The Ladykiller (69 page)

‘What happened? Was it an illness, what?’

He took the proffered cigarette and pulled on it deeply, his eyes travelling around the large room without seeing anything. He had been dealing with Patrick Kelly for over fifteen years. Although the two men had met face to face only twice, they had built up a mutual respect and friendship over the long-distance telephone line.

Shaun O’Grady was an American version of Patrick Kelly. Except Shaun O’Grady had branched out into other areas that Kelly knew about only through word of mouth. One of which was a service providing professional hits.

As Kelly spoke, the woman watched O’Grady’s face. Sighing heavily, she pulled on a negligee and left the room. She switched on the thirty-six-inch television in the bedroom and, sprawling on the bed, began watching
I Love Lucy
.

She knew Shaun well and when his face had that look, it was best to keep out of his way.

‘Pat, Pat, I’m heart sore for you.’ O’Grady thought of his own three daughters ensconced in a large house in Palm Springs with his ex-wife. He might not spend much time with them, he was a busy man, but they were his children, his flesh and blood. He felt a moment’s guilt as he recalled he hadn’t seen any of them since the Christmas holidays.

‘What can I do to help you? You name it.’

‘Our man is at this moment in Florida. That’s why I’ve called you, Shaun. I want him removed from the earth. I want him dead.’

‘It’s as good as done, Pat. Give me the details and I’ll see to it at once.’

‘I’ll send the money within a few days . . .’

‘There’s no need for money.’

‘Fair dos, Shaun, I’ll pay. I’ll ring through the details in a couple of hours.’

If it was one of his daughters . . . O’Grady closed his eyes. It did not bear thinking about. He began to jot down Edith’s address and after a short exchange both men rang off.

O’Grady sat on his white leather Italian settee and stared at the Salvador Dali on his wall. He was fifty-eight, with a bald head, long baggy jowels and a large belly that nothing would get rid of. He had short stubby legs and arms.

He caught his reflection in the mirror and wiped his hand across the stubble on his jaw.

He thought of his ex-wife’s house, with its comfortable battered furniture and his three young daughters. He heard Lucille Ball’s voice coming from the bedroom and winced.

He had exchanged all that for a bimbo and a two million dollar bachelor pad.

The joke was that Noreen, his ex-wife, had never tried to stop his affairs, so why the hell had he dumped her?

He picked up the telephone again and dialled her number.

The phone was answered by his youngest daughter, Rosaleen.

‘Hello, Daddy!’ He heard her put the phone on the table with a clunk and call to her mother.

‘Mommy, Mommy, Daddy’s on the phone!’

O’Grady tried to ignore the sound of surprise in the child’s voice.

Noreen’s gently New England twang came on the line. Noreen had class, he admitted that to himself. He should never have divorced her.

‘Hello, Shaun, this is a surprise.’

As he began to answer, the woman came out of the bedroom. She still had on the negligee and her impossibly long brown legs were visible through it. She pushed back thick black hair and lit a cigarette with natural grace.

O’Grady watched her, fascinated, then spoke into the phone. ‘I’m coming up at the weekend to see the children. OK?’

‘Fine. Let me know when you’ll be picking them up and I’ll make sure they’re ready. They do miss you, you know.’

‘I’ll call back with the details, Noreen.’

‘Fine.’

She put the phone down.

He immediately began dialling again, his eyes on the woman’s buttocks, shimmering beneath the thin silk. He smiled at her and she half smiled back, retreating once more into the bedroom.

‘Hello, Duane? Get yourself over here now, I have a job for you.’

He put down the phone and stubbed out his cigarette. He could hear Ricky Ricardo’s laugh and guessed that the programme was coming to an end.

Tasha loved the old programmes:
I Love Lucy
,
The Three Stooges
. He had bought her the Marx Brothers collection. She was twenty-five.

How old was Noreen now? Thirty-eight? Thirty-nine?

He would see more of the girls, he was determined on that. Christ, what Pat had told him made you think! Who said the screwballs were only in America.

