Jack Carter and the Mafia Pigeon (28 page)

“Hey, Wally,” D’Antoni says, “how about running the movies again. I didn’t catch all of it.”

Wally doesn’t answer.

“Come on. She looked a great little performer.”

Wally begins to get up but he’d never be a match for D’Antoni, so I say to him: “Go and make some coffee, Wal.”

Wally stands where he is for a moment.

“All right,” he says eventually, and makes for the hallway.

D’Antoni shakes his head.

“Jesus Christ,” he says. “Wait till I tell them this one.”

“Tell who?” I ask him.

D’Antoni looks at me. “You’re funny, you know that?”

“Yes, I’m almost as funny as you.”

D’Antoni shakes his head again.

On the floor, Barry begins to stir. I squat down and grab him by his collar and prop him up against the settee. Although his eyes are open it’s quite some time before he sees me.

“You with us, squire?” I say to him.

His mouth moves but no sound comes out.

“You want some more before you go home to your old lady?”

His mouth moves again, to the same effect. I lift him to his feet and point to the floor.

“See that?” I ask him. “That’s your brother. You’re going to take him home, all right?”

I let go of him and he manages to stay on his feet. Then I bend down and pick his brother up off the floor and drape his arms round my shoulders. Then I take Barry’s arm and begin to walk out of the sunken area. The movement starts to revive Benny who heaves right from the bottom of his stomach, the shuddering effect causing one of his teeth to finally dislodge itself and rattle very faintly on the parquet floor.

We make it up the steps and across the rest of the room and out into the hallway. When we get to the plate glass, Barry has survived sufficiently to support himself so I slide back the opening and indicate the black night air.

“There you go,” I tell them. “It’s somewhere out there where you want to be.”

I guide them through the opening and outside.

“If you wake up tomorrow and think of playing evens, don’t bother,” I tell them. “Come back here and I’ll fucking crucify you. Either that or I’ll put your old ladies in what you been up to.”

Benny puts his hand to his face and only just manages not to sink to his knees.

“Right. Enjoy the rest of your holidays.”

I slide the plate glass shut and watch the sons of Dagenham stagger down the steps and off across the flagstones in the direction of the track. When I’ve made sure they’re properly on their way I cross the hall and go down the corridor to the kitchen. Wally is standing by the sink, examining the plughole, or something that’s just gone down it. I light a cigarette. The sound the flame makes Wally turn away from the sink.

“Won’t be long,” Wally says.

“That’s all right, Wal.”

The silence is long and strained. Eventually I break it by saying: “I shouldn’t worry too much about it.”

Wally snorts, very softly, very bitterly.

“She’s a fucking tart, that’s what she is.”

I shrug.

“Maybe,” I say. “On the other hand, you do enjoy that kind of thing yourself, Wal.”

“She’s my own flesh and blood.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I mean.”

“Could be something in that.”

“What?”

“Being your own flesh and blood. In the family, and that.”

“What are you getting at?”

I shrug.

“You mean like heredity?” Wally says.

“Something like that.”

Wally looks at me. The percolator begins to bubble. Wally turns away to see it.

“Anyway,” I say, and walk out of the kitchen.

Back in the lounge D’Antoni and Audrey are still sitting in the same positions but since I went away the ice seems to have been broken somewhat.

“Well, I appreciate that, I really do,” D’Antoni is saying as I re-enter the lounge.

“They just thought it might be a good idea, what with the business contacts over here.”

“Yeah. I can see that.”

“I was just telling Mr. D’Antoni, Jack, how Gerald and Les thought it’d be a good idea if I came over and sussed out some of the places we know what might be likely to be ports of call for anybody who might be looking for somebody.”

“Oh, yes?”

“Yes. And as you’re up, you can get me another drink.”

I wonder to myself why, after the words we had earlier in the evening, she still imagines she can push me the way, for appearance’s sake, she sometimes does in front of Gerald and Les, and live so long without me hauling her off the final definitive punch. But I swallow again because I wouldn’t like to put her out of this world without finding out the real reason for her coming up to the villa. So I say to her:

“I just been into the kitchen. Wally’s fetching the coffee in a minute.”

“Mr. D’Antoni’s right,” she says. “You are funny.”

I smile at her.

“It’s been a funny evening,” I say.

“I can’t believe that film,” Audrey says. “Her being in it, and that.”

“You didn’t recruit her yourself, did you?”

“ ’Course I didn’t. I don’t have anything to do with that side of things no more. You know that.”

“Funny. Tonight was just like old times really. Reminded me of picking up the rough trade and getting them drunk and persuading them to perform. Really took me back. I’d almost forgotten how good you were at that part. You know, the scrubber, smashed out of her mind.”

“Yeah, well I should start getting used to forgetting things,” Audrey says. “Know what I mean?”

Wally enters with the tray of coffee. While he’s putting it down on the low table, Audrey says to him:

“I may as well stay here tonight, Wally. You didn’t put Jack in the master bedroom, did you?”

“No, I didn’t do that.”

“You can get that ready for me then. Sweep the scorpions out the bed. I’d hate to get stung on me first night.”

“You almost did,” I tell her, putting my drink down and picking up my coffee. “Anyway, if you don’t mind, I’m taking my Horlicks up to bed with me. I’ve got last week’s
Beano
to catch up on.”

I walk out of the lounge and make my way upstairs to my bedroom. The room is empty of Tina. My bed is turned down exactly as I left it. The cot is unruffled. The sheer physical relief is beautiful. No more sparring matches of any description. Just the crisp sheets. I put my coffee down on the bedside table and crawl into the bed and it feels exactly like it did an hour ago; I’m beginning to think of it the way I think of the one I’ve got at home after a hard day looking after Gerald and Les. I close my eyes and start to drift away to blackness for as long as I can before Audrey’s inevitable arrival.

