London Noir

CORMORANTS by MICHAEL Z. LEWIN

At the top of the dark stairs leading up from Balham High Road Charlie paused with only one foot on the landing. He bent and rubbed his elevated knee. The bandage beneath the jeans felt sticky and the leg ached. The deep cut beneath the bandage must have begun to bleed yet again.

The cut had scabbed tight while Charlie slept through the morning and into the afternoon. But he was so tired he had slept without moving, so when he got up the knee felt like it had a plaster cap. Charlie managed to keep the leg straight by limping as he walked, but it had probably opened when he ran to catch the waiting train. You don’t miss a waiting train on the Northern Line if you can help it. You run by instinct, without thinking about knees cut in the night on broken glass.

As Charlie massaged his knee the door on the landing opened. Immediately he straightened. The man who came out was a stranger, a large frowning man. Maybe he was only tall because Charlie was looking up, but he was wide too, and jowly, and his waistcoated belly pushed out between the wings of a dark suit jacket and the flaps of a heavy overcoat. The man wore a tie pulled tight to the neck. He wore a fedora. And while his eyes took Charlie in, his mouth was speaking back into the room. ‘I need a body, Lennie.’

‘I said I fix it, didn’t I?’ Leonard Slaughter answered from within the room.

‘It’s essential. It’s not optional.’

‘All right!” Slaughter said.

Then the fat man said, ‘There’s a dosser out here. You want me to do something about him?’

Slaughter appeared in the doorway. He said, ‘Na. That’s just Charlie.’

The fat man looked down again. ‘You’re expecting him?’

‘Yeah, why not.’

‘The people you do business with!’ the fat man said. He strode down the stairs, pushing Charlie flat against the wall as he passed.

When the street door closed behind the fat man Slaughter said, ‘Fuckin’ arse-wipe.’

Charlie looked down the stairwell at the closed door.

‘You coming in or what?’ Slaughter said. He withdrew into the room. Limping, Charlie followed.

Inside, the first thing Charlie saw was Lorna sitting in an easy chair with her legs crossed. Charlie didn’t know where to look, didn’t know whether what she was wearing was a dressing gown or a puzzling dress. Lorna’s thigh showed all the way up to a button.

Slaughter said, ‘Did you get that, Lorn? He wants a body. Did you get the message? Did you take in that it’s important? Did that come through clear enough?’

‘Arse-wipe,’ Lorna said.

From where he had stopped just inside the door Charlie said, ‘Hello, Miss Lorna.’

‘Put your tongue back in your mouth,’ Slaughter said. ‘You look disgusting. And close the bloody door. You want the whole world to know our business?’

Charlie closed the door and then, without being bidden further, he walked to the coffee table Slaughter was now seated behind.

Slaughter said, ‘I hope you got something decent today. You been bringing me nothing but crap for weeks.’

Charlie emptied the pockets of his anorak. On the table he spread out five credit cards, two gold bracelets, several silver earrings, a cheque-book and seventy pounds in notes.

Slaughter said, ‘That it?’

Charlie nodded.

‘What, just the one place?’

Charlie shook his head. ‘Two.’

Slaughter picked up the bracelets and examined them. He wrinkled his nose. ‘These ain’t going to do much for Beverley, are they?’

‘Ain’t they gold?’

‘Nine carat, tops.’

‘Oh.’

Slaughter picked out two tenners from the pile of money and held them out to Charlie. But before Charlie could take them Slaughter pulled them back. ‘You wouldn’t hold out on me, would you, Charlie?’

‘No sir,’ Charlie said. ‘I wouldn’t do that.’

‘I must be getting soft,’ Slaughter said. ‘Cos I bloody believe you.’ He turned to Lorna. ‘I bloody believe him. What do you reckon? Has my brain leaked out or what?’

‘He knows what would happen,’ Lorna said.

‘I suppose he does,’ Slaughter said. He faced Charlie again. ‘You know what would happen, don’t you, Charlie?’

