Assassin (10 page)

'If every wop in London had links with the Mafia then Al Pacino would be prime minister,' Harrison said.

A chorus of laughter echoed around the room but was rapidly silenced by the wild look in the gang boss's eyes.

'The Mafia haven't got anything to do with this and the closest fucking Barbieri's come to them is watching "The Godfather" on telly,' he said.

'What about Cleary?' Joe Duggan offered; his head twitching uncontrollably as it tended to do when he was nervous.

'Could be,' Harrison said. 'The scouse bastard's expanding. He's moving into porn in a big way. I want them all checked out. Barbieri, Cleary, that big fucking mick, Sullivan, and Hayes.'

'What, good old Eugene?' chuckled Mendham, planting one hand on his hip and raising his voice to a higher pitch.

The other men laughed.

Harrison didn't see the funny side.

'I'm glad you lot think it's amusing,' he snapped. 'But just remember where you were less than a week ago. Yeah, at Jim Carter's funeral. Somebody blew his fucking head off, somebody who wanted me dead in case you've forgotten. Let's see you laugh when you've got a .38 stuck up your arse.'

'But why would any of the others risk starting a gang war, Frank?' asked Mendham. 'It's not going to do any of them any good. It's not good business. If anybody starts shooting then the police will be all over us like a ton of hot bricks.'

'I don't care about that,' Harrison said. 'If one of those bastards wants a war then he can have it.'

Carter eyed his boss suspiciously. There were murmurs of apprehension from some of the other men too.

'It's been quiet for over two years now,' said McAuslan. 'The last thing we want is a war.'

'Don't tell me what we need,' roared Harrison, his face turning crimson with rage. 'If you haven't got the bottle for what's coming then fuck off. That goes for any of the rest of you too. If you want out then go now.'

'You're talking as if a war had already started, Frank,' Carter interjected.

'Ray, I thought you more than anyone would have agreed with me. Your brother's dead. You were almost killed.

Don't tell me you're going to go soft on me too.'

'Fuck it,' said Drake flatly. 'If it's war they want ...'

Carter interrupted him.

'This is crazy,' he said, looking first Harrison and then at the other men. 'All right, so someone had a go at Frank. He's right, I should want revenge for what happened to Jim more than anyone but that's not going to bring him back is it?'

'They killed one of ours. We should kill one of theirs; Joe Duggan said, his head twitching madly.

'We don't even know who killed Jim,' shouted Pat Mendham. 'What are we supposed to do, wipe out everyone else and just hope that we get the right one?'

'Pat's right,' echoed Carter. 'This isn't fucking New York.'

'I wonder what Jim would have said if he'd known his brother was going to turn yellow,' hissed Drake.

'You bastard,' snarled Carter and lunged at the other man.

Restraining hands grabbed him but, even so, he managed to land a powerful right cross on Drake's jaw.

The taller man fell backwards, crashing into the wall. He touched his bottom lip, seeing blood on his fingertips. As he moved forward to retaliate he was grabbed and held still.

'Stop,' bellowed Harrison. 'I don't pay you to kick the shit out of each other.'

Both men were released, Drake dabbing at his split lip with a handkerchief. Carter glared at him for interminable seconds, finally turning to face Harrison once more.

'If you want to do something useful then find out who's behind all this. Find out who wrecked my betting shops and pub. Find out who killed Jim and tried to kill me. And do it quick. Before anyone else gets hurt.' He looked at Carter and Drake. 'You two, shake hands. I don't want trouble in my own firm.'

Carer regarded Drake malevolently, watching as the other man continued to wipe blood from his lip.

'You heard me,' Harrison insisted.

Drake took a step forward, reluctantly extending his right hand.

Carter hesitated then took it, squeezing it in an iron-hard grip.

They finally parted, both turning back to face Harrison.

'All right. For now we wait,' he said. 'We wait and see what happens but I'll tell you this, if the time comes for war then we'll be ready. I'm not having some fucking wop or scouse or bloody mick walking all over me.' His breath was coming in short gasps. 'It took me a long time to build what I've got and I'm not giving it up. I'm certainly not giving it up without a fight. And if anyone wants what I've got then they're going to have to take it by force. And I'll bury any fucker who comes after me.'

