Black Widow

by Jessie Keane

Annie stood up shakily and rested her head against the cool tiles on the wall.

  ‘I need help,’ she moaned. ‘I can’t handle this.’

  ‘Yes you can. You can handle any damned thing.’

  Annie was shaking her head, her hair hanging in rat-tails around her ashen face.

  ‘No. I can’t. I need help. Get hold of Billy. Tell him to get Jimmy Bond to meet me at the Palermo and to bring the locksmith. We’re getting that fucking safe open.’

  Jimmy didn’t bring the locksmith to the Palermo. He brought a tall, ginger-haired man with a potbelly and a long, hawkish face, carrying a Gladstone bag.

  ‘What the fuck’s this?’ she demanded when they came into the office and the ginger-haired one promptly pulled out a stethoscope.

  Tony had driven her over to the Palermo, and she had twitched around the office for an hour waiting for Jimmy and the locksmith to show, and now he hadn’t brought the locksmith, and she was hopping mad with Jimmy Bond’s lack of cooperation, lack of respect, lack of giving a fuck about what happened to her and to her daughter.

  ‘Jimmy…’ she started in, furious.

  ‘This is Ginge,’ said Jimmy. ‘I didn’t think the locksmith was a good idea. We don’t know what’s in there and we don’t want the general public knowing our business, do we? Ginge is safer, he’s one of our own, he’s good on combination locks. Go to it, Ginge.’

  Ginge knelt down by the safe, pulled on a pair of thin cotton gloves, put the stethoscope in his ears and attached it to the metal beside the dial on the safe.

  ‘Jimmy,’ said Annie. ‘For God’s sake can we hurry this up?’

  Ginge half turned and held a finger to his lips.

  Fuck it all.

  Annie sat down at the desk and waited. Jimmy stood there, hands in coat pockets, waiting too.

  After ten minutes, Annie stood up.

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ she said, and left the room.

  She went downstairs, went into the deserted club, walked around. Seeing nothing. Her footsteps echoed around the place. She walked around because she couldn’t sit still. Couldn’t rest.

  Suddenly she grabbed a chair and flung it across the dance floor. Then another. Then another. Then she stopped, panting, the blood singing in her ears, her heart thudding, her hands shaking so badly she wondered if she was about to collapse.

  I’m cracking up, she thought. I’m losing it. And I can’t afford to do that.

  She drew a deep breath. Tried to steady herself, get a grip. But her mind was full of Layla.

  All she could see in her mind’s eye was Layla’s finger. All she could imagination was Layla’s suffering.

  All she wanted was the blood of these people who had hurt her baby.

  She put the chairs straight again. Sat down. Gathered herself. After twenty minutes had passed she went back upstairs to the office.

  Ginge was turning the dial and listening to the tumblers clicking over on the mechanism. Jimmy was perched on the edge of the desk. She sat down again in the big leather chair. Another five minutes passed.

  Then there was a distinct click and Ginge swung the safe door open.

  He drew back, repacking his stethoscope into his Gladstone bag, tucking away his gloves. He didn’t look inside the safe. He nodded to Annie, shook Jimmy’s hand briefly, accepted an envelope from him—no doubt an envelope stuffed with cash—and trotted off down the stairs.

  They heard the club’s outer door swing open, then close.

  They looked at each other.

  Annie stood up and went over to the open safe door. She knelt and pushed it open wide, hoping against hope. She looked back at Jimmy Bond, and he came and had a look too. She held her breath, and looked inside.

  Annie’s heart plummeted to her boots.

  The safe was empty.

  By three that afternoon, Annie was sitting in Dolly’s kitchen, looking at the closed box in the centre of the table. She’d brought Jimmy back here, put the box there on the table, told him to take a seat.

  ‘So what’s going on?’ he asked, sitting down opposite Annie. He looked at the box. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Take a look,’ said Annie.

  She was calmer now. For two hours she had raged and vomited and screeched like a wounded animal, and then she had discovered that the Palermo’s safe was empty and raged about that, but now she was calmer. Calm as sheet ice with a wild river crashing beneath it. Holding in her fear, her hatred, her despair beneath a cool shell. Occasionally a shudder racked her guts, made her stop and hold her breath and wonder if she was about to die. Despair, disbelief, grief, and rage would sweep over her like a vicious tide. But she held that in too.

