A Cool Breeze on the Underground

19

“Yes, sir?” the headwaiter asked as Neal stood at his station.

“Somebody lost a wallet. I wanted to turn it in.”

“Oh dear. How good of you, sir.” He looked through Colin’s wallet and managed to mask the flood of what was welling up in his soul.

“Yes, sir. I shall just put it up here until someone claims it.” Neal sat back down. Colin and company were happily devouring their steaks, conversation having given way to gluttony. They ate like pigs, though, so as not to let the side down.

Neal enjoyed his lamb. Dessert, coffee, and we’ll see how this shakes out, he thought.

The headwaiter had obviously shared the happy news with the rest of the staff, who wasted no time in leading Colin down the primrose path of destruction. A good waiter can hurry or stretch a dinner with a few chosen words and inflections, and these guys were artists. They had now begun to treat Colin like the Duke of Topping-on-Snot, suggesting expensive extras in a tone that suggested that only lowlifes would refuse. Colin, swayed in equal parts by gin, beer, wine, cocaine, heady sex, and sheer hubris, put up a feeble resistance.

“Pudding, sir?”

“Perhaps some brandy, sir?”

“A liqueur for the coffee, sir?”

(A bill that equals the gross national product of Paraguay, sir?)

And finally: “Your check, sir.”

“Thanks, guy.”

The table was littered with the detritus of a glorious bacchanal that would have done Squire Weston and his ten hungry friends proud. Crisp punctuated the trencherman’s orgy with a satisfied belch of Richterian tenor.

Colin wiped the last trace of his third chocolate mousse off his lips and reached in his jacket for his wallet. He reached again, then the other pocket; then his trouser pockets, side and rear. He stood up.

The waiter arched an amused eyebrow. That did it.

“Some fucking bastard stole my fucking purse!”

“Indeed, sir?”

The headwaiter came over and hovered ostentatiously, making dead sure that everybody in the place was watching. Everybody was.

“A problem, sir?” he asked.

“Some groveling whelp of a poxy tart stole my money!”

The headwaiter was nearly delirious with joy. “We will happily accept your personal check.”

“I don’t have any bloody personal check!”

“Oh dear.”

Allie chuckled. A glance from Colin stopped her.

“Credit card, sir?”

“Right, he lifted me purse and handed me back me credit cards,” Colin shouted.

Crisp got up from the table. “Let’s just walk out. Come to a decent place and it’s full of thieves.”

The headwaiter was unperturbed. “How do you intend to settle your bill, sir?”

“I’ll come back with the money.”

“I’m afraid that won’t do, sir.”

“I’m quite capable of paying for it!”

“With what, is the issue.”

“With the money in me fucking wallet!”

Now the headwaiter held center stage. With generations of music hall behind him, he gave a perfect delivery. “Oh, yes”-one, two, three-“your wallet.” He rolled his eyes for the benefit of his audience.

Neal heard his cue. Enter, stage left. “Excuse me, maybe he’s talking about the wallet I turned in.”

The headwaiter turned scarlet and stared at Neal, his eyes accusing him of base treachery. He was trying to decide whether to bluff it out or not. There was a lot of money in the wallet. Neal turned up the heat.

“Yeah, the wallet I found in the men’s room. I turned it in to you.” He put a little extra New York street into his voice for Colin’s benefit.

“What?” Colin stormed.

The headwaiter didn’t take his eyes off Neal as he hissed, “Harry, did we have a purse turned in?”

“I’ll go look.”

“Thank you, Harry.”

“I should mash your ugly face in, mate,” Crisp said to the headwaiter.

“Shut up,” said Colin. He studied the headwaiter’s face, memorizing details. The purple and orange crew cut was looking around the restaurant, making sure that everyone saw their vindication. Allie smiled behind a napkin.

The waiter came back. “Is this it?” he asked. He wasn’t as good an actor as his boss.

“Yeah, that’s it,” said Colin, snatching it from him.

The headwaiter played it out. “Do you have some identification, sir?”

Colin flipped the wallet open to a picture of himself. “Happy?”

“Overjoyed.”

Colin flipped some bills on the table. “Keep the change. I owe you one, guv.” Then he addressed the crowd. “And to all you happy couples out there, I hope you get fucked as good tonight as you got in this place! C’mon, you lot.” He led his band out of the restaurant.

Yeah, okay, now what? Neal thought. You’ve made contact so you have to follow up on it. Otherwise, if you try just to follow them, and get spotted, you’re screwed. You’ve walked through the door, so it’s time to smile and say hello.

He left a ten-quid note on the table and headed for the door. The headwaiter stopped him.

“Thank you, sir, for returning the gentleman’s purse,” he said with a smile as cold as his chilled salad forks. “I do hope we can do something equally helpful for you someday.”

“Like force-feed me pate with a coal scoop?”

“Something along that line, sir, yes.”

“Sounds like fun. Now get out of my way.”

“Running off to join our new little friends, are we, sir?”