George was the centre of attention and loving every second of it. Edith looked fantastic and he couldn’t take his eyes off her. Her hair was perfectly coiffeured. He knew it must be dyed, but it was dyed a natural colour and it suited her. She did not look like a woman in her fifties. Joss, on the other hand, looked every bit of his sixty-five years. His face was deep brown and leathery. Both of them had American twangs which George found exciting and attractive.

Edith was talking nineteen to the dozen.

‘I’ve been in touch with the children and they’re both coming tomorrow. Joss Junior, as we call him, is flying from Denver - that’s in Colorado. He works for a big drug company. And Natalie is driving up from Miami, she works for a cosmetics company there. She’s a buyer, you know. Wait until you see them, George. They’re beautiful.’

‘I wish Elaine and I had been blessed with children, but after the boy died . . .’ His voice trailed off and Edith looked at him with ready tears gathering in her eyes.

How could Elaine have left him? After all this time too. The woman was a heartless bitch and if she ever saw her again, which she admitted was unlikely, she would say so to her face. Poor George. He had no luck with women. First their tramp of a mother and now Elaine. She pursed her perfectly painted coral lips.

Joss’s loud, booming voice broke into her thoughts. ‘How about we take Georgie here into Orlando for a slap-up meal? We could go to the Mercado on International Drive.’

Edith smiled widely, displaying all her expensive dentistry. ‘Oh, let’s. George, they have thirty-two ounce steaks there.’

George was worried. ‘I don’t think I could eat all that, Edith.’

‘You old silly, we share it! Come on, let’s get ready.’

In the back of her mind, she hoped George had a decent suit with him. He looked so damned touristy.

Still, she reasoned, it was lovely to see him. She fought down the impulse to squeeze him to her again. She was so damned pleased to see him, she could take a big bite out of him. Instead she put her arm around him and kissed him lightly on the cheek.

‘It sure is good to see you, George. So good.’

‘And you, Edith, my dear. It’s been far too long.’

She accompanied him to the spacious guest room. She was amazed that her brother, whom she had honestly thought she would never see again, was actually in her home. Her beautiful home that she hoped he told their mother all about when he went back. That would be one in the eye for the old bitch!

‘How’s Mother, George?’ She sat on his bed, her face troubled now. Every time she thought of her mother, she thought of the child.

George sat beside her and took her hand. ‘The same as always, Edith. Spiteful, nasty. She hasn’t changed.’

‘I bet.’ Her voice was vehement. ‘Does she know about Elaine? Leaving you, I mean?’

George shook his head vigorously. ‘No. I was going to tell her, I visited her just before I flew out here, but we got into a bit of an argument.’

Edith’s eyebrows arched.

‘Don’t you mean she argued with you?’ The playfulness was back now.

George grinned. ‘No. Actually, I told her what I thought of her. I only wish I hadn’t left it so long.’ He rubbed a hand over his eyes. ‘Edith, did you know that mother . . . was . . . well, a good-time girl?’ He found it difficult to form the words. He found it even more difficult to understand Edith’s laughter.

‘What’s so funny?’ He was getting annoyed now.

‘Oh, George, you always were the eternal innocent. I sometimes think that’s why she picked on you so much. Don’t you remember all the men she used to have around? Remember her fights with them and her drunken ramblings?’

‘Of course I do, but I never thought she was . . . well, charging them.’

Edith sighed.

‘You get changed, George, and we’ll go out and have a big juicy steak and a really good time. Mother’s thousands of miles away. She couldn’t harm us now, even if she wanted to.’

George smiled his assent, but inside his head a little voice said: ‘Can’t she?’ He would have been surprised to know that Edith was thinking exactly the same thing.

Alone in his room, he looked around at the blues and greens of the furnishings. On the hardwood floor, Indian rugs were placed at strategic points and the cover on the bed matched them perfectly. It really was a lovely room and a far cry from the house they had been brought up in.

