The Make (3 page)

Chapter 5

‘So what was she like? The Cougar?’ George was hunched over the computer in his bedroom, bashing keys and staring at the screen the afternoon after Harry’s ‘date’ with Jackie Sullivan.

Harry put down fifty pounds beside George’s keyboard and threw himself back on George’s bed, thinking about Jackie, how sweet she’d been, how small and shivery with nerves. And then, when he’d left, how embarrassed – avoiding his gaze, paying him and ushering him out into the dawn like a guilty secret. Which he knew he was. Of
course
he was. He’d escorted her nowhere. She’d literally just paid him for a chat and for sex. Still . . . Jackie Sullivan had brought out something protective in Harry, something he’d never before suspected was in his personality.

Of course he’d had women before. Plenty of them. He had the height and film-star looks. He was a snappy dresser and he knew exactly what suited him best. He favoured tight black slim-fit jeans, boots, black or white shirts – all of which flattered his pale skin, emphasized his grey eyes and made the best of his upright bearing and the auburn hair that fell in thick glossy waves on to his broad shoulders. Harry had a unique style, and it drew in the women like a magnet.

‘She was okay.’ He shrugged.

George stopped typing, pocketed the fifty and turned his bulky form in the swivel chair to smirk at Harry. ‘What do you mean, okay? You didn’t . . .?’ He made a gesture with his arm.

‘No. I didn’t,’ lied Harry. He was surprised to find that he didn’t want to even suggest to George, let alone talk about, the fact that he had bedded Jackie. Usually they gave each other blow-by-blow accounts of their conquests, but this . . . this was different. The poor little bitch was vulnerable, still in a state of mourning over her dead husband. He suspected she’d acted totally out of character last night, and it had mortified her. Harry didn’t want to turn her pain into sordid entertainment.

‘Well, why the hell not?’ demanded George with a grin. ‘Look at you, boy. Mega babe-attractor. Thought she’d eat you and spit out the bits.’

‘Look, we went out, she paid me, end of.’

George gave Harry a long, thoughtful look. ‘Ohhhh . . . kay,’ he said finally. ‘Anyway, we got mail. Two new ladies, one for you, one for me. Not cougars.’

Thank God
, thought Harry. He couldn’t take another night like the last one. George had promised him that escorting girls would be straightforward fun with the occasional fuck thrown in: that was the deal and he was happy with it. He didn’t actually want to start
liking
any of them.

‘You got one too?’ Glad of this new diversion, Harry adopted a teasing tone. ‘Likes a bit of rough, does she?’

‘Listen, I scrub up,’ said George. ‘Mine’s a banker. Hasn’t got time for boyfriends and so needs an escort to her firm’s pre-Christmas bash.’

‘Bet she hasn’t had it in
years
, poor cow. And you’re just the man to put that right . . .’ Harry squinted at George. ‘Have you been entirely straight with me, bro? Is this job in fact less about eating out at five-star establishments, and more about jumping around between the sheets with desperate women? Is this job in fact going to be more about fucking than finger buffets?’

‘Yep,’ said George. All right, he didn’t relish the job like Harry seemed to. In fact, it worried him. Did he have a low sex drive or something? He was never, ever going to discuss it with anyone, that was for sure.
Especially
not Harry.

‘That’s what I like to hear. So who’s mine?’

George pressed ‘Print’. The machine whirred and a sheet of paper emerged. He handed it to Harry.

‘Laura Dixon,’ Harry read aloud. ‘Fashion designer, twenty-eight years old. Oh, and a pic.’

He looked at the photo. Long, straight-brown hair, a tanned, high-cheekboned face and serious dark eyes. Brunettes, blondes, whatever – he was game for anything.

‘Hey, this could turn out to be fun,
sensei
,’ said Harry.

‘Grasshopper, you’re learning,’ said George with a wink.

Chapter 6

‘D’you know, you’ve been great,’ slurred Jemma Houghton, staggering slightly and having to cling to the front of George’s jacket as they left her office party.