‘Yes sir.’

Slaughter laughed. ‘I wouldn’t harm a hair on your scruffy little head, would I? Even I catch you holding a grand in fifties I wouldn’t touch you, would I, Charlie boy?’

‘No sir. I don’t never hold out on you, Mr Slaughter.’

‘I don’t suppose you do.’ Slaughter picked up the jewellery again. ‘But you better go out again tonight. Cos we’re only just managing to hang onto Beverley as it is. And you keep turning up stuff like this and it’s all over for her. Won’t be nothing I can do.’

‘I’ll go again tonight,’ Charlie said.

Slaughter held the twenty pounds out again and Charlie took them but he didn’t fold the notes and pack them away. He looked at the two tenners in his hand.

Slaughter said, ‘Oh don’t you start going septic on me, because I ain’t in the mood for it. You get twenty because that’s what I can afford and because the jewellery ain’t no good.’

Charlie said nothing.

Angrily Slaughter said, ‘You know that fat geezer? The one made wallpaper out of you on the stairs, do you know who he is?’

‘No sir.’

‘You want to guess? You want to guess who he is, what he does?’

Slaughter was insisting. Charlie said, ‘Does he buy the jewellery?’

Slaughter laughed without humour. Lorna smiled. Slaughter said, ‘He’s only bloody CID.’

Charlie turned to look at the closed door. He turned back to Slaughter. He said, ‘A copper? Him?’

‘Him,’ Slaughter said. ‘And he’s not the only one. Course, you never see it, because I protect you from all that, don’t I? You get it? I got expenses, Charlie. I got problems. I gotta look after everything. You think your bit is the hard part, but what you do is pissing down a steep hill, Charlie. Big piddle or little, it all goes the right way. Everything’s simple for you, as long as you’re careful. You pick your house. You’re in and out. As long you don’t get greedy, you’re bloody laughing compared to me. I not only fence your stuff, I protect you. I do! And that’s not easy this day and age. And on top of all that I take care of your goddamn Beverley. I take care of her. You couldn’t do that for yourself, could you? No, you couldn’t. So I look after her and I look after you, Charlie. I look after mine. I’m known for it. Ain’t I, Lorn? And you want to go elsewhere, you go. You do it. You want go, go. I don’t know what would happen to poor little Beverley, who’s being cured in a style of luxury you and I would only dream of, but that’s up to you. And it would be only one of the problems you’d have to take on if you don’t like things the way they bloody fucking are. If you’re not happy.’

‘I’m happy,’ Charlie said. He folded the money and put it in his shirt pocket.

‘I should bloody well hope so,’ Slaughter said. ‘Now get the fuck out of here. You’re stinking the place up.’

Charlie turned toward the door.

‘Tomorrow then,’ Slaughter said. ‘Usual time.’

‘Yes sir,’ Charlie said, and he limped out.

Because he was working that night, Charlie did not return to his room. Instead he made his way by tube to High Street Ken and from there he turned south because last time he’d gone north. He walked the streets and eventually he found two places that looked like they would be all right. One was a lush basement with a path round the side and the other had scaffolding. Neither had too-small windows. The only problem was the knee.

Charlie found a pub, had a meal and a drink. Then he made a decision and a phone call, and began the wait for the early hours.

The next afternoon Charlie made his way to Balham High Road. To protect the knee he left early so he had a few minutes to spare. He was about to pass the time in the betting shop across the street from Slaughter’s door when he noticed the man himself leave and walk down the street.

Charlie didn’t know what to do. He was too far away to call out, and Slaughter was walking too fast to be caught. But it was unlike Slaughter not to keep an appointment. It had never happened before.

Charlie stood thinking until it was the time he was due. All he could think of was go to the top of the stairs and wait.

