The Last Card (5 page)

H
looked around the room. What the hell just happened? Blackie and Shampa stood side by side, Blackie with his arm around her; Sammy picked himself up from the floor and dusted himself down; Dipak lay on the floor where he had dropped after the skinny guy had shot him. His eyes were open, but he wasn’t moving. He was lying in a spreading pool of blood. That’s when H realised he still had the big gun in his hand.

Blackie looked at it and then went quickly to the window. He looked out for a moment watching as the three gangsters walked quickly away, and then turned back to H.

‘Kiss me back-foot!’ He whispered the words. H looked on while Sammy knelt down by Dipak’s body, careful not to step in the blood, and picked up his wrist, feeling for his pulse.

‘Is he dead?’ H wanted to know. The way Sammy looked back at him gave him his answer.

‘I’m out of here, Blackie, mate. I can’t fucking deal with this.’

Sammy gently laid Dipak’s arm to the floor, picked up his
remaining
possessions from the table and headed for the door. Before he left he turned back to Blackie. ‘Sorry to leave you like this, but … are you gonna call the old bill?’

‘Wha’ you want me to tell dem?’ Again Blackie spoke in a voice just above a whisper. Sammy shrugged. This was clearly a new one for him as well. He left.

‘What’re you gonna do with him?’ H asked the question that was on all their minds and although he’d aimed it at Blackie it was Shampa that answered.

‘I don’t know what we’re gonna do with him but we’re certainly not doing a stretch for being accessories to murder.’ Shampa spoke with the efficiency with which she handled the playing cards. She looked at Blackie. ‘We’re gonna have to get rid of him.’

H and Blackie both knew she was right. H used the corner of his jacket to wipe clean of all possible prints the gun that was still in his hands. Then he went to the gambling table and swept up all the money from the last hand. That was his. The chips he collected into a pile and counted.

‘There’s twelve hundred and twenty-five pounds here.’ Shampa went to the cash box that sat on the table and opened it up. It was stuffed with money that the table had taken over the course of the night’s gambling. She counted out H’s money and handed it to him.

‘A pleasure doing business.’ He looked over at Blackie. Blackie had now gone back to the window and was again looking out, his back to the room.

‘Hey, Blackie, man, did you know those guys were coming?’ Blackie didn’t answer. Dipak had been a punter at Blackie’s various clubs for at least twelve years. That didn’t necessarily mean that Blackie knew anything about him outside of his life as a gambler, but twelve years is twelve years. As H well knew, the gambler’s life could be all consuming. Character is always revealed during times of stress and the ebb and flow of life that surrounded the gambling table could be considered a seductive form of stress. Over the twelve years of support that Dipak had given Blackie’s games, H would guess that Blackie probably knew Dipak as well as anyone. He searched for something to say.

‘Still tired of running race in the Grove?’ Maybe it wasn’t the most appropriate comment but H was shocked by what had just happened. When Blackie didn’t answer he knew it was time to chip.

‘Adios amigos. Welcome to the West End.’ With that, he picked up his shot glass, downed the remaining Jack Daniels, and walked quickly from the room.

As H hit the cool night air and made his way back up Wardour Street, he suddenly realised how tired he was. Dipak’s death had
briefly shocked the tiredness out of him. He’d pulled his first late night gambling session for some time. His body wasn’t yet used to the shift in time. Something like jet lag.

H crossed quickly into Oxford street and could now see his Mercedes up ahead. Leaning against it was a figure wearing white shell pants and a black, hooded, leather coat. H approached, eyeing Stammer warily.

‘Where’s mmmmmy m … m … money?’ H couldn’t believe it. The tiredness seeped out of his body as he could feel himself
becoming
more and more angry.

‘Leave it, Stammer, just leave it. And why are you leaning on my car?’ He kept the edge out of his voice but it was hard.

‘You m … m … mmmust …’ H didn’t know what Stammer was trying to say but the effort of waiting had used up his remaining patience.

‘Didn’t you see what just happened to Dipak? I’m not in the mood for any bullshit, you’re going to have to deal with it.’ He stood
opposite
Stammer now, feet spread, hands hanging loosely at his side. As he’d shown when facing the thug up at Blackie’s, H might be on a downward trajectory as a boxer, but for the average man on the street, he was still in good shape.

The two men stared at each other for a long moment. Stammer then kissed his teeth, loud and long and casually, without a word, hoisted himself off the car. With an exaggerated rolling gait, he headed past H, walking back to Oxford Street. H turned to watch him go.

