Kiss Me Quick (8 page)

‘That’s the Moor’s head, which is the emblem on the Corsican flag. Did Jack wear any jewellery that had this on it, such as a ring, a medallion?’

Bobbie inspected the drawing. ‘No, but he did always say that his role model was Napoleon.’

‘Napoleon?’

‘Napoleon Bonaparte was Corsican. Jack’s keen on history, but you’re not, obviously.’

‘History? It’s the nightmare I’ve yet to wake up from.’

She threw him a querying look.

‘A famous writer said that, or something like it.’

‘I was just kidding about Napoleon, Detective.’

Vince gave her an acquiescent smile, but didn’t think she really was kidding. Most gangsters were tinpot despots running their little fiefdoms fuelled on massive egos and Napoleon complexes. And, whilst Jack wasn’t known for a diminutive stature, Vince reckoned the club foot must have given his psyche a good
kicking
over the years.

‘Did he have any tattoos?’

She frowned. ‘Tattoos?’

Vince replied, facetiously, ‘Yeah, inky markings, snakes coiled around daggers, eulogies to dead mothers, odes to girlfriends.’

‘Thank you, Detective, but I know what they are. And he had none that I noticed.’

‘And you
would
have noticed?’

‘We weren’t that close.’

‘Really? I thought you were about as close as two people could get.’

Bobbie dragged on her cigarette and blew out a plume of smoke that suggested either she was bored or that he should back off. ‘From my intimate knowledge, I never saw any tattoos. But, then again, there’s intimacy, and there’s intimacy. And if I was that intimate, why would I be telling someone whom I wasn’t that intimate with?’

‘Because it’s a murder investigation and I’m a policeman,’ he said, as a reminder to himself as much as to her.

‘Well, maybe we should get more intimate, then I might tell you.’ She searched his face for embarrassment.

None was forthcoming, as Vince held her gaze, his slightly hooded eyes expressing a world-weariness that suggested he’d heard it all before. He put his notebook away and glanced around the room. Two punters had left the bar. The couple sitting by the stage were now locking lips – that Bed & Breakfast was clearly beckoning.

‘Did Mr Regent talk about his family, Miss LaVita?’

‘No.’

‘Then what do you know about them?’

She shrugged to signify
nothing
.

‘I’m sure the officers you spoke to made you fully aware that withholding information is—’

‘I’m not withholding anything, officer. And if I sound a little obtuse, it’s not deliberate. These last few weeks have been very difficult, very difficult indeed.’

Vince wasn’t buying her last line, as her delivery seemed devoid of the emotions that usually went with such a statement: the tears and the quaking voice of an innocent caught up in the maelstrom of a murder investigation. Her response sounded too
lawyer-rehearsed
and cross-examination ready.

But still Vince was compelled to give the stock answer: ‘Yes, I’m sure it has been, and I won’t take up too much more of your time. We just need to find out the truth, so—’

‘I’m answering your questions as truthfully as possible. You asked me if he talked about his family, and I said no. You asked me what I knew about his family, but I know nothing about them, because we never talked about them. So I assumed he didn’t have any.’

‘Everybody has a family, Miss LaVita, whether we like it or not.’

‘You’d be surprised.’

‘And in the time you spent together, you never thought to ask more about his family?’

‘No. And he didn’t ask about mine.’

‘What did you talk about, then?’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘Just curious.’

‘Far more interesting things.’

‘Oh, that’s right,’ he said derisively. ‘Big weighty subjects like history? And there’s such a lot of it, must have kept him amused for hours.’

She eyed him contemptuously, then pinched a piece of tobacco from her tongue.

‘You said history was a favourite, Miss LaVita?’ he pressed.

‘So I did.’

‘Just not each other’s.’

‘For a lot of people, Detective, families are rather like your writer chap’s description of history: a nightmare I’ve yet to wake up from.’

Vince twigged the bitterness in her voice. There obviously
was
a history.

‘So, in lieu of any family, it’s safe to assume that you were, or are, the closest person to him?’

‘You think I know where he is?

‘I think someone does.’

‘And, if I knew, you think I’d tell you?’

Vince gave a noncommittal shrug.