Yeah, I have. Above and beyond the call of duty
, thought George.

Fuck me, could this woman drink. She was pretty – blonde and rake-thin and very sexily turned out in a white mini-dress and little else. She’d told him the drill when they’d been heading over in the cab in which he’d collected her from her posh waterside apartment near Southwark Bridge. He was her new boyfriend, Michael. She’d been pretending she had been dating Michael for months and she wasn’t going to turn up to a works do without him and have to admit that she was a saddo who’d been telling porkies all this time. So he was Michael for this evening, right?

‘Right,’ said George.

‘And you’re in property. Developing and stuff,’ she’d told him.

‘There still money in that?’ he asked, curious. He thought the bottom had dropped out of the property market and buy-to-let was dead. Not that he would ever be troubled by it one way or the other; he doubted he would ever have cash enough to speculate.

‘There’s money in anything,’ said Jemma, slipping him a bundle of crisp tenners. She gave him an arch smile and lowered her voice so the driver wouldn’t hear. ‘Even escorting, apparently.’

And there still was in banking, too; George saw that from the minute they entered the building in Canary Wharf. It was a steel-and-glass cathedral, a soaring, holy tribute to the great god Money. In the office where she worked there were already expensive silver and white Christmas decorations up. It was surreal, it was not yet November, but Jemma said the markets were hectic and they’d had to schedule this party into the nearest available free slot – which was now. Everyone was crowded in, sweating in tropical heat, jiggling along to Christmas songs, necking a lot of booze and loudly congratulating each other on the anticipated size of their forthcoming bonuses.

George could see he was going to have his hands full with Jemma. She was throwing the drinks back with abandon while he hovered around at the buffet table trying to get some decent food down him – not easy, because it was all poncy bits and pieces: blinis with little piles of red caviar, wraps of Parma ham and melon, goat’s cheese tartlets, one lonely little prawn stuck bog-eyed into a shot glass of spicy sauce. Not his taste at all, but he made the best of it, tucked in and tried not to drink too much, because this was work. It certainly wasn’t pleasure.

As the evening wore on and the revelry became wilder, he found himself policing Jemma’s behaviour like a maiden aunt. Pretending to be a developer, that was a piece of piss. He knew – vaguely – about RSJs, wet rot and dry lining. He could front it out with the best of them. But Jemma was going to be rat-arsed soon if he didn’t get her to put the brakes on.

‘Don’t you think you’ve had enough?’ he asked above the roar of the crowd and the noise of the sound system, when she returned to the drinks table for about the hundredth time. She was already slurring her words and staggering a little. Her white-blonde hair was falling into her eyes and her make-up was caking in the heat.

‘Not until I’m wasted,’ she grinned, and slung back another mojito.

They fell out of the building at just after twelve, along with a load of others who were all shouting and cheering like loonies.

I’m surrounded by bloody idiots
, thought George.

He hailed a cab. ‘Southwark Bridge, mate,’ he said, and it was at precisely that moment that Jemma threw up all the drinks she’d spent the evening shoving down her throat. Vomit splattered the open back door of the cab and the driver rounded in fury.

‘Fuck off, I’m not having her in my cab,’ he said, and he reached back, slammed the door shut, and drove off.

‘Fuck
that
,’ said George.

‘Oh Michael you’ve been so good . . .’ Jemma was now telling George, turning a sick-streaked chin up towards him as if inviting a kiss.

George flinched back, disgusted.

‘Show’s over,’ he said angrily. ‘It’s gone twelve and I’m about to turn back into a ruddy pumpkin. I’m
George
, okay?’ He looked for an orange light in the gloom and was relieved to see one coming near. He hailed the cab and it swerved in to the kerb.

‘Southwark Bridge please, pal,’ he said, and hoped that this time Jemma didn’t throw up. He shoved her into the back, and closed the door.

Jemma started clawing at the window. ‘Aren’t you coming too?’ she mouthed at him.

‘No luv. Need a walk,’ he said, and the cab pulled away.
Thank Christ for that
, he thought.

