by Jake Arnott
Of course, you lot don’t go down the pub, do yer? The man on stage had a thick scouse accent. Oh no. It’s down the wine bar, like. That’s the new thing. Got them all over Hampstead. Harry frowned.
‘So this bloke, right,’ Wally went on, ‘he’s seen this thing in the States. Comedy clubs. Really get the punters in.’
You know why they call them wine bars, don’t yer? It refers to the conversation, like.
‘What the fuck is this?’ Harry demanded.
Whine, whine, whine. Laughter.
Wally looked uncomfortable.
‘I think they’re calling it “alternative comedy”,’ I suggested.
‘Yeah,’ Wally agreed, eagerly. ‘That’s it.’
‘What, you mean alternative to funny?’
We didn’t stay at The Stardust for very long. Harry had some business to attend to and suggested that I come along too. We walked through Soho and across Oxford Street into Charlotte Street. Harry turned into a doorway with a brass nameplate which announced: G. J. Hurst, Chiropodists. He buzzed the door and muttered something incomprehensible into the intercom. The door opened to let us in.
‘A spieler,’ Harry told me, as we mounted the staircase. ‘Be good research for you to see what one of them looks like. Just don’t start fannying on about “subcultures”. Keep your head down and your gob shut.’
The spieler was on the third floor. The room stank of cigar smoke. In the corner there was a table with a card game in full swing. There were six men playing and maybe about ten others looking on. It was a hard game to follow. Cards were taken and discarded at high speed. There was a pile of ten-and twenty-pound notes in the centre of the table.
‘Kalooki,’ Harry explained. ‘Jewish game. The old man ran a spieler when I was a kid. He used to say to me, “Look at that son, that’s the death agony of capitalism.”’
Hundreds of pounds changed hands in flurries. The well-dressed men at the table handled their playing cards with intense concentration and their money with absolute nonchalance.
Eyes darted about. People talked out of the side of their mouths in a language I didn’t understand. This was the world I’d spent all these years studying. I felt out of place. Conspicuous. I’d only seen criminals in captivity before.
Everyone in the club was clearly aware of Harry’s presence but the little greetings that were made were carefully understated. A firm but brief touch on the shoulder as someone passed. A whispered: ‘Well done, Harry, good to see you.’ One of the card players, a small man with round spectacles who sipped thoughtfully at a glass of milk by his side, looked up and winked. There was a hiatus in the game and he drained the milk in one. Throwing in his hand and picking up a pile of notes, he stood up and came over.
‘Hersh,’ he announced with a shrug.
‘Manny,’ replied Harry.
The two men hugged each other, Harry stooping to slap the little man on the back.
‘Manny,’ Harry said, ‘this is Lenny. A friend. It’s all right, he’s kosher. He’s running the “Free Harry Starks” campaign.’
Manny’s magnified eyes blinked at me for a second. He nodded.
‘Come,’ he said, cocking his head towards a door behind the card table. ‘Let’s go out the back.’
‘Yeah, right,’ said Harry. ‘Come on, Lenny.’
In the back room were a few leather-covered armchairs. Copies of Sporting Life and The Financial Times lay folded on a coffee table. Manny produced a bottle of Remy Martin and some glasses and poured us all a drink.
‘Mazeltov,’ he murmured, jerking up his glass.
‘So?’ Harry asked.
Manny took a sip of spirit and sharply exhaled. He gave a little shrug.
‘So,’ he replied. ‘Your business affairs are in good order, Hersh. Fat Wally has been skimming the profits of the porn shops and the peepshows and sending it all down to Spain. Jock McCluskey’s down there dealing with it all.’
‘Wally’s been behaving himself ?’
‘Yes, yes,’ Manny nodded. ‘If anything, it’s the Scotsman I’m worried about.’
‘What, Big Jock?’
‘I know, I know, he’s usually so reliable. Some of the figures don’t seem to completely add up. He’s said that he’s had to pay some people off but even so. You know, sometimes I get, what you say, a gut feeling.’