‘You’re wrong. I wouldn’t.’

‘Maybe. But someone, anonymously, has already told us
something
. That’s why we’re after him.’

‘You think I’m the anonymous someone?’

His shrug was less noncommittal this time around.

She tensed, straightening her back. Her whole face became defensive, eyes narrowed, her bottom jaw jutting slightly. ‘And why would I do something like that?’ she said, tightening the clip in her voice.

‘Well, look what happened in that film you watched last night. Samson fell head over heels with Delilah. Delilah found out all his secrets, cut his hair, took his strength. Then the whole shebang fell in about their ears. I forget my Bible stories, can’t remember why she did it. Maybe you could fill me in?’

‘Like I said, Detective, I wasn’t paying that much attention.’

‘To get him out of her hair, perhaps?’

‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘You look nothing like Victor Mature.’

‘And I don’t think you’re the anonymous someone.’ Vince gave her a warm smile, followed by a cold fact: ‘You wouldn’t be
sitting
here now if you were. You’d be dead.’

On hearing this, her eyes flicked downwards and she stubbed out her cigarette. As she crushed the lipstick-smeared butt into the glass ashtray, Vince registered her unease. He reached into his jacket pocket and took out his card and a steel Sheaffer ballpoint pen, wrote down his phone number, and rested the card on the rim of the ashtray. ‘If you think of anything that might help, here’s my number. I won’t take up any more of your time, Miss LaVita.’

She picked up his card and gave it a quick glance, then smiled and announced, ‘Bobbie. Call me Bobbie.’

‘Thanks, I will. Because you really don’t look like a LaVita.’

‘How many have you met?’

‘You’re the first.’

‘Then you’ve got nothing to compare me with,’ she said, her smile widening, accentuating the high cheekbones that cradled those perfectly poised green-brown eyes. ‘We’re rare birds, we LaVitas.’

Vince felt happy to see her smile. Rows of strong white teeth, cheeks that dimpled, eyes that lit up. She’d look good in the
sunshine
, he thought. It would seem more natural to her than the night, the gloom of a nightclub, or the persona of the sultry torch singer. He still thought the name LaVita was as much paste as the diamonds on her brooch which, at close quarters, featured either a peacock or a phoenix.

She pulled another cigarette from the packet. This time, Vince lit it for her without a prompt. She shielded the flame
unnecessarily
. It was about contact, and Vince flinched when he felt her hand touch his. The tiny jolt alerted her. Her eyes widened as she took him in. Every little movement, magnified, measured, significant. Every gesture becoming stupidly big.

‘Can I call you Vincent, or are there rules against calling
policemen
by their first names?’

‘I get called worse.’

‘Like what?’

‘Vinnie, or Vin.’

‘How about Vince?’

‘I can live with that. And I do.’

‘But you introduced yourself as Vincent.’

‘I live in hope.’

‘Then that’s what I shall call you.’

He
wanted
her to call him that, and the realization made him uncomfortable. Of course, he didn’t trust her, and her sudden ‘intimacy’ was probably all a flirtatious routine to throw him off the scent. And that deceit made him feel uncomfortable, though it shouldn’t have. Because he operated in a world where deceit was a cloth worn close to the skin.

There’s only so long you can sit in a booth in silence without resorting to smoking or saying something you might regret; so he stood up and broke things off.

‘Where are you going, Vincent?’ she asked, giving him a
playful
smile that verged on mockery.

The way she used his proper name made him feel like a kid. ‘Busy day tomorrow,’ he explained.

Busy day tomorrow?
He felt an internal wince at that statement. It dripped ‘gauche’ and undid all the ironic, sardonic and snappy repartee that had gone before, in his attempt to bury the
plodding
copper spiel.

‘That’s a pity, because I know of a good party tonight.’

He smiled. A reprieve: she’d thrown him a line. ‘Not tonight, Josephine. Napoleon might not like it.’

There was another internal wince; but cheap as it was, the wisecrack worked. He’d wiped that playful smile off her face and brought it all back into check.

He’d brought Jack back into the equation. Her lover. His quarry.

