Dispossession (10 page)

The incomprehensible sing-song went on beside me; I turned
back to face them, frowning now, but Sue stilled me with just a touch on my
elbow. “Are you feeling all right, Jonty? Maybe it’s the lighting in here, but
you look disgusting. Colour of a dirty bandage.”

I’ve no idea whether that was adroit or simply accurate, but
it had what was probably its desired effect. On the verge of asking for a
translation, I stopped for a moment to consider myself. And say I’d been nobly
ignoring it hitherto or say the other thing, say it was all psychosomatic and
came on only because she’d asked and I was looking for it; or what the hell,
say it was pure hypochondria, because I liked being fussed by a beautiful girl;
but she did ask and I did look inward, and I did find that my head ached
momentously and my legs were trembling with the effort of balance, there was a
cold slick of sweat on my skin and a sickness in my stomach, and I urgently
wanted to sit down.

Which I did, Sue’s strong shoulder helping me over to the
nearest banquette. Lee fetched me a glass of water—ice and lemon going in there
more by instinct than intent: he was at work, he was behind the bar, of course
he put in ice and lemon—and I sat and sipped and she sat beside me with her
anxiety hidden behind a cool efficiency, a cool hand on my brow; and Lee
fidgeted, his eyes moving uncertainly between us.

“I could nip down,” he said, “fetch Mr Han...”

I shook my head,
don’t need a
doctor
; and Sue reinforced that, with her own reasoning.

“Not while Jonty’s still at the hospital. One or the other,
but not both at once. Soon as he comes out, Uncle Han can look after him. There’s
probably a herb,” she said to me, “brings your memory back. It’ll taste vile,
mind. How’s your rotten head?”

“Rotten,” I confirmed with half a smile, the best I could
manage.

“Poor lover,” with a touch of her lips to my ear, the
closest she could come to kissing the sore bit better. “Are you going to manage
those stairs for me?”

“I think so. I was just giddy for a minute, is all.”

Which she knew it wasn’t all, and her snort said so; but,
“My fault,” she said. “They told me not to overdo you. Luke could’ve waited, he’s
on tape; I didn’t have to haul you all that way up.”

“Not to fret,” I said. “I’m glad to have seen the flat.”

She looked at me as though she didn’t like the way I’d said
that, and quite right too. But she didn’t challenge, and I didn’t explain.

The two of them helped me up, and saw me watchfully down the
stairs and over to the car. Sue unlocked the passenger door for me, then pushed
hard down on my shoulders as I sat, to be sure I ducked low enough and my head
went in cleanly. I leaned cautiously back, looking for a way to lean that didn’t
hurt; closed my eyes against recurrent dizziness and barely heard the
conversation outside:

“You going to be okay with him the other end, then, Suzie?”

“Yes, of course I am. All those nurses, they’ll be queueing
up to get their hands on him. God knows why, mind, he’s a sorry piece of meat
just now...”

“Yeah, well. You take care of him, you hear?”

“Why should I?”

“He’s the only piece of meat in your fridge just now, pet.”

My eyes opened then, without much intent on my part, just in
time to see Lee jog-trotting back to his post, before someone could steal the
club and all its contents. Sue walked around the bonnet and got in the driver’s
side, settled herself and checked me over with a glance, had I done my seat
belt up? Was I going to puke?

Yes and no, if those were really the questions, if I wasn’t
just fantasising meanings to apply to the expressions on her face. But I had a
question too, and she wasn’t getting away with this one left unasked.

“Suzie?” I said.

“Yeah? So what?”

“So who calls you Suzie?”

“Everyone.”

“You told me Sue.”

“Everyone but you. Don’t know why, you just wouldn’t. I
nearly blew you out over it, that first night,” smiling as she remembered.
“Nearly told you to stuff it, if you wouldn’t use my name the way I liked it.”

“Why didn’t you? You thought I was a creep anyway, you said
so.”

A sideways glance, a hesitation; finally, “Not by then, I
didn’t. You interested me, you seemed so screwed up and helpless, and that’s
always attractive; and—oh, fuck it, Jonty, I wanted to get inside your shorts,
all right? I’m kinky for long tall white boys, the rest was just a bonus. I
didn’t care if you called me by a name I hated.”

“Do you?”

