The Last Card (8 page)

‘You see?! Now you see what I have to deal with?’ He said it as though Nina had no idea why he was so busy and what he was
preoccupied
with. In a way he was right. She was no longer absentmindedly chewing her gum.

She sat very quiet and still as Dunstan entered. Dunstan was a black teenager from Hackney. He was dressed in the ubiquitous urban uniform: the latest Michael Jordan Air basketball shoes, jeans so baggy the crotch hung just above his knees, and an oversized white sweatshirt with the hood poking out of a black, shiny, blouson jacket. Emblazoned on the back of the jacket were the letters NYU.
His hair stood upright like an Angela Davis afro and, in a parody of a wedding hat, a dark, wooden afro comb poked out of the back.

Nina had seen Dunstan twice before, once when he came to the office to meet Alan and once in passing in Hackney’s Mare Street. On both occasions Dunstan walked as though he had the world at his feet. He didn’t walk, he strolled with a loping gait, high stepping as though one foot was about an inch shorter than the other. It wasn’t a limp, it was a kind of ambling cool; swinging the shorter leg round as he took each step. Although Nina’d seen this before, Dunstan’s street walk was so pronounced she felt sure he must have practised it at home.

Dunstan must have heard black guy’s scream of pain because as they passed in the doorway, he entered the office without his usual swagger. He carried a briefcase, and if Nina hadn’t know better she would have thought it held his homework. He looked around warily, looked at Nina, looked at Gavin. Then he pulled up a chair and with the briefcase at his feet, he looked up at Alan. There was a moment’s pause, and he began.

‘It’s about Paul, Alan, you know’t I mean? ’E hasn’t got your management skills, guy.’ Dunstan’s voice was high and whiny.

‘Yes? And?’ Alan stared back at the boy in front of him.

‘I don’t know what it is! De man’s just gone power mad.’

Nina could see that Dunstan was beginning to relax as he realised that Alan was at least hearing him out.

‘’E’s orderin’ guys about, e’s movin’ people around that I’ve placed, ’e’s even dissing some of de boys down on de street! In front of deir own soldiers, you know’t I mean?

‘I know you left ’im in charge when you moved,’ Dunstan
continued
‘but dat was to over-see. I’m de one running t’ings out dere, you get me? I know how to handle de boys. ’E’s making me look bad, Alan, you know’t I mean?’

‘But the goods are still selling?’

‘Yeah, everyt’ing’s cris’, cook and curry, but I can’t talk to Paul, you get me? ’E’s crazy! De man can’t leave de product alone, de geezer’s always high. You gotta talk to ’im or somefen, you know’t I mean!’

‘Something? And what would you suggest?’

Nina knew from the tone in Alan’s voice that Dunstan would be wise to tread carefully here. Unfortunately, Dunstan did not.

‘Well ’e’s your brovver, you know’t I mean? Is you left ’im in charge.
But I’d slap ’im into shape if it were down to me, you get me!’

At this point Nina sensed that the youth had already said too much but the loquacious Dunstan blundered on.

‘And dere’s anovver fing. I didn’t wanna bring dis up but cozza de way Paul’s been acting, some of de boys have been thinking; dey t’ink you’re taking liberties, you’re taking too much out of de …’

‘Fook all of you wogs and niggers!’ It was here. The storm that Nina had anticipated had arrived. ‘Me and Paul are running things, who the fook do you think you’re dealing with?!’

Dunstan sat quiet. He knew that much at least. Alan stood up, clasping his letter-opener dagger, and walked to the back of the office, pacing behind Dunstan. Dunstan didn’t move a muscle.

‘When you jungle bunnies were slicing each other up over your fooking chump change, me an’ Paul came in and taught you lot how to organise things properly. The white man’s discipline! Bring some foocking order to that madness out on the street! We made some real fooking money! For everyone! So don’t fooking come in here talking about ‘diss’-respect! You fooking monkey! You respect me!’

Dunstan turned in his seat. ‘No, Alan, I didn’t mean …’

‘Shut it!’ Alansat on the edge of his desk again. Opposite another black man. He fiddled with the letter opener while Dunstan looked at him. And then Alan suddenly smiled.

‘Sorry for that outburst. That was a joke. Have you got the money?’

Looking as though he didn’t get the joke, Dunstan slid his
briefcase
on to the desk and clicked it open. It contained stacks of cash, neatly fastened with elastic bands. Alan smiled more broadly.

‘I like you, Dunstan. But you’re still a boy. Don’t, don’t get above yourself, man. Do you know what I mean?’ Alan was attempting a parody of Dunstan’s street vernacular. ‘Me and Paul, we started this business, Dunstan, we do what we want.’ Alan turned to Nina looking smug.

Nina thought that if the point of this meeting was for Alan to demonstrate that he was a man still in charge of his own destiny, it had only partially succeeded. Noting the look on Dunstan’s face, the set of his jaw, Nina couldn’t help feeling that somehow matters would not be allowed to rest here.

