Kiss Me Quick (12 page)

As Vince parked his car outside the Seaview Hotel, he found Terence Greene-John sitting on the steps, waiting for him. Terence rose to his feet grinning with Boy Scout enthusiasm. ‘I got your address from Detective Machin. Hope you don’t mind?’

Vince certainly did mind. He could just imagine Machin
getting
the measure of Terence, sussing him out as a potential pain in the arse and sending him around to the Seaview.

‘Did he now? That was nice of him,’ said Vince, making his way past him while searching his pockets for his room key. ‘What can I do for you, Terence?’

‘I appreciate you’re busy, Detective Treadwell, but I thought I might be able to help.’

‘How so?’

‘It’s Brighton races today. Might be some interesting people there.’

Vince stopped searching for his keys and looked at the young would-be hack in a new light. It was a useful light. An
informative
light. Vince smiled at him and Terence smiled back.

Vince’s next port of call was meant to be the Sunnyside Retirement Home, to visit Henry Pierce. But he realized Terence was right: Brighton races was where the action would be today. And Pierce would be caught up in it because, retired or not retired, blind or not blind, villainy always loves the races. It gives them a chance to spend their illicitly earned cash. Clean it, launder it, wash away its sins in the bookie’s satchel.

At eleven years old, Vince knew all about the Brighton races. He had found himself a Saturday job as a ‘bucket boy’, which meant going around the betting ring, wiping the chalked-up odds off the bookies’ boards between races. He did it so fast that he soon put the other bucket boys out of business. Not only fast on his feet and swift with a wet sponge, Vince was good with
numbers
. Soon the bookies trusted him enough to run bets around the ring with other bookies. They didn’t even have to write them down for him, since he could hold complicated lay-off bets – with all their mathematical intricacies – in his head, three or four at a time. He looked like a natural for becoming a bookie himself.

Brighton races would never be confused with ‘glorious’ Goodwood or Royal Ascot. It was all about the lumpen
proletariat
having a laugh and a day out. Grizzled punters studying
Sporting Life
; flash young men with their dates, hoping to pay for a good night out on their winnings; gangsters and clergymen all mixing it up – and all of them taking their chances against that old enemy: the bookies.

Vince stood in the grandstand, surveying the scene before him through a pair of binoculars. The course was packed, and the bookies were doing a thriving business, taking bets and throwing notes and coins into their battered, painted satchels. Tic-tac men standing high on upturned crates, flailing their arms about in that secret semaphore used to manipulate the odds and move money around the betting ring. The action was as fast and furious as a stock exchange in a trading frenzy.

Vince had already recognized some ‘faces’ from London. There was Benny Blake, small, compact, dark and sharp-suited, with a ready smile disguising the fact that he had been certified insane several times. Next to him stood Albert Dimes, the Frith Street bookmaker, who was boss of the Italian mob from Clerkenwell and overseer of Billy Hill’s rackets.

But the number-one pitch in the bookies’ ring was reserved for Sammy Bellman. A heavy-set, broad-shouldered man, he looked the part in an off-white linen suit, brown fedora and gold-rimmed glasses with a clip-on sun visor. For all his natty attire, Sammy B was a known shtarker who purportedly wasn’t afraid of anyone. Apart, of course, from the man who would take a cut of
whatever
he would earn today – Jack Regent.

