The Baby And The Brandy (Ben Bracken 1) (26 page)

Leonard and Samson, I learned thanks to more internet digging, make up one third of the ownership of this place. I couldn’t ascertain how this deal fits in with their day-to-day activities, but, considering their near endless social network stream of pictures plastered all over the web, all set in here, I get the picture that they just couldn’t help themselves from being the glamorous nightclub owners of a ‘decadent’ cave of music, lust and iniquity. It’s a status badge for them, and, as clearly the most image conscious of the group, it fits nicely.

They are in there somewhere, dancing, chugging drinks, flirting... whatever it is a person does when they end up in a place like this. I’m so out of practice at this that I am scraping my mind back to how I used to behave, back when my social life wasn’t so sparse. Drink ten pints of snakebite, try not to throw it all back up, have a bit of a banter, be generally hopeless with the odd girl who happens to be in the vicinity but still manage to get too excited about it... that about covers it. I feel a little bit beyond that these days, however I’m sure on another occasion I could give it a good go.

I have spent the entire day, since leaving poor Jack and Zoe to the emergency services, staking out Felix Davidson’s house on Salford Quays. I changed my vantage point frequently, remained on foot the entire time, used my binoculars to keep a safe distance, and watched a lot of things happen, which allowed me to draw a series of interesting conclusions.

It was a hive of activity. Lots of comings and goings. I wish I could hear what was being said, but I was at such a distance that I could’t even attempt a lipread, the focal length of my binoculars giving definite outlines but no sharpness of detail. You could see who it was and in broad terms what they were doing, but no minutia. I had aimed to get closer, but when I arrived near the long drive along the waterfront to Felix’s house, I noticed street cameras were fixed where there were none elsewhere. They were dressed up as council approved-and-fitted security cams, but they increased in number in the vicinity of Felix’s residence and nowhere else. Considering that that house is the only thing there, I can only imagine that the cameras are Felix’s doing. After all, councils rarely dole out free security networks for one solitary person or residence - if you can’t get your bin emptied more than once a fortnight, surely that sort of service would be a bridge too far.

I saw Felix. He never left the house. In fact, I’m unsure if he ever does. I saw Michael, Leonard and Samson. At one point they were in a kind of fervent meeting at the same table I was sat at with them all just a couple of mornings earlier. Leonard seemed preoccupied with his phone, which in turn seemed preoccupied with him. Samson seems like the heavy of the group. A physical rock which they all seem to like having around. There may be other depths to the man, but I have yet to see them. I get the feeling that perhaps he had something to offer to the group, something to bring to the table that others could not. Perhaps a business of his own, a specific expertise or perhaps a customer base. Who knows? Who cares. It won’t matter when I put a bullet through his eye socket.

Michael looks altogether a different kettle of fish. An important cog to the machine, a vital caporegime directly beneath the don. He seems to be the pivot, the counter point, the go-to. He was involved in all the day’s discussions, never left his father’s side, and, most tellingly, engaged in a number of private conferences with the main man himself. I can see, from watching clandestine their private moments, the dynamic of the group. Leonard and Samson are at an echelon, but not the echelon of Michael and Felix. There is a hierarchy within the hierarchy, with Michael seemingly elevated somewhere between
väktare
and
toppmöte
. An uber-
väktare
perhaps. I think it looks more like nepotism in action.

Felix still looks the same quaint, respectful gentleman he always does. Carefully pottering around his kingdom, never seeming flustered, always an epitaph of control. What I would give to hear his thoughts. His character is so complex, and his duplicity is scary. That is, if everything is to be believed. He looks every inch the grandfather figure of every story ever told, an amalgamation of stereotypes, but inside is coiled a serpent so vindictive and controlling that it’s a miracle his frail body can play carriage to it’s might. His eyes never gave it away, and neither did his conduct. A career criminal playing the role to perfection.

The queue moves, and as I shuffle I see a girl walking in the opposite direction, heading for the back of the queue while talking into her phone. She will fit the role I have in mind perfectly. I think modern vernacular might class her as ‘fit’ or a ‘babe’. She is alone, dolled to the nines, perched on impossible stilettos. She must have been vacuum-packed into that dress, and the make-up she wears makes her look positively ceramic. Her hair is in that overly-tousled style, with some sort of buoyant quiff at the front. She looks like a fucking Jim Henson creation. If that’s what you like, I suppose. I try to tune in.

