The smoke, p.30
The Smoke, page 30
“Yeah, I remember Harry Vickers and his dad very well. Luvvly folks they were, but now all dead and gone, God rest ‘em. And now poor old Vi, too. Nasty way to go. Anyway, it got us both to thinking, Jethro, about why Chalkie should have got so steamed up about you and yours. It had to be something personal, so you must’ve put his nose out of joint somehow. Turning down a special job close to his heart or something, probably. Or perhaps Chalkie just thought himself sly enough to be able to lay one of his nasty little fiddles at your door, so you’d end up carrying the can if Messima ever sussed him. Who knows? Another drink?”
“No, thanks, Jack.”
“The thing is, Jethro, it always pays for us to know what’s going on in the Smoke; all the ins and outs and whats and whens. And what Messima does with you is your business, Jethro, but what you do to mess him up is definitely ours and we thought you should know that. Thing is, you see, we can’t stand the bleeder. Isn’t that right, Billy?”
“Certainly is, Jack. He’s a ponce. Don’t like ponces.”
“There you have it, Jethro. Messima’s a ponce on a grand scale. And apart from that, he’s got too many bloody foreigners running things for our liking. Those Malts don’t even think of themselves as being British, they call themselves Europeans, whatever the soddin’ hell that’s supposed to mean. What’s more, they don’t even run the spielers or the drinking clubs properly. There’s a lot more money to be made from punters pulling their wallets out their pockets for a whole night’s drinking and gambling than there is from them just pulling their willies out their trousers for a quick one.”
He cleared his throat; I think he was coming to a point.
“There’s very serious money to be made in Soho, if everything was to be run right. As it is, Messima’s boys lay it on thick and fast with anybody that shows his face. It’s getting so bad, you can’t go down Soho for a quiet night out without going mob-handed.”
He cleared his throat again and took another swig of lemonade. If his throat was drying out that quickly, I knew he had to be sore about something. I only hoped it wasn’t me he was mad at and I cleared my own throat to show him I was still listening.
“Soho needs controlling and it needs controlling properly. It’s far too big for one mob to have to itself and there’s just too much fuss and bother with Messima running the show. Shooters are bad enough, but striping tarts’ faces and then throwing them out of the bleedin’ window for not working hard enough is bad for everybody. The coppers down Savile Row have got to go stomping about like elephants then, so they can say in the linens that they’re doing their job and cleaning things up. And no one can make a decent living with all that going on day in, day out, not us, not them, not nobody. Isn’t that right, Billy?”
“Certainly is, Jack. Soho needs a good cleaning.”
“What we’re saying, Jethro, is Messima will get his dose of worm powder soon enough and when we’re good and ready, we’ll be the ones that’ll give it to him. But until the proper time comes for us to fix him, what we wanted to say was, whatever you do to fuck him up has our full blessing and we just thought you should know that, didn’t we, Billy?”
“Certainly did, Jack. Our full blessing.”
“Anyway, Jethro, we just wanted to drop that in your ear ourselves, just in case you might’ve worried about it unnecessarily. Oh, yes, and there’s this.”
He reached inside his beautifully tailored overcoat, the rustle of his silk neck-scarf sounding as loud as a crackle from a radio set. And, as if on cue, Billy Hill did the same. I swallowed hard; it could’ve signalled anything. Then both of them pulled out fat brown paper envelopes.
“We had a collection for Vi’s little girl. What’s her name, Billy?”
“Rosie, little Rosie Vickers.”
“Yes, that’s it, Rosie. So, you’ll find a monkey in there for her, we thought it might help the little girl more than a teddy bear.” He chuckled, took Billy Hill’s envelope as well as his own, and dropped them both into the carrier-bag.