Vince’s binoculars then picked out the Bartlett brothers, Victor and Terry, two of the top ‘knocker boys’ in town. The knocker boys were Brighton’s indigenous racket, mainly due to its large antiques trade. Teams would go out all over the country, usually in pairs, knocking on doors and advertising themselves as:
‘Surveyors and purchasers of fine art and antiques, offering the best prices, and free insurance valuations for furniture, silver, jewellery, paintings, ceramics and objets d’art’
. That’s what it said on their card, anyway. But once the unsuspecting homeowner had answered their knock, heard the patter and invited them across the threshold, they were subject to a fast-talking conman charisma that would empty their house of its valuables and leave them both breathless and pot-less. The knocker boys were like alchemists working in reverse. Things that seemed worth their weight in gold soon got reassessed as base metal; furniture by Chippendale was suddenly overtaken by an infestation of woodworm that might infect the whole house if it wasn’t swiftly removed; paintings by Dutch masters became apprentice pieces at best, if not outright forgeries; Fabergé eggs hatched little more than a few pounds after being denounced as the baubles they really were. Thus the knocker boys made it clear that they were doing the householders a favour by relieving them of their worthless possessions. Some of them came from Romany stock, and couldn’t either read or write, but they could certainly tell quality antiques when they saw them. And if the knocker boys couldn’t convince the householder to part with his treasures, no problem, for the place had been cased. Either they or their colleagues would return at a later date – and this time they wouldn’t be knocking on the front door in broad daylight, but jemmying open a window in the middle of the night. So it came as no surprise to Vince to see the Bartlett brothers were talking to a bald man in a long camelhair coat, who went by the name of Murray the Head, or Murray of Mayfair, or even Murray of St-Tropez. These last two sobriquets came from the places he had worked, either as cat burglar or sleight-of-hand thief. The first one, ‘The Head’, was most frequently used and the most obvious: for his head was noticeably large and cue-ball bald. But it wasn’t white, however, but deeply tanned. In that regard more St-Tropez than Mayfair.

There was a nudge at Vince’s elbow, and he turned to see Terence standing at his side, holding two bottles of Coca-Cola with straws in them. Vince accepted one. ‘Cheers.’

Terence pointed excitedly. ‘That’s Sammy Bellman in the white suit.’

Vince sucked on the straw, sluiced the fizzy liquid around his mouth, gulped it down, burped, then said, ‘Tell me something I don’t know, ace.’

Terence cleared his throat and elaborated. ‘Sammy Bellman, forty-three, bookmaker. Jack Regent’s bookmaker. Has pitches at all the top southern courses and runs most of Mr Regent’s gambling interests, on and off the track.’ Vince noted his
respectful
enunciation of the name ‘Mr Regent’. Terence continued: ‘Bellman runs all his betting activities and a lay-off operation; which lays off bets with bookies all over the country. He also runs Jack’s private casino, the Brunswick Sporting Club.’

Despite himself, Vince liked what he was hearing: this was good information, and better than any Machin had furnished. He was surprised Terence had it. As a reward, he threw Terence a bone and divulged some information of his own. He began by
pointing
out Bellman’s position on the bookies’ number-one pitch.

‘What does that tell you, Terence?’

Terence’s brow creased; he was giving it serious thought.

Vince then pointed to Johnny Price, in the second row of bookies. Standing beside him were Benny Blake and ‘Italian’ Albert Dimes.

‘Those men there are supposedly in the same league as Regent. In fact, some might say that, because they’re from London, they’re in a bigger league than Regent. But the truth is they have to share London with three or four other mobs. Would you rather have just a slice of a big pie, or the whole of a smaller pie? I know what I’d prefer – but then I don’t like other people touching my food.’

Terence nodded in recognition of the economics, and the fact that Jack Regent was more than happy with his lot. Besides, Jack, like Vince, wasn’t the kind of man to share.

Vince continued. ‘So the fact that Sammy Bellman is still
holding
on to the number-one pitch tells us …?’

‘That Jack is still a force to be reckoned with?’

‘Exactly. Because Sammy Bellman, on his own, couldn’t hold off men like Blake and Dimes. There just isn’t that kind of muscle in the town – only Jack Regent. Now, Terence, tell me about the Brunswick Sporting Club. What’s the score there?’

Terence, back on home turf, explained confidently, ‘It’s in Brunswick Square and it occupies a whole house, meaning four floors and a basement. High-stakes poker, blackjack, chemin de fer, baccarat, roulette, a craps table – you name it. It’s a full house casino, apparently, a very slick operation. Lots of high rollers from London come down to play, on gambling junkets with their rooms paid for at the Metropole and the Grand.’

‘I never reckoned you for a high roller, Terence.’

Terence laughed. ‘No, God, no. I couldn’t even get in.’

‘Then how come you know so much about it, ace?’

‘Told you I knew things,’ said Terence, obviously pleased with himself.

‘Then keep on telling.’

