Personal Darkness (17 page)

"Wouldn't you?" Camillo grinned. More than ever he looked like a boy. The warm light of evening ironed out the lines, the runneled skin. Changing… a butterfly. "Horsy," said Camillo, "keep your tail up. Keep the sun out of my eyes."

THUNDER LIKE AN EGYPTIAN CROCODILE circled the sky. But the storm had not, did not break. Perhaps it never would.

Ruth had gone to a Bernie Inn, where happy families had congregated. Amid the chatter and the laughs, alone, she ate her meal. Steak and a jacket potato with sour cream, a salad, carrots, peas and onion rings. Afterwards she had an ice cream. There was a sparkler in it showering golden stars. This for a moment drew attention to her. In that moment, Ruth was afraid.

But fear was a passing thing to Ruth, like a shortlived digestive pain, foreboding nothing.

She had drunk orange juice with her meal. She did not consume alcohol unless it was offered her, freely available. This was partly the instinct of survival, for she still looked young, might be only sixteen.

When she came out of the restaurant, the day was bleeding away, mocked by the formless thunder.

Red sky at night, shepherds' delight.

Ruth walked along the street. Red as the dying sky, the streetlamps were blinking on.

Traffic passed monotonously, at intervals.

A silver car detached itself from the stream and drove slowly in toward the curb. It crawled there, as if searching for a particular address among the line of shops and stacked flats.

At the traffic lights, Ruth turned into the side road. She was moving back in the direction of the Reeves' house on the estate.

The silver Mercedes waited until the lights gave it way, then turned into the road after her.

The Merc pulled up just in front of Ruth.

She took no notice.

A man got out of the car. He was thin and wiry in a box-shaped pastel suit and silk tie. His hair was slicked back with gel. He had a face of bones and very flat bright eyes.

As Ruth approached him, he skipped forward and took hold of her without a word.

No one else was on the street. On either side the houses lay well back behind high screens of privet and old trees. From the few lit windows nobody looked.

The back door of the car stood open.

Ruth fought. The thin man spoke then. "Don't, babe. Or I'll break your arm."

Ruth stopped fighting, and the man inserted her into the backseat of the car. He slammed the door and jumped into the passenger seat beside the driver. Before his door had closed, the Merc took flight, going fast now, a silver rocket, out into the main lane of southbound traffic.

Lorlo Mulley looked at the fabulous bimbo that had just been propelled into his car.

Pure chance that he had seen her, known her. She was the one all right. The one the police wanted, and then said they had got, dead in a wood. But obviously they were mistaken there, the way the bill did get mistaken now and then.

"Relax," said Lorlo Mulley to the black-haired girl. "You're safe now. Your good luck I saw you. Got you out of a bit of bother. Lot of law around here. But I'll see you're okay."

Ruth gazed back at him.

What a looker. They thought they had a body in a wood—but he had it here, and what a body.

"I know," said Lorlo kindly, "your spot of trouble. They're after you, ain't they? No problem. You're okay with me."

Just once or twice you got a girl like this. The shape, and the hair, and a face to go with it. She could make him a bit of money. And her eyes. Was she stoned? No. She was only freaked out. A bit crazy, perhaps. Well, he could handle that. Teach her to handle it.

"Like a drink, doll?" He opened the drinks cabinet of the car. Brandy, vodka, liqueurs.

Through the glass partition, Honey and Frankie faced forward, Frankie manipulating the car effortlessly through the busy evening traffic. Good driver, Frankie. And Honey was first class, the way he had done it, just scooping her off the pavement. Even if he was a pain in the arse. "Have a Cointreau. You'll like that. It tastes of oranges."

"All right," said Ruth.

He poured a friendly measure, but not too much. He did not mean to make her sick.

Ruth drank the Cointreau without pleasure or reluctance, straight down.

"Steady, steady," said Lorlo. "You like a drink, don't you?"

His new girl did not reply to this. She said, "I'd like to get out now."