H’s Mercedes glided smoothly through Knightsbridge, along Sloane Street, round Sloane Square and along the Kings Road. Yeah, man. This was H’s London. He loved driving through the streets at night when there was almost zero traffic and the Merc could cruise at 30 without the constant shifting of gears. Tonight was almost one of those nights. In all the excitement around the sudden end to the session at Blackie’s, H had forgotten that he had walked out with nearly £5,000 in his pocket. Five grand! A massive result! What was more, normal gambling etiquette dictated that he couldn’t just leave after a big win like that. Under normal circumstance he would have
had to give the other players at least some chance to win their money back. As it was, the way the game had broken up meant that he could legitimately walk out with his winnings intact and his head held high. That was why Stammer had taken the unusual step of waiting for him. Tough shit for Stammer! H had worked hard for that money. And as every gambler was secretly aware, over the long haul, they were all ultimately losers so what the hell was he hassling H for?

No, it wasn’t the temerity of Stammer’s actions that ruined H’s post-session high. He was driving through the quiet streets of Knightsbridge, he had the Merc’s window wide open, he had Linton Kwesi Johnson – dub poet supreme and chronicler of life for Britain’s black community – blaring unconvincingly through bad, tinny
speakers
. At any other time H would’ve felt good. But Dipak’s death and the causes behind it were playing on his mind. In all the time Blackie had run his shebeen in Ladbroke Grove, the heart of one of London’s toughest black communities, no one had ever died. Sure, there’d been trouble, illegal gambling was a rough business that attracted rough people. But no one had ever been killed. Now, after twelve years, when Blackie moves into white people’s area, suddenly there’s death and mayhem. Not for the first time H wondered why it was that white people loved to cramp a black man whenever he tried to improve himself.

It wasn’t enough that with gentrification happening all over Ladbroke Grove and Notting Hill black people were already under siege and being forced out of an area that they had lived in and made home for over 50 years. The ‘grey’ film ‘Notting Hill’ said it all. Black people had made the area fashionable with their Caribbean culture and lifestyle, the street life and music, the carnival and colour they added to what was a run-down, squalid and depressed corner of London. Yet if you saw the Notting Hill film you would have been
hard-pressed
to spot a black face anywhere. Airbrushed out! The white man taking something ‘black’ – H called it flavva – putting a white face on it and making it grey. ‘Black’ culture was now ‘urban’ culture. And that’s what you supposedly call progress. So Blackie is forced to move out of tre area, and now he and Dipak are victims of that same progress. H liked to think of himself as well-read. Even smart. Smart? White people living in Hampstead were smart. No one was moving into their area, cramping their style and slowly easing them
out. They were smart. He thought about Blackie and Dipak and slowly shook his head. My people, my people.

Beverley would be asleep when H finally made it home but in the morning when she readied herself for work he would tell her about his win – carefully avoiding any mention of how the session ended. Maybe they could go shopping this weekend for some things they needed for the kitchen. Beverley liked to shop and, damn!, they could buy a new toaster! How long is it since the old one burst into flames, pouring out thick, black smoke? And they definitely needed a bread bin of some kind. Bread was always left in its bag on the worktop next to the cooker and it looked a mess. No, shopping would be good and it might put the two of them in a better place. Things had been getting on top of them recently and the strain was showing. H put it down to the pressure Beverley was under as a teacher but a niggling thought told him that it might be more than that. H also thought about taking Cyrus with them and buying him the Shark’s Tale video he had been going on about. H didn’t get it but for some reason Cyrus – H’s
five-year-old
boy – had become obsessed with Will Smith.

H turned left off the Kings Road into Beaufort Street, heading towards Battersea Bridge. With the traffic lights running in his favour, he drove straight over the Bridge and into Battersea. In less than five minutes, H drove the Merc into the council-owned, Surrey Lane housing estate, one of the few remaining enclaves for working-class people in the area. Over the last ten years the area had become surrounded by walled-off and gated luxury accommodation – much of it riverside. Such was the price of progress.

H parked up next to his block of flats, Cranmer House, left the car unlocked, and headed for the block entrance.

The lift doors opened and H stepped out on the eighth floor. The light in the hallway had been smashed yet again. He pulled out his front door keys in the dim light and fumbled one of them into the lock.

He entered the short hallway and saw a flickering light coming from the living room. That was funny. Both Beverley and Cyrus should have been in bed asleep a long time ago. He walked through the hall way, rounded the corner and entered the small living room. Curled up asleep, in front of the silently flickering television was Beverley.

