--
At the Elephant I tell Con to stop the car and I cross the road to a telephone box and try to get Gerald and Les to tell them about Finbow but they’re still out with the Americans. The Americans. I smile to myself. The junket boys. The jet-set setup. Gerald and Les in the big international league. But there’ll only be one set of winners, and it’s no use me trying to tell Gerald and Les who that’s going to be. And at a time like this they’re out entertaining the people who are going to take them. I haven’t time to ring round all the places they might be at so I get back in the car and Con drives on to the place where we’re going to find Charlie Abbott.
From the outside, the Premier Social and Sporting Club looks like a Temperance billiard hall. Inside it’s not much different either except that if you pass Storey the manager a quid on top of the price of a bottle he’ll provide you with whatever you feel like drinking and maybe even polish the glasses. The only other catering is hot bacon sandwiches and cups of tea and all packs of cards for the games are dispensed at the counter. The only lighting in the hall apart from the rectangles above the billiard tables comes from behind the counter, illuminating the chocolate bars and the cellophane of the cigarette packets beneath the dirty glass of the display cases. Where the billiard tables end, in the gloom at the far end of the hall, there are two double doors inset with small panes of frosted glass. Behind these doors is where the card games take place. There are several tables, none of them genuine card tables, just an assortment of the kind of cheap stuff you’d find in any living room, all arranged at random with no table better placed than another, but on any given night the centre table could be carrying a solo school at a shilling a call and the table near the tiled fireplace could be carrying a game of brag that would buy you a new Mercedes if you had the nerve to sit down to it. The two double doors are usually only open towards the beginning of an evening. The closing of the doors has nothing to do with a fear of the filth turning up and sorting everybody; often one of the filth would be involved in a game. It is just that some of the players in the higher games prefer to know by the rattling of the doors that someone is just about to enter so that if that someone were to be a body they could do without seeing they can prepare themselves for that kind of eventuality. And tonight, because of the lateness of the hour, the doors are closed and only slight movements of frosted shadows suggest that the cardroom is in use.
As for the rest of the place, it isn’t exactly full of riveting action. Only two of the tables are occupied. On one of the tables a couple of old-timers are using the cues until the place closes up and they have to find somewhere else to keep warm. At the other table a four-hander is in progress, and although the Premier is an all-male establishment two of the players are girls who could be any age from sixteen to twenty-five. The only reason they’re being allowed to grace the dusty gloom of the Premier is because one of the men they’re with is a famous face, Ronnie Grafton, last year’s leading goal-scorer in the league. But that was last year. Under the snooker lights his baby face looks a little puffier than in the papers when he’s featuring in the latest in evening dress, his belly looks a bit looser, his hair is not its usually beautifully barbered self. Nor, as he stretches himself to try a shot he’s never going to get, is his expression as open and angelic as it is when he races back to the centre line after scoring. Perhaps that’s because he hasn’t done so much scoring this season. Perhaps because the rumour is that he’ll be on a free transfer to Millwall if he doesn’t cut out everything except what he’s supposed to do on the field. He makes the shot and he misses. His male opponent, a well-groomed hanger-on, tells Ronnie what bad luck it was and the two girls agree that it really was hard luck.
As Con and I approach the counter Con says, “He can’t even do it with a stick now.”
Storey is leaning on the counter, chin in hands, watching the game with the same kind of interest he’d watch an empty table. He doesn’t look at us but when we get to the counter he says, “What do you two want?”
“A cup of tea and a waddy,” I tell him.
“Nothing else?”
“What else is there?”
“Only last time you showed your faces in here I finished up with a broken cue and Michael Coughlan finished up with three broken fingers.”
“I offered to pay for the tape.”
“Tape didn’t help the cue.”
“Well, the thing was, it was one of your bent ones and Michael very kindly suggested I tried to straighten it on his fingers.”