Chapter Fourteen

T
HE DREAM IS
VERY
clear, very sharp. Gerald and Les are the spitting images of themselves. And that’s more or less what they’re doing in the dream, because they’re in the dock at the Old Bailey, and I’m on the stand, giving evidence against them. I’m not exactly saying anything, but I know that’s what I’m doing. And I know what the result of what I’m doing is going to be. So when the judge reaches for the old black cap, I’m not exactly surprised. He doesn’t say anything but then he doesn’t have to. Gerald and Les look at him, bow, then they turn in my direction and take their shooters out and point them at me but they don’t fire straight away. Instead, between me and them, in enormous close-up, is the face of Audrey, smiling at me. Then the shooters sound off and although Audrey is still smiling the same smile, blood begins to dribble out from between her teeth, vying for brilliance with her lipstick.

Then I wake up, and I realise that the perfume of the dream is a reality, because Audrey is crawling into bed next to me, and she doesn’t stop when she’s beside me, she keeps going until she’s on top of me, squashing her mouth and the rest of her against me, her stocking’d legs
slithering up and down like pistons. A hand slides down to my waist and undoes my pyjama cord. Then Audrey’s head goes under the sheets and she starts travelling south, a direction I’m normally more than partial to, but tonight I don’t want her being bad-mannered when she’s talking to me so I grab hold of some of her hair and arrest her progress. Audrey’s voice muffles up through the bedclothes.

“Jesus Christ!”

Her head re-appears, an inch or so away from mine.

“What’s the bleedin’ game, then?”

“Finding out yours, that’s what.”

Audrey rolls over onto her back.

“I mean,” I say to her. “Considering we reached the end of the road a few hours ago, this is a bit sudden, isn’t it?”

There’s a long pause before Audrey answers.

“You really are a berk, aren’t you?”

I don’t say anything.

“I come to tell you something to your advantage, as they say.”

“Why should you do a thing like that?”

“You really are a berk. I mean, you really are.”

It’s my turn not to say anything for a while.

“All right,” I say eventually. “So why the circus? Why not just use the phone if you’ve got something to tell me?”

Audrey sighs.

“Because, sweetheart, you’re not easy to convince of anything face to face, let alone over the phone.”

“Not to mention via Her Majesty’s Mails.”

“Yeah, well that’s what I want to talk to you about.”

“Come to apologise for the spelling mistakes, have you?”

“Listen, you stupid bastard, I’ve had a phone call since you left the hotel.”

“I thought you might have.”

“Yes. Well.”

I reach out and pluck my cigarettes off the bedside table. I light two up and hand one to Audrey. After I’ve inhaled I say: “So what did they have to say?”

“You mean after they got through describing their feelings about you?”

“I can imagine all that. It’s the other part I’m interested in.”

“You should be. You’ll find it fascinating.”

She doesn’t go on to tell me how fascinating I’ll find it. What she wants me to do is to ask her to tell me. Which, of course, I do, seeing as Audrey is prepared to wait until Stanley Bowles tells the referee it wasn’t a penalty, he just fell over himself. I say to her:

“All right. So tell me what I’ll find fascinating.”

“Well, what it all boils down to, they decided to take contingency measures, haven’t they? They decided to pass the brief elsewhere.”

“And that’s fascinating, is it?”

“You don’t think so?”

“What else could they do? They painted themselves into a corner and for once Jack the Lad isn’t lifting them out of it. So they’re still in the corner. They got to do something, haven’t they.”

“That’s right. And they got to do something about you, haven’t they? I mean, since you’ve resigned, they don’t want you starting up in competition, do they?”

I stretch out my arm and stub out my cigarette.

“I’ll worry about that when I get back off my holidays.”

“You will.”

“That’s right.”

Audrey doesn’t say anything for a while. Eventually I say to her:

“So what are they?”

“What?”

“The alternative arrangements?”

“Oh, them. Nothing really.”

“You what?”

“Forget it. You’re on your holidays, aren’t you?”

“Listen, you came up here to tell me something I’ll find fascinating. You came all the way from Palma to tell it to me. And now you’re not telling me.”

“That’s because you don’t really want to know.”

“I see.”

“It’s right.”

I don’t say anything. After a while she says:

“You’re not going to change your mind, are you?”

“You what?”

“About D’Antoni. You’re not going to change your mind.”

“You know I’m not.”

“And you’re still prepared to screw up everything we been working for?”

I don’t answer her.

Then she suddenly sits up and gets out of the bed, taking most of the top sheet with her.

“Then you deserve everything you get,” she says, and walks out of the bedroom.

I don’t attempt to pull the sheet back on the bed. In fact I don’t move at all. I just lie there and stare up into the blackness until my eyes gradually close and I succumb to the deeper blackness of sleep.

For the second time that night I awake to the scent of perfume. Only this time it’s not Audrey’s.

“Wakey, wakey,” Tina says.

She takes it in her hand and waves it to and fro like a rubber metronome. I take hold of her wrist and pull her hand away.

“No fun,” she says. “Like I always say, you’re no fun.”

“Piss off.”

“I got nowhere else to go, have I?”

“You got the camp bed.”

“Yes, I know,” she says. “Only it seemed a shame that we had to be the couple that dropped out of the game.”

“You what?”

“Us. Not like the other two.”

“What like the other two?”

“Mrs. Fletcher and the spaghetti-eater.”

“What about them?”

“Christ. What do you think?”

I think various thoughts and then I say:

“Where are they?”

“Last time I saw them was when I went back into the lounge for me fags. They was on the settee. Only they wasn’t sitting, know what I mean? And her only with her stockings on. I mean to say.”