by Ted Lewis
The next ten minutes pass even more slowly. Then it is time and I pick up the phone and dial the number of the Skinner’s Arms. Audrey answers almost immediately.
“What you said earlier,” I say. “About getting out of it. We might just have to do that.”
“Where are you?” she says.
“Never mind that. The Garage is finished. When I got back there there’d been visitors.”
“Police?”
“No.”
“Who, then?”
“I don’t know. All I know is we no longer have any
members of a certain gentleman’s family at our disposal. And it wasn’t the law who was dashing to the rescue.”
Audrey doesn’t say anything.
“So in the light of recent events,” I tell her, “I should start getting various arrangements underway. Make one or two withdrawals, know what I mean?”
“Yes. But where are you? I can’t get in touch.”
“That’s the best way. Be at the phone at seven o’clock tonight. What we’re going to do might depend on what happens during the next two or three hours.”
“Like what?”
“I’m going to have another go at Cross.”
“You’re out of your mind. You’ll never get to him, not after what’s happened.”
“It’s the only way we’ve got left. I’ve got to try it. What else can I do?”
“I don’t know. But I’ll start doing like you say.”
“Have you heard from Con?”
“No. But Peter’s been in and out of the club like a bloody yo-yo looking for you.”
“Oh yes?” I say. “And what would that be for?”
“He says he’s got something to tell you, but he won’t say what it is. He says he’s got to see you personally.”
I don’t say anything for a moment or two.
Eventually Audrey says, “Are you still there?”
“Yes, I’m still here,” I say.
“What’s the matter then?”
“Oh, nothing,” I tell her. “Nothing at all.”
Now it’s her turn to go quiet.
After a suitable length of silence has gone by I say, “Now do you see what I mean?”
“But—”
“Never mind the buts. I want you to fix a time and a place with Peter.”
“But—”
“What did I just tell you?”
There is another silence. Then I say, “Tell Peter I’ll be at the Fountain of Youth in an hour’s time. Tell him to take a booth and wait for me. But don’t tell him for at least half an hour. I want to be there well before him.”
“You’re barmy. You’re putting yourself right in it.”
“If I’m right I am, yes. But the only way to prove it is to test it out. If I’m proved right then at least we’ll have an extra direction to work on. Which is one more than we’ve got already.”
“What happens if you’re right and it doesn’t work out?”
“Then you go on your own, don’t you?”
She starts to say something else but before she can get it out I put the phone down. At the moment I can do without all the ifs and buts of what could possibly happen. If you think on those lines in my business then you shouldn’t be in the business in the first place. If you think on those lines you’ll never have the nous to fix on to the idea that a poof like Peter the Dutchman might be connected with all the ups and downs of the last twenty-four hours, and if you think on those lines you’ll never have the stupid face to go the lengths I’m about to go to check that idea out.
I get up and pour myself another drink and think a few thoughts and then I go round to the other side of the screen. Lesley is still sitting in the same position as when I left her, staring at the blank wall. When she sees me, she adopts the expression she always wears when she’s got anything to do with me.
“You got a car?” I ask her.
She doesn’t reply so I begin to walk towards her but before I can get to her she nods.
“Nearby?”
She nods again.
“Right,” I tell her. “Get your coat. We’re going out.”
“You mean you are,” she says.
I take hold of her arm and lift her off the settee and walk her through into the bedroom. Still holding her I open one of the fitted cupboards and pull a tie-belted camel coat off one of the hangers and give it to her.
“Now then,” I tell her, “let’s make this the last bit of business this afternoon, shall we? Because I haven’t the time, I really haven’t.”
“So I gather,” she says, giving me a nasty smile. I let her get away with that one and she puts the coat on and we walk back through the lounge and out of the flat and down the stairs. The rain has stopped and it’s much colder than before and the sky is a uniform still gray.
We round the corner of the pub into Crawford Street and a minute or two later she stops by an almost new Mini-Clubman.
“Will this do?” she says.
“Very nice,” I tell her. “Managing to keep up the H.P., are you?”
She gives me her look and takes the keys out of her pocket and unlocks the door on the driver’s side but as she opens the door I take the keys off her and indicate that she should get in the passenger seat by sliding across from the driving side. When she’s done that I get in and put the key in the ignition. The inside of the car smells clean and new and the polyethylene covers are still on the front seats. The gearbox is automatic so I put the stick in drive and pull away from the curb and set off in the direction of Upper Street.
After a while Lesley lights herself a cigarette and when she’s done that she says, “I don’t suppose there’s any point in asking what’s going on?”
“I thought you asked that earlier,” I say.
She frowns and sinks a bit lower into her seat. Then she says, “And what happens when I phone my friend Mr. Hume and tell him I’ve got Jack Carter as a non-paying non-bleeding-welcome guest?”
“Nothing. Because you’re not going to phone him, are you? Not unless you’ve got a telephone installed in this little motor.”