‘...you can’t expect me not to ask that. That’s exactly what I told him. They’ll be inside there now, and he’s probably flirting with that obese bitch as we speak.’

What a charming specimen. She speaks like her mouth is simply discharging waste, verbal diarrhea spluttering out. I would very much like to tune out again, but her presence will prove useful if I can get her to join me. I’ve never known how to talk to women - certainly never when sober like I am now - but now is as good a time as any. I pick a stock phrase, and hope it applies.

‘Hey,’ I say, hopefully. ‘Want to come in with me? I’m getting VIP.’

‘Oh, thank you sweetheart!’ she says. She pats my arm, swishes her hair and joins me in the queue, immediately linking arms with me and shutting her phone. She is clearly used to getting her own way, being fawned over by adoring men, and revels in my adhesion to her expectations. Well, not this time, sister. At least, not for real.

I check my phone for the time, and realize I have plenty. My anger has given way to precision, as it always does when objectives are set. I have timings and a chronology to stick to, but everything largely is in place. I am on a mission, and being where I am makes me feel like I am already out in the field, flirting dangerously with enemy lines.

‘That guy,’ I venture, ‘that you were talking about on the phone? He doesn’t know what he’s missing.’ She likes that, a lot, her smile widening to reveal perfectly-formed but unmistakably discolored teeth. It gets her talking again, about what I’ve no idea since I’m tuning out, and my mind wanders again.

I had remembered today that the Berg were expecting me to drop by, and the thought crossed my mind that they won’t have taken kindly to my rebuff of their advances. It was a rebuff by out and out rejection. I answered by failing to attend. I wonder whether them killing Jack, and Zoe, was in order to punish them. I certainly can picture that they knew of Jack and Zoe’s relationship, and their plans to leave. Maybe Jack had started turning Zoe against the Berg, and Felix knew it. Maybe he thought, enough is enough, and these loose ends need tidying. Either way, Jack was never going to rest until he had exacted some kind of bloodshed for his father’s death, and if it came back to him that Felix himself had something to do with it, Jack would certainly try to get revenge. Maybe Felix just wanted to get in there first.

Hang on. Felix has a pattern of behavior I can’t ignore. He had killed Royston to try to cajole Jack into joining them with the promise of revenge. Surely he wasn’t doing the same with me? I had asked for more time while deciding whether to join them or not, and Felix may think that Jack dying under mysterious circumstances might align me with the Berg in some way, and make me want to join them more to get revenge myself. He knew that in doing so would mean the murder of his own granddaughter, but that would helpfully remove yet another fly in the ointment. If that’s the case, there is nothing that this man won’t do to further his own prosperity. Absolutely nothing.

Him killing Jack to get to me, or to elicit some reaction from me seems no longer simply a possibility, but a certainty. People are creatures of habit and routine, and the more psychotic the mind the more these characteristics are accentuated. It’s habit for him to use people in the way he has used me, Jack, Zoe, and Royston before, and there only the ones I know about. God damn it.

I feel a wandering hand on my stomach, and Jim Henson girl seems to have a bad case of the gropes. So this is how you attract girls - ignore the hell out them, it’s like catnip. She can’t be that bothered about whichever poor sod she was talking about inside, judging by the circles she is tracing with her fingers on my abdomen. I don’t want her hand to wander any lower. Not because her actions have created a stirring in my loins, but because she will surely interpret it that way - since I have the Glock wedged in the front of my underwear, alongside my manhood. Places like these, with the attractions of drugs, glamour and socialites, more often than not have metal detectors and a rough pat down. I’m expecting both, given the organized crime connection. The only way to get my weapon in is alongside my other one.

I’m still not listening to her, but on the surface I am giving all the signs that I am. She looks half-cut, so the task is easy. I can feel her hand dropping lower, as feared. She grazes something solid with her fingertips, and, mistaking the handle of the gun for something else entirely, giggles. Jesus, what kind of girl is this, who will touch up a bloke in a nightclub queue? She pulls herself closer to me, angling up my neck, and I smile politely. I literally don’t know what else to do.

We are at the front now, and the bouncer is smiling at me. I wink back, and shrug ‘c’est la vie’, getting him onside in an instant. Good. At least the girls limpet routine is doing me a backhanded favor. The bouncer gives me a nod and we move forward. Thank fuck.

