DEATHLOOP (10 page)

“Why not?”

“Because you’d keel over with the boredom of it all.”

They laughed, and talked, and flirted and made a date for that night. Veronica told Zack that her sister had managed to remove all her belongings from Jean-Paul’s flat while he was out, so at least she had a change of clothes.

“So you’re homeless?”

“No, as romantic as that sounds my sister and I own a flat together, in Islington. I’ll just move back in. But oh my God, I just thought…”

“What?”

“I can’t make it tonight, sorry, otherwise engaged.”

“A post mortem with the Frenchman?”

“No, no… but I’d completely forgotten. Dinner with my aunt, and I’m her favourite.”

“She’s got good taste then. But never mind,” said Zack, “another time.”

When they signed off, Veronica got the distinct impression that Zack thought she was making up an excuse for them not to meet. She wasn’t at all. In fact as she was breaking the bad news she wondered if Miriam could do the honours alone, but she knew that wasn’t fair either to her aunt or to her sister.

Zack did believe Veronica, but for some reason he found he was quite relieved that he wouldn’t be seeing her. They had met in very strange circumstances and the last couple of days had been so weird he felt he needed a little time to recover from it all to get back on track. He wanted to dazzle this new woman in his life and at the moment he felt incapable of dazzling next door’s cleaning lady. Zack was curious to know how Sam would get him off the hook at Nyman’s, but as he brewed himself a jug of coffee and tugged on a mashed up, long forgotten Marlboro he had dug out from a kitchen drawer, he reassured himself that if anyone could do it, Sam could. You knew where you were with Sam Stein, everyone said so.

At Cambridge, once all Zack’s super stylish friends had got over their initial misgivings of hanging out with a freak show, they found themselves actually seeking Sam out, not just for his jokes but for his even handed take on the world.

Zack had been furious when he found out that Sam had told Justin Dunsmore that he wasn’t about to turn gay, but he knew that Sam had told Justin to save him from more heartache, that’s all, which was why at the time Zack did not whack him over the head with his cricket bat although he really wanted to, and why when he had calmed down, Zack found himself begrudgingly admiring of Sam’s intervention. Plus it was brave, because although Sam had been accepted by the people that mattered, Zack could very easily have turned everyone against him just as he had with that stupid girl, Amber, who everyone hated in the end. Yes, thought Zack, if anyone can save him, Sam can.

A short time later, Zack’s phone rang.

“Padre,” said Sam.

“That’s me,” said Zack, already examining Sam’s voice for news.

“You’ve got a warning I think, they’re writing to you today, but Geoff suggested a fortnight off. I accepted on your behalf. He said he had to speak to the other two but they kowtow to Geoff anyway.”

“Pure genius,” said Zack, punching the air, “what the hell did you say?”

“Overwork… stress, punched up by witnessing two deaths in two days, so write a letter of apology, and email it to me before you send it, just in case it doesn’t fit in with what I said.”

“Thanks, mate,” said Zack, moved suddenly. He’d been a bastard to the guy over the years and yet he still came up trumps.

“You owe me, Fortune.”

“What’s new?”

“Get on a plane and sit by a pool somewhere, it will do you the world of good.”

“I just might do that,” said Zack.

“Yes, I bet,” said Sam, unconvinced.

Two weeks off thought Zack as he signed off from Sam, that sounded good. For the first time in years Zack felt he needed a break. All those sports events, all those books, and all those concerts… perfect. So what did Zack Fortune do next? He called up his old mate, Sid Johnson, an enormous Rastafarian who had introduced him to The Mango Tree in the first place.

“Sid, it’s Zack.”

“Mr Fortune, what gives?”

“You and me I hope…”

Sam did not like Sid Johnson. Sam did not like Sid Johnson one bit. Zack put it down to jealousy because Sam knew that Zack was extremely fond of this huge bear of a man with a wonderful lazy smile, waist length dreadlocks and six gold teeth. Jealousy certainly played its part but true to his roots, anything or anyone slightly dodgy made Sam feel anxious, and Sid fell into that category perfectly.

