Amphetamines and Pearls (3 page)

4

The room was at the back of an amusement arcade in Old Compton Street. From where I was standing, idly playing pin-ball and trying to look as though that was how I usually spent my lunch times, it appeared to be locked. At least, when a greasy looking drifter in a soiled afghan had tried it there had been no response. And there was no light showing through the glass above the door. It might have been the middle of the day, but if Maxie was in there he would have needed some light. In his moleish world he needed every bit of light he could get.

I pulled back on the table and tried to jerk the ball on to some promising numbers. All I got was tilt. Still, I wasn't the only poor player around. The guy across the room wasn't having much luck either.

Worn leather bum-freezer jacket, leather cap on his head, gloves stuck into his trouser belt. He sure was intent upon his pin-ball machine. Or was it the fact that he would be able to see me reflected in the glass behind, just as I could see him?

Whatever the case, he sure as hell couldn't play.

Someone else tried Maxie's door. They must have been in some kind of a hurry, for they kicked it real hard when it wouldn't open. I figured the noise gave me an excuse to look round.

When I saw him I wondered that the door had not given way. I had seen big men before but he was ridiculous. He had to be all of six foot eight and he weighed enough to start a whole new class of heavyweights. He wasn't wearing over-much considering it was still what most normal people would consider cold; the only concession to the temperature was a brown woolly hat that was pulled down tight over his skull. He was as black as ebony and looked as if his idea of a little light exercise might be tearing telephone booths in two.

I noticed that my fellow pin-ball devotee was looking at him in a rather awe-stricken way, too, but I guessed there was nothing surprising about that.

He didn't bother to look down on either of us; just once back at the door, then out.

I wondered whether Maxie would be glad or sad he had missed his visitor. Maybe he'd be sad. Perhaps he was one of those happy giants you read about who are just like happy children inside: full of friendly fun. Only they often don't know their own strength.

I went back to my game; my interested companion went back to his. A few Greeks drifted in and then drifted out again: waiters without a table to serve: hairdressers without a head to work on. A young woman ran in, looked round breathlessly, swore once, then ran out. Apart from that it was quiet. Only the click and occasional buzz of the machines.

When Maxie came back from what I guessed was his lunchtime drink, he shambled through the brightly lit arcade without apparently noticing either of us. Or anything else. His wispily balding head stuck out from the dirty collar of his coat like a disease. The scalp was pitted and scabbed under the few strands of greying hair. His puffed-up eyes were almost totally closed and little light showed from the slits that remained. Maxie was a walking sore, but he had worked this patch since before I had been a copper on the beat. He knew everything that happened in and around his arcade, whatever it might appear to the contrary. When he shuffled round, giving change or jabbing at machines with a screwdriver, he heard more than anyone thought he could, saw when others thought him almost blind.

It wasn't only the coloured prostitutes from South London who plied their trade in the evenings inside the warmth of the arcade. There were the pushers, also, using the freedom of movement that the place afforded. An envelope, a small roll of plastic, a phial: here anything could change hands for the right price.

And the coppers on the beat kept on walking by, eyes averted, hands outstretched. Nothing changed.

I gave Maxie time to scratch himself, then I went in. He hadn't seen me for a long time but he recognised me straight away. I couldn't tell whether or not he was pleased. Not that it would have mattered. Only the notes inside my wallet did that.

‘'Ello, Mitchell. Long time since you was this way. Thought you might 'ave give it all up. Become a salesman or somethin'.'

His cackling laugh broke into a spluttering cough, which he quenched with a dirty piece of rag from his coat pocket.

‘Only one of us is a salesman, Maxie.'

‘You're right there, Mitchell. No one would buy anything from an ex-copper.' He laughed at his own joke and shuffled his feet. For a moment I thought he was going to break into a dance. Instead he came towards me and I took a step backwards to avoid the smell.

‘It's information I want, Maxie. Not a close-up. Christ! When did you last have a bath?'

