Angel City (13 page)

That was me.

‘More Rollerballs.'

I flipped the tops off two more bottles and the redhead proffered a £5 note and a killer look, defying me to stare her out. I ducked her gaze, got her change and planted it on the bar in front of her, keeping my eyes on my trainers.

‘When I think of what I used to do because of
men
,'
she said to her partner. ‘Like worrying about my weight, for Christ's sake. Every morning, first thing, on the bathroom scales. And an ounce or two over would bring on Toxic Shock syndrome.'

‘I hope you remembered to have a pee before you weighed yourself,' said the blonde.

‘Have a pee? Jesus, I used to shave my legs before getting on!'

A fingernail jabbed me in the arm. It was Dave wearing a cherubic smile that didn't fool me one bit.

‘We're running out of vodka. Nip into the other bar and ask April for a bottle.'

‘You do it.'

‘I'm busy and you're the new boy and April doesn't like disobedience.'

I looked towards the danger zone. Thelma and Louise were draining their beers. I reached for two more as the redhead snapped her fingers at me.

‘I may be gone some time,' I hissed at Dave.

‘I even used to shave my armpits in those days,' the redhead started up again.

I gave her her change and began to wipe the bar counter with a damp cloth. It's an old trick perfected by bored barmen, as when you ask people to lift their glasses, most will take a drink before putting them down again. Most men will probably finish them. Consequently, you speed up the drinking rate and sell more.

‘You were worried about the weight of your underarm hair?' asked the blonde, lifting her bottle. ‘Now that's what I call paranoid.'

‘No, no, no,' said the redhead. ‘You shaved there because men expected it. Don't ask me why.'

I said ‘Excuse me' ever so politely and lifted the bar flap.

They made no attempt to move their bar stools and I had a gap of about three inches to squeeze through.

‘Men are funny about body hair,' said the redhead, and I was so close now I could smell the Rolling Rock on her breath.

‘It used to worry me a lot …'

I let the bar flap descend behind me, as I eased between them.

‘I mean, what does one do' – she was really loud in my ear now – ‘with unwanted pubic hair?'

‘Spit it out,' I said, diving towards the door.

 

‘I know you've got your new job to go to at the pub, Angel,' said Fenella sulkily. ‘But I think a proper lesson should be more than five minutes.'

Was that all it had been? I'd smoked three cigarettes.

‘Setting off and parking are very important components of the driving test,' I lectured her.

‘But I thought we might have made it out of our street.'

Two lessons and she was hooked, raring to have a go at roundabouts, T-junctions, three-point turns. She had even bought a copy of the Highway Code without Lisabeth noticing and was secretly identifying road signs and already getting her knickers in a twist in case they asked her the one about the countdown markers approaching an unmanned level crossing without gates.

‘We'll do more at the weekend,' I promised as I locked the car and looked down the road to where Armstrong was parked.

Fenella checked the entrance to Number Nine to make sure there was no sign of Lisabeth.

‘I said I was going to the library, so if she asks, say you gave me a lift, okay? Otherwise she'll wonder what I'm doing back so soon.'

‘Anything you say, but you know how I hate to deceive people, Fenella.'

‘Just this once, eh?' She squeezed my arm.

‘Just this once,' I sighed.

‘Thanks. And I'm sorry I didn't know what a Vanilla Dyke was.'

‘Forget it,' I said generously. It had been a long shot.

‘But I'll ask Lisabeth later on.'

‘Er ... no,' I stammered. ‘Don't do that.'

Fenella hit the street and was in at the front door like a rat up a drainpipe. I was locking Armstrong when I heard the communal phone ringing from inside. Sure enough, it was for me.

Fenella was holding the receiver at arm's length and mouthing what appeared to be ‘Mister Bastard'. I didn't quite believe my eyes, reading that on her lips, but then again, it could cover any one of a number of my friends. I took the phone from her and she said, ‘Thanks for the lift, Angel' very loudly so that Lisabeth could hear upstairs, and she said it again as she went up herself.

‘Yo, Angel,' I said, expecting it to be Bunny, or Duncan the Drunken, or some other reprobate.

‘Bert Bassotti here,' came an echoing voice. He was on an amplified office phone, the sort where you could use your hands for several other purposes.

‘Hello there, Bert. You sound kinda distant. What can I do for you?'

I was more worried about how he had got my number, but then that was probably via Tigger. I wasn't too worried. It is still tricky enough to get someone's address from just a phone number unless you're a cop or similar. Not impossible, but tricky.

‘Wondered if you'd made any progress,' said Bassotti, still sounding as if he was sky-diving into the Grand Canyon. There was only one explanation; someone was listening in.

‘Got a couple of leads, Bert. Something I think I can follow up tomorrow night looks especially good.'

But if you think I'm telling you about gay laser karaoke nights, you've another think coming.

‘I just want to make it clear that we stressed that there was some urgency about this job, Roy. Didn't we?'

‘Of course, Mr Bassotti,' I said, servile, noting the ‘Roy' – and also the ‘we' all of a sudden.

‘So you think you can come up with something? By Friday, that is?'

‘Friday was the day I was aiming for,' I lied. ‘I'm doing my best. I take it the finder's fee still stands?'

Down the line came a distant laugh, but even at that distance I could tell it was unpleasant. ‘Yeah, finder's fee. That still stands.'

‘Then I'll do my best, Mr Bassotti.'

‘You do that, Roy. You do that.'

 

I never did get to experience the male gay laser karaoke night that Thursday, as I had a piece of luck.

