Black Widow

by Jessie Keane

  This is the deal, she told herself firmly. Her teeth were gritted so hard she felt her jaw start to ache.

  Constantine pushed the dress from her shoulders and it fell to the floor.

  She was wearing a black bra, black panties, stockings, suspender belt. And her high-heeled shoes and supple leather gloves. She made to pull them off.

  ‘No—keep the gloves on,’ said Constantine. ‘And the shoes.’

  Annie stood there, not knowing what to do next, feeling like a stupid virgin, feeling as if she was going to really freak in a second. Jesus, what if he was kinky? What if he was into rough stuff or something like that? She wasn’t Aretha. She couldn’t deal with this. She was Max’s wife.

  ‘Lie down on the couch, Mrs Carter,’ said Constantine.

  Oh God. This was it.

  Annie sat down on the couch, the cold leather striking the undersides of her thighs and making her shiver. She glanced up, and Constantine was shrugging off his jacket, undoing his tie, unbuttoning his shirt.

  Oh shit.

  She looked down at the expensive rug beneath her feet. Braced herself. Swung her legs up on to the couch and lay back, eyes closed. If she watched him undress then she really would have an attack of the screaming abdabs and she knew it.

  She couldn’t open her eyes. She just couldn’t do it. No. She’d let him get on with it, a couple of minutes and it would all be over, he’d be happy and she’d be on her road to the half-million-pound payout. She just had to stop thinking about Max, with his dark hair and swarthy skin and his hooked nose…fuck it, and here she was thinking about Max again, and this was a totally inappropriate time to do it.

  She was about to allow a stranger to fuck her for money.

  ‘Mrs Carter,’ Constantine said softly against her ear.

  ‘What?’ asked Annie, her eyes tight shut.

  ‘Mrs Carter, I don’t have any appetite for rape. You want to call this off?’

  Now Annie opened her eyes. Jesus, no, she couldn’t let that happen. She couldn’t call it off. She couldn’t allow him to find her anything less than appealing. For Layla.

  Constantine was half-smiling down at her. He had taken his shirt off and she could feel the masculine heat coming off him, warming her even though she did not want to be warmed. He had curls of crisp hair on his broad and well-muscled chest. His all-American tan didn’t stop at his neck. She brought her eyes hastily back up to his face.

  ‘No, I’m all right.’

  Shattered, brokenhearted, devastated, but all right.

  ‘Good,’ he said, and bent his head and kissed her. Then he drew back.

  Annie opened her eyes and looked at his face, very close to hers. He was frowning.

  She swallowed nervously. ‘What?’ she asked. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Nothing. It’s nothing,’ he said, and bent his head and kissed her again. Deeper this time, a proper, hot-blooded, tongues-and-everything kiss.

  Oh Jesus, thought Annie.

  Then he stopped again.

  She opened her eyes. He was still frowning, staring down at her.

  Suddenly Constantine pulled back. He got off the couch, stood up and began yanking his clothes on.

  ‘What the…?’ Annie sat up, staring at him. He zipped up his trousers and turned to face her.

  She took a gulp of air and tried again. ‘Did I do something wrong? Something you didn’t like?’

  His face was closed, unreadable. ‘No. Nothing.’ He was putting on his shirt, buttoning it closed, tucking the tails in.

  ‘Wait!’

  Now Annie jumped to her feet, running her hands through her hair in desperation, her eyes wild with alarm as she saw him withdrawing from her. Layla’s life depended on her doing this. She had to do this.

  ‘Tell me what I did,’ she babbled, trying to speak calmly, but panic was making her voice come out all wrong. ‘Just tell me, I won’t do it again.’

  ‘You didn’t do anything wrong,’ said Constantine, slipping on his jacket.

  But he looked angry. Furious.

  She couldn’t afford to let him be furious.

  ‘Look, you said you wanted this,’ she said breathlessly, trying to sound reasonable, trying to coax him back to her somehow.

  He stopped tying his tie and looked at her.