The place stank of urine as usual.

The dirty tiles were puddled with the substance and close to one of the ticket machines lay a pool of vomit. From the smell rising from it, Adam Giles guessed that it was fresh.

A uniformed policeman was talking to a drunk who had wet himself, the dark stain spreading across the front of his trousers even as he spoke, making exaggerated gestures with his hands. Finally the policeman took him by the arm and led him away. Adam heard a stream of abuse as the drunk was escorted from the underground cavern.

Late night travellers passed the scenes of filth and degradation with scarcely a second glance.

It was business as usual in Piccadilly Circus tube station.

And business was what Adam was looking for.

He'd had a good night so far, nearly one hundred and fifty notes were stuffed into the pockets of his jeans and his leather jacket. He'd managed to find more than enough willing punters tonight. It wasn't always like that. Especially since the AIDS scare, business had slowed down but, nevertheless, there were always customers to be found if you looked hard enough. Adam had been working the area around Piccadilly for the last three months and he knew where to look. At nineteen he was tall and thin, his face pock-marked, his lips swollen, almost repulsively large. He thought they were one of his best features and he glanced at his reflection in the glass of a ticket window as he passed. The man inside saw him and looked away swiftly. Adam smiled to himself. He had been a customer on more than one occasion. Fifteen quid for a blow job and the ticket seller was more than happy. Most of the punters wanted blow jobs now. They were frightened of AIDS too. Adam was frightened but he had to make a living so he continued playing the game of sexual Russian roulette, sometimes pulling in up to three hundred pounds a week.

Of course there were others working his patch. Many others and some had resented his intrusion. During his first week he'd been beaten up by two older youths, one of his fingers broken and two front teeth chipped. But it hadn't deterred him. He had sworn from the beginning that, once he had a thousand pounds saved, he'd give up the racket. But he seemed to fritter his money away and the time when he'd be able to leave this particular way of life behind seemed a long way off.

His parents never asked him where he went at night. He'd told them he had a cleaning job in one of the West End's top hotels and they didn't ask questions. He gave his mother fifty pounds a week and lent his father enough to keep him in drink, so they both kept quiet. It probably wouldn't have bothered them if they
had
known how he spent the hours of darkness but, for now, he had chosen to live out the charade.

As he strode through the underground station towards one of the exits he decided that it was time he made his way home, back to Leytonstone. He was carrying too much cash. If one of the other rent boys should decide to have a go at him then he had too much to lose.

It was as he was approaching the exit that he noticed the man standing at the foot of the staircase.

Adam glanced at him, at the dust flecked overcoat, the hat pulled down tightly over his head, the scarf wrapped around his face so that only his eyes showed.

The man caught Adam's eye as he passed, his head turning only fractionally to follow the path the youth was taking.

Adam was half-way up the stairs when he glanced back.

The man was staring up at him.

However, as Adam saw him looking he ducked back out of sight. The youth smiled and turned, heading back down the stairs. Well, maybe just one more job before he went home. He reached the bottom and walked past the man once again, smiling at him this time.

The man remained motionless, his eyes never leaving the youth.

Adam pulled a stick of chewing gum from his pocket, careful not to dislodge a bundle of ten pound notes, and pushed it into his mouth. Then he walked back towards the man in the dusty overcoat and smiled up at him.

`You looking for someone?' he asked.

The man nodded slowly and Adam took the chance to run appraising eyes over him, over that faded overcoat, the hat and the scarf which was wrapped so tightly around his face. What hair he possessed was swept up beneath the hat. His hands were dug deep into the pockets of his coat.

`I don't do business here; Adam told him. `Have you got a hotel room or a car where we can go?'

The man nodded once more and turned and walked away towards the exit steps. Adam scuttled along beside him. As they reached the top of the stairs he thought he detected a strange odour, like bad meat, but it faded as a gust of cold wind swept over him.

Adam was about to speak when the man pulled one hand from his pocket and signalled to someone across the street.

