Jack Carter's Law (19 page)

The Fountain of Youth

W
HEN THE CAB DROPS
me off at Marble Arch I walk round the back of the Cumberland and up Seymour Place until I get to Crawford Street. In the daylight the pub is an even dirtier yellow and as I go up the steps in the passageway by its side the smell of urine is just as strong as it was the night before.

I reach the first landing and press the bell to flat number 4. At first I think she’s out because three or four minutes pass without anything happening and I’m just about to press the bell again when the door opens and she’s standing there looking at me with her mouth wide open. She’s wearing horn-rimmed glasses and a black polo-neck sweater and tight white trousers and her hair is pulled back from her face and tied in a bow at the nape of her neck. Then the initial shock passes away from her and she begins to go into the slamming-the-door-in-my-face routine but I’m expecting that and I’m through the door and past her before she can finish the trick.

“You bastard, you’ve got—” she begins but I cut her off by saying, “I know you probably feel like enjoying yourself and getting all the mileage you can out of the situation, but that pleasure will have to wait unless you want a couple round the earhole. All right?”

As I’m telling her this I walk through to where the drinks are and pour myself one and sit down on one of the Swedish chairs. She follows me through and stands by the screen and begins to open her mouth again.

“All right?” I say.

Her mouth closes.

I take a sip of my drink and pick up the phone that’s on the glass table and dial the Skinner’s Arms and Danny Hall the landlord picks up the receiver at the other end. “Danny, it’s Jack,” I tell him. “Now what I want you to do is to send one of the lads over to the club and fetch Gerald’s old lady over to yours and I want to ask her to wait by the phone because I’ll be calling her there in half an hour from now. That all right?”

Danny tells me that it is and I put the phone down and I have another sip of my drink and I look at Lesley who hasn’t taken her eyes off me all the time I’ve been on the phone.

“Why don’t you have a drink?” I ask her. “It’s pretty good stuff. Better than what you usually get in a place like this.”

She carries on looking at me and although there are many things she would like to say and do she manages to keep herself under control.

I finish my drink and get up and make myself another one and while I’m doing that she says, “I suppose I’m not going to get to know what’s going on.”

“Came back for my cuff link, didn’t I?”

She begins to go red and this time she won’t be able to stop herself.

I can’t be doing with any of that so I say, “About that phone call, incidentally. I said what I said for a reason. Without going into the ins and outs of it, I had to make it seem as if I didn’t want to talk to you. For business reasons. I couldn’t phone you back and explain because I didn’t know your number so I thought I’d come round instead.”

She goes over to the door that leads into the hall and throws it open and starts screaming and yelling at the top of her voice. “Clear out, you lying bastard, what do you bleeding well think I am?”

I down my drink and go over to her and give her one round the earhole that sends her glasses flying and I close the door. Then I haul her over to the chaise longue and sit her down and sit down next to her.

“All right,” I tell her, “I’ll stop fucking about. I’ve come to stay here for a couple of days. Not out of choice, out of necessity. And you’re going to like it, not because you like me, but because I say you’re going to like it. And nobody else is going to know anything about it, are they? Purely because you’re a clever little girl and you’ve got a vivid imagination and I don’t have to put it plainer than that, do I?”

She’s lost her colour now, except for the spot on the side of her face where I fetched her one. I look at her and she looks at me and then she shivers, just once, the whole length of her body. So now that’s sorted out I get off the chaise longue and go through into the dining part and pour another drink and sit down by the telephone and unbutton my jacket and light another cigarette. She stays out of sight on the chaise longue and there is a heavy silence which goes perfectly with the gloom of the wet afternoon light that is drifting in through the tall windows. The silence and the tone of the room begin to give me the creeps so I lean across and switch on the table lamp but all that does is to throw the room’s shadows into deeper, darker relief and after a minute or two I switch off the light. I look at my watch and there’s quarter of an hour to go before I said I’d contact Audrey. I get up and find an ashtray and take it back to the table and sit down again. There is still no sound or movement from behind the other side of the screen.

The next ten minutes pass even more slowly. Then it is time and I pick up the phone and dial the number of the Skinner’s Arms. Audrey answers almost immediately.

“What you said earlier,” I say. “About getting out of it. We might just have to do that.”

“Where are you?” she says.

“Never mind that. The Garage is finished. When I got back there there’d been visitors.”

“Police?”

“No.”

“Who, then?”

“I don’t know. All I know is we no longer have any
members of a certain gentleman’s family at our disposal. And it wasn’t the law who was dashing to the rescue.”

Audrey doesn’t say anything.

“So in the light of recent events,” I tell her, “I should start getting various arrangements underway. Make one or two withdrawals, know what I mean?”

“Yes. But where are you? I can’t get in touch.”

“That’s the best way. Be at the phone at seven o’clock tonight. What we’re going to do might depend on what happens during the next two or three hours.”

“Like what?”

“I’m going to have another go at Cross.”

“You’re out of your mind. You’ll never get to him, not after what’s happened.”

“It’s the only way we’ve got left. I’ve got to try it. What else can I do?”

“I don’t know. But I’ll start doing like you say.”

“Have you heard from Con?”

“No. But Peter’s been in and out of the club like a bloody yo-yo looking for you.”

“Oh yes?” I say. “And what would that be for?”

“He says he’s got something to tell you, but he won’t say what it is. He says he’s got to see you personally.”

I don’t say anything for a moment or two.

Eventually Audrey says, “Are you still there?”

“Yes, I’m still here,” I say.

“What’s the matter then?”

“Oh, nothing,” I tell her. “Nothing at all.”

Now it’s her turn to go quiet.