If there was one thing he hated, it was the sight of a woman falling-down drunk. His stomach was complaining loudly after an evening of prissy little tartlet jobbies and mineral water. He longed to get some proper food down him, but it was too late to find a chippy. The crowds had departed, and he was alone in the crisp, chilly night air, a heaven full of stars above him and the open road in front. He breathed in deeply, relieved
that
was over.

His conscience niggled at him a bit. Maybe he should have seen her home to her door, but he thought bailing out when he did was the safer option. Next thing you knew, she’d be inviting him in for coffee, and he couldn’t have got it up for the skanky mare if his life had depended on it.

Then he saw
another
one – a girl in jeans and a pale top, crouched just around the corner of a building in an alley, obviously drunk out of her skull, her arms over her head. He walked on. He’d had a gutful of Jemma and her type for one night. But . . . his footsteps slowed. He could hear the girl crying. She was all alone.

He stopped walking.

Stood there, thinking about it.

Ah, fuck it.

He started to walk back to ask if she was okay as it was pretty obvious that she wasn’t. And it was then that he wished he’d just kept on walking, because now he saw there was someone else in the alley with her: a tall, stick-thin darkish man in a floor-length black leather coat.

Shit.

In the yellow light of the streetlamp he saw the glint of a long blade in the man’s hand. A thrill of fear shot all the way up George’s neck to the top of his skull. Suddenly all his senses were on high alert. The man was shrieking at the girl, looming over her threateningly.

George looked around. There wasn’t a soul about. No cops when you needed them, no fucking cavalry pounding down the street; just him – and he wished he was a thousand miles away.

‘You no-good
bitch
, you think you got the right to say yes or no when I’ve
told
you the way it’s gonna go? You don’t
ever
run out on him. You keep him sweet, okay? You keep him sweet or I’ll cut you, cunt, I’ll cut you bad. Give you a spell in the correction room, how’d you like
that?
You listenin’ to me?’

The girl was crying, shielding her head with her upraised arms. George caught a glint of thick pale hair. With no intention whatsoever of doing so, he stepped forward and said: ‘Hey!’

The man standing over the girl looked round but the girl didn’t move. She seemed paralysed with fear.

‘Hey,’ repeated George more quietly, wondering what the fuck he was doing.

There was a flash of teeth in the gloom of the alley. The man was
smiling
, like he couldn’t believe George had been so foolish as to intervene. Well, that was fair. George couldn’t believe it himself.

‘Walk on, bro,’ said the man, the smile dropping in an instant. ‘You just keep on walkin’. We got a bit of business here and you don’t want to get involved in it, I’m telling you.’

But George stood there, wanting his feet to move but somehow unable to make them. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

Now the man turned to fully face George. He was holding a knife in his left hand. It glinted in the cold sodium glare of the light.

Fuck it, this is crazy.

‘Hey!
Move on.
I won’t tell you again.’

He’s right. Do the sensible thing.

George started to walk on. Whatever was going on back there, it was not his business. Best to keep out of it. He quickened his pace. Yeah, he was going to get home, have a shower, bung something in the microwave, then go to bed and forget this whole frigging disaster movie of an evening. He passed a building swathed in scaffolding, like the ecto-skeleton of some huge insect. A few sticks and stuff were piled up just around the corner – insulation material, some discarded scraps of polythene billowing like ghosts in the faint, chilly breeze.

Sticks.

George paused and looked at the sticks. And . . . there were scaffolding poles too, just left there. He picked up a stick. Picked up a scaffolding pole, and turned on his heel.

Oh shit this is so stupid, Georgie boy, what are you thinking?

He went back along the street. The bastard was still there, flapping his arms, waving the knife at the terrified girl, shouting and bellowing. George felt as if his bowels were about to let go as he broke into a run and headed like a bullet straight for the man.

