Cold Kill

by David Lawrence

  ‘So the tabloids tell me,’ Stella said, and smiled.

  They let the conversation meander, edging away from trouble. They talked about Delaney’s time in Bosnia, a real front line, about the healing properties of arnica, about his piece on street-people and Christmas. He told her that Sadie had been arrested and advanced the opinion that some cops were sadists, pricks and shitehawks.

  When the bill had been paid, he said, ‘What do we do now?’

  ‘You mean next. Not now but next.’

  ‘Okay. Next.’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘Will you tell me when you are?’

  She laughed. ‘You’ll be the second person to know.’

  ‘Who’ll be the first?’

  ‘Me.’

  She meant to say more but somehow found herself on her feet, bending to kiss him, a kiss that fell hard on his mouth, then emerging into the light fall of snow. She had walked from the flat, wanting to give herself time to think, but now she looked round for a cab. There were plenty but all taken. She was walking fast, jostling her way between the late-nighters, the clubbers, the liggers, as if distance would prevent her from going back to say the right thing. She was halfway home before she jumped a bus.

  So how did that go?

  I’m not sure.

  Any signs, any clues, any hints?

  We split the bill. But his keys are still on my key ring.

  Shes just like all the others doesnt look doesnt notice thinking of other things. She went to meet a man in a resterant and she walked there and back which was great. I got really close yes close enough to touch. They did me a favour those boys who robbed her it took me straight to her in Vigo St. Its a basment and you can see down into the main room from the street and you can see the bedroom window from the patio at the back. You get into the patio from a side entrance in the next street then go into someone elses then over the wall and your there. She has the blind down but you can see shapes. In the main room she cooks and reads and watches tv. I have to walk up and down and then go round the block but its quiet and nobody notices. The patio is dark and theres a wheelie bin to get behind and I dont have to worry. She walked fast but I could keep up and there were lots of people for camaflage. She didnt know. Shes just like the others.

  Delaney stopped by the Ocean Diner and looked down the alley. A couple of kitchen workers were sharing a spliff. He took a little tour of the Gate and found Sadie sitting next to a cash machine and playing carols to the queue of people waiting to draw money. Jamie was next to her, wrapped in his quilted coat, face buried.

  Delaney said, ‘Is it a good pitch?’

  ‘Some look guilty, some think I’m taking the piss. It evens out.’

  ‘The police didn’t charge you?’

  ‘Too much trouble.’

  Jamie said, ‘The Lord in His own time.’

  Delaney handed Sadie some money. He said, ‘Tell me what happened.’

  Sadie spun him a little story about the arrest, the crowded charge room, the overnight cell, the cops and their funny ways. It wasn’t entirely true, but she thought it might be what he wanted to hear. She told him about the mugging, how the woman had been so cooperative, so passive, until the men had started to leave. Then she’d called to them – bad-mouthed them, it seemed – and one had run back and hit her. Sadie laughed sourly. She said, ‘Tidings of comfort and joy.’

  Snow was settling in Jamie’s hair. He said, ‘We shall see Him. The fire and the rose will be one.’

  Stella pulled the blind in the bedroom, undressed, and stepped into the shower. She washed the residue of jet-fuel and diesel droplets and factory fallout from her hair, massaging her scalp, then stood with her back to the water-flow, head tilted, face raised, smoothing the shampoo away with both hands. She could feel the place where Delaney had snipped off a lock of her hair to show how easily that might be done – a little clump that fell short of the rest. She pressed out the soap and felt the gap under the fingers of her right hand.

  Under the fingers of her left hand.

  It was as if she had stepped off a cliff in the fog. She felt herself falling, her hands reaching to clutch and finding only the glass sides of the shower cubicle. Then she was sitting down, her breath a hard knot in her chest, the water hitting the shower tray with a sound like thunder-rain.

  She reached up to feel her hair again, her hands shaking. A clipping gone from the right side. Yes. And surely – couldn’t she feel it? – a clipping gone from the left.

