Molls Like It Hot

by Darren Dash

  He’d called her last week to ask if she’d return to London for a few days, said he had a guy lined up to protect her while she was here, but advised her to lay low while she was in town.

  “Good advice,” I couldn’t help interjecting.

  She glowered at me. “Laying low’s for cowards.”

  “You say that even now, after all that’s happened?” I asked.

  She nodded, then had the good grace to grimace. “Well, in retrospect, maybe I’d have laid a bit lower,” she said grudgingly, and managed a small laugh at her own expense, which was a positive sign.

  She wasn’t sure what Brue had called her back for, but guessed he had a special job laid on that he didn’t trust to his regular team. She’d harboured hopes that he was going to sic her on Howard. As I’d already seen, she was a girl who knew how to hold a grudge.

  My life was tame in comparison with hers, but she listened intently. Wanted to know what I’d done before the Army, why I’d entered the Forces, what boxing had been like. I found myself opening up like I hadn’t since with Zahra, telling her of my dreams, my fears, the loneliness, the drinking.

  I even came close to telling her about Dancing James and what had happened after I’d been discharged, the photos I’d hung beside my bed and then taken down, how similar I was to her in certain ways. But the afternoon got away from us. In the middle of deciding whether or not I dared open up to her completely, I checked one watch, then the other, and saw that the time for talking had passed.

  It was time to get ready and leave.

  “Have everything?” I asked.

  “Uh-huh,” she grunted, easing on a pair of slippers that I’d bought when I went shopping earlier.

  “Bandages OK?” I’d changed them recently.

  “Fine.”

  I took a deep breath. “Nothing left to stay for then, is there?”

  “No,” she sighed. “Guess not.” She looked around glumly, as regretful as I was that this quiet time of sharing and reflection was over.

  Then she spat purposefully and started for the stairs.

  In the car, driving across London to our meeting with Lewis Brue.

  I kept my gaze on the road.

  Toni looked inwards.

  I didn’t speak to her during the journey, or even glance at her. Didn’t dare, for fear it might lead to me hitting the brakes and succumbing to the suicidal madness of unleashed passion.

  THIRTEEN — TWISTS

  We were due to meet with Lewis Brue in the bookies where he had first made me his offer. The street outside was almost deserted, a quiet Sunday evening, the city in slumber mode. I pulled up in front of the entrance, checked to make sure nobody was loitering nearby, and we got out of the car.

  Toni was able to walk by herself but I let her lean on me all the same. Probably the last chance I’d ever get to hold her. Be a shame to waste it.

  Rabbit opened the door and nodded respectfully to Toni. He’d obviously been filled in since our last meeting, as he wasn’t surprised to see her.

  “You’re to go up,” Rabbit told me, then turned politely to Toni. “Not you, Miss Curtis. You’re to come with me. Mr Brue said he’ll meet us in a while to explain what this is all about.”

  “All right.” She let go of me, coughed, then smiled. “So long, Eyrie Brown.”

  “So long, Toni Curtis. I’d shake hands, but…”

  “Hah,” she said flatly, then winked and let Rabbit lead her away. I watched until the door closed, then headed upstairs with a heavy sigh.

  Lewis Brue was by the window, looking out, no doubt checking on Toni and Rabbit.

  “I heard about last night,” he said without turning, and it was impossible to tell from his tone if he was pissed or pleased. “Is she OK?”

  “She’ll live,” I said.

  “Can you be more specific?”

  “Lots of people hit her, bit her, sliced her. They cut off the tips of her two little fingers. They were going to gang rape her, but I got there before they started.”

  “A terrible affair,” he murmured, then turned to look at me. “What sort of shape is she in, physically and mentally, in your opinion?”

  I shrugged. “I think not too bad physically, although a doctor will need to check to be sure. Mentally…” I hesitated. “She’s hurting in all sorts of ways, but they haven’t destroyed her. She seems to be coping, but there’s been a lot of tears, and I’m sure there are more to come. It will be difficult but I’m confident she’ll get through this intact.”