“Do me a favour. Sue Chu? Of course I hate it. It’s the only
reason I married you. I sort of got to like Sue, from you; like a pet name you
could use in public, yeah? So I had to change the other half somehow, and Sue
Marks was the best on offer.”

All this time she was driving, nipping neatly through the
city; which prompted one more sneaky question from me, “Are you a local, then,
you know this place so well?”

“Sure am. Born and bred.”

Which meant she hadn’t married me for my passport, nor I her
to share it in an excess of generosity. Bugger. Another fine theory out of the
tinted window.

“We forgot Dolphus,” I said suddenly, stricken.

Her eyes moved sharply to me, to the mirror, to the road;
she pulled in to the kerb and said, “Do you want to go back?”

And would have done, no question, if I’d said yes.

“No,” I said. “Not now. Doesn’t matter.”

“Sure?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll look after him,” she said, doubting my assurance. “I
do. Women and teddy bears first, if there’s a fire. And I’ll bring him
tomorrow, early. Promise. Okay?”

“Okay. Thanks.”

o0o

At the hospital she walked me to my room, supervised my
undressing and presented me with the threatened pyjamas, from a carrier bag she’d
brought in from the car. Black silk they were, and tying with soft cords, no
buttons: more like the
gi
, karate kit, than
Marks and Spencer’s best. Also they had Chinese dragons embroidered on the back
and legs, which made me giggle and feel foolish. But they felt cool and
delightful on my sore skin, slitheringly luxurious slipping between clean
sheets, and well deserving of the kiss she claimed.

“Listen, about tonight,” she said then, “would it be all
right if I didn’t come? I always used to see my parents, Thursdays, and I’d
really like to go tonight. It gives Mum a break...”

“And you want to tell them how I’m doing, yes?”

“Well, why not? You’re their son-in-law, they’ve been
worried.”

“I don’t mind,” I said truthfully. “Of course I don’t. Why
would I? I’m knackered anyway, I’ll probably just sleep.”

“Okay, then. Good. I’ll be in tomorrow, early as they let
me...”

And she kissed me again, and went away; and I lay quietly,
drifting towards dozing, shuffling realities in my head until a nurse looked in
to check that I was back. I’d opened my eyes at the sound of the door’s
opening, so she gave me a message to ponder: told me that Vernon Deverill had
come calling while I was out, and would return this evening.

When he came I was ready for him, or as ready as I could be
with my head so full of holes, drained empty of everything I needed.

At any rate I was sitting up in bed and wearing the black
pyjamas, glad of the warning and glad of the gift, not to be taken at a double
disadvantage. I didn’t know the man (or at least what was left of me didn’t
know the man, my old and seemingly-reduced, though hitherto satisfactory,
self), but everything I’d heard about him said that Deverill would be rapid to
exploit any advantage he could see, even among his friends. And whatever Sue
said—and whatever money he’d been spending on me, for whatever reason—no way
could I see myself ever being counted in the number, the small number of Vernon
Deverill’s friends.

The nurse wouldn’t let me out of bed again, even just to sit
in my clothes in a chair by the window; and truth to tell I was half glad of
the prohibition, because my body definitely didn’t want to move. But pyjamas
were at least better than a hospital robe, and forewarned was one hell of a lot
better than being surprised, as I would have been if Sue hadn’t taken me out
that afternoon. He’d have caught me napping, and God only knew what mess I’d
have found myself in thereafter.

God only knew what mess I was in already; or maybe God and
Vernon Deverill shared that particular secret between them.

Maybe I could find out, if I was clever tonight.

Trouble was, I didn’t feel clever. I felt stupid and hurt,
exhausted and unprepared and no way ready, not big enough for this; and it
seemed as though I waited in that tense and useless state for hours before
there were footsteps in the corridor, someone opening the door, big male
figures filing through.

Deverill, a minder and a lackey, as best as I could tag
them. Even the lackey looked hard, despite his spectacles and briefcase. I
wouldn’t want to tangle with any one of them, even at my fittest and with all
the protection of a courtroom around us. The three of them crowding my bed was
pretty much the last thing that I wanted right now.

That I didn’t even know why they were there made it worse,
but not appreciably. It couldn’t possibly have got appreciably worse.

