Take the A-Train (9 page)

‘Hello, Mickey,’ said Frank. The rest of us didn’t respond.

‘Give,’ said Mickey.

‘What?’ asked Frank.

‘Don’t fuck around. The dough.’

‘Jesus, Mickey, do us a favour.’ He looked around as if for divine intervention.

‘Give.’

Frank reluctantly handed over the cash. Mickey counted it in less than a second. ‘I’ll take it off your bill,’ he said.

‘No, not all of it, I’m short. Give us some spends.’

‘I’m short too,’ said Mickey. He was right about that. There weren’t many shorter in the room.

‘Please,’ begged Frank.

Mickey pulled a face. ‘A tenner,’ he said.

‘Sweet.’

Mickey peeled off a single note and handed it back, then split.

Frank smiled. ‘Want a drink?’ he asked the gathering. Johnny nodded, Fiona nodded, Frank looked at me.

‘Not if you’re skint,’ I said. He looked at Mickey’s retreating back and grinned.

‘ ’S’all right,’ he said. ‘I got a couple of watches in here.’ He patted his coat pocket. ‘I’ll knock them out later. If Mickey don’t see me, I’ll be cool.’

I shrugged. ‘You talked me into it.’ I said. ‘I’ll have a beer.’

Frank went to the bar and Johnny Smoke took his box of bent gear out to his car.

‘Nice boozer,’ I said.

‘It’ll do. You see life.’

‘You can say that again!’

‘Don’t go all copperish on me. You Babylon?’ she mimicked Frank. ‘I thought you were going to have kittens.’

Frank came back with the beers and Johnny came into the pub with two big boxes of records. He unloaded them on to Phil and boogied round the pub some more.

At ten o’clock the overhead lights in the pub dimmed which left only the bar, Christmas tree, juke box, pool table and a spot over the stage lit, and Johnny got to work. He was good, I’ll give him that. Noisy, but good. I looked around the pub, through the gloom, and saw an amazing amount of traffic in and out of the Gents. It looked as if the boys were powdering their noses with a vengeance. And the girls? The girls were rolling joints on the tables and getting bombed on marijuana and Pernod until their brains cooked.

The big guy who ran the place could finally stand no more. He ran round the bar during a particularly frantic
Led Zep/Public Enemy
segue and confiscated a joint, then ran into the Gents to reappear with a crop-headed B-boy under each arm and summarily eject same from the pub.

Johnny bopped to the chaos. He soundtracked the swaying crew with tough black music from Chicago, jazz from the West Coast circa 1959, rare groove from Philly and Detroit, and pure pop from just about everywhere else. The place had filled to the extent that it was SRO, the punters were ten deep at the bar and the staff had run out of glasses. I blessed the foresight of being a couple of rounds in front.

The air in the room was as thick as soup and stank of dope and hairspray. The temperature was in the low nineties and still climbing. Moisture had condensed on the ceiling and was dripping down like acid rain that stained clothes and burnt skin. Johnny closed his first set with a
T-Rex
classic. The lights came up and the juke-box ground back into life in the middle of
Little Red Corvette
.

I was looking down Fiona’s cleavage where the lavender silk stained her breasts with colour. She saw me looking and grinned. I leant close to her and blew in her ear. ‘Fancy making a move soon?’

‘Sure.’ she said. ‘Shall we go and eat?’

‘I can think of better things.’

‘Later, Sharman,’ she said. ‘Don’t be so impatient. I’m starving.’

‘Me too.’ But not for food, I thought.

‘Where?’ she asked.

‘How about a Chinese back at my place?’

‘You’re not getting away that easy.’

‘It’s late.’

‘There’ll be something open in Covent.’

‘That’s what I’m afraid of.’

‘Come on, miserable. Treat me to some fancy food and I’ll show you a good time.’

‘Lawdy, Mizz Scarlett,’ I said back, ‘you have a tongue like silver.’

She ran her tongue suggestively over her lips. ‘And you, sonny, might just get lucky and find out how like silver it is.’

‘Come on then,’ I said. ‘I’m getting a hard on just thinking about it.’

We pulled on our coats and made our various goodbyes, which took me about ten seconds and Fiona about ten minutes, and left the pub.

