Graven Image (2 page)

Finally I had a surname, even if I didn’t really want it any more. But I’d be getting married within a couple of years and my wife wanted to get rid of hers, so at least I had one to give her. And to Kelly, the daughter who’d be coming along after that.

Anyway, so Leon is who I am name-wise.

Job-wise, I wasn’t so proud. Not everyone can be proud of how they earn a crust but we’ve all got to earn one somehow. And who says you’ve got to be proud of your job anyway? Being proud of your job is nothing to be proud of, if you ask me. So yeah, I was a brothel bouncer. I lent a certain presence to the foyer of Destiny Gentlemen’s Club, up on the Makin Estate. Punters saw me when I came in and knew what they’d have to tangle with, should they choose to get lairy. And it worked, most times.

Punters come for sex, not aggro.

They want aggro, they can get it in any pub or club. They can’t get sex there, though. Not the kind of punter you got in Destiny on a normal night. We are talking the calibre of man that prostitution was invented for. If they don’t pay for it they don’t get none of it at all. Or
you
get rapists. So, in a way, I was performing a public service.

Maybe I should be proud of my job after all.

When you looked at it, it really was a proper profession. You had specific skills learned from arduous training and on-the-job experience, and you were responsible for the welfare of others. So, yeah, I was a brothel bouncer. AKA Discreet Services Security Provider.

You

’re smirking, I see.

Think of it this way: who’s there to keep order when a pub-load of pissed-up knob-ends walks up? Who steps in when there’s a dispute over services rendered against monies due? Who’s there with the arm-lock when a punter turns slap-happy?

I’ll tell you something, a working girl cannot do it. Men are just stronger than women, end of. Especially when they’re ten pints of wife-beater to the bad. Five women all pile on a strident punter, they’re still not going to stop him doing what he wants.

See what I mean about responsibilities?

You can understand how you start seeing the girls as your family after a while, and punters as threats to your own flesh and blood. And when they hurt your family -
really
hurt her - there’s only one kind of response.

I’ll be telling you more about that.

Mind you, some women have ways of getting around a berserker. Some women can talk a person round just by looking at them in a certain way. Male or female, they’re all butter to her hot knife. I’m talking about Carla.

We’ll get to her as well.

The Rose and Crown had a swinging sign out front that resembled neither rose nor crown. What it looked like was a big monster running towards you, listing to one side slightly like someone had speared it a while back and it had tried to carry on as normal, but blood loss was catching up and it was about to keel over. None of the other regulars could see it, even though I’d pointed it out to them. This was yet another area where I seemed to be out of step with the herd. What they saw was a very old and peeling painting of a crown with a rose in front of it. But I still got along alright with most of them. We had an understanding. They knew what I was about and didn’t seem to judge me for it.

Which is why I didn’t hang about, going straight up to Jim, the landlord, and saying: ‘Kelly been in here?’

He glanced up from his paper and gave me a startled look. That’s how intense I must have been coming across. ‘Kelly who?’

‘Kelly, my... you know, the girl I bring in here Thursdays.’

‘Don’t know her.’

‘What do you...? Look, Jim, we sit on that table over—’

‘Leon, you don’t have to shout at me. I don’t want any kind of trouble or disturbance in here. Get me?’

‘Are you listening? All I’m asking is—’

‘And all I’m asking is for you to keep your trouble away from this pub. We’ve welcomed you here, while other places perhaps wouldn’t. Me and Madge don’t like to judge, and we expect some respect in return. Get me?’

‘Alright,’ I said, containing myself. ‘What happened?’

‘This ain’t that sort of pub, Leon. I’m sorry but I’d be happy if you stopped drinking here for a while.’

‘I’m just looking for my daughter, Jim! Have you seen her or not? About so high, slim, long curly hair, skin a bit lighter than mine...’

‘I’ve seen nothing.’

‘For fuck’s sake, Jim!’

Jim’s son Jonathan stepped up to the bar beside me. He was hardly ever here and I knew something must have happened. He was a big lad, but soft, not having the upbringing like I’d had.

‘You gotta leave our dad alone,’ he said, a tremor in his voice.

‘Or else?’

