The Evil And The Pure (3 page)

“But if he can…” the Bush pressed.

“It’s a risk,” Big Sandy said. “I’ll accept it, take what’s coming if it blows up on me.”

The Bush smiled. “I wish I had a hundred men like you.”

Big Sandy grunted, uneasy with the compliment.

“Do you want to leave town for a while?” the Bush asked.

“No,” Big Sandy said. “I don’t think I need to. I’ll keep low for the next day or two. If the boy can tell them anything, we’ll hear about it and you can deal with me before they track me down.”

“You’re a cool customer,” the Bush laughed.

“We make choices,” Big Sandy shrugged. “We’ve got to live with them.”

The Bush
shook his head with admiration, then slipped Big Sandy a plain brown envelope, padded with bills. Big Sandy pocketed it without looking inside. There was never a fee when he killed – he received a regular salary, paid direct into his bank account – but the Bush often slid him a bonus.

“
Have a good night on me,” the Bush said, knowing Big Sandy was sometimes edgy after a hit, that he might need to get drunk to unwind. “Drop by the house when you sober up tomorrow. I’ve some more work for you.”

“Enjoy your party, boss.”

“I intend to.” He squeezed Big Sandy’s shoulder then went to show off his niece and steer her away from the horny male wolves who were circling.

Big Sandy thought about ordering another drink, decided against it
. He could get a chaser at his next port of call. He departed, tearing off his tie and shrugging loose his jacket as he stomped down the stairs, thrusting them at Eyes Burton on his way out.

“You didn’t stay long,” Eyes noted.

“Long enough,” Big Sandy replied, turning left as he exited, to hail a taxi, heading for Sapphire’s.

Sapphire was an Asian American, long dark hair, surprisingly thick eyebrows, late thirties (the same as Big Sandy), a Londoner for twelve years, doubted she’d ever return to the States. Twenty pounds overweight but she didn’t care. She’d worked hard in her prime, set a lot of money aside, established her own house in Earl’s Court, ran a discreet service, only taking on clients who had been recommended by existing customers. Sapphire rarely entertained her guests personally any more – that was a job for the younger women – but she still graced a few favourites with her pleasures.

Big Sandy usually went with one of Sapphire’s girls
when he visited, but she took one look at his face when he entered, stooping so as not to bash his head on the doorframe, and knew this would be one of his hard nights. Sapphire preferred to service him on nights such as this — she knew what to expect and how to handle him. Big Sandy was a lamb most of the time but he could get violent when morose, and a violent Big Sandy was a handful.

“Come on through,” she drawled in her light Texan accent, taking his hand and leading him to her
boudoir
. When he was sitting on the bed, she kissed his cheeks, forehead, finally his lips. “Take off those revolting clothes and burn them while I fetch the vodka.”

“I needed the clothes for a job,” Big Sandy protested.

Sapphire sighed. “I’m sure you’ll tell me all about it.”

Big Sandy went to work on his laces. When Sapphire returned with a pitcher of vodka and two shot glasses
he was naked, torso rippling with muscles, body ripped with scars, scabbed cuts, lumps from old bruises. But not his face. Almost none of Big Sandy’s opponents over the years had been tall, fast or lucky enough to strike him in the face.

Sapphire
bagged the soiled clothes and hung up a dressing gown, then poured the drinks and silently toasted the giant on the bed. Without a word they tossed back the vodka. Sapphire poured a second glass for Big Sandy, he took it gingerly, lay on the bed, set the glass on the side table, rolled over. Sapphire massaged him, working hard on the bunched muscles. No oils — Big Sandy wasn’t into oils. No conversation either. In this mood he didn’t like to talk, not right away.

It took about twenty minutes for Big Sandy to relax. When Sapphire felt the stiffness
sap from his massive frame, she slapped his buttocks playfully. “Turn over.” He obeyed, the bed shaking as he fell flat on his back. His penis was coming to life. Sapphire smiled. When Big Sandy was really bad, he couldn’t get an erection. This was a good sign. She wouldn’t have to nurse him as forcefully through the night as she had feared. “Close your eyes.”

Big Sandy shook his head, muscles tightening. “Dark.”