The waiter wasn’t moving and Colin and friends were. Neal also saw that the other much-abused waiter was standing directly behind him. Attacked by a gang of vicious waiters, for Christ’s sake?

Neal smiled pleasantly. “You know, usually, supercilious little fucks like you keep people like me out of the restaurant, not trapped in it.”

“We just wanted to express our gratitude, sir.”

Tick, tick, tick. Every second he stood there dealing with these assholes, Allie was getting farther away. Neal wondered whether the police were already on the way. Oh, well, what the fuck, he thought. He crossed his hands in front of his chest and grabbed the waiter’s lapels. Then he straightened his hands with a snap, popping the waiter’s stiff collar into his carotid artery. The world got all nice and woozy for the waiter, who pitched forward into Neal. Neal spun him and handed him to his startled assistant, and ran out the door.

Step one, he told himself, is to get lost in the crowd. You don’t want the waiter doing any funny “He went that-away!” numbers for the local constabulary. Step two is to spot Colin and the Little Lost Kids before they fade back into a city of thirteen million other sweaty individuals. So pick it, kid, right or left out this door, and hope like hell you make the lucky choice. Neal would rather have licked every toilet bowl in greater Cleveland than explain to Graham and Levine how he could possibly have lost Allie Chase when she had been sitting right beside him in a restaurant. He made the choice to turn left outside the restaurant and plunged into the crowd of tourists who now thronged the street.

Now most people don’t know how to get through a crowd, but most people didn’t spend their entire adolescence chasing Joe Graham through Chinatown on market days and down Fifth Avenue at Christmastime. Neal silently blessed the malevolent leprechaun as he eased his way quickly through the traffic toward Leicester Square, his best guess and hope as to Colin’s destination. He knew that angry people walk fast, and that they also tend to go to familiar places to cool off. Colin was sure as hell angry.

Neal thought he’d grabbed a glimpse of Crisp’s head bobbing in the crowd about a half block ahead, but then he lost it. If Colin beat him to the square without Neal getting a look at where he was headed, it could be all over. Colin could head anywhere from the south side of the square, leaving Neal only a guess and a desperate search through the local pubs. He quickened his pace, finding every hole in the crowd and moving through it. He worked his way to the edge of the crowd, figuring he could race ahead and maybe even beat Colin to the square. That’s when the cop grabbed him.

Neal stared up at the huge bobby, who had thrown an arm across his chest.

“Steady, lad,” the cop intoned. “Do you want to get run over?”

Neal saw the edge of the sidewalk under his feet and realized that he had been about to step into the street, where even now taxis were rushing past. His heart slowed to a mere race as he forced a smile and said, “No, sir. Thank you.”

He thought that he’d rather get creamed by the fucking cab than lose Colin and Allie, which was exactly what he was doing. They had to be in the square by now, and unless they were going there to hang out, he might have blown his last chance.

The signal changed and Neal ran across the street onto the broad sidewalk that made up the northwest corner of the square. No Colin, no Allie, no crew cut, no Crisp. Go fish. In fact, he couldn’t see a goddamn thing with all the people out there. The unpleasant buzz of panic filled his ears for a second. Then he had a “just might work” idea. He crossed the north sidewalk, walking away from the square, and ran up a flight of stairs on the outside of the corner building. This was a second-floor restaurant, where a few tables looked out onto the square. He walked in. The place was packed and there was a line. Neal sidled his way up to the headwaiter. (He never suspected that his life would be so much in the hands of London’s headwaiters.)

“Sir,” said this one in a voice that told Neal that these guys must all go to school together, “perhaps you noticed the people in queue behind you?”

“I’m meeting friends,” Neal said, “and I’m very late.”

“And do your friends have names, sir?”

Tick, tick, tick. Maybe the old lapel trick…

“Lord and Lady Hectare,” Neal said as he stood on tiptoes and waved to an old couple seated by the window. The puzzled old gentleman waved back feebly, just in time for the guard at the gate to see.

“Bring another chair, could you?” Neal said before the waiter had a chance to check his reservation list. Neal was gambling that the waiter wouldn’t fuck around with any friend of the nobility anyway, and he headed straight for the table and stood over the couple, smiling his most ingratiating smile.

“Hello,” Neal said as he peered out the window. “You don’t know me from a hole in the manor wall, but I just need to stand here for a moment or so and look out the window.” He scanned the square from left to right, farthest to nearest, and perhaps…

“Now see here,” the old man was saying.

“Exactly,” answered Neal. “I thought I saw a very rare Bumbailey’s pigeon a moment ago land in a tree in the square. I just couldn’t pass up a chance to spot it and add it to my list.”

“A Bumbailey’s pigeon!” the woman exclaimed. “I’ve never seen one, either!” She turned to look out the window.

“Balls,” the old man said.

“I think it’s a female, actually. Of course, I only got a brief look at it.” There they were, headed down the west side of the square, not stopping for anything, presenting Neal with the perfect Hobson’s choice. He could stand up here and watch them walk out of range, or he could run down into the square and lose sight of them.

