Take the A-Train (8 page)

Teddy called me at seven. He told me that Em had surrendered to Danny Fox at Farnham with his brief in tow. I told him I was on the case and to call me next morning, hung up and took a shower.

At eight the doorbell rang. I had dressed to get down. Blue silk suit with just a hint of shine in the material, pale blue shirt, a tie patterned with red roses and black, soft loafers which fitted over my sore foot without too much angst. I checked the weather, put on my trench coat with the button-in winter lining and limped down the stairs.

Fiona was standing on the doorstep. She was all bundled up in a long navy overcoat that reached nearly to her ankles. She had a long muffler wrapped six or seven times around her neck and her hair was pushed up under a big black hat. She was wearing black, high-heeled shoes. I hated it when she drove in heels, but she looked so sexy I almost wept.

‘Cold, is it?’ I asked.

‘Not many. At least it’s stopped raining.’

‘Why don’t you get a top for that car?’

‘No, I’ll survive, I’m hard.’

I raised my eyes to heaven, but she didn’t notice and I followed her over to the little yellow bug that sat at the kerbside. We clambered in and the engine started with a cough and a whine. She took off like a rocket, without looking or indicating, and cut up a geezer in a Capri who gave us a long blast on his horn. Fiona waved in a friendly way and I shrank down in my bucket seat.

‘What’s all this about being kidnapped?’ she asked over the rattle of the engine and the roar of the wind.

I told her the whole story which took as far as the Elephant, and she digested the information whilst she chopped through the late evening traffic up to the river. She parked the car in a side street and we went arm in arm up to the main road.

‘And you agreed to help?’ she asked as we walked, or rather as she walked and I hobbled.

‘Sure.’

‘Why?’

‘That’s what friends are for.’

‘I hope you know what you’re doing. Christ, Bim and Em,’ she said. ‘Sounds like a double act, or something out of the
Beano
.’ She cackled at the thought.

‘Don’t be fooled,’ I said. ‘Those two are serious, dead serious.’

She shrugged and we passed under the street lamps to the corner. The Pig was a big old Victorian gin palace, set back on a sort of double pavement on a tree-lined boulevard that ran up to the river. Most of the old houses in the street had gone and been replaced by glass matchboxes laid on their sides. The Victorian pub stood out like a sore finger. It wasn’t exactly beautiful or particularly welcoming but it certainly had it over the sawn-off skyscrapers that dominated the rest of the street. From the outside the pub looked like any other local in the area, but by the look of the cars parked nearby it certainly wasn’t an ordinary local where the poor came to eke out their twilight years. There was a big green Rolls-Royce, three or four XR3is, Golfs, Jeeps, and a couple of battered old Yanks parked on and by the pavement.

Fiona pushed the door of the pub open and we got a blast of
Blue Monday
and a faceful of warm air that smelt in equal parts of tobacco, perfume and beer. Well, maybe the perfume won by a short head. She held the door open and I hopped in. Some habits never change, whatever the clientele. As the door opened, like a crowd at the centre court, every head in the bar turned towards it. It happened every time, all evening. Sometimes an entrance would merit a yell of recognition, other times the cold shoulder. We got half and half. Guess who got recognised and who got ignored? My limp got more attention than I did. There was a free table in one corner and we grabbed the seats.

‘What do you want?’ I asked.

‘I’ll get them in, there’s a couple of people up at the bar I know.’ She pulled off her hat and scarf and coat and dumped them on her seat. Underneath she was wearing a black leather suit over what looked suspiciously like a lavender lace corset. On her legs she wore lavender nylons.

She noticed me clocking the outfit. ‘Do you like my teddy?’ she asked.

‘My daughter takes one to bed with her.’

‘Well, maybe you’ll get lucky and take one to bed with you tonight.’

‘Just don’t take your jacket off, you’ll start a riot,’ I said.

She grinned wickedly and leant over and planted a kiss on my cheek. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘And you’ve got lipstick all over your face.’

I gave her a big, false grin and swatted at my face with the back of my hand. ‘I’ll have a pint, and don’t be all night.’

‘You’re so masterful,’ she said, and vanished into the crowd.

I shrugged out of my raincoat and hung it over the back of a red velour-covered chair, then sat down and wedged my bad foot on to the rung of a small stool opposite me. My leg was killing me and I massaged it with my hand. I looked round the bar. It was a young crowd, with just a few old codgers sprinkled about, looking lost and forlorn as their old boozer got taken over by the Snakebite and Pina Colada set.

