Body Blow

by Peter Cocks

  I seriously doubted that Barry Ambrose, having sold up in Orpington twenty years before, would have wanted to die in the arse end of Spain due to a hail of bullets to the gut.

  I ducked across the restaurant to make sure the widow’s needs were being attended to. Ready with the bottle.

  “He always wanted to be buried in the cemetery in Penge,” Julie whined. “Next to Mum and Dad, and his nan.”

  “Aah,” the witches chorused sympathetically, while still managing to hold out their glasses for more.

  “But, you know,” Julie explained, “with the flights being what they are now … a coffin and all that.”

  “Yeah…” the witches sympathized.

  “Cost us two hundred quid to send Darcy’s wedding presents via Ryanair,” she said.

  “They reckon they’re going to start charging a quid for a piss next,” one of the witches piped. There was a moment’s pause while they checked the widow’s reaction.

  “And fifty to join the Mile High Club,” Julie retorted to a mass of throaty giggles.

  “Not exactly British Airways Club class, is it?” Another joined in. “That’s where I joined the Mile High, when I was modelling. Free … with a complimentary glass of champagne.”

  The lady mourners around the widow collapsed into titters as I refilled their glasses. I guessed that Julie was dealing with her grief in her own way.

  I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned and Terry Gadd was in my face. He grinned at me.

  “How’s the motor?” he asked.

  “It’s great,” I said. “But I can’t—”

  He drew me away from the ladies by taking my bicep between thumb and forefinger and turning me around. It didn’t hurt, but he was clearly in charge.

  “I’m offski,” he said. “And I don’t want to hear any more about the poxy wheels. OK?”

  “OK.”

  “You’ve done a good one here tonight,” he said. “I’ve been watching you. You’ve made everyone feel … comfortable. You’re good at it. It’s appreciated.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I just—”

  “Stow it.” He put his tobacco-smelling finger not to his own lips but to mine.

  Juana must have been watching and passed by, bottle in hand, her eyes defensive, nervous.

  “You guys OK?” she asked. “Can I get you another drink?”

  Terry Gadd smiled and shook his head to dismiss her. I gave her a look that told her I could handle it. I wasn’t sure that I could. As she passed, Gadd followed her with his eyes and turned to me.

  “You getting some of that, Spunky?”

  I shrugged, giving nothing away. He gave my bicep a squeeze, his thumb almost inflicting pain this time.

  “Lucky boy,” he wheezed. “Prime, Class A crumpet. Nice one.”

  He laughed. Loosened his grip. “Nice one,” he said again. He stroked my cheek, not quite a slap but almost friendly, then turned to leave. “I’ll be in touch.”

  The evening started to wind down about 2 a.m. It was still busy but with most people just sitting at tables, mumbling quietly, pouring themselves what was left of the hundreds of bottles that had been opened in Barry’s memory. On Barry’s tab.

  Juana and I were behind the bar, taking a breather. I had put on a bit of chilled Brazilian music and now picked at a plate of fried anchovies and drank the first cold beer of the night.

  Then the big bloke came in.

  He’d obviously had a few, but he’d not been at the wake. He lurched over to the bar and scraped up one of the bulky wooden barstools and positioned it under his heavy arse.

  “Hello, guapa,” he said to Juana. She rolled her eyes at me and went to serve him.

  “What would you like, Vic?”

  “Large brandy, beautiful,” he slurred. His voice came rumbling from deep in his chest, marinated in years of booze and cured by a million cigarettes.

  But familiar.

  Juana placed a tulip-shaped brandy glass in front of the man, grabbed a bottle from behind the bar and filled it. “On the house,” she said. He picked up the dainty glass between fat thumb and forefinger and drank half of it.

  “’Ow’s your mum?” he asked. Juana pursed her lips in a dismissive, non-committal way.

  “She’s fine.”

  “Will she see me?” the big man asked. He drained the other half. I watched, sipped beer, analysed. There was almost a pleading whine behind the gravel that lined his throat. He held his glass out for more, as if he needed the sauce to be able to talk.

  “I don’t think so, Vic.” She pronounced it Bic.

