The Long Firm

by Jake Arnott

  Remember the sound as she flew out and hit the tarmac. The wind rushing past. The thump of her body against the Great North Road. I didn’t mean it. Honest. She’s in the hospital. Broken spine. Going to be crippled. Worst thing is no one blames me. I know she won’t grass. And nobody else will. No blame. An accident. Everyone agrees. Though everyone thinks I’ve done it deliberate. Little comments I hear behind my back. ‘He chucked his last bird. Gave her the shove.’ Big joke. Ha ha ha. No one says anything directly. No one blames me for it so I can never say that I didn’t do it on purpose. Even though that’s what they think, they never blame me for it. No one does. Except me.

  I’m hanging out of Harry’s motor. Streetlights screaming past my head. I think. Why not? Go on. Push yourself out. Get it over with, you useless slag. All the pills and the booze. Going bald, can’t get it up any more. You’re not a face, you’re a fucking head case. Go on, get it over with. If you’ve got any bottle left at all, you’ll do it.

  I push the door handle down. The door swings open.

  ‘What the fuck!’ Harry shouts.

  I’m holding on to the door for dear life. Can’t let go. Haven’t got the bottle. Car brakes screech and as it comes to a halt I get catapulted out backwards. Land on my arse in the gutter.

  ‘What the fuck happened there?’

  Harry’s leaning through the passenger side to look down at me grabbing hold of the kerb.

  ‘The door just opened, Harry.’

  Harry shakes his head at me. Must look a state. Bloodied nose, dried puke round me chops, bruise swelling up where that Geordie thumped me, knuckles skinned where I decked them. There I am sitting on the kerb in swimming trunks and Harry’s velvet-collared crombie. Fuck. The hat. Where’s the fucking hat? I’m as bald as a cunt. Retrieve the trilby from the gutter, give it a bit of a brush and put it on.

  ‘Come on, get in.’

  Yellow streetlight blur. King’s Cross. West End. Then Harry’s flash Chelsea drum. Intercom buzzer then up in a poxy little lift, just a cage really. Door opened by blond boy Harry was feeling up in The Stardust the other night. Trevor. Harry’s new houseboy? Looks at me a bit disgusted like. Get used to it, nancy boy.

  Harry chucks me in the shower. Tosses me a poncey silk dressing gown. Trevor makes some coffee. Tie the robe and come through. Probably look a right woofter in this thing. Catch the mirror. Hammer horror. Bela Lugosi eyes, Uncle Fester hair.

  Sit down on the sofa. Silk rides up on buttoned leather. Pull the gown down to cover my knees. Talk. Harry: What’s it all about, Jack? Me: Madge. It all comes out. Spills out like puke. Tumbles out like Madge rolling out onto the Great North Road. And I really lose it. Boo hoo hoo. Blubbering away like a brat. Harry puts his hand on me shoulder.

  ‘It’s all right, Jack. Like you said, it was an accident.’

  Sobbing nearly done. Sniffing up salt tears and tobacco phlegm.

  ‘Come on,’ he whispers, little pat on the arm. ‘You can pull it together.’

  Then Harry gives me this stare.

  ‘We all done bad things, Jack,’ he says coldly.

  A chill shudder brings me out of it. Someone walking on my grave. You’ve got it coming to you, Jack the Hat. Harry’s dead eyes. Nothing behind them. Look into them and think: he’s topped people. He’s seen it and it doesn’t bother him. He can hurt without feeling. Use the fear without fearing it himself. He could kill you and the last thing you’d see is those dead eyes, staring at you, feeling nothing about it.

  Then he snaps out of this look and grins.

  I smile back. Harry’s still got faith in me. And I need that faith. Someone who knows I’ve still got it. Somewhere.

  ‘Sorry I called you a poof, Harry.’

  Trevor looks over. Eyebrow arched. Harry laughs.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he says, shooting a grin at Trev. ‘I ain’t as touchy as Fat Ron. Now, get some kip. We got work tomorrow. You remember? The Airport.’

  Wake up midday. Wash and shave in Harry’s huge bathroom. Load of pills in the cabinet. Check a bottle. Stematol. Never heard of it. Wonder what Harry’s on?

  Trevor sorts me out a fry-up. He’s sponged down the suit and given it a press. Harry’s onto a good thing. Better than any bird. Borrow a shirt from Harry’s triple-figure collection. Check myself out in the full-length mirror. Get the hat. A bit crumpled so I knock some shape into it. Harry comes in. He’s wearing a sports jacket, open-necked shirt.

