The Long Firm

by Jake Arnott

  ‘And what was this for?’ he asks, waving the pistol at me. ‘Pigeon shooting?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I reply with a nervous laugh. ‘That’s right.’

  Weasel Face presses the barrel of the shooter against my forehead.

  ‘Shut it,’ he says.

  He picks up the handcuffs and clicks one manacle around my left wrist. Still keeping the gun against my head, he takes the bracelets around the back of the chair.

  ‘Put your other hand in here,’ he orders and both hands are now secured behind me and against the backrest.

  He backs off, aiming the gun at my head. He picks up a bloodstained rag from the floor and pushes it into my gob.

  ‘There,’ he says. ‘Let’s wait for your little doggie now, shall we?’

  Footsteps outside. Weasel Face goes to the side of the door to be behind it when Harry comes in. I try to make a noise but gag against the filthy cloth. Taste stale blood in the back of my throat and feel like retching.

  Door opens. Harry frowns at me. I nod like a loony at him. He swings around to see Weasel Face and the gun.

  ‘Put your hands up!’ he snaps.

  Harry slowly lifts his big paws.

  ‘So who are you?’ Weasel asks. ‘Old Bill? You don’t look like Old Bill. Did they send you?’

  Harry frowns, then plays along.

  ‘That’s right. They sent us.’

  Weasel laughs in his face.

  ‘And who would they be?’

  Harry shrugs. Weasel laughs again.

  ‘You don’t know anything about this, do you? Do you?’

  Weasel sniggers.

  ‘Why don’t you tell us about it?’ Harry asks softly, managing to stay calm.

  ‘Oh yeah. Tell you about it. Tell you all about it.’

  More sniggering.

  ‘I didn’t kill the kid, you know. They did it. Left me with this boy’s body to get rid of. I know how, you see. Know how to butcher. Let the butcher take care of it, they says. He likes that. Give me some money and the body and think I’ll be happy with that. Butcher boy. Delivery boy. Chop, chop. Get the job done. But I’m not happy, see. Don’t want to get rid of it all. Want to keep some for myself. Want to show people what a good job I’ve done. So I pack him up in a suitcase. All cut up perfect into choice cuts. Everyone can see what a good job I made of it. Then they’re not happy. Say butcher should have got rid of it properly. Say butcher’s greedy, keeping choice cuts for himself. And butcher is a greedy boy. Wants more money otherwise he’ll tell. They say it doesn’t matter. They got powerful friends and don’t need to worry about Old Bill.’

  ‘Who are they?’ asks Harry.

  ‘Shh. Show you something. Kept the best bits for myself.’

  Weasel creeps over and picks up one of the Kilner jars. He holds it up against the lightbulb. The gun’s pointing away from us now and I look over at Harry. He holds his breath. Wait.

  ‘See.’ Weasel sniggers, distracted by his trophy. ‘It’s his heart.’

  The purple and grey lump bobs in the murky fluid. A tiny stream of bubbles glows silver in the light. Harry nods at me and I throw myself at Weasel. The jar smashes on the floor releasing a sharp tang of embalming fluid. Weasel staggers back waving the revolver about madly. Harry’s made a grab for one of the knives on the table. Comes up with it slashing Weasel across the throat. He clutches at his neck, wide eyed with shock, tries to work a finger into the trigger guard. Harry knocks the shooter out of his hand. Weasel falls to the floor, blood spurting out, splattering onto glossy pictures of naked men. Harry crouches down next to him, trying to avoid the blood spurts as he holds Weasel’s throat.

  ‘Who are they?’ he demands, shouting. ‘Who are they?’

  But Weasel just gurgles and chokes, the blood bubbling out of his mouth and out of the gaping wound. His vocal cords slashed. He’ll never tell now.

  He takes a long time to die. Nearly half an hour before all his blood pumps out of him. His breath slows into a rasping wheeze. Then one last sigh and it’s over.

  Then we set to work silently. Harry finds the keys to the cuffs and I rub at my wrists where the ratchets have cut into them. I try to spit out the clotted blood from my mouth but I feel that the taste of it will be with me for a long time. Even when I’ve taken a mouthful of petrol and spat it out when I’m siphoning some out of the tank in Harry’s motor, it’s still there. We spread it all over the caravan and pour the remaining down Weasel’s throat, hoping he’ll burn really well and there won’t be any forensic.