  I saw the shadow of rejection flicker across his face. His body deflated half a stone.

  He couldn’t see me, I was just another waiter. His blurred eyes were on the pretty girl. I looked at him; stripped away the tan, the earrings, the moustache. Put a little more stubbly hair on his head. Put him in an ill-fitting, tight, English winter-grey suit. And then I knew who he was.

  I think I had half-known from the moment he turned up at the cemetery that afternoon.

  But now I knew exactly who he was.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Donnie staggered out of the Bodega Jubarry.

  The night air was still warm, but the additional oxygen to his brain made him feel very pissed. A day on the lash was no novelty to Donnie, but he’d been on a beano for over two weeks now.

  Caning it.

  He’d worked out why; it was because he felt rejected. Clearly Valerie was having nothing more to do with him since he’d got shot. And working for Patsy Kelly – an honour he’d sacrificed his love life for – had also gone tits up. Word had got back to Patsy that Donnie was a loose cannon around the bars, and the firm had brought the shutters down once again, extra paranoid after the shooting.

  Donnie had called Dave Slaughter in England a few days after the assassination attempt on Patsy Kelly, pleased to have information to pass on. Hot information.

  “I know, Don,” Dave had said. He’d known within an hour of the shooting, it turned out. “Word is, some Serbian bunch was behind it.”

  He asked Donnie for a witness’s view of what had happened, and Donnie had to admit, shamefaced, that he hadn’t actually been invited to the party.

  Dave was the closest Donnie got to having a mate. He’d known Dave for twenty years, but now he could hear the disappointment in his voice.

  “I thought you was my eyes and ears over there, Don?” he growled down the phone. “I can get news quicker by bleedin’ carrier pigeon or going on Google Earth.”

  Donnie didn’t know what Google Earth was.

  “Any more news about moving the guv’nor?” Donnie asked, hoping for a grain of information coming the other way.

  The silence that followed was clearer than words. Donnie was getting the message: he was washed-up, completely useless and not to be trusted.

  Donnie swayed in the street for a moment as he recalled the conversation, then tried to focus. He felt an alien sensation in his chest, like indigestion. It crawled up his throat, restricting it. The feeling continued to his nostrils and behind his eyes. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt like this, if ever. Donnie’s huge chest rose as if taking in a deep breath, then let it out with a shudder and a loud moan.

  A sob. For the first time since he was a baby, Donnie realized that he was crying.

  He took out a packet of fags, and as he did so his phone dropped out of his pocket onto the street. The screen cracked across, and finding an outlet for his feelings, Donnie stamped on it until it was a small pile of smashed plastic and circuit board.

  Feeling better, he placed a cigarette between his trembling lips and lit it.

  He heard a noise and saw two young Spanish men coming across the square towards him, not aggressive but swaggering and cocky. They were talking loudly and laughing, like they’d had a good night. Donnie felt jealous. He wiped his sleeve across his wet face and pulled himself together. He took a few faltering steps across the square. The men crossed his
path, unlit cigarettes dangling from their lips.

  “Tiene una luz?” one asked Donnie, making the sign for a lighter with fist and thumb.

  “You taking the piss?” Donnie slurred, misreading the gesture through blurred eyes. He swung a fist, so slow that the Spanish guy was able to dodge it, causing Donnie to lurch forwards.

  Seeing Donnie’s aggression, the men’s expressions had changed. They were no longer friendly, nor frightened of a lumbering drunk, however big he might be. The second man took advantage and, clearly with some martial arts training under his belt, let off a kick to Donnie’s chest that sent him flying. Donnie toppled back onto the street, his head hitting cobbles. The second man came back with a kick in the face and, through his drunken fog, Donnie felt his cheekbone crack and his nose break. He could taste blood in the back of his throat and saw pinpricks of light flashing in his skull. He felt his stomach and ribs cave in under punches, kicks and knee drops. Felt the terrible ache as his testicles were stamped on.

  Donnie wanted it to be over. He wished they would just shoot him to put him out of his misery.

  Headlights swept the square and the Spanish boys delivered a final kick to Donnie’s nuts before running off.

