by Ted Lewis
“Don’t bother saying thanks,” he says. “I might have got some of the stuff that was coming your way, that’s all.”
“That’s why I’m not going to. Saving your own skin doesn’t prove anything to me.”
“Fucking marvelous, isn’t it?” Peter says.
Tony sticks his head round the corner of the office. There is the sound of more activity out in reception, shouting of instructions and opening and closing of doors. Lesley is still in the office with her arms round her head and the other girl has buried her face in one of the booth curtains but it does nothing to smother the hysterics she’s having.
“Come on,” says Tony, feeling in his pocket. “Out the back.”
He runs down the dark passage that is adjacent to the one where the plunge and the booths are. At the end of this passage is all the filthy laundry and a couple of dustbins and a door out into the back yard, and the passage itself broadens out into a flagged square. I step into the office and it’s time for grabbing Lesley by the wrist again because it’s obvious all she intends doing is stopping there until she becomes part of the pattern on the wallpaper. I drag her out of the office. Peter and Tony are already legging it down the other passage. The other girl is still screaming into the curtain so I swear to myself and grab her wrist as well and try to make it down the very narrow passage with a screaming woman on each arm.
Tony is in front and I notice that he’s dragging a key ring out of his trouser pocket as he goes and when he gets to the door he crouches forward and has about half a dozen goes at trying to get the key in the lock and when he finally does manage it the key seems to jam and he fucks and blinds and eventually Peter pushes him out of the way and the key turns first time. Tony can’t wait after the key’s been turned and bundles between Peter and the door and shoots a bolt and knocks Peter sideways as he pulls the door open. Then from the yard there is a flash, another God-almighty boom and Tony is lifted two feet in the air and drops screaming onto the pile of dirty towels. Then it’s as if every nerve in his body is on fire as he goes into a paroxysm of pain and he presses one of the hand towels to what it left of his face and somehow he manages to get to his feet and begins staggering about, bouncing off the walls and screaming until another blast is thrown in from the back yard. His arms shoot up in the air and the towel he’d been holding against his face stays stuck to it. Then he falls forward as though someone’s given him a flying kick at the back of his neck.
By this time I’m frozen in the middle of the passage and if the girls were screaming before Christ knows how you’d describe what they’re doing now, but above it all I manage to hear footsteps dashing down the passage where the booths are. When Tony got his blast Peter took refuge behind the yard door and now he has the sense to kick it closed as I drag the girls to the relative safety of the square flagged bit at the end of the passage. I push the girls into the corner out of the range of any fire and Peter slides the bolt on the yard door and then we both take up positions at the corners of the passage as it opens into the flagged square. We’re just in time to see one heavy fly across the space where the two passages converge and position himself in the office and another take up a spot round the corner and opposite the office. They both have shotguns. Jesus, I think to myself, I’ve seen enough shotguns during the last eight hours to decorate a Christmas tree.
In the corner the girls are still screaming and I can’t stand it so while Peter gets ready to give the other end of the passage a blast from his piece of the collection I get up and give them one or two until they stop their noise. I take up my position again. Peter’s now all keyed up to poke his shotgun round the corner but before he can do that the sound of three shots from an ordinary shooter comes from somewhere at the other end, but the bullets aren’t flying in our direction so I chance a quick look and I can only see one of the heavies, the one who was round the corner, only now he’s sinking to the floor having taken a bullet in the back of the head. The only part that is visible of the heavy in the office is his foot sticking through the office doorway. Then a third figure appears at the end of the passage and although the light is behind the figure I can immediately recognise the shape as that of Con McCarty.
“Get back,” I yell at him as Peter squeezes the triggers.
Con leaps like trout and disappears from view as the blast booms down the passage and sets the girls off again.
“You stupid berk,” I shout at Peter.
Peter looks at me in amazement.
“It’s Con. It was bloody Con you were firing at.”
Con’s head edges round the corner.
“What the Christ’s going on?” he shouts.
“Well, I didn’t know who it was, did I?” Peter says, but I’ve already got hold of Lesley and am running down the
passage towards Con.
“Jesus,” he says, “I get you out of it and I nearly get halved.”
“You’ll get topped if you hang around here any longer.”
Con trots after us along the other corridor. The fallen heavy is still crawling towards his death.
“Is there a driver outside?” I ask Con.
“Not any more.”
We dash through reception and down through the hardboard and outside. Peter hasn’t caught up with us yet but then there’s a shot and I get the general idea which is reinforced by Peter appearing in the doorway, smiling and tucking his hand gun away.