His hand, Adam noticed, was encased in a glove.

A Datsun glided across towards them, the driver hidden by the gloom within the vehicle. He reached over and pushed open the back door.

Adam hesitated.

`If there's two of you it's going to cost you more,' he said.

The man in the hat merely held the door open for him and, shrugging his shoulders, Adam slid into the car, scooting across the back seat. His companion clambered in beside him, slammed the door and the car moved away.

The driver did not turn.

The smell which Adam had noticed earlier now seemed particularly powerful and he wound the window down slightly, happy to breathe the traffic fumes. Happy to breathe anything other than the rancid air which filled the car.

The man in the overcoat was gazing straight ahead, as if Adam weren't even in the car.

Perhaps he was nervous, the youth surmised.

`Look, mate, what do you want?' he asked. `If you've got the money you can have what you like. Wank, suck or anything else. That's what's on the menu.' He chuckled. `A wank will cost you a fiver, a blow job fifteen, anything else the price varies.'

The man turned in his seat and looked at Adam who, again, recoiled from the vile stench. He glanced quickly at the driver and saw that he too had a scarf wrapped around his face and most of the back of his head. The youth felt slightly uneasy. He also felt sick. The smell was growing stronger by the second, filling his lungs, forcing him to wind the window down to its lowest extent.

'Shall we just get on with whatever you want?' he said irritably.

The man began to unbutton his coat and Adam smiled. At last, he was beginning to lose patience with all this mucking about. He placed one hand on the man's thigh.

The gloved hand shot forward with the speed of a bullet, the fingers fastening around Adam's throat, pulling him forward.

He struggled against the vice-like grip, beating at the hand which held him.

'Get off me you bastard ...' he hissed, fighting for breath, seeing that the man was slowly unravelling his scarf to reveal his features.

It was like unwrapping an open wound.

Adam felt the bile fighting its way up his throat as he caught sight of the man's features.

Where there should have been a mouth there was just a gaping hole which seemed to stretch from the remains of the nose to the point of the chin. It was surrounded by wisps of grey hair and strands of rotting skin which hung down like obscene raffia curtains over the gaping maw. The lips were little more than pieces of shrivelled flesh which slid back to expel a blast of air so foul Adam almost passed out.

And, from the centre of that reeking hole, a tongue emerged. Blackened and covered by thick yellow sputum which dripped like mouldering pus, it writhed like a bloated worm with a life of its own, twisting and turning in that putrescent gap, flicking in and out.

The gloved hand squeezed Adam's throat more tightly and, despite himself, he opened his mouth.

The intended scream of revulsion was smothered as the tumefied tongue filled his mouth and his body bucked and jerked uncontrollably as he felt the cold appendage tracing patterns inside his mouth, stirring the warm wetness there, ignoring the traces of vomit which had leaked up from his heaving belly. The tongue plunged deeper until it seemed to caress the back of his throat and then the gullet itself.

Locked together in an obscene french kiss, the two figures on the back seat were almost invisible in the gloom.

The driver glanced into the rear view mirror and saw the tableau. Saw that Adam's body had stopped jerking.

`Don't damage the flesh,' he said softly, watching as the youth's lifeless body slid to the floor of the car.

On the back seat his companion nodded and hauled the dead boy upright once more.

The car drove away.

The hinges of the attaché case creaked slightly as it was opened.

The smell of leather mingled with the smell of money.

Nestling in the bottom of the case, in bundles of twenty and fifty pound notes, was close to fifty thousand pounds.

Malcolm Dome glanced indifferently at the money for a moment then closed the case and locked it, slipping it down beside his feet.

Beside him, Steve Joule guided the Astra through the traffic, his eyes fixed on the other cars which clogged the night-shrouded streets. The clock on the dashboard glowed green and Joule looked at it, seeing that it was almost 10.30. They had one more call to make before they were finished for the night. He saw a gap in the traffic and stepped on the accelerator, narrowly avoiding a Metro which was attempting to turn out of a junction. The driver hit his hooter but Joule ignored him and guided the car into a gap further down the queue of traffic.