When asked what he did Sid would usually say: “Fairy Godmother.” At other times he would say “youth worker, import and export, community spokesperson, community liaison officer, entrepreneur, retail advisor, music producer, Notting Hill Carnival committee member, financial consultant, Jamaican in exile, man about town, steel band aficionado, cricket umpire, tour guide, expert on The Royal Family, parks and gardens, Caribbean cultural attaché,” the list went on and on, but if anyone mentioned drugs he would look fierce and rear back like he’d been winged.

“Why you demanding illegal substances from yours truly, huh?
Because I’m black?
”

Years ago, Sid had tried his hand at day to day dealing but didn’t like the aggravation it caused him, nor did he care for the calibre of his clientele. These days he preferred to think of himself as ‘Mr Fixit’ and had toyed with the idea of having the title printed on the side of his old red van, because if the price was right there was not much Sid could not get you, and if he couldn’t, he knew a man who could.

Zack had to be very careful of his links with anyone like Sid, but there were times when he wanted to put two fingers up to the world and couldn’t give a monkey’s if he was seen cruising along Ladbroke Grove in his Merc with the hood down, Sid beside him tugging on a big fat joint.

Sam had told Zack he was playing with fire hanging out with Sid, and if he wanted to walk away from a six figure salary and a brilliant career then go right ahead but leave him out of it. So Zack did leave Sam out of it for quite some time which Sam found unbearable. Finally, Sam stormed round to Zack’s flat and read him the riot act, telling him that if he insisted on hanging around with Sid Johnson he would have nothing more to do with him because he wasn’t prepared to stand by after all this time and watch him crash and burn.

Zack found Sam’s ultimatum extremely amusing but it worked and Zack fell back into line. So Sid had to take a back seat for a while, until eventually, Zack barely spent any time with him at all. Sid knew nothing of Sam’s ultimatum, but he guessed as much and it put him off the guy. Sid had always thought Zack to be his own man, but no, it seemed that his good friend Mr Fortune was under the thumb of some fucked up little Jewish troll with seriously suburban tendencies.

When Sam told Clarissa what he had done, she was amused too. “I don’t know you boys,
why can’t you share
?” she said tousling Sam’s hair, and waltzing off to read about Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, or cutlery or something. But Sam didn’t care because he had done what he had set out to do and that was yet again get Zack Fortune back in line, this time, away from the wiles of a twenty stone ‘Caribbean cultural attaché’ who scared the living daylights out of him.

On the way over to find Sid, Zack decided to pop into The Mango Tree to get the gen on the old boy from last night, but when he got there the building was cordoned off, with a convoy of police cars parked up outside blocking most of the road.

“What’s all this about?” he asked a couple of bystanders.

“Some guy died in there last night,” said one.

“Yeah, I heard about that…”

“They should close the place down,” said the other, “it’s trouble in there… always was.”

Zack had arranged to meet Sid in a dingy pub, The Vulture’s Perch, in Westbourne Grove, not far from Sid’s council flat. Usually lorded over by a bar maid called Maggie, who adored Zack, and who told anyone who would listen that if she had her way she’d get that man’s trousers down and show him what for. But it was Maggie’s night off tonight, and Zack was thankful for that because he found the perpetual sexual innuendos tedious.

Sid had already made his presence felt and managed to intimidate a group of geeky students off the pool table, even though it was their turn. The table was set up and waiting for Zack to arrive. When Zack walked in, he and Sid did the usual black man’s hand shake and Zack got in the drinks.

“Where you been, man?” asked Sid, as he took his first shot, sounding not a little hurt.

“Busy, mate,” said Zack.

“Is that right? Well, you’re looking good,” said Sid, who had a very strong sense of style and who had always admired Zack’s effortless glamour. “You still with that Italian bird?”

“Hell, no, she’s long gone.”

“Give us her number then, I liked her.”

“Too crazy for you, Sid, she’d eat you up.”

“Yeah… well… funny enough that’s what I had in mind… and anyway, all your birds are crazy, every last one,” said Sid, moving a ball slightly with his thumb and hoping Zack wouldn’t notice, but Zack did notice and it made him smile. “Why is that?” he said. “Why pick out all the head bangers?”

“I seem to attract them, for some reason,” said Zack.

“So… you been a good boy lately, have you? Keeping your nose to the grindstone, keeping away from me,” said Sid with a chuckle, flashing the gold in his mouth. “And how is the little troll? Still giving you a hard time?”

