Romeo's Tune (1990) (10 page)

15

W
hen the call from McBain’s accountant came it was too early in the morning. I was lying in Jo’s arms, half awake, half asleep, just dreaming off the top of my head. The telephone bell brought me back to reality with a shock. I rolled away from her, which elicited a groan, and caught the phone on its third ring. I scooped the receiver from its hook and cracked myself on the chin as I brought it to my ear.

‘Sharman,’ I mumbled into the mouthpiece.

‘Good morning,’ boomed a voice into my ear.

‘Sharman,’ I repeated, determined not to wish the intruder a good anything.

‘Is that Nicholas Sharman speaking?’

‘Yo.’

‘Good morning again. My name is Christopher Kennedy-Sloane. I handle investments for Mark McBain and do some accountancy work for him. Mister McBain has been in communication with my office. He tells us that he has retained your services to look into some anomalies in his financial returns when he was contracted to Mogul Incorporated.’

‘If I understood half of that I’d probably agree,’ I said.

‘Excellent, Mister Sharman,’ Kennedy-Sloane went on.

‘I think we should meet. I wonder if you are free at one o’clock today so that I can give you lunch.’

‘I suppose,’ I said.

‘Excellent. I have already taken the liberty of booking a table for two at a little bistro I know on Ludgate Hill. I hope that’s convenient?’

‘As convenient as any,’ I said.

‘I’m so pleased,’ said Kennedy-Sloane. ‘The restaurant is called The Tuck Shop. I’ve booked the best table in the place. I’ll see you at one.’

‘Super,’ I said.

‘Ciao,
till one then. I’m so looking forward to it.’

‘Me too,’ I said and hung up right in his ear.

I jotted down the time and place and looked over at Jo who was still fast asleep. I checked the time. Ten of the clock. Mister Kennedy-Sloane had probably been at his desk for hours.

16

I
cabbed it up to town on McBain’s expenses. The minicab driver from next door bored my socks off with his political views on the way to Ludgate Hill, but we eventually made it and he scribbled an ‘X’ on a receipt. I tipped him low and he snarled at me as he gave the old Granada some stick away from the kerb.

The Tuck Shop was hidden away in a tiny alley off the Hill itself. It was one of those restaurants where the waitresses dress up as somebody’s fantasy of schoolgirls. You know the style: like those old St Trinian’s films, all short gym slips, suspenders and high heels. Any self-respecting feminist would have a seizure at the sight. I wasn’t any too hip to it myself, but I’d agreed the meet and that was that. I followed the
maitre d’,
a sugar-plum sort of a guy in a black gown and mortar board, from the reception desk on the ground floor, downstairs to the restaurant where I was handed over to a waitress with a white shirt, school tie and the rest of the gear. She showed me to a table in the corner, showed her stocking tops, gave me the menu, took my order for a large vodka and tonic and left me to it.

Kennedy-Sloane was ten minutes late. The table I sat at whilst I waited was covered in a snowy white, heavy damask cloth and laid with weighty silver cutlery and gleaming crystal glasses. There were crudités and nuts to nibble at while I passed the time. Although the management thought that the women who worked there were cheap cunt they obviously had their eyes on the heavy expense account punters as customers. I sipped at the drink that the waitress had brought me. The cold clear liquid, with just a hint of lemon, pretty much matched my surroundings.

I knew Kennedy-Sloane before we met. There was a commotion at the doorway and all heads turned. The man who swept into the restaurant was short and fat, but powerful-looking as if he got his way most of the time. In one hand he carried a small briefcase, in the other a black leather Filofax heavy with pages. He wore a Burberry trench coat over his shoulders like a cloak.

‘Usual table,’ he said loudly as he made in my direction. He didn’t wait for a reply. The briefcase was dropped by his chair, the Filofax crashed onto the table like a side of ham and he slid the Burberry off his shoulders and tossed it to the waitress.

‘Take great care of it my dear,’ he said. Every word and gesture was used to the maximum effect. This guy was a real mover and shaker.

He tangoed round the table to introduce himself, light on his feet and hand outstretched in greeting. I half rose, nearly upsetting my drink.

‘Chris Kennedy-Sloane, don’t stand up,’ he bellowed as he shook my hand with a strong, damp grip and collapsed into the seat opposite me. ‘So sorry I’m late,’ he apologized. ‘Unavoidably detained with David.’ It could have been Bowie, Cassidy, Owen, Steel or the local butcher’s boy; he didn’t elaborate. Instead he clapped his hands and demanded champagne. ‘Blanc de Noirs,’ he cried and the waitress vanished in the direction of the cellars.

He lowered his voice and leaned over the table towards me. ‘What a fucking dump,’ he said. ‘Don’t you agree?’ I must have looked surprised and he laughed delightedly. ‘I picked it especially to give you a view of the stockbrokers and money men in their natural habitat. What a disgusting sight. But the food’s good.’