The snow is still falling. For the second time that day there is the sound of the law getting near to us. I tell Peter the address of Lesley’s flat and Con and I run towards Lesley’s Mini. Lesley runs too but it’s not of her own volition. The sound of the law gets closer. We get to the Mini and Con piles in the back and I push Lesley into the passenger seat and run round to the other side and jump in and reverse the Mini as fast as I can until I reach the left turning we’ve used so often before this evening. I take a blind chance and reverse right round the corner and I’m in luck so I throw the gear stick into drive and put my foot down and shoot across the intersection and then at least I’m out of sight of any arriving law. I drive the Mini like you’ve never seen until I’ve put a dozen lefts and rights between us and the Fountain of Youth. We’re fortunate enough not to see any of Old Bill’s motors coming in the opposite direction and at least for a while the Mini is less likely to be connected with the activities of the last ten minutes than would a motor like Peter’s Capri. Until they get the descriptions out, that is. I only hope whoever phoned the law didn’t connect the Mini with the performance and I also hope Peter’ll have the sense to get rid of the Capri as soon as he can. And that’ll make him sick. He’s only been out a fortnight and the motor’s no older than that.
For a while Con and I don’t say anything to each other and the only sound in the car is that of Lesley sobbing away into her hands. The snow seems to be falling even thicker now and because of the route I’m taking the near-empty streets have all the reality of a nightmare.
Eventually I say to Con, “What happened to you, then?”
“Got rid of the motor, didn’t I?”
“Where, the Outer Hebrides?”
“Bishop’s Stortford.”
“Bishop’s Stortford!”
“Got a little lockup there, haven’t I? Just outside. Came in handy after all, didn’t it? So I parked the motor and came back by train and went round the club just after Peter left for here. Audrey told me what you thought so I decided to grab a cab just in case you were right.”
“Well, I was wrong, wasn’t I?” I say. “I was dead fucking wrong.”
“Now there’s a novelty,” Con says.
I don’t answer him.
“So how’d the heavies get there if you were wrong?”
“They must have had the club staked out.”
“There was enough of them.”
“There needed to be, didn’t there?”
“I don’t know. I’ve got some ideas but now it seems Peter might have something after all so let’s wait and see what he’s got to say.”
“If he gets there.”
I don’t answer that either but then I don’t have much chance because Lesley has wound herself up and she starts screaming at me. The words run into one another and together with the sobs it’s difficult to hear precisely what she’s saying but the general idea is that she’s trying to tell us she’s just seen five men killed.
“Yes,” I say to her, “and it could have been the other way round, three men and two women, one of which would have been you.”
But this doesn’t make any difference to her because she just carries on pouring out the same words over and over again and above her noise Con says, “Who’s this, anyway?”
“Hume’s girlfriend.”
I look in the mirror so I can take in Con’s expression but it remains the same, rigid with disbelief.
“You’re joking.”
“I met her last night. So I thought her place would be as safe as anywhere.”
“You’re at her flat?”
“Yes.”
“Jesus Christ. And that’s where we’re going now?”
“Don’t worry. Hume gave her the elbow last night.”
“And supposing he comes round to kiss and make up?”
“Then we all hide in the wardrobe, don’t we?”
Con shakes his head and says, “Jesus Christ.”
“He won’t be round,” I say to Con. “He’s too full of shit to apologise to anybody, even if he wanted to.”
I turn left at Great Portland Street and then right and then a few minutes later we’re crossing Baker Street. I find a mews in one of the other streets off Seymour Place and leave the Mini there. Then I have to go through the routine of getting Lesley out of the car but once she’s out she allows herself to be guided along until we get to her flat. We climb the stairs and she makes no attempt to take her keys out so I put my hand in her coat pocket and take them out for her and unlock the door and shepherd her in.
I switch on the lights and Con follows us in and while I’m making my way to where the drinks are Con looks round him and says, “Very nice. Very high class. I’ll enjoy having Old Bill pick me up in such a high-class place as this.”
Then he hears me pour a drink and comes round to my side of the screen.
“At least I won’t go dry,” he says.
He goes back to the screen and sticks his head round it and says, “Is it all right if I have a drink, young lady?”
There’s no reply from beyond the screen.
“Thanks very much,” Con says, and goes over to the dresser and pours himself a drink and then sits down on one of the big bean bag cushions and props himself up against the wall. I drink some of my drink and go round to the other side of the screen. Lesley is leaning against the wall by the door, her hands in her coat pockets. I walk over to her and she watches me all the way.
“Look,” I say to her, “I know how you feel, but try and forget what you saw. It’s the only way.”
The traces of a smile appear at the corners of her mouth.
“I mean, they came all set to have a go, didn’t they?” I say to her. “It wasn’t as if they were innocent bystanders.”
“What was Tony then?” she asks me.
I sigh and spread my hands. “I’m sorry about Tony. I really am. But it could have been me, or you, any of us.”
“Why couldn’t it have been you?”
I shake my head.
“He’d be alive if it wasn’t for you,” she says. “If you hadn’t been wrong about that other one.”
“I know. That’s why I’m looking forward to getting to the people who set all this off.”
Now it’s her turn to shake her head.
“I once went to the Natural History Museum,” she says. “They had the skeletons there of things like you. Only they’d been extinct for a million years.”
“Yes,” I say, “but unlike them I intend to survive.”
The smile comes fully into play now.
“You’re not going to survive,” she says. “You’ve got another day at the most.”
“Perhaps,” I say to her. “Anyway, I might last a bit longer if you’re somewhere I can see you, away from that door.”
