by Nick Jones
‘I’m not here to cause trouble,’ I say. ‘I’m here to help you.’
‘I don’t need help.’
‘Frankie Shaw is dangerous.’
‘Tell me something I don’t know,’ she sneers.
‘Please,’ I tell her, ‘you need to stay away from him, get far away.’
I can almost see a thousand calculations going on inside her brain, like the cogs in the mechanism of my silver hunter. She looks again at the thug watching us from the other side of the room, and then back at me, jaw flexing. ‘Do you think I’m crazy?’ Her eyes dart left and right. ‘I can’t talk to you.’
I want to ask why Frankie Shaw would want to kill her, but I think that’s a step too far.
Something obvious occurs to her. ‘Are you with the Dickersons?’
‘No,’ I assure her, ‘I’m one of the good guys.’
I regret saying that immediately.
‘Oh, no,’ Lucy looks up and sighs. ‘You’re a copper.’ Her gaze flicks back to me. ‘I should have known. Do you really think you can take him on?’ There is a sarcastic ring to her voice now, downtrodden and dark. She looks more scared than ever.
The man is closing in. I decide it’s all or nothing.
‘He’s going to hurt you,’ I tell her. ‘You need to get away.’
‘Get away? How?’
‘I have money, lots of money and –’
Her eyes burn. ‘You’d better stay away from me,’ she says, and then in a voice just above a whisper, ‘I’m in enough trouble as it is.’
‘What do you mean?’
A huge round of applause fills the room. The band begin their next number, a Bobby Vee track. The singer doesn’t do a bad job. He pleads for someone to “take good care of his ba-a-by”.
I catch a glimpse of the thug who is making his way across the dance floor, eyes fixed on me. Lucy shuffles around the table and puts herself between me and her future executioner. She glances back. ‘Listen, you seem like a nice enough man, but if you really want to help, you need to go… now.’
The thug is nearly here. Time’s up. I don’t feel as though I’ve made any headway with her at all. I try one last time, my voice urgent. ‘Remember what I said – get away from Frankie. Your life depends on it!’
She stares at me. ‘Who are you?’
‘A friend.’
I walk away and don’t look back, skirting quickly around the edge of the dance floor. I then dive into the throng of people, crouching down, trying to use the spinning rock ‘n’ rollers as cover. I see the thug talking to Lucy. I reach Vinny in mid-spin. Someone nearby takes a photograph. The flashbulb illuminates Vinny just as he begins a Michael Jackson moonwalk. I grab his arm. He snaps out of his trance and frowns at me. The audience lets out an audible moan. ‘I was just getting into that,’ he says.
‘We need to get out of here,’ I tell Vinny. ‘Now.’
‘What happened?’
‘The bastard who killed Lucy is here and I need to figure out what the hell is going on before we go up against him.’
Vinny glances over my shoulder. ‘Is that him?’
I nod.
‘Wow,’ Vinny gasps, seemingly impressed. It occurs to me that my sidekick’s entire view of the world has been through the lens of TV shows, where heroes go on exciting adventures and the peril isn’t truly life-threatening. The heroes always live.
Real life is more like Game of Thrones. Spoiler alert: Good people die all the time.
A girl rushes over and grabs Vinny by the arm. ‘What do you call that?’ she squeals.
‘The Funky Vincent.’ He winks at her.
The girl smiles and runs back to her friends. We dodge and weave our way across the dance floor. We find an emergency exit, tumble down the stairs and crash out onto the street. We walk quickly, gaining distance from The Royal. Once I’m happy we weren’t followed, we stop.
Time check: thirty-two minutes left.
‘So, how did it go?’ Vinny asks.
‘Well, I tried to warn her,’ I tell him, ‘but she was scared, said she was in enough trouble as it is.’
‘And that was the guy who killed her... I mean, who’s going to kill her.’
‘Yeah, although... I got the impression he was there to protect her,’ I frown, blinking. ‘Shit, Vinny... I did a really crap job, I think.’
‘I doubt that, Cash.’ He places a hand on my shoulder. ‘Who knows, you might have changed it already, she might be safe, we might be done.’