‘I know, Manny. That’s what makes you indispensable. But it’s all safe down there, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, yes. The extradition treaty between Britain and Spain fell apart last year and it doesn’t look like it’s going to be patched up for quite a while. It’s a safe bolt hole. A lot of faces are already relocating to Andalusia.’
Harry sighed.
‘It’ll be heaving with East and South London recidivists in no time,’ he lamented.
‘Well, they’re already calling it the “Costa Del Crime”.’
‘Hm.’
‘Don’t worry, Marbella has, I gather, largely escaped the worst excesses of the tourist industry. It’s well situated for business as well. Big Jock’s procured a lovely big villa. Swimming pool and everything.’
‘You must come and visit, Manny.’
‘I’m sorting out all the paperwork for your travel arrangements. I’ll need a passport photo.’
‘Of course,’ Harry stood up. ‘Look, we better be getting back.’
As we walked through the main part of the spieler, a short stocky man came up to Harry.
‘We’ve had a whip,’ he said, handing over a considerable wedge of notes.
‘Thanks,’ said Harry, taking the cash and patting him on the shoulder.
‘Be lucky,’ said the man.
We walked back to Soho.
‘So, you’re planning to skip the country?’ I asked.
‘Yeah, well it’s not a bad idea, don’t you think?’
‘What about the “Free Harry Starks” campaign?’
Harry chuckled.
‘Well, it’s not a bad smokescreen. I mean, if I can persuade people that my escape is some sort of publicity stunt to bring attention to my case, that I might be ready to turn myself in after a few days, then the Old Bill aren’t going to be wasting too much manpower in looking for me are they?’
‘I guess not.’
‘Besides, I’m making a point. I don’t expect much from the British justice system but I’m making my fucking point, ain’t I?’
As we came into Old Compton Street, Harry slowed down. He led me into a shop doorway.
‘What’s the matter?’ I asked.
Harry peered out of the alcove and cocked his head towards Wally’s shop.
‘Something’s up,’ he said. ‘There’s a couple of moody-looking cars parked up there.’
I peeped out myself. Two saloon cars were pulled up on the curb outside the shop. A man was standing by one of the cars looking down the street in our direction. Suddenly there was a commotion at the doorway of the shop. It was easy to make out the considerable figure of Fat Wally, surrounded by smaller figures who were awkwardly bundling him into the back of one of the cars. It drove off quickly. A siren started up and it wailed off into the night. The other car pulled off the curb and parked itself opposite the shop.
‘Fuck,’ Harry muttered. ‘Where’s your motor?’
I’d parked it at the other end of Old Compton Street.
‘It’s up the other end, Harry.’
‘Well, go and get it and bring it back here.’
I walked up the street and passed the car parked across the road from Fat Wally’s shop. I felt my legs almost buckling with nerves. I could barely stop myself from looking in at the men waiting in the car. I felt them watch me pass.
I drove back and picked Harry up. Harry laughed as he got into the passenger seat of my Citroën 2CV.
‘Classy motor, Lenny,’ he said.
‘Yeah. Sorry about that.’
‘No, this is perfect. No one’s going to suspect Britain’s most wanted gang boss being driven around in th
is jalopy.’
He told me to drive north, to Tottenham.
‘I thought you said that the police weren’t going to do a big manhunt for you,’ I said.
‘Hm, that weren’t no fucking manhunt. They aren’t that fucking clever. Somebody grassed, that’s for sure.’
We reached Tottenham High Road and Harry checked in my London A – Z and gave directions.
‘Thing is,’ he spoke softly, as if to himself, ‘only Wally, Manny, and Jock knew where I was.’
He looked up from the map book and stared at the road ahead.
‘And you of course,’ he said, bluntly.
We reached our destination. It was a row of large Victorian terraced houses. I parked up in front of them.
‘Right,’ said Harry briskly. ‘Come on.’
‘Wait a minute, Harry. Look, I think I’ve got more involved in all this than I planned to, Harry. Maybe it’s best if I leave you here and I get off. All right?’
Harry frowned and slowly turned his head towards me.
‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ he demanded.
‘I just thought, you know . . .’