But when he got to the top of the stairs, Slaughter’s door opened before him. Standing in the doorway was Lorna. Her skirt was short, way up over her knees. She said, ‘I heard you on the stairs, Charlie. You ain’t half clumpy. Come on in.’

Charlie hesitated.

‘I don’t bite,’ Lorna said. ‘Honest.’ She turned her back and walked into the room.

Charlie could do nothing but follow but he stood and waited by the door as he watched Lorna take Slaughter’s seat behind the coffee table.

‘Close the bloody door. I’ll catch my death.’

Charlie closed the door.

Lorna said, ‘Well what did you get?’

Charlie limped to the table and emptied his pockets. As he did so Lorna said, ‘You hurt yourself? I saw you was limping yesterday. You OK?’

‘It’s nothing,’ Charlie said.

Lorna moved to stand. ‘Let me see.’

‘No!’ Charlie said.

Lorna sat back again and her skirt rose farther up her legs. ‘Suit yourself.’

‘It’s all right,’ Charlie said. ‘It’s all right.’

On the coffee table Lorna sifted through two credit cards, three cheque-books, and a big handful of jewellery including two gold rings, but no cash. ‘I’m not having a good run,’ Charlie said.

‘I know,’ Lorna said. ‘Your luck ain’t been so good. But that’s OK.’ From her cleavage she took a roll of notes and offered them.

Again Charlie hesitated.

‘What’s the matter with you today?’ she said. ‘Don’t you like me or something? Because I always thought you did, only now you act like I got the bloody plague.’

‘I… I like you,’ Charlie said.

‘Well take the bleeding money then,’ she said, ‘cos you and me has got to have a little talk.’

‘We do?’ Charlie said. He took the money. It was five new twenty-pound notes. After he counted them out he said, ‘This is too much, Miss Lorna. This stuff ain’t that good.’

‘Sit down, Charlie,’ Lorna said. ‘Here, by me.’

Charlie didn’t know what to do.

‘What the fuck’s the matter!’ Lorna said. ‘I’m trying to do you a favour, but everything I say I gotta say six times before you do what I want. Jesus, I used to think Lennie treated you like shit, but I’m getting sick and tired myself. You going to sit down, or what?’

Charlie sat.

‘Thing is,’ Lorna said, ‘I been hoping one day I’d have a chance to say something with Lennie not around and today’s the day cos Lennie decided to go to the races.’ She patted her skirt flat.

Charlie watched her carefully.

‘Thing is, Charlie, Lennie is ripping you off.’

‘He’s… what?’

‘Making a mug out of you. That’s the tall and the short of it. I could see all along you was a straight enough guy, and I hated to see Lennie take advantage, but there wasn’t nothing I could do about it till now.’

Charlie stared at her hard.

Lorna said, ‘You’re thinking about Beverley, ain’t you?’

Charlie nodded.

‘Well that’s exactly where he’s doing you, Charlie. He takes most of your share of what you bring him, don’t he? And that’s cos he’s supposed to have Beverley fixed up in a hospital place and it’s getting her off the stuff, right?’

Charlie nodded, his eyes open wide and focused unblinkingly on Lorna.

‘Well he’s ripping you off right, left and centre. He’s putting everything in his own pocket and he’s laughing all the way.’

‘But Bev?’

‘You want to know where Lennie’s got your Beverley? You really want to know? He’s got her working up the Cross. She’s working for him, Charlie. She’s hooked up to her eyeballs and she’s buying it on her back. So he’s got you both, Charlie, and he’s bloody laughing.’

Charlie continued to stare, motionless. But his breathing became more rapid.

‘I know it’s rotten,’ Lorna said. ‘And I only tell you cos I want to help you. I know he’s my old man, and that ain’t going to change and nothing I can say could change him anyway. If I told him, “Don’t do this,” or “Don’t do that,” the only thing that would happen is I’d be back working alongside your Bev. He likes me well enough, does Lennie, but I ain’t so stupid as to think there ain’t plenty of others would do. I may look it, but I ain’t stupid.’