“So we’re going to be together always, are we?”
“Only for the next few hours, darling. Then you can phone who the bleeding hell you like.”
As I’m talking I’m taking the car round a left turning. On the other side of the road a bus is just pulling away from a bus stop. Suddenly Lesley throws herself across me and grabs hold of the steering wheel and although she can’t match me her action is so quick and unexpected that before I can do anything the motor is halfway across the other side of the road and making for the oncoming bus. She hangs on to the steering wheel and the only way I can get her off it is to grab hold of her hair and pull as hard as I can. She screams with pain and with my free hand I yank the steering wheel over as far as it will go but it’s too late to completely avoid the bus, although the driver has begun to take his own evasive action. There is a sound like chalk squeaking on a blackboard only ten times louder as the rear end of the Mini scrapes along the side of the bus. At the same time as that is happening Lesley has opened the passenger door of the Mini in readiness for its slowing down so that she can jump out. I put my foot down and the Mini gets to the end of the bus but I’m still not clear because a taxi has begun to pull out from behind the bus and unless one of us gives way we’re going to meet radiator to radiator. I boost the Mini by putting it in second which gives the taxi driver such a fright that he pulls hard over without taking his foot off the accelerator and there is a noise like a bomb going off as the taxi piles into the back of the bus. At the same time the open door of the Mini connects with a Cortina that’s going in our direction, moving up inside in the lane we should be traveling in. The driver of the Cortina jams his brakes on and the Mini door slams shut and there is another crash and t
he Cortina lurches forward as something goes up his arse but not far enough forward to occupy the space I need to let me back into the proper lane and give me a chance to get away. I throw the gear stick back into drive and take the first left turning which is only ten yards in front of me and I wind up the Mini as fast as I can. At this speed there’s no chance of Lesley opening the door and getting out so what she does instead is to press herself as close to the passenger door as she can get, but that’s not far enough away because after I’ve taken a few more lefts and rights and made sure there’s no sign of Old Bill I reach over and give her a couple.
“Jesus Christ,” I say. “I reckon you must like getting sorted. I really do. Jesus bleeding Christ.”
I shake my head and all she does is turn up the collar of her coat and sink down lower into her seat. I reach in my pocket and find my cigarettes but I can’t find my matches so I have to ask for a light. She pushes it again by ignoring me at first but she only pushes it so far and in the end she fishes out her lighter and hands it over. I shake my head again and light up and put the lighter back on the shelf.
Finally we get to the part of Upper Street where the turnoff for the Fountain of Youth is. I drive past the establishment and then down to the end of the street and then I back into an alley between the end house and the corner tobacconist. I switch off the engine and look at my watch.
Even with Lesley’s little incident it’s only taken us twenty minutes and Audrey won’t have told Peter where to meet me yet so I say to Lesley, “We’re going to get out of the car now and we’re going to cross the road and walk along the pavement for approximately thirty yards and then we’re going through a door and into a building. Do you understand that? That’s precisely what we’re going to do. We’re not going to throw ourselves under any buses or shin up any drainpipes or scream at any passing law or anything like that. We’re just going to do exactly what I said we’re going to do, aren’t we?”
Naturally she doesn’t answer. I sit there for a minute or two then decide not to tell her again so instead I get out of the car and walk round and open the door on her side and take hold of her hand and pull her out of the car. I keep hold of her hand and we look like urgent lovers as we cross the road and walk towards the Fountain of Youth.
The Fountain of Youth used to be a greengrocer’s shop but the premises have since been done up outside so that the place looks like a cheap Indian restaurant, even down to the bamboo-style neon lettering, but the words and letters form give the game away. Fountain of Youth, the sign says, and in smaller letters: Sauna and Massage. Members Only. The large plate-glass windows on either side of the door have been painted the kind of dark green you get on the windows of betting shops or dentists’ surgeries but in the centre of each window is a gaudy transfer of a Hawaiian scene of mountains and surf and hula-hula girls.
I push open the door and a heavy smell of soap and perfume and dust hits me straight away. The door opens into a narrow partition passage with hardboard walls and at the end of the passage there is a desk which prevents the hardboard walls from carrying on down as far as the solid wall at the far end. This is where the clients wait for one of the girls to appear from behind the hardboard so that the membership can be checked out but there is a door in the right-hand partition wall and I push it open and we’re in a sort of reception area with a low formica-topped table in the middle and cheap wooden-armed armchairs ranged round the walls. There are two girls sitting in a couple of chairs. The girls are wearing matching nylon tunic-style coats, the kind of thing the shopgirls probably wore when the place was a greengrocer’s, although then the girls probably wore something more than what the present staff is wearing underneath. One of the girls is reading Woman’s Own and the other one is drinking a cup of coffee and smoking a cigarette and staring into space. They both look at me, then look at each other without a change of expression between them.
“Where’s Tony?”
“In the office,” says the girl with the coffee.