“Truth is, Jethro, no one round the Smoke likes Messima that much, and that goes double for that flash bastard, Smythe-White, but Billy and me being betting men, we’re betting we won’t be seeing much of Chalkie anymore. Not unless we got our buckets and spades out and drove over to Hackney Marshes and started digging around, that is.” He made a noise at the back of his throat that might’ve been him chuckling. “Anyway, from what we heard, Messima himself went and had Chalkie rubbed out. There was even a whisper that some young tearaway who fancied himself as a bit of a cat burglar got buried right alongside him. Though what the silly sod was doing getting mixed up with the likes of Chalkie White, God only knows. Pity really, the kid had a lot of promise otherwise and he’d been coming along very nicely. It’s all just a rumor, mind you. And the funny thing is, Jethro, given all the circumstances and knowing you as I do, it could so easily have been you that done for them both. Isn’t that right, Billy?”
“Certainly could look that way, Jack.”
“Anyway, let it rest. Though, come to think of it, there is one other little thing we’ve both been thinking about…”
So, Chalkie had been rubbed out and some young tearaway with him. Whether the kid had been the one that’d thrown the acid or driven the car didn’t matter much, anymore. They’d both gone to meet their maker in exactly the way I’d planned for it to happen. Funny that. God certainly did move in mysterious ways when he put his mind to it. I felt my spirits begin to lift and then I heard someone clearing their throat to try and attract my attention.
“Er…um, what’s that, Jack?” I thought I should say something so as to prove I’d been listening all along.
“Ta. I thought I’d lost you there for a minute. So tell me, sunshine, just how long is it going to be before you ring down the curtain on this theatre lark and get back into the game, proper like?”
“I’m out of it for good now, Jack.” I turned to look at the other face still hidden in shadow. “That’s the God’s honest truth, that is, Billy. That’s what I told Chalkie. That’s what I told Messima. That’s even what I told that bastard, DCI Browno of the Sweeney, when he pulled me over the coals recently in the No-Name Club.”
“Yeah, we heard he’d paid you a visit.”
I looked at them, my face a mask of sincerity. “The war really finished it for me, it did, and I’ve gone straight ever since.”
Billy Hill snorted at that. Jack merely chuckled. “Of course you have, Jethro. Of course you have. So I’m sure the fancy foreign git that’s put up a ton of money to get his jewels back, along with the name of whichever was tealeaf concerned, has nothing whatsoever to do with you either?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jack.”
“Funny, that’s exactly what Eddie Chapman and Don Machin said when we asked them, but whatever Mr. Messima or Mr. Browno and his fearsome Flying Squad choose to believe, we’re not them and we know better. And so do you. We’re all Londoners, born and bred, Jethro, and none of us has ever had any choice but to use all our wits to survive. And that just doesn’t ever wash out. Not once the Smoke gets in your lungs, it doesn’t, there’s never any getting rid of it. It’s like the lettering in a stick of Brighton rock; it goes from end to end, and all the way through, all throughout your life. Isn’t that right, Billy?”
“Certainly is, Jack, all the way through.”
“We’ll take your word for now, Jethro, because it’s Christmas and we’re both in a good mood. But we also know that if sometime in the future we had a special creeping job that needed doing properly, well, you’d make an exception for us, wouldn’t you, now? As, from what we’ve heard, that sort of arrangement is right up your street.”
I wasn’t expected to answer; it was a statement of fact. However did they get to hear so much? They had bigger ears than Browno, and if you ask me, they must’ve been paying straighteners in every police station from Leytonstone to Ealing Broadway. Or perhaps they were just pulling my chain to test the waters. I couldn’t know for sure, so I just continued to deny everything. It was much the safer course.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jack.”
“Of course you don’t, Jethro, of course you fucking don’t. Can we drop you somewhere?”
As if by chance, we’d arrived back outside the Duke of York pub. They let me out.
“Nice seeing you, Jethro. Wish your sister Joanie and her old man Barry a merry Christmas from me, will you?”
“Of course, Jack. And a merry Christmas to you, too.” I was nodding my head up and down like a nun with a collection plate. “And a merry Christmas to you and all, Billy. See you… er… um… both around sometime.”
“Not if we see you first, Jethro. Not if we see you first.”