‘You just thought. You just thought. What? Drop me off here and go and make a little phone call. Is that it?’
‘No, Harry. Of course not.’
‘I trusted you, Lenny. If I ever found out that you betrayed that trust,’ he whispered gravely, his face now close to mine.
‘Honestly, Harry, I never . . .’ I found myself pleading.
Harry suddenly grinned and tapped me on the side of my face.
‘Good,’ he said and drew back. ‘Now come on.’
We went up the stone steps of one of the houses. Harry rapped on the door. It was opened by a cropped-haired man in a Lacoste cardigan.
‘Yeah?’ he said vaguely, then peered more closely. ‘Harry? Fuck me, Harry Starks.’
‘Hello Beardsley,’ Harry said with a smile. ‘How’s it going?’
‘Fucking hell, Harry. Come in, for fuck’s sake.’
He ushered us into the hallway, and checked out the street as he closed the door. We went through to his living room. Beardsley produced a bottle of scotch and he and Harry caught up on old times for a while.
‘Anything I can do, H?’ Beardsley said.
‘Well, we were wondering if you could put us up. Just for a couple of days.’
Beardsley drew in a breath and looked fraught for a second. Then he nodded.
‘Yeah, fucking hell, of course you can. It’s just the missus, you see. I’ve gone straight, as far as she’s concerned. As long as she doesn’t know nothing.’
‘And have you? I mean, gone straight?’ Harry asked.
‘Yeah, well, mostly. I’m in the music business now. I’m managing this band called Earthquake. They’re doing all this ska stuff. You know, all that skinhead music I used to be into. It’s all the rage again. I’ll tell her you’re a couple of session musicians. You can share the spare bedroom. But keep your heads down. I don’t want her kicking off at me again.’
The next morning I went out and bought all of the papers. Some of the dailies ran a small piece on Wally’s arrest. The headline on page 5 of The Sun: STARKS SLIPS NET IN SOHO SEX SHOP SWOOP. Police acting on a tip-off raided the premises of a pornographic bookshop in London’s West End last night, believing it to be the hide-out of escaped gangster Harry Starks. But the notorious Torture Gang Boss evaded capture. The proprietor, Walter Peters, is helping police with their inquiries.
‘Right, let’s get a press release together today, Lenny. Let them think I’m going to turn myself in.’
Beardsley brought up a meal for each of us on a tray.
‘The wife’s getting suspicious,’ he said. ‘There’s all this stuff in the papers and she knows I used to run around with you.’
‘Just a couple of days, Beardsley. Then I’m fucking off out of this poxy country.’
‘Spain is it?’
‘How do you know?’
‘I don’t. I just figured. You know, this extradition thing.’
‘Yeah, well, you might as well know. Got a villa in Marbella all lined up.’
‘Lovely. Weather’s fucking lovely down there. My cousin runs an English Bar down that way. Fuengirola. It’s great. Full English Breakfast, Sunday Roast, English beer and a proper cup of tea when you get homesick.’
‘Right,’ Harry said, giving me a sideways glance.
‘“Pete’s English Bar” it’s called. You should check it out.’
‘Yeah, sure. Look, thanks for putting us up B.’
Harry fished out a bundle of notes and offered them to Beardsley.
‘Look, Harry,’ said Beardsley, putting up his hands. ‘There’s no need. Old times and all that.’
‘Go on, take it. Buy the missus something nice. Keep her sweet.’
We worked on Harry’s press release through the day. Harry spent most of the time coaxing and cajoling ideas from me that he would then proceed to attack vociferously. There was heated debate over lines of argument, ordering of points and the choice of words. The habitual and mind-numbing questioning of every assertion and every subsequent criticism. It was just like old times.
Finally we hammered something out and we went through it together. Harry shrugged and pursed his lips.
‘Yeah,’ he admitted. ‘It’ll do.’
‘You sure you don’t want to change that last bit? You said you thought it sounded a bit weak.’
‘Nah, it’s fine. The main thing is that they should think that I’m going to come quietly.’
‘Who do we send it to?’