Keeping hold of Lesley’s hand I go through a doorway which instead of having a door in it is decorated with a curtain made of thin strips of plastic, then down another passage which leads to a door painted with one coat of white undercoat and with lots of finger marks near the door handle and the word Private printed in pencil about halfway up. I open the door.
The office is about the size of a small wardrobe. The walls are pegboarded and there is room for a desk and a filing cabinet and that’s about all. There’s certainly no room for a couple of people of less than average height to lie down on the floor and that is why Tony is sitting on the desk with his trousers round his ankles with his hands under the armpits of one of the girls bouncing her up and down on top of him. The girl is naked except for one of the nylon tunics which is pushed up under her armpits along with Tony’s fat stubby fingers. Her breasts are quite big and Tony is fighting a losing battle to keep his lips round one of her nipples as she bounces up and down. And of course my opening of the door doesn’t make it any easier for him because the girl shrieks as if she’s been stuck in a different place and tries to lift herself off Tony which doesn’t do him much good at all as the only way she can move is backwards and as far as Tony’s concerned that can only be painful, and he expresses as much by bellowing like a donkey and lifting the girl completely off him and dropping her on what little floor space there is, only even more unfortunately for her some of that floor space is occupied by a deep cardboard box full of Tony’s used paper cups from the coffee machine which is where she lands and her shrieks are augmented with the crackling of the cups that make a sound like several penny bangers going off all at once. Tony grabs his injured member and screws his face up as if he’s just sucked on a lemon and the girl tries to struggle up out of the cardboard box. She’s quite a nice-looking kid, especially from the angle I’m looking at her as she thrashes about among the paper cups, but I haven’t time for savouring all that so I grab hold of her wrist and pull until she’s standing up, her face inches away from mine and looking at me as if she’d like to fillet me and spit me out for the cat. She bends down and gives me another treat while she gets her shoes from down the side of the desk then she grabs her tights and pants from off the desk top and rather late in the day holds her tunic together and pushes past me and Lesley and sprints off down the passage. Tony slides off the desk and opens his eyes for a second and then when he sees I’m not alone he jackknifes down to pull his trousers up and does a sack-race jump round to the other side of his desk.
While he’s zipping himself up and tucking in his shirt flaps I say to him, “Sorry, Tony. I thought you only had a cup of tea this time of the afternoon. Didn’t realise you had something with it as well.”
“Bloody Jesus,” he says, easing himself down into his chair. “That’s ruined me for life.”
“No,” I tell him. “Have a massage. You’ll feel right as rain.”
I pull Lesley into the office and close the door behind us. There are two tiny crimson spots on her cheeks.
“Enjoy that one, did you?” I say, giving her the wink.
“Piss off,” she says, shaking her wrist free from my grip, but I notice that the spots go a deeper shade of crimson.
“What the fuck do you want, anyway?” Tony says, taking a swig of cold tea out of a plastic cup. “If you’ve brought a new bird we’ve got more than we need now. Except for the night visiting service, that is. Can’t get enough for that one.”
“Fancy doing a bit of night visiting?” I say, looking at Lesley. She doesn’t answer so I say, “No, she’d be no good for that. She likes it the other way round.”
“So what do you want?” Tony says.
“Without going all round the houses, there might be some law round here in about ten minutes’ time.”
“What?” Tony says, leaping out of his seat and knocking the dregs of his tea over. “Jesus Christ.” He runs round to our side of the
desk and pulls open the door and shouts out, “Dawn,” at the top of his voice.
I pull him away from the door and say, “Listen, this is more serious than that. If any law turns up it’s looking for me. They won’t be interested in your ones off the wrist. So this is what I want you to do: Peter the Dutchman’s going to be here any minute and he’s going to be asking for me. Don’t tell him I’ve been here. Just put him in a booth and make sure he stays there, know what I mean? And don’t let him near a phone. Now then, if any law arrives don’t throw a blue fit. Just throw the switch on the neon lighting just in case they’ve got smarter recently. I’ll be driving by every ten minutes or so. If you haven’t switched it off inside half an hour then I’ll be in to see Peter. But make sure he doesn’t leave, right?”
“Yeah, right, right, but what’s going on? Jesus, we’re protected here. I mean, this place is protected.”
“Not any more. Anyway, they’re not bothered about you. But I should clear it as soon as you can.”
“Too bloody right,” he says and opens the door and rushes off down the passage calling for Dawn. I look at Lesley and Lesley looks at me.
“Good business this,” I tell her. “Flat rate’s fair and you get half what you make on top of that and, as they say, all you can eat, if you like to make even more on the side.”
Her hand comes up to give me one on the side of my face but I grab hold of her wrist before she makes contact and I don’t let go again because it’s time to leave. I hurry down the passage dragging her behind me. A client wrapped in a towel comes out of one of the cubicles followed by one of the girls, who’s trying to hand him his clothes.