“It’s OK,” Sapphire said. “I’m here. I’ll protect you.” Crazy, a five-foot-two elf (albeit a pudgy elf) offering to protect a man-mountain, but it was what Big Sandy wanted to hear. He allowed his eyes to close and Sapphire went to work on him with her lips and tongue, first his chest, stomach, the insides of his thighs, slowly and teasingly working back up his body, before heading south again. Big Sandy groaned and gently clasped her head while she pleasured him. His hands could crush her delicate skull but she wasn’t frightened, she knew how to control him.

She eased off w
hen he was approaching climax, then climbed on top, slipped a condom on and mounted him. His hands automatically went to her flanks, fingers gripping her tightly, and he thrust, eyes still shut. His grip tightened as he bucked and Sapphire gasped painfully. Her legs would be bruised in the morning but she didn’t mind. Big Sandy paid well and his boss sent a lot of business her way. She could live with a few bruises.

Big Sandy came with a juddering shout, fingers digging
into her flesh, causing her to shriek. He released his grip immediately, though he went on thrusting, and Sapphire thrust with him, letting him decide when to end the moment, not rushing him. When he eventually subsided and opened his eyes, she smiled, kissed him, slid off, removed the condom, binned it, returned to cuddle him.

“Did I hurt you?” Big Sandy asked, concerned.

“A few love bruises won’t break me.” Sapphire studied his eyes and read his mood, considering her approach. Sometimes Big Sandy didn’t invite questions. Other times he wanted to be interrogated. She decided this was such an occasion and broke the silence with, “Want to tell me about it?”

Big Sandy’s lips turned down and he shook his head, but she could tell this was a delaying tactic, that he did want to talk, so she pressed him. “Come on, tell Sapphire all about it. I won’t let you touch me again
until you do.”

Big Sandy grinned and reached for her breasts. She slapped his fingers away and he grimaced with delight. “Spoilsport,” he grumbled.

“I want to know what happened.” A pause, then a gamble, based on what he’d said to a girl the last time he was here. “Was it Tommy Utah?” Big Sandy stiffened and she sensed she’d said the wrong thing, but she didn’t panic, kept smiling.

“How do you know about Tommy Utah?” Big Sandy snapped.

“I know everything that happens,” she smiled. “You aren’t my only customer. Everyone talks when they come to see Sapphire.” Protecting the girl who’d told her about Tommy Utah, letting Big Sandy believe he wasn’t the source of the leak.

“He crossed Dave,” Big Sandy sighed, picking up his glass of vodka, twirling it so it caught the
rosy light of the bedside lamp. “He used to fence for us, good at his job, but he started skimming thirty, forty percent.”

“How di
d he think he’d get away with that much?” Sapphire asked, nibbling at Big Sandy’s nipples.

“Money fucks up people’s
thinking,” Big Sandy said. “I’ve seen it happen to dozens like Tommy Utah. Smart, ahead of the game, all the benefits and none of the cons. They start to feel that they deserve more and they set out to fleece the men they work for. They never think they’ll be caught. They always are.”

“How di
d you kill him?” Sapphire asked, sliding another condom over Big Sandy’s hardening penis and mounting him. He often came three or four times in quick succession when he’d killed a man.

“Hands,
” Big Sandy gasped, closing his eyes again. “Strangled him. Quick. Clean. Crushed his throat.”

Sapphire
trembled – death disturbed her when it was described so plainly – but Big Sandy thought she was reacting to him and he thrust harder, pulling her close, kissing her, clasping her tight, rolling over so that he was on top, powering away, Sapphire crying out with pleasure and pain, urging him on, losing herself to the passion, but not totally, always in command, a child controlling a bear.

Later. Most of Sapphire’s girls had retired for the night. Big Sandy was stretched out like a beached wreck, drunk, head swaying, limbs shaking. Sapphire held him and stroked him, hearing his confession. He was telling her about Tommy Utah’s boy, how he’d woken after Big Sandy had killed his father, reading to him. “I should have killed him,” Big Sandy moaned. “He’s a witness. He can describe me to the police. I should…”

“But
you couldn’t,” Sapphire cooed, brushing his hair back with her fingers, kissing his forehead and eyelids, trying to soothe him. “And you were right not to. You can’t go round killing children. You’re not a monster.”

