The First Novels: Pay Off, the Fireman (13 page)

       
I wondered if it would be enough to make him forget my breach of etiquette but he handed Sammy a menu as if he were passing her a love letter and pushed one at me as if he were serving me with a summons, so I guessed it would take more than Sammy’s superb figure to wipe that one out. What the hell, tonight I wasn’t going to be winning any prizes for good manners so I might as well start as I meant to go on.

       
‘A double whisky, a malt, and you’d better make it a good one,’ I said in the sort of voice you’d use to tell an Alsatian to walk to heel. Then I stuck my head into the menu until he tapped his pencil on his notepad, coughed, and asked, ‘And for the lady?’ with the accent heavily on ‘lady’ as if offering Sammy his sympathy for being with a lout like me.

       
‘Good Lord, she’s got a tongue in her head, man. Ask her yourself.’

       
Sammy kept looking at the table, her head down as if in prayer and her hands in her lap. ‘I’ll have a white wine,’ she said, then looked up at the waiter through lowered lashes and moistened her lips and added ‘please’. She turned her head to look at me and then looked past me over my left shoulder and smiled and I knew she’d seen Laing and that he’d seen her.

       
‘Not bored already, are you?’ I asked and her eyes snapped back to meet mine and she caught her breath.

       
‘No, no, I’m fine.’

       
‘Well, what do you want to eat?’

       
‘I’ll have whatever you’re having.’

       
‘God, you’re such a doormat.’ The waiter returned with the drinks and I reached up and took my whisky off his tray while he was placing Sammy’s white wine in front of her. I drank it in one swallow and handed it back. ‘Get me another.’ Sammy was looking at Laing again and nervously fingering her hair so that from where he was sitting he’d see she wasn’t wearing a ring.

       
‘How was work today?’ she asked.

       
‘Same as it always is, boring but well paid, and the last thing I want to talk about is how boring and well paid it is. I don’t take you out to go over my business problems – that’s what I pay an accountant for. I just want you to look pretty and smooth my feathers. Sometimes I wonder how I’ve managed to put up with you for so long. And where did you get that dress?’

       
‘A boutique in Chelsea, I thought you’d like it.’

       
‘You thought wrong. It doesn’t suit you at all, it’s not your colour. How many times have I told you not to wear black?’

       
My second drink arrived as she bit her bottom lip and said in a quiet voice: ‘I can’t seem to do anything right today.’

       
I slammed the empty glass down hard enough to shake the candles on the table.

       
‘Perhaps you’d better just keep quiet then,’ I said and waved the waiter over, ordering for us both without consulting her and demanding another double whisky.

       
‘And another white wine,’ I added.

       
‘I’m fine, thank you,’ she whispered and there were tears in her eyes.

       
‘You’re not fine, now drink that up,’ I said. ‘You’re more fun when you’ve had a few drinks. In bed and out of it.’ Now she was crying silently, hands playing with her serviette, screwing it up into a tight knot.

       
‘I’m going to the toilet,’ I said and stood up unsteadily, pushing the chair back so violently that it fell over with a crash and the waiter scurried over to pick it up. ‘Don’t fuss, man,’ I said and headed for the gents, managing to bump into two tables on the way. As I barged through the door I saw Laing get to his feet and move towards Sammy.

       
I stayed in the white-tiled room long enough for Sammy to spill her tale of woe to Laing, to tell him of a relationship that had gone sour but which she was too frightened to end, of the verbal and physical batterings I’d given her, of the times I had humiliated her and abused her. Then she would dab her reddening eyes and sniff and he’d put his hand on hers and tell her gently that everything was going to be all right and that if she really wanted to get rid of the bullying bastard he was just the man to do it, and she would flutter those long, curling eyelashes and say that she’d be so grateful, so very grateful, but to take care because she had seen me put two men in hospital because they’d taken too much of an interest in her. She would dry her eyes and smile bravely and tell him her name was Amanda, that she was a model and that she lived in Islington, and she would give him the address of the furnished two-bedroomed first-floor flat that we’d rented in the name of Amanda Pearson a week earlier.

