Strawberry Tattoo (24 page)

The bar took a while to spot. In this neck of the woods, the more fashionable the bars, the more they concealed their frontages behind the blankest, most unwelcoming stretches of sheer brick wall. They were well soundproofed, too, so that the only hint of their presence was the surreal sight of a small stool propped on the pavement next to a chrome pole with a hook at the top. This was to show where the queue began. Even bars here had this we’re-a-club-with-a-dress-policy attitude.

Some very cool hip-hop streamed out as we opened the door, adding a brief touch of class, not to mention life, to the deserted street. A bouncer, leaning against the wall by the door, gave us his stock behave-yourselves look. It had as much menace behind it as the glassy eye of a stuffed animal. Inside the darkness was rich and sumptuous, as if we’d shrunk down like Alice in Wonderland so we could enter a jewellery box, padded and upholstered in red and gold brocade. Scarlet Oriental lights hung from the ceiling like chandeliers and there were swathes of crimson velvet curtaining the alcoves. The gleaming bottles behind the bar seemed suffused with golden light. It was something of a disappointment that Kim wasn’t wearing a heavily embroidered ruby satin cheongsam. Her black denim cutoff top was pretty enough in its way, but I felt she could have made more of an effort to co-ordinate with the décor.

“It’s like all those films with Shanghai in the title,” I said, sitting down at the bar and looking around me approvingly. Kim was getting drinks for some yuppie types down the other end of the bar, and I waved at her. She pulled a face and nodded at the people she was serving.

“
Shanghai Express
,” Lex offered. “With Marlene Dietrich.”

“And
The Shanghai Gesture
, with Victor Mature and Gene Tierney. Those scenes in the casino.”

Kim came up to us, smiling. “Hey, Sam. I’m really glad you made it in,” she said.

“I love this place,” I said enthusiastically. “It’s like a Forties Hollywood version of an opium den.”

“Cool, isn’t it?” she agreed. “It’s not a bad place to work, either. It was better when there was dancing, though.”

“What happened?”

“Rudolph Giuliani happened. The mayor,” she explained, seeing my blank expression. “He did this huge crackdown on street crime and stuff, which was OK up to a point, but then he started taking away all the dance licences from the lounges and bars. So now if, like, one person starts dancing in here they could close us down. That’s what the bouncer’s for, really.”

“You mean he has to go round and stop people boogying?” I said incredulously.

Kim giggled. “Basically. It can get a bit embarrassing. But, you know, everyone knows they shouldn’t do it. Look.” She gestured to the wall behind her, where a sign hung saying “NO DANCING” in gold Oriental lettering on a red background.

“What if you just wiggle without moving your feet?” I suggested.

“That’s borderline. We let people sway and rock, but wiggling would be a judgement call.”

We were both giggling by now.

“I missed you,” I said wistfully. “I missed being stupid with you.”

“Yeah, me too.”

I cleared my throat. I could only do sentimental for fifteen seconds, and then I started coming out in hives. “Right, that’s enough soppy stuff. Who do I have to shag to get a drink around here?”

“You’re such a boy, Sam,” Kim said affectionately. “You should have scratched your crotch when you said that and lowered your voice.”

“Oh, look, you have a DJ!” I had just spotted a mixing desk by the far wall with a girl behind it who would have made Cameron Diaz seem dowdy and plain by comparison. When girls were pretty over here
they really went for it; no hiding their lights under a bushel. Instead they got them out and arranged reflectors all around them to up the wattage.

“Everywhere has a DJ,” Kim said casually. “There’s a sushi restaurant around the corner that has a DJ. That doesn’t mean it’s a club. So, you want a drink?”

“Is the Pope a Tarmac-kisser?”

“What’llitbe?”

“Singapore Sling,” I said. “Goes with the décor.”

“Good call.”

“Can I get one, too?” Lex piped up.

Kim’s attention switched to him. We had been so focused on each other, slipping back into our old happy banter, that I hadn’t thought to introduce Lex, and clearly Kim hadn’t realised I’d come in with someone.

“Kim, this is Lex,” I said belatedly. “He’s one of the artists in the show with me.”

That was an easy and discreet introduction, I thought. No mention of stranglings or Lex’s status as Suspect Number One in a murder inquiry. So why were they staring at each other like that?

“You’re that friend of Leo’s!” Kim said to Lex. “I knew I’d seen you somewhere!”

Lex looked as if he wanted the ground to open up and swallow him.

“Hey, small world,” he managed eventually.

Kim was shaking her head slightly from side to side. It was a gesture so familiar to me that the recognition filled the pit of my stomach with a warm flow of nostalgia. It meant that she was puzzling something out, putting the pieces together in her head.

“You’re the one who’s in some kind of trouble, right?” she said finally. “Leo told me you were on the run or something. Shit, it’s about Kate getting killed! I remember now! You’re hiding from the cops!”

Her voice hadn’t risen, but the way she had stiffened meant that people were looking over at us curiously. I stifled the urge to bury my head in my hands.

“Sam!” Kim turned to me. “What’s going on? What are you doing hanging out with this guy? He could be the one who killed Kate!”

“Sam’s letting me stay with her,” Lex blurted out. “
She
doesn’t think I had anything to do with it!”

So much for keeping that a secret. I felt like braining him with the bar stool.

“You’re letting him stay with you? You must be nuts! The guy could do you in your sleep!” Kim had turned back to me. “You should turn him in night now!”

I looked from one to the other, sighed deeply and put my head down on the bar. It wasn’t really enough. I could still feel them both staring at me. I started banging it lightly against the wood surface. To my surprise, this was strangely comforting.