  Jimmy shrugged and reached for the box.

  ‘I didn’t tell you, we did two of the Delaney places last night,’ he told her.

  ‘Right,’ said Annie flatly.

  ‘What the fuck…!’ Jimmy had casually opened the box and just as quickly he now flung it down.

  The finger rolled out on to the table, the nail like a small delicate shell, the flesh pale blue with one frayed end. You could see the bone in the centre of the digit. The stained cotton wool had come out too, and there was a piece of paper. Annie had already seen it, read it. Now Jimmy looked at her, then picked up the little note. It said in block capitals: ENJOY THE GIFT. CATCH UP WITH YOU A MONTH ON FRIDAY.

  ‘Someone left that on the doorstep,’ said Annie.

  ‘Fucking hell,’ said Jimmy.

  ‘I need help with this, Jimmy. They’re asking for big money, and somehow I’ve got to find it. There was fuck-all in the safe, so I’m going to have to look elsewhere.’

  Jimmy sat back. ‘How big?’

  ‘Half a million.’

  ‘Jeez.’

  ‘I thought of selling the clubs,’ said Annie.

  ‘You can’t do that.’

  Annie’s mouth twisted in a ghost of a smile. She looked at the severed finger on the table. So tiny.

  ‘I can do whatever the fuck I like, Jimmy. Remember? I’m Annie Carter. Max Carter’s wife.’ Widow, she amended to herself. ‘But even if I sold the clubs, even if that’s possible and I don’t think it is, because there must be legalities involved, and where the fuck would I find the paperwork for that? And anyway it wouldn’t be anywhere near enough. So what’s the point?’

  ‘So what’s the plan?’

  The plan, since she didn’t know where Max had his wealth stashed and had very little of her own, was simple—she was going to have to get out there with her begging bowl.

  ‘Max had friends,’ she said to Jimmy. ‘Powerful friends. Rich friends. I can remember when the clubs were heaving with celebrities and minor royals and members of Parliament, all Max’s friends.’

  Jimmy snorted.

  ‘You really think any of those bastards would help you out of a corner? You got another think coming.’

  ‘He was in tight with the Americans. They came over and they were doing regular business with Max, he was protecting their venues up West. They were tight.’

  Jimmy shook his head.

  ‘You don’t go cap in hand to those people,’ he said. ‘You’ll be in debt to them forever.’

  Annie’s eyes were glittering with purpose as she stared across the table at him.

  ‘They’re letting me sweat for a month. Playing with me. Taunting me. Sending me bits of my baby girl. Okay. So we’ve got time. Time enough to contact the Barolli family and ask for help. Maybe use the clubs for security. Queenie’s old place too.’

  Queenie was Max’s mother, long dead. Killed, it was always said, by the Delaney mob in a hit that had been a step too far. Queenie’s death had sparked a gang war. Annie would never forget it.

  Jimmy was shaking his head.

  ‘You don’t know what you’re suggesting,’ he told her.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Annie. ‘I do.’

  ‘No you don’t.’ Jimmy thumped the table. The finger jumped. Annie flinched visibly. Muttering ‘for fuck’s sake’, he pick
ed it up gingerly and placed it back in its box, putting the cotton wool and the note in too, and replacing the lid.

  Then he sat back and looked at Annie.

  ‘You think this is a bad thing?’ Jimmy indicated the box. ‘This is nothing. This is nothing to what the Barolli family would do if you ever tried to shaft them on a deal, I’m telling you. These people are Mafia. Once you’re in debt to them, you’re fucked.’

  Annie nodded. Then she stood up, rested her fists on the table, and looked first at the box with its pathetic, fragile contents, and then directly at Jimmy. Jimmy thought she looked, in that moment, crazy. Totally freaked. Capable of anything.

  ‘Look at me, Jimmy,’ she told him. ‘Two good friends of mine have been hit. My brother-in-law has been hit. My husband too. And now someone is sending me bits of my daughter, my own flesh and blood, Jimmy. Now tell me.’ She leaned in closer. ‘Do you seriously think I give a monkey’s fuck about what happens to me? Do you seriously think I’m afraid of doing business with the Barollis?’

