Zip Gun Boogie (6 page)

When we got outside, the street was rotten with photographers. The greeter had done a job. We pushed through the
paparazzi
and the small crowd of gawpers that had gathered. I looked for one particular photographer I knew, but he wasn't about. We slid into the car and shut the door on the flowers of light that bloomed from the flash guns. ‘Great,' said Ninotchka. ‘I can still draw a bunch of those jerks.'

‘Is that how you judge yourself?'

‘In this business it's the only way. Why, don't you approve?'

‘Sure, if it makes you happy.'

‘It doesn't make me happy,' she said with an edge of anger in her voice. ‘It's just how you judge fame. And fame is the name of the game.'

‘Yes, Ninotchka.'

She changed mood mercurially again. Chas was driving us slowly round Soho Square. She rolled down the divider, ‘Candy's,' she said. Candy's was a club off Wardour Street. It was in the basement of a dirty old building down a narrow alley that smelt of piss. It was not the most salubrious niterie in central London.

The woman behind the desk in the foyer of the club weighed about twenty stone and had poured herself into a black leather mini-dress fastened at the sides with criss-crossed black laces threaded through eyelets in the fabric. She was wearing nothing underneath and flesh bulged cruelly between the cords. She jumped up as Ninotchka and I pushed through the outside door. ‘Darling!' she screeched at the top of her voice. ‘So glad to see you again.' When she saw me, she did a double take. ‘Who is this gorgeous man you've found? He's divine.'

I had to laugh. ‘Hello, May,' I said.

‘You know each other?' asked Ninotchka.

‘Nick knows everyone,' said May.

‘Everyone sleazy and perverted,' I said.

‘It's your life.'

‘Our life, May,' I corrected her. Then to Ninotchka: ‘How do you know the place?'

‘Everyone knows Candy's,' said May.

‘Only lowlifes,' I said.

May pulled herself up to her full six foot two in spiked heels and posed with her fists on her hips. ‘So what does that make you?'

‘You tell me, May.'

She came around from behind her desk and enveloped me in blubber, giving me a big wet kiss on my mouth. ‘Get in there and enjoy yourself.' To Ninotchka: ‘Have a wonderful night, and look after this man.'

‘I will.'

‘How do you know this place?' I asked again as we went into the club proper and found a booth.

‘I'm kinky.'

‘Do you wear this sort of stuff then?' I asked.

‘Sometimes. Do you?'

‘No. I did a favour for May years ago. She's repaid the debt half a dozen times over. She treats me like a brother.'

‘Really?'

‘Really
,' I confirmed.

I looked around and a waitress appeared. She was wearing six-inch-heeled shoes, fishnet tights, a leather corset with holes cut out to expose her nipples, and a leather G-string. She wore dead white make-up, black lipstick, thick sooty mascara, and her nails were painted with black nail varnish. The sides of her head were shaved and she had a Mohican dyed blue that stood at least eighteen inches high. She bent down and placed two fluted glasses on the table, showing off a cleavage you could lose your car keys in. I averted my eyes and remembered how embarrassing it could be to order a lager at Candy's. A long streak in skin-tight black leather and a Cambridge rapist's mask popped out from behind the bar with a bottle of champagne, which he opened with a flourish, not spilling a drop. ‘On the house,' he said through the zipper on the mask. By the label on the bottle it was the good stuff that May kept for her special friends. The waiter poured us out two glasses and left with a swish of his hips.

‘Tell me how you helped May,' said Ninotchka when we were comfortable.

‘May is weird, right?' I said over Holly Johnson exhorting us to Relax, don't worry. ‘She enjoys running this place, but she wants to earn too. So she lets the straights in here to blimp the freaks and spend eighty quid on a bottle of bad champagne. The main action takes place in the back room, for real
aficionados
only.'

‘I've been in there,' she said.

I might have known it. ‘And VIP guests,' I added.

‘Have you been in there?' she asked.

‘Yes.'

‘Did it get you off?'

‘No.'

‘Too rich for your blood?'

‘Not really. It just isn't my scene. All that rubber and leather and stuff looks like fun, but the people who wear it are all too bloody serious. Sort of, “Look at me, ain't I the horny one?” Anyway what happened was, someone was taking photographs and using the membership lists to get addresses and put the black on. You'd be amazed how respectable some of the people who come here wearing this kit are, and how much they'd be willing to pay to keep their names out of the papers. It's crazy. If it was me, I'd stay home and dress up in the bedroom, and no worries. But they've got to put it about. It was one of the barmen who was at it. It took me all of forty minutes to suss him out. He was real stupid. Now May thinks I'm the top man.'

‘Her hero.'

‘That's me,' I said, sipping at my drink. ‘So listen, tell me about this guy Trash.'

‘What about him?'

‘Who would want him dead?'