  “A psychiatrist as well as a bodyguard and taxi driver.” He smiled. “A man of many talents.”

  “I was just –” I started to defend myself, but he waved a hand to silence me.

  “Relax, I was busting your balls, as our American cousins would put it. You’ve been through quite a bit this weekend, if the buzzing on the grapevine’s to be believed. You really attacked Smurf Mironova’s joint by yourself, killed him and several of his associates to get her back?”

  “Toni killed them,” I said. “I just got her out of there.”

  “Just.” He shook his head admiringly. “I knew I’d picked a good man but I’d no idea you were this resourceful. You should have demanded more money. A man of your abilities can name his price.”

  “I’m happy with what you paid me.”

  “I haven’t heard that too many times in my life,” he chortled. Then his smile faded. “I’m curious. Why didn’t you tell Rabbit when you discovered she’d been taken? You were out of the game. Why deal yourself back in?”

  “I wasn’t sure how you’d take it,” I admitted. “Thought you might blame me for her disappearance, or maybe think I’d arranged it, that I’d cut a separate deal with Mironova and was conning you.”

  “I’m not that paranoid,” he said.

  “I’m sure you’re not, but I didn’t fancy chancing it. Anyway, you’d said you couldn’t get involved if others found out that she was in London and made a move on her, so I didn’t think you’d try to rescue her.”

  “And you didn’t want to abandon her, leave her in the hands of her captors?”

  I nodded.

  “You’re an odd one, Eyrie Brown. Can I get you a drink?”

  “I wouldn’t say no.”

  Lewis Brue laughed and fetched a couple of bottles of beer. I could have done with something stronger but it was a good beginning. I’d hit the hard stuff later, when I was somewhere far from London. Go on the bender of all benders, try to forget the blood, the bodies, the fact that I’d never see Toni again.

  “It’s over, isn’t it?” I asked.

  “Absolutely,” he said.

  “What about the police? Smurf Mironova’s men?”

  Brue sniffed. “The latter won’t be a problem. Smurf wasn’t liked. His guys backed him because he made money for them, not because they were loyal. None of them will care about settling scores with you. They’ll be too busy fighting among themselves to replace him.

  “As for the police… If word seeps back to them, as it may, given all the corpses and witnesses, they might drag you in for questioning, but they won’t have any firm evidence relating either to the quarrel in DEL’S or the riot at the casino. Any CCTV footage has already been wiped, and in the unlikely event that someone grasses, one of my team will politely persuade them to retract their statement. You’ll be fine.”

  I sipped my beer, surprised but relieved. “So I don’t have to leave London?”

  He shook his head. “In fact it would be better if you didn’t bail for the next few days, in case the police do come looking for you. An innocent man doesn’t have to run and hide, right?”

  By the sound of things, I’d be able to hit the rum in my own apartment once the dust had settled. That would make life a lot easier – I hadn’t been looking forward to relocating – although I’d bid a dramatic farewell to Lucy, so I could expect a fair amount of ribbing from the gang when I returned to my job.

  “How did you hear about my run-in with Smu
rf?” I asked.

  Brue snorted. “The whole city’s heard by now. Not the sort of thing you can keep quiet very long.”

  I stared at the bottle, mulling over everything that had happened, feeling uneasy about something. “News spreads quickly through your circle, doesn’t it?” I said, thinking out loud.

  “Oh yes,” he beamed. “We do love to gossip.”

  “Then wasn’t it a mistake to leave Toni tied up in my apartment, unprotected?”

  He frowned. “It was a risk, sure, but as I told you at the time, I didn’t want to involve any of my men.”

  “But you’ve involved Rabbit now,” I noted.

  “Now’s different,” Brue said. “It was always my plan to bring Rabbit in on this if we made it to this point.”

  “I see,” I muttered, lying through my back teeth, not seeing at all.

  “You think I’m holding something back?” Brue asked.