Heading towards Hove, and away from the bank-holiday crowds, Vince and Bobbie walked along the promenade to the party. He hadn’t needed a lot of convincing. It was a good opportunity to find out more about Jack Regent.

The coast road was now alive with packs of Mods, who revved and rode their scooters, three or four astride, straddling the lanes and stopping normal traffic. A gang of Rockers tore past in the opposite direction as Triumphs, BSAs, Nortons and Royal Enfields gunned their heavy engines and burned up the tarmac. In their brief passing, insults were thrown either way. The ever-present sound of sirens just behind them reminded these opposing forces who held the real power in the town tonight – even though it was a tenuous hold. On the main drag running from Marine Parade to the West Pier, packs of Mods promenaded and
peacocked
: sleek, sharp à la mode urbanites with their faces alert, glowing and glowering, searching for the enemy. That meant
anyone
in leathers and with greased-backed hair, who they viewed as rural, uncouth, dated and definitely not
them
. While for
them
the weekend was about hitting the dance halls, popping pills, putting on a performance, having a tear-up, making the newspapers and getting your picture taken. And sex, lots of sex. On the beach, in B&Bs, in public bogs, in back alleys, in the backs of broken-into cars, underneath the arches, underneath tables, on top of tables! Sex and violence threaded through the air like electrified wire. It was all set to go off like a bank-holiday firework display, burning up the night sky with its petrified chorus of alarms, sirens and flashing blue lights. It was undeniably a good time to be young because, as far as sex and violence went, the young were so
undeniably
good at it.

Vince stuck close to Bobbie, who nevertheless seemed fearless and completely impervious to it all. Vince noticed that, as much as she gleaned turning of heads and wide-eyed admiration from the oncoming traffic of males on the street, her beauty didn’t attract the usual wolf whistles, statements of intent or the
comments
that young men are likely to make when they travel in predatory packs. Instead they’d approach within a certain distance, and then give respectful smiles and nods, and almost doffs of their proverbial caps. Or maybe it was because of himself. When in protective mode, Vince’s dark good looks just got darker. They’d linked arms since leaving the club, and Vince was aware he was walking with his chest thrust out, his jaw set firm and his eyes cautiously in command. His present mien undoubtedly sent out its own warning signals.

‘I believe that once you stop learning, you die. When you stop asking questions, the big important questions, you die,’ declared Bobbie LaVita. ‘Because you lose your purpose in life. Is that why you became a detective, just so you could ask lots of questions?’ He didn’t get time to answer before she continued. ‘But the thing is, Vincent, you’re asking all the wrong questions. You’re not looking at the bigger picture. You involve yourself in a mystery but it’s just a sideshow. It’s not the main event. You’re not engaging yourself in the main event, or the big questions. You’re being sidetracked by matters of inconsequence.’

‘I don’t see a man turning up on the beach minus his head and hands as particularly inconsequential. And I’m sure his family don’t, either.’

‘I’m sorry about the man, too, and it is very sad. But that’s not what I’m talking about, Vincent.’

Bobbie looked up to the heavens and shook her head as if in incredulity at the prosaic nature of her companion; making it clear that she was working on a higher plane of consciousness than the flat-footed copper who plodded diligently alongside her.

And this was pretty much how it played out between them on the fifteen-minute hike towards the party. Bobbie LaVita had talked – a lot – and she had successfully bobbed and weaved and deflected all his questions about the case.

She covered a gamut of kooky-bird themes, flitting from an A-to-Z of Astrology to Zen Buddhism. She appraised him of her love affair with the arts, all the arts, riffing on poetry, mainly French and some of the American Beat stuff. She told him how she admired the Existentialist
and
the Situationists. But it was music that held her greatest devotion, letting slip that she was signed up to a major record company, Dominate Records, had already cut a 45, and was set to go into the studio and record a 33 with no less than Dickie Eton producing. And – bingo! – Vince now had a connection between the music producer/impresario Dickie Eton and the gangster/boyfriend Jack Regent. When he asked her about Eton, she became cagey and dodged the bullet. Instead, she asked him what star sign he was, and what had really made him become a cop. Vince claimed he liked the badge because it had a star on it. That was his best shot at both
astrology
and being kooky.