  ‘I did,’ he said, thinking that she was beautiful, that she was everything any man could want in a woman, that he’d wanted her fiercely ever since she’d first walked into his study. So fiercely that he’d lost all pretence of finesse and issued what amounted to a very indecent proposal indeed. So fiercely that he’d misjudged her and—worse—himself. He knew he’d blown his chances with her, right out of the water. He’d been a bloody fool.

  And now here he was—feeling lower than a snake’s belly, knowing that he was the world’s biggest son of a bitch because in her despair she had agreed to this mad scheme, had agreed to fucking well prostitute herself, to save her child.

  He knew he was no saint. He’d grown up fast the hard way, running numbers in Queens, dealing with scum, seeing what desperation could do to people. And now he could see what it was doing to her, and he didn’t like it one little bit.

  ‘So here it is,’ said Annie, her voice shaking with the effort of remaining calm. ‘You wanted this, you got it. Come on. Take what you want, take anything, I don’t care.’

  Constantine just stood there, looking at her for long moments. But I do, he thought.

  He’d believed he could handle this. Mentally and physically. But his mind, his conscience, was telling him otherwise, and now his body was telling him the same thing. He just couldn’t do it.

  He turned away from her, back towards the desk. ‘Go away,’ he said. ‘Go home.’

  Annie ran forward and grabbed his arm, forcing him to stop, to look at her.

  ‘You can’t do this,’ she said furiously. ‘For fuck’s sake, listen to me! You can’t.’

  Constantine coolly removed her hand from his arm. ‘I can do anything I want, Mrs Carter. Now get the hell out of here.’

  Annie stood there, defeated. It was no good. It was finished. Moving like a sleepwalker, she gathered up her clothes, dressed as fast as she could. He unlocked the door—still ignoring her. When she left, he said nothing.

  When Constantine heard the front door close behind her, he picked up the phone, ran a hand through his hair, let out a heartfelt sigh.

  Hey, he thought angrily, what’s the deal here? Am I finally going soft or some-fucking-thing?

  When the phone was answered, his voice was calm, rock steady.

  ‘I want that girl back with her mother,’ he told the man on the other end of the phone. ‘What’s the hold-up?’

  ‘We’re doing everything we can, you know that,’ said Nico.

  ‘Do more. Break some heads. Do whatever it takes.’

  ‘Hey, you got it.’

  ‘I mean it, Nico. Step it up a gear.’

  ‘Will do, Boss.’

  And in the meantime, he would get the cash together for Friday. Just in case Nico failed.

  54

  Annie got back to Dolly’s place an hour later, feeling like there was no hope left in the world, none whatsoever.

  Now she had another thing to add to the list of things she didn’t have the bottle for. She was cursing herself for her stupidity. She had behaved more like a frightened virgin than an experienced woman of the world and she hated herself for it. She was sure that her stupid behaviour had put him off—after all, what normal man wanted to feel that he was having to force himself on a woman?

  She should have behaved like an adult about the whole thing. It was a bit of business, that was all. She should have kept her nerve. But now look. Because of her, Layla had no hope of salvation at all. Her daughter would die because she still didn’t have the cash, and that was because she couldn’t bring herself to sleep with Constantine.

  Disgusted with herself, she went into the kitchen after saying a curt goodnight to Tony. Darren, Ellie, Aret
ha and her husband, man-mountain Chris, were all around the table, laughing and joking and drinking tea being poured out by Dolly. They were all enjoying their weekend.

  ‘Hi, Annie, come on in, don’t stand there in the hall with your mouth open,’ said Dolly.

  She reluctantly complied. She really wanted to crawl off into the hole that Dolly’s bedroom had become and be alone with her misery. But everyone was around the table making a huge effort, trying to cheer her up even though they knew it was damned near impossible, and she was standing there like Banquo’s bloody ghost at the feast.

  Annie pasted a smile on her face and went in, closing the hall door behind her.

  No Una, thank God. Una didn’t do friendly gatherings, she just did intimidation. Chris pulled out a chair for her and a slice of cake was placed in front of her. Annie nearly gagged at the thought of even taking a mouthful.

  ‘Long time no see, Annie,’ said Chris. ‘Aretha told me you’re having some trouble. If there’s anything…?’

  ‘No.’ Annie sat down and he sat too. ‘There’s nothing you can do.’