  “It seems odd,” I said hesitantly, wary of angering him, but needing to scratch the itch that was building inside me now that I was free at last to relax and think. “You could have posted a guy outside my apartment, not told him who was inside, just to intervene if anyone turned up who looked like they shouldn’t be there.”

  Brue shrugged. “I thought she’d be safe. There was no reason to suspect that anyone would target you so swiftly. Toni has lots of enemies, but the only one actively seeking her was Jeb Howard, and we had nothing to fear from him. I knew that Smurf would be pissed about his sister, and figured there was a chance he’d come looking for you, but I didn’t expect him to pull his shit together as quickly as he did. Him turning up that night at your place was as much a shock for me as it was for you.”

  “Still…” I mumbled, unable to let it lie.

  “Eyrie.” He held up his hands in a steadying gesture. “There’s nothing certain in my world. We run all sorts of wild risks and do our best to deal with the consequences when things flip against us. In retrospect I should have told you to bring Toni with you, but I gambled that she’d be safe. It was a mistake, but it’s the sort of minor misjudgement men like me make all the time. Anyway, I got the most important call right — I put her in your hands. You were my insurance card and you more than justified my faith in you.”

  I smiled at the flattery and took a swig of the beer. I was feeling embarrassed. Lewis Brue had treated me decently at every turn. It was petty of me to point out his errors to him.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled. “I spoke out of turn.”

  “No need to apologise,” he grinned. “I remember the night we met, when I’d suffered the sort of barrage that you’ve endured this weekend. I probably said a few things I shouldn’t have too. No hard feelings. Let me get you another beer.”

  He slapped my back as he passed. I smiled wearily, finished off the last of my bottle and waited for him to return.

  As I was waiting, my embarrassment turned to suspicion again. I wanted to let the whole thing lie and get out of there, not even bother with the second bottle of beer. But one of Brue’s comments had set alarm bells ringing. I told myself I was being irrational, but I couldn’t ignore it. The memory of Toni lying on the bed in that building, naked and abused, wouldn’t let me.

  As a whistling Lewis Brue re-entered the room, a beer in either hand, I said, “Jeb Howard.”

  Brue stopped in the doorway and squinted at me. “What about him?”

  “Just now you said we had nothing to fear from him, but previously I got the impression he was the main threat, the reason you had to tread so carefully, why you hired me and not one of your own men.”

  “This is true,” Brue said cautiously, “but you told me Golding Mironova couldn’t have made contact with him, so there was no reason to think he might target you.”

  “But Smurf found out about me,” I pushed, “and you keep telling me he wasn’t the most clued-in.”

  “He found out about you,” Brue said. “Not Toni. That was just a lucky break for him — or not so lucky, as things worked out. I’m sure Jeb Howard heard about the shooting in DEL’S, but he had no interest in Golding Mironova, so he would have had no interest in the guy and his gal who killed her.”

  “Even so,” I said stubbornly, “there was a chance that someone else in the pub might have recognised Toni. I can’t understand why you told me to leave her in my apartment. It wasn’t an oversight. It was a truly dumb move. And I don’t think you’re the sort of guy who makes too many truly dumb moves.”

  Brue stood there silently, staring at me, clinking the bottles together.

  Then he sighed.

  “You’ve got a whiff of something, haven’t you?” he said. “Won’t stop till you get to the bottom of it all, even if it drags you down to a place where you don’t want to go, where you know you shouldn’t go. Am I right?”

  “I need to know,” I said quietly. “I never wanted to know more than was good for me. I asked as few questions as possible. But when you tell me one thing, then say the opposite, that makes me curious, and I reckon I’ve earned the right to an answer or two.”

  Brue tilted his head. “Again, this is true, and I don’t begrudge you the answers, but you might not like what you hear.”

  “I’m sure I won’t,” I said miserably. “But I’m asking all the same.”

  Brue studied me seriously, still clinking the bottles together.

  “You spent a lot of time with Toni this weekend,” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you fuck her?”