“Jonty. How are you?” Big heavy voice for a big heavy man,
and not just metaphorically: Deverill was a burly six-footer with cropped grey
hair and fleshy features, the smell of cigars on his clothes and the smell of
power all about him. Not much of his weight was fat, I thought. In a rumble, no
way would this man stand back and let his minders sort it out.

I just shrugged, in answer to his question. Insofar as I had
a strategy for this, I meant to say as little as possible. The less I told them,
I thought, the more I’d learn.

Maybe.

“Totalled that nice motor I bought you, yes?”

Score one to me. I’d guessed this already, that he’d paid
for that impossible, that ridiculous car; but now I knew.

“Seems so,” I said. “Sorry.”

He grunted and moved over to the table by the window, where
all the bouquets stood in their ranks of vases. “One of these from me, is it?”

“The big one,” I said, winning another grunt from him, this
one approving. He fingered the flowers proprietorially, and I thought yes, that
was absolutely right behaviour for this man, in this situation. He’d paid for
the car, he’d paid for the flowers, they were his.

He was paying for me, I remembered bleakly; and why the hell
had I ever let that happen? I didn’t want to be in thrall to this man...

The lackey had come to the far side of my bed, where he
could stand in the corner, out of everyone’s way; the minder had taken a
position classically by the door, wearing his suit about as easily as
professional footballers wear theirs, I thought, looking totally misdressed.
Briefly, I wondered if he had a gun concealed under the jacket. Then my eyes
met his and I saw him grin, I saw him wink at me.

Christ. Neither did I want to be on winking terms with one
of Deverill’s bully-boys. A client of mine, a hard and dangerous man in his own
right, had once crossed Deverill on a deal; smuggling drugs, I’d heard, when he
wasn’t supposed to. The following night a tip-off had brought the police to a
bonded warehouse, where they found the alarm disabled, a sealed door jemmied
open and my client unconscious, trapped beneath the tines of a fork-lift truck
with cases of brandy tumbled all about him. No fingerprints anywhere other than
his own, though the set-up was deliberately ridiculous, not intended to be taken
seriously. He had multiple internal injuries, besides what harm the fork-lift
had done to his ribs; and he wouldn’t say a word, to the police or to me. No
one doubted Deverill’s involvement. Chances were he’d been there himself, his
own boot doing a share of the damage, he was known not to delegate what seemed
to him important; but he wouldn’t have been alone, and he didn’t keep a private
army, only a small team of loyal hard men. Not unlikely then that this cheerful
winker, this seeming buddy of mine had been there also.

“Vern.” That was him now, showing me another aspect of his
work: glancing quickly away from me and interrupting his boss’s private train
of thought, unfolding his arms to make a little sideways gesture with his hand.

Deverill had a wide vocabulary of grunts. This one
presumably was an acknowledgement,
good, you’re
doing your job, lad,
because he stepped immediately away from the
window, coming all the way around to the near side of my bed. Paranoia or just
common sense, not to make a target of himself? I couldn’t say, I didn’t know
how much actual danger he lived in. There were many people, surely, who’d be
glad to see him dead; but most of them wouldn’t be out there tracking him with
a twelve-bore, nor hiring professional assassins. I assumed. On the other hand,
it would only take one...

Yes. Knowing what I knew of Vernon Deverill—and that was
only the common knowledge, little enough compared to what there must be to
know, a thin stream flowing from a lake—I thought perhaps that if I were he, I
wouldn’t stand framed in too many lighted windows either.

“Well now,” he said, turning suddenly to me and striking his
hands together, “I don’t suppose you’ll have anything new to tell me, will you,
Jonty?”

And though he tried to sound bullish, I thought there was
something urgent and unhappy in his voice,
I don’t
suppose you will, but please surprise me...

Almost a disappointment to me, that I couldn’t; but at the
same time a major relief that he’d phrased the question that way, that I could
respond, “No. I’m sorry, not a thing. Not yet.”

“No. Well, I hadn’t expected... You said it would take time.
And I suppose this’ll hold you up longer, yes?”

“I’m afraid that’s inevitable,” I agreed, fighting not to
grin at my own private subtext there, all the extra meaning that he hadn’t
cottoned on to yet. And might very well not, on this visit at least: so long as
he didn’t question the staff here about my condition, or didn’t find them
forthcoming...