I got out, clutching my carrier-bag, and blinked the snowflakes from off my eyelids. The cold didn’t hit me too badly, I was already shivering like mad anyway, and all I heard as the car door closed behind me was the sound of the two of them laughing their heads off. The big motor gunned into life and sped away up Church Street. “The bleeders could’ve dropped me off a little closer to home,” I said to the street-lamp. Then I thought better of it. They could’ve done much worse; they could’ve dropped me for good and forever. At least I was still in one piece, so maybe it was going to turn out to be a merry Christmas after all.
It’s amazing how your spirits can lift when you least expect them to, like the moment you realise a double-decker bus has just whistled past and missed you by inches. It sort of gives you a whole new outlook on life. I picked up my pace and trudged back towards the Victory. Along the way, I think I might’ve even started whistling a Christmas carol or something.
***
I shook out Barry’s overcoat, hung it up, and went into the kitchen. “It’s more than a bit nippy out there,” I said, shivering. “It’s friggin’ freezing. I swear my nose is so raw, I could double as Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer in a kids’ panto.”
“What the bleedin’ hell happened to you, then? You stay for another knees-up or something?”
“Not without you, Bubs, it wouldn’t be no fun, otherwise.”
I turned to the bulging carrier-bag standing on the kitchen table, picked one of the newspaper packages out without looking, and unwrapped it to reveal a bottle of Johnny Walker. Lucky guess. “Here, Bubs, break the seal on that, will you, while I go get us some clean glasses?”
“Lovely stuff,” he said. “I thought for a moment you’d gone and got fish and chips instead. Can’t smell a thing with this cold.”
“No, of course you can’t.” I smiled and played along with his little white lie. “I did the business with Reg, but then got taken for a bit of a ride. Funny thing was, for a few awful moments, I thought I’d really had my chips, too.”
“Reg don’t have the bottle to put one over on you, Jeffro.”
“No, Bubs, it wasn’t him, it was Jack Spot and Billy Hill.”
He looked me up and down. “Blimey. Royalty. That’s a turn-up for the books. You alright, are you?” he said, sounding more than a bit worried.
“Yeah, they said they just wanted a quiet word or two in my ear.”
Barry looked at me from over his glasses. “If that’s all they wanted, then you just be thankful for small mercies, my old son. The thought of dealing with either Spottsy or Billy Hill is enough to get most people’s knickers in a right old twist. Gawd, the two of them together could put nutcrackers out of business.”
I poured two very generous glasses. We nodded and both said, “Cheers.”
“Well, I tell you, Bubs, between the two of them, they’ve already squeezed out five hundred quid or more from somewhere, all in used ones and fivers, and all for little Rosie Vickers. It’s all there in the carrier-bag with the bottles and things. They’d heard about Chalkie, Vi, everything. Oh, and talking of the devil, Spottsy told me that Messima has finally done for Chalkie, and that our Mr. Smythe-White is now resting in pieces in Hackney Marshes somewhere, which is dead funny when you think about it, because that’s where we were going to bury the bastard.”
Barry sighed a long, drawn-out sigh, sniffed and nodded, sniffed some more, then seemed to put the whole sorry mess behind him. I looked at him and wished I could be like that. He raised his glass. “Cheers to that, then. And may the bastard rot in hell.”
“He very probably will, too, but I’ll tell you something else. Just as they let me out of the motor, Spottsy wished you and Joanie a very merry Christmas.”
“Bleedin’ hell, that’s like having your name in the linens. I think I’ll have one of them fags now, Jeffro, if you don’t mind, it’s made me come over all funny.”
“Help yourself,” I said, “I could do murder for an Harry Rag myself, where are they?”
He looked at me over his glasses again, like a schoolteacher. “I thought you were going to bring some back, so I had the last two while you were gone. I don’t know; send a boy to do a man’s job.”
“And you can pack that in right now, you cheeky sod,” I said. I patted my pockets and felt behind each ear. “I’m right out, Bubs. I had my last fag coming out the pub. So, there’s nothing for it, I’ll have to go out into the bleedin’ cold again.” I looked at him, sitting all nice and cozy in his armchair. “I tell you, it’s all right for some.”
