Kiss Me Quick (27 page)

Vince weighed up his options. Tobin was sat about eight feet away. Judging by his posture, he was relaxed, at ease with himself, and certainly thought he was in control of the situation. Never a quick draw, Vince reckoned he could have the gun off the man before he knew what hit him. Then there was Nick Soroya
sitting
at the bar behind him. Vince couldn’t see him, and that scared him. He scoped the desk for a weapon – a letter opener, a pair of scissors, a paperweight – but there was nothing. With just a phone and some papers, it looked unnaturally uncluttered. Tobin had probably warned Dickie Eton over the phone. The only real weapon was the heavy crystal glass now held limply in the midget music mogul’s hand.

‘Remember one thing,’ said Vince, trying to sound as unmoved by his predicament as possible. ‘I still have your painting.’

‘You got nothing!’ blurted Tobin.

Vince eyeballed Eton. ‘It’s a painting which indicates that you and Duval have sick tastes. I could make a connection, easy.’

Dickie Eton’s response was one of comprehensive casualness, the kind you’d expect from a man padding about his palatial home in his pyjamas. ‘I have to concur with Mr Eddie. You have
nothing
. And this conversation is hopelessly pointless. I feel like a pussy cat toying with a half-dead bird he’s brought into the house. Because, you see my friend, you may have my painting … but you only have
half
the picture.’

Dickie Eton looked pleased with his summation of the
scenario
, and Vince believed what he said.

‘And this, Detective, is where I leave you. I have guests to attend to.’ On that note, Dickie Eton drained his glass and stood up. As much as he could stand up – because to get off the chair there was an element of jumping down before there was any standing up. Vince’s eyes were on the crystal glass – the weapon? Dickie Eton put it down with a thud, and padded over to the door.

Tobin went to stand up …

Vince sprang to his feet to grab the glass off the desk, then send it smashing into the side of Tobin’s head, then retrieve the shooter from the ex-copper’s expanding waistband, and make his escape. That was the plan he’d set irretrievably into action.

But instead he found himself on his knees on the floor.

As soon as Vince had stood up, his legs had just buckled under him. His head spun, and it felt as if his eyes were somersaulting around his head. He could feel himself melting as the carpet became quicksand, and a sensation of limblessness made it
impossible
to get up. The sound of laughter cascaded around him. Vince felt hands grip him under where his arms should be, and he was lifted up and dumped back into his seat. He felt like a baby in a high chair, all head and ineffectual body. Vince looked up to see a giggling Dickie Eton disappearing through the door, with a
languidly
amused Nick Soroya in tow.

Vince focused on the fizzing Mickey Finn in front of him on the desk – the drugged glass of Coca-Cola. The fear he’d been feeling had somehow overridden the effects of the drugged drink as it set about disabling him. It seemed his head was still
working
, but his body had retired. In fact, it felt …
dead
. And Vince suspected that, with Dickie Eton now out of the room, his head would soon be joining the rest of him.

Tobin now sat on a corner of the desk, with a big
shit-shovelling
grin on his face. He, it seemed, had no qualms about playing the big kitty toying with the little bird.

‘You’re a smart boy, Treadwell. I could tell, the minute the little fella started talking, that you started thinking: “Why’s he telling me all this? Why’s he putting himself in the frame?” Yeah, Treadwell, smart boy like you already knows the answer; because dead men don’t talk.’

‘That’s why you never made Murder Squad, Eddie. They do talk. They tell you all sorts of things, if you look close enough.’

‘I never made Murder Squad because there wasn’t any money in it. A dead loss, you could say.’

‘Oh, yeah, the envelopes.’

‘Not any more, now I’m a partner in
this
little caper.’

‘Going up in the world, Eddie, or down in the gutter?’

‘We’re gonna kill you, Treadwell. And we’re gonna get away with it. And I’m now gonna tell you why.’

Vince couldn’t move, felt as if he was encased in lead. His brain was ticking over and his mouth still seemed to be doing the
business
, even though his lips, and even his eyelids felt sluggish. He felt as though he’d been shot through with some huge dose of local anaesthetic. ‘What was in the drink?’

‘It’s the same stuff we dose the girls with.’ Tobin smiled. ‘They can see it coming, but they can’t do anything about it. It’s all in the eyes, you see. The director, he always goes for close-ups of their faces just before they get it. That’s what the perverts really like, the fear in the women’s eyes.’