“
Horns,” Big Sandy croaked. (Sapphire had no idea what that meant but she didn’t ask.) Tears trickled from Big Sandy’s eyes, the sign that the night was drawing to a close. In this mood he always cried at the end. Sapphire was glad — it had been a long day and she craved sleep. Big Sandy began telling her about the story he’d read. Then he told her again about Tommy Utah. He told her about others too, men and women, their crimes, their punishments. She let him babble, kissing him, caressing him, telling him he wasn’t evil, just doing his job, someone else would have killed them if he hadn’t. Eventually he mumbled his way to sleep and lay snoring, head in Sapphire’s lap, her fingers entwined in his hair.

Sapphire s
tayed like that, sitting up, cradling the giant, not wishing to disturb his sleep. As she tried to doze, she thought about Tommy Utah and the other people Big Sandy had killed. She knew too much. Big Sandy wasn’t the only one of her clients who talked in bed, but he told more than most when he was in one of his death-fixated dips. If Dave Bushinsky knew what Sapphire knew about his pet killer – even a fraction of it – he’d kill her to protect himself. Sapphire knew that and accepted it. It was part of the risk she ran to live the life she desired. Hers was a wonderful but terrible world. As long as she sold herself to men like Big Sandy – men of crime and violence – it always would be.

Clint Smith mingled with
the rich, glamorous and infamous, wishing with all his being that he was one of them. While he thrived on parties like this, he hated them too. As he drifted around the opulent rooms of the League of Victoria, ignored by his peers, he was reminded at every step of his true insignificance. In dingy pubs and clubs in East London he could strut and impress. But here the reality of his position was clear — he was a nobody.

Clint
plucked a canapé from a passing tray, watched how those around him were eating – nibble or munch? – then copied them. He paused beside a group of stylish twentysomethings and eavesdropped as they discussed Aspen, Epsom, the Groucho, how gauche Harrods had become, how difficult it was to find a decent bottle of bubbly. Clint was the same age and he yearned to join in the conversation but he’d never been to Aspen, Epsom or the Groucho, he thought Harrods was the coolest store in London, and he knew nothing about champagne. After a while he drifted on, aware that the young men and women were eyeing him suspiciously, whispering behind his back, “one of Bushinsky’s boys,” “think he’s a gangster,” “doesn’t look dangerous,” “gives me the creeps.”

Clint wasn’t a gangster, though he dreamt of becoming one. He had an insatiable appetite for movies
and TV shows about the Mafia. He would commit chunks of dialogue to memory, mimic expressions and gestures. One day he’d cross the Atlantic and take America by storm, make it his own, establish a dynasty. But not until he’d made his mark here. He wasn’t interested in going to New Jersey or Chicago as a nobody. He wanted to hit the States like a meteorite, perhaps as a liaison between cousin Dave and his American counterparts.

Cousin Dave
was Dave Bushinsky, Clint’s entry to the underworld. Related through Clint’s mother. Clint hadn’t seen much of the Bush when he was growing up but he’d heard all about him, whispered tales, gossip. When Clint left home aged seventeen, sick of his humdrum life and a job in Tesco’s, he targeted cousin Dave, looking for work. Dave laughed when Clint said he wanted to be a gangster, told him he didn’t have the balls for it. “But don’t worry,” he’d grinned as Clint’s dreams threatened to crash around him, “we’ll find something for you.”

Clint spotted Lawrence Drake, surrounded by
sensual women, acting out a scene from the TV soap in which he was currently appearing. Arms wide, exaggerated expressions flitting across his face as he told of a run-in with a producer, the whimsical demands of his co-stars, his behind-the-scenes adventures. His audience hung on his every word, enthralled. Clint did too. Clint knew Drake was a small-timer enjoying fifteen minutes of semi-fame before slipping into obscurity, but right now Drake was moving in dreamy circles, with access to actors, singers, producers. Like everybody else, those people partied and got stoned, but they were prepared to pay more than most. If Clint could use Drake to gain access to them, it would be like plugging directly into the national grid and draining off as much current as he cared to.