‘Or else whatever you want.’ Not so much of a tremor now. When something don’t hurt them straight away, people get cocky fast. ‘You ain’t getting any kind of answer here though, right? You got problems, mate, and you need to get ’em sorted. That’s what I say.’

I stepped away and sat for a moment at a table, getting my thoughts together. I knew I was being dicked around here but the question was why? From what I could see it was either:

1. Because they’d heard I was in the shit with Graven

2. That old dear in the gift shop was Jim’s mum

3.

4. Because I’m black

Number four you’ve always got to consider from the day you’re born until the day you die. Especially in a town like this. Even when people are being alright to you, you never know what’s going on behind their pasty foreheads.

Numbers one and two, they could go fuck themselves if those were true.

Three I didn’t even want to think about, let alone say out loud.

I couldn’t.

If you say the words, they might come true.

I looked around the pub instead, recognising three or four of the ten or so in there, all of them acting like I didn’t even exist. Wankers. I should have known I was only here on sufferance.

No, they weren’t wankers really.

You couldn’t blame them.

I’d have expected more to be in at this time though. Half six and no one was at the fruit machine. Early evening, Tyrone was normally on it, pissing away whatever he hadn’t lost down the bookies at lunchtime.

I was wasting my time here. I knew I should admit that and go look elsewhere, but something kept me on my stool... something small and pink and shaped like a pyramid, I realised when I finally spotted it a couple of tables away. I only knew one person who could fold an empty crisp bag that way, and she did it with her prawn cocktail flavour every Thursday when I met her in here.

I went straight out the main door, not even looking back at the non-wankers who you couldn’t really blame. As I went round the side I started getting a sick feeling in my guts, like someone was playing a bass guitar in there. I wanted to shit and puke at the same time, shout and punch walls because I knew what was happening here and I was powerless to fix it just now.

The toilets at the Rose and Crown are outdoor ones. You reach them from the back door but I didn’t want the non-wankers to know I was there, so I went round the side. There were two cubicles in the bogs and one was closed and locked. I climbed on the wash basin and leaned over the partition, looking down at Tyrone, him of the fruit machine. He was picking his nose.

‘I got shit on you,’ I said.

He jumped and made a little noise, then his nose started bleeding. I think he’d rammed his finger too far up it. ‘Look what you done!’ he said, looking at me. ‘What did you do that for? You made me... erm...’

‘You got two chances to give me the right answer. Fail once, you get the small forfeit. Fail twice, the big one. Get past ’em both and you’re a winner.’

‘I dunno nothin’ about no—!’

‘Who’d she leave with?’

I didn’t know for sure that she’d left with anyone, of course. She could have waited ages and then split, gone down her pal’s house and no harm done. But she might not have.

‘Who?’

‘You know who.’

‘I don’t! I—’

‘My Kelly!’

‘Your Kelly? Who the...? Oh.’

‘Yeah. Oh. Who’d she leave with?’

‘Honest, I dunno, Leon.’

I reached down and grabbed him by the hair. It was a bit short and well greasy, but I got enough of a grip and slammed his face against the door, saying: ‘There’s your small forfeit.’

I don’t think he heard that over his own screaming.

I grabbed his hair again and he shut up.

‘Second chance: who’d she leave with?’

He gave me his doe eyes. Actually they were more like a frog than a doe. A frog with blood all over his chin.

‘What’s the big forfeit?’

‘Like I said, I got shit on you.’

‘What shit?’

‘I work at Destiny, Ty. I see everyone come and go.’

‘Eh?’

I was on sabbatical, it’s true. But you would be too if you’d maimed a VIP punter. Didn’t mean I wouldn’t be back there when this all blew over. Business is business.

‘Don’t play the thick one with me, Ty. You want me to tell your mum what you like to do?’

‘You stay away from my mam!’

He folded his arms and looked away in a sulk, breathing hard through his mouth. I could crack him in ten seconds. You watch.

‘I can draw a diagram. Cindy told me all about it. By the way, she went in last week and had the full operation. Know what that makes her, Ty? 100% woman... sort of. I suppose you won’t be so interested in her now, eh?’

‘Fuck off, you nutter!’

Maybe just over, eleven seconds - fair play.