“I have my opera glasses in my bag,” the woman was saying. Neal wasn’t listening. He was swallowing the bitter taste of fucking it up good. Bumbailey’s pigeon, indeed. He was about to run for the stairs and give it a futile shot when he heard the sound of drums and cymbals, and saw Colin and his trio stop dead in their tracks and try to turn around. Too late. A crowd formed in back of them, and in front of them were the Hare Krishnas, fifty of them at least, snaking their way up the west edge of the square in perfect formation. As the lead members started to circle around Colin and Allie, Neal smiled a long smile. Maybe there is a God, he thought. Hare Krishna, Hare Hare.

“I think I see it!” the woman shouted. Other diners turned to stare at her. “A Bumbailey’s pigeon,” she explained patiently.

“I guess I’ll be running along,” Neal said. “Thanks.” He made his way back to the foyer.

“Is something wrong, sir?” asked the headwaiter.

Neal looked at him with disgust. “That isn’t Lord Hectare.”

Then he went to join the parade.

They’re pretty impressive, these Hare Krishnas, Neal thought as he joined the edge of the crowd of spectators. I mean, you always think of them as airheads, but they know how to throw a parade. And Colin certainly looks happy, trapped in the middle of their intricately weaving patterns and all red in the face and staring at the ground, while Allie laughs and sings along.

Neal worked his way around the chanting procession to put himself in Colin’s path. He found himself standing beside Charlie Chaplin’s statue. Never one to disregard a prop, he casually leaned against the statue and faced front, watching the Hares jingle, bang, and chant with bemused detachment. Ultimate cool. This also gave him time to catch his breath and stop sweating in streams.

He was the first thing Colin saw as the figures finally cleared the way. Colin looked out past the last swirling Krishna to see Neal, one foot planted against the statue, grinning at him. Colin didn’t believe in coincidence. In his business, as in Neal’s, there is a word for people who do believe in coincidence: victims. He matched Neal’s grin and walked carefully toward him. Neal didn’t move, and the smile didn’t fade, and Colin didn’t like that one little effing bit. This was his turf.

Neal watched him coming, and also watched Crisp work his way around to Neal’s left. A minor tactical error, Neal thought, as you should always play the odds that your adversary is right-handed and place yourself in position to grab that hand before it can do something nasty to your boss. Unless, of course, you’re carrying something far nastier and don’t mind using it. Neal pushed that ugly thought from his head and kept smiling as Colin came right up into his face.

Neal got off first. “I liked your Alex and his Droogs act in the restaurant.”

“It’s no act, rugger.”

“No offense. Everybody has an act.”

“What’s yours?” He was still smiling, but Neal saw the edge behind it. He wanted to start crying and say it was all a mistake.

Instead he said, “I steal wallets.”

Colin’s eyes turned killer cold. The smile vanished into a frown. He shook his head slowly back and forth while Crisp waited for the order to bash Neal’s head in. Neal could see Allie over Colin’s shoulder, observing the scene with a petulant sneer. Neal knew he could duck Crisp’s first shot. It was the second and third that had him worried, never mind what Colin might decide to contribute. Bright idea, he thought, trapping yourself against a statue. Very clever.

Colin finally spoke. “Now why did you have to tell me, sports fan? You had a nice thing going, the bit about returning my purse and all, and then you have to ball it up and fookin’ tell me about it!”

Neal wasn’t sure, but he thought the speech had the whiny tone produced by the last straw on a bad day. He sensed that Colin was more embarrassed than angry, and he almost started breathing again. On the other hand, he’d seen embarrassed people do some pretty wicked things.

“What am I supposed to do now, eh?” Colin continued. “You’ve put my balls to the mark and I should break your thieving fingers, eh? But I’m grateful for bailing me out back in the restaurant! Why do you want to put me in a position like this?”

“Just bored, I guess.”

Colin looked him square in the eye. Either this bloke was crazy or he was the coolest character he’d seen since looking in the mirror that morning.

“Well, rugger,” he started to say, then burst out laughing, “if it’s excitement you’re looking for…”

Beware the hospitality of the sociopath. So thought Neal Carey as he leaned against the brick wall and threw up, which started his nose bleeding again.

It had started mildly enough with a few pints thrown back in a congenial Garrick Street pub. Colin played host and introduced Neal around, starting with his own retinue.

“Meet Crisp,” he said. “We call ’im ‘at because ’e’s always eatin’ the ruddy things. Known ’im ‘arf me life, an’ I don’t think I know ’is real name.”

“I play the guitar,” Crisp said.

“Pleased to meet you.”

Colin introduced the girl with purple hair. “This is ’is bird, Vanessa.”

“I’m always eating Crisp,” she said in a surprisingly middle-class accent.

“And this,” Colin said proudly, clearly saving the best for last, “is Alice, your fellow Yank.”

Alice? Neal thought. Alice? The finest schools America has to offer and that’s the best you can come up with? He reached out to shake her hand. “Nice to meet you. Where are you from?”