‘Anyone with any sense.'

‘You don't like him.'

‘No.'

‘May I ask why not?'

‘I don't like the way he came into the band and wanted to be the star. I made this band what it is today. Before I joined it was just a bunch of English guys playing twelve-bar blues. No money, no work, no record deal. Just a name that turned up on oldies stations once in a while. Then I joined, and my songs and my arrangements and my choreography saved their butts. Then Donny and Billy Joe got killed in that car wreck, and in came Trash. Trash by name, trash by nature if you ask me.'

‘I do.'

‘There it is then. And I don't want to talk about him any more. I want to have a good time.'

‘Girls just wanna have fun, huh?'

‘You said it, Buster.'

We finished the first bottle of champagne, then another. Ninotchka asked the barman what Bourbon they sold. By midnight we were drinking Rebel Yell with Budweiser chasers, or Budweiser with Rebel Yell chasers. Take your pick. By one, we'd graduated to Tequila Slammers. Around two the place did start to relax, don't worry, and someone started popping amyl nitrite in one corner which didn't help. The waitress with the Mohican took a crumpled joint out from between her breasts and gave me a blowback and all was mellow. I remember how hard her nipples looked poking through the holes in the leather and that was the last thing I
do
remember.

6

I
woke up with a long, cold, steel rod running through my right eye and pinning the back of my skull to the pillow. I tried to turn my head and pain ran down the rod and I saw bright flashes of light behind my eyelids. I put my hand gingerly up to my eye and felt around. Nothing. Thank God, I thought, and opened my eyes, and wished I hadn't, and shut them again, tight. I lay wherever I was for a few more minutes and tried again. It was a little better. I gently hitched myself up on my elbows and looked around the room. I suddenly remembered where I was and the previous night and shuddered.

I was alone, lying on top of the bed dressed in just a pair of boxer shorts and one sock. My new clothes were strewn across the room. I licked my lips and gasped at the exertion. I rolled off the bed and stood up and the room started to spin. I went down on my hands and knees and crawled across the carpet, into the bathroom and over to the shower, opened the door, pulled myself up by the shower handle and turned the water on. I let it run hot, then cold, then hot again. I leaned against the wall and slid slowly down until I was curled up on the tiled floor. I reached up and adjusted the water to blood temperature and slipped down again, and lay as the water pounded on to me and down the drain.

I don't know how long I lay there. When I felt as if my skin was going to be washed down the drain too, I reached up and turned off the water. The bathroom was full of steam. I walked across the room, leant on the hand basin, rubbed the condensation off the mirror and looked at myself. It wasn't a pretty sight. I'd seen better ten-day-old corpses. I thought about a shave and thought about coffee. Coffee won. I wrapped myself in one of the towelling robes thoughtfully supplied by the management, and went through the bedroom to the sitting room and the telephone directory. I looked up room service and had started to dial when there was a knock on the door. I swore once, dropped the phone and answered. There was a roly-poly fellow outside dressed in a white shirt, brown bow tie and matching trousers. In front of him was a wheeled trolley covered with dishes with silver lids, plates, cups and saucers, and a coffee pot.

‘Breakfast, sir,' he said with a smile.

I inhaled. ‘Coffee.'

‘Of course. A special breakfast blend I have made up specially.'

‘How did you know?' I asked.

‘I always think that a gentleman should breakfast by noon.'

‘Christ,' I said, ‘is it that late?'

‘11.30, sir.'

‘Come in.'

He wheeled in the trolley and my stomach rebelled at the smell of food. He pushed the trolley over to the dining table, took a folded white cloth off the trolley, shook it out and flicked it over the table. He laid out a knife and fork, breakfast cup and saucer, sugar and cream. ‘What does sir require this morning?' he asked.

‘Sir requires brain surgery,' I said. ‘But coffee will do.'

‘At once. Black or white?'

‘White,' I said.

He picked up an electric percolator off the trolley and poured out a cup and added cream. ‘Sugar?' he asked. It was like being back at Mum's.

‘Two.'

He did as I asked, and I went over and slumped on a dining chair.

‘And would sir care for one of these?' He took a box of paracetamol out of his shirt pocket.

‘Yes, please,' I said. My head was still throbbing.

He took two from the box and dropped them into my palm. My hand was shaking but he was too polite, or well trained, or both to mention it. I swallowed one pill with a mouthful of coffee, then the other. The coffee tasted just like coffee is supposed to taste at a time like that. ‘Something to eat?' he asked.

‘I don't think so,' I said.

‘Maybe some scrambled egg? Just right for a queasy stomach, especially with a dash of Worcester sauce.' He took a covered pan from the bottom of the trolley and whipped off the lid with a flourish. ‘Perfect,' he said. ‘They should always be taken off the heat and allowed to finish cooking in the pan. That way they don't get heavy. There's nothing worse in my opinion than heavy scrambled eggs.'

