Dangerous (3 page)

She had put the word out around Lenny’s other clubs, and sure enough Marcus had been in most of them, checking over things, asking questions. He was all over the place like a fucking rash, she was sick of that boy. Hiding her irritation, she sauntered back to the bar, working it hard, doing her utmost to make ol’ Lenny’s cock stand up – if it still could, which she very much doubted. All the same, she had to try, because that was the way she’d always kept Lenny off-balance in the past, using sex to keep him sweet. But it was obvious he wasn’t up for it tonight. He was too busy staring at his watch. In fact he’d been flicking glances at it all evening.

‘Something going down?’ she asked him.

Startled, Lenny looked up. He seemed almost surprised to see her there.

‘Eleven o’clock,’ he sighed. ‘Got some boys doin’ a job.’

Delilah’s attention sharpened. ‘Would that something involve Marcus?’

Lenny nodded.

Well, thank fuck for that
, thought Delilah.

Lenny could tell that Delilah was happy Marcus was going to get it in the neck. No doubt about it, she was a gorgeous girl. But right now . . . not even Delilah’s prodigious big-nippled tits, swaying teasingly in front of him like two overfilled balloons, were doing it for him. Smirking, she placed his drink on the bar. He downed it in one, just as he had the one before. He knew he’d pay for it later. Once he’d been a ten pints a night boy, but he was too long in the tooth for all that shit now. One whisky was his limit. Two gave him heartburn. Three had him up and down to the bog the whole night long.

He looked around. The Blue Banana was an important part of his little empire. No one owned all of Soho, but he prided himself that a good portion of it belonged to him. In addition to the Blue Banana, he had the Blue Heaven, the Blue Bird, and the Calypso. And then there was the property he had dotted about London: flats in Notting Hill and Houndsditch, stuffed with all sorts, most of them running prossies. Since he’d edged out all the decent working-class families that used to live there, he was pulling in a fucking fortune.

As for Soho, it had been a battleground since the war, with the whites, the Maltese and a few Italians all wrestling for control. So far, Lenny had come out on top. He had the best troops, the best men. And Marcus was the best of the lot, his right hand, his wingman. Or at least he had been, until the rumours started up, until it all began to turn sour.

Lenny hadn’t wanted to believe any of it. At first, he’d refused to. He was the one who’d taken the boy off the streets, groomed him, made him into a man. They’d grown close. He’d spent a fortune on Marcus, sorted him out with a house, a wardrobe of decent suits, all the whores he could fuck. They’d drunk together, fought together, and slowly, inch by inch, Lenny had sat back, relaxed a little, let Marcus take the reins.

You fucking fool
, he told himself.

Truth was, he was getting tired. Truth was, he was getting bloody
old
. He was sixty-eight now, past retirement age, and sometimes it seemed easier to let Marcus take the strain off, let him handle the active stuff. Marcus was a young blood of twenty-two, sharp as a tack and handy in a fight, he could take it.

Oh yeah, he can take it, he’s taken you for a
cunt,
after all.

Lenny sighed and drained his glass. He looked around at the punters, the girls, and felt weariness overwhelm him. He’d put things in motion, and he felt sad to the depths of his soul about it.

Why’d you do it, Marcus? Wasn’t I always good to you?

But Lenny was no fool. He knew this was the natural order of things. It was inevitable that a leader of men, growing into his strength, would try to take over. It was the same in the animal kingdom. Like those stags he’d seen when he was up in Scotland that time, doing a bit of business: the old ones got pushed out to die alone, the younger, stronger ones became the new rulers. It was nature.

Once, he and Marcus had practically been mates. Buddies. But no more. The young whelp had turned on its master, trying to drive a wedge between Lenny and his old and trusted friends, accusing them of cheating him. Lenny had confronted one or two of them, asked was there any truth in it. Wounded by these groundless accusations, they’d asked him, was he blind? Couldn’t he see what that fucker was up to? Couldn’t he see that the cunt was trying to push him over the edge? It was all a ploy to isolate him so that he could shove him out of the way and take over.

Lenny Lynch knew they were telling the truth. But he was a fighter, always had been. He looked at his watch again. It was time. Eleven o’clock, and goodbye Marcus. It was all set up. Old he might be, but Lenny wasn’t ready to retire from the game just yet, he wasn’t ready to give in and get out. He was going to fight, and fight dirty, to keep his place at the top of the heap. And Marcus was about to learn that Lenny Lynch still had teeth. Bloody great sharp ones.