  Nothing anyone can do, except me. And like a prize idiot I wouldn’t do it, she berated herself furiously. And now that option’s gone.

  Christ, she’d made herself look like such a twat. It was her fault that Constantine had pulled back. All she’d had to do was be seductive. She was a woman, for Christ’s sake, how hard could it have been?

  Everything was her fault.

  For Dolly’s sake she nibbled at the cake, although she really felt like throwing up, like screaming, like crying her fucking eyes out. The happy chatter was going on all around her, and there she was in the middle of it all, feeling that she was in a dark and terrible place, lonely and afraid.

  Her friends were concerned, but they couldn’t help. There was no prospect of help coming from any quarter. It could only have come from herself, when she did something that seemed to her to be a betrayal of all that she had once held dear. But now that ship had sailed.

  She tuned into the conversation, if only to distract herself from the horror story she was living in right now, and was immediately plunged back into it.

  ‘Told Chris about Billy,’ said Dolly.

  ‘Oh.’ Annie gulped. The thought of Billy lying in a bloodied heap was still so raw in her mind.

  ‘Some sick bastards around,’ said Chris solemnly.

  Annie and Dolly exchanged a look. It wasn’t the only horrendous thing that had happened here. Annie thought of the death of Max’s brother, and the night when Pat Delaney had come at her, intending murder.

  ‘The funeral’s Monday,’ said Dolly, her eyes still on Annie’s face. ‘I’m going, if you want to come along…?’

  She didn’t want to go. The very last thing in the world Annie wanted was to stand at Billy’s graveside. But she knew she must pay her respects; say that final, awful goodbye.

  Monday! Five days then until Friday, five days during which Layla’s fate would be decided once and for all.

  Oh shit, she thought.

  ‘Yeah. I’ll come,’ she said.

  Dolly nodded her approval and raised her cup of tea. ‘Let’s give a toast to Billy Black,’ she said.

  Everyone raised theirs too. ‘To Billy,’ they mumbled, and drank.

  And then, thank God, Dolly dropped that subject and started talking to Chris about what a good doorman he’d been, and that he ought to go back to it.

  ‘You really think he should do that?’ Aretha asked hopefully. She hated Chris working the graveyard shift night in, night out.

  ‘Not a chance,’ said Chris. ‘I’d rather get back in the ring than be a doorman again.’

  Chris had relished his time in the boxing ring, but you had to know when enough was enough or you’d end up punchy, fucked-up for life. Annie looked at him. He was no oil painting, even though he’d quit the ring a long time ago. Chris was bald, with a matching set of cauliflower ears and a nose to make a plastic surgeon weep. But it was his manner that appealed. He was hard but fair with men, kind and considerate with women. A regular gentleman. No wonder Aretha had married him before someone else snapped him up. No wonder Ellie still looked at him that way.

  ‘It’s easy money,’ said Ross, their current doorman, who had come to stand in the open kitchen doorway. He didn’t even look at Annie, and since Redmond’s visit had not addressed a single civil word to her.

  Fuck him, she thought.

  ‘Being a doorman’s a piece of piss,’ Ross said to Chris.

  Dolly looked at Ross. ‘Oh yeah? Am I paying you too much?’

  Ross grinned. ‘You know what I mean, Doll. Not much trouble. Easy money.’

  Ellie was diving into the cake, shooting furtive glances at Chris.

  Still got the hots for him, thought Annie. Poor cow.

  Annie glanced at Aretha—stunning, black, not a spare pound on her. Stiff competition. Ellie was well outgunned.

  The doorbell rang and Ross went back into the hall, closing the kitchen door behind him.

  ‘Yeah, but you liked it here, didn’t you?’ said Darren to Chris. ‘We’ve always had a good bunch of girls here.’ He gave a coy smile and suddenly Darren was like he used to be, not the sickly-looking individual he had become. ‘And boys of course.’

  Chris nodded. ‘It was good. But security work’s easier.’

  ‘Yeah, but permanent nights.’ Aretha pulled a face. ‘Girl gets lonely.’

  ‘Yeah, but good pay. No hassle.’