  53

  In the Jumping Jacks Casino, Leon Bloss was riding his luck. He had already doubled his stake, and now he’d found a blackjack soft hand – trey, deuce, five and the ace of hearts. In a soft hand, aces count eleven. The dealer wore a badge stating that she was Louise. She had a little retroussé nose and her hair was raked back in a pony-tail so tight that it doubled as a face-lift.

  Louise flipped her hand and showed a seven and a ten, which left her with one foot on the boat and the other on the dock. She hit the seven-ten and turned a five. Bloss’s eyes, bright blue, regarded her with icy pleasure. He said, ‘I’m here to make you unhappy, Louise.’

  Bloss left his money on the baize: all of it. Louise paused slightly and glanced at him, but he shook his head: Let it ride. She shrugged, almost angry, and dealt the table another hand. Bloss caught blackjack, a diamond/club combination. No one on the table could match that sort of heat. Louise turned a pair of queens.

  Luck only holds for so long and Bloss knew that. He also knew that a winning streak is something like a freak of nature: there’s no explaining it and no holding it back. Between those two notions, caution and belief lay side by side. He split his winnings and waited for new cards. He looked up at Louise and smiled his thin-lipped smile, but she avoided his gaze.

  On the CCTV monitor his smile was slightly blurred, his eyes blank. The casino boss, Billy Souza, was watching the play along with two colleagues, a man and a woman. The man was tall and deceptively slim, given the heavy nature of his work. The woman was Arlene Pearce and she was the scrutineer. Arlene could spot within five minutes whether someone was counting cards. Everyone thinks they’ve got a system, but card-counting is the only way to beat the house short of marking, and no one gets away with that. If the counter needed to be shown the door, there were several guys on hand to do the job. One of them was the tall man sitting alongside Souza. His name was James Charles Dooley and he liked to be called JD because he felt it gave him status.

  JD had no status at all with Billy Souza. To Billy he was the hired help. They watched Bloss build twenty through five cards while Louise went tits up on the first hit. Souza leaned forward and spoke into an intercom system that connected to the House Manager’s earpiece.

  He said, ‘Relieve the dealer on Table Fifteen. Tell the punters it’s her break. Hold up the play.’ To JD he said, ‘Ask that shitheel to spare me a moment.’

  Arlene said, ‘He’s not counting, Billy.’

  ‘You’re right. He’s not a gambler, he’s a lucky hitter.’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘Oh, yes, I know him.’

  JD gave Bloss a rack to carry his chips in and walked him into Billy Souza’s office. Arlene had moved to a second, smaller room where the CCTV monitors were set up in a more utilitarian way: a room designated for observation. She shared it with the man who watched the doors and the rest rooms. In the ladies’ room, two women in designer chic were staring down at themselves in a hand mirror while they did a few lines. Billy didn’t mind, but he liked to know who was breaking the law. Knowledge is power.

  Souza flapped a hand at JD and waited until the door closed behind him before saying, ‘Hello, Leon.’ Souza’s one-time dark good looks had spread and coarsened a little with age, and you could see the grey in his hair, but he was still at the top of his game. The casino was just part of it. He had other interests, other sources of income.

  Bloss sat down with the rack of chips on his lap. He said, ‘I was on a little r
oll there, Billy.’

  ‘You’d already halved your bet. What were you going to do, halve it again?’

  ‘That’s right. Which would have left me with a grand on the table.’

  ‘Let’s see where you’d’ve got to.’

  They turned to the monitor and looked at Table Fifteen where a new dealer – a man with a chubby face and a red bow tie – was snapping cards from the shoe. A fake blonde in a rhinestone choker was sitting where Bloss had sat. The dealer turned her a ten and a three and she tapped her cards. He turned her a two and she tapped again, drawing a king.

  Souza laughed. ‘You’re up a grand, Leon.’

  ‘Her cards aren’t my cards.’

  ‘You believe in fate.’

  ‘I believe my luck is my luck. She’s got her own luck and it sucks.’

  ‘I called you a few times, Leon. I left messages.’

  ‘Which is why I’m here.’

  ‘You took your time.’ An edge had crept into Souza’s voice.

  ‘Things to do.’