It’s great to have his support, but I can’t help but feel I squandered a precious opportunity to interact with Lucy, wasted a change event. ‘It doesn’t feel like we’re done, and I don’t know how many chances we’re going to get,’ I tell him.
He smiles warmly. ‘We’ll figure it out.’
We walk aimlessly through the streets of London. For about the hundredth time today, I have no idea what to do next. I stare at the watch, see the seconds ticking down and with each one, my heart sinks. The change-event icon has disappeared, slipped back up inside the mechanism.
A car edges from an alleyway just ahead of us and a fresh ball of dread punches me in the throat and then sinks through my guts like cold steel. The coppery taste of adrenaline fills my mouth.
I recognise the car.
A cream Rolls-Royce.
Frankie’s car.
A shadow fills the pavement behind us. The thug grabs our shoulders and pushes us forward. The Roller’s rear window glides down with a motorised whir. Inside is Frankie Shaw. He leans forward, looks us up and down and says, ‘If you two rather fashionable gentlemen aren’t too busy, I’d like a little chat.’
Chapter Forty-Five
The rear door opens. The thug growls. I consider running, but what am I going to do? I can’t leave Vinny. Reluctantly we enter the back of the car. It smells of leather and soap with a hint of alcohol. The thug manhandles us onto two small occasional seats, the folding kind that face the rear of the car, then sinks down opposite us, leather groaning under his muscle-packed weight. He stares at us with dark, mean eyes that are shadowed beneath his hooded, Neanderthal brow. The seats are tiny, just enough space for me. Poor Vinny looks like a nervous elephant perched on a tiny stool.
Frankie Shaw frowns, sniffing the air. ‘Have you been smoking?’ he asks.
The thug clenches his jaw, then nods once.
Shaw takes a sharp breath in through his nostrils. ‘I won’t tell you again,’ he says, barely containing his anger. ‘No smoking on the job, you do that dirty shit at home.’
‘Sorry, boss.’
The image of his mother’s ashtray piled high enters my mind. I can still see her yellow fingers clawing at his hands.
Frankie is wearing a cream, tailored suit. His red hair is cropped and neatly swept to one side. He gives the impression of a smart, wealthy businessman, but I know better than to judge this particular book by its cover. A thin smile stretches over his lips, bending the deeply carved lines running down his cheeks. The smile never reaches his eyes.
‘Do you know who I am?’
‘You’re Frankie Shaw,’ Vinny says, sounding impressed.
Frankie smiles, his gaze remaining fixed on me. ‘That’s right,’ he says, calm and relaxed. ‘And I’m going to ask you some questions. I would advise you to answer them very carefully. Ask anyone, I’m honest and decent but there’s one thing I can’t stand.’ He grits his teeth. ‘I can’t stand a liar.’ He attempts to conceal his cockney accent but fails. He twists his head and tugs at his collar, a gesture I recognise from the alleyway.
‘So,’ he says, ‘what are you doing here?’
It’s a simple question, but before I can open my mouth, Vinny starts babbling. He tells Frankie how we’re big fans of Peter and the Spirits. He talks about his love of dancing and girls and stuff. His words kind of tumble out, way too fast. Vinny carries on about how he dragged me along, but I’m not listening, I’m watching Frankie Shaw.
The gangster nods patiently, p
rocessing and calculating. He has the look of a man who has spent years in the shadows, his skin horribly pale, even his freckles look grey. I try to swallow, mouth dry, heart pounding in my ears. I can feel the dark energy that surrounds Frankie – he’s a bad man, there is no denying it. On a first impression, you would probably describe him as good-looking, charming even. I can see why people who didn’t know him called him Pretty Boy.
Of course, I’m not fooled. I’ve seen inside the cover, seen what’s under the mask. Christ, I’ve even lived the horror of being this man. Fear builds. I’ve spent my life trying to control it, coping with bullies like this, but the more Vinny talks, the more Frankie smiles and the more screwed I know we are.
Frankie’s eyes are back on me, narrow and glimmering with bitter amusement. ‘You always let Fatso do your talking?’ I stay quiet, not sure what to say. His gaze remains glacial, always processing. ‘Well, seeing as the cat’s got your tongue, I’ll tell you what I think, shall I? I think you’re telling porky pies.’ He smiles at Vinny. ‘I bet you like those, don’t you, Chrome Dome?’