She didn’t take the hand and she didn’t smile.

“Kansas,” she said. Her blue eyes challenged him to call her a liar.

“Well, Dorothy, you’re not in Kansas anymore.”

“‘Er name is Alice. She’s from California.”

Clever Alice, thought Neal. What better to hype the fantasy of a city-bound Brit than a golden California sunshine girl? “I’ve been out there. Where in California?”

She didn’t pause a beat. “Stockton. A real shithole.”

Neal smiled at her. You’re not bad, Allie, not bad at all. “I haven’t been to Stockton.”

She still didn’t smile back. Just looked at him flatly and said, “You ain’t missed anything.”

You ain’t missed anything? Don’t push it, kid. “My shout,” Neal said. The barkeep drew four Guinnesses from the tap.

“What brings you to London Town, then, Neal?” Colin asked. “What wind blows you to our green and pleasant land?”

A pusher who quotes Blake? This is getting weirder and weirder. “Work.”

“An’ what would ‘at be?”

“I’m a cop.”

Maybe Colin didn’t exactly choke on his beer, but it sure didn’t go down the smooth way Lord Ivey intended when he brewed the stuff.

It was so much fun to watch, Neal said, “A private detective.” No reaction at all from Allie, not a flinch.

“Get stuffed!” Colin shouted.

“Scout’s honor. I’m over here guarding some executive stiff who’s buying antiques, or something.”

“An’ you thought you might as well snatch a little nicker on the side.”

“Why not?”

“An’ when you saw me jacket ‘anging over the shitter door, you thought it belonged to John Q. Tourist…”

“But when I saw who it belonged to, I thought I better give it back.”

Now let’s see how big an ego you have, Neal thought. If you buy that one…

“It’s a good job you did,” Colin said.

… you think a lot of yourself.

“My pleasure,” Neal said, looking just enough over Colin’s shoulder to flash his most charming, sleazoid smile at Allie.

“Where are you from?” she asked. She wasn’t making small talk.

“New York, New York. The town so nice, they named it twice,” Neal answered. He knew that one mistake inexperienced undercovers often make is telling too big a whopper as a cover story. Keep it close to home, there’s less chance of getting caught up in your own lies, especially when you’re just feeling your way.

“The Big Apple,” Colin said, flashing his cosmopolitan outlook.

Allie whispered something in Colin’s ear. Neal didn’t catch it.

“Later,” Colin said.

She whispered again.

“I said later,” Colin answered again. A trace of annoyance played across his face. He turned to Neal. “You want some excitement, then, rugger?”

“If you have any.”

Colin’s smile could best be described as mischievous. “Oh, we got some, all right. What kind would you like?”

He opened his palm to show the capsules of speed that appeared slick as Blackstone.

This, Neal thought, is the point in the TV episode when the canny private eye figures a way to say no, or cleverly palms the pills and fakes the effects. But this is mostly because Quaker Oats is sponsoring the show and wouldn’t buy ads if the hero gets stoned for any reason whatsoever. Unless, of course, the villains hold him down and pour the stuff down his throat. Then the camera gets all blurry. But this was real life, which is even trickier than television-and often more blurry.

Neal took one of the capsules and knocked it back with a swallow of stout. Colin spread the rest around.

“Let’s go to The Club,” Allie said. “I wanna dance. And I mean dance!”

“Wha’ about your engagement?” asked Colin.

“I have over two hours!”

“The Club it is, then.”

The club was your basic cave, only more primitive than Neal was used to in New York’s SoHo. If New York was Cro-Magnon, this place was Neanderthal. It didn’t really have a name.

“I dunno, rugger,” Colin had explained when asked. “We just call it The Club.”

Neal did feel he was being clubbed by the band, which had a name: Murdering Scum. They were an opening act for the night’s headliners, The Queen and All His Family.

“What part of town are we in?” Neal shouted above the din.

“Earl’s Court!” Colin answered. They had fought their way to the bar. Allie, Crisp, and Vanessa had joined the bobbing throng on the dance floor. The place smelled of beer and sweat.

Neal took a long sip of his beer, which accomplished two things: It gave him the closest acquaintance with horse urine he ever hoped to have, and it gave him time to think. This latter activity was becoming increasingly difficult. Sort of an imposition. The band was playing four hundred beats to the measure.

Colin was in better pharmacological shape than Neal, and less stoned, so the pause in conversation dragged, as things tend to do on Amphetamine Standard Time. But the ensuing two or three decades gave Neal a chance to observe Allie, which was the point of the exercise, after all. Good to keep your mind on that. Allie was dancing in a frenzied jerking motion that threatened to tear her head from her body. And she was having a very good time.

