by Dan Kavanagh
‘In the same way as Parliament is stuffed with murderers who are frightened for their necks?’
‘Very good, Mr Duffy. I was beginning to be afraid that this was turning into a monologue. Yes, you’re quite right, my comparison does not extend all the way. But I’m sure I’m right about the homosexuals in Parliament. I remember one I was at school with. Frightful fellow. Always off behind the cricket pavilion. He’s an M.P. now – completely safe Tory seat somewhere up in hunting country. Now if his constituents knew, I bet there’d be an awful scandal.’ He paused, and seemed to ponder. ‘You see, what chaps like you don’t understand, Duffy, is that the British people hate bents. They really do. Think of all the nasty names they have for them. There aren’t any nice names, are there? Give me a nice name, Mr Duffy.’
‘Gay.’
‘Gay?’ Eddie chuckled. ‘You don’t look very gay to me, Mr Duffy. You’ve never looked very gay to me. I shouldn’t think you looked very gay when the coppers had to come and kick your door in to rescue that poor unfortunate youth from your clutches. I understand he was a black kid as well. That does seem to me to be taking a very unfair advantage, Mr Duffy.’
‘Was he working for you, Martoff? Or did you subcontract?’
‘I couldn’t possibly tell you a thing like that. Anyway, I don’t employ queers.’
Not even twenty-five year old black ones who look younger and can act like the Royal Shakespeare Company, thought Duffy.
‘Still, I don’t want to get drawn into discussing the wider social questions which might be raised by you being bent. We could go on all night once we embarked on such subjects. One issue simply leads on to another.’
‘Has anyone ever told you you ought to go on Any Questions?’
‘What a charming thought. I wonder how you get on to the panel?’
‘I think the normal way is to blackmail a few radio producers and stab their wives.’
‘Duffy, you are a witty fellow. You know, I’m rather enjoying our conversation.’ Eddy smiled again. He was a keen smiler. ‘But anyway, I suppose, since I seem to have you currently rather at a disadvantage, that I’d better ask why you are still soiling my pavement with your presence? I thought I told you, quite plainly and clearly, to avoid walking on my streets.’ Eddy wasn’t smiling any more. ‘I seem to remember instructing you in copper language, so that even you would be able to understand, to get off my patch.’
‘You burnt down my client’s warehouse,’ said Duffy.
‘Ah,’ said Eddy. ‘I think that’s rather jumping to conclusions, don’t you? I should imagine that if there were a third person here, I could probably sue you for slander. Yes, I’m sure I could. Not that I’d get much money out of you, I suppose. You haven’t got private means by any chance, Duffy?’
‘You must be joking.’
‘Well, I am really. So there wouldn’t be much point in suing you. I’d merely end up with my own legal costs to pay. Suing you really would be like trying to get blood out of a stone.’
‘What did you want to burn McKechnie’s warehouse down for? You won’t get any money out of him that way. All those King Kong masks and novelties and hats going up in smoke. I can’t understand you, Eddy. What sort of money do you think McKechnie can get for a load of charred kids’ toys?’
It was the only way Duffy could think of to play it. Not exactly play the innocent, that never fooled anybody. But play the smartass who doesn’t really know as much as his opponent. People enjoyed outwitting smartasses.
‘Duffy, I repeat, I did not “burn McKechnie’s warehouse down”. Unless you want to get into trouble we had better adopt the formula “McKechnie’s warehouse burnt down”. The intransitive mood, please, it’s much less contentious.’
‘Well, now that his warehouse has burnt down, he’s going to have even less money to pay you off with. I can’t understand why you did it – sorry, I’ll rephrase that – I can’t see that the sad loss of one of my client’s warehouses will produce any immediate benefit for you.’
‘Very well done, Mr Duffy. I’m talking of your language, of course, not your thinking.’
‘What’s he got now? Just another warehouse packed with toys and novelties. That’s all his capital assets. Plus a rented office. You might make him, I mean, he might decide to scram and, er, sell out to you. But what good is a burnt-out warehouse to anyone?’
Suddenly Duffy saw what he should have seen earlier. Insurance. Of course, that was it. When he first set up business he used to tell clients that the best security they could buy themselves was insurance. Naturally, McKechnie’s stock would be insured. So, instead of pushing for a hundred quid a fortnight or whatever, Eddy helps McKechnie liquidise half his assets in one go by burning down his warehouse. McKechnie gets the insurance money, and Eddy demands it all, presumably under threat of something very nasty happening. Eddy also agrees to take over the lease of the warehouse, or what is left of it, on terms not too disfavourable to himself.