I stopped banging my head before it was permanently marked. We did finally get the Singapore Slings, though, and damn fine they were too.

“She thinks I killed Kate!” Lex said dismally, as Kim removed herself. She shot him a watchful glance over her shoulder as she moved away, warning him that she would be on the lookout in case he extracted a garotte from his pocket and started toying with it while staring speculatively at my neck.

“Well, so do the police, probably,” I pointed out. “I mean, you can’t blame her. She’s being protective of me.”

“Why don’t
you
?” Lex said suddenly. “I mean, why don’t you think it was me that killed Kate?”

I sighed. “I’m just not getting those killer vibes from you, Lex. I don’t know. I’ve met quite a few murderers in my time—I’ve lived a rich, full life—and you don’t strike me as the type. Though, of course”—I drank some more of my cocktail —“I could be completely wrong. You could be a crazed strangler with an urge to atone for John Lennon’s murder by contributing a beautiful corpse to Strawberry Fields every October. Like sending him a handmaiden in the afterlife. Very Egyptian.”

Lex was staring at me anxiously. If it had been possible to back away while sitting on a bar stool, he would definitely have tried it.

“See what I mean?” I gave him a friendly smile. “You’re much more spooked by me than I am by you.”

“I don’t know how you can talk about it so—casually,” he muttered.
“I mean, Kate’s dead. Someone killed her. It wasn’t me, OK? But there’s someone out there who strangled her. We might even know them. You just sound so fucking unconcerned.”

“I’m not unconcerned.”

“OK, then you sound like you don’t care that we could be in danger.”

I shrugged. “We’re always in danger, Lex. We’re probably in more danger of getting run over between here and my flat, or being involved in a four-car pile-up because of a crazed psychotic taxi driver, than we are of being garotted by the Strawberry Fields Strangler.”

“Well, I’m scared. I don’t mind telling you.” He finished his drink in a long pull at the glass. “Do you think your mate’d get me another of these, or will she bite my head off if I ask her?”

His hand trembled slightly as he put the glass down.

“Look,” I said, reaching over and patting his hand, “it’ll be OK. Don’t worry.”

But Lex wasn’t a fool.

“How can you say that?” he snapped back. “How do you know what’s going to happen?”

“I don’t. I was just trying to cheer you up.”

“Yeah, well, don’t. It makes me nervous. Hi, Kim?” he said tentatively, as she strode towards us, a martial glint in her eye.

“Everything all right, Sam?” she said to me, pointedly ignoring Lex.

“It’s fine. Really. Could we get another two Singapore Slings?”

“Are you sure you should be drinking around him?” she said warningly. “You don’t want him to catch you off guard.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Lex interrupted. “Sam could probably drink me under the table and give me a good kicking when she’d got me down there, OK? She’s as hard as—I dunno, industrial cement. It’s me you should be worried about.”

Kim looked at me, momentarily taken aback.

“He’s right, you know,” I said.

“Nothing’s changed, has it?” Kim grinned at me. “OK. Two Singapore Slings coming up.”

“Am I off the hook, then?” Lex said to her. “For the time being. But watch your step.”

“Yes ma’am!” He saluted. “She’s really pretty, your mate,” he said to me as Kim moved away. “Is she seeing anyone, d’you know?”

He was a trier. I had to give him that.

“Hi, this is Joan Rivers. Listen, can we talk? Buckle up your seat belt—by the way, you look great! That colour is you!”

“Whoah,” Lex said, as the taxi hurtled up Third Avenue as if fired from a rocket launcher.

“You know what?” I said, leaning forward when it was safer and addressing the diver through the partition. “We’re not in this much of a hurry.”

“Yeah, well,
I’m
in a hurry,” said the driver, catching my eye in the rear-view mirror. “I really need to go. You know what I’m saying? I gotta
go
.”

I turned to Lex, confused.

“He needs the loo, idiot,” he hissed.

“Oh,
right
.”

We were screaming cross-town like a jumbo jet about to take off. It was a race against time. Would we make it to West End and 72nd before the driver lost control of himself? And why did this kind of bizarre taxi experience keep happening to me?

“I can’t do it!” the driver suddenly exclaimed. Lex and I exchanged frantic glances. Then he stamped on the brakes and everything went dark, because I was being half-throttled by the seat belt. When my sight returned, I realised that we were stationary outside a Chinese restaurant and the driver was halfway out of the cab.

“Back soon, OK?” he called back at us. “Just hang on. Don’t worry about the meter.” And with that he was gone, running down the street as fast as he could considering that he was doubled over.

“Surreal,” Lex commented.

“Ccchhh.” I finally got my neck free. This was a hazard of being on the
short side and having bosoms: seat belts tended to ride up over them and strangle you. I looked over at Lex.

“Shall we wait?”

He shrugged. “If it’s a free ride … he said not to worry about the meter.”

“At least it’ll be cheap.”

“Did you see where he was going?”

“Nope. I just hope he makes it there in time, for everyone’s sake.”

Lex was staring thoughtfully at the frontage of the Chinese restaurant.

“Look,” he said, “they even have an e-mail address.” He pointed to the sign.

“What is it, www.typhoid.com?” I said.

Lex acknowledged my wit with scarcely a flicker of his eyelids. He was thinking about something more serious.

“I wonder if they do takeaway?” he said tentatively.

Our eyes met. There was a brief pause.

“Spring rolls, fried rice and spicy prawn something,” I said. “I’ll wait here in case our free ride leaves without us.”