  ‘Is that right? Well, there’s something I want you to do for me. You know that. We talked about that.’

  ‘I know. I’ve been preparing the ground, you know what I mean? It’s a question of timing.’

  Souza had a bottle of Scotch on his desk. He poured two glasses and pushed one across to Bloss. He said, ‘It’s perfect timing for me.’

  Bloss gave a little sigh of irritation. ‘I’m the technician here, Billy. I have to set things up my way.’

  ‘But I’m paying the bills. Paying you.’

  ‘Pay someone else, then.’ Bloss drank his Scotch in one and rapped the glass back down on the desk.

  ‘I don’t think so. We’re talking about sorting someone here. We’re talking about killing him. You think I want to run round London asking likely people if they fancy the job? We’ve worked together before, Leon. There’s an understanding.’

  ‘It’s a question of exposure, Billy. There’s a rhythm to these things.’

  Souza threw up a hand. ‘I don’t want to hear about that. Don’t tell me about that. None of my business.’ There was a silence between them, then Souza said, ‘Don’t let me down.’ The words carried a heavy freight of threat.

  ‘Give me a couple of weeks?’

  Souza shook his head. ‘I’m going to talk to him. I’m going to talk to him one last time and we’ll see where we get. My opinion? We’ll get precisely fucking nowhere. Now, you don’t need to worry about the ins and outs, Leon, it’s a need-to-know basis. But I’ll say this much. It’s a supply issue. It’s an export issue. I’ve got clients who look to me, and I look to this man. They expect me to deliver, I expect the same of him. If I’ve got to go elsewhere, I’m going to have delays, I’m going to have risk, I’m going to have expense, and I’m going to have a dissatisfied clientele.’ Souza sipped his drink. He seemed lost in thought for a moment. ‘But maybe he’ll come round.’

  Bloss laughed sourly. ‘I’ll have been to a lot of trouble for nothing if he does.’

  Souza shook his head. ‘Maybe. But I don’t think so. I think he’ll be a loose end, a loose cannon. Something fucking loose. Which cannot be allowed, Leon.’

  ‘When will you talk to him?’

  ‘Tonight. After that, I’ll let you know.’ He gestured towards the rack of chips. ‘Here’s a word of advice. Don’t take that money back to the tables. Luck’s a butterfly.’ He seemed pleased with the idea. ‘Know what I mean?’ And he fluttered the fingers of both hands.

  Arlene’s eyes flicked round the monitors and she saw Leon at the cashier’s grille. She went back into Billy Souza’s office and helped herself to a Scotch, then leaned across and kissed Billy on the mouth. It didn’t cost her anything and he liked it. He was a kisser. Sure, she thought, he was fifty-plus, but he still had his hair and not too much of a paunch, besides which money compensates for a lot.

  ‘There are no heavy-hitters in tonight,’ she told him. ‘Let’s go home.’

  He got up but gestured for her to stay. ‘I’m going out. If there’s trouble, JD will have it covered.’

  ‘I could come round later. Make some food.’

  Arlene had established herself in the bedroom; her current move was to annex the kitchen. Bedroom, kitchen, and the rest of the house would naturally follow. Wives inherited – this was her thinking.

  Souza nodded and smiled. ‘Okay. I’ll call you when I’m back.’

  He was laughing inside. He was thinking, No chance, bitch.

  54

  Stella had asked for a presence on the Strip, and a couple of two-man patrols cruised back and forth from time to time. It made the shebeen-gaffers edgy, was a definite irritation to the sex trade, and left the dealers standing alone on corners and in side streets. Frank Silano made a little tour of the pubs and clubs in the area, letting people know what all the activity meant. As soon as the cops found what they were looking for, he said, they’d be gone. And they were looking for Robert Adrian Kimber. He showed a police photo. No one knew the guy, but they all said how happy they would be to turn him in and go back to business.

  Silano had also seen his bookies, but it seemed that Kimber wasn’t a betting man.

  Maxine Hewitt had spoken to the inquiry agent, who had put the word out, but no words had come back to him.

  The dealers were silent; this wasn’t a man who used what they had to sell.