But the man heard him coming. George was heavy and wasn’t known for his lightness of tread. When he hit top gear, he made a lot of noise. He saw the man turn, and a panicky
oh shit gonna die
shot like wildfire through George’s brain. He let out a jittery roar that was half fear, half anger as his pace picked up and he collided with the man like half a ton of frozen meat. The man flew back and down and hit the cobbles like a sack of shit.

‘
You motherfucker!
’ he shrieked.

George piled in. His eyes were almost entirely focused on the knife. He felt a vicious kick land on his thigh, and he knew that later it would hurt, but right now he couldn’t feel a thing.

‘Arsehole!’ he yelled, and struck the man a hard blow on the knife hand with the stick.

The man was wriggling like an eel, cursing, throwing out a string of expletives.

‘Yeah?’ ranted George, so hyped on adrenaline he didn’t know
what
he was saying. ‘How’d you like
this,
you cunt?’

He wanted to get that knife away from him. That was all he was focused on, but the man was like rubber, bouncing around while George felt like dead weight. He felt the cold hiss of the thing go past his cheek and thought:
My God he nearly got me then. I could have bled to death right here in this alley, and for what? For a stranger. For something that ain’t even my business.

George dropped the stick and clamped down on the hand holding the knife. He squeezed, pummelled the man’s fingers on the cobbles. The man was shouting, squirming and cursing and telling him that he was
dead
, dead and buried.

‘Yeah, well, I’ll see you in hell then, fucker,’ roared George, not even sure what was coming out of his mouth.

He was so hyped up.

He was terrified.

How did I get into this?

The man got his hand free and was halfway up, struggling under George’s superior weight but coming back with all guns blazing. He swished the cold night air, slicing through it with the blade, forcing George to flinch back. The man was grinning again; he knew he was getting the upper hand. George could feel his resolve weakening, could feel the mal evolence rising off this fucker like mist off a bog.

This bastard was going to kill him, and he wasn’t even going to care. The man came up on to his knees.
Fuck this
, thought George as the knife whooshed down, slitting open the sleeve of his jacket. It was sharp. He had time to think that. The knife was
extremely
sharp. Lucky it hadn’t slashed deeper, caught the skin.

He’d ruined his best jacket.

That realization, the silly thought that the man had ruined his best jacket with that
fucking
knife, galvanized George. He swung the scaffolding pole round in an arc. It hit his opponent’s head with a solid
clunk.

The man seemed to freeze there on his knees. Then a slow dark line bloomed along his hairline and cascaded down over his face. His eyes turned up in his head. The hand holding the knife released the blade, which clattered on to the cobbles. His mouth remained open until blackish blood poured into it, staining his pearly-whites a dingy scarlet in the cold light of the streetlamp. Almost in slow motion, like a dynamited building, he lurched sideways and collapsed.

Suddenly, there was silence.

George knelt there, gasping for breath. He stared at the man. Not a movement. Nothing. George sank back and threw the scaffolding pole aside. It hit the wall at the side of the alley with a metallic
thonk
, then clattered down on to the cobbles.

Maybe he was going to be sick. He
felt
sick. He was built like a brick shithouse but he was not a violent man. Tonight, he had surprised himself.

Then the man on the ground groaned.

All George’s senses sprang to their feet and started dancing a panicky fandango.

The fucker wasn’t
dead
, anyway. And George didn’t want to be here when he came round. No way.

George stumbled to his feet. The alley spun around him. He had to sit down again quickly. He slumped against the wall of the building beside the alley. The girl was three feet away, and still crying.

‘S’all right,’ panted George. ‘S’all right.’

He scrambled to his feet again. This time, he managed to stay up.

‘Hey,’ he said to the girl, trying to keep his voice gentle because she was huddled there, arms over her head, scared out of her skin. Poor little bitch. ‘Hey, come on, let’s get out of here.’

He reached down, touched one thin arm.

She flinched. Looked up. George saw a curiously an drogynous face, tear-streaked, staring up at him; big wide eyes beneath thick, strongly defined brows, a neat nose with flaring nostrils, a pouting sweet mouth, a well-defined jawline.

‘Come on,’ he said again. ‘Let’s move, right?’