After a suitable length of silence has gone by I say, “Now do you see what I mean?”

“But—”

“Never mind the buts. I want you to fix a time and a place with Peter.”

“But—”

“What did I just tell you?”

There is another silence. Then I say, “Tell Peter I’ll be at the Fountain of Youth in an hour’s time. Tell him to take a booth and wait for me. But don’t tell him for at least half an hour. I want to be there well before him.”

“You’re barmy. You’re putting yourself right in it.”

“If I’m right I am, yes. But the only way to prove it is to test it out. If I’m proved right then at least we’ll have an extra direction to work on. Which is one more than we’ve got already.”

“What happens if you’re right and it doesn’t work out?”

“Then you go on your own, don’t you?”

She starts to say something else but before she can get it out I put the phone down. At the moment I can do without all the ifs and buts of what could possibly happen. If you think on those lines in my business then you shouldn’t be in the business in the first place. If you think on those lines you’ll never have the nous to fix on to the idea that a poof like Peter the Dutchman might be connected with all the ups and downs of the last twenty-four hours, and if you think on those lines you’ll never have the stupid face to go the lengths I’m about to go to check that idea out.

I get up and pour myself another drink and think a few thoughts and then I go round to the other side of the screen. Lesley is still sitting in the same position as when I left her, staring at the blank wall. When she sees me, she adopts the expression she always wears when she’s got anything to do with me.

“You got a car?” I ask her.

She doesn’t reply so I begin to walk towards her but before I can get to her she nods.

“Nearby?”

She nods again.

“Right,” I tell her. “Get your coat. We’re going out.”

“You mean you are,” she says.

I take hold of her arm and lift her off the settee and walk her through into the bedroom. Still holding her I open one of the fitted cupboards and pull a tie-belted camel coat off one of the hangers and give it to her.

“Now then,” I tell her, “let’s make this the last bit of business this afternoon, shall we? Because I haven’t the time, I really haven’t.”

“So I gather,” she says, giving me a nasty smile. I let her get away with that one and she puts the coat on and we walk back through the lounge and out of the flat and down the stairs. The rain has stopped and it’s much colder than before and the sky is a uniform still gray.

We round the corner of the pub into Crawford Street and a minute or two later she stops by an almost new Mini-Clubman.

“Will this do?” she says.

“Very nice,” I tell her. “Managing to keep up the H.P., are you?”

She gives me her look and takes the keys out of her pocket and unlocks the door on the driver’s side but as she opens the door I take the keys off her and indicate that she should get in the passenger seat by sliding across from the driving side. When she’s done that I get in and put the key in the ignition. The inside of the car smells clean and new and the polyethylene covers are still on the front seats. The gearbox is automatic so I put the stick in drive and pull away from the curb and set off in the direction of Upper Street.

After a while Lesley lights herself a cigarette and when she’s done that she says, “I don’t suppose there’s any point in asking what’s going on?”

“I thought you asked that earlier,” I say.

She frowns and sinks a bit lower into her seat. Then she says, “And what happens when I phone my friend Mr. Hume and tell him I’ve got Jack Carter as a non-paying non-bleeding-welcome guest?”

“Nothing. Because you’re not going to phone him, are you? Not unless you’ve got a telephone installed in this little motor.”

“So we’re going to be together always, are we?”

“Only for the next few hours, darling. Then you can phone who the bleeding hell you like.”

As I’m talking I’m taking the car round a left turning. On the other side of the road a bus is just pulling away from a bus stop. Suddenly Lesley throws herself across me and grabs hold of the steering wheel and although she can’t match me her action is so quick and unexpected that before I can do anything the motor is halfway across the other side of the road and making for the oncoming bus. She hangs on to the steering wheel and the only way I can get her off it is to grab hold of her hair and pull as hard as I can. She screams with pain and with my free hand I yank the steering wheel over as far as it will go but it’s too late to completely avoid the bus, although the driver has begun to take his own evasive action. There is a sound like chalk squeaking on a blackboard only ten times louder as the rear end of the Mini scrapes along the side of the bus. At the same time as that is happening Lesley has opened the passenger door of the Mini in readiness for its slowing down so that she can jump out. I put my foot down and the Mini gets to the end of the bus but I’m still not clear because a taxi has begun to pull out from behind the bus and unless one of us gives way we’re going to meet radiator to radiator. I boost the Mini by putting it in second which gives the taxi driver such a fright that he pulls hard over without taking his foot off the accelerator and there is a noise like a bomb going off as the taxi piles into the back of the bus. At the same time the open door of the Mini connects with a Cortina that’s going in our direction, moving up inside in the lane we should be traveling in. The driver of the Cortina jams his brakes on and the Mini door slams shut and there is another crash and the Cortina lurches forward as something goes up his arse but not far enough forward to occupy the space I need to let me back into the proper lane and give me a chance to get away. I throw the gear stick back into drive and take the first left turning which is only ten yards in front of me and I wind up the Mini as fast as I can. At this speed there’s no chance of Lesley opening the door and getting out so what she does instead is to press herself as close to the passenger door as she can get, but that’s not far enough away because after I’ve taken a few more lefts and rights and made sure there’s no sign of Old Bill I reach over and give her a couple.

“Jesus Christ,” I say. “I reckon you must like getting sorted. I really do. Jesus bleeding Christ.”

I shake my head and all she does is turn up the collar of her coat and sink down lower into her seat. I reach in my pocket and find my cigarettes but I can’t find my matches so I have to ask for a light. She pushes it again by ignoring me at first but she only pushes it so far and in the end she fishes out her lighter and hands it over. I shake my head again and light up and put the lighter back on the shelf.