  It was about half three by the time we finally locked up. The square was quiet and we hardly noticed the dormant shape in the gutter some metres away, partially illuminated by a street light.

  A low moan drew our attention to it.

  “Drunk,” I said. I took Juana’s arm, drawing her away, not wanting a scene.

  “It sounds like pain,” she said. She looked back. “It’s Vic.”

  She broke away from me and rushed over to the kerb. “Bic?” she asked.

  Reluctantly I followed. In my opinion, the man in the gutter was better off dead. After all, he had shot me twice and left me for dead.

  “Leave him,” I said. “He’s pissed.” But she was already crouching by his head.

  “Oh my God,” she said. “Look.”

  I joined her and tried to see his face in the street light. It was a complete mess, with split, swollen lips and puffy black eyes. Blood poured from his nose, which had been bent across his face, and his shaved head was scored with scratches and cuts. Juana rolled him over and he groaned in pain.

  “Vic?” she asked. He groaned. “We need to get him to hospital.”

  I sighed like a spoilt kid. “It’s half three in the morning…”

  She fixed me with stubborn brown eyes. I couldn’t explain to her that I wanted no part in helping Donovan Mulvaney, the Kelly thug who had tried to murder me. The man I was pretty sure had also killed my brother.

  “Get the car,” she said.

  “Why don’t we call an ambulance?”

  “It will take hours. What is your problem? This man is dying. Get the car.”

  I sulkily kicked a fag butt on the ground as if it was a football. I saw the remains of a smashed mobile phone near Donnie’s feet. Knelt down and found the SIM card behind the battery – you never know… Then I got up and went to find my keys.

  We squeezed Donnie into the front seat, after levering his huge bulk out of the gutter. Juana sat wedged in the little seat behind me and I took the road out of town towards Málaga. No one spoke and the atmosphere weighed heavy in the car, punctuated by the hulk’s groans every time I hit a pothole or took a bend too fast.

  “Why are you being like this, Pedro?” Juana whispered in my ear.

  “It’s four in the morning and, believe it or not, I’ve had quite a busy day.”

  “I thought you had a good spirit.”

  “I do have a good spirit,” I said. “But this guy’s one of them. He’s a thug and I don’t like it. It won’t end well, believe me.”

  “He’s a human being,” Juana said.

  I looked across at the battered lump. Almost, I thought.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  We drove back as the sun was coming up across the sea, and even Benalmádena looked pretty in the cool of early morning.

  “Let’s go to bed,” Juana said.

  I gave her a cheeky glance, but with my body aching from fatigue and my eyes blinking and gritty, I wasn’t really serious. I was almost hallucinating with tiredness. Jubarry’s had to be open in a few hours and it felt like our responsibility.

  I woke up next to Juana feeling marginally rested after three hours’ kip. I showered, as hot as I could stand, and let the needles of water massage some of the stiffness out of the back of my neck. I made us café con leche and fried-egg sandwiches while I listened to Juana singing in the shower.

  She had a good spirit, I thought. She took life’s knocks and still got up singing the next day. I could learn from her. I felt contented as she sat down opposite me at the small table, wet and loosely wrapped in my towel, and wolfed down an egg sandwich. Juana had really started to relax around me, opening up more. A few nights before, she’d told me about her hopes and dreams; how she wanted a nice flat, like mine, a secure job, a man she could trust. Even though she had a couple of years on me, she suddenly looked younger and more innocent as she outlined her simple plans for the future.

  I felt heavy-hearted that Juana would never be able to fully trust me.

  We drove into town in the Alfa, around eleven. Quite the husband-and-wife team on the way to work, me still only eighteen and her twenty. It felt like we’d been doing it for years.

  Carlos had opened up early, so the few punters around before lunchtime would had been served coffee, pastries and whatever without much ceremony.

  I drank more coffee once we got in and started to feel a bit buzzy, ready to cover lunches and light duties, looking forward to a kip in the sun after.

  Never make plans for an easy ride. Life always gets in the way.

  Lunch was quiet, as expected. One or two regulars came in for a beer and some tapas or sat outside with grilled lamb cutlets and chips.

  At 1 p.m. Terry Gadd walked in. Always guaranteed to put me on edge.