The Scum, as they were known to their friends, switched to a romantic ballad about “fucking till it’s red and raw” and the lead guitarist seemed to be demonstrating the technique with pelvic thrusts that would have sent Elvis himself running to a revival meeting. The band reduced its harmonic structure to the sublime simplicity of a single chord, which made a certain kind of sense given the subject matter. The crowd was sure going for it in a big way, though. Of course, most of them had safety pins jammed through their ears or noses, which did indicate a tolerance for pain. They sweated inside their leather and denim.

Neal watched Vanessa and Crisp make Watusi leaps on the crowded floor. Every now and again, Crisp amused a fellow celebrant by spewing beer in his face, which seemed to be an acknowledged form of greeting. Neal looked around for Allie, and spotted her standing in front of the jerry-built platform that served as a stage. A sheen of sweat shone off her blond hair as she swung her head in a rhythm all her own.

Slow, one-beat-to-the-measure cadence somewhere in the frenzied rock and roll. Allie didn’t want her love red and raw; she wanted it slow and soft.

“Beautiful, isn’t she?” Colin asked. He saw Neal watching.

“Yeah.”

“Off limits, Neal.”

“No problem.”

Not to worry, Colin, old sod, Neal thought. I’m only going to grab your beloved and carry her back over the big water. Whether she will or not.

Oh, well, time to play.

“Kind of hard to control, though, isn’t she?” Neal asked.

“Alice? Not hard.”

Neal gave him a little more of a prod in the psychic balls. “If you say so,” he said, smiling.

He watched the little knots in Colin’s jaw tighten. The pimp took a quick swallow of beer and set the bottle down hard on the bar. “Right,” he said.

Colin worked his way through the crowd to where Allie was standing, her eyes closed and body gently weaving. He grabbed her by the shoulders, straightened her up, and gently lifted her chin with his left hand. She opened her eyes and smiled at him. He slapped her hard with his right hand. Her eyes widened and filled with tears.

Neal checked the impulse to head over there. Too early for the “white knight” bit, he thought. Also, Colin would beat the shit out of you and his friends would stomp on whatever was left.

Colin stroked the reddening splotch on Allie’s cheek, then hauled back and hit her again, harder this time, snapping her head back.

Good going, Neal thought to himself. So far, you’re doing a real good job for this kid.

He watched as Colin stood, hands at his side, and stared at Allie. She fought off her tears as her chin dropped to her chest and she stared at the floor. Without looking up, she held her arms straight out in front of her. After a couple of seconds that lasted about a week, Colin took her arms and pulled her to him. She burrowed her face into his chest and held him tightly. It was creepy, but Neal had witnessed worse at Westchester cocktail parties. What made this especially bad was that Colin looked over, found Neal with his eyes, and smiled. Alice hard to control? Right.

Now where have I seen this shit before? Neal asked himself. Oh, yeah, about half my life. A pimp is a pimp is a pimp. Come to Daddy. Oops, bad choice of words there.

He looked on as Colin and Allie started to dance. She made your basic miraculous recovery and began to move with the music. Like bad art imitating bad life, the band switched tunes, working into a hard-driving message song that the crowd seemed to know.

It was an anthem of sorts. Neal didn’t catch the title, but the chorus went: “Burn it, wreck it, fuck it, tear it down.” The crowd joined in with a passion that could spring only from deep feeling, and Neal found himself shamed at the condescension he’d felt all night. This was a song of the dispossessed, a screaming, angry cri de coeur born of a thousand years of a class-bound society. The dancers whirled in violent sweeps, bumping and bouncing against each other, surrogate objects for mutual rage. No harm meant you, bloke, but burn it, wreck it, fuck it, tear it down.

The inchoate fury swept around Neal, taking him along. He felt their anger, shared it. Anger at the hopelessness, at Da’ and Granda’ and you, all living off the dole in the same effin’ project on the same effin’ street with the same effin’ neighbors in the same effin’ heat. Anger at the toffs with their effin’ BBC, and their effin’ Oxbridge accents that keep out you and me. So let’s burn it, wreck it, fuck it, tear it down. Fury at the useless effin’ effort. of it all, when every job’s the same arsehole-lickin’ beck and call, and who needs their Labour Party and their social-programs bull, so let’s burn it, wreck it, fuck it, tear it down.

Neal shook his head to clear it, and then realized it was already clear. Who the hell expected the Murderous Scum to be eloquent, much less articulate? And didn’t he feel the same sorts of things? Like real anger at the monied class whose messes he cleaned up for a living? Whose living rooms he occupied and whose scotch he drank when they were in trouble? And wasn’t he their sheepdog? Go fetch my kid, Fido, good boy? And suddenly he felt like a traitor in this place, and the rage welled up inside him, and he wanted to beat the shit out of Senator John Chase, and tell him to go fuck himself, and take Ethan Kitteredge’s little toy boat and crunch it in his hands and throw the pieces in his face and tell him what he could do with his private school education, and that was to burn it, wreck it, fuck it, tear it down, and he found himself joining in the dance and in the chorus, weaving, bobbing, bouncing, and slamming off the other dancers as the music throbbed through him and he was hearing the words about your great damn stinking family who will never understand, with their patriotic crap about this putrid, dying land, and the endless block of flats that make a prison you can’t stand, and Christ, he understood! The sheer numbing, stupefying, fucking boredom of it! That you can never escape your class, so quit trying.