‘Bath, Mitchell?' he chortled. ‘Bath? Why, none of me friends would know me.'

‘Okay, Maxie.' I reached for my wallet and laid it on the table in front of him. Immediately he stopped laughing; money was no laughing matter.

‘Anything I can do, Mitchell, you know me.' The words sounded like claws.

I took out one note, then another. I held fast to them with my fingers pressed down on to the dirt of the table top.

‘If I wanted to get a steady supply of dope, where would I go?'

‘Well, that depends, don't it. I mean there's all kinds of dope nowadays. Depends how much money you got, too. But if you come in about ten tonight, then I'll
…'

I reached across the table and lifted him off the ground by the collar of his coat. It was like running your fingers into thick grease. I pushed him away against the wall.

‘You heard me, Maxie. I said a steady supply. Not a quick jump from one of your friendly neighbourhood pushers that you're busy getting a cut from. Good stuff, clean and reliable. Delivered quietly and respectably and without any awkward questions being asked. Maybe amphetamines, maybe something harder. Maybe heroin. I'm not sure.'

He had pushed himself back from the far wall and was wheezing breath all over the table: but his tiny eyes were focused on the notes. I added another two. Already that was two days of Vonnie's money I had spent and I hadn't started yet.

He didn't want to tell me but he didn't want the notes to find their way back into my wallet either.

‘It's difficult. Things are changing. There's a lot of new muscle about. People are getting eased out and others are moving in. Some of the small-time blokes who use my place have stopped coming. Someone is out to tighten up on the market.'

Maxie looked up at me and although I could not see into his eyes I knew that they were worried. Even frightened.

The notes were on their way back inside the wallet and I was on my way to the door.

‘Wait. Give me a day. Come by again, say tomorrow. Around closing time. I'll do what I can for you.'

The last promise was accompanied by an outstretched, dirty hand. I put one five pound note into it and watched the fingers close round it as though they were starving.

‘The rest tomorrow, Maxie. If you've got the information.'

I went out through the door. My friend in the leather jacket was no longer to be seen. Half way to the entrance I thought of something and went back.

Maxie did not appear to have moved. Maybe he was drinking. Maybe not

‘Someone called to see you while I was waiting. About seven foot of Negro, all sewn together in one neat package. Anyone you know?'

This time I didn't need to see his eyes to know that he was afraid. The grubby fingers tightened round the note and screwed it tight into the palm of his hand.

For a split second I almost felt sorry for him: then I went out.

When I got out on to the street I saw the guy who had been playing pin-ball sitting across the way drinking coffee. He tried very hard to look innocently at the passers-by and not to notice me. I just wondered who was paying him and if they knew what a cheap deal they were getting for their money.

My office was in Covent Garden. It had been there in the days of the vegetable market and when that had been moved out so that the site could be redeveloped I sort of got left behind. Somebody gave the orders to somebody else and all around me old buildings were sent crashing to the ground to make way for new bomb sites.

I guess the building which housed my office they left because it looked as if it was going to fall down of its own accord. But it hadn't yet. Though there were days when I wished it would; as if sending the bricks and mortar and glass of that office smashing to the ground would somehow release me from the web I had wrapped myself up in. Whereas all it would do would be to take me with it.

Today I had a drink and even then things didn't look any better. I climbed up the stairs to the first floor and looked gloomily at the chipped paint of my name on the door. I gave an involuntary jump as the phone bell started to ring from inside the office. I took out my key and put it into the lock. I didn't turn it. The phone still rang. I removed the key and put it back in my pocket.

When I got downstairs to the front door the bell was still ringing.

By the time I got to Sandy I had swallowed several more scotches and was feeling none the better for it. But at least things had stopped ringing in my ears.

She came to the door of her flat and let me in. She didn't look surprised and she didn't look particularly pleased either. Just stepped back out of the way to let me in. I put the half-bottle of whisky I had just bought down on the table beside the bed. Sandy went back over to the dressing table and continued to put on her make-up. I went into the small kitchen, brought back two glasses, poured two generous shots, put one on the dressing table top and took the other over to the bed. I lay across it and looked at her.