  ‘You ready?’ he asks.

  I pull a bit of trilby brim down.

  ‘Yeah.’

  Harry in the mirror frowning.

  ‘No one wears hats any more, Jack.’

  ‘Well, that’s because no one’s got no style no more.’

  And I ain’t got no hair no more.

  ‘You look like a fucking movie gangster.’

  ‘Well.’ Cagney shrug, catch my stupid grin in the mirror.

  ‘Well, come on. We’re only going for a shufti.’

  Lift cage down to the entrance hall.

  ‘Now look, Jack.’ Harry’s voice all soft and serious. ‘You’ve got to cut down on the booze. And all those fucking pills.’

  ‘I can handle them. I just got a bit lairy last night, that’s all.’

  Harry’s not buying it.

  ‘Oh, come on Jack.’

  ‘Yeah. Well. What about you? What are all those things in your bathroom then?’

  ‘What things?’

  ‘You know, all them pills of yours.’

  Harry’s face suddenly goes fierce. Eyes narrow, nostrils widen.

  ‘They’re anti-depressants, Jack.’

  Deep voice angry but not at me. Matter of fact.

  ‘I need them.’

  Harry’s famous black moods and crazy outbursts. Not just called Mad Harry because of his reckless skill at violence. Winchester Jail crack-up in ’59. Screws think he’s working a cushy number to do his time in. Even his own mum thought he was playing up for a change of scene when she visits. Prison shrink tells it different. It’s for real. Harry certified. Long Grove Mental Hospital, strait-jacket, the lot. Terror of madness and the authorities denying a definite release date. If you’re a loony they can lock you up for good. He gets better and gets out but madness still haunts him.

  Lift gate swishes open. Brass trellis shh like relief. Out into the street. Grey afternoon. We get into Harry’s gleaming black Jag. Trevor’s obviously waxed off the puke from last night. Tan leather upholstery. Lovely motor. Purrs into life.

  Go west. Acton, Chiswick, get on to the Great West Road. A VC10 screams overhead, tail lights blinking through the gloom. Coming in to land.

  ‘Thiefrow,’ Harry announces as the Airport’s control tower comes into sight.

  And so it was. There were two main rackets. The car park, where the attendants were helping themselves to a considerable percentage of the takings. Given the amount of motors in and out of that place it was quite a wad. Then there were the crooked baggage handlers. Theft of valuables in transit. The best thing about this was that valuable items of cargo were specially tagged. For security reasons! Might as well slap on a label saying PLEASE STEAL ME. And who were the guardians of law and order amidst all the arrivals and departures? The British Airports Authority Police. Second-rate plod if ever there was. Might as well have had the Royal Botanical Constabulary at Kew Gardens minding it. Didn’t even have to pay them off they were that stupid.

  Now Harry wasn’t planning to do any of the thieving himself. Oh no. He worked in what he would describe as a ‘managerial capacity’. A thieves’ ponce, more bluntly put. He would rob the robbers. Take his share of the rackets in return for protection and security. A certain amount of persuasion might be needed in negotiating this arrangement. The mugs hard at work nicking might not want to cough up at first. But this was where a villain like Harry came into his own. His well-known powers of persuasion could be brought to bear. Apply a bit of pressure. Be brutal if necessary. Scare the fuckers. Use the fear. And Harry had a re
al talent in putting the frighteners on. It was all ‘psychological’, he insisted. I don’t know about that. It’s diabolical, that’s for sure. Harry definitely has a diabolical mind.

  So we’re wandering about the airport, having a general shufti, clocking faces, checking out how things run. We walk up to the big Departures and Arrivals board. Foreign names clattering into place like some mechanical card sharp shuffling a deck and dealing a hand. PARIS, MILAN, CAIRO. And Harry’s looking up at it all wide eyed.

  ‘Amazing, how it does that,’ I say, trying to break him out the trance.

  ‘Yeah,’ he replies all vague like.

  Then I realise it’s all those far-off places that are mesmerising Harry. Like he’s thinking of doing a bunk or something.

  ‘Imagine,’ he starts saying, ‘you’ve made enough of a wad to just step on a plane and fuck off for ever. Disappear.’

  I give him a shrug.

  ‘I don’t know. Don’t know if I fancy that train-robber lifestyle. I’d miss getting a good cup of tea.’

