on his own, his leather coat still buttoned and belted and his leather trilby with his gloves folded neatly on top lying on the table in front of him. Next to the hat is a pint glass half full of lager and two empty lager bottles standing next to it. I wonder where they’ve dug up a pint glass in a place like this.
“Want another?” I ask Con.
Con looks at his drink.
“I don’t exactly want any more of this piss,” he says. “But that’s the nearest they get to beer in this dump.”
I give the nod to Maurice who’s taken over behind the bar and sit down at the table.
Maurice brings the drinks over and while he’s putting them on the table he says, “If those bitches didn’t own the license I’d bar the door to them.”
“That wouldn’t stop them if they wanted to come in,” I tell him. “In any case, they only come in to show off because it’s the only piece of property they’ve got round here. Take no notice of them.”
“Try telling my staff that.”
Maurice goes away and Con says, “Wally been having fun?”
“Forget that. What about Jimmy’s place?”
“Same as Mallory’s. Nothing.”
I take a drink.
“Well, what did you expect?” Con says.
“Nothing.”
“So what next?”
“He could be anywhere. Fucking anywhere.”
“The only chance is a grass.”
“Yeah. But where d
oes the grass get his information from? The filth is closing ranks.”
Con laughs. “Since when?” he says.
“Since tomorrow morning. Read the papers for once.”
What I like about Con is that he doesn’t ask for an explanation like anybody else would. He just takes a sip of his drink and if I don’t tell him any more that’s all right
with him.
“Who else is in this one?” Con asks.
“I’ve got Tommy doing some sniffing but that’s all. Who else is there?”
“You could put a price out. You’d pull a few then.”
“That’s up to Gerald and Les. They might not want to right now.”
“So what do we do?”
“I’m going to have to have a go at Cross again. He’s trying to row out now Jimmy’s going to spill. But Cross always knows more than he lets on. In the meantime I thought we’d go down east and have a look at Jimmy’s brother-in-law. That’s the closest family that’s still walking about.”
While I’m talking the loo door opens and the barmaid appears, having had a crack at restoring herself to her former glory. There are a few sniggers from the boys whose moral outrage had been oiled a bit since the incident and from Maurice behind the bar there is complete ignoration. The queen makes sure that there are no members of the Coleman family hidden in the alcove and begins to make her way to the door, trying to catch Maurice’s eye and extract some sympathy, but Maurice carefully inspects a glass he has just polished until the queen has reached
the door.
“Rotten fuckers, the lot of you,” the queen shrieks and slams the door behind her.
“Is that what Walter was playing with?” Con asks.
I down my drink and stand up. “I’ll tell you on the
way over.”
--
Charlie
At the Elephant I tell Con to stop the car and I cross the road to a telephone box and try to get Gerald and Les to tell them about Finbow but they’re still out with the Americans. The Americans. I smile to myself. The junket boys. The jet-set setup. Gerald and Les in the big international league. But there’ll only be one set of winners, and it’s no use me trying to tell Gerald and Les who that’s going to be. And at a time like this they’re out entertaining the people who are going to take them. I haven’t time to ring round all the places they might be at so I get back in the car and Con drives on to the place where we’re going to find Charlie Abbott.