I put my arm around the girl’s back, and usher her forward. She exclaims something routine about me being a gentleman, but I’m already blueprinting the place for a layout, the VIP area and exits. I feel a burly man approach from behind me, and he starts running his hands along my back. It’s one of the most half-hearted pat-downs I’ve ever experienced, as he clearly does it a few hundred times a night never finding a single thing. Now the legs as well, the chest and my arms. All done. No attention to the groin whatsoever. I suppose I wouldn’t want to go fishing through drunkards crotches every night either, but his oversight here will cost the lives of two of his employers, of that I have no doubt.

The girl is ignored by the bouncer, and we are ushered along the dimly lit hallway from the door. There is a little ticket booth up ahead, spotlit by a solitary booth, and the bass throbs even more. I take the girl by the waist, as I clock one fire escape door to my right, and further along from that a large double door manned by two more thick set security men. I tell the girl that I’ve got this, and a hand flicks up to my chest again. I hear some garbled words of thanks, but I choose not to hear them. I’m gathering information at top speed.

I put a twenty over the counter, to a girl who looks the polar opposite of the one I have on my arm. Conservative, meek, polite, naturally beautiful - much more my cup of tea. I smile warmly at her, hoping to build an immediate rapport.

‘It’s £25,’ she says, blushing for me. ‘Each.’

Fifty quid?! Bloody hell. No wonder my arm candy fancied a free ride. I smile and tell her it’s no problem, while taking my wallet out rather obviously. I take a second to animatedly take a sheaf of notes from an even healthier wad, making sure they both notice, and hand more over.

‘I’m interested in some VIP action tonight, what can you offer me?’ I ask. ‘I’m not after much, just somewhere quiet to enjoy some champagne.’

My companion can barely contain herself. She must think she’s won the shallow-person’s lottery.

‘We have a private VIP bar overlooking the main floor, if you’d like that? I can call up and see if I can get you a table?’ the girl in the box replies.

‘Please do, that sounds fantastic,’ I reply.

Jim Henson girl takes my lapels, tells me her name is Krystal ‘with a K’, and pulls me in for a kiss. Inwardly, I’m grimacing, but our lips meet. Oh God, it’s a sloppy one. First kiss in ten years. Not how I envisaged it. Tastes like fags, old mint gum and the muddy sweetness of weed. A classy dame, to be sure. I close my eyes and think of England.

Finally released from her grip, I look back at the girl in the booth and shrug, smiling sheeply. I am embarrassed deeply, because in an ideal world, these girls would have swapped roles. But there’s a reason I’m clinging onto this one, and I’m hoping it will have proved a prudent decision.

‘We have a table,’ says the pretty girl, ‘Minimum spend for the table is £250.’

‘No problem,’ I reply. Ordinarily such a sum would churn my guts, but when I’m long gone I’ll be leaving way more problems than an unpaid tab.

‘Take this to the man on the door, he’ll look after you,’ she says, handing me a black, wood-carved stiletto. It’s actually kind of a cool piece, perhaps best suited as a doorstop at the Playboy mansion. I take it, and thank her.

‘Is there anyone interesting up there tonight? I hear you get football players in here all the time,’ I say.

‘No footballers tonight yet, but the owners are already knocking about. They usually say hello to the VIP guests so you may see them,’ she says.

Oh, I am sure of it. They are here. I knew they would be. I tailed them here after all. We get moving.

It turns out the wooden stiletto is kind of an access-all-areas pass to this place, and we are ushered into the club with ‘good evenings’ and smiles from the security staff. They won’t be smiling at me in a minute.

We enter through the main double doors, and if the bass doesn’t nearly knock me off my feet, the sight does. The place is rather something.

It feels like an undersea kingdom. We are on a balcony overlooking a dance floor covered in thick purple smoke, drifting sensually between grinding revelers, like a rich sheet of velvet, whirling in a slowed, sub-aquatic state, replete with ecstatic love-makers writhing within it. Strobe lights dot the seascape like neon tetras, punctuating the ecstasy. The balcony has stairways dropping down into the inky murk, and there appears to be a hefty bar directly below us. Hanging above it all, is a large perspex tank, housing chairs, tables and a bar all it’s own. The VIP section. We head for it.