Ten years ago she had been a slight figure ducking back into doorways, avoiding my approaches as I patrolled the streets. One evening she had been thrown out by her pimp; she had not been bringing in enough money. Not just thrown out, though. He had beaten her up, leaving bruises as deep as they were colourful all over her body—and a three-inch cut alongside her right ear which he had made with his razor.

I had found her, crawling on her hands and knees along the gutter, her face a mask of blood, grime and tears. Still she had had the strength to spit into my face.

I took her back to someone I knew would look after her and went looking for her pimp. At three in the morning I found him in a West Indian drinking club in Paddington. There were too many of his friends there so I waited until gone five, when he came out with two of them. They had walked around the corner towards their car, laughing into the morning air. It was just starting to get light and they saw me moving towards them but even so it was some while before they realised who I was. One of them turned and ran. I let him go.

The one I wanted stopped and reached inside his overcoat pocket for what I guessed was his razor. His companion raced for the car. He reached the door a fraction of a second before me: enough time to get the key in the lock. I flung him back across the pavement and into the wire fencing that ran alongside a used-car lot. As he bounced back off it I caught him in the middle of the back with my boot and he cannoned into it again.

He began to slump down to the floor and I turned to face the razor which streaked before my eyes. I shot up an arm and knocked it high and lunged in beneath it. My right fist hit something hard, drew back and hit again. This time it punched against something softer, like an eye. He shouted and swore and the hand holding the razor tried for my face once more. It found the edge of my ear but nothing more. I grabbed upwards with both hands and took hold of his arm on either side of the elbow. Then I brought down the back of the arm, held taut, against the upraised top of my thigh. There was a splintering sound that echoed across the early morning and was followed by a scream of pain.

Behind me I heard his friend trying to get to the car again. Some friend! He was more successful this time and got half of his body inside the front before I grabbed him and pulled. In his fear he clung fast to the steering wheel, while I wrenched his neck backwards. Still he clung. I swung the car door hard. It caught him across the top of his shoulder blade and he let go and dropped to the floor. He fell with his head between the sill and the bottom of the front seat. I swung the door again.

Razor Boy was still holding his right arm and whimpering. I wrenched him round and threw him back against the wire fence. As he flopped back at me I hit him hard under the jaw with the heel of my hand, caught him, turned him and slammed his face against the fence. I held him there while I went through his pockets. There was still over sixty pounds in his wallet. I pushed it down into my jacket and rammed his face hard into the wire with my other hand.

‘Right! Now listen and listen good because I'm only going to say this once! If I see you round on my patch any more I'm going to take you in and ram every charge in the book right up your black arse! And that's before I get you alone in the station house with no witnesses and a nice piece of rubber hose. And you can tell the same to any of your friends who have an inkling to carve young girls up just for the fun of it. Understood?'

I jammed his face further into the fence and held it there; when I released him and turned him round the black of his skin was bisected by white lines.

I thought he understood. I hit him again to make sure and walked away.

Now, sitting on the bed drinking another whisky while Sandy finished her eyelashes, I realised that it wasn't really that easy. For one thing I wasn't so young and I probably couldn't do it. For another it didn't work. Any more than the drink did. Any more—I thought, looking at the swell of Sandy's breasts as she raised her arm level with her face—than sex. At least, it only worked for a while.

She sipped at her drink and then ran her tongue along her lower lip. After that occasion when I had found her beaten up she had gone off the streets and gone back home; for a time. But like most girls who start and try to give it all up, she had come back. Older and wiser and less easy to boss around. She got work as hostess in one of the so-called drinking clubs where you got punters to drink coloured water and pay you large sums in return for a promise that you would meet them later round the corner and take them home for a nice time. Then Sandy had discovered that she could earn more as a stripper.