  Harry winces and heaves a big sigh.

  ‘Oh, Jack,’

  As we walk back to the car park Harry starts talking up our plan of action.

  ‘We need to get another body. No one who’s connected to any firm. No one who’s being courted by any firm. Preferably no one that’s known at all. Any ideas?’

  ‘Well you know me, Harry. I’m a freelancer. But everyone knows me.’

  ‘Yeah, but I don’t want anyone to get to hear about what we’re doing.’

  I grin at him.

  ‘Especially you-know-who.’

  ‘Yeah, especially them.’

  Fuck the Twins, I think, but I don’t want to rile Harry.

  ‘So,’ he says. ‘Give it some thought, eh?’

  ‘Yeah, I’ll give it some thought.’

  We get in the motor and drive up to the kiosk. Harry winds the window down and, as a hand comes down to take the ticket, Harry very deliberately crumples it up and tosses it at the attendant.

  ‘Tell Mr Charles we’re going to pay him a visit,’ he says, staring hard at this berk.

  The berk looks worried. He knows.

  ‘All right?’ Harry sing-song with menacing grin.

  Berk nodding furiously. Harry nods at the barrier.

  ‘Now, put that fucking thing up,’ he commands and we screech off.

  Harry drives me up to Highbury Corner to pick up the Zodiac. Says to come around the club later if I fancy it. Walk past the puke and piss-stained back alley of The Tempo club. Half memories of last night’s lairyness. Retrieve the motor and head east along the Ball’s Pond Road. Another body, I think. Someone unconnected. The Lambrianou brothers are being seriously courted by the Other Two. Who else? Get back home. My drum’s a fucking filthy mess. Try and tidy up a bit but just end up throwing a few things into heaps. Need a bird to look after me. Someone like Madge. I can’t stop myself fucking thinking about it. Take a slug of what’s remained of the vodka bottle. Take a look at the Evening News.

  SUITCASE MURDER: HOMOSEXUAL LINK. Detectives investigating the body-in-the-suitcase murder now believe that there might have been a sexual motive behind the killing. The victim, who has been identified as 17-year-old Bernard Oliver from Muswell Hill, North London, was a prostitute who frequented various haunts in Soho used by known sexual offenders. Police are now following up leads in a thorough investigation that will turn a searchlight on the twilight world of homosexuals . . .

  Put the paper down. Think about something else. Someone who’s not known. Suddenly think of Beardsley. Snotty-nosed, think-I’m-a-bit-tasty, get-me-a-shooter-Jack, Beardsley. Nah. Then I think, why not? He’s a bit wet about the ears but he’d be a right little thug in his own way. Nothing special but he can handle himself. And he’s not a known face except to all his mod mates. Bit of borstal form, no doubt. Could train him up. He could be my, like, apprentice.

  Get something to eat. Fray Bentos meat pie, instant mash and tinned peas. Feel a bit sluggish after, so I take a few bombers. Think about it. Yeah. Beardsley, my little hooligan. Frightened of me though he tries hard not to let it show. Could be handy having someone else. My own little firm. Pace about. Bombers starting to work. Maybe he’s down The Flamingo. Could go and suss him out. No time like the present.

  Get in the Zodiac and bomb down to Soho. Tip the doorman at The Flamingo a note and go in. Wailing guitar music and funny-coloured inkblot lighting projected on the walls. Clothes seem even more lairy, hair even longer. Bastards. Like they’re taking the piss out of old Jack. No Beardsley. See a likely looking mod type with his hair all brushed down over his face, nehru suit and granny-framed sunglasses. No lapels to grab hold of on his paki jacket so I take hold of the front of the coat and pull him towards me.

  ‘Where’s Beardsley?’

  ‘He don’t come down here no more.’

  ‘So where is he? La Discotheque?’

  ‘Nah. He ain’t into this scene no more. He’ll be down the Ram Jam.’

  ‘Where the fuck’s that?’

  ‘Brixton.’

  I get an address and get back to the motor. South London. Never like going over the water. Injun country, the East London firm always call it. And Brixton? Well, that’s fucking jungle land. Take a couple more bombers and head way down south.

  The Ram Jam is in a crumbling dancehall on Coldharbour Lane. Spade doormen look me up and down as I go in. Give them my best Jack the Lad grin and hand over a ten-bob note. Inside and it’s that mad chicka chicka chicka music echoing around the peeling decor. Full of black kids jerking around to that funny old beat. A few whiteys too but they’re all gathered in one corner like. It ain’t exactly racial harmony but there are one or two white girls showing out to the better looking coons on the dancefloor.