  The pimps and hookers looked at the photo and shrugged: who knows? Who would remember?

  One of the whores was called Nancy and she shook her head like the rest. The cop showing her the photo was a uniform seconded for the house-to-house, and, though he noticed that Nancy had nice tits, he didn’t catch the tight little smile on her face when she said, ‘No.’

  After two or three hours, the patrols moved on and punters on the Strip could get cut-price liquor, a wrap or a blow-job – maybe all three – just like before, while Robert Adrian Kimber sat in his room down by the crossroads and thought about how it had felt to kill Kate Reilly and how it might feel to kill someone else.

  He thought every time would be different. Different and better than the last, but no time would be quite like the first. Now he dreamed it up again, eyes closed, feeling breathless and feverish.

  Bloss sat in the room’s only other chair, drinking whisky he’d bought on his way, and watched Kimber lost in a world of blood and thrills. How lucky to have found this man, he thought, and how easy to move him from confessor to killer. It wasn’t much of a journey; it took only the smallest leap of the imagination for someone as close as Kimber had been. A nudge had been enough.

  He went into the bathroom. Kimber’s hair brush was lying by the sink. Bloss plucked a swatch of hair from the bristles and put it into an envelope, then the envelope into his pocket.

  When he went back to the main room, Kimber appeared to be sleeping. Bloss said, ‘I have to go, Bobby.’ He said, ‘We’ll talk soon.’ He waited a moment, then added, ‘I’ll call you.’

  Kimber might have nodded; might have been falling into an ever deeper sleep.

  55

  It ought to be DS Mooney. It ought to be her. She ought to be next. The next one. She walks fast but not fast enough to stop me getting something off her. A clipping. I couldnt smell scent on it but I could smell her. She sits up late and drinks. She falls asleep on the couch. I got a photo of her with the man in the resterant they were sitting by the window. He always calls me Bobby he shouldnt do that. Ive told him about following Stella and he says good but wait. He says wait before you do anything. No one calls me Bobby. She will be next I think. But different not his way not in the street where theres no time. They already broke into her flat so thats what people will think. The police. Theyll think burglars. Stella I was close enough to touch. Your next.

  56

  Billy Souza had made a call from his car, but Oscar Gribbin’s phone was off. Or else Oscar had seen Billy’s name come up on the screen and dumped the call. That made Billy angry and, since he
was already pretty annoyed with Oscar, he was edging into danger areas. Edging into the red.

  Oscar lived in a five million pound mansion off Holland Park. It was after nine in the evening and the staff had left, so no one was picking up the phone. Billy went there anyway, but the alarm system was primed and the floodlights snapped on as he approached, all of which said no one home.

  He started a tour of the casinos. He went to Irving’s and the Portland and Stars and Stripes, then he went to Aces Up and Kavanagh’s and Slowhand; he had enemies in all those places and it wasn’t a comfortable expedition. He finally found Oscar in the Palm House, about to go two grand down at craps. He had a blonde by his side who was half his age, half his weight and wearing a cocktail dress that brought to mind the words ‘cock’ and ‘tail’.

  Oscar rolled five and three followed by snake-eyes, and shrugged his shoulders. Then he saw Billy and shrugged again. They went to the bar and found a couple of seats on the horseshoe, away from the barman, away from the punters. Oscar gave the blonde a fistful of chips and sent her off to play.

  ‘I was going to call you.’

  ‘I know you were,’ Billy said. ‘But here I am.’

  Oscar was a short man with a long bank balance and the confidence that went with money. He said, ‘I was going to call to say that you’ll have to count me out, Billy. It’s been okay, we’ve all made some money, but it makes me jumpy, you know? It’s been five times now, five shipments, and sooner or later something’s going to fuck up. A Customs and Excise search, a leak from the other end, a piece of bad luck, who knows?’

  ‘You see’ – Billy spoke as if he’d been interrupted mid-sentence – ‘the thing about this kind of operation is that it takes investment money to set up and it takes time. You were part of the set-up process. You were in pole position. Seed money, it’s called. It was a sizeable amount.’