Stark Contrasts (An Adam Stark novel Book 1) (6 page)

“Ah, well. Nobody had CCTV in the seventies and the cops still managed to solve crimes, so we'll just need to look for some other way to catch these guys.” Stark added wryly.

“I suppose so, sir.”

11. Motion Sickness

Every workplace has one. An annoying, officious dick that likes to do everything by the book. Obsessed with what people fail to do, seemingly incapable of ever recognising achievement. Mine had one too.

Morris Hargreaves reached his late fifties still buttoned up about everything - from starched collar to attitudes about sex. Bitter and resentful about life, it was apparent he tried to make himself feel better by making others feel like shit. Incidents resulting in tearful and stressed-out colleagues making for exits and bathrooms abounded.

He cultivated a hard on for me that would've made the 70's porn star John Holmes jealous.

What pissed him off most was his inability to intimidate or stress me out. I found his frequent petulant outbursts pathetic for a man of his years and standing. In fact, on at least two occasions I laughed in his face. Give him his due - he was a persistent little fucker. I could expect at least one dressing down a day and, if I was really lucky, several. It was a battle of wills he would never win.

By a strange quirk of fate, and much to my chagrin, I needed to deal with Morris Hargreaves in another aspect of my life. He was Chairman of the committee that ran my son's swimming team. His granddaughter was a junior champion, he was a prize prick.

Whenever anyone made a suggestion as to how funds could be raised, communications might be improved, uniforms could be sourced more cheaply or anything else minor or major pertaining to club matters, they got the same answer.

“You'll need to table a motion.”

Nothing could ever be decided there and then. Nothing could be ad hoc. Everything needed to follow the due process set out in the club constitution. It added unnecessary delay but, crucially, as far as Hargreaves was concerned, everything went through him. This rendered him gatekeeper and backstop for all things swimming club. People such as Hargreaves are drawn to such positions for all the wrong reasons. They delight in exerting power over others and always seem to take life far too seriously.

Given our strained relationship, I avoided volunteering ideas or suggestions unless I was sure he already agreed with them. He waited with baited breath whenever a committee meeting was in session, willing me to contribute something radical, just so he could slap me down. I kept my counsel and he seethed with frustration. It made the meetings more bearable for me.

“Ok, but you'll need to table a motion.”

It wasn't a particular incident as far as I can recall. It was more like Chinese-water-torture. A drip, drip, drip into my subconscious. He must have filled the tub and I needed to pull the plug to prevent a flood.

“TABLE”

“A”

“MOTION!”

Accessing buildings covertly didn't usually present a big challenge for me. The swimming club committee met in a back room at the local church hall. Tight security was unnecessary - nothing worth stealing ever spent the night there. As a result, this covert entry proved to be a cakewalk.

The committee meeting was set to begin at eight the next morning. Hargreaves liked to drag things out, so he started early. As a keyholder, he was always punctual. For once, I would be there well ahead of the kick-off to ensure I could enjoy the moment.

At seven-forty-five I found myself outside the church. The club secretary, George Amberry, also waited. He only experienced being bawled out for lateness once, but it was enough to ensure he never ran the risk of getting there
after
Hargreaves again. Not the most assertive of guys, but a very good accountant by all..er..accounts. Conversation between us didn't extend much beyond a 'How are you?' and remarks on the weather. Blue sky, sixty degrees, as it happened.

At seven-fifty Hargreaves rolled up in his twenty year old BMW. Almost all his life took place in some form of suspended animation; a golden age of times gone by. He could easily afford a new car, but he'd rather spend hours maintaining and polishing the one he bought in his prime. He shot me a quizzical look - with just a dash of healthy (and, as it happened, well-placed) suspicion. I nodded in faux deference and politeness.

Hargreaves, carrying a bundle of folders and papers, turned the key in the lock and let the door swing open. He strode forward with his purposeful, military gait. Around half-way down the hall he stopped dead in his tracks, dropping the paperwork to the ground where it slid in various directions across the varnished floorboards. His hand went to his mouth, then he bolted for a waste-paper bin and held it up as he retched and dry-heaved.