T
he night outside was sodium bright and getting colder. The breeze was stiffening and the wind chill factor pushing the temperature way down. The streets were beginning to crystallise with ice that caught the reflections of the street lights and kicked them back through 180 degrees until the tarmac appeared to be as polished as a black mirror.

We drove across the river and down Tower Hill and Lower and Upper Thames Street and the Victoria Embankment as far as Blackfriars, then right to High Holborn and left towards Covent Garden. It was perishing cold and the slipstream of the car nearly froze my ears off. But Fiona kept the heater going so that at least our feet were warm.

The streets were lined with parked cars so Fiona drove into a multi-storey NCP on the corner of Endell Street and Shorts Gardens. Even though it was quite late, being the time of year with the festive season almost upon us, the place was still busy. We had to join a queue of cars still trying to get in, and a couple of other cars were waiting behind us when Fiona collected our ticket. There were no free spaces on the lower floors and a little convoy drove to the top floor before we found any room. We parked between an Audi and a VW Beetle that had seen better days.

The pavement was wet from the moisture that filtered down through the porous concrete of the roof and dripped with the beat of a fugue on to the concrete floor. We parked as far from the drips as space would allow. Our feet were noisy on the bare concrete as we followed the illuminated signs that pointed to the lift. There were already four or five people waiting when we got there. It took so long to arrive that I thought it was out of order or switched off, but I heard some movement in the shaft and eventually the single door slid open to reveal an empty cage which stank like all public utility lifts stink.

I shivered as we entered the box. It was getting colder by the minute and the metal walls refrigerated the lift still further. The single stark white bulb recessed into the roof didn’t help. One of the geezers in front of us said, ‘Ground?’ And everyone nodded, and he pushed the button, and the doors shut and the lift dropped, vibrating so much that every ten seconds or so the sides of the cage clipped something in the shaft with a screech that threatened to bring on a stress headache. Eventually, after what seemed like a life sentence, the lift clanged to a halt and the door squealed open. Another foyer, another dim light, another expanse of cold concrete.

We went out into Endell Street and found a bistro about five minutes’ walk away. That’s what it said over the door:
BISTRO
, in pink neon on a green background. The sign flashed like a strobe and made me feel giddy. We pushed through a glass door made opaque with condensation, and warm air laced with kitchen smells embraced us.

I could almost see Fiona’s mouth start to water. She looked at me and her eyes sparkled. ‘Oh, yeah,’ she said. ‘Let’s get to it.’

‘Remember your figure.’

She winked. ‘Metabolism, Sharman,’ she said. ‘It’s all down to metabolism.’

I felt for my credit cards. As soon as Fiona mentioned metabolism, I knew that Access was in for a caning.

The head waiter, an effete gent in a floor-length white apron, rounded us up like a collie with two recalcitrant sheep. When we asked for a table he checked his watch, looked to the heavens and herded us to a table for two between the kitchen and the Ladies. I pointed to another table, laid for four, quietly situated into a niche in the white-painted walls. He told us it was already set for lunch. I told him we’d eat lunch and made a break for it.

He cut me off like a full back but he should have concentrated on Fiona. She’d wrong-footed him and was already sitting, coat on the back of a chair, hat and scarf neatly sitting on the next, glomming the menu before he realised he’d been faked out. I took off my coat and neatly folded it over the seat of the third chair at the table and sat down opposite her. He capitulated. His little pigtail bobbed up and down as he inquired: ‘Drinks?’

‘Martini cocktail,’ said Fiona without lifting her head out of the menu.

‘Two,’ I said.

‘Lemon twist or olive?’

‘Olive,’ I said.

‘Lemon,’ said Fiona simultaneously.

That was cool. He wouldn’t get our drinks mixed up at least. The head waiter split and I picked up my menu. ‘What’s the recipe today?’ I asked.

‘Nouvelle, sweetheart, pure nouvelle.’

‘Any chips?’ I asked.

Our waitress was a chunky American girl wearing a white body shirt and a black skirt, so miniscule as to be almost non-existent. Fiona saw me looking and smacked me with her eyes. Under the white shirt the waitress was wearing a string bra that kept my mind on her measurements and off the prices on the menu which were top of the range and then some.