       
I walked back to Sammy’s table and stood looking down at her, hands on hips, glaring and demanding to know just what the hell was going on, spraying her with spittle as I spoke, every inch the drunken bore who deserved everything that was coming to him. Please God don’t let him break anything, bones, teeth or nose.

       
‘I think you’d better go,’ said Laing as he got to his feet, and it was the voice of a man used to getting his own way. He put a warning hand on my shoulder and two waiters hovered anxiously behind him, unwilling to interfere between a drunk and their favourite customer playing white knight.

       
‘Keep out of this,’ I said without turning. To Sammy I said: ‘Get up, we’re leaving.’

       
‘She’s staying. With me. You’re the one that’s going,’ he said and the grip tightened. I took a deep breath and turned and pulled back my fist, and he hit me once about an inch above my solar plexus and my legs collapsed, the contents of my lungs exploded out of my mouth and I tasted bitter bile at the back of my throat, and then I was on my knees, hands clutched to my chest, coughing and choking. At least he hadn’t hit me in the face, but even that was no consolation as I fought to breathe. I looked up at him and tried to speak and he stepped forward and thrust his knee into my face. I went backwards and the bile was replaced with the warm, salty taste of blood as my head hit the floor.

       
The two waiters stepped forward and picked me up and half led, half carried me to the manager’s office where they wiped the blood from my mouth and told me that they wouldn’t call the police this time, but I was never to darken their doorstep again and then they half carried, half pushed me out of the front door and down the steps to Berkeley Square.

       
‘Jesus, boss, what happened?’ asked McKinley, as I opened the car door and lowered myself painfully into the passenger seat.

       
‘Just take me home, Get-Up. Slowly and carefully.’ I could just about breathe but it was an effort and my mouth and chin were on fire. Two of my front teeth felt loose, my lip was still bleeding and spots of blood fell onto my trousers until I held my handkerchief to my aching face.

       
‘What about Miss Darvell?’ he asked as he shoved the gear stick forward and hauled the steering wheel round. ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to deal with this, boss?’ he said before I could answer his first question. ‘It won’t do your reputation any good letting somebody hit you and get away with it. Tell me who it was and let me sort them out for you.’

       
‘It’s all right, Get-Up, honestly. Miss Darvell and I have just decided to part company for a while, that’s all. Take me home. And if you see an all-night chemist on the way, stop off and get me some antiseptic. And some aspirin.’

       
Then I closed my eyes and leaned back in the seat and stretched my legs forward. McKinley muttered under his breath as the car picked up speed. I’m not sure what he said but it sounded like ‘Jesus, she must pack a helluva punch.’

‘So Laing doesn’t do much in the way of drugs now?’ I asked, lying back in the armchair and putting my feet on the glass coffee table between the chrome ice bucket and the three-quarters empty bottle of malt that McKinley and I were working our way through.

       
It was one o’clock in the morning, two days after I’d introduced Laing to Sammy, and we’d spent the evening at the Eve Club in Regent Street. The lip was healing nicely. If I was lucky it wouldn’t leave a scar. I’d been plying McKinley with drink for more than five hours, and now his eyes were bleary and his voice slurred and I was once again asking him about his past. It was a bit like mining for gold, you had to sort through tens of tons of worthless crushed rock to come up with an ounce of the yellow stuff.

       
‘Don’t forget I haven’t seen him for seven years or so, boss, but from what I hear he still does a bit to keep his hand in, but he’s up against the big boys now,’ McKinley said as he leant over for the bottle, shoulders straining through the dark blue suit I’d bought him two weeks earlier which was already soiled and stained with everything from spirits to engine oil and a few other substances I couldn’t have identified even if I’d wanted to. He emptied the bottle into the glass, splashed in a handful of melting ice cubes and drank noisily as he wiped his wet hand on his trouser leg.

       
‘Why did you never go back and work for him when you came out?’ I asked. ‘You all went down quietly enough.’