Storey calls to his wife to get us two bacon sandwiches and two cups of tea and then he says, “I thought he’d be enough for one night.” He nods in Ronnie Grafton’s direction, who’s pouring a large Scotch into a glass balancing on the edge of the snooker table. Judging by the sweat on his forehead he doesn’t exactly need another large one. “Now I get you two. Who are you looking for?”
I shake my head. “Snooker. We just felt like a game of snooker and a bacon sandwich.”
Storey lifts himself off the counter and opens the flap. “In that case I’ll rack them up for you. Just to make sure.”
Storey strolls over to one of the tables and slides the triangle around on the baize. Con and I lean against the counter and watch Ronnie Grafton’s game. It’s the turn of the girl he’s playing with to make her shot.
She’s got a red on the edge of a pocket with the cue ball a couple of inches away from it and on the edge of the opposite pocket there is the black to follow. She is facing away from us and when she leans over the table her skirt rides up and Con and I are given a treat. Grafton sees what we’re seeing and doesn’t like the fact that we don’t look away when he turns his gaze on us. The girl makes her shot and all she manages to do is move the red to the opposite side of the pocket.
“Jesus Christ,” Grafton says. “I don’t fucking believe it.”
The girl straightens up and begins to apologise but Grafton cuts in on her and says, “You’re bleeding useless, aren’t you? Pigging useless. Nobody but you could miss a shot like that.”
“I don’t know,” Con says to me, but loud enough for Grafton to hear. “I thought it was rather a nice angle myself.”
“Yes,” I say. “And she must be fond of Ronnie, too. She even wears his colours.”
Grafton puts his cue down on the table and walks over to us.
“All right,” he says. “Who are you two?”
“Scouts for Millwall,” I tell him. “We need a new ball boy. Interested?”
Grafton smiles. “Oh yeah,” he says. “A couple of those. Wherever I go, there’s always a couple of those. Can’t fucking stand it, can you, you being you and me being me.”
“Who is he, Con?” I say.
Con shakes his head.
“You can’t stand it, can you? Can’t stand the money I make or the birds I pull.”
“I could stand her anytime,” Con says.
“Well, I’ll tell you,” Grafton says. “I don’t like chancers looking up my girlfriend’s drawers, right?”
“Then tell her to wear longer skirts or give up snooker,” I say.
“And I don’t like clever cunts, either,” Grafton says.
“Ronnie,” says Storey, beginning to drift away from the snooker table in Grafton’s direction.
“And I’m going to show you how much I don’t like
chancers looking up my girlfriend’s drawers.”
“Ronnie,” Storey says again.
“Shut your face.”
“Ronnie, this is Jack Carter and Con McCarty and they work for Gerald and Les.”
The remark manages to stop Grafton swaying for a second or two. He looks at us both, looking properly now, checking the way we look against what Storey’s just said. It doesn’t take him long. And now he begins to ask himself how he’s going to be able to back down after styling himself so brave.
“Go back to the game, Ronnie,” Storey says. “You’ve got some points to catch up.”
There’s really nothing else for him to do. He tries out his hardest look on us but he’s still got to turn away and when he gets back to his table he starts on his mate by asking him what’s he waiting for and why hasn’t he started his shot yet. Storey goes back behind the counter and Storey’s old lady arrives with the tea and the waddies.
“He ought to be grateful to you,” Con says.
“I’m not doing him any favours,” Storey says. “I’ve got a bet on Saturday’s match.”
I take a bite of my bacon waddy.
“Decent game in there tonight, is there?” I ask Storey.
Storey takes a packet of Weights from his cardigan pocket and sticks one in his mouth and says, “There’s a couple of games. Depends what you call decent.”
“Depends on who’s playing. A game’s only as good as the players.”
“And the next question is who’s playing in them,” Storey says. “Jesus, Jack, you think I’m fucking barmy?”
“Listen, I’ve told you. Like I tell everybody. It’s worth a trip down here just for the bacon waddies. Best bacon waddies in London, these are.”
Storey lights his cigarette and shrugs.
“I’m past caring,” he says. “I really am. If there’s going to be trouble there’s going to be trouble. There’s sweet fuck all I can do about it.”