George Amberry edged a few yards further into the hall, then stopped.

“Holy shit!”

“Yeah, maybe, but even if JC himself evacuated it, I don't think they'll be handing
that
out at Communion on Sunday, do you?” I quipped.

George spluttered with laughter.

The pile of faeces in front of Morris Hargreaves' nameplate was copious and horribly pungent. A few flies were already in attendance.

I whistled softly and looked over at our chairman, staring back at me ashen-faced and dumbstruck.

“Oh dear, Morris. Looks like somebody tabled a motion - literally!”

12. Leo the Lion

Leo Corantelli was very upset. Very, very upset. What occurred in Cardoza's qualified as the single most humiliating moment of his life. The restaurant staff were intolerably smug when they found him; the paramedics and hospital staff snickered, pointed, talked behind his back. This was not paranoia on his part, this was fact.

The removal of the phone left him sore, and for the first few days afterwards, taking a dump was no laughing matter. But, he wouldn't be leaving it there. Oh no! The distress, discomfort and ignominy was eclipsed by a raging fury.  The prick responsible for his unhappiness had made the biggest mistake of his soon-to-end-painfully life.

Leo was the youngest son of Carlo Corantelli, one of the the city's best connected gangland bosses. His father could never have imagined a mobile phone would be pulled from his son's butt, even though he thought the sun shone out of it. What Leo wanted, Leo got...and Leo wanted this guy dead. Luckily, violent notoriety prevented anyone from the hospital or restaurant from contacting the press about his admission. Leo also made sure none of his father's crew knew exactly what happened to him. As far as they were concerned, this would be the usual no-questions-asked revenge for crossing the spoilt son of their boss. Questions were unnecessary; they did as they were told.

The attack had been bad, the reaction of the restaurant staff and medics angered him, but the message the guy left on Leo's answering service caused his rage to spiral up towards the stratosphere. This guy would be very, very sorry that he ever crossed Leo.

Leo walked into Cardoza's at ten o'clock in the morning with three, large goons in tow. The duty manager, newly arrived, was returning to lock the front door after cancelling the alarm.

“Hey guys, we're not open until midday. Do you want to make a reservation?”

His sunny disposition smacked of someone well-drilled in customer care. Unfortunately, this did not prevent him being punched to the ground.

“How about that for a reservation?” spat Leo. “Do you remember me, you little prick?”

The hapless manager, head spinning, blood dripping, looked up and it dawned on him who he was dealing with.

“Yes, sir, Mr Corantelli, I remember you. You're a very good customer.”

The platitude failed to make any dent in the violent intentions of his one-time patron. Leo booted him heftily in the midriff and the young man folded in half, winded and disorientated.

“Damn right I was a very good fucking customer! But you ungrateful shitbuckets let someone attack me on your premises and then laughed at me after it happened!” Leo stood with hands on hips, glowering with seething contempt. “Well, you won't be laughing any more!”

He aimed another kick at the prone manager, then signalled to one of the goons to pick him up.

“Right, get me your reservation book.”

The manager led them (if you count being roughly shoved as leading) over to the bar where he pulled out a large, leather bound book.

Leo snatched the oversized diary, flicking through the pages until he found what he needed. Friday the ninth. He tore out the page, letting the rest of the book fall to the floor, and scanned down to table fourteen - a surname, nothing else. Although it hardly seemed possible to boost it any further, this setback increased his displeasure.

“Is this all you've got? Do you slack bastards never take a mobile number or an address from customers who make a booking?”

The now whimpering, trembling manager tried to speak, but it just came out as a sort of whispered squeak. He got a slap round the face for his trouble.

“Speak up you pathetic sonofabitch!”

“I'm sorry, Mr Corantelli. We store the number on the phone in case of a no-show and we can black list them but, if they turn up, we delete it,” he managed, shrinking back defensively once he'd finished.

Leo simmered. He'd been sure this would be his way of finding the bastard but, a surname, with nothing else to embellish it, was bordering on useless.