Tobin took a slow smug stroll around to the other side of the desk, and sat down in the chair Dickie Eton had vacated. Physically the desk
fitted
him better – but it didn’t
suit
him. His prole face still had him pegged as the heavy sitting in the boss’s chair. ‘Smart mouth, Treadwell. You fuckin’ little know-it-all.’

‘From what I’ve just heard off the Mighty Atom, I got
most
of it right,’ replied Vince.

‘Ha! You know nothing!’

‘I’ve been hearing that a lot lately. Go on then, Eddie, educate me.’

Eddie Tobin sat back in the chair. ‘You remember Tommy Ribbons, dead on the floor, right?’

Vince nodded, or gave what he thought might be an
approximation
of a nod, with his new disembodied body.

‘You were asked to get the doorman?’

The sight of Eddie Tobin savouring the moment grated, so Vince decided to spoil it for him and speed things up. ‘I went to the front of the club. He wasn’t there. I heard a noise upstairs, a door slamming shut. So I went upstairs to check. It was dark. I heard a girl screaming from inside a room, top floor. Door was locked. I kicked it open and went inside. Shelves, stacks of film canisters. A table in the centre of the room, movie projector sitting on it, showing a movie. A private cinema. About twenty fellas sitting watching stag films. No big deal, they’re all over Soho. But this was different …’

Eddie Tobin pulled a grin when he saw the disgust on Vince’s face. ‘Yeah, I’ve seen that one,’ said Tobin. ‘Two spades togged-up like Zulus raping and beating a junkie blonde.’

Vince continued, ‘I heard something, turned around, saw a man standing in the doorway. Tall fella. Not the doorman. The
projectionist
I assumed. Then I wake up in the hospital with a headache, and your report in front of me – telling me I made it all up. Then I end up here and, bingo, I find out I’m right on the button.’

‘You don’t remember anything else?’

Vince shrugged, or at least thought he did, because he wasn’t sure his shoulders were working.

‘The man in the room, you’re right, he was the projectionist,’ said Tobin, leaning forward across the desk, as if he wanted to get a closer look at something being held under glass. Then he announced, ‘You killed him, Treadwell.’

What stopped Vince from falling to the floor, but this time in howls of incredulous laughter, rather than as a result of his spiked drink, was Tobin’s expression. There was something there that transcended a bent copper’s thin-lipped, slitty-eyed dishonesty. And if it was meant to be a joke, he was playing it straight.

‘Go on,’ said Vince.

Eddie Tobin sat back in Dickie Eton’s chair, no longer
triumphant
. This moment was bigger than his victory over Vince. ‘Me and Duval went looking for you when you didn’t come back,’ said Tobin. ‘We went upstairs, saw the door was open to the
projection
room. Blood on the floor, lots of it. The projectionist was starfished on the floor. You were kneeling over him, pounding his face to a pulp. Smashing him to pieces. I called out, told you to stop. You were killing him.
Killing him
. You turned around and saw us. Then you just carried on pounding the shit out of him. You wouldn’t stop. Duval had the cosh in his hand that he keeps stashed under the counter. I took it out of his hand because he was useless from shock. And, bang, got you on the top of the head, hard enough to put out an elephant. But you carried on.’

Tobin sucked at his teeth at the memory of it, then continued, ‘You knew what you were doing, Treadwell – head shots direct to the temple. All bruised and battered, brains like mush, until he was dead. Tongue lolling out his mouth, he was smashed to pieces. You killed him, Treadwell. You
slaughtered
him. Duval was puking. Me, I just stood there. You know, like a rabbit in the headlights. Never seen anything like it. Then you stood up, turned around. Duval was out the door, screaming like a fucking girl, with tears in his eyes. And he’s been about a bit, seen a few things. Me too. Nothing like this, though. It was your face, Treadwell … you were smiling. You stood up and then you fell over. The whacks I gave you must have got through that thick skull of yours. A delayed reaction. You had this look on you … I’ve never seen nothing like it. Twisted it was. Pure evil.’

