Scarlet Women (13 page)

Robert ‘Rizzo’ Delacourt might have been a runty little man, but he had a big attitude. Like many runty little men with attitude, he liked to display his masculine superiority by beating up on women. So the two girls he still ran, who shivered in miniskirts and little jackets night after night on the towpath under the canal bridge over the Mile End Road, were justifiably nervous of him.

Hey—they were nervous, full stop.

Because they’d heard about the girls getting done. They’d heard about it and experienced it
first hand.
Poor bloody Val, Rizzo’s sister, for instance. She’d been a cow at times but she hadn’t deserved that. But they were working girls. They had to eat, and anyway Rizzo wouldn’t let them bunk off. So they huddled against the damp wall under the bridge near the lock, and talked loudly
and smoked cigarettes and joked about the clients, to stave off the jitters.

Their profession was the oldest in the world but it could certainly pay better. Rizzo took a big wedge out of what they earned, but Rizzo was The Man. If they didn’t hustle, then Rizzo would be mad, and that wasn’t good. So no matter what they heard, and no matter what they experienced—first hand or not—then here they were, working their little patch,
Rizzo’s
little patch, which now sported just two girls instead of three.

Rizzo wasn’t happy about that. He’d lost a valuable asset in Val. And, incidentally, he’d lost a sister too. He’d drafted his little sis into the business when she turned sixteen. He remembered it well.

Their mum had been at bingo and Val, mouthy little bitch, had been sitting in their front room with him and their little cousin Paulie, watching
The Avengers
on the telly, him saying what a tosser Steed looked with that bowler, like a toff, what good would a geezer like that be in a ruck?

Val had been droning on all through the programme, which Rizzo had found pretty bloody irritating. On and on about what would she do now? She’d left school, she didn’t want to work in no effing shop, not even in a
clothes
shop, the pay was piss poor and life was too short, but signing on was a drag. All the while painting her nails orange—Jesus, that stuff stank.

‘Will you shut the fuck up?’ asked Rizzo, popping a can.

The programme was getting interesting, Emma Peel was looking tasty in a leather catsuit and was about to get done by a villain if Steed didn’t get a fucking move on and show up, and all he could hear was Val going yackety-yackety-yack in his ear.

Now
she was saying she didn’t want to work in a grocery shop either, she’d die of boredom, but maybe she could get an apprenticeship at the local hairdresser, what did he think?

‘I think you should shut the fuck
up
,’ said Rizzo.

Paulie, crawling around on the carpet, getting in front of the TV screen, sticky fingers all over the damned thing—for God’s sake, was there no peace to be had?

‘Yeah?’ Val snapped. ‘Well
I
think you should take an interest in what your own sister’s doing. Would it kill you to just have a proper conversation with your
own sister
?’

At which point Rizzo wopped her a hard one around the chops. Orange nail varnish splattered all over the arm of the sofa and on to the floor. He saw the surprise there on her face as the redness bloomed on her freckled cheek. He’d never done that before.

Paulie froze on the carpet, his eyes going between the two. Val’s expression changed from surprise
to fear.
Good,
thought Rizzo, and right then and there he devised a plan.

‘Don’t worry. I can get you a job,’ he said.

And so it was that Val Delacourt entered her new profession. Took to it like a duck to water, too.

Rizzo was pleased; she pulled in a good living and so did he—half her earnings went straight into his pocket to feed his little habit.

The escort work had been something else, just a little extra. He’d been mad about it when he’d found out. He didn’t want his girls subcontracting;
his
business was what mattered, not their own.

And the escort stuff had resulted—sadly, really sadly—in Val getting herself killed stone-dead. Their mum had wailed and screamed and cried when the cops came by to break the news, he’d never forget it. Felt a bit guilty too. After all,
he’d
started Val out along the path to her own destruction, setting her up as a brass. Even if he didn’t like her escorting, he had to admit that she wouldn’t have
been
escorting if she hadn’t started tarting first.

Still, he didn’t feel guilty for long.

So now Rizzo had just the two girls, and one of
them
wasn’t all that, until he managed to source a third. Because good girls were hard to find.
This
girl, this one who was standing on the towpath chatting to his two remaining girls, was not a good girl.
He could see it clearly as he approached, Benj his bull terrier tugging his arm out of its socket as usual, straining to get forward as always.

