Jack Carter's Law (23 page)

“How the fuck should I know?” I say and as I’m saying it the doorbell rings.

I open the bedroom door. Lesley is sitting on the edge of the bed with her knees together holding her drink with both hands.

“I want you to answer the door,” I say to her.

She looks at me as though she’s never seen me before so I take the glass from her hand and ease her up off the bed and guide her to the front door and while we’re on our way I say to her, “All I want you to do is ask who it is. Then if it’s who it should be I’ll open the door, all right?”

We get to the hall. The doorbell rings again.

“Go on,” I say softly. “Ask who it is.”

“Who’s there?” she says in a flat slurry voice.

“Peter,” comes the voice from the other side of the door.

I twist the handle of the lock and pull the door open and Peter comes in. I’m about to ask Peter what took him so long when Lesley throws a fit, as if seeing Peter has brought everything back to her. She throws herself at him, kicking and scratching and screaming for him to get out and Peter being Peter doesn’t like being touched by a woman at the best of times so he calls her a fucking bitch and gives her one right on the point of jaw which sends her sliding down him to the floor.

“Bleeding cow,” Peter says, all affronted. “What’s she in it for anyway?”

I lift Lesley off the floor and carry her through into the bedroom and lay her down on the bed and then go back into the other room and close the door behind me.

“Nice setup,” Peter says. “But what would Audrey say?”

Con looks at me and I say to Peter, “What you talking about?”

“Do me a favour,” he says and goes to pour himself a drink. Before he can get there I get a grip on him and have him up against the wall.

“Listen, you’ve got something to tell me,” I say. “Make sure you’re able to say the words.”

“Come on,” Peter says. “I’m joking. Just got the idea Audrey fancied you, that’s all.”

“In that case have a drink and think of something else that’s funny.”

I let go of him and he shrugs his coat back on his shoulders and pours himself a drink.

“All right,” I say to him. “What’s this very important information you couldn’t tell anyone but me?”

Peter takes a sip of his drink and sits down.

“After I saw you, I went to Maurice’s this lunch time . . . ”

“Go on,” Con says.

Peter ignores him and carries on.

“I mean, it’s been a long time and I’ve got a lot of acquaintances to renew, you know how it is. So I’m sitting there with me Campari talking to the morning staff on account of there being nothing in the place of any consequence, anything below fifty-first hand, and it comes up about the Colemans and those two bitches having a bit of fun with the night staff. Of course I’d seen them come in but I’d left before the fun started so it was all news to me. So she tells me the whole story and just as she’s finishing who should come in but the ex-barmaid who we’ve just been talking about. She asks the morning staff if Maurice is about and the morning staff tells her Maurice never gets in till one and the ex-barmaid tut-tuts and tells us she’s come for her cards because she thinks she’s got herself fixed up with something else that very day. Anyway, she says, I may as well have a drink while I’m here and asks for a lager and starts rooting through her shoulder bag for her change. Well, of course she’s not in drag this morning and the daylight from the skylight isn’t doing much for her frizzy old hair so I take pity on her, there but for the God of Grace sort of thing, and she almost falls over herself. Not my scene you understand, just sorry for her. So we get talking and she tells about how she’s been wronged all her life, particularly last night and gives me her version. And while she’s doing that she suddenly says, ‘Here, weren’t you in here last night,’ and I say, ‘What about it,’ and she says, ‘With that big butch fellow who’s all over the papers with the Fletchers?’ And she takes the paper from under her arm and shows me the photo I’ve already seen. ‘Here, are you in with them?’ she says. And I say, ‘What if I am?’ ‘Because,’ she said, ‘I’m certain those bleeding Colemans knew that picture was going to be in today’s papers.’ Then she explains that after what happened with her and the Coleman women she went and locked herself in one of the lavs and had a private little cry and while she was in there the Coleman women came in to tart themselves up and she can hear everything they say. Your name comes up, about how one of them fancies you and what she wouldn’t get up to if she had the chance, and the other one says, ‘Yes, but what I’d like to see is his face when he picks up tomorrow’s paper, not to mention the Fletchers and Finbow.’ And that’s what the old queen heard in the lav at Maurice’s. Of course, she didn’t think anything about it until she saw the picture this morning.”

Peter finishes his story by smiling at me. Then he takes out his cigarettes and lights up and says, “So what do you make of that?”

I go over to the dresser and pour myself another drink.

Con says, “Those fucking chancers.”

I walk over to one of the steel chairs and sit down. The Colemans. Those bastards are the ones that fixed the picture. And they could only have got hold of it through Mallory. Mallory’s in hiding, and Mallory’s representing Jimmy Swann. And last night . . .

“So what are we going to do?” Con says.

“What do you think we’re going to do?” I say to him.

“Where will they be?”

“I don’t know.” I look at my watch. “It’s five o’clock. They could be anywhere. But wherever they are they won’t be expecting us. They know there’s a chance we’ll suss them, but they’re hoping we’ll either be picked up or blasted out of it before that happens.”

“Yeah, but we’ve got to be dead careful,” Con says. “If we go piling into one of their places and they’re not there, then the word’ll be out, no trouble, and then we’d never find them.”

“I know. We’ve got to do it right but we can’t give ourselves the right amount of time.” I take a sip of my drink. “Also, if they’re not together and we take one of them out of it the word’d be out that way, too.”

“So, what?”

I think about it for a minute or two.

“Seeing as they’re both family men, we’ll see if they’re at home first,” I say. “Then if they’re not we start looking in their places. That’s all we can do.”

“Right,” Con says, getting up.

