Death Of A Diva (9 page)

Chapter Twenty-One

              “Fuck me!” Christie sniggered “What’s
that
called?”

              I glanced across the bar and blanched slightly. Across the bar I could see Caz and Jenny, heads together, engrossed in conversation. And, standing next to them was what can only be described as a wrestler the size of a wardrobe, dressed head to toe in a tight fitting black Lycra pseudo military uniform, a pronounced pair of tits detracting only slightly from the oversized wig and black trucker cap perched on top.

             
Bang goes my Vogue/Tatler opening
I thought.

              “
He
,” said Ali as she poured heavily watered vodka into the shaven headed goon’s glass, “is called Hugo and
it’s
called
Janet Jackson Rhythm Nation 1814.
What’s
that
called?” she slammed the drink down, fizzed some soda into it and glared at the female company that Christie had arrived with.

              “Ooh,” the fourteen – fifteen at a push – year-old giggled, “a Bacardi and Red Bull.”

              “Wiv a cherry,” Christie leered, “but only if I can have it afterwards.”

              I moved off, heading towards where Morgan Foster was nursing what looked like a scotch. “Are we set?” I asked and he jumped like a scalded cat.

              “Hmmm? What?” He asked when he’d calmed down.

              “Lyra,” I prompted, “all OK?”

              “Your presence is commanded,” Liz Britton, interrupted from nowhere. “Upstairs,” she added, rather unnecessarily, as she nodded her red hair – teased now into a towering pillar of curls that perfectly offset her catlike eyes and high cheekbones.

              I looked towards the ceiling as the DJ – “
His name’s Kunsthook and he’s going to be huge next year
,” Caz had informed me – suddenly launched what sounded like a drum ‘n’ chainsaw version of
Carmina Burana.

              Then, swallowing my fear and wincing as my beautiful but too-tight boots pinched my feet, I headed up to smile, reassure and comfort my
diva
.

              Who then, swaying slightly on her fourinch heels, demanded that I supply her with class A illegal drugs.

              “You see the shound check?” She asked, a slight slurring evident.

“You sounded great,” I answered honestly.

              She shook her head, the towering wig of brunette curls waving as the immaculately made up face screwed up, the bright green rimmed eyes tearing up. “I can’t do it.”

              “What?” I asked, as she lifted a glass to her lips and swallowed from it.

              “Thought I could,” she said, taking another swig, before resting the glass behind her. “Can’t.”

              “Lyra,” I began, “you have a full house downstairs and I know this is scary, but I’ve heard your sound check. Believe me, you can do this.”

              She laughed then, tipping the head back only so far as to not dislodge the wig. “Oh, the barman at a shitty boozer in up-and-coming Elephant and Castle considers me capable of performing a PA. Listen–” she flipped her head forward. “I played some of the biggest arenas on the planet, you know? Don’t,” she held up a hand to silence my response. “In Sicily, I had a separate police escort for myself, my gowns
and
for my flowers. And you know what I always had – unspoken – in my contracts? A
no snow, no show
clause. Do you know what that means,
barman
?”

              “It’s November,” I vamped. “Cold outside. Might snow at any time.”

              “Fuck that shit,” she growled. “I want coke.”

              “Rehab,” I cried.

              “Bollocks,” she snarled back, resting her behind on the dressing table and lifting the glass of ‘
Perrier’
to her lips. “It goes like this, little man: you deliver four grams of
best
South American powder to me in the next half hour, or the only show you’ll be seeing is the one when your full house tears this shitty pile to pieces around your pathetic little ears,
capiche
?”

              Which was why, moments later, I barged through the now extremely festive crowd in the bar, slammed my way up to Morgan Foster, informed him of his wife’s demands and told the clearly upset, but quite frankly useless, manager/husband that “You’d better sort this shit out, get her sober, straight and on that fucking stage, or so help me Morgan I’ll strangle the bitch with my own two hands.”

              Which, in hindsight, may not have been the smartest line ever to issue from my lips.