Rizzo loved Benj. You knew where you were with a dog. Step on its paw and it would howl, but ten minutes later it’d be there licking your hand, kissing your arse and humping your leg. And Benj helped Rizzo’s reputation.

Benj had pulled down a Dalmatian belonging to one of the other pimps in the park last month, chewed the mutt all to hell. They’d had to haul the thing off to a vet’s and have it put down. Benj had been going for the pimp, too—the bastard had been trying to muscle in on Rizzo’s patch—when Rizzo called Benj off. The pimp had been traumatized and he hadn’t been seen in the area since.

Now he looked ahead and saw a girl, no, a
woman
, whose stance told him she would not take orders. This one would try to
give
them, and there was no fucking way Rizzo Delacourt was taking any orders off any skirt, no sir.

‘What the fuck you doing?’ he asked loudly, coming nearer, Benj pulling him ahead like a tugboat hauling a liner.

Rizzo was pissed off.

He’d expected both of the girls, Jackie and the other one, Misery he called her, to be off earning by now, pulling in the johns like they
were supposed to. It was nearly eleven thirty and the pubs had emptied out, but no, here they were, standing about shooting the breeze.

Shit! Couldn’t you leave these bitches unattended for a couple of hours, go about your business in the expectation that they would be about
theirs
? It was hard running a business these days. You had to have eyes in your arse, and that was a fact. Couldn’t turn your back for a minute. Who’d want to be in management when it was so damned hard?

‘Hey! You hear me? I said what the fuck you doing?’ he yelled. Yelling worked well with women, he knew that. Shout at them, get in close, act like a threat and they folded. Started to cry, poor little dears. Benj let out a yap, excited because Rizzo was, in tune with his master just as he’d been right from a pup. Bit anyone and anything, but never Rizzo. All the family were scared shitless of the hound, even the tattooed hulk Pete wouldn’t touch him—although Pete hadn’t been around lately—but not Rizzo. Rizzo was The
Man.

Only this girl didn’t look the type to fold easy.

He came up close and she just stood there. In the dim yellow light cast by the streetlamps he could see dark hair and steadily staring dark eyes. Jackie and Misery were acting nervous and that was good. Shooting looks at each other, shifting from foot to foot, they didn’t want no hassle with
Mr Rizzo Delacourt. Misery, a skinny blonde, drew deeply on her cigarette and eyed him nervously but said nothing.

‘We ain’t doing nothing, Rizzo,’ said Jackie, short dark bobbed hair and a skirt hitched high enough to show what she’d had for breakfast.

Rizzo ignored Jackie’s whining and addressed himself to the tall dark woman who stood there.

‘What you doin’ here, wastin’ my girls’ time?’ he demanded.

‘Just asking them a few questions, that’s all,’ said the woman, who was not reacting to Rizzo as he was used to being reacted to. In fact, she seemed more interested in eyeing up Misery. Perhaps she was a lezzer. Maybe here to strike a deal, who knew? He took it down a notch. Business was business, after all.

‘About what?’

The woman’s eyes pulled away from Misery and fastened on to Rizzo. ‘Val Delacourt. You’re Rizzo? Her brother?’

Rizzo shot his girls a glare. Loud-mouthed cows. They shrank back. ‘What’s that to you?’

The woman shrugged. ‘Just asking. Sad business, her dying like she did.’

Now Rizzo was getting mad. He didn’t care if she was a punter; all this delving into his private business was strictly out of bounds. ‘Look, I don’t want you coming down here putting the wind up
my girls by goin’ on about all that. We had all that out with the Bill. They got the man, it’s done.’

‘It’s not done, Rizzo. They got the wrong man.’

Rizzo’s mouth dropped open. Then he rallied himself.

‘Look.’ He came in closer to the uppity bitch and poked a finger at her shoulder, ramming his point home. ‘I want you to
fuck off
, girly. You’re botherin’ my girls. Val’s dead and gone. They got the man who done it. End of story.’

Annie recoiled from Rizzo’s breath. She glanced down at the dog, slavering and pawing the ground just like its owner.

Big dog, small cock,
she thought.

‘You understand me?’ he yelled in her face, spittle flying.

‘Yeah. Think I got that.’

Annie drew back, walked a few paces away. Looked again at the blonde skinny one, shivering in the shadows despite the mugginess of the night, turning her face away. She felt strongly that she knew the girl, knew her well. It
is,
thought Annie. It’s…

‘Mira?’ she said suddenly.