“He’s all right is Sam, just a bit straight, that’s all.”

“He’s like Napoleon, that geezer, you should send him away to sea,” said Sid, letting out a trickle of laughter, clearly taken with the idea.

A joint passed between Sid and Zack and it was so strong, it blew Zack’s head off. They didn’t care about things like that in this particular hostelry, if they had, they’d have been out of business in a week. Sid was like the Queen, he didn’t carry money and he could drink for England, Zack always struggled to keep up. A couple of hours and sixty quid later, Zack was swaying slightly, but Sid remained resolutely sober. Zack presumed it was Sid’s weight that soaked up the alcohol because something certainly did.

During the course of the evening, Sid admitted to Zack that he didn’t really do drugs anymore, he preferred vodka, (to which Zack had wanted to reply, ‘yes, I’ve noticed’), but what he did have, Sid told him, he could have.

Sid’s flat on the top floor of Soweto Towers was always packed out with Stuff. Sid didn’t know what half of it was anymore, it had just accumulated over the years and now the idea of sorting it out was too traumatic even to contemplate. “Life’s too short and that’s the truth,” said Sid, gazing mournfully across the avalanche. Everyone knew that when things were lost in Sid’s flat, usually they were lost for good.

Sid told Zack that once he’d gone off to the shops for a pork pie, brought it back and put it down somewhere never to be seen again.

“
Never to be seen again,
” said Sid, wide eyed, with the tone of someone describing an alien abduction, “how about that, man?” he said, incredulous, “
how about that
?”

Looking round now Zack could well believe it. Things had deteriorated rather since last he was here, and now Zack struggled to find anywhere to sit.

“Sit down there,” said Sid, pointing to a chair piled high with newspapers, “move all that, just tip it on the floor, here…” Sid took the newspapers and slung them, brushing down a small kitchen chair for Zack’s use.

“Now, where’d I put that stuff,” said Sid, vaguely, as he rambled off to search.

Zack let out a heartfelt sigh. Sid had given Zack the impression that the small quantity of uppers and downers he had in his possession were accessible, but if Sid had to sift through this lot to find them, Zack realised he could well be here for the duration. As Zack heard Sid rummaging around in another room, muttering to himself, and realising he might be in for a long wait, he curled up on the couch on top of clothes and books and empty take away containers, because suddenly Zack’s eyes were beginning to close.

Susan felt quite deflated after she broke the window at Bellinis, and now, two days later, she was plagued by regret. Zack was right, she could have hurt someone and that was just not on. She had been eaten up with jealousy when she saw Zack and Clarissa having dinner together and she was so angry with Zack, particularly at the way he had spoken to her that morning, but still, she had no right to do what she did.

Zack had taken her to Bellini’s once and she just loved it there. The waiters made a real fuss of her, despite the fact that she looked so scruffy when everyone else was so well dressed. She apologized to Zack, and he told her not to worry about it, but the following day he took her out and bought her masses and masses of clothes from expensive shops and it had made her so happy.

When Zack had finally caught up with her, she realised now that she should not have yelled at him or boxed him round the ears, all that negative energy and it had got her precisely nowhere. She just wanted his attention, to be attractive to him again, she just wanted him to say that he had made a terrible mistake, and most of all she wanted him to beg her to take him back. But breaking the window in his favourite restaurant was probably the wrong way to go about it and Susan realised that now.

She longed for them to make love again like they used to, with candles all round her bed, and afterwards she would recite to him her favourite poem from The Collected Works of John Keats. When she first met Zack he said he liked her reading Ode to a Nightingale but after a while though he didn’t seem so keen, in fact Susan suspected that he had taken her Collected Works of John Keats and for reasons of his own confiscated it, because she couldn’t find it and she’d searched everywhere. She would have to speak to him about that, although it didn’t matter that much because she knew most of Keats off by heart.

Susan’s friend, Hannah, had told her that it might have been ‘
Jules et Jim
’ that had precipitated their demise, after all, not all blokes liked French films she’d said. A film called ‘
Claire’s Knee
’ had sounded the death knell between Hannah and Darren, her boyfriend of two years, for reasons Hannah just could not fathom. “Blokes are funny about things like that,” she’d told Susan.