“There’ll be no trouble, Mr. Storey,” Con says. “On that you have my word as a good Catholic.”
I finish my sandwich and pick up my cup and saucer.
“I think I’ll stroll through and have a little look,” I say to Con. “You follow me through in a minute.”
Carrying my cup and saucer, I walk over to the double doors and open one of them and slide through and close the door behind me.
There are two games in progress. The small one is Black Lady for a shilling a point and at the centre table it is three-card brag, five players, a pound a round. Sitting at this table there is Albert Hill, Donald Mouncey, George Longman, Bob Shearer and Charlie Abbott, who is the brother-in-law of Jimmy Swann. Hill and Mouncey supply Gerald and Les’s shops with material which they make themselves. I wonder if Charlie knows that his sister is one of Hill and Mouncey’s biggest stars. Probably, because if there was touchable money around Charlie would be the first to know where it lay. Hill is in his late twenties, an ex-cameraman who formed his own production company to make commercials, a perfect setup for producing the stuff that by my calculations brings them in between thirty and forty thousand a year. Mouncey is Hill’s sideman, organizing the pulling and the packaging and the delivery of the goods to Gerald and Les. Mouncey’s a couple of years older than Hill and they both think they’re smarter than they really are. They tend towards the idea that they supply the goods, so Gerald and Les need them, instead of it being the other way round. But they don’t cause any trouble and they deliver the stuff so Gerald and Les allow them their delusions, content in the knowledge that one day they’ll learn the hard way about the things they should have been bright enough to realise for themselves. The other two, Bob Shearer and George Longman, are hired hands who do this and that and sometimes they’re lucky enough to pick up a grand, top wack, and when they pick up anything in that region they’re down here to see if they can double it, but the way they play they’re lucky if they only halve it. And that leaves Charlie Abbott who greets me like he greets everybody else, as if I’m the man from the insurance company.
“Jack,” he says, “Jack Carter. Christ, it’s been months.”
The only way to describe Charlie is to say that he looks as if he ought to have been in Jimmy James’s music hall act. He’s wearing a good shirt but the collar is two sizes too big and the tie which would have fetched a price from Arthur English is knotted so that the thin end straggles down to the bottom of his fly and the fat end just about reaches the bottom end of his breast pocket. The suit is new but not good; judging the way Charlie keeps shrugging his shoulders he feels like a million dollars, a phrase that must have been current when his taste in clothes was formed. His glasses shine like an expression of his pleasure on seeing me walk into the cardroom. The remaining strands of hair on the top of his head glisten with Brylcreem under the naked light bulbs.
“Hello, Charlie,” I say, “Hello, Albert.”
Albert is pleased that I’ve singled him out to be acknowledged. He’s that kind of character, builds himself up on the names he thinks salute him, shoots the shit to the people who find those names impressive. Charlie is something else again. Whereas Albert basically realises he’s lucky to be given the nod, Charlie really believes that people are as pleased to see him as he is to see them. He’s high on the excitement of his brother-in-law’s success, exhilarated by the fact he can always put the touch on his sister, so he doesn’t have to fail at trying to draw a few bob ever again. The closest Charlie ever got to success in his own right was when he sat behind the counter in one of Gerald and Les’s shops and drew a shilling for every punter’s note he took, but even then he had a bit of bother with his accounting system and it was only because Jimmy Swann spoke up for him he avoided getting some attention from Gerald and Les. And because Jimmy’s so heavy Charlie basks in his reflected light, imagining himself to be on the same level, deluding himself that he’s respected the same way Jimmy’s respected. Or was.
“Want to come in on this one, Jack?” Charlie says. He beams round the table at the others. “That’ll be all right, won’t it, lads?”
That’s the kind of fucking stupid thing Charlie says. There would be no way it wouldn’t be all right if I wanted to sit down. The door opens and Con comes in.
“No thanks, Charlie,” I say. “Leave me out of this one.”