Chapter Twenty-Two

              At no point were the words “Don’t leave town without telling us” uttered, but the fat sweaty bulk of DI Frank Reid made it very clear that the only reason I was being released was because he was too busy to do the paperwork necessary to ship me off to the Chateau D’If.

              “We’ll be talking again, Danny,” he growled at me. “Only next time, once the forensics are back, we’ll be talking
seriously
.”

              Dorothy Frost rolled her eyes, shook her head and tutted. “Jesus, Frank: you’re only a hook and a cloak short of being a panto villain. Call me if this nasty tub of lard comes anywhere near you,” she said, handing me her business card.

              And then I was alone, in the lobby of the police station.

              I’d hoped Caz might be waiting for me. Then I remembered the Marq; somebody would have had to stay behind, clear it out, wait while the forensics did whatever they needed to do and then shut the place down.

              For good, probably: Reid was so gonna get me for this. All his evidence – as the brilliant Mrs Frost had pointed out – was entirely circumstantial, but that didn’t matter. He’d work out something.

              Outside, the sky was a prison grey and the cold wind howled around the streets – deserted at five forty-five am Still, I thought, at least it’s not raining.

Ten feet away from the building, a vice-like grip was clamped onto my elbow, a vicious jab to my kidneys convinced me I’d not be pissing without wincing for a fortnight and Jimmy Christie’s voice snarled in my ear.

“I was on a dead cert tonight, you stupid fucking queer. An’ now, because of you, I’ve had to sit outside this fucking place for the past five hours.”

A car – some nondescript thing that looked like the living embodiment of every reason why British Leyland had long since ceased to exist – pulled up beside us and Christie reached over, tugged the back door open and shoved me inside.

“Chopper wants a word,” he growled, “an’ if he doesn’t’ cut your fucking balls off, I will.” He threw himself in beside me and pulled a huge and very dark piece of metal from the inside pocket of his coat.

It was only when he pointed the chunk of dark metal at me that I realised it was a gun and that my night wasn’t over yet.

Chapter Twenty-Three

              “Out!” Christie wiggled the gun at me as the driver opened the door.

              I half fell onto the pavement and gulped in the icy winter air.

              I stood beneath the only shop sign illuminated at this time of the morning. It was a dark blue background onto which – in canary yellow lettering – the words ‘THE POUND SHOP!’ had been pasted, with a number of small ‘£’ signs attesting to the artistic bent of the sign writer.

              The place was notorious, the inclusion of the exclamation mark seeming to attest to the number of people who, in the past, had – reportedly – been Pounded (!) to a pulp in its back rooms.

              Christie shoved me forward and the driver fiddled with some keys before swinging the shop door open. Christie twisted my arm once more and steered me into the place. The door was closed, locked from outside and I heard the sound of the motor driving away.

              Still silent, Christie shoved me past shelves laden with cheap shampoo, mobile phone cards, knock-off brand name bleaches, cheap Thai curry pastes, lottery scratch cards and piles of remaindered paperbacks.

              Eventually, I was dumped onto a plastic chair in a back room, with only a bare yellow bulb that seemed to flicker spastically in time with my heart. I glanced at the dull walls on either side of me and did not like the brown-black-red splashes on them. Blood? Brains? An explosion of some well-past-sell-before-date Thai curry pastes? I didn’t know and had no real desire to find out.

              In front of me, on the opposite side of tonight’s second cheap melamine table, sat a familiar, short, slightly podgy little man, his head bald save for a corona of fluffy white hair. His right hand was gripping a porcelain mug. His dark chocolate brown eyes glittered in a deeply tanned face and he smiled, displaying a set of the whitest dentures ever seen.

His voice was soft and melodious and reminded me, for some reason, of Winnie the Pooh. “Give me two reasons why I shouldn’t have the blue shit beaten out of you right now,” he demanded.

              “Mr Falzone,” I started.

              Then stopped. What could I say?

              “I’m waiting,” he said. “Only I’m not hearing many reasons.”