  Now she was laughing, and he wondered if she really had gone mad, whether all this had finally made her crack wide open. Suddenly she stopped laughing and her eyes skewered him where he sat.

  ‘Look at me, Jimmy. I’m dead already, dead and buried. All I want now is for Layla to be safe. Beyond that, who gives a shit?’

  ‘I can’t okay this,’ said Jimmy.

  Annie fumbled at the chain around her neck, couldn’t find the clasp because her fingers were shaking too much. She grabbed the chain and pulled it, breaking it. Max’s ring fell on to the table and lay beside the pitiful little white box containing his daughter’s finger. Annie grabbed the ring and flung it at Jimmy Bond.

  ‘You think I need your approval? Think again. You get your arse out of here right now,’ she ordered, ‘and tell Constantine Barolli I want a meet and that it’s urgent, like life or death, you got that? Now!’

  26

  With Jimmy gone, there was nothing for Annie to do. Seething and restless, she took the box, gold locket, and broken chain upstairs to Dolly’s bedroom. Dolly had let her stay in here, refusing all Annie’s offers to move into one of the other rooms, or even to kip down on the sofa in the front parlour.

  ‘Stay where you are,’ Dolly had told her. ‘You’ve got enough on your plate as it is, you might as well be comfortable.’

  Annie went in, shutting the door behind her, keeping the world out. She lay on the bed with the little box on her chest, and wondered what sort of animals she was dealing with here. Wondered what Layla had suffered, and what she was suffering now.

  Maddened, groaning at the images that were crashing about in her brain, she turned her head into the pillow and curled up into a ball and screwed her eyes shut, trying to block it out.

  But she couldn’t.

  Because Layla didn’t have that luxury.

  And if Layla was suffering, then she was suffering too.

  Got to get a grip. For Layla.

  But there was a horror movie running in her brain and she was caught up in it, unable to get free.

  A living nightmare.

  Annie sat up. Couldn’t rest. Couldn’t even think. Had to do something. Walk, or yell, or something.

  She picked up the box with shaking hands. Looked at it, and at the broken chain, the fallen heart. Love you forever, the inscription said. Max had bought it for her. Love you forever.

  Her life was officially in the toilet. She felt the beginnings of a scream building at the back of her throat. Turning, she swept the brush set from the top of the dresser with one hard swipe. Dolly’s treasured silver-backed brush set.

  Shit, she thought, and instantly fell to her knees and scrabbled about. The brush and comb were okay, but the mirror, had she broken the hand mirror? That was seven years’ bad luck. Her heart was in her mouth; she felt sick with panic now.

  No. It was still in one piece.

  Dimly aware that tears of terror and despair were slipping down her face, she carefully picked up the brush set and placed it with trembling fingers back on on the dresser.

  Sorry, Doll.

  She looked in the large dressing-table mirror. Saw her own haggard reflection there and barely recognized herself. Angrily, she brushed the tears away, picked up one of Dolly’s lippies from the dresser and quickly rubbed some colour into her cheeks and applied it to her mouth.

  She looked again at her reflection.

  Better, she thought. Not a fucking mark on me.

  She raised a mirthless smile at the woman in the mirror. Then she went back to the bed and sat down. Gently, she opened the box.

  Careful not to disturb its gruesome contents, she tucked the broken chain and the gold heart in beside Layla’s finger. Then she slipped the box into her pocket, pushed her hair back out of her eyes, and took a breath. Stood up. Went to the door. Opened it and went out on to the landing, closing the door softly behind her.

  ‘Fuck, not you again,’ said Una, wandering past wearing her white PVC outfit and trailing her feral scent of cheap perfume and stale sweat. ‘Thought you’d be gone by now.’

  Annie turned and stared at her. Una was six and a half feet tall in her four-inch heels, staring straight back with her weirdly pale blue eyes, the pupils dilated.

  Druggie, thought Annie.

  Annie suddenly felt very calm. ‘No, you lucked out,’ she said. ‘I’m still here.’

  Una stopped walking. ‘You see, there it is again. That attitude.’ Una turned and came back to where Annie stood near the top of the stairs.

  Una leaned in very close to Annie’s face. Not a pleasant experience.

