Warriors

CHAPTER 41

The door slid open and he stepped aside and let the old biddy sidle on out ahead of him. Gave her a wide berth. It was an old habit of his, letting ladies out first. Most times, they said thank you. Angela, no surprise, did not utter a peep.

He walked out and took a right, headed for the lobby. He was looking for a guy named Martin who was the head porter and a guy he’d given fifty bucks to last night, hoping he’d help them get a room Fancha would approve of.

Martin was a funny little guy, a real character. He was dressed up like a palace guard for the Wicked Witch of the West, the one in the Wizard of Oz movie, but he didn’t act like it was anything all that unusual. He acted like it was perfectly normal for a hotel employee to be wearing a striped vest, a cutaway coat with long tails below his knees, white silk kneesocks, and big brass buttons all down his front. Plus, a shiny black top hat. Perfectly normal outfit, right?

Martin had a sense of humor, though, and Stoke sort of instinctively liked him. In his own way, Martin was street. If there was such a thing as street in London Town. Hard to tell.

“Ah, Mr. Jones,” Martin said, touching the brim of his fancy lid, “did you have a good night, sir? How is the suite? Does Madame approve?”

“The suite? Not so good, Martin. She doesn’t like it. Too dark, too small, bad pillows, on and on, yadda-yadda. You gotta help me out here. Seriously.”

“Really? How odd. Which suite did they give you?”

“Seven seventy-two.”

“You’re joking.”

“No. Here’s the thing, Martin, I’ll be honest. She hates it. But I like it. It’s kinda funky, all those red plaid carpets and all. Plus, I actually like the smell of cigar smoke.”

“I’ll say it’s funky, Mr. Jones. No one has stayed in that suite since Truman Capote died.” He pronounced it “Ka-po-tay,” but Stoke knew who he was talking about. The funny little lispy writer guy who wrote one of Stoke’s all-time favorites, In Cold Blood.

He had stayed in Stoke’s suite? Wow. Made him like it even more.

Stoke discreetly peeled off another fifty-pound note and slid it into Martin’s palm. It disappeared instantly, so fast Stoke didn’t even see where the cat had stowed it. Martin was all smiles suddenly.

“Thank you, sir. I’ll see what I can do. Shall I call you a cab?”

“Depends. Do I look like a cab?” Stoke clapped him on the shoulder maybe a teensy bit too hard.

“Beg pardon, sir?”

“A joke, Martin. How far away is this place, Black’s, I think they call it?”

“Black’s, sir?”

“Yeah. Black’s. That’s where I’m going.”

“And you’re talking about Black’s? The gentleman’s club?”

“That’s what I said. Black’s.”

“Ah. I see. Well, I must tell you, Mr. Jones, the thing about Black’s is that it is a very private club. Perhaps the most exclusive gentleman’s club in all London. Members only, I’m afraid. Very posh.”

“Don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you. Just tell me how to get there.”

“Ah. Well, I uh…”

“Martin. Listen up, sporting life. I’m meeting a friend of mine there for lunch, okay? At Black’s. The club. He’s the member. Not me. Alex Hawke’s his name. Heard of him?”

“Not Lord Alexander Hawke?”

“Yeah, that would be him.”

“Mr. Jones, I had no idea he was your… friend. Why, his lordship is one of our very own here at Claridge’s. His mother brought him here for afternoon tea once a week when he was but a toddler. He still comes in to afternoon tea occasionally. With his son, little Alexei.”

“Yeah, well, there you go, that’s him all right. One place you don’t want to be is in between Alex Hawke and a pot of hot tea. Now, you going to tell me how to get to Black’s?”

Martin told him. Too far to walk in the rain, he said, so he signaled one of the other costumed doormen to hail Stoke a taxi. Martin grabbed a big black umbrella, and they made their way out to the sidewalk and waited in the spitting rain.

“One other thing, Martin. Where exactly is Buckingham Palace? I mean, from here? Can I walk it?”