It was a big old Victorian gin palace on the outside and it was a big old Victorian gin palace on the inside. The ceilings were high and tobacco-stained, with red-shaded lamps hanging down. The walls were covered with flock wallpaper and dotted with sporting prints. There were tables with seating for fifty or sixty. The bar itself was U-shaped, long, solid and polished. Every surface in the place was hung with Christmas decorations. There must have been a grand’s worth of tinsel. A twenty-foot Christmas tree, dripping with lights, stood next to the juke-box. From half a dozen vantage points Sandra and Frank wished me the compliments of the season from under a photograph of a bullet-headed heavy and a tiny blonde dripping with gold. The real pair were dispensing drinks and cockney bonhomie from the opposite side of the bar.

Right beside me was a raised podium, like a small stage. A bloke in blue jeans and a psychedelic shirt was setting up a twin turntable plugged through a bank of amplifiers, linked to some dangerous-looking speakers which made it obvious why the table we’d nicked had been vacant.

Shit, I thought.

Fiona had a hard time getting to the bar, she was so popular. She must have stopped and chewed the fat with about a dozen faces on the way to the counter. Most of the characters who buttonholed her gave me the once over. I nodded back a couple of times but soon gave it a rest. My leg still hurt and I wanted a drink.

She was grabbed round the waist by a bloke sitting on a stool at the end of the bar, close to the public telephone. Their heads were about level and he whispered something into her ear and pulled a Harrods bag up from the floor and gave her a squint inside. She laughed and shook her head and gave him a cuddle. He was dark-skinned and balding. I didn’t know him, but I knew he was bent, not that I cared. If I’d ever been inside a villain’s pub, this was it.

Finally she shucked off the old pals and connected with the barman. In less time than it takes to tell she came over to the table with a couple of glasses.

‘Sorry,’ she said.

I shrugged. ‘Old home week?’

‘Sort of. I know a lot of people here.’

‘You don’t say.’

‘Here’s your drink.’

‘Thanks.’

She pushed her hat and coat over and sat down opposite me.

‘Who was the affectionate one?’ I asked.

‘Who?’

I pointed at him with a glance.

‘Oh, him. He’s harmless. Mickey Lipman. He fences for the hoisters. I thought you might know him.’

‘Do you think I know every lowlife in London?’

‘No, you just look like you do.’ And she stuck out her tongue.

She looked around and then up at the geezer who was setting up the audio equipment on the stage. ‘Phil!’ she said by way of a greeting.

He looked twice, then connected. ‘Fi,’ he said back, and hunkered down on to his boot heels. ‘How are you doing?’

‘All right,’ she replied, and sank a third of the contents of her glass in one gulp. ‘Meet Nick.’ She gestured to me.

‘Hello,’ I said.

‘Hello,’ he said back, extending his hand. I shook it.

‘Phil’s Johnny’s roadie,’ said Fiona by way of explanation. ‘Where is he?’ she asked.

‘He’ll be along,’ said Phil. ‘With his box of records, just in time for the show. You know he likes to make a big entrance.’

I got the feeling Phil thought that Johnny Smoke had an overinflated reputation, especially with young women, especially the type who wore lavender lace teddies.

‘Don’t be bitchy, Phil,’ said Fiona. ‘He is the star of the show.’

‘Sure,’ said Phil. ‘I’d better get on with setting up the gear.’ He climbed to his feet and and went back to tinkering with leads and amps.

‘Happy little soul,’ I said.

‘He wants to be a star,’ said Fiona.

‘Don’t we all?’

As if on cue the door to the pub burst open and an apparition in a yellow, hooded T-shirt with an Italian flag printed across the front, purple-flowered tight Bermudas, white-framed Ray-Bans and orange baseball boots leapt through the gap and into the light.

‘Heeeeere’s Johnny,’ said Fiona.

‘I never would have guessed.’

Johnny was a star all right, and he loved it. He ran from one group of his fans to another, shaking hands, touching shoulders, generally being a right pain in the arse. Eventually he turkey trotted over to our table. ‘Fiona, sweety poopy! So glad you could make it.’ He pushed the Ray Bans over the top of his gelled hair. ‘And you must be Nicky Baby. Heard a lot about you kid, all good.’

I thought if he called me Nicky Baby again I’d plant the toe of my Shelley’s special loafers right up the crack of his fat backside, bad leg or no bad leg. Fiona made a placating face behind his back. I gave in. What the hell? If it made her happy I guessed I could take Johnny Smoke like bad medicine and smile all the time.