A trim five feet four with boyishly slim hips and a smooth, clear complexion the colour of an After Eight mint chocolate, Beverley woke
as H stepped into the room. Her eyes opened, looked at him but took a moment to focus. When they did, they became cold and hard. Beverley had clearly just remembered why she was curled up on the sofa at nearly 4.30 in the morning. She uncurled herself from the battered, threadbare, two-seater sofa and sat up. Without a word she folded her arms in front of her and stretched out her legs, wriggling her toes. She had good legs, Beverley. Slim and shapely without a hint of cellulite. But the look on her face told H what he needed to know about why she was up at this hour of the morning. Her processed hair, normally cut into a fashionable bob, was now crushed on the side that she had been sleeping. Although she was sitting up, the hair remained sticking up at the angle at which it had been pressed by her sleeping head. At another time H might have laughed but he could forget about laughing now.

‘You’re up?’ This comment, H felt, was suitably innocuous.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing coming in at this time? Where have you been?’ Pause. ‘Didn’t you get my text?! Not that I need to ask!’ H just stood and looked at her, resignation on his face. She carried on. ‘You’ve been gambling again, haven’t you?!’ Caught! Bang to rights. H braced himself for the coming onslaught. ‘When are you going to learn that you can’t win at gambling! Get it? Arsehole! You-can’t-win! And you aren’t the only loser here, H! I am! And your son is!’ Beverley rose and approached, jabbing him in the chest with her finger.

‘He’s your son! How much more of this shit,’ she waved a hand around their sparse excuse for a home. ‘How much more of this shit are you going to put us through, H?! When are you going to grow up and be a man!’ She now stood in front of him, hands on hips. ‘Do I have to assume all the responsibilities in this relationship for ever? Am I going to be the only one earning money for ever? Or are you going to do something?! Anything?!’ Her last word was shrieked. She looked at H waiting for his response to this outburst. H turned and walked out of the living room and into the kitchen. All thoughts of toasters, bread bins and Will Smith videos had long gone.

G
avin, Eric and Hodges made their way into Walker’s Court. It was quiet, but as the three of them approached Roxy’s, White Alan’s nightclub, Gavin could see people leaving. He guessed the action in the club would be almost over. That was bad news – he wanted a lot of people to be around when he told White Alan what had happened.

Roxy’s was a throwback to the ‘70s: glittery, camp and trashy. The club catered for two types of people: one type was … how could he put it? Ambiguous about their sexuality? The type who liked to see men dressing as women? The type who liked to flirt with members of the same sex? All of these things were true at Roxy’s and Gavin had no idea what to make of it. Where he came from this type of thing was sneered at. There was nothing queer about Gavin!

The other type of person that Roxy’s catered for were groups of women who were looking to behave in a raucous, undignified and generally sluttish manner. To Gavin’s way of thinking, groups of women who were out merely to drink heavily, lip sync to trashy 70s disco numbers and generally wave their arms in the air as if they just didn’t care … that was the kind of behaviour he would expect from men. Which was perfectly fine. But women had no good reason to be behaving like this. All in all, over the last five weeks, Gavin had found himself thinking more and more about his whole involvement with White Alan …

Gavin had met White Alan some three years earlier when he had been working at a health club based in one of West London’s smarter hotels. Gavin was a fitness guru. One of his clients was to become
an up-and-coming young boxer, by the name of ‘Beanpole’ Barnes. Barnes, managed by White Alan, was an excellent amateur prospect. His problem was that he was having trouble maintaining himself in the super-bantamweight category. At the age of twenty-one it was clear that he would soon have to step up a division, into the
featherweights
. More importantly, he wanted to turn to professional boxing. And that, potentially, was his problem. Beanpole Barnes could certainly box. But he had a punch that was only slightly heavier than an angry six-year-old. The Beanpole needed bulking up to prepare for his step into the professional ranks and Gavin was the man charged with doing it. Gavin – who had briefly been a member of England’s four man bobsleigh team, competing in the 1980 winter Olympics at Lake Placid in America – knew nothing about boxing but he knew about body conditioning. White Alan had been introduced to Gavin as a local businessman and philanthropist, given to taking an interest in up-and-coming boxing prospects. It transpired that he and his brother Paul ran a boxing stable in East London and Alan would often take on the expense of training and preparing particularly talented young boxers. Thus it was that Gavin, after driving up from his modest home in Purley, was confronted in the hotel health club in West London, with the Beanpole and a man introducing himself as Mr Alan Akers.