The only trouble with this idea was that the warehouse was full of porn. Insurance companies would hardly pay for the replacement of that stock-in-trade. So McKechnie wouldn’t get any money. No: more likely, Duffy realised, was that only parts of the warehouse were full of porn. McKechnie probably ran a legit business as well for the sake of cover. Most of them did. So what happened if his warehouse burnt down was that he got compensated by the insurance company for the loss of his legitimate stock, and – with a little encouragement from Eddy – he got prosecuted by the coppers for his cache of Colour Climax. McKechnie ended up with cash to hand over to Eddy and got the push from the coppers at the same time. And all for the price of a box of Swan Vestas. If that was how he’d worked it, it was bloody clever. But would Eddy have known what was in the warehouse beforehand? Well, his slogan was ‘Knowledge is Power’; Duffy wouldn’t have put it past him.
The last thing Duffy wanted to do, though, was let on to Eddy what his guesses were. His best hope was to carry on playing the dimwit smartass to the end.
‘Or maybe you want to build on the site of the warehouse?’
It was the sort of idiot’s suggestion which appealed to Eddy. He chuckled to himself.
‘I’m afraid you simply don’t understand business, Mr Duffy.’ And then, indulgently, ‘I might want to build on it at some future date, yes, that could be a possibility.’
Eddy appeared to be thinking. His grip on the garrotte slackened a little. The wires round Duffy’s rig relaxed a bit.
‘I think I must consider what to do with you,’ he finally said. ‘My father always told me as a boy that a rushed decision was usually a wrong decision. I shall have to think about you for a bit, Duffy. You’ll bear with me, of course. Georgiou,’ he shouted.
The door opened and the plump ginger head of Eddy’s Number Two appeared. He smiled at Duffy.
‘Still looking for the pisser, mate?’
Duffy shook his head.
‘Go through his clothes.’
Georgiou searched Duffy’s clothes and pronounced them clean. The garrotte was carefully unwound and he was ordered to dress. Duffy vaguely thought of rushing them, but the possibilities of success seemed slim. They seemed even slimmer when the door opened again and Jeggo came in.
‘Ah, Mr Jeggo,’ said Eddy, ‘been out practising our pick-ups, have we?’
Jeggo scowled. He produced a pair of handcuffs.
‘Yes, Mr Duffy,’ said Eddy, ‘I’m afraid we’re going to have to handcuff you to take you to, well, to somewhere else. Would you put your hands behind your back, please?’
Duffy did as he was told. Jeggo clipped the handcuffs on and racked them up tightly. As he did so he whispered into Duffy’s ear,
‘Kill you, asshole.’
‘Jeggo,’ said Georgiou, ‘you’re not threatening Mr Duffy, are you?’
Jeggo turned round.
‘Copper in cuffs,’ he said, and laughed.
They led Duffy along the passage past the other massage cubicles, and out through a
back door. Duffy looked around him – it was a change to discard his punter’s droop – and worked out where they were going. Across a courtyard, through a garden, past the back yard of a pub – that must be the Duke of Hamilton – left through a gate, and out into another garden, flagged this time. They walked him across to a back door, through a kitchen, up some stairs, and pushed him ahead of them into a side room. There were three beaten-up armchairs in it, plus a table; a calendar with a view of the Lake District hung at an angle on one wall.
‘I really must do something about the furniture in here,’ Eddy commented. ‘It’s just too depressing. And the lighting. We must stop all this central lighting we’ve got everywhere, Georgiou.’
Georgiou nodded in agreement. He waved Duffy across to an armchair. He and Jeggo took the other two, while Martoff closed the door and went away. Jeggo was in the armchair immediately opposite him, staring at him with a sort of contented hostility. Duffy felt he just wanted a rest after his ordeal in the parlour. He didn’t feel like baiting Jeggo. In any case, it hardly seemed fair to bait Jeggo. In two meetings he’d revealed a vocabulary of barely a dozen words, at least five of which were the same word: ‘asshole’. While he was thinking about this, Jeggo suddenly revealed a new corner of his vocabulary.
‘You a Norman?’
Duffy hadn’t been looking at him and didn’t pay any attention to the remark. Jeggo got up slowly and kicked him on the ankle. Then he sat down again and repeated,
‘You a Norman?’