  Then we torch the trailer. A gypsy funeral. We watch it go up in a fireball. I feel the heat of it against my face and hope that it burns away all of the evidence. Pray that it burns away the horror that we’ve witnessed. Then we get in the motor and drive as fast as we can back to the Smoke. Harry’s brooding face looking ghostly in the dashboard lights. Cheated. He’ll never know now.

  We get back to Harry’s place at about two in the morning. Trevor’s waiting up, looking sullen. Harry undresses in the hallway and goes through to take a shower.

  ‘Get rid of them,’ he tells Trevor, nodding at the pile of bloodstained clothes.

  Wish I could get rid of the bloodstained taste in my mouth.

  Harry comes through into the drawing room in a dressing gown and Trevor gets us drinks. Nobody says much. We just concentrate on drinking enough to blot it all out.

  ‘I’ve remembered some more names of the boys who went to that party, Harry,’ says Trevor.

  Harry shrugs.

  ‘That’s finished with now,’ he says.

  ‘It could have been me,’ Trev continues. ‘I nearly went to that party. It could have been me what got cut up.’

  ‘Don’t talk about it,’ Harry orders gruffly. ‘It’s done with now.’

  It takes us a long while to get drunk enough to think about turning in.

  ‘You can kip here if you like, Jack,’ says Harry. ‘You know where the spare room is.’

  Can’t sleep. Weasel-faced horrors keep jolting me awake just as I’m about to nod off.

  Morning. Breakfast with Harry and Trev. Newspaper headline: DETROIT BURNING Dead Toll Mounts As Race Riots Sweep US. Harry gets a phone call. Anxious looks as he speaks down the blower.

  ‘Come on, Jack,’ he says as he slams down the receiver. ‘We got to get over to Soho. We’ve had some trouble.’

  The homo porn bookshop Harry’s been nipping off has been burned down. Gutted. Blackened photos of musclemen, their glossiness charred away, scattered everywhere. Petrol bomb, no doubt about it. Maltese revenge.

  ‘This was personal. It would have made more sense to attack the new shops I’ve got leaseholds on. But they know that I’m queer so they’re trying to wind me up.’

  ‘What we going to do about it, Harry?’

  ‘Nothing. Not yet anyway.’

  ‘But we can’t let the Maltesers get away with this. We got to do something.’

  ‘Look, Jack. I told you not to get lairy with this racket. You start chucking petrol bombs and this is what happens. Mooney ain’t going to like this.’

  ‘Mooney.’ Repeat that filth’s name with contempt.

  ‘Yeah, Mooney. That’s who we’ve got to deal with on this.’

  Hide a sneer. Harry cosying up to Old Bill.

  ‘So what do you want me to do?’

  ‘I don’t want you to do anything. Leave all of this alone, Jack.’

  Tempted to question Harry’s bottle but I keep my thoughts to myself. This porn racket’s taking longer than I thought to build up, and with the Airport gone, I’m running short of cash. Just as well I’ve got the drugs business going with Beardsley. Can’t really afford to cut Harry into that yet, though. And then there is that Kray job someone mentioned the other night in the Regency.

  Go home and try to get some proper kip. Wake up around five. Sluggish. Have a bath and get something to eat. Still feel lousy. Take a couple of bombers. There we go. Chicka, chicka, chicka.

  Get the gear and meet Bea
rdsley in the Mildmay Tavern. This party want a hundred quid’s worth. The fellah over in Ladbroke Grove is down for two hundred and fifty. Paying Marty a ton for the gear that’s two hundred and fifty quid profit. Half a monkey split two ways. Not bad for a night’s work.

  We drive to this place in Hampstead. Huge house up by the Heath. Weird music blaring out. Beardsley gives the name of his contact at the door and we’re led in. Some bird with her face painted and her tits hanging out hands me a flower. Put it in my buttonhole. Beardsley drops his on the floor and stubs it out with his boot.

  We pass through a crowd of hairies. Kaftans and crochet-knit mini dresses, headscarves and flowers. Bleeding flowers everywhere. Spacey music echoing through these big, high-ceilinged rooms. Inkblot light show projected on the walls. Diabolical.

  We find a quiet room and Beardsley’s contact turns up. He peels off a wad and gives it to Beardsley. I hand over the goods.

  ‘Wow,’ he says. ‘Thanks, man.’

  Beardsley sneers and makes to leave.

  ‘Stay for a bit, if you like,’ this geezer offers.

  Yeah, why not? I think.