“Only you’re staying here,” I say to him.

“Hang about . . . ”

“Somebody’s got to keep an eye on her,” I say, indicating the bedroom door. “She could drop us all in it.”

“Yes, but why me?” Con says. “What’s wrong with him?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” Peter says.

“Out of the two of you,” I say, “there’s not much to choose. But I’d rather have him where I can see him.”

“Charming,” Peter says.

I put my glass down and I say to Con, “Phone Audrey at Danny’s at seven o’clock. Tell her what’s going on. If anything comes up I’ll phone you here. All right?”

Con nods but he’s not happy.

“What did you do with your motor?” I ask Peter.

“Left it with a friend at Warren Street,” he says. “It’ll be on the market with a different colour in the morning.”

“Has he got any motors for sale right now?”

“All the time.”

“Let’s go and see him, then.”

--

Eddie

W
ALTER’S HOUSE IS A
very nice house. Just as nice as Gerald and Les’s. It’s on Millionaires’ Row in Hampstead along with all those other businessmen’s nice houses. Only unlike all the other houses it isn’t lit up like Blackpool Illuminations. There’s not a light on, not even a porch light to illuminate the slowly drifting snowflakes. The whole house is dead and you don’t have to get out of the car to know that the occupants have gone away. It has that feel about it.

“Well, that’s one less way to Jimmy Swann,” I say, lighting up a cigarette. In the passenger seat next to me Peter takes a packet of cheroots out of the pocket of his leather coat.

“They may be coming back,” he says. “They may just be out for the afternoon.”

I shake my head.

“Walter’s got three kids. After what’s happened today he’s sorted them and his missus out of it. Just playing safe, just in case.”

“If that’s the case, then Eddie’ll have done the same,” Peter says, lighting a cheroot.

“I don’t know. Eddie lives different to Walter. He still lives in the Buildings, in the flat his old mother used to have. Like a palace inside, so I hear, but still the Buildings. He likes the security of his old surroundings.”

“Yes, but if he knows we’re getting on to him his living room and two bedrooms won’t seem all that appealing.”

“But he doesn’t know yet, does he? I mean, Walter’s the one with the head, the forward-looking one. It’d be just like Walter to slide out of it in the hope that if everything’s blown then he’ll know about it when he’s called on to identify Eddie.”

“So we go and see if Eddie’s at home, then?”

I switch on the ignition and let out the hand brake and the car begins to slip away from the curb and I say to Peter, “If we are in luck, and Eddie is at home, you take your lead from me, right? I don’t want your enthusiasm for your work cocking up the whole operation. I mean, if it did, I’d just as soon see to you as I’d see to Eddie or anybody else.”

“Jack,” he says, “you’ve got such a wonderful way of putting things. Did you know that?”

“I always was good at English,” I tell him. “Or so my old English teacher used to say.”

We drive along in silence for a while and then Peter says, “Incidentally, I don’t give two fucks about what’s behind all this, the ins and the outs, but I would like to know, in your opinion, who’s going to come out of it best.”

“Why, so that if it’s the Colemans you can do a little pirouette and end up facing the other way?”

“I always face the other way. Or hadn’t you noticed?”

“I only notice things that are likely to affect me.”

Peter rolls the window down and throws the cheroot out.

“But do you see what I mean?” he says. “I came to Gerald and Les for finance. That’s all I’m interested in. This little tickle I presented to them could see me in the sun for the rest of my life.”

“In that case I should keep doing your banking with Gerald and Les. That way you might even get to go on the job.”

Peter doesn’t answer that and when I make my next right turn I catch a quick glance at his face. It’s set like some old boiler who’s concentrating on her Bingo card. I shake my head and look at my watch. It’s ten minutes to six.

It takes us another half an hour to get to Eddie’s. I park the car in a side street and Peter and I walk back to the corner and look up at the Buildings on the other side of the road. They look like reject plans for Colditz. Real artisans’ dwellings and I bet Eddie’s still paying the same rent his dear old mother used to pay. And with his money he prefers to stay there.

We look at the Buildings for a minute or two more, and then I say to Peter, “What have you got with you?”

“What I’ve always got,” he says. “My quiet little peashooter.”

“You haven’t got your shotgun stuffed up your shirt?”

“No,” he says. “Unfortunately I said goodbye to that this afternoon.”

“Thank Christ for that,” I say.

“You’d be well out of it by now if I hadn’t brought it along.”

“If you say so,” I say, beginning to cross the road.

“Too bloody right you would,” Peter says, following
after me.

We get to the other side and go through the arch that opens into the courtyard that’s formed by the four interior walls of the Buildings. Apart from tracks of footprints round the sides the large central area of snow is pure and unbroken and under the lights from the landings the whole scene looks like something from an old British picture.

“Eddie lives on the top floor,” I say to Peter. “You’d think that seeing as he chooses to stay here he’d at least have bothered to move down a bit.”

We walk round the inside of the courtyard until we come to the foot of the flight of stone stairs that leads up to the landings. Everything is very quiet, it being the teatime hour. We get to the third landing without seeing anybody. Eddie’s flat is the third one along on the right as you stop off the stairs. We walk along the landing and stop outside the front door. There is a small panel of frosted glass set in the door and through it there is the faint glow of light from deep inside. I look at Peter and he looks at me. I step forward and have a look at the lock. It’s a Yale so that doesn’t take long and when I’ve finished the door opens half an inch without making any noise at all. We wait and listen for a few minutes and from inside I can hear the sound of someone talking on the phone beyond a closed door. I can’t tell who it is or what they’re saying but at least there’s somebody at home we can talk to.