“Good school, Jack,” he says. “Good school. We’re all very good players here. You’d enjoy the action.” Con winces and I now know who the asthmatic was who always sat behind me at Saturday morning pictures repeating the American phrases that glided down from the screen.
I shake my head. “I’ve had enough excitement for one night, Charlie. You carry on.”
“Been on a tickle have you?” Charlie says, looking at the others again, to see if they’re admiring his familiarity, but all they do is avoid his eyes so that they can be left out of any embarrassing repercussions that might be caused by his lack of tact. I don’t answer Charlie.
Instead I take a sip of my tea and Albert says, “Come on, Charlie. Let us know what you’re doing.”
They’re playing a version of brag where you’re dealt three cards, two face up, the third blind, and gamble against what your opponents might have face down, taking into consideration of course what you already see, and not knowing what you have face down yourself. Charlie has ace and three of spades showing, Bob Shearer has ten of spades and four of hearts, Albert five of diamonds and three of hearts, George Longman jack of spades and nine of spades. Mouncey has thrown in his hand so on the showing cards Charlie has the best chance with the ace, and he could have a flush, but then Albert could have a run, George could have a run or a running flush, and all of them could have nothing like Bob with his ten and his four.
But as Charlie has the psychological ace he’s very happy with the present state of affairs so he says, “I’m carrying on bragging, Albert, that’s what I’m doing.”
He grins at me as if I’m the only one in the room who appreciates his card-playing ability and floats another pound across the table. Albert follows him and so do the other two and inside a couple of minutes the pot is twenty quid heavier. At this point, George Longman tells the table he’s going to have a look and slides his blind card to the edge of the table and flicks the card with his thumb and the card snaps back face down and George is thoughtful for a while.
“All right,” he says. “I’ll go with you.”
For the privilege of looking at his third card George now has to pay double what the blind men are paying. How long he is prepared to continue paying two to one depends on how good his hand is or how far he’s going to bluff a bad one. Personally, I think he’s bluffing because George never had a good hand in his life; a bent dealer would never have to worry about George because he just naturally attracts all the shit in creation. Why he bothers to sit down at all I’ll never know. But he carries on throwing his money in and he’s just on the point of deciding whether or not to cut his losses when his mind is made up for him by Albert having a look at his own blind card to see if it goes with the five and the three and deciding that he wants to let the others think it does by staying in.
So George says, “Fuck it, then, I’m out.”
Charlie gives a knowing smile and now the betting’s round to him.
“So,” he says to Albert, “you’re trying to tell me you’ve got three four five, are you Albert? You’re a cocky little devil, aren’t you? But I got this feeling, this little feeling, that you’re trying to bluff old Charlie out of what is due to him and what is rightfully his. So, the case being that you can’t see a blind man, I’m going to make you sweat a little bit, Albie, my little lad.” Charlie takes his wallet out, eases out some notes and slips the wallet away again.
Then with the kind of gesture that goes with a cod sleight-of-hand trick he places a fiver on the centre of the table. Albert looks at the fiver without any change of expression and thinks about it and then selects ten singles from his stack and pushes them into the middle. Charlie grins again as if he’s sussed everything out, everything’s as he reckoned it would be, and Bob throws his hand away.
“There’s bluffing and there’s bluffing,” he says, reaching for his bottle of light ale. But before he can wrap his fingers round it Con has leant forward and lifted the bottle to his lips. Bob watches Con while Con drinks but he doesn’t say anything.
Con puts the bottle back on the table and says to me, “I know it’s only Courage, but it tastes very sweet after
Maurice’s piss.”
Bob still doesn’t say anything but leaves the almost empty bottle on the spot where Con put it. In the meantime Charlie has donated another fiver to the kitty and now he sits back happy, confident that Albert’s going to stack.