              Behind me, Christie shifted his bulk and something kicked in.

              “I didn’t do it,” I yelped.

              Chopper leaned forward, placing both elbows on the table and widening his eyes. “Always a good opening line. Go on.”

              “I didn’t do it,” I repeated.

              “Yeah,” he leaned back in the chair, “I heard this one first time round. If the third chorus is the same as the first two I just might have to have Jimmy here do some damage to your head. Now: you have reason one – you
say
you didn’t do it. I ask you: what makes you think I give a flying fuck whether you did or didn’t do it? My business is the sort of business that doesn’t really benefit from having the filth sniffing round it and now, thanks to you, I’ve got a near riot instigated by a mob of shirt lifters, a dead tart and a fucking army of Peelers crawling very close to my gaping bloody arsehole. I am still waiting for a reason why I shouldn’t have you pounded to a pulp. And I ain’t hearing many.”

              I paused, tried to calm my breathing and avoided looking at the dubious splashes at head height on the walls opposite.

              “You seem like a nice kid,” Chopper opined, lifting the mug and sipping what looked like a
Latte
. “But today is my granddaughter’s sixteenth birthday. I’m supposed to be shipping her and fifty of her best mates into a fleet of pink stretch limos and transporting them all to a party with a fucking boatload of my family. So I really don’t need this shit.”

              I remembered the front page of the Sun when Chopper had gotten off his last murder rap: pictures of the blood-spattered wall of a lock-up he’d been renting, with the word ‘INNOCENT?’ in capitals above it.

              “Mr Falzone,” I started again, before he raised a finger to his lips, lifted the mug, removed the finger and sipped again from the mug.

              “I have such a fucking hangover,” he said. “Side effect of getting old. I used to be able to drink all weekend. Snorted up half of Peru in my time. Then I got out of drugs. No time for ‘em now – too many fucking wasters involved, know what I mean? Still like a little wildness, but I get a hangover after a few beers and a bottle of wine. I’m gettin’ old, Danny. But I ain’t gettin’ stupid; know what I’m sayin?”

              I knew. But what else was I supposed to say, other than
I didn’t do it
.

              “D’you remember that headline?” He asked, as though reading my mind. “Remember? The fucking question mark?
Innocent?
Yeah, I can see you do. Well, believe it or not, I was – in that instance – innocent. Isn’t British justice wonderful? But I’ve spent the last ten years trying to convince the world that the name Falzone is not synonymous with a blood-spattered wall in fucking Dalston. I’ve worked to become a proper legit businessman. So then you turn up: a nice, polite ponce who wants to use one of my venues to launch a new gay bar. A bar that I agree to, for a small fee.”

              “And then,” he sipped once more from the mug, “in the space of a single evening you turn the public perception of my good name away from a blood-spattered wall to a pub full of drugged-up perverts who strangled the Fucking Queen of Saturday Night Television.”

              The mug slammed down and my heart stopped beating.

              “So: a reason. Deliver.”

              “I had nothing to do with Lyra Day’s death,” I said, more calmly than my pulse seemed to permit. “I was doing what I said I would: making the venue a profitable addition to your portfolio. But I promise you, I will sort this out. I will find out who did this.”

Chopper, lifted the mug to his lips and from the corner of my eye, I saw Christie slip the gun out of his pocket. Then Chopper put the mug down on the table.

              I half saw Christie’s shoulders tense.

              Chopper started to laugh. “Oh, mate, you’d better sort it out – before a lone copper pokes so much as a lone finger into my business. ‘Cos if you don’t, I’ll be sorting
you
out.” He learned forwards. “Listen – and listen good.
Fix this mess – and fix it fast.
Understood?”

              I nodded, as Christie slipped his armament back into the pocket of his ill-fitting suit.

              “Oh, and one other thing,” Falzone said, as I staggered to my feet, “I still want my money. First thing Monday. No exceptions. You need a lift? Jimmy can drop you off.”

I declined the offer.