       
‘Jesus, boss, what do you expect? If we’d grassed we’d have lost our kneecaps, our balls and anything else that hadn’t been nailed to the floor. That’s why we kept our mouths shut. I tried to see him my second day out but the message passed to me was that he didn’t want anyone with a record on the payroll, so thanks but no thanks. All I got was a lousy five-hundred pound pay off – for seven years. Bastard.’ His glass was empty now and he looked at me expectantly, and I nodded towards the sideboard from where he liberated another bottle.

       
We drank in silence for a while, or at least McKinley drank while I remained almost horizontal and watched the brass light fitting in the centre of the plaster ceiling rose through half-closed eyes, making light patterns with my eyelashes as I listened to the sound of my own breathing.

       
‘Do you think I’m stupid, boss?’ he asked eventually.

       
‘What?’ I replied, opening my eyes and raising my head so I could see him slumped in the chair opposite mine and running his hand through his unkempt hair.

       
‘I said, do you think I’m stupid?’

       
I leant back and looked at the ceiling again. ‘That’s a tough one, Get-Up. I mean, if I were to ask you who Don Giovanni was, would you think that he was an Italian Godfather?’

       
His forehead creased in a frown but he saw by the look on my face that I wasn’t taking him seriously and he didn’t ask ‘Don who?’ Whatever had been irritating his scalp had now crawled down to his beard which he scratched vigorously like a dog worrying its nether regions. ‘Don’t take the piss, I’m serious, boss.’

       
‘I can see that, Get-Up. Come on, get it off your chest. What’s worrying you?’

       
The irritation had migrated to his right ear and he was wiggling his index finger up and down and in and out furiously, screwing his eyes up as he concentrated and spilling whisky over his knees as his glass trembled.

       
If I’d been a psychologist I would probably have marked it down as acute displacement behaviour, but knowing McKinley it was more likely something with six legs and dirty feet.

       
I was sitting up now, holding my glass with both hands and trying to read this strange, big and possibly dangerous man mountain because any problem he had could quite easily and quickly become my headache.

       
‘Well, it’s like this,’ he said. ‘You’ve given me a job, and you pay me well, and you treat me with respect, though sometimes I don’t understand what you’re saying to me and sometimes I think you’re taking the Michael, but generally you’re OK and I like working for you.’

       
‘That’s nice to know – if ever I need a reference I’ll come to you. What is it you’re after, a raise?’ I knew it wasn’t money he was after, it was an explanation, but I had to let him ask for it in his own sweet time.

       
‘No, it’s not that, boss. It’s just that, well, it’s as if  . . .’ He fell silent, staring at my shoelaces like Sammy’s cat, deep in thought. Then, as if he’d finally made up his mind about something, he raised his eyes sharply. ‘It’s all these questions you keep asking me. It’s worse than being collared by the law. You keep pumping me about Ronnie Laing and his connections, how does he do this, how does he do that, who does he know, where does he live, where does he eat? Jesus, boss, I don’t owe Laing no favours but I’d like to know what it is you’re up to.’

       
He’d stopped fidgeting with his hands but he chewed his lower lip as he waited for my answer.

       
‘Fair enough, Get-Up, but there’s nothing sinister happening, believe me. I used to do a fair bit of drugs dealing up in Glasgow, mainly cocaine – I’ve told you that already. I had contacts going all the way from the ice-cream vans that tour the housing schemes up to the guys who service the universities and I made a good living out of it, but eventually I ran into the same problem as your ex-boss. A gang of neds who used to specialize in armed robbery decided to go into the drugs business in a big way at my expense. They didn’t have my contacts but they found out where I was getting my supplies from and after a bit of persuasion those supplies dried up, and once I couldn’t come up with the goods my customers moved on. That’s why I moved to London.’

       
This was starting to sound like something Hans Christian Andersen might have written on an off day, but from the way McKinley was nodding his head it looked as if he believed me. I refilled his glass with whisky and leant back in the chair.