Vinny blinks. ‘What?’
‘Pork pies!’ Frankie snaps back. ‘A big sweat-hog like you? I bet you bloody love ’em, bet you gobble ’em up.’
Vinny frowns, then nods.
There’s only one thing I hate more than being afraid, and that’s hearing someone talk to a friend like that. I glance at Vinny and it pinches my heart. I can tell the words have hurt him, but that’s not why I’m upset. He’s also looking at these two men with something akin to reverence. For some odd reason, Vinny idolises these gangsters.
Frankie Shaw points at me and his hard eyes narrow. ‘I think you work for Don.’
‘Dickerson!’ Vinny cries, as though we’re on a game show and he’s so pleased to have known the answer.
‘We don’t,’ I manage to say, legs jangling with adrenaline.
Shaw grins, showing a set of perfect white teeth. ‘Yes, you do, and I’ve got a message for him. Tell Don I own the East End now. Tell him Frankie Shaw is running things and if he sends any of his boys over the river again, spying on me like you two slags, I will kill them.’ His eyes flick between us, like a lion deciding which gazelle to kill first. ‘And I don’t muck about, fellas, I mean it.’
I’ve seen this expression before, a calm resignation as though a veil of darkness has fallen on him and he knows he has a job to do. I hear a click in Vinny’s throat.
We’re getting a warning. You don’t warn people you’re going to kill. All we need to do is keep nodding and I think he will let us go.
Seconds tick by. Shaw studies us. I’m plucking up the courage to ask if we can go when the silence is broken by a truly horrible sound.
An innocent little ‘Buzzzt’.
My eyes widen as I instinctively grab my silver bastard.
Frankie’s eyes glint. ‘What was that?’
‘What was what?’
Frankie laughs. It starts small but ends up being a disturbing belly laugh. Vinny clearly doesn’t understand the trouble we are in because he starts to chuckle, too.
‘You think this is funny?’ Frankie asks with unnerving speed.
Ahhhh. One of those gangster questions you just can’t get right.
Buzzzt.
Oh, this is just brilliant.
The thug pipes up. ‘It’s his pocket watch; he was checking it when I picked them up.’
‘Oh, yeah?’ Frankie says. ‘Expecting someone are you? Planning something?’
I see the slightest flicker of what looks like nervousness. It was subtle, but it was definitely there. I guess a gangster is always watching his back.
‘No, not at all,’ I say, ‘we just want to –’
‘Hand the watch over.’ Frankie leans forward and holds out his hand. ‘Now.’
I hear a distant voice, like Obi-Wan Kenobi. ‘You cannot lose the watch, it is your homing beacon’.
I metaphorically throw my hands in the air and silently berate my blackmailing mentor.
If you didn’t want me to lose the bloody thing, you could have shown me how to switch it to silent!
Chapter Forty-Six
Frankie nods and my heart sinks. The thug’s hand whips through the air and smacks Vinny across the top of his head. The sound is horrible, sharp yet deep. Vinny winces as he lets out a low moan. I stare at him and then flash my gaze back at Shaw, only just suppressing my anger.
I clench my fists and breathe.
Even in this state, I know anger won’t serve me. I take full responsibility for the fact that Vinny is along for the ride and I need to get us both away from this maniac.
‘Please don’t hurt him again,’ I say, voice trembling.
‘I’m alright,’ Vinny mumbles.
I have no choice. I lift the chain over my head and hand Frankie the precious pocket watch. As I do, I notice the change event indicator has returned, descended from the outer rim of the mechanism. I frown, rotating the watch as I hand it over. The change event moves, snapping to the man seated opposite me. I stare helplessly as he snatches it from me.
Was Frankie the change event all along?
He presses the fob dial, releasing both the front and rear protective casings. He glances up at me. ‘This is one nice kettle and hob.’ He snaps it closed and places it on the armrest beside him.
I feel small beads of sweat on my forehead as I desperately try to figure out what to do next. Bill could not have been clearer. If I lose the watch, I’m stuck here forever.