Alan Akers was in most respects an unexceptional man. He was of average height, slim build, in his early 40s. What made him striking however, was the fact that although this first meeting happened in early February, Akers was dressed from head to toe in white. He wore a white three-piece suit, he had on white Italian,
slip-on
shoes and wore a crisp, open-necked white shirt. His skin tone, which should have been white, was in fact a deeply burnished, sunbed orange. The look was topped with collar-length,
peroxide-white
, hair.

At this first meeting Gavin was almost compelled to laugh. Looking at Alan Akers, it was as though someone had turned up the brightness of Gavin’s vision. He wanted to whip out a pair of sun glasses. But despite the sartorial idiosyncrasy, as far as Gavin was concerned, Alan Akers’ saving grace was that he was rich. He was not only rich, he was grand and he was flamboyant. Speaking in the contorted vowels of the northern nouveau riche, he was given to
grand statements; he wanted you to know he was a man of vision, a man used to giving orders and having them obeyed. For this, he paid the people that worked for him generously if not always promptly.

Having seen all of this in that first meeting three years ago, Gavin had eagerly taken on the task of beefing up the Beanpole. He had done such a good job with his young charge that Gavin was offered the responsibility of looking after the fitness and dietary regimes of more of Alan Akers’ stable of fighters. The modest home in Purley could certainly do with the extra income and, before long, the
majority
of Gavin’s income was being provided by Akers. Slowly but surely, Gavin’s managerial skills and leadership abilities were being
recognised
by Akers, and before Gavin knew what had happened he was taken into the inner sanctum of Akers’ world.

This new world of boxers, nightclubs, gambling and protection racketeering was certainly not what Gavin had come to expect from his life. But then again Gavin was in his late forties, pretending to be in his late thirties; he was single; and he had no discernible talents other than working in an hotel health club aiding those waging a losing battle with middle-age spread. The offer Akers had made to Gavin, to be his second lieutenant, his man in the field, was certainly a lucrative one. If it meant Gavin being in denial about the social acceptability of his work, well, Gavin was prepared to live with that. Certainly he was for a while. But Gavin could see there would come a day when Akers and his particular brand of haute couture would no longer be a feature of Gavin’s life. But that day was not today. Today, Gavin had the unenviable task of informing White Alan that the protection money from a new and upstart shebeen had not been collected. Gavin had failed to perform what should have been a simple task, and this pained him because he took a professional pride in his work. More importantly, White Alan was not a man to take bad news well. In fact, of late, White Alan was becoming more and more fractious and his reaction to news such as this more and more unpredictable.

With Eric and Hodges still behind him, Gavin stepped up to the entrance to the club. They passed through a short passageway that opened out into the body of the club. There was a stage at one end, a bar that ran the length of one wall, and a dance floor which took up half of the area in front of the stage. The other half of the area was
filled with tables and chairs for the enjoyment of those who opted to chance the overpriced pleasures of ‘Roxy’s’ kitchen.

The club was winding down and a number of the well muscled, handsome men behind the bar lounged, counting the minutes until the end of the night; similarly, the ‘waitresses’ – tall, outrageously dressed transvestites – were waiting for the night to end.

While Eric and Hodges sat at the bar and ordered drinks, Gavin made his way round the side. He was about to go through a door leading upstairs but he paused. Nina, the house singer with the unnaturally clear, porcelain skin, mounted the stage to sing her last song for the night. Nina was the only thing that gave ‘Roxy’s’ a semblance of class. Statuesque in build and poise, she looked good. She was wearing a long, tight evening dress that glistened under the small spotlight. Without any introduction she unhooked the
microphone
from its stand, sat on the stool that was placed before it and began a melancholy, sentimental torch song. The few clubbers who were still around knew enough to pay attention because although Nina wasn’t a great singer she wasn’t bad. She exuded sex appeal and she knew how to invest a song with emotion.

But Gavin had pressing business. He moved on, disappearing through the door next to the bar, passing through a narrow hallway, and climbed the stairs at the end. He walked with a heavy tread. As he neared the top he met four bovine-looking toughs sitting and standing, looking awkward. It was one thing about working for White Alan that he’d never entirely accustomed himself to: the number of moronic-looking toughs – knuckle boys he called them – who were constantly hanging around waiting to be told what to do. As Gavin approached these particular four, their awkwardness and unease became more apparent. Nina’s torrid song of love could still be heard, just, floating up from the stage. Over this however, Gavin became aware of muffled, rhythmic grunts.