3

Monday lunchtime, and the doctor still hadn’t come and neither had the district nurse. Leaving Clara with no choice but to go out.

‘Don’t,’ begged Bernie, afraid of being left in the flat without Clara to take charge. Clara was
always
in charge. In any emergency, they all turned to her, even Mum; they all turned to cool, level-headed Clara.

‘You’ll be fine,’ said Clara, and hoped it was true. With Hatton due to call at three o’clock tomorrow, she had to find the money to pay him, else they would be thrown out onto the streets and then what would become of them?

‘Don’t open the door to anyone except me, the doctor or the nurse,’ ordered Clara.

‘Please don’t be long,’ pleaded Bernie, eyes wide, teeth chattering with fright.

Poor Bernie
, thought Clara. Her little sister had delicate nerves, and it was easy to see that the poor kid was in shreds. The slightest thing sent her into a panic – a sudden noise downstairs, the rent man’s heavy knock at the door.

‘I won’t.’ Clara patted her sister’s shoulder reassuringly, feeling wretched. At nine years old, Bernie shouldn’t have to go through all this. And then there was little Henry, holding on to Bernie as he always seemed to since Dad had run out on them – only seven, and abandoned by his father and with his mother in labour. Poor little bastard.

Clara took Dad’s Hunter watch – one of the few things he’d left behind – and hurried down to ‘Loot Alley’. For over an hour she stood there on the pavement outside the Exchange Buildings in Cutler Street, shivering and stamping her feet against the freezing cold and drizzling rain, holding out the watch hopefully to anyone who passed by, but no one seemed to be interested in buying watches. They were buying Voigtlander cameras, nylons, cosmetics – anything but watches. Not even one with a handsome brass Prince Albert chain attached to it, not even for a few measly shillings.

‘Well, it ain’t the real thing, is it, dearie?’ one elderly man said to her with a condescending smile. ‘That chain’s not gold – not even nine carat.’

People glanced at her standing there, then looked away, walked on. Plenty of other, better things to see. She shivered, hugging herself to keep warm, hunching her head down into her shoulders.

‘Little Clara Dolan ain’t it?’ said a voice.

Clara looked up and her heart sank to her boots; it was Frank Hatton the rent collector, his Alsatian on its stout leash at his side.

Shit
, she thought.

‘Just selling off a few things,’ she said, as casually as she could. ‘Old things, things we don’t want.’

He nodded, half-smiling. Clara stepped away from that horrible great dog, which was straining against its leash, lunging at her with its massive fangs.

‘Shut up, Attila, you berk,’ Hatton snapped, jerking its chain. He looked at Clara. ‘What’s that – a watch? Your dad’s, is it?’ He reached out, touched it. Clara flinched. He saw her reaction, and frowned. ‘Don’t look worth much. Your mum’s getting the rent money together, right? She’ll have it, as promised? Tomorrow, like we said? Three o’clock – I’ll be there to collect.’

‘She will,’ said Clara stiffly.
She won’t.

‘Lenny Lynch don’t like late payers.’

‘He’ll have his money,’ said Clara.

‘Good.’ He stood there a moment longer, staring at her.

Go on, just bugger off will you?

‘Look . . . ’ There was a flush of colour in his cheeks as he fished in the pocket of his grubby leather coat, pulled out a stub of pencil and a scrap of paper. He scrawled something, held it out to her. ‘I’ve been meaning to say . . . Take this.’

‘What is it?’ She looked down at the paper, back up at his face. There was an address written on it.

‘That’s where I live. If you . . . Well, it’s got to be paid, ain’t it? One way or the other.’

Clara’s face was stiff with disgust and dislike as she shoved the paper into her pocket. She felt like chucking it onto the muddy pavement and stomping it underfoot. The urge to do so was almost overwhelming, but she fought it. She might be only fifteen, but she knew Hatton’s game. He’d always fancied her – that was the only reason her family weren’t out on the street already. If the rent couldn’t be paid in cash, he was suggesting she do it in kind. Clara gagged at the thought.

‘Yeah,’ she muttered, though it choked her.