‘Tell me what you’re really doing here and I will let you go.’ He leans in. ‘Harry tells me you were talking to Miss Romano.’
‘Miss Romano?’
‘Don’t mess with me.’ His voice is sharp as a scalpel.
‘You mean the woman serving drinks?’ I ask, desperately trying to control my fear.
‘You like her, don’t you?’
This is a classic leading question designed to trap me. Trust me. Bullies are my speciality. For example: Are you looking at my girlfriend? Whichever answer you go for, you lose. If you tell them that you were looking at the girl, you get smacked in the mouth. If you say you weren’t, they ask you why not and suggest you think their girlfriend is ugly.
Loop until punched.
I stare back at him, aware that I need to give him something.
Vinny steps in again. ‘The reason we were here,’ he blurts, ‘is Joe wanted to talk to her, and I persuaded him to, but we didn’t realise that she was taken, honest we didn’t. We were here to see the band, have a dance –’
Frankie silences Vinny with a single raised finger. He smiles, licking his lips. ‘I’m right, you fancied her.’
I nod, deciding this might be the best angle. ‘I didn’t realise she was with someone.’
He stares at me for a long time, tapping the watch, eyes moving slowly between me and Vinny like a snake considering which one to strike first. ‘Okay,’ he says eventually. ‘Because I haven’t seen you boys before, I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt.’ He glances at the thug. ‘That’s rare, ain’t it, Harry?’
Harry nods.
Frankie leans close to me, and I smell peppermint on his breath. ‘I look after Lucy and her boy, do you understand?’
‘Her boy?’ I ask without thinking.
‘Yeah, good little boxer.’ He smiles and then in a taunting voice he says, ‘Oh, he didn’t know she had a kid. You’re not so interested now, are ya?’ He folds his arms. ‘Anyway, I take care of Lucy and her lad. So, you steer clear.’
Something in this expression causes the world’s largest penny to drop. I’ve always been a little slow on the uptake when it comes to signals and emotions, but that momentary glimpse assures me there is something between Frankie and Lucy. My mind ticks over fast. Is that why he kills her? Does she cheat on him? He’s looking after her, but what does that mean when you’re a powerful gangster?
No wonder she said she was afraid.
Frankie grabs my pocket watch, ch
ecks the time and says with a proud smile, ‘Right, I can’t sit and chat with you idiots all day. I’ve got places to go, people to intimidate.’ His voice drops to a lower register as his mood shifts with chilling speed. ‘Consider this a fair warning, unless you want to get a shirt off Harry. Understand?’
I have no idea what getting a shirt from Harry might mean, but we both nod. I stare at my silver homing beacon.
‘You want your watch back, don’t you?’
I grit my teeth and nod.
Frankie nods at Harry. The thug slips a metal band over his fingers. I realise with a sinking dread that it’s a knuckle duster. His spade-sized fist is now solid metal.
Frankie’s eyes fade, become expressionless. This is routine for him. ‘I gave you a chance and you lied. You have to pay for that. Hold out your hands.’
I stare at him.
Shaw holds a single clenched fist out in front of him. ‘Like this.’
Reluctantly, Vinny and I hold up our right hands. Quick as a whip Harry goes for Vinny, who pulls his hand back but gets caught anyway, with a horrible metallic thud. Vinny exhales through his teeth but doesn’t cry out.
Shaw laughs. ‘Ha! Fatso flinched – you get two.’
I stare at him, this mean man who gets pleasure from his work. I vow in this moment that I am going to stop him. I hold his gaze. He smiles back at me.
Crack. The pain is white and instant. A fierce heat travels up my arm like a burning serpent. I grit my teeth and continue to stare at him.
‘One more for luck,’ Frankie chuckles.
The second blow arrives, on exactly the same spot, even more painful than the last. I gasp, clenching against the pain. I look down at my hand, my knuckles are bleeding. It conjures the image of Frankie licking the blood from his own hand. I shudder.
Frankie glares at me. ‘There’s something about you,’ he says. ‘I can’t put my finger on it, but I’ll get there… I always do.’
‘Now...’ I breathe through the pain, ‘can I have my watch back?’
He looks surprised. ‘What’s the magic word?’