He opened the wardrobe door and was surprised to find a bathroom in there. He filled the bath and poured in some bath salts he found on the window sill.

He was in America, in Florida with his Edith, Mother was not going to spoil it. He sank back in the water and let his mind wander on to other, more relaxing things.

Edith, more disturbed than she cared to admit, went to her own room and, opening her wardrobe, took down from the top shelf a little box. Placing it on her large oval bed, she opened it and took out the old black and white pictures.

There was George, in his short trousers and long grey school socks. There was Joseph and herself. She peered at each picture for a long while. In each and every photo, not one of the children was smiling.

Patrick was ecstatic. He had George Markham! He was disappointed that he could not put the man away himself, but he accepted that. He was grateful that he had done something. It was the frustration of knowing the man was somewhere safe, laughing up his sleeve, that had really got to him.

Now, though, he had him. Shaun O’Grady was going to see that he was no more. Just thinking about it gave Patrick a thrill.

If Kate knew what he had arranged today . . . He closed his eyes. Kate was good. Kate was everything that was right and decent and he loved her for those very qualities. Until they intruded on his concerns, that is.

He knew that if she had even an inkling that he knew the Grantley Ripper’s name and whereabouts, she would create havoc. She wanted to bring the man to justice. Her justice.

Well, the man was getting Patrick’s kind of justice and it had a much sweeter taste to it so far as he was concerned.

He clenched his fists. George Markham would soon be dead.

Dead, dead, dead!

He looked at Mandy’s photograph on the mantelpiece and his face sobered. What he wouldn’t give to have her back. Sometimes, late at night, when the house was quiet, he imagined he heard her voice.

He awoke, covered in sweat, hearing her crying. Calling out for him in distress. He would put his hands over his ears to blot out the noise.

It was then he imagined her terror.

The acute fear that must have enveloped her as the man began to pound her face with his fists. The thought of her lying there, on that dirty floor, while the bastard raped her . . .

He could still see her face, battered beyond recognition, as she lay in the hospital. He still heard the low buzz of the life support machine as it failed in its job. Saw her bruised body as it jerked with the electric shocks they’d used to try to resuscitate her heart.

Oh, George Markham had a big payout coming to him.

The telephone rang and he jumped.

‘Hello?’

‘Hello, Pat? It’s me, Jerry. The fight’s at the old hat factory near the Roman Road. I’ve faxed the directions through to you, OK? It’s a nine thirty start.’

Patrick closed his eyes, he had forgotten about the fight.

‘Look, Jerry, I might not be able to make it. I’ve got a lot on here.’

‘Okey doke. It’s gonna be a good one though. If I see you, I see you then. Ta rah.’

He replaced the receiver and sighed. He had been looking forward to the fight. He liked illegal boxing matches. It was like the old-style bare knuckle fighting of years ago. No one knew where the matches were to be held until a couple of hours in advance. That way the Old Bill, by the time they did find out where the venue was, were too late to do anything about it. The crowd and the fighters were long gone.

Patrick poured himself another generous measure of whisky and glanced at his watch. He wished O’Grady would ring with the details so he could really relax. He took a large sip of his drink.

A little while later the phone rang again and Kelly picked it up. He was gratified to hear the distant whirring and clicking of a long-distance call.

‘Hi, Pat. Can you hear me OK?’

‘I can hear you, clear as a bell.’

‘It’s arranged. Your man will be out of the way in the next three days. It’ll cost fifty thou - dollars that is. I have one of my best men working on it. He’s already setting it all up.’

‘I’ll have the money with you in twenty-four hours. Thanks, Shaun, I won’t forget what you’ve done for me.’

‘Hey, what are friends for? I’ll keep you posted, OK? You just try and get over your loss, Pat. I’ll sort out everything this end.’

‘Thanks, Shaun. ’Bye.’

‘No problem. Talk to you soon.’

The line was dead.

He had George’s address and now he knew when he was to die. Patrick smiled to himself. It wasn’t too late to go to the boxing match after all. Might take his mind off everything for a while.