"No, no. Not just yet. The bill'd have you. You come with me. I'll show you my place. You'll like it. I can help you, you know. Help you make something of yourself."

Ruth did not protest again.

To reward her, for it seemed she could cope with it, he gave her another drink.

"I've got some stuff at my place. Make you feel good. Just relax, you're safe now."

He told Ruth she could call him "Lorlo." It was a privilege he awarded his best girls. The trash still called him "Mr. Mulley."

He asked her name. She said she was named Ruth. He liked that. It had a bit of class.

The Merc bypassed the West End, going at steep angles through brick-walled alleys and down long side roads under railway arches.

They came out into Lorlo's territory, through dereliction, to the great warehouse. On every side was wreckage, the skulls of buildings eyeless with broken glass. But the warehouse was pristine, with eyebrows of white paint, and not a scrap of paper even on the cement forecourt that stood above the narrow channel of the river.

On the concrete, Frankie parked the Mercedes. And in the holes about, maybe the rats peeked out to see. But no one would touch this car. They knew better.

In the warehouse foyer, Chas came from his cubby, and grinned with joy when he saw Lorlo. Chas loved Lorlo.

"Evenin', Mr. Mulley." He glanced at Ruth and chuckled.

Honey and Frankie ignored Chas, who was beneath them. An ex-boxer, just a touch punchy, Chas had no vices but Havana cigars and fizzy lemonade. He spent the days in his room beside the lift, among his boxing cups, smoking, and looking through the papers. From a box of dressmaker's pins with colored heads, he would select a couple now and then, and stick them through the nipples of the pictured topless girls. Then he laughed. Women made Chas laugh.

Under the battered kettle leaned an axe, the type a lumberjack would use. Chas was handy with the axe, and still with his fists.

"Hi, Chas. Got your lemonade?"

"Sure, Mr. Mulley. I got it."

Over the fire extinguisher was a sawn-off shotgun.

Honey was already summoning the lift. It came with a leisurely dinosaur rattle. The massive doors opened slowly.

Lorlo Mulley put his hand under Ruth's elbow and guided her into the big elevator, large as a room, being careful not to touch the sides or doors with his ash-brown suit.

They rose. The lift juddered.

"This outfit needs oiling," said Lorlo. "Frankie, see to it."

Frankie nodded. "Yes, Mr. Mulley."

The lift came to a halt, and the doors cracked and began to draw back.

A white carpet appeared, a plain of it, unmarked, like arctic bear fur.

"You'll like this, Ruth," said Lorlo.

He led her out. On the snow plain were scattered furnishings of black leather. On one wall stood a bank of office equipment, a photocopier, a filing system full of the names and statistics of girls and boys from thirteen to twenty-three. A fax machine sat by the telephone which was an old black model from the '50s.

Across the carpet were a black TV with video and a music center. A door stood open on a bathroom, shower and lavatory.

Over the walls were grainy photographs of cars, Bugattis, Studebakers, statically preening in forests, like Lorlo's girls.

Honey and Frankie split aside.

"Go in the kitchen," said Lorlo. "Do the chicken."

Honey went across to another door and into a white kitchen that gleamed from underuse. From the fridge, Honey lifted out a thawing chicken on a plate. Otherwise the fridge had cans of Swedish lager, two bottles of Dom Perignon, a jar of caviar, and a Walther PPK.

Setting the chicken down beside the coffee percolator, Honey rolled up his laundered sleeves. He thrust his right hand into the cavity of the chicken and drew out a tinfoil package.

Lorlo had got Ruth across the upper floor of the warehouse, the acres of white carpet, and opened the final door.

The carpet went on being white, and the furniture black. But there was a wide bed, king size, covered by a spread of leopardskins. The skins were real, catching the wall lights on a harsh wild nap.

"Come in," said Lorlo. "Come into my parlor."

Ruth moved into the room.

She had a terrific way of moving.

She was a find.