  ‘Nah,’ says Beardsley. ‘We’ve got to get off.’

  ‘We could stay for a drink though,’ I say.

  ‘Nah. I don’t fancy it.’

  ‘Come on, Beardsley. Just a drink.’

  I could do with some recreation. Especially after last night’s horrors. And this place is mob-handed with half-naked birds.

  ‘We’ve got business to attend to, Jack. Remember?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. Relax. We ain’t meeting this geezer until midnight. We’ve got time to enjoy ourselves a bit.’

  ‘I ain’t hanging around here.’

  ‘Well, I’m staying for a drink.’

  ‘I’ll meet you there later then. You know where it is?’

  Plan to meet this bloke in an all-night caff on Ladbroke Grove.

  ‘Yeah, I’ll find it.’

  Beardsley shrugs and I hand him over the rest of the gear.

  ‘I’ll see you later then, Jack,’ he says, rolling his eyes in disapproval. ‘Behave yourself.’

  Then Beardsley’s off, shoving his way through the hairy crowd.

  ‘I can see that this isn’t your friend’s scene,’ says this bloke we’ve just sold the drugs to. ‘He seems a bit uptight. But you’re welcome here, man. We’re all free here. You can turn on with us.’

  I’m not quite sure what this geezer is fannying on about but I think I get his drift. He shows me through and gets me a drink. Someone passes me a joint and I take a couple of puffs of it.

  Some bird with flowers in her hair starts chatting to me.

  ‘Love the outfit, man,’ she says pointing at the suit and hat. ‘You look like some sort of gangster.’

  ‘Yeah, well, you could say that.’

  ‘Wow.’

  Everyone fannying on with wow and yeah and out of sight. All on the happy drugs that we’ve been peddling, no doubt.

  ‘Are you tripping?’ asks this bird.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Are you turned on?’

  ‘I’m not with you.’

  ‘You know,’ she says. ‘Acid. It’s psychedelic.’

  ‘Nah. I ain’t into that.’

  ‘Why don’t you try?’

  Before I know it she’s got a tab of LSD on her finger pointing up at my face.

  ‘Go on,’ she says. ‘Turn on with me.’

  I look down at her smiling face. At her young tits, braless and peeking out of her chiffon blouse. Why not? Everybody seems so happy. I have some of that myself. I put my tongue out and she dabs this little blotter on it like a communion wafer.

  ‘Yeah,’ she says.

  I chew it up and swallow it. Nothing happens for about half an hour and then, whoosh! Suddenly all these lairy colours come to life. Swirling patterns all around me. Dots before my eyes exploding like flowers blooming. Weird music throbbing around in my skull.

  Suddenly I’m dancing with this bird. Joining in with this funny old moving around everyone’s doing. Waving hands and fingers about like music-hall conjurers. Like we’ve all got some sort of magic power. And it feels like we have. Of course, it makes sense now. Wow, I’m thinking. It’s all right. Everything is all right.

  I start taking my clothes off. Don’t need them any more. I’m free. Free of the badness. Naked and free. The bird grins at me as I get my kit off.

  ‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘Let it all hang out.’

  I kiss her on the lips. Feel so happy.

  ‘What’s your name?’ I ask her.

  ‘Samantha.’

  ‘I love you, Samantha,’ I say and kiss her again.

  ‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘Love, love, love.’

  And I really do love her. It’s not just randiness. Not dirty old Jack the Lad. I want to be with her. To love her always. Love. It’s all suddenly clear to me now.

  ‘Let’s go upstairs,’ I suggest.

  Samantha giggles. I take her hand.

  ‘Come on,’ I say.

  We find an empty bedroom. Samantha looks wide eyed at me as I help her take off her clothes. Then we just stand there looking at each other. Starkers. Like Adam and Eve. Would you Adam and Eve it? Slowly tracing hands around the shapes of our bodies. Fingers meeting and parting. I put a hand on her breast. Squeeze it gently. She stares at me. Chews at her lower lip. Then grins.

  ‘You still got your hat on,’ she says with a giggle.

  I take it off. Throw the hat across the room. No more Jack the Hat. No more. Jack’s head is bare. He’s bareheaded, baldheaded, boneheaded. His head is free of The Hat. My mind is fannying on and I can’t stop it. The Hat lies on the floor. No more Jack the Hat. You’ve got it coming to you. Suddenly feel scared. No hat, no head. No face. You’re not a face, you’re a fucking head case. No head, no face. No body, no case. A nobody. Cut up and packed in a suitcase. Nobody. I’m a nobody.