I reached down and wiped a drip of blood off his chin, then wiped it on the white door amongst the footy teams and pictures of cocks and who shagged who.

‘Who’d Kelly leave with?’

He looked at where I’d scrawled his blood, his breathing slowing as he said, almost so you couldn’t hear:

‘Carla?’

LEVEL 1: BREACH IN PROTOCOL

1. Record breach in security log inc. date, time and security personnel on shift

2. Appropriate tools obtained from security cabinet

3. Lock cabinet again after tools obtained

4. Investigate breach without delay

5. If no danger found, personnel responsible for false alarm to be reprimanded/penalised

6. If danger found, escalate alert to appropriate level

Best if I just say what happened back there at Destiny, with the VIP and shit.

This was a couple of weeks ago. I’d popped out for some fags, over at the garage. Dennis Tamar was behind the counter and we chatted about footy for a while. Dennis had Everton down for relegation but I said not a chance, not unless Rooney got injured. I picked up a couple of other things while I was there too, fireworks and stuff. It was bonfire night, and I knew Kelly’s mum wouldn’t be doing anything to mark the occasion, being obsessed with health and safety. That kid would be a wet lettuce if it was just her mum, I swear. But she had me too, and no way was I going to let her grow up soft. One way or another, I’d make sure she had a proper bonfire, sparklers and everything.

I’m not really supposed to leave the premises. There’s no saying what might happen and who might come in while I’m gone, but this was quite early - about three in the afternoon - and I’d never known a lairy punter at that time. Lairy is a by-product of alcohol, and the only drinkers that time of day are your committed ones, who are more interested in drink than sex. So I wasn’t surprised when I got back and found the place all quiet.

Not even Carla was in her office. I checked the computer - only one girl was in just now, that new one. She was up in Room One, but I couldn’t see if she had a punter there or not. I shook my head: this constituted a Level One breach of protocol. The amount of time I’d spent getting this security system set up and they don’t even use it right. All they have to do is type their number into a keypad when they go in the room, then flick the switch to green or red depending on the punter situation, thereby letting muggins downstairs know who’s where and what they’re up to. How hard is that? But still they messed it up. I could see a couple more training seminars being in order. They’d moan, sure. They’d whinge and whine and call me Gareth out of
The Office
. But they’d soon stop that if a punter went violent on them, oh yes. They’d be reaching for that red button and thanking the god of prostitution that their security man had gone to all that trouble for them.

I sat down at the computer, running through the Level One procedure in my head.

Took me all of thirty minutes to get Carla’s address. I thought that was quite good, bearing in mind this is a woman I do not get along with and only ever see in a purely business capacity. To give you the full picture, I fucking hated her. Something about her just got on my wick and stayed there, pinching and biting it. Listening to her was like poking darts in your ears, and looking at her was like scratching your eyeballs with that nail-file she was always using.

To be fair, I did understand the point of her. You need someone like that running a brothel. Just like you need someone like me handling security. As much as I hate to say it, we were a good management team.

I don’t know why I was shocked, finding the place and seeing what a dump it was. True enough: she was a brothel madam, and you picture them living in tacky mini-mansions with pink curtains and a fountain in the front garden. But Graven was the owner of Destiny, not her. He paid her a wage, just like me. And it wasn’t like she could just hand in her cards and find a better paid position. Besides a couple of Chinese ones that kept moving camp before you could hit them, Destiny was the only knocking shop in town.

She could like her salary or lump it.

And let’s be clear, here: Graven don’t take kindly to being lumped.

Which explained the crumbling town-house on Green Hill, chest-high weeds out front and five rusty doorbells beside the front door. I pressed number three, which I’d been told was Carla’s.

Then I leaned on it.

What was I doing? The way I guessed it, Carla had taken Kelly off and handed her over to Graven, who was holding her somewhere, planning on using her as bait to force me to do some horrible thing in penance for my fuck-up. Which I’d gladly do, if it got Kelly free. There was no way Carla herself would be holding her. Carla was no different to Graven’s men, doing what he says or else. But she still wouldn’t want to face me right now. Glancing out her window and seeing me come along the road, she’d be out the back and down the fire escape in a shot.