The party was at Third Avenue, another basement. There were four Avenues in total, not including a Grand Avenue. They were all lined with tall ash-coloured brick town houses that descended from the main drag of Church Road to the seafront.

As Vince made his way down the steps with Bobbie, he thought of Terence, the young Classics undergraduate and wannabe writer, with his scholarly romantic ideas of an Underworld. From Hades to Brighton basements. The smell of reefer hit him even before the door opened.

As they made their way along the narrow hallway lined with joint-toking West Indians in straw trilbies and knitted shirts, Bobbie was greeted like she probably always wanted to be – like a star. A sea of red-eyed, smiling faces parted and all nodded their respects to Jack Regent’s girl.

The place’s official title was the Beach Bottle club – or the BBC for short. Four walls trapping smoke and sweat, and loud music pumping out of huge stacked-up speakers. Murals on the walls: a sunny Caribbean scene peopled with elastic-limbed islanders dancing and smiling under palm trees. Clouds of reefer smoke hung in the air like incense, and the crowd moved with the kind of swampy rhythm that only potent ganja produces. They weren’t so much dancing to the music as dancing
in
the music. White girls hanging off the necks of black guys, while white guys in three-button tight-fitting Italian-cut suits stood around eyeing up the alluringly aloof black girls. The white boys did their own little dance, with their arms up tight by their chests as if they were going into a fight, and feet shifting as if they were grinding out cigarette butts. The music system blasted out Jamaican Blue Beat, American Soul. The Miracles, Prince Buster, Carla Thomas, The Mar-Keys, Major Lance, Curtis Mayfield and The Impressions.

There was a homemade bar in one corner, with optics on the wall behind – all of them serving different shades of rum. Only rum. Two bins were chock-full of ice and bottles of Red Stripe. A gorgeous black girl, with straight bleached hair piled up in a beehive, was busily serving the drinks.

Vince saw a man enter the room and prop himself up against the bar, and decided he recognized the face. It was pinched and gaunt under a skinny-brimmed trilby, while its owner was
stick-thin
and failed to fill out his flashy houndstooth-check suit. Spider’s nickname was obvious and soon apparent to anyone around him, from the skeletal frame and the fast-moving limbs. He held a brown bottle in each hand, one a bottle of Red Stripe, the other a phial of pills; swigging beer out of the one and
dealing
dexies out of the other. If Spider had truly lived up to his sobriquet, he could have worked even faster, using all eight limbs to either open the other bottles that he kept retrieving from his pocket or to bank the constant flow of cash. The besuited, buttoned-up Mods had ceased their uptight twisting and were now gathered at the bar to hand over the notes, before tuning up on blues, dexies and purple hearts. Spider was the medicine man they’d all been eagerly waiting for, to loosen them up and get their party started properly.

Spider’s malicious features had already come up on the list of known Regent associates, where it easily fitted in. Jack Regent had been rumoured to be manufacturing amphetamine pills at a farmhouse somewhere in the Sussex countryside, in a big
operation
said to be supplying most of the South, and also making inroads up North. Mods regularly visited clubs in Soho like the Scene, the Flamingo, the Marquee, La Discothèque and the Twisted Wheel in Manchester, where they played American Soul and R&B. They wanted to dance all night if they could and fuelled by this gear, they certainly could.

Vince glanced around to see that Bobbie was now in
possession
of a big fat joint. She stood in the midst of a crowd enveloped in smoke and loud with laughter. One of the men he seemed to recognize: a handsome, square-jawed Harry Belafonte lookalike. Vince could have sworn he’d seen him somewhere before, but couldn’t precisely put his finger on it. An old collar maybe? Looking at Bobbie and the handsome fellow laughing it up together, as they enjoyed the cordiality of a shared joint, Vince felt a distinct twinge of …
jealousy
?

He shook off the inappropriate thought, and returned his attention to the bar, instantly realizing that Spider was gone.

Because Spider had gone running as fast as his skinny legs would carry him. He was already out of the basement flat and ringing the front door of the building above. As Spider was buzzed in, Vince came darting out the basement after him. At the top of the stairs he scoped the street. No sign of Spider, but there was a telephone box about fifty yards up the road.