It was one of those establishments where the staff joined you at the table to discuss the merits of the food. I wasn’t fussy but I think Fiona resented the intrusion. The menu was in French and the waitress was from Oklahoma, which caused some confusion, as did the fact that her nipples were erect during the entire conversation.

In retaliation Fiona slid out of her leather jacket like a snake shedding its skin and even the waitress was impressed by her shoulders.

‘Sharman, you’re scum,’ said Fiona when the drinks were in and the waitress had sashayed through the kitchen door, rolling her buttocks as if her behind was chewing a piece of gum. The two guys sitting at a very bad table in the middle of the floor, and making the best of a bad job by ostentatiously calling everyone in their address books on a portable telephone, checked the action and started taking their own pulses. Then, when one looked over and saw Fiona’s décolletage, he nudged his pal and I swear they called a code and laid back to wait for the crash cart to arrive.

‘Naughty,’ I said, looking at the lavender silk flowing like water over her breasts. ‘The teddy.’

‘If I’d known how you’d look at our table person’s chest, I’d’ve worn my old school uniform.’

‘It would have worked too.’

‘You’re a sexist shit.’

‘Her bra strap was twisted.’

‘Your neck will be twisted, son, if you keep on.’

We clinked glasses and drank. ‘I hope you fucking choke,’ she whispered as the waitress came back with the first course. I kept my gaze so averted that Fiona almost choked herself.

I don’t know exactly what we had ordered but what we got was cold soup, warm duck salad and chocolate pudding. It hadn’t sounded like that when the waitress had fluttered her eyelashes at me and taken the order. Serves me right, I suppose. It was OK, not brilliant, but OK. I didn’t complain. The company would have made bread and water taste good. With the cocktails, a bottle of wine, two cups of froth without much coffee and six liqueurs, the bill left my credit limit in ashes and we hit the pebbles as warm inside as the night was cold.

When we got back to the car park, it had emptied out and we were alone waiting for the lift. Eventually it arrived and I pushed the button for the top floor. The lift ground and squealed and shimmied its way slowly upwards. The doors opened and we started across the concrete, empty now except for the Spitfire and a green Daimler Sovereign that I remembered had come into the car park immediately after us. I might have been full of food and booze and on a promise and complacent, but I wasn’t so complacent that I didn’t see the puff of exhaust from the car’s idling engine and that there were a number of people inside the car. I stopped short and grabbed Fiona and the two back doors of the Daimler opened as one. The lift doors were just closing behind us and I swung her round and pushed her through the narrowing gap. She shouted something in surprise but I didn’t hear what.

‘Go down, get help.’ I yelled into the lift and a second later I heard the mechanism engage.

I looked round and two men were coming at me fast. Both of them were armed with handguns. I turned again and made for the illuminated sign that said
STAIRS
and pushed through the fire door. The stairs were concrete with black iron banisters and they were lit as brightly as Runway One at Heathrow. I started down them. I was awkward on my bad leg and the walking stick was no help. I hopped, skipped and jumped down but couldn’t get a rhythm going and I broke into a sweat under my clothes.

There were a dozen or so flights between me and the ground floor. I had got down three or four when the door I’d come through at the top of the stairs crashed open. I kept going but looked up and a head popped over the railings above me. I kept going faster. Whoever the hell it was above me fired down into the stairwell. The noise was deafening and a bullet whined off the rail beside me and hit the wall in front of me and went buzzing away down the stairs.

I jumped half the next flight and my leg shot a bolt of pain right up into my head. Another shot and concrete splintered by my foot. I almost fell down the next flight and I could hear someone running down the stairs above and behind me. I went down the last flight and hit the fire door and I was on the ground floor.

There was no sign of Fiona but the Sovereign screeched down the ramp and skidded to a halt beside me and the back door nearest me opened and a man got out. I backed away and the fire door behind me crashed open and slammed against the wall and I saw who had been shooting at me. He was big and hard looking under a wool worsted suit and I’d never seen him in my life. He was middle aged with hair the same colour as his suit, grey flecked. The one who had got out of the back of the car was younger and slimmer with bushy black hair. He was also wearing a dark suit and I’d never seen him before either. He’d put his gun away but the older man was carrying a Browning model 1935, Hi Power, 9mm Parabellum automatic pistol with an exposed hammer and a thirteen shot clip. No wonder he could afford to waste a few shots down the stairs. He had plenty.