At the top of the stairs now, Gavin could hear them more distinctly. They were coming from White Alan’s office, a short landing away. Gavin looked round at the four men with raised eyebrows. What was going on? The muffled grunts were louder now, bestial. The four men looked nervously back at him. Whatever shabby existence had spat out these four specimens of manhood, it had not prepared them for the uninhibited gruntings now emanating from behind White
Alan’s door. Gavin, however, was of a different ilk. He stepped forward boldly and knocked on the said door. There was no answer.

Gavin cautiously opened the door the office. The grunts were now loud and clear. The room was dark. As Gavin’s eyes adjusted to the lack of light, odd things caught his attention: the light from the door falling on the black and white photograph on the wall of White Alan and his slightly younger brother, Paul. Both stood on either side of a punch bag in a gymnasium. On a shelf beneath that was a small, lead, statue of a laughing circus clown, arms spread, riding a one wheeled cycle. Gavin had never noticed that before.

The grunting continued. It was at the end of the office, deep in shadow. As Gavin’s eyes adjusted he soon had a pretty good view of what was going on. It was White Alan, standing behind a figure lying face down, bent over Alan’s desk. The person had their pants down, round their ankles. Alan stood behind them, thrusting his groin in and out, into their arse. The guttural, animalistic grunting came from the throat of White Alan. It was now clear to Gavin that they were
expressions
of pleasure.

Gavin stood for a moment, transfixed. What to do? Did Alan know he was there? Should he interrupt? While Gavin pondered his next move, the decision was taken away from him. One of the
knuckle-boys
, displaying a discretion and sensitivity that Gavin would never have given them credit for, gently closed the door behind him. Gavin was shut in. And almost as though to emphasise his predicament White Alan suddenly began grunting and thrusting more feverishly now, grunting and thrusting, grunting and thrusting, pounding away into the figure’s arse. With one last thrust and a last extended growl, it was over. White Alan stepped back. Breathing heavily, he zipped up his fly.

Without turning he said, ‘Don’t you ever knock?’ He said it
breathlessly
but without embarrassment. He turned, flicking on a desk light. The figure who had just been rhythmically violated groaned quietly but made no move to rise, remaining bent over the desk. White Alan now sat on the desk. He was wearing his customary white suit, and he had on a white shirt with ruffles down the front and at the cuffs. His face glowed from his recent efforts.

‘I did,’ said Gavin. He stepped further into the office, closer to the figure over the table. Gavin was seeing something new about White
Alan and he could feel horror, revulsion and fear welling up inside his stomach. The figure moved now, rising, turning over. It was a man. His face bashed and bloodied. He was dazed, disoriented. He
staggered
as he tried to prop himself up on one arm.

‘Don’t answer back, Gavin, I don’t like it. And get him out of here.’ Gavin stepped quickly back to the door and opened it a fraction. The four men outside had edged closer to the door. As Gavin opened it they jumped back. Gavin beckoned two of them in.

‘He’s ready to go.’ Two of the four men silently entered and, instinctively averting their eyes from both Gavin and Alan, each took an arm of the man on the desk, hoisted him up and dragged him out. It was only now, as he was being dragged out, that Gavin recognised him: a troublesome nightclub owner who, only two days earlier, had crossed Alan for the third time in the last two months. He’d been late with a payment.

Once the man was outside Gavin closed the door behind him. He could feel his head beginning to pound again. Alan now bounced off the desk, walked around it and sat in his executive chair. Before he spoke he opened one of the desk drawers, pulled out a small
canister
and sprayed a little breath-freshener into his mouth. He then tossed the canister back into the drawer, slammed it shut, ran a hand through his hair, rubbed his nose loudly. Only then did he look up at Gavin.

‘What’s so urgent?’ He drummed his hands on the desk. Like a man who had just had a refreshing shower.

‘We had trouble from the new shebeen tonight, Alan.’ Gavin worked hard at keeping his voice steady. The drumming stopped. ‘I need to go back with some more of the boys.’

‘What kind of trouble?’ Alan looked back at Gavin, surprise
replacing
contentment.

‘They wouldn’t pay.’

‘They wouldn’t pay? They wouldn’t fucking pay?’ Gavin looked at his boss. This he could understand. Alan was angry. Soon he would be fuming, given the mood he seemed to be in these days. That other thing, the thing he’d witnessed earlier when he came in, that, he didn’t like. In fact, for the first time in the three years that he’d had worked with White Alan … Gavin was frightened.