Duffy looked across at Georgiou for elucidation. Georgiou smiled. It must have been a trick he had caught from his boss.
‘I think you’ll have to explain,’ Georgiou said.
‘You a Norman?’ Jeggo repeated again. ‘A Norman Scott? You queer, copper? You are queer, aren’t you? Whatcher wearing that earring for if you aren’t queer?’
Duffy didn’t reply. None of the standard replies seemed appropriate, and with his hands manacled behind his back he didn’t feel much like provoking Jeggo into taking free kicks at his ankles.
‘Hey, Georgiou, the copper’s a Norman. We’ve caught ourselves a Norman. Haw, haw.’ For the first time in their brief acquaintance, Duffy noticed Jeggo showing signs of pleasure. He was becoming positively lively. Almost companionable. ‘I wouldn’t be in your boots, copper. Mr Eddy doesn’t like Normans. He doesn’t like coppers much either, but he hates Normans. I bet he’s thinking up something really special for you. Haw, haw.’
Duffy didn’t reply. He also tried to keep his mind off the garrotte.
‘Shall I tell him, Georgiou? Shall I tell him some of the things Mr Eddy’s thought up?’
‘If you like, Jeggo, we’ve got time to kill.’
‘We’ve got assholes to kill as well.’ Jeggo seemed to be reverting to his more usual theme. Duffy waited. There wasn’t any alternative to waiting.
‘I remember we had a Norman once. We let him run a little restaurant. Our mistake, really. What did he do? Hired a load of queers as waiters. Proper lowered the tone of the neighbourhood, it did.’ Duffy wondered where Jeggo himself had to go in order to raise the tone of any neighbourhood. ‘Still, for a bit we said it takes all sorts. Bit soft he was on Normans in those days, Mr Eddy. So what happens? He falls behind with his payments. Well, we did put them up a bit on account of him bringing all these queers into the district. So, anyway, he doesn’t pay. Asks for a bit of time. So we go in and we do a little damage. Not much, you know, but I suppose we did put the wind up a few of the customers. They all ran out into the street shouting about how to get soup out of their lace frillies.
‘So anyway, this Norman decides he’s had enough, and he asks Eddy to buy the lease back off him. Well, Eddy gives him a fair price, though it’s not very much, because well, the place was a bit broke up, and anyway, he didn’t exactly have much goodwill to sell, did he? So Eddy’s a bit disappointed, you know, I mean he’s a bit sour at the way this particular piece of business has gone. So he finds this geezer, very pretty guy, Norwegian I think he was, off a ship, and he slips him a few notes and sends him off to the restaurant. Well, the Norman who runs the place, you should see his mouth water, he really thinks it’s his lucky day. The pools have come up, he says to himself.
‘What he doesn’t know is what Eddy knows. So he gives this Norwegian fellow a slap-up meal on the house, and then they flap wrists at each other, and then he takes him home. Three weeks later he starts getting a bit itchy. Then he starts pissing razor blades. Then he goes down to the clinic for Normans and finds out he’s got the worst case of syph they’ve seen in years. In three places, too.’
Jeggo seemed really happy. He chortled, looking pleased that Duffy had dropped in. In case anyone had missed the point, he summed up, ‘He doesn’t like Normans, Mr Eddy doesn’t.’
‘Oh, really?’ replied Duffy.
They sat in silence for a while, until Eddy put his head round the door and summoned Georgiou.
‘Keep Mr Duffy entertained, will you, Jeggo?’
There was another silence. Duffy hoped that Jeggo’s idea of entertaining him was to leave him alone with his own thoughts. It wasn’t.
‘I can’t remember any other Norman stories offhand,’ he said, ‘but I remember a very funny thing Mr Eddy did to a squealer once.’
‘I’m not a squealer,’ said Duffy, hoping to head off the story with logic.
Jeggo looked cross; he’d been interrupted before he could get into his full narrative flow.
‘You’re a copper, though.’ Why couldn’t they learn around this place, Duffy wondered. ‘Coppers and squealers are about as bad as each other.’
Duffy let that one go.
‘We had this squealer once,’ Jeggo began again. ‘Now, if there’s one thing we hate in our business it’s squealers. We hate Normans a lot, but not as much as squealers. Now, if we could find a squealer what was also a Norman…’ Jeggo seemed to come over all dreamy.