The skinny girl’s head whipped round.

Out of the shadows along the towpath stepped a squat, muddy-eyed geezer and a bloke wearing a deaf aid. Both dressed in neat, sober clothes, like
the woman. Rizzo stiffened. His hand slipped into his pocket, folded over the knife he always carried for his protection.

‘Hey, what’s going on?’ he asked.

‘Nothing’s going on, Rizzo,’ said Annie. ‘Just me asking questions and you answering them.’

She pulled her attention away from the girl she was sure she knew. Although the girl was so changed, so…bedraggled. She couldn’t believe her own eyes…and yet. It was. It was Mira.

‘Yeah, and you’d better fucking well hurry up and cough up the answers,’ said Deaf Derek.

Annie sent him an annoyed glance. No use showing the tosser up in front of his ‘girls’; he’d only dig his heels in and act tougher to maintain face.

‘Yeah, or what?’ asked Rizzo.

‘Or nothing,’ said Annie. ‘We just want some answers, that’s all.’

‘I ain’t talking to you. I told you, it’s done.’

‘How’s your mum taking it?’ asked Annie.

‘I told you,
no more questions
,’ shrieked Rizzo.

‘Hey, you wanna show some respect,’ said Deaf Derek.

Annie threw him another look.
Why don’t you shut up, arsehole?

She returned her attention to Rizzo, feeling a surge of disgust for this horrible little specimen who had put his own sister on the game, who kept
these poor pitiful skinny girls out here come rain or shine, while he bunked off to the cosy pub or to his mum’s nice warm house to get bladdered, watch telly or shoot up.

She held up her hands in a peacekeeping gesture.

‘Hey, Rizzo, we don’t want trouble. That’s the last thing we want. What we
do
want is to get whoever did this, and that’s not the man the police are holding. Your sister’s dead, Rizzo. Don’t you want to get him too?’

‘Last warning,’ said Rizzo flatly, shaking with rage.

He’s on something right now,
thought Annie.
No good reasoning with him.

She stepped back, shrugging; okay, no worries. But at the same instant Derek stepped forward and waved a finger in Rizzo’s face.

‘Hey, you know who you’re talking to, cunt?’ he yelled.

And that did it. Rizzo let out a curse. Jackie and Mira screamed and shrank back as he let Benj off the leash.

Annie knew about bull terriers. She knew the damage they could do. The instant it was released, the dog lunged forward, teeth bared, huge shoulders bunched, all muscle and evil intent. Steve, who had said nothing yet, knocked her to one side so that she fell against the streaming-wet wall
under the bridge, smearing her black jacket with green algae.
That’ll be a bugger to get clean
—what a stupid thought when a bull terrier was coming at you about to rip your fucking throat out.

There was pandemonium under the bridge. Deaf Derek shouting, the girls screaming their heads off, Rizzo yelling,
Go on, Benj. Kill!

The damned thing was going to do it too.

Annie stumbled, nearly fell to her knees, thinking,
That idiot bastard Derek.

She felt the dog’s hot fetid breath as it launched itself at her. She shrank back, shut her eyes, thought
Christ!

But the dog didn’t strike.

When she got her eyes open she found that squat powerful Steve had surged forward and was clutching the snapping, snarling, writhing brute by the neck. The weight of the dog drove Steve back so that he crashed into the wall beside Annie, the dog driving at him, squirming, its black eyes glaring hate, its jaws flecked with spittle and its teeth bared in hideous threat.

‘Do something!’ Annie roared at Derek, who was staying well out of it.

He did nothing.

Steve struggled with the huge, powerful dog but he couldn’t win, the thing was going to get loose from his grip and tear them all to fuck.

The struggle lasted for seconds but seemed
endless. Annie struck the thing around the head with her fists. It had no effect whatsoever. She didn’t have the kiyoga, the steel-sprung rod she usually carried in her pocket. If she’d had Max’s gun with her she’d have shot the damned thing.

Steve was grimacing with effort, trying to move his grip on the animal.

Then he got his hand down, grabbed the dog by one back leg. Shoved the thing away hard, he got the other back leg in the other hand. The dog dropped down, front legs scrabbling for purchase but finding nothing, still snarling, still trying to get his teeth into Steve, Annie, anybody except Rizzo.