D
unstan bounced out of ‘Poxy’s’, as he and his crew
disrespectfully
referred to Alan’s nightclub. He stepped high with the confidence to which he was accustomed. If Dunstan was honest he’d been shaken by the strangled scream and the sight of the tall brother who’d clearly taken some licks. But his own meeting with Alan had forced that from his mind. ‘Fuck all of you wogs and niggers!’ Dunstan looked up and down Brewer Street trying to remember where he’d parked the Jeep. He was so angry he’d forgotten!

‘What a fucking raaaas! White Alan! ‘Bout ’im a play meee! Dunstan Cuthbert Winston Churchill!’ In his rage, Dunstan was
actually
talking to himself. His lips moved as he peered short-sightedly back and forth. His mother had told him time and time again to have his eyes tested. But Dunstan had thought, with good reason, that the crew he hung with would not appreciate with the same fear and respect Dunstan Cuthbert Winston Churchill in glasses.

He spotted his rag-top, black Wrangler Sahara Jeep and
high-stepped
towards it.. As he neared the car that he had paid a little under twenty thousand pounds cash for, his pace slowed and his afro reasserted its former glory. He aimed his security fob at the Jeep and lights flashed, accompanied by three shrill blasts. He pressed another button on the fob to open the doors. Normally the locks would release with a seductive thunk! Not this time. Dunstan pressed the fob a number of times but they didn’t open. Fuck it. He high stepped around the car and jammed the key into the lock. Only he
missed the lock and scraped the key along the pristine paint work. Underneath the black was silver.

Dunstan was now apoplectic with fury.

‘I’m gonna fucking kill somebody, guy! I am! I’m gonna fucking kill somebody!’

At his second, more careful attempt, Dunstan opened the door and climbed into the driver’s seat. Climbed, because after buying the Jeep from a dealer in Camden he had immediately discarded the prosaic sixteen-inch Icon Alloys it came with and installed a much larger, chunkier and altogether more masculine set of wheels. The Jeep was now jacked so high off the ground a small child would have needed a grappling iron to climb in.

Dunstan slipped the key in the lock and turned on the ignition. The area around the car, within a radius of fifty metres, was
immediately
blasted with the music and lyrics of the New York rapper, Ol’ Dirty Bastard.

Dunstan reached into the inside of his jacket and pulled out his mobile. It was a gold-plated, diamond-encrusted Nokia, the 8850. He had had it imported especially, from Saudi Arabia. Dunstan liked to bling. The mobile retailed at a cool ten thousand pounds and for the kudos it gave Dunstan it was worth every penny. He flipped it open and pressed a button to speed-dial. After four rings the telephone at the other end was answered.

‘Ade?’ Dunstan had to raise his voice because the music in his Jeep was so loud.

‘Who dis?’

‘Ade?’

‘Hello?’

‘Ade!’ Dunstan was now shouting into the mobile.

‘I can’t hear you!’ It didn’t occur to Dunstan to turn the music down. He pressed an index finger into his free ear. Ol’ Dirty Bastard was cut out, at least for Dunstan.

‘Ade, you fuck, is that you?!’ Dunstan was now screaming into the telephone.

‘It’s Jan. Who’s this?’

‘Where’s Ade?’

‘Who is this?’

‘Don’t fuck with me, Jan, where’s Ade?’

‘What? I can’t hear you? Where are you?’

Dunstan glared at the mobile telephone and nearly hurled it through the windscreen. He pressed it to his ear and screamed into it again.

‘Where – the fuck! – is Ade?!’

Knock, knock. A man was knocking the front window on the passenger side, trying to attract his attention. Dunstan ignored him.

‘Yeah?’ Ade’s voice was deep and rich.

‘It’s me. I’ll be back at my yard in half an ’our. Fuckin’ be there.’ Dunstan flipped shut the mobile. He lowered the window the man was knocking at.

‘What the fuck do you …?!’ Recognising the man looking into the Jeep, Dunstan cut short his question and turned the music down.

‘Wha Gwan, D?’ The voice was hoarse.

‘Wha Gwan. Wassup?’ Dunstan put an arm out of the window and the two touched fists.

‘I’m looking for a shebeen. Run by a Grove man, called Blackie. You know him?’

Dunstan pretended to think for a nanosecond then shook his head. ‘Nah, never heard of him. Gotta go, man gotta go.’ Squinting into the rear view mirror, Dunstan dropped the clutch and grabbed the gear stick, slipping it into first. Wha Gwan’s hand slapped the bonnet of the car with a resounding thunk.

‘I said! I’m looking for a brer called Blackie! Do-you-know-him, blood?’

Dunstan scowled at Wha Gwan through the open window but this time he paused before he spoke.

‘No. I told you, I don’t know him. Sorry, mate, I’m in a real hurry.’ Dunstan made sure to keep his voice even and respectful. After a moment Wha Gwan withdrew his hand. Dunstan nodded, lifted the clutch and the Jeep pulled out into the middle of the street.