Vince stood up, fast. Then fell right down again, just as fast. It was the information, the shock shooting through his body which had got him up. A reaction, a spasm. But, once up, his body just didn’t know how to cope, so it sent him straight back down again. He squeezed his eyes shut, then reopened them to see Tobin’s shoes just inches from his face. Brown wingtips, cracked and
over-polished
, crud on the welt that smelled like dried dog shit. The shoes shuffled off out of view. Vince was grabbed by the lapels and heaved up, and dumped back into his chair. Breathless through the exertion of lifting the young detective, Tobin rested himself on the corner of the desk.

‘I’ll give you the whole deal, Treadwell. You like movies, don’t you? Well, now you’re starring in one. You’re on
Candid Camera
. The whole thing was filmed, because Duval had a hidden camera in the projection room. Security just to make sure none of those films left the room. Duval’s got them all over the gaff, because he’s a surveillance nut – and a peeping Tom. But you know that
yourself
, don’t you? You’ve heard about those parties he holds at his mansion. It’s him and Dickie – oh yeah, the little fella’s the same.’ Tobin leaned forward, raised a beckoning forefinger, as if to hook him in. ‘Between you and me, Treadwell, the little fella and Lionel are a couple of right heavyweight perverts. They like to watch the guests at it, all fucked up on booze, pills and dope. Men and women doing things, women and women dyking off, queer boys dressed up as birds. Duval’s got cameras all over his house, and Dickie, too, I wouldn’t be surprised. What do you think is going on downstairs now? Are you kidding? It’s like a Roman orgy!’

Tobin was really hitting his stride now. His face was lavishly red, not at the prospect of joining in the fun and games downstairs, but at the power he now held over the young detective.

‘You see, for all the little fella’s big talk, Dickie doesn’t like to fuck. He likes to watch others doing the dirty work, as he says. Lionel’s the same: wouldn’t cheat on his wife, but he likes to watch. You should see the people Lionel’s got on film, doing stuff they shouldn’t be doing with people they shouldn’t be doing it with. How come you think he’s buying up all of Soho,
without
the good people of Westminster Council batting an eyelid? Because he’s got the dirt on the right people. And he’s got it on you, too, Treadwell.’

Tobin stood up and walked around to the other side of the desk, to sit down again. He knitted his hands together and leaned forward, like a newsreader about to impart some very serious news. ‘Don’t you even want to know what happened to the fella you killed?’

Vince didn’t answer, not wanting to give the whole story credence. He wasn’t yet ready to allow that. He wanted it to remain a lie. But Tobin was dying to tell him, anyway, the words brimming around his thin-lipped mouth like drool.

‘The projectionist was a nobody. No wife, no family. And no one really knew that he worked for Duval, or what he did. So he wouldn’t be missed: just a piece of flotsam that got washed up in Soho. Occasionally had a few drinks in the Coach and Horses with the stagehands, but no one really knew him. He was a nothing.’

They were the only two in the room, but Tobin still
pantomimed
looking around to check that no one was listening. ‘I read the report on you from the psychologist, Treadwell. One of the best in the business. Wrote a book on it …’

‘Dr Hans Boehm,’ supplied Vince.

‘That’s right. The same report you weren’t allowed to read. Oh, yeah, Scotland Yard’s got a file on you. They’re monitoring you very closely. Dr Boehm said you were prone to delusions. Fantasies. Said you was a nastysiss.’

‘Narcissist, you moron.’

Tobin, unfazed by the insult, carried on. ‘Yeah, like I said, a nastysiss. Bit like being a ponce, which I always thought you were, with your flash fucking suits and your oily dago good looks.’

The Mickey Finn must have been wearing off now, because Vince was becoming aware of his body again. And of the slurry of sickness in his stomach. It wasn’t just the information spewing out of Tobin’s mouth that made Vince nauseous, it was his actual mouth. It was him. While Tobin had been doing so much talking, foamy white spittle had formed in the corners of his thin lips. Even holding all the cards, as he professed to, the ex-copper still looked rabid with resentment, ugly with hate. Vince looked away from that gaping, foaming gob and glanced around the room.

‘You’re getting excited, Eddie. Wipe your mouth. I can smell your whore’s breath from here.’

Tobin wiped the spittle off his mouth with the back of his sleeve. He rolled his shoulders, composed himself, then continued, ‘OK, nice and easy. Dr Boehm reckons you always see yourself at the centre of things – things that don’t exist. Prone to hubris and ego, he said. Most psychopaths and villains are nastysiss.’