The Face (Harry Tyler Book 1) (16 page)

The trade-mark Baker brashness had dissolved, he clearly wanted the hold-all away from him.

“Cake O?” asked Harry.

“Fucking wedged corner to corner, top to fucking bottom.”

“How soon do we…”

“Five minutes, maybe ten. There’s enough shekels in there to buy every pussy in the red light district tonight.”

“If they’re the same old hounds as last night, you could probably get ’em three times over.” Johnny Too laughed, but it was forced. Harry had never seen Baker look stressed before, but he hoped beyond hope he would see him even more worried, and soon.

“So, the sea museum, then,” he said. “Have you got a cab booked?”

“Nope,” said Johnny. “I changed the meet, she’s coming here.”

Curious, thought Harry. Did Baker suspect something was up? Can’t do. If he did, they wouldn’t be sitting there now. Johnny leaned towards him.

“I had to put a call in when I collected the wedge,” he said softly. “I told them to change the meeting place, said I wasn’t happy with their choice. It’s no problem, she’s already here.”

Johnny Too’s eyes darted to two women at the bar. The smartly dressed fifty-something, whom Harry had eyeballed earlier, had now been joined by another slightly shorter woman with darker hair. Johnny gave the smaller woman a nod.

“Just follow us into the lift, H,” he instructed. “Keep your eyes about you in case I get rolled.” As the women walked across the hotel lobby, Harry noticed that the darker one was carrying a large, barrel-type red leather hold-all. They waited by the lift, Johnny stood a foot behind them, with Harry two feet behind him. As the lift doors opened a huge black man stepped out. Harry tensed himself but he walked straight past them.

“Thank fuck he didn’t want to know,” he whispered.

“Don’t worry,” said Johnny Too. “I’ve got the equaliser kit with me.”

He made the sign of a gun with his left hand.

“What?”

The women walked into the lift. Harry held Johnny back.

“You must be mad carrying that over here, John.”

“What am I, a pilchard? I had it delivered. It’s been pugged up in the room and it goes before we check out. Now come on, it’s rude to keep ladies waiting.”

The taller woman was holding the door. When the men entered she pressed the top floor button. The doors closed and the short woman took a blonde wig from her hold-all and pulled it on. Then, she put on a pair of glasses and turned her jacket inside out. Harry looked down and spotted a second Head bag, identical to Johnny’s, inside her hold-all. She pulled it out and exchanged it for Baker’s one. Not a word had been said. As if on cue, the lift arrived at the top and the doors opened. The woman in the wig stepped out with her red leather bag. An Asian man waited for the others to exit, but the remaining woman spoke to him in Dutch. He nodded, said something back to her and stepped in. Harry guessed that she had simply told him they had got the wrong floor. She pressed the third floor button and ground.

The Asian man got out at floor three. The doors began to close. The woman looked at Johnny Too and spoke in English for the first time.

“It’s a shame I have a plane to catch,” she said. “I could sure fuck you two tonight.”

Baker laughed. “Just make sure my gear arrives next Friday or I’ll be fucking you with a baseball bat on Saturday.”

The woman allowed a crease of a smile to cross her lips.

“You English are such charmers. My associates will not disappoint you, Mr Baker.”

The lift reached the ground and she stepped out first, saying, “You boys have a nice day,” in a forced American accent. With that she made straight for the main entrance and was gone.

“Fuck me, John,” said Harry. “Red skies over Moscow or what? What was all that about? I feel like I’m in a Bond film or something.”

“Then let’s hope we meet Pussy Galore. Come on, H, I’ll buy you a beer.”

Harry followed Johnny Too back to the bar. “Two beers, me old Dutch,” said Johnny who was noticeably happier. “I’ll get these, H, I’ll just have a lash. Tell him to put ’em on room 317.”

“Were those ladies with you?” asked the bar steward. “She has left her lighter and cigarettes.”

“Yeah,” said Harry. “I’ll give ’em to her later.”

As the barman turned to pour the beers, Harry wrapped up the lighter and cigarettes in a serviette and slipped them into his jacket pocket for DNA testing and finger-printing. Johnny returned and motioned for Harry to join him in an alcove. Harry brought over the beers as Johnny rummaged through his new Head bag. He pulled out a padded Jiffy bag and read its contents silently. Harry was bursting to know what it said but knew better than to ask. Instead he sipped his beer and stared at the floor.