He pulled a packet of Gauloises from his jacket pocket. ‘Cigarette?’ he asked. I shook my head. Whilst he extracted the untipped smoke from the soft container, tapped it all over the table and lit it with a gold Dunhill, I checked him out.

He was wearing a tan suit, cut comfortably and stylishly baggy over his soft body. Under the jacket he wore a thickly striped green and white shirt. His tie resembled a rain forest in full bloom. I half expected a monkey to pop out of the foliage and steal a peanut off the table at any moment. On his right wrist he wore a gold Rolex that twinkled with chips of diamond. The whole outfit would have financed the Brixton DHSS for a week. His hair was blond and thinning, although some expert trichologist was fighting a grim rearguard action. I guessed the next stop would be Paris for a weave. And then what? I wondered.

The champagne arrived without a fanfare, but I guessed for the money it cost it deserved one. Kennedy-Sloane tasted it with great solemnity. I half expected him to spit the first mouthful into the ice bucket on the next table.

‘Excellent,’ he pronounced. Both the waitress and I smiled at each other with relief. As I caught her eye I noticed that she bore a strong resemblance to Jo, but I put it down to love.

I swallowed the remains of my vodka and hit the wine trail. The champagne was dry and bright and made my scalp sweat. I sucked at my teeth as the warmth filled my insides. I was off and running and the colour was pink.

‘Mister Sharman,’ Kennedy-Sloane said. ‘Or may I call you Nicholas?’

I nodded.

‘Shall we order?’

I looked up at the waitress who stood at attention beside us in her ludicrous uniform, pen and pad in hand. ‘What’s good?’ I asked.

Before she could reply Kennedy-Sloane butted in.

‘May I?’ he asked.

‘Why not?’

‘Soup, Chateaubriand, cheeseboard,’ he ordered. ‘Best in the City – and with the steak a bottle or two of Châteauneuf-du-Pape.’

He was a wine expert, I could tell. He was one of those guys, what he didn’t know about wine you could write on the back of a postage stamp. What I didn’t know about wine would stretch from London to Brighton. But I would bet I could get as pissed as him on it.

I shrugged in agreement. I wasn’t that hungry anyway, not for food, just for information and I didn’t want to waste a lot of time getting it. The waitress turned on her heel, displaying an inch or so of lace on her black panties, and made for the kitchen. I looked at her retreating back, then at Kennedy-Sloane.

‘Some people get off on it,’ he said. ‘I can see that you don’t. The chaps love it. It’s just one of their nasty little ways of showing their complete contempt for women. They’ve never forgiven them for getting on the floor of the exchange. It disguises the fear, you see. Most of them were snatched away from their mothers at a tender age and sent to prep school, then on to public school. A vast majority of them spent the happiest years of their lives wanking off the first eleven behind the cricket pavilion. No wonder they called them fags.’

‘Not you?’ I asked.

‘Not at all. I come from Stepney. Secondary Modern.’

‘I’d never have guessed,’ I said.

‘My dear chap, you’re not supposed to. As far as this lot are concerned I’m pure Harrow and Oxford. I try to be all things to all men, and all women too for that matter. You want a barrow boy, I’ll oblige. You want one of the upper classes and I’ll give you that too. You see I actually did spend a year at Oxford.’

‘Which college?’ I asked.

‘Oxford Street. I sold fake Chanel No. 5. Made a bomb. In reality I did go to a minor public school in Essex as a day boy for a year, before they slung me out and back to the school of hard knocks. Got some good contacts too.’ With a grimace he dismissed his past. He refilled our glasses with champagne and said, ‘So you’re going to take the Divas on? Very interesting. Do you really think you’re going to get any money back for McBain?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Well... I wish you the very best of luck.’

‘Do you think I’ll need it?’

‘Without a doubt. It’s a lost cause and McBain should know it.’

‘Why?’

‘What do you know about Mogul?’

Before I could reply our soup arrived. Tomato with fresh basil, very tasty. I watched as Kennedy-Sloane poured it down his face between large chunks of french bread loaded with butter and mouthfuls of champagne.

‘High cholesterol,’ he said, wiping his lips with his napkin. ‘Very bad for me, but delicious.’ He’d finished his soup before I was half done. He pushed his plate away. ‘Where were we?’ he said. ‘Oh yes, the Divas. Before we get onto them, tell me what you know about the finances of the record business in general.’

‘Not a lot,’ I confessed.

‘Good. I’ll assume you know nothing.’

‘OK,’ I said and sat back and listened.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘For starters don’t believe anything you read about it in the tabloid press. You don’t get a million pounds for being number one for a week or so in the summertime. The first thing to remember is that the artist’ – he pulled a face – ‘pays for everything.’ He heavily underlined the last word. ‘And I mean everything. From studio time to hotel bills on tour, up to and including promotion of the record. Don’t be fooled by the easy money stories. If you play, you pay. For every Elton John and Rod Stewart there are literally thousands of musicians living on the breadline, scratching a living at best. And as for the guys who do make it, the chances are, in the early days at least, that they’ve gone for a small royalty just to get on record. And for lots, the early days are the only days. Then there’s management and agency rake-off, plus people like me who need paying. Capiche?’ The guy was a slimeball, but despite that I quite liked his candour.