Charlie still said nothing.

Lorna said, ‘But fair’s fair, Charlie. And he ain’t being fair with you, so I thought when I got the chance I’d help you get some of your own back. What do you think?’

Charlie thought. He said, ‘How?’

‘By ripping him off,’ Lorna said. ‘By ripping him off good and proper.’

Again Charlie said, ‘How?’

‘He’s got a house. We live there, Lennie and me. And it ain’t half bad. So I thought the best way for you to get your own back was for you to do your business at Lennie’s own gaff. I can tell you where he keeps all his cash, and he’s got securities. And you can take my jewellery too – he’d never let me keep it anyhow if we split up. You’ll make more money in one night than you ever seen before, and you can use it to get Bev back, and try to do her some real good if it ain’t too late. How’s that sound?’

Charlie stared at her.

‘Bleedin’ hell, Charlie, say something. I’m risking my bloody neck here. There ain’t nothing in it for me. If you do Lennie’s place like I say, it may not cost me money, but he’ll be like an orang-utan with a sore areshole for a month and that won’t be fun, believe me. So, you on for it, or not?’

Slowly Charlie nodded.

‘The best thing is for you to pull the job tonight, cos him and me is going to be at a party. You can do it early, between ten and eleven, cos you’ll know we’re out. It’s got to be the chance of a lifetime to get your own back. So what do you say? You want the address?’

When he left Lorna, the first thing Charlie did was take the tube to Camden Town. In the kitchen of a scruffy flat ten minutes walk from the station he gave three of the new twenties to a woman named Sally. Sally was surprised that Charlie gave her so much. ‘You did good last night, huh?’

‘Yeah,’ Charlie said.

Although Sally had a ten-month-old daughter, Amanda, at her breast she said, ‘There something I can do for you, Charlie?’ and she nodded toward the bedroom.

Charlie shook his head. ‘The knee’s still bad. But I’m hungry.’

Sally lifted Amanda slightly. ‘When’s she’s done I’ll cook you something.’

‘Na,’ Charlie said. ‘I’ll go down the chipper. I’ll take Tommy. Get some for him too.’

‘Suit yourself. You know where to find him.’

Charlie made his way into the living room where Tommy, Sally’s eleven-year-old son, sat lolling on a couch in front of a television set.

‘Wakey wakey,’ Charlie said as he sat down.

Tommy looked up sleepily. Charlie took a chocolate bar from his pocket and passed it to the boy. Tommy accepted the chocolate wordlessly and began to unwrap it. As he did so, Charlie turned to the television set and tried to work out what was happening to the cartoon figures who were dashing about on the screen.

After a few minutes Charlie said, ‘I’m going for fish and chips. You coming?’

Tommy said nothing, but he rose from the couch and followed Charlie back to the kitchen where Sally was laying Amanda in her cot. Charlie said, ‘Heard from Stinger?’

‘Na,’ Sally said.

‘Only another twenty-seven months,’ Charlie said.

‘With good behaviour,’ Sally said, ‘and when was that fucker’s behaviour any bloody good, eh?’

After leaving Tommy, Charlie went to King’s Cross. The first few girls he asked said they’d never heard of Beverley and that cheered Charlie up. But as he moved closer to Gray’s Inn Road a black-haired woman in a leopard-skin T-shirt said, ‘I saw her over there half an hour ago,’ and pointed. As Charlie’s eyes followed the woman’s finger he saw Beverley for himself, leaning against cast iron railings and looking unsteady.

He watched as two men walked towards her and slowed down. She, in turn, straightened and spoke to them. The men laughed and walked past. Beverley called them names that Charlie could hear all the way to where he was standing with the leopard-skin woman. Behind the men’s backs Beverley gave them the finger, but neither of them turned to see it.

Then, as the two men approached the leopard-skin woman said, ‘On your way, Dad.’