  I make my way over to the white corner. A new song starts. Changa changa changa it goes and I sort of slope along to it. WALKING DOWN THE ROAD WITH A PISTOL AT YOUR WAIST, JOHNNY YOU’RE TOO BAD – WHOA OH. Catch sight of Beardsley in the thick of it, checking out the floor, swaying along to the beat. Changa changa changa. Beardsley catches sight of me. Surprised grin then a nod in my direction. ONE OF THESE DAYS YOU’RE GONNA HEAR THEIR VOICES CALL, WHERE YOU GONNA RUN TO? – WHOA OH.

  ‘Doctor Livingstone, I presume?’ I shout in his ear and he frowns, not hearing or not getting the joke or both.

  ‘What you doing down here, Jack?’

  ‘What you think? Missionary work? I came down to see you, you berk. We need to talk.’

  Beardsley nods. He’s booted but not suited. A pair of steel toe caps, tight jeans held up with braces, button-down shirt with no tie, crombie coat and on top of it all, would you believe, a fucking hat. A stingy-brim trilby, no less. No one wears hats any more, Jack. Well this fucker does. It’s either the new height of fashion or else old Beardsley is taking a leaf out of Jack’s book, stylewise. I nod towards the exit and he follows me out.

  Out on the street, I look him up and down. He looks like a Jamaican pimp.

  ‘So what’s up?’ I ask. ‘You turning black or something?’

  He grins and shakes his head.

  ‘Nah. All that mod stuff, they’re turning into hairy fairies. At least the spades have got style.’

  ‘And what’s this?’

  I make a grab at his pork-pie hat. It’s in my hand leaving him bareheaded. Bareheaded’s the word, because there’s his shaved bonce beneath. Boneheaded like old Jack.

  ‘Are you taking the piss out me?’

  Beardsley chuckles. Dedicated follower of fashion. Looking like a rude boy with his cropped hair and long coat. Wanting a gun to go in the waistband to complete the look. Question is: would he be any good for real?

  ‘So,’ I start.

  ‘The shooter? You got me the shooter?’

  ‘That depends. First you got to prove you could handle it. If you think you’re tough enough, I’ve got a proposition for you.’

  ‘What sort of proposition?’

  ‘Ne
ed a little extra muscle on a job.’

  Beardsley grins. Evil little youth.

  ‘Thing is,’ I go on, ‘I don’t know if you’re hard enough, do I? This ain’t just a bank holiday beach fight.’

  He gives me his best sneer. Then this big black fellah comes over.

  ‘What you want? Weed? Speed? Black hash?’

  I try to wave him away. He sucks at his teeth.

  ‘Wh’appen, man? You don’t want buy nothing? Then move. This is my pitch.’

  Then it comes to me. Beardsley can prove himself right now. I smile at the black geezer and step back. I shove Beardsley in front of me.

  ‘See him off, son,’ I say.

  Beardsley stumbles a bit from the push then shapes up in front of this guy, hard eyes, the lot. I’m not sure that he’ll be able to deal with this loud-mouth coon but it’s worth a try. I can always step in if he bottles out.

  They move around each other on the curb. Fierce eyeballing.

  ‘Ras clat,’ the black guy fannies.

  But Beardsley’s fast. Lively. He don’t waste no words. A hand comes out of his overcoat pocket and lashes out. A Stanley knife comes from nowhere and slashes the black face with an upward backhand.

  Nasty.

  The black man’s on his knees in the gutter clutching a bleeding cheek. Claret dripping all over the kerb. Beardsley follows through with his boots. Steel toe caps making contact with the bloke’s rib cage. He’s squealing away and the doormen of the Ram Jam hear the commotion and start to leg it over. I pull Beardsley back by his coat.

  ‘That’s enough, son,’ I say. I’ve seen enough.

  We make a dash for it, followed by a whole gang of spades. The Zodiac’s parked on the corner of Electric Avenue and Atlantic Road. We jump in and tear away.

  Drive back north. Over Albert Bridge. All lit up with fairy lights. Pretty. Nice to be back over the right side of the water. Out of Injun country. Up through Victoria, into the West End.

  Get to The Stardust and we can’t find Harry. He did say he’d be here. See Trevor sitting at a corner table. Waiting for H obviously. Get a couple of drinks and go over.