  This sounded like a conversation the two of them had had many times before. Chris was happy in his job; Aretha was feeling bored and neglected and that was why she had come back to work at Dolly’s. Not that Chris seemed to mind too much. He knew the woman he was getting; he was clearly under no illusions about his exotic-looking wife.

  ‘Think I told you,’ said Dolly to Annie, ‘Chris does nights at the trading estate at Heathrow.’

  Did you? Annie couldn’t remember. Her brain was befuddled by all the shit being heaped on her day by day.

  ‘What, looking after stuff before it’s shipped abroad?’ asked Annie, trying to take an interest.

  ‘Yeah, that’s it. We get big consignments in. Huge amounts of stuff.’

  ‘And real good stuff too,’ Aretha looked across at Annie with eyes alight with simple girlish greed. ‘Gold sometimes. Real bars of gold. What they called? Ingots. Ingots of gold.’

  There was a chorus of wows and sighs from around the table.

  Chris was smiling and shaking his head. ‘That’s rare,’ he said, looking fondly across at Aretha. ‘They store it sometimes at Heathrow and then transport it to Gatwick; it’s usually headed for banks and businesses in Hong Kong. But mostly we just get the dosh coming through.’

  ‘Yeah, but it’s dosh by the bucketload,’ said Aretha excitedly. ‘More money than you can count, I heard.’

  ‘Yeah, you heard,’ said Chris, smiling across at her.

  Suddenly Annie felt as though she’d been punched in the chest. Her breathing had shut down. She looked at Chris. She worked some spittle into her mouth and managed to get the words out.

  ‘How much are we talking here? A few thousand? Half a mill?’

  Chris shook his head. ‘Couple of million’s the usual amount. Sometimes more.’

  Sometimes more.

  But she only needed half a million pounds. She thought of Constantine Barolli. She had nearly sold her soul to him, in order to get her hands on the cash to rescue Layla. But now maybe she wouldn’t have to. Maybe Chris had just given her the get-out clause she needed. A couple of million pounds, sitting in a depot at Heathrow Airport.

  ‘And that sort of amount’s there now? Right now?’ she asked.

  Chris looked at her. Nodded.

  ‘We could take it,’ she said suddenly, surprising herself.

  Everyone looked at her.

  ‘Oh sure,’ said Chris, thinking she was joking.

  He turned away and chatted to Dolly, but his eyes kept whipping b
ack to Annie’s, as if to say: Did you mean that? Are you crazy?

  Annie meant it all right.

  She was a desperate woman.

  Her eyes told him so.

  55

  It was impossible, of course. When she thought about it later, when she got Chris on his own and got the full details, when she really thought it through and tried to make sense of it, she knew it was madness. Talking about hitting a secure depot and running off with the cash—what a joke. She couldn’t risk a jail term. She’d stood in the dock once before and only Max pulling strings had got her out of a very sticky situation that time.

  This time there was no Max to tug her arse out of the mire at the last minute.

  This time, she would go down for sure.

  If she got caught.

  But maybe she wouldn’t.

  On the other hand—maybe she would.

  The idea of the heist kept plaguing her, even though she knew it was crazy. She had the boys, Max’s boys: they’d been out on the rob and on the heavy game—their term for armed robbery—many times before, and Max with them. They were handy men, hard men, and they would know how to tackle a job like this; they would know where to get experts in to assist, what the snags would be, what could go wrong.

  She had to face that. Anything could go wrong. But they had the advantage of an insider, and her years with Max had taught her that inside knowledge, inside help, was key to a good job. But would Chris co-operate? He’d looked at her dubiously when she had sounded him out. Chris liked a quiet, orderly life. And if he did the job with Max’s boys he would have to get out of the country afterwards, which he wasn’t keen on, or face a lengthy jail term, which he was even less keen on, and anyway, how would Aretha like any of those apples?

  No. It was impossible.

  Even though Chris had agreed—reluctantly—-to talk it through again, it was impossible.

  There were so many things against them. For example, what if the money was marked in some way? What if for some reason the full amount wasn’t there, and she was left with all the shit from the heist but still without the huge amount of cash she’d need to pacify the kidnappers?