Then he was dancing with Allie-not dancing, really, but slamming. Shoulder off shoulder, laughing, singing, sweat flying from one to the other, and he knocked her down, off her feet, but she bounced up laughing and spun around, then put her shoulder into his chest and knocked him down, and burn it, wreck it, fuck it, tear it down. Tear it off, tear it away, tear it to shreds. Two thousand years of civilization, to produce what? Senator Chase for Veep? Then Allie picked him up and spun him around and pushed him off and then he was dancing with Colin. Hands locked, pushing forward and pushing back, chests slamming into each other, shouting at the top of their lungs the chorus that had now become a frenetic chant. Looking at Colin and seeing himself there, another country, another time. Tear it down, tear it down. One chord beating against the wails in a shriek of fury. Hare Krishna, Hare Hare. Tear it down. Then he and Colin fell down in a heap on the floor as the song ended in a crash of drums, and they lay on the floor together, laughing and laughing, and then laughing more as Allie fell face first on top of them, shaking her hair so that her sweat sprayed on their faces.

Neal listened to his heartbeat and felt himself breathing hard, and he made some decisions then and there about Colin, Allie, Kitteredge, and himself.

Allie washed up in the women’s loo. She slipped off her T-shirt and splashed water on herself, roiled on deodorant, and sprayed a touch of perfume between her breasts. She pulled a dark blue silk blouse out of her bag and put it on over her jeans, then went to work with the tiny makeup kit. She expertly penciled around her eyes, used just a trace of mascara, then a light blush; bloodred lipstick topped off the look, casual, expensive, a little dangerous.

“Killer,” said Colin. He shouted out the door. “Neal, come in, lad, and have a spot of tea!”

Neal took a look at Allie and knew he’d seen this movie before. “What are you decked out for?”

“Not what. Who?

“Oh.”

Colin spooned out a generous dose of coke and held it up to Allie. She sighed. “Something more, babe?”

“Later.”

“It’s always later.” She snorted the coke anyway, doing two spoons with practiced ease.

Colin took a hit and offered a spoon to Neal. He took it in, and tasted that funny metallic taste deep down in his throat. It wasn’t very good coke.

Colin handed Allie a slip of paper. “You want me to send Crisp along?”

Allie shook her head. “It’s an easy one. I’ve done it before. See you back at the flat.”

She pecked him on the lips, waved a goodbye, and headed out the door. Neal didn’t say anything; thought he’d let Colin bring it up if he wanted.

“It’s just fucking, right?” Colin asked.

“Sure.”

“I need a pint.”

“I’m buying.”

The band was on a break. You could hear yourself talk. And think.

“You liked it?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s not so much bullshit. Most rock’s become bullshit, you know. Like they forgot what it’s about.”

“It’s physical.”

“It’s about living right now, and forget that other crap. There’s no future anyway, so forget about it. Me, I wouldn’t half mind if the IRA blew the whole city up, start with Fuckingham Palace.”

“You want to kill the rich. I just want to take their money.” Truer words, Neal, old pal, truer words.

“You take their money, you have to take their shit.”

“Not if you do it right.”

Colin looked at him differently. “Maybe we’ll talk.”

“Maybe.”

They left The Club at about 2:00 A.M. Neal had a major buzz on from the speed, the coke, and God only knows how many pints. His head rang from the combined effects of drugs, alcohol, noise, and the nagging anxiety of not knowing where Allie was. Maybe I should have split and followed her. Maybe she wants out and is just looking for her chance. Maybe I could have grabbed her at whatever hotel she’s at and said, “Here I am to save the day” and gone straight to Heathrow and caught the next flight out. Maybe. But more likely, I’d have blown the whole thing.

So he hung with Colin, Crisp, and Vanessa.

“Come crash at my flat,” Colin said.

“No thanks. I’ll catch a cab back to the hotel.”

“Not at this time of night down here. Come on, you can crash on the floor, go home in the morning.”

“Streets aren’t safe this time of the night,” Crisp said. “Lots of punks wandering around.” He grinned like an old horse headed for the stable.

“Yeah, okay.”

They walked along the monotonous streets lined with blocks of flats, sweetshops, and news brokers. All the places were shut down for the night and few cars prowled the street. It was pretty dull. Until they came across the Pakis.

There were five of them and they were pissed. Pissed as in drunk. Pissed as in angry. Five larger than average Pakistani immigrants in loud pastel shirts, white jeans, and black loafers. They looked like a band at a cheap wedding. They blocked the sidewalk.

“Hello, Colin,” said their leader. He impressed Neal as a muscular type.

“Your name wouldn’t be Ali, would it?” Colin inquired pleasantly. “In fact, would all your names be Ali?”

Ali’s name was, in fact, Ali. And he wasn’t amused. “Where’s your gang, Colin?”