“Harry,” John said eventually, as he replaced the bag and its contents in the hold-all, “do you know what I like about you?”

“Don’t say fuck all, John, or I’ll get the hump and burn your puff.”

Baker’s smile vanished and he jabbed his right-hand index finger at Harry.

“No jokes, H. What I fucking like about you is you’re the only fucking geezer I know who didn’t ask what was in the envelope.”

Harry frowned back at Johnny, mirroring his seriousness.

“You know why I never asked, John?”

“Why?”

“Cos I read it all backwards in the window reflection behind you.”

Baker glanced over his shoulder. The windows were about twenty feet away. Both men laughed. “No seriously, John. It ain’t my business. I don’t ask questions if it ain’t my business.”

“H, I don’t need a degree in psychology to know you’re proper. I’ve got a good sense of judgement when it comes to people. I can tell if someone’s a wrong ’un in minutes, sometimes seconds. You probably can yerself. Nah, you’re top dollar, mate.”

“So what does it say, then?”

“Joking aside, this time next week I am fuckin’ rich. We’ve got a lorry to meet filled to the roof with onions and tomatoes.”

“Lovely job. Never tried snorting onions meself…”

“Makes yer fuckin’ eyes water.”

“Do you need me to help out, John?”

Baker paused, then shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’m sorted for the slaughter, I’ve got a place down Bermondsey docks, and plenty of faces on the plot, but I might need you to keep dog-eye around the manor as the lorry rolls in. Y’know, keep an eye out for the Filth.”

“John, I ain’t gotta say be careful,” said Harry, his voice heavy with concern. “There’s a ton of bird waiting if you get caught with that parcel.”

Johnny Too made the sign of a handgun again. “They’ll think World War III has broken out if they try and take us. Don’t worry, H. I’ve got plenty of scouts out and a good firm to unload it. I just wanna see it’s there and then I’m out of the scene, know what I mean.”

Harry gave it one more push. “You want me to drive you?”

Baker shook his head. “Nah, Geri’s gonna run me in, looks less iffy with a bird driving.”

Harry Tyler was shocked. What kind of a man puts his woman on offer?

“Mate, you sure?” he said. “It ain’t my business but…”

Johnny Too cut him short. “H, I appreciate your concern, but she’s sweet as. She’s a big grown-up girl and she knows what she’s getting into.”

Harry knew not to say any more. So Geraldine would get nicked with the rest of them. In the immortal words of Grant Mitchell, “Oh dear, what a pity, never mind.” Johnny’s logic made some sort of sense and, besides, he was hardly treating Lesley like Sir Galahad.

Their business in Amsterdam was done, but they still had over six hours before they were due to meet the girls and so Johnny Baker and Harry Tyler, the gangster and the undercover cop, set off on a marathon bar crawl.

The third bar seemed the friendliest. They sat at the bar talking about football to a couple of young Dutch men. It was all very pleasant. Then Johnny Too went for a slash, and the man next to Harry put his hand on the detective’s thigh and asked with a smile, “Can I come in your mouth?”

Harry may have moved faster in his life but he couldn’t remember when. He collided with Johnny Too who had made the same discovery just from the posters in the gents. They didn’t even stop to finish their drinks.

“You must have known,” said Johnny accusingly.

“How would I know?”

“You come here all the time.”

“Yeah, but I’d never been to that bar.”

“So why was your mobile number written on the khazi wall?”

“It can’t be…”

“It is now!”

“Bastard.”

“You must have noticed there were no women in there.”

“Did you?”

“I just thought they were, y’know, football geezers…”

By 4.00 pm, they found a bar they liked and settled.

“This is OK, H,” said Johnny. “Amsterdam. I like it. I like the vibe, if not the weather.”

“I never want too much sun,” said Harry. “Why do I want to lie on a beach and fry for a fortnight? What am I, a fucking lizard?”

“You grumpy bastard! You’ve been to Spain, though?”

“Menorca, once.”

“Where d’you stay?”

“Cala N’Porter.”

“Nice. Jimmy Jones has got a villa there. Two I think.”

“Kinnel!”

“Where did you eat?”

“La Polette, up by the caves of Zorro.”

“Xorai. Pukka grub up there, a bit dearer but…”

“But worth it.”

“Ever been to St Pete’s Beach in Florida, Harry? It’s a little slice of paradise. I fancy getting a little waterside condo over there once Chislehurst is done and dusted.”