“No,” he said, making as if to get up, “I’ll go, Jeffro, you’ve only just got back in.”
“Yes, and you with a cold, and in your slippers and cardigan, Joanie would play merry hell with me if I let you catch your death. No, I’ll go, Bubs, it’ll be quicker. I wouldn’t even think of waiting around for a taxi driver in this weather, anyway.”
“Gertcher, yer bugger.”
“Yes,” I said. “And a merry Christmas to you and all.”
I ignored all the voices in the pub yelling “It’s that man again,” and “Can I do yer now, sir?” All the old lines from everyone’s favourite radio show, ITMA. I also turned a deaf ear to the muttered, “Didn’t think it was like you to pass up a drink, Jeffro,” and pushed through to the bar. Reg was wiping a glass with a clean bar-towel, which was a sure sign he was celebrating something. It might’ve even been Christmas. He looked nervous when he saw me, probably thinking I’d had second thoughts about how much he’d charged me for all the booze. He nodded his head sideways and we found ourselves a quiet spot at the far end of the bar.
“Two packets of twenty please, Reg. Twenty Senior Service, and twenty Navy Cut. Only, I forgot them before.” He nodded with his eyes and reached down under the bar. Then covering them with his hand, like a nervous card dealer, he slid them across the counter top to me.
“Right you are, then, Jethro. Only, for one minute, I thought that perhaps you’d come back to… er… um…” He raised his eyebrows, as if he wasn’t really sure whether he was going to be given some extra food coupons or a poke in the eye with a blunt stick, but I just smiled my best Cheshire-cat smile and gave him the bent eye instead.
“That’s alright, Reg,” I said, pocketing the fags, “that’s alright. Just put it all on the slate again, why don’t you. Good night.”
He nodded, and I was outside and cutting a swath up the street before you could’ve whispered the words ‘Sweeney Todd.’ And as I felt the snowflakes swirling around my collar once again, I said to myself, “I’ve been here before.” I knew there was a word for when you got a funny feeling like that, but for the life of me I couldn’t think what it was. It’s odd the way your memory plays tricks sometimes. I shrugged and put the tickle on the back of my neck down to the empty street.
Church Street’s different when it’s not bursting to the brim with people. At night, when it’s deserted, it can feel like a dog with its fur shaved off. And that’s what it felt like that night; the street didn’t quite know where to put itself, and in the gathering gloom the soiled white carpet under my feet only added to my growing sense of unease.
I felt for the Zippo in my pocket and was just thinking about lighting up, when I heard the swish of motorcar tyres slowly wheeling their way through the slush and the muck of Church Street. And as the big black sedan whispered up beside me, I wondered what on earth it was that the likely lads had forgotten to tell me. Only this time, the motor drove on a little way ahead and I think I blinked in surprise as its big, red brake-lights went on just as the rear passenger door swung open. I remember noticing that the courtesy light in the back of the car had also come on, just as someone came up behind me and knocked me right into the middle of next week.
All that bunny about you seeing stars isn’t true— when I was bonked on the head, all the lights upstairs went out immediately and I dropped straight down into a coal-hole blacker than the black hole of Calcutta. And then a whole lorry-load of coal sacks got dropped on me from above and I was pushed down deeper and deeper into a bottomless pit that was already full to the brim with nothing but blackness.
29
“YOUR GOOSE IS COOKED, SIR”
I was sitting in a straight-backed chair, trussed up like a bloody Christmas turkey. They’d blindfolded and gagged me, but I was still alive, so I suppose that counted for something. Tilting my head back, I took a peek under the bottom of the blindfold and saw they’d tied me to the chair with electrical flex that they’d then wound round and around me like I was a friggin’ bollard or something. Fucking hell, I thought, this is a bit serious. I tried to wriggle, but it was of no use, I couldn’t move an inch. I took it to mean I wasn’t supposed to be going anywhere soon.