“Fucking your mother, I should think.”

For good measure, Crisp chimed in, “Why don’t you stinking wogs go back to Pakistaniland where you belong?”

Ali smiled and said, “Colin thinks he’s a big man now because he has some protection down on the Main Drag. But, Colin, this is not the Main Drag and you don’t have any protection here.”

“You see, Neal,” Colin said, “you’ve gone and stumbled on what the BBC calls racial tension here. We don’t like the Pakis. We don’t like them taking our jobs, our flats, our shops, and our parks. We don’t like them crowding up our city with endless brats and their ugly wives. We don’t like their dingy color, their smelly food, their greasy hair, their bad breath, or their ugly, stupid faces. The only thing they’re good for is providing poor blokes like us with a bit of a hobby. Our version of bird shooting-Paki bashing.”

“Yes, Neal,” Ali said in a voice that let him know he was in for it, “but one of the great features of Paki bashing is that the white fellows need to be twice our number.”

He pulled a very nasty-looking leather sap from his jeans pocket.

Neal Carey hated fighting. He hated fighting for several reasons. One, he thought it was stupid. Two, it was scary and people got hurt. Three, he was bad at it and was usually one of the people who got hurt.

“Another time, then,” said Neal, and he began to move around Ali. This might have worked, except that Colin had a question to ask.

“Tell me, is it your father, or mother, or both that take it up the arse in the loo at King’s Cross?”

The sap flicked out and would have done considerable damage to Colin’s brains, except he wasn’t there. He had ducked beneath it and opened a deep cut from Ali’s hip to knee with a single swipe of his blade. Ali dropped to his knees and let out a scream, which Colin quickly silenced with the toe of his shoe delivered soccer-style to the mouth.

In the meantime, Crisp reacted somewhat negatively to a vicious kick in the balls by straightening up with the beer bottle in his hand and smashing it on his assailant’s chin. Undaunted, the young Pakistani punched Crisp in the side of the head and broke two knuckles, so he was a bit distracted when Vanessa laced him across the throat with a chain.

Neal was feeling considerable gratitude that his opponent seemed to be bearing no weapon and was prepared to duke it out in honorable, manly fashion. Neal assumed the position: right hand held in by his chest, ready to strike; left hand held high to block opponent’s right. Block and then counterpunch. Except this guy was left-handed and launched a straight one that caught Neal flush on the nose. And hurt. And hurt even more when he did it again.

Neal wanted to fall down, which had always worked in the gym, but he figured that hitting the deck here would just invite a boot on the neck or a nice kick in the face, so he stayed on his feet and waited for the kid to push his luck with a third shot, which he did. Blessing his attacker’s lack of imagination, Neal stepped to his own left and dodged the punch and drove a hard left hook into the kid’s stomach. Son of a bitch if it didn’t work. The kid doubled over and Neal took advantage of this to fall on top of him, knock him over, and lie on him.

Colin was beating the uncouth piss out of the last Pakistani when Vanessa spotted the police car turning the corner.

“Peelers!” she yelled.

Colin broke off his engagement and grabbed Neal by the back of the collar.

“Run like a bastard!”

Neal wasn’t sure exactly how a bastard ran, but he assumed Colin was following his own advice, so he followed him. They ran several blocks before ducking into the proverbial alley, where he leaned against the wall, gasped for air, threw up, and started bleeding again.

Colin’s flat was a surprise.

It shouldn’t have been, Neal thought. Dope dealers and pimps always make money, even young corners like Colin. The flat was by no means luxurious, but it was in a not-so-bad part of shabby Earl’s Court. It was a second-floor walk-up, but spacious and surprisingly well kept. The sitting room was large and French windows led to a small balcony. The kitchen was not small, but certainly under-used. A coffeepot and a tea kettle sat on a stove, along with jars of Nescafe and sugar.

Colin’s bedroom was large and dark. A blackout shade hung even at night. Neal expected the water bed and the Che Guevara poster. He expected the five locks that secured the main door. He didn’t expect the expensive television in the sitting room, nor the pricey stereo equipment, nor, especially, the brick-and-board bookcases lined with paperback volumes of poetry: Coleridge, Blake, and Byron, Colin was doing all right for himself.

Colin disappeared into the bedroom and came out with a bowl of hash. “Here. This will help cool you out.”

He went into the kitchen and came out with ice wrapped in a paper towel. He handed it to Neal.

Neal placed the cold cloth on his face. It felt great. His nose had started to throb. He felt around it again and decided it really wasn’t broken.

He loved undercover work.

Colin lit the pipe, took a long drag, and handed it to Neal. Neal shook his head. More than enough is more than enough. “It’s mild, Neal. Bopper dope.”

Neal accepted the pipe and drew the hash into his lungs. He held it for a long moment, then exhaled. It beat the shit out of Oval tine.

Carnal sounds came from the small bedroom. “Violence turns Vanessa on,” Colin explained. “Is it worth it?” “For Crisp, it is.” “What’s his real name?”