She pushes herself away from the wall and walks to the other side of the screen without giving me an argument. I follow her through and she goes over to the dresser and pours herself a drink. Con is looking at his watch.
“Peter should be here by now,” he says.
“He hasn’t got a lockup in Bishop’s Stortford, has he?” I say.
Quarter of an hour passes by in which time Con and I have a couple more medium-sized drinks and Lesley has another three or four large ones.
At one point Lesley goes into the bedroom and closes the door behind her, then comes out five minutes later and says, “I mean, I can’t believe what I saw this afternoon. I really can’t. It’s like a nightmare.”
“That’s the best way,” I say to her. “Think of it as a nightmare.”
She goes back into the bedroom and slams the door behind her.
Con says, “You know, until today I’d never have believed I’d see you row yourself in this kind of situation.”
“Until today I’ve always had a choice, haven’t I?”
I look at my watch while I’m talking.
“Think he’s been picked up?”
“How the fuck should I know?” I say and as I’m saying it the doorbell rings.
I open the bedroom door. Lesley is sitting on the edge of the bed with her knees together holding her drink with both hands.
“I want you to answer the door,” I say to her.
She looks at me as though she’s never seen me before so I take the glass from her hand and ease her up off the bed and guide her to the front door and while we’re on our way I say to her, “All I want you to do is ask who it is. Then if it’s who it should be I’ll open the door, all right?”
We get to the hall. The doorbell rings again.
“Go on,” I say softly. “Ask who it is.”
“Who’s there?” she says in a flat slurry voice.
“Peter,” comes the voice from the other side of the door.
I twist the handle of the lock and pull the door open and Peter comes in. I’m about to ask Peter what took him so long when Lesley throws a fit, as if seeing Peter has brought everything back to her. She throws herself at him, kicking and scratching and screaming for him to get out and Peter being Peter doesn’t like being touched by a woman at the best of times so he calls her a fucking bitch and gives her one right on the point of jaw which sends her sliding down him to the floor.
“Bleeding cow,” Peter says, all affronted. “What’s she in it for anyway?”
I lift Lesley off the floor and carry her through into the bedroom and lay her down on the bed and then go back into the other room and close the door behind me.
“Nice setup,” Peter says. “But what would Audrey say?”
Con looks at me and I say to Peter, “What you talking about?”
“Do me a favour,” he says and goes to pour himself a drink. Before he can get there I get a grip on him and have him up against the wall.
“Listen, you’ve got something to tell me,” I say. “Make sure you’re able to say the words.”
“Come on,” Peter says. “I’m joking. Just got the idea Audrey fancied you, that’s all.”
“In that case have a drink and think of something else that’s funny.”
I let go of him and he shrugs his coat back on his shoulders and pours himself a drink.
“All right,” I say to him. “What’s this
very important information you couldn’t tell anyone but me?”
Peter takes a sip of his drink and sits down.
“After I saw you, I went to Maurice’s this lunch time . . . ”
“Go on,” Con says.
Peter ignores him and carries on.
“I mean, it’s been a long time and I’ve got a lot of acquaintances to renew, you know how it is. So I’m sitting there with me Campari talking to the morning staff on account of there being nothing in the place of any consequence, anything below fifty-first hand, and it comes up about the Colemans and those two bitches having a bit of fun with the night staff. Of course I’d seen them come in but I’d left before the fun started so it was all news to me. So she tells me the whole story and just as she’s finishing who should come in but the ex-barmaid who we’ve just been talking about. She asks the morning staff if Maurice is about and the morning staff tells her Maurice never gets in till one and the ex-barmaid tut-tuts and tells us she’s come for her cards because she thinks she’s got herself fixed up with something else that very day. Anyway, she says, I may as well have a drink while I’m here and asks for a lager and starts rooting through her shoulder bag for her change. Well, of course she’s not in drag this morning and the daylight from the skylight isn’t doing much for her frizzy old hair so I take pity on her, there but for the God of Grace sort of thing, and she almost falls over herself. Not my scene you understand, just sorry for her. So we get talking and she tells about how she’s been wronged all her life, particularly last night and gives me her version. And while she’s doing that she suddenly says, ‘Here, weren’t you in here last night,’ and I say, ‘What about it,’ and she says, ‘With that big butch fellow who’s all over the papers with the Fletchers?’ And she takes the paper from under her arm and shows me the photo I’ve already seen. ‘Here, are you in with them?’ she says. And I say, ‘What if I am?’ ‘Because,’ she said, ‘I’m certain those bleeding Colemans knew that picture was going to be in today’s papers.’ Then she explains that after what happened with her and the Coleman women she went and locked herself in one of the lavs and had a private little cry and while she was in there the Coleman women came in to tart themselves up and she can hear everything they say. Your name comes up, about how one of them fancies you and what she wouldn’t get up to if she had the chance, and the other one says, ‘Yes, but what I’d like to see is his face when he picks up tomorrow’s paper, not to mention the Fletchers and Finbow.’ And that’s what the old queen heard in the lav at Maurice’s. Of course, she didn’t think anything about it until she saw the picture this morning.”