‘Through a friend of a friend at university. He was going out with a girl he met at the Slade school, who used to model for the students. Very shapely. Very …
sexy
. She had a job in the club as a cocktail waitress. She told him all about the place. She gave it up after a few weeks, thought it was all a bit too … well, some of the men used to want more than just drinks off her. And Mr Regent scared her. She didn’t like being anywhere around him …’

Vince thought about Bobbie. Why did she stay with him? Why wasn’t she scared, too?

‘There’s a password to get in,’ continued Terence.

‘You know what it is?’

‘She said they change it every few weeks.’

Vince took another swig of Coke and considered his earnest young sidekick. He was bright, smart and obviously a sponge when it came to any information regarding his beloved
underworld
. Vince decided he’d better pay the Brunswick Sporting Club a visit.

‘The Indian! The Indian!’ Terence was now yanking Vince’s elbow.

‘Take it easy!’ said Vince, as he raised the binoculars to his eyes. Henry ‘Redskin’ Pierce was currently making his way over to Sammy Bellman’s pitch. He held a distinctive white stick as he tapped his way through the crowd. Vince noted that it wasn’t the usual slim cane that blind people use as a form of antenna, but a solid white stick looking heavy and gnarled; as if fashioned from bone or ivory, or had been ripped straight from a tree. In the wrong hands – like Pierce’s hands – it looked as if it might make an effective weapon. Pierce forged a path before him, as the bodies in his way quickly dispersed. Behind him – not leading the way as you’d expect – followed his driver and companion, Spider. Amphetamine-freak thin, his long, sinewy body kept twisting this way and that as his bony head gazed around him; soaking up the respect and fear that eddied in his boss’s wake. No doubt emboldened by Pierce’s patronage, the skinny spiv wore a lairy bottle-green tonic suit and a pork-pie hat.

No such clown clothes for Henry Pierce, though. Funereal as ever, he was enveloped in black from top to toe. With his
inky-black
hair, the black-on-black shirt and tie combination, a black suit, heavy black brogues, the entire ensemble was sheathed in a black Crombie overcoat with a black felt collar. The only thing that wasn’t black was the white stick; and, of course, his skin with its sickly pallor. Otherwise monochromic, but for one tiny detail of colour: the gold tie clip containing a blood-red cabochon in its centre. It was the same outfit he always wore: there was no inconsistency about Pierce; he stuck to his guns and to his garb. He wasn’t in the business of subtlety. Only in the business of scaring people. There was no guise of respectability about Henry Pierce. He was what he was, and you had to admire his honesty. He was bad. He was
good
at being bad. He didn’t go for
redeeming
features. There were no shades of grey. He wore black.

Pierce exchanged a few words with Sammy B, who handed over a roll of notes out of his satchel. Pierce pocketed the money as he turned away.

It was Vince’s turn to yank Terence by the arm, ‘Come on, let’s go,’ he instructed, and headed down towards the betting ring.

They made their way over to Sammy B’s pitch. No sign of Pierce by now. But he was a man you’d have difficulty missing, and Vince recognized the head above the crowd before he heard the tapping of the heavy stick. A path opened up before Pierce like the Red Sea, and Vince felt the tide of people getting out of his path. Vince followed quickly in his slipstream while Terence followed in Vince’s.

Pierce still leading, with Spider in his shadow, they made their way through the atrium of the grandstand, and up the stairs to the upper tier, then along the corridor to one of the private boxes. Vince and Terence still tailed them at a careful distance.

With large windows set in the partitions of the private boxes, they were not that private, and Vince could see all he needed to. Henry Pierce was now sitting at a table, talking to a very fat man while Spider stood sentry at the door.

The fat one was still picking over the remnants of the ‘catch of the day’ that lay before him. He’d been feasting on shellfish, and you could tell that eating was a serious business for him. His shirtsleeves were rolled up so that he could set about his work unencumbered, while his chubby fingers glistened with grease. His cherub-cheeked face was almost featureless due to the excess weight he was carrying, and the full head of golden-blond hair looked downy, almost transparent on top of it.

‘Who’s the big baby with the bib?’ asked Vince.

Terence chuckled. ‘That’s Max Vogel. He’s an antique dealer with a shop in the Lanes. I gather he’s not too bothered about the provenance of items he deals in, if you get my drift. His
nickname
is “Treble Dutch”, partly because he’s of Dutch extraction and partly—’