“Do you know this guy? Is he a regular?”

“I don't think so, Mr Corantelli. I've worked here for six months and that's the first booking I remember seeing from him and his wife. He definitely doesn't come here as often as you do.”

“Ha! Well you can kiss my arse from now on, pal. Leo Corantelli will no longer be frequenting this shitpile.

“Did you talk to him? Got any information I can use to find him?” barked Leo.

“No, I didn't deal with him personally, sir, other than greet him and show him to his seat.”

Leo looked around the restaurant, thinking.

“Do you have security cameras?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where do you keep the tapes?”

The manager's anxiety deepened significantly in advance of the answer to this question. An answer that seemed a dead cert to bring him the next instalment of hostility.

“We don't keep them here, sir. They're backed up electronically and downloaded to our central computer in New York.”

Leo looked up at the ceiling, a low snarl turning to a deep growl, then a howl of rage.

“FUCK!”

 He grabbed the manager by the lapel, pulled him in close and stuck a business card into his shirt pocket.

“If that fucker comes back here, I want to know right away. Do you understand?”

The young man nodded vigorously. “Yes, sir, I do and I will.”

Leo shook him loose and headed for the door. He stopped just short of it and turned around.

“You know I can make things a lot worse for you if you mention a word of this to anyone, don't you?”

The manager nodded.

Leo and his companions swept out of the restaurant and into the crowded street. The manager, Myles Gilmore, slumped to the floor and put his head in his hands, guts churning, nose throbbing, head spinning. A bona fide gangster just threatened him with violence and he'd probably become an accessory of some sort in the murder of one of his customers. He'd definitely experienced better starts to a day at work.

13. When Push Comes to Shove

The hives of London were emptying and the airless station swarmed with its usual rush-hour influx of drones. People impersonating sardines, eyes glazed over, desperate to escape the tin. Sweat, anxiety, claustrophobia, bad breath, fractious children and frazzled parents, business men checking watches, and pickpockets sizing up potential victims. A heaving throng of eye contact being avoided and wish-I-was-anywhere-else moroseness.

I hated having to use the Tube. A necessary evil - I always needed to psyche myself up to embark on whatever journey might be required. The way so many people accepted such things every day of their working lives totally confounded me. No salary could ever compensate for enduring this hideousness with any degree of frequency.

Tube stations are always warm but at the height of summer they are something else. You could see folks wilting as they alighted from the escalator. On this particular evening, I could swear the temperature inside was greater than that found in the bowels of Hades. In fact, it seemed entirely plausible to me that once you reached the platform, you really had stumbled into said bowels. There was no doubting it was a crap way to spend my time. Only as a train approached, and air was drawn through the tunnel, did people find relief forthcoming.

My train pulled in, the temporary draught evaporated and the mad scramble began. Incredibly, I managed to board the carriage nearest me almost straight away. But, as ever, my travails did not end there. It is, I suppose, human nature to want to get out of a bad situation as quickly as possible. However, the irony was, in jamming onto the train itself, people merely recreated the hellish discomfort of the platform they were so desperate to escape.

The guy looked about fifty and really should have known better. In a mind-boggling display of bad manners he barged onto the train with an out-sized suitcase, big enough to pack away a small planet. He shoved a pregnant woman so hard she nearly fell to the ground but he paid her no heed - or that of the protesting onlooker who tried to offer her assistance. As the doors closed, he continued to push and prod anyone unfortunate enough to be in range. Outrage surged though me like an electric shock.

That's the thing. The morale-sapping experience of Tube travel is exacerbated and magnified by the likes of that wanker. Rudeness and selfishness tipping off any scale used to measure it. Well, today, this particular ill-mannered tosser picked the wrong train.

As we hurtled between stations I kept an eye on Rude-boy as I decided to call him. It was too much to expect he was going to the same station as me and, sure enough, he wasn't. I stuck with him though. My wife would understand when I explained the reason for my tardiness; she's a very reasonable woman. My son, unaware of a specified rendezvous time, wouldn't notice.