But instead of stacking Albert digs into his suiting and excavates a pile more money and says, “Here you go, then, Charlie. I’m fucking barmy, as you well know, but I’m putting in forty, so it’s down to you for twenty, all right?” Charlie’s glasses shimmer a bit and he has a good old think. Is Albert or is he not conning him, Charlie’s thinking. He must be, he thinks, because Charlie hasn’t even looked at his third card yet. Yes, that’s it, Albert’s trying to buy the pot, and besides, Charlie can’t be seen to avoid a twenty-quid raise in front of Con and myself so he pushes in his corner and sits back waiting to be proved right. Albert keeps his face straight and pushes in another forty quid. This makes Charlie even more convinced that Albert’s bluffing but being the person he is Charlie just can’t bring himself to back his judgment so he drops a lot of face by picking up his third card and taking a look. It’s Albert’s turn to smile to himself but his expression is nothing to the one Charlie assumes when he sees what his third card is. He looks as though he’s just thrown away his sticks at Lourdes with the organ playing and the sun streaming through the stained-glass windows. He’s got his spade and he’s made his flush. So Charlie now has to pay the same as Albert and not only does he do it with a will, he ups it by another twenty, making his contribution sixty quid in all. Con looks at me and we don’t even have to shake our heads. For the second time Charlie sits back and waits for Albert to pay up and look sick. But Albert is looking far from sick when he separates one hundred notes from his pile and arranges them in the middle of the table. Now it’s up to Charlie to back his flush or macaroni his strides. He’s beginning to wonder whether Albert’s got the four after all. He can see Albert but if Albert’s bluffing Charlie’s going to look fucking stupid in front of us. And if Albert’s got the four he’s still going to look stupid. Either way it’s going to cost him another hundred. Two, if Albert doesn’t see him next time. Charlie ponders for a while and then he takes his wallet out again, only this time the flourish is missing. He draws out some more fivers and manages to make them add up to a hundred and puts them in the middle although Charlie’s fingers make it look as though he’s trying to take the notes out. Charlie withdraws his lingering hands and now Albert’s really got him. Albert gives Mouncey the nod and Mouncey opens up his wallet and adds a sheaf to Albert’s pile and Albert arranges the notes into a neat oblong and places it next to Charlie’s disheveled contribution.
“Two hundred,” Albert says. “Two hundred to go, Charlie.”
Bob Shearer tries to stop himself laughing and the sound comes out like a snort. Charlie looks as though somebody’s told him he forgot to post a winning coupon.
“Two hundred?” he says. “Two hundred?”
Albert nods.
“You’re not seeing me?”
Albert shakes his head.
Charlie raises his hand to wipe his lips but he’s only imagining that they’re wet. He stares at Albert’s neat pile of notes as if it’s about to jump at him.
“You can always see me, Charlie,” Albert says. Charlie manages to force a grin. He’s got to make the best of things now. He shakes his head.
“No,” he says, still managing to maintain the smile. “No, no thanks. I’m not paying you two hundred just so you can show me the four.”
“Stacking?” Albert says.
Charlie’s smile disintegrates as he nods to Albert and Albert shrugs and leans across the table and rakes in the pot. Charlie lights a cigarette and tries to show us that it wasn’t very important anyway.
“Jesus, Jack,” he says. “I really thought the bleeder was bluffing. I really didn’t think he’d got the four.”
“And did he?” I say.
Charlie stares at me and when he’s working out what I’m saying he turns his gaze on Albert. Albert grins at Charlie and picks up his cards and turns them over. Instead of three four five, it’s a pair of threes that’s staring Charlie in the face.
When Charlie gets his voice back he says, “A pair of threes? I could have beaten that. I had a hand that would have beaten that.”
Albert nods in agreement. “That’s right, Charlie. You certainly had the better hand.”
“Shame,” Bob Shearer says.
Charlie scrapes his chair back and stands up. He takes a last look at the pair of threes and walks out of the cardroom. As the door swings to behind him everybody bursts out laughing.
“What a prick,” Bob says. “What a flaming prick.”
“Well,” says Con, “that’s Charlie Abbott for you.”
“Come on,” I say. “Let’s go and prop him up with a drink. Otherwise he might be too dry to talk.”