I didn't argue.

‘This way they stay fluffy,' he went on.

He spooned a little egg on to a plate. It certainly looked fluffy enough. He removed the lids from the rest of the dishes like a conjuror. ‘Bacon – grilled lovely and crisp. Mushroom, tomato, sausage, kidney.' As he spoke he added a little of each to the plate and placed it in front of me. It looked good and I felt a little better. I forked some egg and tasted it. It was delicious. ‘This is great.'

‘I'll leave you now, sir,' he said. ‘If you need me I'm in my kitchen at the end of the corridor. I'm on until two this afternoon. My name's Wilfred.'

I was getting stuck into the breakfast. It was the best I'd had for ages and I told him so.

‘Before I go, sir, I brought you up a couple of papers. I thought you might be interested.'

‘I don't think so,' I said.

‘Oh, I do, sir. Everyone was talking about it this morning.'

‘It?'

He opened the
Sun
to the pop page. You know, where you can learn which star has had liposuction, or is gay, or a drunk. Slap in the middle was a photo of Ninotchka and me leaving the Korean restaurant. It wasn't a bad photo of either of us. I could have done with a little more light on my left side, but otherwise OK. I was identified as the mysterious new man in her life seen dining intimately, etc, etc. ‘You're right, Wilfred,' I said. ‘I am interested.'

He showed me a couple of the other tabloids which both had variations of the same picture. ‘You make a handsome couple, sir, if I may say so. Is there any chance of a permanent liaison?'

‘You going to sell the story to Rick Sky?' I asked.

‘As if I would, sir. Here at Jones' we are noted for our discretion.' He seemed genuinely upset.

‘I'm sorry, Wilfred,' I said, and meant it. The guy had just saved my life single-handedly after all. ‘I didn't mean to be rude.'

‘Of course not, sir,' he said, brightening up somewhat. ‘You weren't to know.'

‘No permanent liaison,' I said. ‘And that's official. In fact, I think I lost the lady at some point last night. You haven't seen her anywhere, have you?'

He looked around as if she might have been stashed in the kitchen cupboard. ‘No, sir, but apparently she and her driver helped you into the hotel about 4 a.m.'

‘Is that a fact?' I said. That bit hadn't come back to me yet.

‘I wouldn't worry, sir,' said Wilfred. ‘Worse things happen at sea.'

‘Unfortunately I was supposed to be on dry land at the time,' I said.

‘Quite so, sir. I'll leave you now. As I said, if there's anything you need, just ring.'

‘Thank you, Wilfred.' And he backed out discreetly, leaving the trolley and the coffee pot with it.

Five minutes later there was another knock. ‘Come in,' I said. The door opened and Roger Lomax entered. He was wearing the same style and colour jacket as I'd been wearing the previous night. Now I knew what Ninotchka meant about shopping in hotels. ‘Morning,' I said.

‘Barely.'

‘Is that a rebuke?'

‘I thought we were going to see Trash this morning.'

‘What's stopping us?'

‘The state of you.'

‘Yeah, I know, I'm a mess.'

‘This is a mess,' he said, and threw the paper down in front of me. It was the
Daily Mail.

‘I don't read shit like that,' I said.

‘Read it this morning as a favour to me.'

I shrugged and picked it up. It was opened to the diary page and there, six inches deep and two columns wide, was a picture of Ninotchka and me coming out of the Korean restaurant again. I felt as if I had seen the movie. ‘And I wanted discretion,' he said.

‘No, you didn't,' I said back, tapping the paper. ‘You wanted this.'

‘What?'

‘Someone noisy, who stomps around and flushes out whoever is lurking in the wood pile. That's what you wanted. If you'd wanted discretion you'd have called in Pinkerton's.'

At least he had the good grace to look a little sheepish. ‘And another thing,' he said, ‘what was the big idea of leaving her security man here at the hotel? Why do you think we go to the trouble and expense of hiring these guys? So that they can sit here and watch TV and eat fillet steak at sixty bucks a throw?'

‘She didn't want him around,' I said.

‘I don't give a shit what
she
didn't want. It's what
I
want that matters. Christ, from what I heard she carried you back here. What good would you have been if someone had been after her last night?'

There was no answer to that, so I didn't try.

‘Jesus Christ, Sharman,' he said.

‘Are you giving me my cards?' I asked.

‘No,' he said. ‘I've only myself to blame. I should have known that anyone McBain recommended was bound to be a flake.'

‘Thanks,' I said.

‘How long will it take you to get dressed?'

‘Should be there by Christmas,' I replied.

‘I'll meet you in the lobby in twenty minutes. Remember who's paying your wages.'

‘Yes, sir,' I said to his back as he left the room.