Just get her under control. That would be simple.

Above the bed were two prize black-and-white photos; Bette Davis, Joan Crawford. They had it then, those women. But this one had it too. Something special.

Ruth looked about her. She glanced at the photographs. Crossing to the bed, she touched the spread of skins.

"Oh, you like pussies, then?"

"Is it real?"

"Yes. I don't go for rubbish. Leopard. Beautiful."

"It's dead," said Ruth. She smoothed the skins.

"Better believe it," said Lorlo. "It won't bite. I'll leave that to you." He went toward the cabinet. "Another drink?"

"Yes," said Ruth.

She could hold her booze. Where had she learned? He would swear she was tighter than Mother Teresa. He could smell it on her, virginity.

"Anyone looking for you?" asked Lorlo. "Other than the filth?"

Ruth did not answer.

It hardly mattered anyway. In a week she would be different.

He handed her the Cointreau, this time over ice, and taking his vodka he went into the bathroom that gave on the room.

"If you want anything," he said, "Frankie and Honey are outside." He meant, she was not going anywhere. But maybe she knew that and did not mind.

He closed the door and ran the shower hot. He liked to be clean. It had not been so easy in his adolescence.

Lorlo thought about Candy, under the shower. She had been his best; her drop of Asian blood had made her really something. He had controlled her by introducing her to cocaine, but Candy had become too dependent too quickly.. In the end she had only been the habit and he had had to get rid of her.

He must be careful with Ruth. Ration her. Keep her nice. He rubbed himself vigorously with coal-tar soap.

After the shower he rinsed his mouth with Listerine, pushed a little baby oil through his hair and over the hairs on his chest.

He liked all this. It helped to put him in the mood.

He patted his face with aftershave by Pierre Cardin. No rubbish.

When he came out, he was warm and naked inside the black silk kimono, on the back of which was a rippling scarlet dragon. Across the pocket in white were the initials
L.M
.

"Nothing like a shower," he said to the girl, who was sitting on the leopardskin bed. Her glass was very full. Either she had not drunk it or she had finished and poured herself another. "You like a drink," said Lorlo. "But I've got something even better." He opened the outer door and Honey came immediately toward him with the cellophane packet, fresh from the tinfoil in the chicken, washed and sealed.

And who should it be tonight? Froggy, Lorlo thought. He took down the photograph of Bette Davis, with her beautiful frog eyes. Unsealing the packet, he scattered the cocaine across her face and breast and hair.

Ruth was watching.

"That's right. See what I do."

He cut the powder with a gold-plated, cutthroat razor. Then he took the silver tube, and snorted up the drug. He made the noises of a man trying to shift heavy catarrh.

Lorlo raised his head.

The cocaine was at once singing in his blood, the wonderful clean high, not like alcohol at all. Nothing was like it. Candy had been a fool, greedy, abusing little bitch. The partition of her septum had disintegrated. She had been ready to snuff up the dross of the streets, cut with bleach and talcum.

"Now some for you," said Lorlo to Ruth, generously standing away and offering her the tube.

"No," said Ruth.

"Yes. It's great stuff. The best. Have some. Then you can take a bath. I've got some pretty things for you to wear. You're a lovely girl, Ruth." He picked up the photograph with its remaining lines of powder, and went toward her.

"No," said Ruth. "I don't want it."

"It's easy. Just use the tube. You'll love it."

"No."

Lorlo stopped. "Okay. Your loss." He put the photograph back on the table. Lowering his face he slid the silver tube up his nose and snorted the last cocaine nois-ily.

Ruth still watched, stroking the dead leopards on the bed.

He would give her some later. There was the other packet. She would need it then.

"Okay, Ruth. Go and take a bath."

When she had washed and donned the lace and rub-her undies, he would fuck her. The cocaine would make him potent but quick. So then he would strap on the dildo, and do it to her that way, until he was ready again. He would play '80s Sinatra on the music center. The greatest.