Con follows me through the frosted-glass doors. When they’ve closed behind us I say, “There’s one thing. Charlie sure as hell knows fuck all about Jimmy. Not a thing.”
“Yes,” Con says. “We’re wasting our time down here.”
“Not entirely,” I tell him. “Charlie’s ignorance might even turn out to be a help.”
Charlie is at the bar sorting through the remainder of his notes so that he can pay for the use of the half-bottle of scotch Storey’s just put on the counter for him. By the time Con and me get to him he’s already splashed out a tumblerful and he’s sucking it up, eyes closed, trying to blank out the last five minutes.
“Bad luck there, Charlie,” I say. “I would have backed him having the four, if I’d been sitting down.” Charlie opens his eyes and begins to feel a little better, managing to forget the money for a moment.
“Yeah, right,” he says. “But that’s cards, isn’t it, Jack, eh? That’s what it’s all about. Sometimes you’re up, sometimes you’re down, isn’t it?”
“That’s right, Charlie.”
Then Charlie remembers his manners.
“Cliff,” he says to Storey, “get two more glasses, will you? Jack, you’ll have a drink, won’t you? And Con?”
“May as well,” Con says.
“Charlie,” I say, “can I have a quiet word?”
Charlie’s just picking up the new glasses and when I tell him I want to talk to him, all of a sudden he’s on the verge of doing the macaroni. Now he knows that I’ve come all the way down here to see him, and reasons why start flashing through his mind while he stands there like a waxwork with the glasses in his hand. I pick up the scotch and pour some in the glasses then I take the glasses from him and pass one of them to Con.
“Don’t worry, Charlie,” I tell him. “It’s only a word. Nothing for you to worry about.”
“What do you want, Jack?” Charlie says.
“Let’s take our drinks over to the corner and I’ll tell you.”
We move away from the counter and over to the far side of the hall, where there is a long bench seat on a platform raised six inches off the floor and flush to the wall.
Charlie sits down on the bench and Con and myself sit down on either side of him. The two games which were in progress earlier are still going on but they’re right down the other end of the hall. All the other table lights are switched off and where we are the only illumination is the counter’s reflection in Charlie’s glasses.
“Been in touch with your sister lately?” I ask Charlie.
“Jean?” he says, looking from me to Con and back again. “I haven’t seen Jean in a fortnight. Maybe longer. Why, has she—”
I cut him off short. “She hasn’t been in touch with you?” I say. “Tried to phone you or anything?”
“No, not that I know of. I mean, I move about a bit, you know, she might have tried to, but—”
“But you might be wanting to get in touch with her after tonight, eh, Charlie?”
It takes Charlie a minute or so to tumble.
“Oh, see what you mean,” he says, trying to accept the baldness of my statement as if it’s some kind of affectionate joke. “Well, you know, Jean’s always been very good to her old brother, never sees me short, like. You know, I get things wholesale for her and she sees me all right, understand. I mean, after tonight I’ll perhaps be getting in touch because she owes me for one or two bits and pieces. Didn’t intend dropping so much in the game, know what I mean?”
“So what’ll you do? Go round the flat and see or meet her or what?”
“Well, it’s not always too convenient to go straight round, just like that. I mean, Jimmy works hard and he likes a bit of peace and quiet during the day, and evenings they’re out mostly . . . ”
“You’d just phone her up, then? Find out where she’s going to be.”
“Something like that, yes.”
“Pity,” I tell him. “Because, like, the next time you phone I shouldn’t hang on too long waiting for a reply.”
Charlie looks at me, not daring to ask.
“Nothing like that,” I tell him. “Just that her Jimmy’s been pulled by Old Bill. And since they pulled him, Jean and the kids have dropped out as well. We just had a sort of vague idea you might be able to put us in the picture. Let us know where Jean is so we can find out what’s going on. You see, Charlie, we really need to find out what’s going on.”
Charlie stares at me as if he hasn’t believed a word I’ve said to him.
“Jimmy?” he says. “They’ve picked up Jimmy? But they wouldn’t. He’s like you. They wouldn’t pick up Jimmy.”