Charlie left, leaving both Beverley and the leopard-skin woman to business.

The robbery at Leonard Slaughter’s did not go as planned. For a start, nothing inside the house at the address Lorna had given was where it was supposed to be. And when it came to details, like the cash in the screw-off top on the corner of the wooden bedstead, not only did none of the bedstead’s corners screw off, they weren’t even wooden.

Another thing was that the house did not belong to Leonard Slaughter.

And the last thing was that waiting inside the house was the fat policeman and he was carrying a truncheon. When he revealed himself the fat policeman said, ‘I hope you’re going to make a run for it. I really hope you will, because I love the sound this thing makes when it hits a head. Go on, son, run. Make my day.’

The next morning Leonard Slaughter was in a very good mood. After a leisurely breakfast in his sumptuous flat, he went to the Balham High Road office and waited for the expected visit from the fat policeman. The fat man was due at two but even when he hadn’t arrived by three, Slaughter was not unhappy. He poured himself and Lorna another drink and he decided to have her tell again the story of what she had said to Charlie.

‘The old scum,’ Slaughter said. ‘He hadn’t brought anything worth having for weeks. Definitely losing his touch. Definitely expendable.’

‘You should have seen his face,’ Lorna said.

‘You said you was an out of work actress when we met,’ Slaughter said, ‘but I never believed it until now.’

Lorna had just about got through the story when the fat man finally arrived. He looked grave.

The fat man needed only ten minutes to tell the story of the arrest and subsequent events. His anger increased each minute. “I know I said any body,’ he said with fury, ‘But I meant a body I could count. Someone I could point to and say, “Look that clears up twenty or thirty burglaries, so we can concentrate on something else again.” I did not mean an eleven-year-old kid, even if he did look sixteen. And I certainly did not mean an eleven-year-old kid who had a thin skull.’

Before the ten minutes were up the fat policeman made it clear that when he’d sorted his own problems out he would return. He made it clear that his past arrangement with Leonard Slaughter was at an end. That what should have continued as a simple and secure arrangement was now a fucking mess and anything that came out of it was no more than Lennie Fucking Slaughter fucking deserved.

Neither Slaughter nor Lorna knew what the fat policeman was talking about, and made attempts to say so. But the fat policeman’s ten minutes didn’t run to it. When he was finished he stormed out of the room because he was due back at the station to begin the internal investigation procedure.

But the fat policeman did not get to tell his side of the story to the internal investigators. He barely got as far as the stairs.

From the shadows on the landing Charlie stepped out as the fat policeman left Slaughter’s office. With a tyre iron he broke the fat policeman’s head open with a single blow, just as the fat policeman had done to Tommy. Like Tommy, the fat policeman was dead before he hit the floor. Unlike tommy for the fat policeman the floor was at the bottom of the flight of stairs.

The noise of the fall was loud enough to be heard inside Slaughter’s office. Lennie Slaughter opened the door and came out onto the landing to see what had happened.

In a matter of moments he followed the fat policeman in all particulars except that at the bottom of the stairs his body did not land on the floor. It landed on the fat policeman. Neither Slaughter nor the fat policeman knew who had hit him. Or, of course, why.

Inside the office Lorna’s fate was different. She, at least, knew who. She was even able to protest, to scream. But of course nobody came to her assistance and in any case they would have been too late.

Back at the nick the senior officers waiting to interview the fat policeman grew angry when he did not arrive and they thought he was being obstructive. Colleagues who knew him better thought chances were he’d done a runner. Both, of course, were wrong, but it was not until a down-and-out tried the handle of the dirty, unlabelled door on

Balham High Road that anybody found out what had actually happened to the fat policeman. As soon as he saw the bodies inside the unlocked door the down-and-out ran away. Three people passing on the pavement saw him run. All three went to investigate.

Later one said he had heard the fleeing man scream. But none of the three witnesses could describe the down-and-out in any detail.