Colin shrugged and took another drag. He offered the pipe to Neal. Neal declined. More than enough is enough. “I’m going to get some kip. I’ll get you a blanket.” Daddy Colin.

Neal had just dropped off when Allie came in. He heard her long sigh, and heard her put the kettle on the boil. She stood impatiently until it whistled. He listened as she stirred in milk and sugar and then tiptoed to the bedroom door. He heard it open and shut again, and was surprised to hear her tiptoe back into the sitting room. She finished her tea while looking out the window. Then he heard her shuck off her shoes and her jeans and felt her lie down beside him.

“Push over and give me some of the blanket.”

“If Colin comes out here-”

“I just want to sleep.”

“Does he know that?”

Another sigh from Allie. “He’s not alone.”

“He came home alone.”

“So?”

“Oh.”

“Bright guy.”

Neal gave it a shot. “You like living like this?”

“Yes. Now you want to shut up and let me get some sleep?”

Dear Dad, having a wonderful time. Wish you were here. By the way, tonight I’m sleeping with Allie Chase.

He woke up hurting. His nose felt like someone had driven a fist into it, and the rest of his body ached with righteous indignation. He was hangover thirsty and went into the bathroom to get some water.

Allie was sitting on the stool, her knees tucked up under her chin. She bent over with poignant grace, the needle poised over the small vein between her toes. She was concentrating hard, and noticed Neal only after she gently squeezed the plunger. She looked up at him as the heroin hit her. A small pop, but there it was.

“Well,” Neal said, “they do say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”

“Don’t tell Colin.”

“It’s none of my business.”

“That’s right.”

“He doesn’t know you shoot up?”

“What happened to none of your business?”

“That shit’s bad for you.”

“But so good to me.”

She got up, carefully put the gear back into her bag, and walked past him into the sitting room, where she lay back down on the floor and stared at the ceiling.

He followed her in and lay down beside her. “How long have you been using a wake-up?”

“My, aren’t we hip? A couple of weeks. I don’t know.”

“Expensive habit.”

“I pay for it.”

“I bet you do.” “I’m not an addict.” “I didn’t say you were an addict.”

She rolled over on her side, away from him. “He knows I shoot up. He doesn’t know how much.” She drifted off.

Neal propped his feet up on the balcony railing and gently leaned his chair back. The last of the afternoon sun felt good on his face. He had showered and shaved, borrowed a clean T-shirt from Colin, and was now sipping a cup of bitter Nescafe, on his way to feeling at least remotely human. Allie was safely tucked in and sound asleep. Crisp and Vanessa had gone out in search of food, and Neal and Colin had settled onto the balcony.

Colin was dressed for leisure. He was shirtless and wore denim jeans and biker boots. Reflective sunglasses shielded his eyes from the harsh glare of day.

“Sunday’s a hassle, so I leave it alone,” he was saying. “Too many citizens on the street and the coppers don’t want to see you there. Sunday night’s all right, though.”

“I should get going,” Neal said, yawning.

“What for?”

“The job.”

Colin stretched like a cat. “Talk about the fox in the friggin’ ’en coop.”

“I don’t screw around with it.”

“Pity.”

“Do you rip off your customers?”

“Never.”

They sat quietly for a while. Neal thought about what he was up to, then tried not to think about it. Made him feel like shit.

“So are you a heavy dealer, Colin?”

“Not ’eavy enough. Bit of hash, bit of coke…”

“Heroin?”

“No. Wouldn’t harf mind, but the nicker, lad, the nicker…” He rubbed his thumb over his fingertips, the universal sign language for cash. “Takes a ’eap of the filthy lucre to get into smack in any serious way.”

“And the ladies?”

“Wha’ is this? The BBC?”

“Just making conversation.”

“I have a few lady friends who’d rather get paid for it. I take a finder’s fee.”

Yeah, I get a finder’s fee, too, Neal thought. So to speak.

Colin set his head back to catch the rays better. “I was a little bugger during the ’ole ’ippie thing. Love and peace an’ all ‘at shit. The bloody Beatles and their wog guru. Fucking sitars…”

“You got that right.”

“This punk thing. It says the world is shit. Get pissed, get stoned, get your rocks off. All there is.”

These are a few of my favorite things.

“We just got back from a ’oliday in France,” Colin said. “Got pissed, got stoned, got our rocks off in a different place.”

You did? You did? It didn’t take long for it to sink in. You working-class heroes were on some beach in France while I was sweating my balls off on the Main Drag looking for you!

“Colin, you aspire to the middle class.”

“I aspire to a ’eap of filthy lucre.”

“Yeah?”

“Not ‘arf.”

“Maybe I know where you could get it.”

There followed what could be called a significant silence.

“Where’s ‘at?”

Neal set the chair back on the floor, put his cup on the railing, and stood up. He stretched and yawned. “We’ll talk.”

He patted Colin on the head and walked out.

Always leave ’em wanting more, he thought.