“They have done. And it’ll be me and Con and Gerald and Les filing in one after the other if we don’t find Jimmy.”
“But Jimmy’d never grass. Jesus, everybody knows he’d never do that.”
I don’t answer him.
“Jack? He wouldn’t, would he?”
“He probably already has done.”
Charlie tries to find his cigarettes, so to save time I give him one of mine and light it for him. He takes a few drags and then manages to put words to what he’s been thinking about.
“If you find Jimmy, what’ll happen?”
“Depends on Jimmy. If our information’s wrong, we’ll give him all the help we can, the way Gerald and Les help everybody they do business with. So let’s hope our information’s wrong, eh, Charlie?”
Charlie takes a pull at his whisky.
“I couldn’t do it even if I knew how, Jack,” he says. “Not to my own brother-in-law. Not to Jean’s husband.”
“Jimmy hates your fucking guts, Charlie. He’s the reason Jean doesn’t drop you as much as she used to. That’s why you never go round their place and get to see your nephew and your niece. So don’t shoot the shit. If Jimmy can put you in this one he will.”
“Jean’d never let him. She’d never let him do that to me.”
“Jean does as she’s bleeding well told. Especially to keep Jimmy off a twenty-five stretch.”
“Jack, listen. If they’re not at home, how will I know where they are? They could be bleeding anywhere.”
“Tell me something I don’t know, Charlie.”
Charlie shakes his head. “Leave me out, Jack. You know I can’t help.”
“Your old mother might, though. I mean it’s just possible your sister might get in touch with her dear old mum so’s she won’t have to do any unnecessary worrying.”
“Christ, you wouldn’t involve her, would you?” Charlie says.
I don’t answer his question but instead I say to him, “Look, Charlie, I want to stop pissing about. I really do. So I’m going to put alternatives to you as clearly as I possibly can, and I want you to listen to them as hard as you
possibly can, because I’m not going to tell you again. One of the alternatives will just happen, right? Now. You can help us and in helping us you can do yourself a bit of good, because I can speak for Gerald and Les in saying that if Jimmy comes a cropper then Jean and the kids will be looked after, and if you’re Jack the Lad and help us they’ll look after you too. Either way you don’t lose. Where you do lose, Charlie, and where the rest of your family lose, is if we get no cooperation. Whether we find Jimmy or not is beside the point. Gerald and Les will want Jimmy to know how they feel, and they won’t care who they use to show him. So all that I’m telling you is for your own good. You see that, Charlie, don’t you?”
In the following silence Con, who has been watching Grafton’s game, says, “That bastard’s still giving that little girl the shitty end of the stick.”
“Yeah, well forget it,” I tell him. “We’re here on business, not pleasure.”
Charlie treads his cigarette into the floorboards.
“All right,” he says. “I’ll help you. I’ll do what I can.”
“That’s the idea, Charlie.”
Charlie stands up. “In fact I’ll drop over there tonight. You never know, the old girl might have heard from Jean already.”
He begins to move away from us.
“Charlie,” I say.
Charlie stops in his tracks and looks at me. He relaxes and says, “I suppose I knew you’d want me to stick with you. I just . . .”
His voice trails off and he slumps into his suit even more.
“That’s right, Charlie,” I say, and put my glass down on the bench and as I turn away from Charlie he throws himself into a sprint and hares round the end of the nearest snooker table and starts to make for the double doors of the cardroom. Beyond the cardroom there is a small passage with two doors at the far end. If you go through one door you’re in a karsi, and if you go through the other door you’re in a back yard with a six-foot slatted fence that drops you down into Villiers Street.
“Oh, Jesus,” I say. “The silly fucker.”
Con is already close behind Charlie by the time I get up off the bench seat. Charlie makes the double doors and smashes them to behind him. There are angry cries from behind the frosted glass. Con yanks the doors open again and disappears from sight. By the time it’s my turn to open the doors the card players have got down on their hands and knees and are trying to pick up as many notes as they can from the floor in the hope that they can argue from strength when the divvying starts. The card table is on its side in the fireplace, I imagine more as a result of Con’s progress through the cardroom than Charlie’s. I walk down the passage and find Con in the back yard, levered up on the fence and looking down into Villiers Street.
