The Baby And The Brandy (Ben Bracken 1) (16 page)

‘You are a remarkable man, and a credit to your country’ he says, with admiration. I would flush like crazy, but he carries on. ‘What area interests you?’

‘Customers, reach, distribution. How do you find business?’

Michael cuts in, and smiles himself.

‘The things you mentioned, those four areas... when you are known as a reliable source of these things, the business comes to you.’

‘That makes sense,’ I reply.

‘Reputation is key,’ he continues. ‘No matter what goes on in here, as long as out there people realize you deliver what you promise on all fronts, you get treated with respect.’

‘Until recently...’ says Samson, with added grimness.

‘That’s right,’ responds Michael. ‘But you saw how that turned out for the River.’

It’s plain to see now, how much the incident last night will actually help out the Berg greatly. Their most dissenting competition is gone, and their inner-city turf is now open for new parties to do business in. The troublesome element of Sparkles Chu has been cast from his kingdom. I have done the Berg a massive favor - no wonder they are laying it on thick this morning. I’ve just boosted their business exponentially.

Felix doesn’t seem bothered by this, moreover he seems extremely preoccupied with things being done the right way. I have been granted leeway, in that I was acting in defense and protection of Jack, and it was never with business in mind.

‘Your model, I assume, relies on an employee network?’ I say, but before I can follow it up, a clunk heralds the opening of the kitchen door, and in walks Jack Brooker. Last time I saw him was through a haze of flames, smoke stinging my eyes. He is still dressed as he was last night, only with additional bags under his eyes. Insomnia is clearly this guy’s enemy at the minute, battering him from pillar to post, lurching him from one day to the next.

He doesn’t look best pleased. In fact, I’d go one further, - he looks throughly pissed off, his eyes narrowed and his jaw set.

‘Jack!’ exclaims Felix. ‘Come and join us.’

The other people at the table turn and wave, but they are far less welcoming. Nevertheless, Jack approaches, and as he gets closer, I realize his eyes are fixed on me.

‘A fucking tea party, perfect,’ mutters Jack.

‘Calm down,’ Felix soothes, smiling. ‘How did you sleep?’

‘I didn’t,’ he replies. The atmosphere has changed, with the other people seemingly wary around their young visitor. Jack pulls up a chair, and sits in it, but only on the edge of the seat, like he might spring up any time. In terms of nervous energy, he’s even outdoing Leonard, and that takes some beating. ‘Is Sparkles dead?’

‘Calm down... We don’t know yet, Jack,’ Felix says.

‘We’ve just been talking it through,’ adds Michael. ‘You two did quite a number on that place last night!’ Michael gestures to me with a smile.

I feel strange, like I am in the middle of a disagreement - one that I had a great part in creating.

‘I don’t care about that boat - I care about Sparkles,’ Jack rasps. ‘Is he dead?’

‘I don’t know,’ I say to Jack, trying to convey in my eyes that if we can get a chance to talk, I can tell him what happened, and how Sparkles asserted his innocence. ‘I leapt from the boat, immediately before it collapsed. I didn’t see him get off, and I know there was no there way out. My guess would be that he is dead, but I have seen no body. No confirmed kill.’

‘You knew he was mine,’ says Jack, betrayal etched on him. I wish he would just pipe down and stop airing this paranoid dirty laundry in public like this. When it comes to his vengeance he is absolutely bent on it, and seems to lose all sense of perspective.

‘Jack, whatever you think I did, I didn’t kill him. If he died on the boat, you know the boat went under thanks to both of our actions.’ I know that is a lie but it might placate him a little. ‘If it was his blood you wanted on your hands, you might just have it already.’

That eases his pain slightly, and I can see his shoulders loosen. Christ, how I wish I could speak to him candidly, unscrutinized by the dangerous party that surrounds us.

‘Here. Have a cold mocha,’ says Samson, sliding one of the coffee cups over to him. Tina gets up from her chair, and rounds the table to him.

‘How you doing, Jack?’ she says, and she leans down to hug him. Jack says nothing and accepts the embrace in silence, which in no way does he return. Felix speaks up.