‘Hi, Johnny,’ I said. ‘Nice to meet you.’

He pulled up a chair and sat down. He raised a finger and an acolyte attended with a bottle of Grolsch. Johnny went through a big production of flicking the top one-handed and everyone in the room admired his style. He drank from the bottle, how else? I half hoped the china top that was still attached to the bottle by a clever little metal contraption would put his eye out. After giving his full attention to the temperature of the beer for a second, he turned his charm on Fiona. ‘How’s the career, poopy baby?’ he asked with all the sincerity of a life insurance salesman on Mogadon.

‘Can’t complain,’ she said. ‘How’s yours?’

This was the question he had been waiting for. He flicked his head forward so the shades dropped back on to his nose and was away like the favourite at Harringay.
‘C’est magnifique
, baybee,’ he said. ‘Might be going to Marbella, get away from the weather.’

I felt like telling him he might be slightly warmer if he dressed for a British December rather than a Hawaiian June, but what the hell?

‘Nice,’ said Fiona.

‘Yeah, I’ve been offered a residency at a big nightclub over there. One and a half K a week and all the puss I can handle.’ Which from where I sat was precisely zip, but maybe I was jealous, just like Phil.

‘Fuck off, Johnny,’ said Fiona, bringing a welcome air of reality to the proceedings. ‘You don’t have to impress me, we’re not at Stringfellow’s now. I get that sort of bullshit all day at work. Lighten up and get some drinks in.’

Johnny pushed his Ray-Bans up over his forehead again and grinned. He held up his hands. ‘I give in,’ he said. ‘You always could see through the old bollocks.’ He turned to me. ‘Don’t let her go, Nick. She’s as good as gold. Better than gold, in fact. What are you drinking?’

‘I’ll have a pint.’

‘Cold Becks,’ said Fiona.

Johnny was passing the order over to the bar when the front door swung open again. A swarthy-looking geezer in a long tweed overcoat over jeans tucked into polished riding boots crept through the doorway carrying a cardboard box under his arm. He had a mass of thick curly hair that he pushed back from his face as he sized up the crowd. He saw Johnny and made for him like he was on a piece of elastic.

‘Fran-ches-co,’ screamed Johnny, going straight back to being a jerk again.

‘Hello, John,’ the swarthy geezer said.

‘My man,’ said Johnny. ‘Meet some friends. Francis, this is Fiona and Nick. Fiona and Nick this is Francis.’

There was no way you could fault the guy for manners.

‘Call me Frank,’ said the swarthy geezer.

‘Hello, Frank,’ I said.

‘Frank,’ echoed Fiona.

Our drinks arrived over the bar. Frank looked thirsty but no one offered to buy him a drink. He kept looking at me and I toasted him with my glass. It wasn’t my round. He looked harder and when he spoke I knew it wasn’t a drink he was after, not from me at any rate.

‘You Babylon?’ he demanded in pure Kingston, JA.

Shit, I thought, another half lemonade giving me fucking grief.

‘Fuck off,’ I said. ‘Do I look like bleeding Babylon?’

‘Yes.’

‘Private,’ I said. ‘And I’m on my holidays, so relax. I ain’t going to nick you.’

Frank still looked unhappy.

Johnny cut in, ‘He’s all right, Francis. A diamond. He’s with Fiona.’

Frank seemed happy with the explanation. ‘Want to buy some gear then?’ he asked.

‘What you got?’ asked Johnny.

‘A new steam iron and six Filofaxes, great for presents.’

‘How much?’ asked Johnny.

Frank pretended to do some mental sums, although I knew he had the price fixed before he’d lifted the stuff. ‘Fifteen for the iron and a tenner each for the Filofaxes. There’s more than a tenner’s worth of filling in each one.’

Johnny shook his head sadly. ‘No chance.’

‘Oh, come on,’ said Frank.

Johnny dug in the box. ‘Take forty?’ he asked.

Frank sighed deeply. ‘Give us a break,’ he said. ‘Fifty, the lot.’

Johnny rotated his head like a turtle. ‘All right, you got it.’ He pulled out a roll of cash and peeled off five tens. Frank’s hand ate the money like a snake swallowing a small mouse.

Mickey Lipman slid from his perch on the bar stool and on to the floor. He must have stood at least four feet nine. I swear he was taller sitting down. He pushed through the crowd. ‘Hello, my loves,’ he said. ‘Hello, Frank.’