“No signs of the bleeder,” he says, lowering himself down. “But the yard door was swinging to and fro so he must be able to move a sight faster than you’d think.” Con grins at me and winks and I nod at him.
“Well, that’s it, then,” I say. “The crafty little bleeder’s fucked us.”
“Looks like,” says Con. “Could be anywhere by now.”
We walk back into the passage, closing the yard door behind us. We walk as far as the door that leads back into the cardroom and Con reaches forward and closes it with a rattle and we both stand there in the dark, not making a sound. After a minute or two there is the sound of the karsi bolt being drawn back and then there is more silence. Then the karsi door creaks and Charlie begins to make his exit. I can just make out his shape as he creeps over to the yard door.
I let him get as far as opening it a crack and then very quietly, I say, “Boo.”
“Jesus Christ,” Charlie says. “Oh, Jesus Christ,” and as he says it he falls to the floor as if he’s been pushed over.
Con opens the cardroom to let some light on the scene. Charlie is lying there with his arms covering his head as though he’s waiting for a kicking. I walk down the passage towards him. Charlie screams but all I do is lift him up and lean him against the wall and straighten his glasses for him.
“Come on, Charlie,” I say. “It’s time we were going home to bed.”
I put my arm round Charlie’s shoulder and help him back down the passage. We negotiate our way through the cardroom and back into the billiard hall. Storey has come round to our side of the counter and is standing in the aisle made by the counter and the nearest billiard table, blocking our way to the proper exit.
He stands there nodding his head and then he says, “There was no way I could have been wrong, was there? I mean, I was right, wasn’t I? The minute you came in I knew it.”
“Well, you won your bet,” I say, and with my free hand I loosen a couple of fivers from the roll in my inside pocket and pass them to Con, who sticks them between the salt and pepper on the counter. Storey shrugs and shakes his head and begins to walk back to his flap and we start to move towards the door again.
Then Grafton’s voice breaks the silence.
“Are you having trouble, mate?” he asks Charlie.
The three of us stop and turn and there he is, standing behind us with his billiard cue gripped in both hands. I can tell he’s made up for backing down by pouring even more lotion down him and if Storey offers Grafton his advice again, this time it won’t make any difference.
“I said were you having some trouble?” Grafton asks. Charlie shakes his head but he can’t manage to get his mouth to operate properly.
“No,” I say to Grafton, “he’s not having any trouble. Are you?”
Grafton lurches a little closer. “You going to give me some?”
“That depends on you,” I tell him.
“Let him go,” Grafton says.
I smile at him. “No,” I say.
“I’m telling you,” Grafton says. “Let him go.”
I don’t say anything and so with that Grafton tightens his grip on the cue and prepares to swing it where he thinks the side of my head is going to be. But he’s so clumsy with booze that I have time to push Charlie at the billiard table and step inside the cue’s arc and take hold of it just above the spot where Grafton has his grip. I pull hard and brace myself and Grafton’s nose connects with my advancing forehead and just to finish it off I grab hold of his shirt as he begins to slide down my body and I give him a little tap on his shin with the point of my shoe. Grafton hits the floor and begins to hunch himself into the classic footballer’s foetal position. I notice that Grafton’s mate who was expressing all the concern earlier isn’t exactly rushing over with a magic sponge.
Storey has his head in his hands and is staring vacantly at the top of his counter. I take another fiver off my roll and add it to the others between the salt and pepper. Then Con and Charlie and myself have another go at getting to the exit.
This time we make it and as we pass into the fresh night air Con shakes his head and says, “It’s a disgrace to the game, those over-the-top tackles.”
“Shouldn’t ever be allowed,” I say. “Could break a fellow’s leg that way. Ruin his career, just like that.”