‘Jack, you are carrying yourself around with the air of a broken man, and I understand that. You have had something so vital stripped from you. But you have had something that so few in your situation would have - the chance to look into your enemy’s eyes, and tell him what you think of him’.

All I can personally remember of what Jack told Sparkles was about his hairy arse, but I get Felix’s point.

‘Whether you killed Sparkles or not, by destroying his business, you have taken more from him than taking his life. If he is still alive, you have destroyed that which he has built, and his family before him has built, and left him with nothing - a fate which I am sure he would view as at least as bad as death, if not worse.

Jack watches him, as Tina takes her seat again. It has been so interesting to watch the chemistry at play here, with the symbiotic relationship between the members, the partners and their boss - a criminal organism all of it’s own.

‘You have a chance to move on, you have a chance to leave what happened behind -’

‘And join you?’ Jack interrupts. That hits the atmosphere hard like a hammer, rendering it silently charged and electrically crystalline. A boiling silence begins, and before it combusts, Felix inhales sharply.

‘I loved your father,’ he says. ‘Don’t you dare forget that. You may not have agreed with what your father wanted, but you are missing the plain fact that it was indeed exactly what he wanted. He came to me, and acted entirely of his own volition. You can’t take that back, and you need to accept that that was precisely the way it was. And when things went wrong, you came to me, and I helped you after you begged for information. You emotionally blackmailed me into setting you on a course that I know your father would have disapproved of. And then, of all things, you march in here disrespecting the very same group of people who are equally broken by your father’s death. After everything, how dare you speak to us in this way? He was like a son to me, he was a brother to Michael, and he was family to these men and women.’

Jack looks down, the strength of Felix’s speech and stare too much for him to repel. Now there are tears on Felix’s cheeks, as he struggles to keep it together, anger and grief bubbling to tipping point. It has been visible every moment of being in Felix’s company, that the death of Royston has hit him very hard. I know there is much more to Felix than a sniffling old man, but seeing him reduced to this is something I find hard to watch despite myself. My weaknesses creeping to the fore yet again. I look away, and catch movement by the door.

There is a person there - a woman, in a jumper and jeans. The peroxide bob is unmistakable. Zoe. How long has she been there? She wasn’t there before, I’m convinced. Maybe she came in after Jack? Her expression is anxious, as she watches the verbals at distance.

‘What about you?’ Jack says, and it takes me a moment to realize he is talking to me.

‘What about me, Jack?’ I say, my eyes pleading with him, but he is just not getting it. He’s too far gone. I don’t want to make things worse, and, despite my interest in the criminal faction we are sitting with, I feel a pang of loyalty towards him again. ‘Look, let’s go.’

Felix is still staring Jack down, burning a regret-filled hole through him. Jack isn’t taking him on. Another churning quiet kicks in, and to stave it off, I get up.

‘It was a pleasure meeting you all,’ I say, and start circling the table to Jack’s side. ‘And I appreciate you putting me up last night, Felix.’

Felix cools instantaneously, his frown opening up.

‘It was my pleasure, Ben. I would say look after him, but I know you will. Is there anything I can do for you, before you go?’

I think about that. Ordinarily there is nothing that Felix has that I could possibly want, but on this occasion, he might be able to get something I badly need.

‘There is something I could do with... and I’ve been struggling to find it. A new identity. Completely new. I’m looking for a new passport, driving license, national insurance number, employment references, medical history, the whole lot.’

Felix raises his eyebrows, as if surprised.

‘My name is associated with bloodshed and failure,’ I say. I want to leave it behind, and start a whole new life. I am finding it hard to do that with my current... social standing, shall we say.’ Never mind the bit about being an escaped convict.

‘I have a guy,’ Michael says. ‘I think he may be able to help you out. Let me get back to you.’

‘It would be our pleasure,’ adds Felix.

‘I’d appreciate that a lot,’ I reply, genuinely. That would save me a massive ball-ache.

A smattering of goodbye’s rise from the table, as finally Jack rises also. We begin heading back towards the kitchen, when Felix speaks again.

‘Gents, if you fancy a pint tonight, we are having a drink together over at Lumen, about 8 o’clock. It would be really nice if you could both be there. Try to have a social occasion, put these sadder times to the back of our minds.’

‘And I’ll look into that stuff for you,’ says Michael.