The lyrics of Ol’ Dirty Bastard filled the car again. What nobody realised at that point was that although they were indeed profane and violent, they were nothing to the mayhem that was gradually being unleashed.

Wha Gwan stared at the disappearing Jeep with its blaring music. He waited until it had turned out of sight before he shifted his gaze. He shifted it to the doorway Dunstan had emerged from. A nightclub called Roxy’s. He looked at it for a moment and then turned away, walking on down the street.

G
avin stood on the landing outside Alan’s office. He took a couple of deep breaths and a moment to collect his thoughts. Alan had ordered him to go down into the bar, fix him a large, dry Martini and bring it back. As though he were a manservant. But this wasn’t why Gavin was hesitating.

There were things about this business, Alan’s business, that Gavin knew, but chose not to concern himself with. Like the small fact that they were involved with major crime. And in the business of major crime there is often violence. To be fair to Gavin, he had been unaware of this in the early days. By the time he had any real sense of what he was involved with, it was too late. Gavin had become used to the large cheques. They paid for the new marble bathroom suite that his home had cried out for; the rather fine kitchen recommended by a chap at the Conran store in Marylebone High street. Unfortunately however, Gavin found violence, real street violence, ugly and brutal. Uncivilised. He himself had had some training in the ancient martial art of Ju-Jitsu but that, thought Gavin, was a different kind of violence. That was civilised. Given the full extent of Alan’s business interests, he knew discipline had to be maintained. But Gavin preferred to believe that it wasn’t the violence itself that maintained discipline, but the threat of it. So Gavin told himself the lie that Alan was a businessman and he was merely Alan’s business manager.

In any event, the fact that Alan now displayed his ugly form of discipline openly and without shame appalled Gavin. Although Dunstan was young, Gavin did not believe he should have been treated in quite the dismissive fashion that Alan had just displayed.
Firstly, Dunstan was right about Paul. Paul had been snorting cocaine for years and was now a stumbling, shambling degenerate. Secondly, Dunstan had a personal kudos and clout on the street that was
valuable
. And since Paul garnered zero respect amongst the ‘staff’ who ran Alan’s various businesses for him, Dunstan’s services down on the street were varied and necessary. Certainly he could be replaced, but the smart way to do that was in a manner and at a time of their – Gavin and Alan’s – choosing. Calling the young Negro a ‘nigger’ to his face was not helpful. From Gavin’s knowledge of Dunstan, this could well lead to trouble.

Then there was Hilary James. James had certainly needed to be taught a lesson but Gavin was certain that the threat of a simple beating in a back alley would have sufficed.

No. These latest outbursts of Alan’s were uncharacteristic and Gavin wasn’t sure what was causing them. Whatever it was, Gavin was worried. He knew he needed to act. An idea had occurred to him, but it had only just occurred and he was still thinking it through. It involved Nina.

Gavin stepped away from the office door and skipped quickly down the stairs. He often skipped up and down stairs because he had less and less time to go to the gym these days. The exercise was good for him.

Gavin entered the club and there, sitting in front of the bar, was the very person he needed to see. She was sipping a coffee and smoking. She looked up quickly, startled as he entered, and her momentary look of fright told Gavin all he needed to know.

‘Smoking. Again.’ He said it with a smile, to put her at her ease. She didn’t smile back.

‘My timing’s way off. This is no time to go through withdrawal.’ Nina sipped her coffee.

‘I thought you were having lunch with your friend Maxine?’ Gavin spoke with care. The germ of the idea that was growing in Gavin’s mind. It needed careful nurturing.

‘Alan’s flipped, Gavin!’ She looked at him with worried eyes.

‘He’s certainly not behaving with his usual … discretion …’

‘Discretion?! Did you see what he did to that man’s ear?!’ Nina ran a manicured hand through her long, dark hair. ‘Why?! I don’t understand?’

‘Are the two of you … getting on okay?’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Nina snapped.

‘I’m not saying you’re anything to do with this,’ Gavin said hurriedly. ‘I’m just trying to work out where Alan’s head might be.’

‘It’s disappearing up his arse!’

‘So what do you think we should do about it?’

‘What can we do? All I know is I’ve got to get out of this situation. Soon!’ She gulped down the rest of her coffee.

‘Either that … or we take over. Me and you.’

Nina stared at him. ‘Are you crazy?!’ She now spoke in a low hiss. ‘Did you miss what just happened?’

Gavin looked around the club. They were definitely alone. He leant down on the bar, his face close to Nina’s.

‘Remove Alan and this operation could be so … good. You know the Negro that Alan cut? The one upstairs?’

‘We’re not in the nineteenth century, Gavin, he’s a black man.’

‘Whatever. I’m thinking there’s a way to get him into this that can solve all our problems.’

In the silence that followed, both tried to work out if the person opposite was to be trusted.