  “Hello, stranger,” he said. He seemed cheered by the fact we’d seen each other just twelve hours before. He grinned. “No peace for the wicked, eh?”

  He was wearing a hideous shirt: turquoise with pink flamingos. It nearly made my hallucinations return. His eyes darted around.

  “Anyone about?”

  I gestured at the empty bar and the table on the terrace, where two Spanish widows in black sipped hot chocolate.

  “Juana and the chef are out back,” I told him.

  “Good,” he said. Then, pointing to the kitchen, added, “You wanna watch him with her though, john.” He made a gesture with his fist and locked it into his elbow. I got the gist. “Wait there.”

  He went and stood in the sunlight in the doorway and made a call on his phone, like a bouncer outside a club.

  Seconds later, Patsy Kelly walked in, followed by a shaven-headed monkey who acted as if he was about to throw some kung fu moves. He cased the joint then went back outside, minding the door.

  Patsy Kelly was dressed to be inconspicuous: black shades, black shirt, tight black trousers and purple suede Tod’s. Gold chain. He probably thought he was slipping in like a shadow, but he couldn’t have made himself look more like a villain if he’d tried. It was dark inside and he took off his shades at the bar. Now I was able to see his eyes, he looked tired and worried. He’d lost weight.

  He held out a big hand, which I took. Felt the rasp of ostentatious rings. Smelt the cologne transferred to my own hand.

  “Buenos días, amigo,” he said. “Pedro, isn’t it?”

  Gadd affirmed with a nod. So did I.

  Juana poked her head out of the kitchen and, seeing who it was, darted back inside.

  “Listen,” Patsy said. “Terry tells me you like the car.”

  “I, er…” Behind Patsy, Gadd put a finger to his lips. “It’s great. Thank you.”

  “It’s just a small token of my esteem,” Patsy said. The phrase sounded clumsy coming from his mouth, as if he’d picked it up from a TV
show or something.

  “You don’t know me,” he said. “But I come from a big family. It’s important to us, family.”

  His words reminded me of the patter from a hundred gangster movies.

  “Aren’t you going to offer Mr Kelly a drink?” Gadd asked.

  “Sorry,” I said. The mention of the surname always pulled me up short. “What would you like, Mr Kelly?”

  “Thank you,” Patsy said with forced politeness. “I’ll have a large vodka and … no, tell you what, can you mix a Bloody Mary?”

  I nodded.

  “Give me a large Bloody Mary, all the bits.” He lit a cigar.

  “And I’ll have a beer,” Gadd joined in. “I’m as dry as a camel’s ring in a dust storm.”

  I poured Gadd his beer to shut him up, then, my hand trembling a little, set about making Patsy his Bloody Mary.

  “You see, we’re like aristocracy down here,” Patsy continued.

  I took a chilled stainless steel cocktail shaker and poured two measures of vodka from the optic … and one more.

  “Or a bunch of gyppos,” he said, with a self-deprecating laugh. The rich cigar smoke drifted across the bar, bringing back a vivid memory of Tommy Kelly in his study.

  I squeezed half a lime on top of the vodka, added a splash of fino sherry and three shakes of Worcester sauce.

  “Whichever way you look at it, we take care of our own,” Patsy said. Terry Gadd agreed.

  Three drips of Tabasco. Celery salt. Knife-end blob of horseradish. Mix it with a swizzle stick. I’d been well taught.

  “And you, Pedro, have looked after me.” Patsy sounded almost sentimental.

  I wiped lime peel around the rim of a frozen highball glass and rolled it in cracked black pepper. I filled it with ice and poured the mixture from the shaker over it.

  “So I want to look after you,” he said.

  I tried to keep eye contact with Patsy as he spoke, to show I was listening, but I didn’t like his drift and my preparations kept me busy. I cut a small slice of lemon and put it in the glass, then sliced a baton of celery off a stick in the chiller. I didn’t think he’d appreciate a paper umbrella. I pushed the celery into the drink and placed it on a mat in front of him. He looked at it, held it up to the light and took a sip. Smacked his lips and picked a grain of pepper from his lower one.