‘I appreciate that,’ I say. ‘Perhaps see you later then.’

We leave, and as we go we pass Zoe. She looks at Jack with concern, and smiles at me weakly, then she heads to the main table. Her role is unclear to me, and I don’t get her involvement. If the men are väktare and Felix is the toppmöte, what is she? Is she another ingredient to this criminal recipe, or something else entirely? As we walk through the kitchen, I think of how close I was to getting some real answers on the extent, scope and scale of Felix’s business, which in turn would give me a chance to use it to my advantage. I think, as far as me and my intentions go, tonight is a must.

We pass through that grand wooden front door, into the driveway, and almost before we’ve stepped off the porch, Jack combusts.

‘What the fuck are you doing in there?! Playing house and happy families?!’ he fires, pointing back at the house animatedly.

‘Jack, it’s a stock phrase oft-used, but it’s not what it looks like,’ I reply. ‘Calm down.’

‘Fuck off. Didn’t you listen to anything I told you about them? Didn’t it mean anything to you?!’

‘Every word and of course it did. Calm. Down. Let’s talk somewhere else, ok?’

‘I asked for your help, not for you to get seduced. They are not what you think,’

‘I am a lot of things Jack, but I’m no fool. Is your car here?’

‘No, Zoe brought me.’

We start walking down the driveway, which turns quickly into a long bare road along the waterfront. When we get a fair way from the house, I speak up again.

‘We need to talk about her. She’s the only piece of this puzzle I don’t get so far.’

‘Get fucked. I’m not telling you shit. You’re shaping up like just another one.’

‘Sparkles said he didn’t do it.’

That shuts him up. I press on.

‘He said that we had got the wrong impression, and that he did not kill your dad. He, just like Felix, said that he doesn’t do business that way.’

‘He’s lying.’

‘Why? Why would he lie? Aren’t crime bosses supposed to take pride in the amount of blood they have shed to get where they are? Nobody here seems to want any dirt under their fingernails whatsoever!’

‘He’s lying. I know it. He’s a fucking liar.’

‘Jack, I have had to do my fair share of interrogation. It turns out, that my superiors saw something in me that they felt could handle putting the squeeze on another human being. Interrogation can sometimes get physical. In those dark moments, I have seen a lot of men lie and those same men eventually tell the truth. But you always know the moment they’ve turned because they always betray it in some way. You can see it coming, and it becomes very hard to miss. Sparkles, last night, never did so. When he protested his innocence he carried the hallmarks of it too.’

‘So your a bloody psychic now, too?’

‘It’s not infallible. Nothing like that, packed full of variables, ever is. But I wasn’t usually wrong with these things. And I don’t think I am now.’

‘So what, Felix’s the liar?’

‘It’s a possibility, but perhaps he was misinformed. We are talking about a criminal underbelly that, however flashy and glamorous, is still a criminal underbelly, full of the lowlifes, cheats and scumbags as any other. Who knows what false truths are being told about your dad’s passing.’

Jack doesn’t like that, and if I heard that about my dad, I wouldn’t either. He wants answers, and the minute answers have been afforded him, they are being so heavily scrutinized as to layer them with doubt. No wonder he is hacked off.

‘Jack, I need to tell you a few things about what I’ve done, and what I intend to do, and I want you to listen to me.’

Jack checks his stride, and slows his tempo, like he may have tripped a little, perhaps fearing another alteration to his immediate landscape.

‘My loyalties here lie with yourself, so please don’t be twisted about that. I have a purpose and intentions. But my main concern at this point is Sparkles. If he is innocent of your dad’s killing, and he is alive, he is going to be one pissed off individual. He’s willing to fight dirty, if pushed - he proved that by sending that killer to the Premier Inn to take you out. We just obliterated his business, and I can only picture he will want retribution. So then there is the problem that your dad may have been killed by another party altogether. I think it’s worth checking out. We need to go back to the drawing board, because, for now, the info from Felix doesn’t lead any further than it already has. That’s what I’m going to do today, and we are going to that get-together tonight.’

‘Fuck that, I’m not having a little shindig with those creeps.’

I think about it, and he’s probably right. I don’t want him to blow it for me.