‘Anyway, we had this squealer once. He was an Irish fellow. Nice boy, but a squealer. He tipped off a rival firm about a nice big lorryload of books someone was bringing us. Don’t know why he did it. Must of been the money I suppose. Anyway, a couple of the lads picked him up and they brought him back to see Mr Eddy. Mr Eddy was pretty cheesed, I don’t mind telling you. I mean, nobody squeals on Mr Eddy, and that’s a rule.
‘But Mr Eddy didn’t do anything on the spur. He likes to think a lot before he does things. A big thinker, Mr Eddy. So after he’s been thinking for a while, he comes in and he sends me out for a tube of that super-glue. You know what I mean? Bonds in seconds. Says on the packet you’ve got to keep it on a high shelf, ’cos otherwise kids get hold of it and stick all their fingers together. And then you have to take them down the hospital.
‘So I gets this glue and bring it back to Mr Eddy and we go in to see this Irish boy. He was shitting himself, you can imagine. Mr Eddy was quite careful really. Course he struggled a bit, once he saw what was coming. Mr Eddy puts the glue all over his lips. So he pulls his lips right back. So Mr Eddy puts some glue on his front teef as well. Then we pushes his mouf together.’
Duffy winced. It was presumably Eddy’s way of making the punishment fit the crime.
‘And now we come to the good bit. You see, Mr Eddy wanted to make the Irish lad understand what he’d done. I mean, he’d lost us a lot of books. It wasn’t just the squealing, it was the loss of business Mr Eddy minded. There was a lot of books in that lorry.
‘Now the Irish boy was, how shall I put it, well, he wasn’t a Jew, understand what I mean? We took him into a room, and he was holding his face in a funny sort of way, but otherwise he was all right, and one or two of us held him down a bit, and then Mr Eddy, well he believes in the personal touch, pulled down this Mick’s trousers. Then he got his little bit of flesh and pulled it down a bit and glued it all together. Like they say, bonds in seconds, takes two elephants to pull it apart. It all looked so neat, we just had to have a giggle. And the Mick, he just looked down at himself. H
e was really beginning to sweat, I can tell you.
‘What he didn’t know was that it wasn’t going to get any better. We cuffed his hands behind his back – I fink they may be the same bracelets you’re wearing – and took his trousers off altogether, and then took him into another room. Big Eddy had really thought about it. The room had nothing in it except for books – you know, magazines. All spread out and opened up, they were. Just the sort of stuff he’d lost us. And we locked him in there. Think of that – wherever he turned there was nothing but tit and beaver and cum-shots. And you can’t keep your eyes closed for ever. And even when you do you can’t stop where your mind’s going.
‘I don’t fink he liked it much. I fink if he’d stayed there longer than he did he’d of gone crazy. But after a day or so, Eddy decided to let him go. Put him in a car and dropped him outside a hospital. I don’t fink the Mick squealed again.’
For the second time that evening Duffy felt like vomiting. It wasn’t the violence and the craziness which made him feel bad. It was the awful strand of logic which ran through what these people did. The sort of logic whereby the victim is persuaded that there’s some sense in the violence that is being inflicted on him. There was another reason why Duffy felt like vomiting. He didn’t think that the evening was over for him yet.
‘Mr Duffy, are you feeling all right?’ Eddy had come back into the room and was leaning over him. ‘You haven’t been abusing him, have you, Jeggo?’
‘I been telling him what we did to that squealer Mick.’
‘Oh dear, yes. Well, let me put your mind at rest, Mr Duffy. I don’t think it’s going to be an evening for the glue. I hope your strength will keep up, though, because I think we might have a bit of a night still ahead of us.’
They took him out of the room and along a corridor. As they went through each door, Duffy scanned the doorframes. At the end of the corridor they hit carpet. Carpet and sporting prints. Duffy flicked his eyes over one as they passed. A country gentleman was sitting beneath an oak tree after a hard morning’s shooting; he cradled a long-barrelled musket in the crook of his left elbow and knee; one dog lay sleeping at his feet, another was bounding on to his right knee, eager for more killing; on the ground beside him was a careless pile of dead rabbits, made bloodless and picturesque by the artist. Duffy read the caption: ‘Rabbit Shooting – La Chasse aux Lapins’. Printed with the export market in mind, he reflected – just like today’s porn mags, whose brief texts came in four languages.