  Annie locked eyes with the bigger woman, aware that there was movement along the landing, near Darren’s room. Ellie had come out to see what was going on, and Darren now followed.

  ‘Annie’s upset,’ Darren said too loudly to Una, nerves making his voice harsh. ‘She’s had bad news about her daughter, Una, go easy…’

  Una turned her head and looked at Darren. He fell silent.

  ‘She don’t know the meaning of bad news yet,’ said Una. ‘But if she keeps up with this attitude of hers, she’s going to find out.’

  Darren looked uncomfortable. Ellie was silent, watching.

  Trust Ellie not to put herself in harm’s way for a friend, thought Annie.

  In the end, all you had was yourself. Hadn’t she learned that over the years? You had to fight your corner. You had to dig deep, and stand alone.

  Una’s head turned back and her eyes were on Annie again. Her face was close to Annie’s. Trying to intimidate me, thought Annie, almost amused.

  Annie’s brow hit Una square in the nose and the blonde reeled back, blood spurting out. She slammed up against the wall and then tried to turn to the side, clutching at the top banister, hand slipping, blinded by sudden and unexpected pain.

  Into Annie’s brain came Max’s words: ‘If you get in a fight, finish it. Don’t stop until they’re down and no longer a danger to you. Get them down, and make sure they stay down.’

  Annie brought Tony’s kiyoga up out of her pocket in a high arc, whacking Una’s shoulder, knocking her off balance. Una tumbled backwards and shot down the stairs, end over end, coming to rest at the bottom. Ross stood there, open-mouthed, looking down at the toppled blonde.

  He looked up.

  Annie came down the stairs like the wrath of God and threw herself on to the squirming woman’s chest. She gave Una a hard smack on the side of the face with the kiyoga and felt the woman’s screams reverberate around the house. Then she grabbed her waistcoat and shook her violently, cracking Una’s head on the floor, before she spoke.

  ‘Now listen,’ said Annie as Darren and Ellie came pounding down the stairs and stopped near to where the toppled Una lay sprawled beneath her.

  Annie gave the woman another vicious shake.

  ‘You’ve broken my fucking nose…’ burbled Una, blood and tears all over her face.

  ‘I’ll break your fucking neck next time,’ A
nnie promised her. ‘Now, are you listening? Nod if you are, or are you so spaced out you don’t understand me? Because if you don’t, I’ll spell it out r-e-a-l-l-y s-l-o-w-l-y for you.’

  Una nodded, wincing.

  ‘Good. Now listen. You got another single word you want to say to me, you write me a fucking letter, okay? You don’t talk to me, not a single word. You got that, you cheeky cow? You keep out of my way, that’s all you need to do, and we’ll get along just fine. And you don’t give my friends a hard time or you’ll be very sorry. You watch your behaviour with them, you got that? Nod yes, you still with me?’

  Annie gave Una another shake.

  ‘Now you show Dolly respect,’ Annie went on. ‘She’s the boss here, not you. You remember that and act accordingly. Got it?’

  Una groaned.

  ‘Got it?’ Annie gave her another shake.

  ‘All right, I got it,’ Una moaned.

  ‘I hear any more trouble coming from you and you’re out that door and walking the streets. So you keep a really low profile now and everything will be just fine. Yes?’

  A shake.

  ‘Yes,’ mumbled Una.

  ‘See, now was that so hard?’ Annie dropped the waistcoat and Una’s head thumped back on to the floor.

  Annie stood up and looked at Ross.

  ‘Help her get cleaned up,’ she said, and walked off into the front room and shut the door behind her.

  Darren and Ellie looked at the groaning and bleeding Una, who was being dragged upright by Ross. Then they glanced at each other.

  ‘See that?’ said Darren. ‘Told you she still had it.’

  27

  Jimmy Bond was back two days later. He found Annie in the kitchen and she went straight to work.

  ‘So, what’s the news with Barolli?’ she asked urgently.

  ‘That’s what I came here to talk about.’

  ‘Okay, so talk.’

  Jimmy sat down and stared at her across the table.

  ‘This is a dangerous thing you’re thinking of doing,’ he said carefully.

  Annie shot out an exasperated breath.

  ‘Jimmy, we’ve had this conversation.’

  ‘Yeah, but Annie—’