  ‘Hey,’ says Samantha. ‘You OK?’

  I look up at her. Her face is all blurred. I try to focus on it. Then it turns into something else. It becomes Madge’s face. Oh God no. It’s Madge looking at me. Yakking on at me.

  You destroyed me, Jack the Hat. You destroyed my mind and then you destroyed my body. All those times I stuck by you when you got into trouble. You thought it was bad for you. Going inside. Well, what about me, left behind to face it all? The Law always coming around. Looking everywhere. Questions. Dates, times, everything. It made me a nervous wreck. You just walked away from it. I tried to explain but you said I was just nagging you. Yakking on at you. You couldn’t see that it was destroying my mind. So you pushed me out of the car and destroyed my body as well. You’ve got it coming to you, Jack the Hat.

  ‘I didn’t mean it,’ I say. ‘It was an accident.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ says the face, suddenly turning back into Samantha again.

  I back into a corner. I’m frightened. Worried that this bird will turn back into Madge again. Scared that something horrible might happen.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry,’ I sob, curling up in the corner of the room.

  ‘Shh,’ says Samantha, leaning over me. ‘It’s OK. It’s just a bad trip, that’s all.’

  Her naked body looks huge, towering over me. Tits dangling over my bald head. I figure that if I can press myself into this corner I’ll be safe.

  ‘You want to stay here for a while?’

  Nod nod nod.

  ‘I’ll get you a blanket.’

  She pulls one off the bed and brings it over. I wrap it around me. Rocking backwards and forwards. Trying to keep the horrors at bay.

  ‘You want anything else?’

  Nod nod. Point at The Hat. She passes it over and I put it back on.

  Try to calm my head down. Horrors come and go. Torture. The Crank Up. Electric shocks of fear running riot through my shivering body. We all done bad things, Jack. Bottle gone. All the fear come back to haunt me. Kilner jars with internal organs bobbing about in them.
My organs cut out and floating in fluid. My body cut up and got rid of. No body, no case. Nobody. You’ve got it coming to you, Jack the Hat. Hold on to The Hat and try and keep it all in.

  Curled up and rocking backwards and forwards in the corner. Mind yakking on at me. Red demons out to get me. Diabolical liberty. Crippled Madge points the finger. Chicka, chicka, chicka. Nonsense horror driving me mad. Jack the Hat is in Hell.

  Hours of jabbering terror. Seems like years. Then it eases off a bit. Still flashes of fear and horror. Mad bright colours. Bobbing and weaving. Lairy patterns coming at me at odd moments but I feel I’m coming out of it.

  The bloke what we sold the drugs to comes up with my clothes and a cup of tea. I get dressed.

  ‘Bad trip, eh man?’ he says. ‘Well, it happens.’

  ‘What time is it?’ I ask, taking a shaky glug of tea.

  ‘I don’t know, man. It’s nearly dawn.’

  Fuck. Beardsley.

  I get the rest of my gear on and run down the stairs. Push my way through what’s left of the party. Painted faces. Shadows dancing huge against the oily lightshow. A naked threesome writhe about on the floor.

  Get into the Zodiac and drive down the Finchley Road towards West London. Mind still flaky but I hold it together. Streetlamps melting, dripping yellow pools of sorrow. Traffic signs leaping out at me like dreadful warnings. Ignore it all. Concentrate on driving.

  Get to the caff and the owner is sweeping up debris. Broken crockery and splintered furniture. Blood on the lino floor.

  ‘What the fuck happened here?’ I ask him.

  ‘Fucking greasers causing trouble again. Hell’s Angels. Jumped a skinhead guy sat here on his own.’

  Fuck. Beardsley.

  ‘Was he badly hurt?’

  Guilt. Fear. Panic. Got to hold it together.

  ‘He got a right good beating. Ambulance job.’

  Get the name of the hospital and get back to the motor. Gloomy purple dawn coming up over Portobello Road as market traders set up their stalls.

  Beardsley’s a right mess. Head bandaged, face stitched up. Broken nose, broken ribs, broken jaw, broken teeth. Sat up in a hospital bed, glaring at me. It was my fault. Should have run this racket properly. Should have known it was too easy to be true. Should have cut Harry in and made sure that we were properly protected. And I should have been there, for fucksakes.