“You can. But I must warn you, you’ve just missed the Changing of the Guard, I’m afraid.”

“Damn. Love to see that, watch ’em changing and all that. But I’m going over there for something else. After lunch at Black’s, I mean. To the palace.”

“Ah. The tour, is it, then? I can give you a schedule, guv’nor.” Shed-yule was how he said it.

“No tour. I’m invited to Buckingham Palace, too. Funny, huh?”

“Invited, sir? To the palace? By whom?”

“Well, you see, the Queen herself sorta gave me the nod, so… I don’t want to let her down.”

“The Queen?”

“Uh-huh. You know her? Great woman.”

“You don’t mean to say you actually know the Queen, Mr. Jones? The Queen of England?”

“Sure, I mean to say it. Why not? Met her once in Scotland up at Balmoral Castle. Oh, this was, what, a couple of years ago? Incredibly brave woman. Poise? Forget about it. Never saw anything like it, Martin, believe me. And you know what else, Martin?”

“No, sir. I’m a bit… taken aback is all, sir.”

“That woman, the Queen I mean, there’s no other way to say this. She has a lot of class.”

Martin looked as if he was about to faint dead away. His high-pitched response sounded like a dehydrated bird trying to screech out a single peep.

“Class?”

“Damn straight. One of the classiest damn women you ever want to meet, Martin. Seriously.”

“Wait. You say you visited at Balmoral, Mr. Jones?”

“Yeah. But not really a visit. Sort of dropped in kind of thing. On the roof of her castle. From a helicopter. Thing was, some Iranian terrorist assholes were threatening to kill the whole damn Royal Family up there and me and Alex Hawke had to go in and extreme prejudice their asses straight to Paradise, pardon my French. That’s why I’m going to Buckingham Palace. I think she likes me… We’re tight, in a way, if you know what I mean.”

“Here’s your taxi, sir… and… I’m sorry, why did you say you were going to Buckingham Palace?”

“Oh, yeah. I’m invited to some kind of ceremony or other. I guess they do it every year. You know, a whole lot of hoop-dee-doo over nothing. I’m being knighted.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Yeah, knighted, I think they call it. I dub thee, and all that sword-on-the-shoulder thing. Sir Lancelot was one, remember? The Round Table? I don’t know if they still have that.”

“Knighted, sir?” Martin said, barely able to get the word out, holding the door wide open for this massive coal-skinned gentleman who seemed to have charmed his hotel, the staff, the entire clientele.

Stoke climbed into the rear of the shiny black London cab, paused, looked back over his shoulder, leaned out the window, and flashed his big white teeth at the drop-jawed head porter.

“Yeah, that’s it. I’m getting dubbed, brother. Knighted, Martin. My uncle Sonny, up in Harlem, he says it’s pretty cool. Says Sir Laurence Olivier and Sir Richard Branson are in the house. So, we cool? Say hello to ‘Sir Stokely Jones,’ brother! Oh, and one more thing?”

“Yes, Mr. Jones?”

“Cheerios, old Chapstick!” Stoke laughed.

A dumbstruck Martin, with one foot planted squarely in the street, turned to the next guests in the hotel queue. “Cheerios, did he say? Breakfast cereal, isn’t it? In America, I mean?”

“Oh, we wouldn’t know, now, would we? We’re not Americans. We’re from Ipswich, you see, aren’t we?”

“Did he say, I mean, did he call me, ‘Chapstick’?”

“I believe he did,” the wife said. “Didn’t he, Harry?”

“Black’s,” Stokely said, leaning forward to speak through the small plexiglass partition to the hunched-over cabbie with the tweed flat cap.

The white-haired man up front craned his head around and took a long, disbelieving look at his passenger. Always full of surprises, these bloody Yanks were.

“Black’s, sir? On St. James?”

“Black’s it is!” Stoke smiled. “And don’t spare the horses, either. I mean, step on it!”

“Right you are, guv’nor,” he said, engaging first gear and pulling out into the steady traffic on Brook Street en route to Piccadilly and St. James Street.