I turned up for work and got a blast from April about trying not to upset the punters – sorry, customers – this time, before being allowed upstairs to find a clean white shirt and a bow tie.

Sam and Dave were not on duty until later and I was told to get the bar ready for opening with a tall, gangling youth called Keith and a wild-eyed Irishman called Joe who said nothing, just sat on an upturned beer crate pulling alternately on a joint and a can of Special Brew.

Keith nervously tried to make friends, relieved that he would not be working alone with Joe.

‘I don't normally do bar work,' he said hesitantly. ‘I'm really here to help Derek with the disco and the karaoke gear.'

Joe grunted something unintelligible.

‘Oh yeah?' I said, feigning interest.

‘My friend Derek's really good at it. Disco, I mean.'

‘Uh-huh.'

‘He's been a regular here for three years. Knows everybody.'

‘Does he now? Come and introduce me.'

Derek was sorting out CDs for the disco and, rarity these days, he also had some vinyl LPs. I checked a few covers: mostly Dusty Springfield and the Beverley Sisters.

I told Keith to bottle up and fetch in some more cases of beer. He was younger than me, needed the exercise and seemed happy to help.

‘Keith says you know most of this crowd,' I tried on Derek.

‘Could say that, I s'pose.'

He was trying to be cool but made the fatal error of wearing a T-shirt carrying the name and sign of the pub. (Rule of Life No. 51: Never wear a T-shirt in the place it commemorates.) The T-shirt I'd been wearing when I arrived advertised a home-brew pub in Soquel, California. Further removed from the Grapes in Rimmer Road you could not imagine.

‘Ever come across my old mate Tigger?'

‘Cheeky little toerag, doesn't know when to quit?'

‘That's him.'

‘Ain't seen him for weeks.'

He busied himself loading the CD player.

‘But I copped his partner this morning.'

I wasn't sure if this was a test or not. If I knew Tigger, I'd surely know his partner, wouldn't I? Or maybe Derek was just bad with names.

‘Lee? How is he these days?'

I couldn't tell whether that had reassured him or not.

‘Yeah, Lee the Smackhead, as he's known. Seemed straight this morning and had a bit of dosh on him. Bought himself a tent and was moving in.'

‘Where?'

‘The Fields. Lincoln's Inn. God knows why; there's an injunction or something that means they're all going to have to get out soon.'

‘Yeah, so I'd heard.'

Derek began rearranging his light show and I left him to it.

I left Keith bottling up and I left April still needing bar staff.

I ran upstairs and grabbed my jacket and T-shirt. Joe was still sitting there, popping another can. I smiled at him and he glared at me.

As I went through the bar, I told Keith I was just nipping out to my car. I got into Armstrong and drove away.

I never did get paid for the Tuesday shift. But then, they never got their shirt and bow tie back.

 

 

 

 

 

Bassotti had said there was a grand in it for me if I found Tigger by Friday. Derek's lead about Lincoln's Inn was the only thing I'd come up with all week, and tomorrow was Friday. So I checked that the flashlight I kept in Armstrong's boot was working and I headed west.

It was dark and raining by the time I made Holborn. It was the quiet time there, around 9.00 pm, with few people on the street and dozens of taxis with their signs on cruising up and down. You could tell there was a recession on: empty taxis and queues at the bus stops even though it was raining. Funny, though, that in two hours when the pubs emptied out, you wouldn't find a cab for love nor money.

I cut round the back of the Fields and parked illegally on Portugal Street. I rummaged around in the boot some more until I found a California Angels baseball cap to combat the rain, and while looking I came across a pair of plastic diesel pump gloves. Those went on too. You never knew.

I entered the Fields themselves from the south-east end. They aren't fields as such, of course. Fields are big green things which wave in the wind and live beyond the M25 and are eligible for European Community subsidies. Lincoln's Inn Fields is really a big lawn with a criss-cross path and iron railings round the perimeter. It is flanked by Lincoln's Inn itself, where the legal beagles hang out, and the Royal College of Surgeons, where the medics pontificate on the health of the nation. It is home to a movable population of the homeless, many of whom are sick and all probably breaking the law.

I was holding my torch down at the side of my leg, my thumb on the flash on/off button. It reminded me of drinking sessions years ago in Southwark with an old robber called High Interest, who used to hold a pickaxe handle that way while waiting in the queue for a cashier to come free. He maintained he'd once waited 20 minutes like that, edging his way forward, and nobody had said a word until he started smashing at the cashier's glass window. That was in the days before video cameras, of course, and he couldn't ever have been a very successful robber; after all, he used to drink with me and live in Southwark. He was called High Interest because he specialised in Building Societies, but that was the most imaginative thing about him.

The largest concentration of tents and makeshift bashas was in the corner to my left, though in total there were no more than a dozen of them. At one time there were supposed to have been nearly two hundred people living here, but harassment, fear and the winter had thinned them out much more successfully than the government's attempts at rehousing.

In the centre of the Fields was the bandstand, or the folly, or the gazebo. It had many names, including Timothy Whites after an ageing newspaper columnist had suggested that more drugs changed hands there than in a branch of the former high street chemists. That was not on my agenda if I could avoid it. Derek had said he'd seen Lee with a tent; though even if the tent was there, it didn't mean Lee was.

I played the beam of the torch on to the ground between the path and the nearest tents. Most had well-worn muddy tracks thanks to the rain. The furthest two did not, therefore they were the recent arrivals. Much more of this, I thought, and I might consider reapplying to the Scouts, assuming they'd forgotten a particular incident 20 years ago.