  “No,” I said tightly.

  “Easy.”

  He sat down and passed me a beer. I took it reluctantly and put it down on the floor, keeping my hands free.

  “I just want to know where you and her stand,” Brue said softly.

  “We don’t stand anywhere,” I told him. “You paid me to look after her — I did. You told me it could be dangerous — it was. You said bring her here — I brought her. I’ve played it straight all the way down the line.”

  “So there’s nothing between the two of you?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Then you can deal with it.”

  “Deal with what?” I frowned.

  “The truth.” He took a long draught of beer, then said, “I’m giving her to Jeb Howard. That’s why I brought her back to London. I’m patching up our differences and Toni’s a peace offering.”

  I stared at Lewis Brue, ashen-faced. “Will Howard…?”

  “…kill her?” He sniffed and tried to pretend it didn’t matter to him. “Yes. He’s hated her for a long time, but Toni murdered one of his best friends a while back, and that pushed the matter into a whole different arena. He’s offering big money for her head — not that I’m doing it for that. I’m tossing her to him for free, to stop us going to war over a load of other shit that’s been bubbling up between us these last several months. It’s a war I don’t want, a war I can’t afford, and most crucially, it’s a war I wouldn’t win. I’m very fond of Toni, in a fatherly way, but it’s her or everything I’ve built over the years, so…” He shrugged uncomfortably.

  My head was spinning. I endured all that… rescued her… held her in my arms as she trembled… didn’t even kiss her… restrained myself because it was the right thing to do… and now…

  “Rabbit’s taking her to Jeb Howard?” I asked in a choked voice.

  “Yeah.”

  “Where?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  Instinct kicked in before I could consider my actions. I pulled my Hi-Power and let him stare down the barrel of the weapon he’d supplied me with.

  “I don’t want to use this,” I said. “Just tell me where he’s taking her.”

  Brue gazed at the gun without any apparent fear, then glared at me.

  “You did fuck her,” he snarled.

  “No. I didn’t. Where’s Rabbit taking her?”

  “You can’t save her, Brown. She’s too hot. If someone like me can’t keep her from the wolves, how the fuck will
a nobody like you?”

  “Let me worry about that. Tell me where she is or I’ll put a bullet through your knee.” The same threat I’d used with Craig Haine, but I didn’t see any need to be overly creative on that front.

  Brue paused, trying to judge if I was serious or not, if he could talk me round or if I’d make good on my threat. Must have seen from the look in my eyes that this wasn’t the time to gamble.

  “Behind Beckton Gas Works,” he growled. “Just past City Airport. There’s a patch of wasteland. Howard will be parked up, waiting.”

  “How many with him?”

  “Not many, I’d imagine. He knows he’s safe, nothing to fear from me, no reason for me to cross him.”

  “Will he kill her there?”

  “He hasn’t shared his plans with me,” Brue said, “but Jeb Howard isn’t known for his patience, and unlike our deceased friend, Smurf Mironova, he’s not into torture. When there’s business to attend to, he cracks on and attends to it. I’d say there’s a very good chance he’ll deal with Toni as soon as Rabbit hands her over.”

  I started backing towards the door, never lowering my aim.

  “You won’t catch them,” he said. “They’ve too big a lead on you.”

  “I’m a cabbie,” I reminded him. “I know this city better than Rabbit. I should be able to make up ground on them.”

  I reached the doorway. About to slip out when I stopped.

  Brue laughed cruelly. “It’s just struck you,” he said as if this was all a joke to him. “Rabbit has a mobile. The second you step out, I’ll phone him and we’ll re-schedule with Howard. You’ll be chasing ghosts.”

  I stared at Brue wordlessly.

  “Now you’re considering your options,” he went on, still in that jocular tone. “You could kill me, but you’re not a killer, and I’ve been good to you, paid you as I promised. That wouldn’t mean much to a lot of guys, but a man like you respects a respectful man like me. You won’t execute me in cold blood when I’ve done nothing to you to merit it.”