Nightmare

33

The Flamingo was on the first floor above a row of shops in a side road not far from Brixton Tube Station. There were two big black men wearing glossy black bomber jackets and black cargo pants standing at the entrance. Two young white guys in tight Versace jeans walked by them, holding hands, and headed up the stairs. The doormen both had earpieces and their IDs hanging on lanyards. They smiled professionally at Nightingale as he walked up. They were both well over six feet tall and looked as if they spent a lot of the time in the gym. Or swallowing steroids. Or possibly both.

‘I thought this was a salsa club?’ he asked.

‘Salsa is Tuesday and Friday,’ said the first doorman. ‘Wednesday is swing night. Saturday is disco. Thursday is Gay Night.’

‘And today is Thursday,’ said Nightingale.

‘Yes it is.’

‘Cool,’ said Nightingale.

‘You gay?’ asked the second doorman.

‘Do I look gay?’ asked Nightingale, taking out his cigarettes.

‘That would be sexist, us making an assumption like that,’ said the first doorman. ‘Be like you assuming I’m black just by looking at me.’

Nightingale chuckled and slipped a cigarette between his lips. Another gay couple arrived — a young blond man wearing mascara and a black man with a shaved head and a tight-fitting Everlast shirt — and Nightingale stepped aside to let them get by.

‘Maybe you should try another night,’ said the second doorman. He had a large diamond in his right ear. ‘You might have fun on disco night. We get an older crowd.’

‘I like women so I guess for the purposes of tonight you can put me down as a lesbian,’ said Nightingale. He offered the pack to the doormen but they both shook their heads. ‘Were you guys here when Dwayne Robinson got shot?’

The two doormen looked at each other, then back at Nightingale. ‘You a cop?’

‘Private,’ said Nightingale.

‘We don’t talk to cops.’

‘Well, actually, you do because if you don’t then you lose your Security Industry Licence and then you lose your job. And while the few quid you get paid for standing here freezing your nuts off probably doesn’t mean much I’m damn sure you wouldn’t want to lose the kickbacks you get from the dealers you let in.’ The first doorman took a menacing step towards Nightingale but Nightingale smiled amiably. ‘Look, I’m not here to rock anybody’s boat, I just want some guidance as to what happened to Dwayne, that’s all.’

‘Who are you working for, if you’re private? Someone’s got to be footing your bill.’

‘Yeah, this time I’m working pro bono,’ said Nightingale.

‘What, the U2 singer?’ said the first doorman, straight-faced.

Nightingale was just about to explain what ‘pro bono’ meant when the man started laughing and poked his colleague in the ribs. ‘Pro bono, get it?’

Nightingale grinned. ‘Nice one. Seriously, guys, I know you probably wouldn’t want to tell the cops much but I’m just trying to get a handle on what happened.’ He pulled out his wallet and fished out two fifty-pound notes.

‘You’re not thinking of bribing us?’ said the first doorman.

‘That was the idea,’ said Nightingale.

‘With fifty?’

‘There’s a hundred here.’

‘And there’re two of us.’

Nightingale raised his hands in surrender. ‘My bad,’ he said. He took out two more banknotes and gave the doormen a hundred pounds each. The money disappeared into their bomber jackets.

‘Dwayne took a bullet in the head, that’s what happened,’ said the first doorman.

‘Here?’

‘Down the road aways,’ said the second doorman, gesturing with his chin.

‘Anyone see it happen?’

‘He’d gone around the corner. We heard a shot but that’s not that unusual around here. Bit later we heard an ambulance.’

‘Who called the ambulance, do you know?’

The second doorman shrugged his massive shoulders. ‘A neighbour maybe?’

‘There were no screams? No shouting?’

‘Down this way nobody bothers screaming when someone gets shot. You just go on your way. You don’t want to be a witness because witnesses have a way of ending up as casualties.’

Nightingale nodded. ‘Okay. And he was shot around the corner? See, if he was shot in the back of the head, doesn’t that mean whoever shot Dwayne must have followed him around the corner?’

‘We didn’t see nothing,’ said the first doorman.

‘Yeah, but you wouldn’t know, would you? You wouldn’t have seen the shot fired but you might have seen the killer walking down the street after him or at the crossroads there.’ He pointed at the corner with his cigarette. ‘Guy follows Dwayne around the corner so if you’d been looking you’d have seen him.’

‘Wasn’t looking,’ said the first doorman. ‘We’re here to watch who’s coming in. Don’t much care about what goes on down the road.’

‘What about when he arrived? Was he here on his own?’

The first doorman frowned and put his head on one side. ‘Yeah, I think so.’

‘How did he get here? Car? Cab? Walk?’

The two doormen looked at each other and then they both shrugged. ‘It was six months ago,’ said the first doorman.

‘Car, I think,’ said the second doorman. ‘Big and black. Tinted windows.’

‘That sums up the wheels of pretty much every dealer in London,’ said the first doorman.

‘I’m just saying that I thought he came in a black four-wheel drive, that’s all.’

‘You don’t remember who was driving?’ asked Nightingale.

The doorman shook his head. ‘I might not even be right about the car. It was six months ago.’

‘What about when he left? He was on his own, right?’

The first doorman nodded. ‘Yeah, he came out talking on his mobile. He was looking for a car.’

‘A cab?’

‘No, he was carrying on because the car wasn’t there. Then he walked off.’

‘So someone was supposed to have picked him up?’

‘That’s the gist, yeah,’ said the first doorman.

‘And do you have any idea who he saw while he was inside?’

The second doorman stamped his feet to keep warm. ‘We work the doors. You need to talk to the guys inside.’

A minicab pulled up and four young men piled out and rushed up the stairs, giggling. One of them blew the doormen a kiss as he went by.

Nightingale dropped his cigarette butt onto the ground. ‘Oh well,’ he said. ‘I suppose I’d better go in.’

‘It’s a tenner,’ said the first doorman. ‘That gets you in and two drinks. You pay at the top of the stairs.’

‘Thanks, guys,’ said Nightingale.

‘I still think you’d have more fun on disco night,’ said the second doorman.

‘I’m not here for fun; I’m here to work,’ said Nightingale as he headed up the stairs.

‘Good luck with that,’ said the first doorman, and the two men laughed.