‘In the sixties,’ he went on, ‘it was even worse. Low, low, low royalties. As much as fifty per cent to management. Songwriting deals that gave the publisher, not the writer, ninety per cent. And then if they kept the money going round the world, the publisher could keep raking in ninety per cent from each territory and push the money through two or three before the sucker saw bean number one.’

‘Territory?’ I queried.

‘The UK, America and Canada, Europe, Australasia. You make a recording and publishing deal for each one, unless you’re very lucky and get signed worldwide.’

‘I see,’ I said, although I wasn’t sure that I did.

‘I know of a guy,’ he continued, ‘great writer, you’d know loads of his songs. He earned twelve K for one opus. By the time the cash was funnelled through all the holding companies he earned one hundred and twenty seven pounds sterling for it, before tax. I repeat,
before
tax and try explaining that to the revenue. Mind you,’ he mused, ‘some of those songs that sold ten million records only took five minutes to write. Then of course there’s duff investments.’

‘But not for you,’ I interjected.

‘Touch wood,’ he said, slapping the table. ‘I tell you this. Give me ten thou, venture capital and your complete trust and I can turn it into twenty grand, tax paid, in a month.’

‘Give me ten thou, venture capital and your complete trust,’ I said, ‘and I can turn it into fifty grand’s worth of cocaine overnight, tax free, but it’s illegal, immoral and it might put us into jail for ten years.’

He literally put his hand onto his heart.

‘But mine is legal. I guarantee it.’

‘So tell me about McBain,’ I said. I was getting tired of all the bullshit.

‘To know about McBain,’ he explained, ‘you’ve got to know a bit about The Boys. Good band, one of the first advocates of the motto: “Live fast, split young and leave a good looking greatest hits album.” Their singles still get played a lot on the radio. “Winter’s Child” got covered a few years ago by some no wave outfit, did very well too. McBain never saw any royalties of course. He probably hocked them for a gram of smack back in the sixties. Big casualty was McBain.’

‘He says he’s clean now.’

Kennedy-Sloane gave me an old-fashioned look.

‘Nicholas,’ he said. ‘You’ve been round the block a few times. You know that’s a purely subjective statement. What’s clean to him is dirty to me.’ He looked round the dining-room. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘Check that geezer out. The one in the stripes. Your two o’clock.’

I swung my eyes discreetly over to my right. A young man in a suit made of a material that was dangerously close to deck-chair awning was making for the gents.

‘Serious money OINK,’ said Kennedy-Sloane.

‘What?’

‘One income, no kids. He’s in the marzipan set.’ Now he was winding me up.

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Run that past me again.’

Kennedy-Sloane beamed a huge beam. He loved to be one up and it didn’t hurt to indulge him.

‘What I mean is that cash-wise he’s got the cake but hasn’t reached the icing yet, and he’ll never make it all the way. He’s got a habit like you wouldn’t believe. Always in the powder room, constant cold. He’ll crash soon but he honestly believes he’s as clean as that.’ He tapped one of the glasses we hadn’t used and it rang like a tiny bell. ‘It fucking scares me. There’s other folks take an aspirin for a headache and they’re convinced they’re junkies. Anyway, back to McBain. He’s got his act as together as it’ll ever be. Meanwhile he’s owed a lot.’

The waitress returned to collect our soup plates and as she leaned over the table my face was only inches away from an expanse of smooth, white thigh. Kennedy-Sloane was in paroxysms of delight. When she’d gone he raised an eyebrow and said, ‘Nice arse, you must agree. After half a bottle I find my sexism quotient rising.’

‘Loss of inhibition,’ I said. ‘Be careful – it can lead to bad habits.’

He beamed again.

‘I certainly hope so.’

I got back to business.

‘What happened to the rest of the band?’

‘One topped himself, one’s gone back to being a baker in Plaistow and the other one’s gone space cadet in Amsterdam. I think he’s still heavily into the recreational ingestion of illegal narcotics. A real junkie whilst McBain’s just an amateur these days.’

‘Big drug band then?’

‘At the time the heaviest, and that’s saying something.’

‘So who got all the cash? There was cash wasn’t there?’

‘Cash, are you bloody kidding? Oodles of the stuff, and that’s where the Divas come in – and that’s what you really want to know about, isn’t it? Charles and Steven Diva, AKA Charlie and Stevie, AKA Mogul Incorporated. Charlie is the hardest in the business. One of the old school of management. He built Mogul up from nothing in the late fifties and he won’t let go of a cent unless he has to. And the son’s no better. In fact,’ he mused, ‘he’s probably worse.’

‘Is there no way to get the money back?’

‘No legal way. Lots of people have tried. They just move the books around. Liechtenstein, the Cayman Islands, Delaware, Jersey. Moody companies, flags of convenience, you know the sort of thing.’