‘The Times, I guess. They ran my letter, after all.’
‘Yeah,’ I agreed.
We sat in silence for a while enjoying, for a moment at least, the calm blankness of having finished something. Finished business, I thought wistfully. I could go now. I looked up at Harry. Our eyes met.
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Well . . .’
‘Come to Spain,’ said Harry.
‘What?’
‘Look, I’ll level with you. I need something bringing back.’
‘You’ve got to be joking.’
‘It’s nothing. Just some, you know, paperwork.’
‘Paperwork?’
‘Stuff for Manny. Look, the less you know the better.’
‘Harry, I don’t want to know about this at all.’
‘Come on,’ he implored. ‘Come to Spain. Just for a few days. It’ll be a bit of a holiday.’
‘I’ve got to get back. The University.’
‘Listen to you. The University. Fuck me. I thought I was becoming institutionalised.’
‘Harry . . .’
‘You need a bit of extra-mural activity, Len. Think of the research value. You’re a criminologist for fuck’s sake. Here’s a chance to really know your subject. Extend your methodology a bit. Fieldwork, if you like. What do you call it? Ethnographic study based on participant observation.’
‘This is a wind up.’
‘Well, granted, it’s bullshit if it’s just intellectual analysis. This is a chance to really experience something. Admit it, you’re tempted.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Come on. You’re drawn to the excitement of it. That’s what got you interested in the first place.’
‘Maybe. But I can’t just drop everything and go to Spain.’
‘Why not? Christ Lenny, you’ve spent all these years studying deviant behaviour and yet you’ve always acted according to social norms. You’re supposed to be a fucking radical. When did you ever do anything radical in your life?’
‘Harry . . .’
‘Nah, it’s true, isn’t it? You’re scared of doing anything that might constitute an adventure, anything that might upset that safe little life of yours.’
I sighed. Harry grinned that grin of his.
‘Well, anyway,’ I retorted. ‘I can’t leave the country. I haven’t got my passport with me.’
Harry laugh
ed.
‘Don’t worry, old son. We can get you one.’
My stomach sank as we dropped in altitude. Not air sickness. Ground sickness. Coming down to earth. I suddenly thought: what the fuck am I doing? Gone was the heady sense of escapism I’d felt when I’d first agreed to go along with Harry. I’d somehow found myself in a dilemma. My freedom had seemed as much at stake as Harry’s. I’d felt a fatalistic tranquillity in recklessness. I’d calmly phoned the faculty again, answering frantic inquiries with obscure reasons for my absence. I needed time to think. Things had got on top of me. Compassionate leave was extended. They probably imagined that I was having some sort of nervous breakdown. They wouldn’t be far off the mark there.
But it was as we were making our final descent on Malaga Airport that I felt the gravity of it all. Coming in to land. Please fasten your seatbelts and extinguish all cigarettes. Landing is the most dangerous part of flying. What the fuck am I doing? In a foreign country with a fake passport, accompanying a fugitive of British justice. Harry sensed my rediscovered nerves.
‘Keep calm, Lenny.’ His voice hoarse and soft. ‘For fuck’s sake.’
We were only carrying hand luggage so we could go straight through to customs. We cleared it quickly and without incident. A driver was waiting for us.
The drive to Marbella took about an hour. We caught occasional glimpses of the dull-blue Mediterranean usually accompanied by huge white concrete developments.
‘The Costa Del Sol is a bit trashy,’ Harry commented. ‘But we could go inland for a couple of days. Go to Granada, have a look at the Alhambra.’
I nodded and closed my eyes, seeing a red glow.
We finally arrived at the villa. Marble steps led up to a series of whitewashed blocks. There was a cylindrical turret inlaid with coloured glass. By the wrought-iron gates at the top of the stairs we were met by a short balding muscular man. The sun had par-boiled his battered face. An open Hawaiian shirt revealed a greying hairy chest and a pot belly that hung over elasticated shorts.
‘Harry,’ he growled.
‘Jock,’ replied Harry, hugging the burly man. ‘How the fuck are you? This is Lenny. He’s in charge of public relations.’