“The working-class dream, eh, Johnny? Moving out to respectable suburbia, holidays with Mickey Mouse.”

“You taking the piss?”

“No, mate, that would be my dream, too.”

Johnny Too lit up a spliff. “You vote Labour, H?”

“I voted for Blair.”

“Why?”

Harry shrugged. “Dunno – now,” he said.

“I’ll tell you why, cos your dad was Labour and your granddad and probably his dad an’ all.”

“Yeah, but Labour stands for the working man, equality, fraternity, a fairer society.”

“Fair? What’s fair? You ever see a nature documentary, Harry? You see the lion taking down the gazelle? Where is the fairness in that? That’s life, H, the survival of the fittest. Do you wanna be the lion or his fucking dinner?”

Harry went to say something, but Johnny Too ploughed on. “Society is built on lies, mate,” he said. “And you’ve just hit on the biggest. All men are equal? Where? It’s bollocks. The basic truth of human life is that all men aren’t equal. Tom is stronger than Dick who is cleverer than Harry. Life is about winners and losers, H, the elite and the also-rans, and if you’re born at the arse end of society like we were, all that matters is, if you’re hard enough and smart enough, you have to become part of the elite. Kick, claw or cheat your way in. It don’t matter how. Otherwise you’ll just be ground into the dust with all the other monkeys.”

“So you wouldn’t call yerself working class?”

“Why wouldn’t I? I was born working class. I can’t stand to be with middle-class people; even those that work for me I only tolerate. I like working-class people. I like their company, their culture, if you like. The people in South London are much the same as they are over your side, or probably in any English city – they’re good people, solid, loyal. They look after their own. They’re inward-looking, too, which some people think is a weakness but I think is a strength, and they’re fiercely patriotic. But basically the English working class have been hoodwinked.”

“How d’you mean, John?”

“You talk to the fellas in the Ned, specially the older ones. Their idea of the world and England’s place in it is entirely defined by the papers they read, and it always harks back to World War II, fifty-five fucking years ago. That England don’t exist any more, Harry. It’s been destroyed by the Arabs and the Muslims, Europe and the bogus fucking asylum seekers taking us for mugs. The way England is going, it’s gonna end up the Islamic Republic of North West Europe.”

Harry felt a shiver down his back. He’s right, he thought. He’s fucking right.

Johnny Too downed his beer. “Ratbag politicians and big businesses who don’t give a fuck about England exploit their patriotism,” he went on, “and they’ll carry on exploiting it until they’re pushing up the fucking daisies.”

“So, yes, I’m working class, but that ain’t the be-all and
end-all
. I’ve been poor and I’ve been rich and believe me rich is better. All you can do is look after yerself and yer own, Harry. Carve out your territory and defend it mercilessly. Now get a fucking round in before I get signed up for
Panorama
.”

Harry ordered two beers. “I don’t wanna bang on about politics,” said Harry, “but I think the welfare state is the thing that really made England weak. It was a great idea in theory, to create a safety net to look after the old and the sick, but it turned into a dossers’ paradise. We’ve turned nature on its head so much we’re in a situation where…” He paused, searching for the correct quote. “It’s like ‘when all men are paid for existing and no man need pay for his sins’.”

“Kipling,” said Johnny.

“Yeah,” Harry replied, surprised. “I didn’t know you were a reader, Johnny.”

“Now you insult me.”

“No, it’s just I could see you soaking up Tarantino, but not Nick Hornby.”

“Talk daft,” Johnny spluttered. “I wouldn’t have that cunt in the house. Did you ever read any Nick Hornby, Harry? This is supposed to be men’s writing – go to football, eat a fucking curry. Not exactly Hemingway, is it? Tom Wolfe is the only living novelist I’d give the time of day to. But Kipling was the boyo. In his time, men were men and Britain meant something. They had an Empire to believe in.”

“So what do you think of villains who write autobiographies, these kill-and-tell books?”

“Anyone who writes a book like that is a grass,” Johnny Too proclaimed. “Unless they’re working a flanker and mugging the publishers like Courtney. So don’t get any fucking ideas.”

“I’ll turn the tape recorder off, then,” Harry grinned.

On they talked and drank until Harry realised it was 7.15 pm. They scrambled into a cab and arrived at the meeting place at 7.28 pm. The girls didn’t let on they had only been there five minutes themselves.