‘You should see this. I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t say that, but you should see it. This is out of sight. It’s wild!’ The voice spoke in a mid-Atlantic showbiz drawl. ‘She’s a real looker this one, and so is he.’ There was a gasp. ‘Oh lord, it’s enormous!’ Another gasp. ‘Oh my, carrying that thing around would ruin the cut of your trousers, it really would! It’s a sight to behold, Henry. Sorry, I know I shouldn’t say that, but it really is!’ The voice spilled over into high-pitched giggles.

The man commenting was in his early thirties. He remained stick thin not from malnourishment or from any chemical metabolism, like Spider, but through vanity. And he also was small. Size-wise, there really wasn’t a lot to him. But there was a lot on him, for what he lost in stature he made up for with his dazzling panoply of duds. Kitted out in as vivid a collection of clothing as could be assembled on such a meagre and unpromising canvas, he was from head to toe a dandy. A regular Regency fop or a pint-sized Beau Brummel. The hair worn in a high bouffant was centre-parted and kept in place with lashings of hairspray. He had a white collarless shirt with ruffles spilling down the front; a purple satin flared frockcoat with pleats, darts and bows; drainpipe trousers in crushed black velvet; and shod in a pair of black patent-leather Beatle boots equipped with stacked Cuban heels that elevated this five-foot three-inch peacock to a level slightly above laughing-stock. With rings on his fingers and no doubt bells on his toes, the Sartorialist in question was Dickie Eton.

He was sitting in the dark, peering through the viewing side of a two-way mirror, as an orgy took place in the next room.

The man he was commenting to was Henry Pierce, seated next to him. Time had played its tricks, of course, but Pierce was the same giant, lethal block of a man he had always been. His scars had weathered slightly, melding in with the more natural lines on his face, but were still brutal reminders of the man he once was. The hair, however, was still unnaturally and refulgently as black as boot polish. He sat there impassively, like granite, behind his small, round blacked-out glasses, as Dickie Eton yelped, guffawed, giggled and talked him through what was occurring in the room next-door.

At a knock on the door, Pierce tapped his heavy white stick on the floor.

Spider entered.

Vince made his way back to the party, and straight over to Bobbie. He’d been gone ten minutes, and she hadn’t missed him. She introduced him to the Harry Belafonte lookalike as a fellow musician, then she drifted off somewhere. Belafonte smiled and offered Vince the joint. Ignoring it, Vince clicked his fingers three times and, in rapid recall, pointed at him and said, ‘I know you. You played at Ronnie Scott’s last year.’

The handsome Harry took a long draw on the skinny
marijuana
joint he was holding, then nodded his head and smiled, ‘Sheeet, Ronnie’s, that’s right, man. I’ve played that joint.’

He was a Yank.

‘You were on the bill with Dave Brubeck. Alto sax?’

‘You’ve got me, baby. First time I played with Dave in London. Laid down some good shit, if memory serves. You enjoy it?’

‘I loved it. You tore the place up that night,’ said Vince, casually reaching into his pocket and flashing his badge. ‘I’d like to catch you again sometime, so if you value your work visa, you’ll split. Now.’

Handsome Harry stopped smiling, chipped the joint, gave Vince an appreciative salute for the tip, and split as recommended.

Bobbie drifted back over to Vince in a haze of smoke. ‘Let’s dance,’ she said, her diction slowed by the pungent, multi-papered hash joint that she kept waving around like a magic wand.

‘I think we should go,’ he said.

‘You’re not having a good time?’

‘You’re forgetting something. I’m a copper. I could nick
everyone
in here. I could even nick you.’

She wrapped her arms around his neck, stoned white girl style, more for support than anything else. Her eyelids were at half mast, yet when he looked into her eyes he saw them light up, her pupils dilating and contracting, in and out. Her head lolled back and she erupted into a peal of laughter; then stopped it as suddenly as she started. Her face rolled towards him as she said, ‘You won’t, will you, Vincent? You wouldn’t put me in jail?’ Her voice was slurred, but managed to sound teasing and coquettish. And
altogether
incredible.