Finally he moved on, dragging the Alsatian with him. A shuddering gust of a breath escaped Clara as she allowed herself to relax. She held the watch out to the milling crowds, even more determined now to sell it, to fetch
some
money in. Even if she didn’t get the full amount for the rent, it would be something to appease Frank Hatton and his boss, that bastard Lenny Lynch, a little sweetener that might make them think again about chucking the Dolans into the gutter.

She tried to smile, to catch the eye of a punter willing to part with a bob or two. And as she did so, a young boy in short trousers with a cap pulled down over his ears ran by and snatched the Hunter straight out of her hand.

‘Hey!’ she shouted, taking off after him, but he was too fast, weaving through the crowds with ease while she collided with passers-by. Within seconds he was lost to sight.

Clara could only stand there, her shoulders slumped in defeat.

The watch was gone.

It had been the last item they had of any value – apart from Mum’s old Singer sewing machine, and they daren’t sell that, it was their only means of income.

Now, they had nothing.

4

‘Fuckin’ things have been doped, if you ask me,’ said the red-faced man standing alongside Marcus Redmayne, shouting to be heard above the roar of the crowd. The cheers echoed all around White City Stadium as the five greyhounds raced around the track after the rabbit. Number one – a pure-black dog – was steadily pulling away from the other four. ‘You see that? They been got at, I’m tellin’ ya.’

Marcus didn’t reply; he was already making his way through the packed stadium to collect his loot. When the black dog shot past the winning post the crowd went mad: the cheers from the handful of winners drowned out by the hundreds of losers baying their displeasure as they tore up their betting slips and hurled them to the concrete floor. Too right the other dogs had been doped; Marcus had personally slipped the kennel lads a hefty bung apiece and told them to mix a dose of chloretone in with their food before the race.

A cure for travel-sickness in humans, chloretone sent a dog’s blood pressure sky-high the minute he started to run, so he ‘faded’ fast. Best of all, it was damned near impossible for a vet to trace.

The bookie gave Marcus a surly look as he collected his winnings. With a smirk of satisfaction he made a show of counting the money, then he moved along to the next bookie, and the next – collecting all the while.

Satisfied with his evening’s takings, he made his way out of the ground and strolled, deep in thought, toward his motor. He was justifiably proud of his car. A few years ago he’d been a half-starved kid with his arse hanging out of his trousers, not a pot to piss in; now he was minted – and his choice of motor reflected that. It was a sporty racing-green Jaguar XK120, newly imported from California, left-hand drive, soft top. An expensive beauty – and he had earned it by the sweat of his brow. First thing he’d done when he got it was drive over to his mum’s place so he could show it off. And his mum had taken one look and said, ‘It’s just a car,’ before going back inside.

As chief enforcer for Lenny Lynch, Marcus worked hard for his money. He expected others to do the same, but it turned out a lot of Lenny’s so-called friends had cottoned on to the fact he was getting soft in his old age and they were ripping him off left, right and centre. Take the Blue Banana, for instance. That mouthy cunt Delilah was slicing a big hit off the top every month, doctoring the books and thinking nobody was ever going to notice. Well, he had. And he’d got his old pal Gordon to do an audit.

Delilah had shrieked and complained and moaned to Lenny about it, but what could she do? Marcus was Lenny’s number one. She had to soak it up.

Her accounts might have got past Lenny, but Gordon was a different prospect entirely. Soon as he put the books under the microscope he uncovered all her little tricks: crates of drinks going ‘missing’ and being sold on, all sorts of stuff being left off the accounts. Marcus had told Lenny about it, but did Lenny believe him? He did not.

‘Delilah – do a thing like that?’ Lenny had shaken his head and laughed when Marcus told him. ‘She been with me for years, that girl.’

‘Yeah, and that’s why she’s doing it,’ Marcus had argued. ‘She knows you won’t come down on her, check the books over. When’d you last check them? Seriously?’

‘Marcus,’ Lenny had said, almost sadly, ‘I don’t have to check. Delilah’s straight as a die.’

‘Len—’

‘No.’ Lenny’s pouchy eyes had sharpened in their folds of fat, grown mean and threatening. He’d raised a stubby, nicotine-stained finger, waved it under Marcus’s nose. ‘Leave it right there, or we’re gonna fall out, I’m telling you.’

So Marcus had left it. But he’d done so reluctantly, and deep down he was still seething. Unlike some, he appreciated what Lenny Lynch had done for him.