The Last Card Page 19

  ‘What? Don’t we get one?’ Alan now looked between the coffee and Ade, a hurt expression on his face. For a moment Ade looked flustered, then Alan broke out into a broad smile. ‘You’re all right, I’m only joking!’ He looked over at his younger brother. ‘Thought I was serious!’ Alan chuckled, willing Paul to share the joke. Apparently Paul wasn’t in a joking mood because he failed to crack a smile.

  ‘So anyway, Ade, Dunstan and I have had a talk.’

  Ade didn’t say a word, he just looked between Dunstan, Alan and Paul. ‘I know you and Dunstan have been naughty boys. Haven’t you?’ Both Alan and Paul were looking directly at Ade now, waiting for him to answer. Having been taken by surprise with their comment about the drinks Ade was not going to give them the upper hand now. He was a warrior. He shifted his gaze to his coffee, picked it up, took a careful sip and replaced it on the table. He looked up. White Alan and Paul were both still staring at him.

  ‘Dunstan’s already said his piece, Ade, is there anything you’d like to say?’ Ade looked at Dunstan but Dunstan kept his eyes on the table and said nothing. Ade looked at Alan, making sure to look him in the eye.

  ‘Like what?’ Ade kept his voice even. If they wanted war, they could have one, whatever Dunstan said. Globalisation, you know’t I mean?

  ‘You’ve been out of order.’

  ‘Says who?’ There it was. The challenge was out in the open, on the table. Alan could pick it up or kick it away, whatever he felt up to. Ade kept his gaze focused on Alan’s eyes. Ade didn’t blink. He was a warrior. His father taught him that. He was a Nigerian, from the Yoruba tribe. Yoruba were warriors and no fucking dry-up, old white man would make him back down.

  ‘I could go on about this’ said Alan. ‘But I won’t. There’s too much money involved.’ He now looked at Paul. ‘And I know this one has been a right fucking banana. A fool.’ He turned back to Ade and Dunstan, looking between them, very serious now. ‘It’s over.’ Paul and Dunstan glanced at each other and quickly glanced away. If body language meant anything it was clear that whatever Alan might say, it wasn’t even nearly over.

  ‘Are you two going to kiss and make up, or do I have to bang both your heads together?’ Alan looked at both Dunstan and Paul, but he addressed the comment to Paul.

  ‘Come on, Dunstan,’ said Paul. ‘It’s over. No one wins in a war, no one makes any money.’ The words stumbled, squeezed and slid without enthusiasm from Paul’s throat. Paul was a man under orders, delivering a script that he clearly did not believe. The look he gave Dunstan did away with any doubt. That was the moment when Ade knew Dunstan’s globalisation plan was a winner. For some reason Akers didn’t want to take them on! Akers must respect his and Dunstan’s power, and if Dunstan wasn’t aware of it, he, Ade certainly was.

  Dunstan had the vision. He might not have the balls to carry his vision through, but Ade had to give him credit for the breadth of his imagination. If he needed steel in his backbone Ade could provide that, but if that wasn’t enough for Dunstan then fuck him. Fuck him! Paul, meanwhile, extended his hand – like a set of defrosted fish fingers – to Dunstan. Dunstan shook it for the briefest moment. White Alan raised his hand to playfully ruffle Dunstan’s hair but Dunstan moved his head away just in time. Alan laughed.

  ‘I’m glad you two decided to be smart. I thought I was going to have to kill you right here in the open, you little monkeys!’ Alan looked at the pout on Dunstan’s face and burst out laughing. Even Paul smiled. Dunstan looked between the two of them saying not a word, the beginnings of a rictus-like grin flirting with the corners of his mouth. ‘I’m just kidding,’ smirked Alan ‘Just kidding!’

  Ade looked between the three of them, Paul, Alan and Dunstan. Business might well go on as usual for a while … but a day of reckoning was coming. Ade had just seen the future and it didn’t include Alan or Paul Akers. In fact, as he looked at the fake grin on Dunstan’s face, he realised it didn’t include him either.

  29.

  H sat in a shadowy part of Blackie’s shebeen, in a corner at one of the smaller tables. At the main table in the centre of the room a game of stud poker was in full flow but H wanted no part of it. While Shampa dealt the cards with her usual aplomb, most of the players were unknown to H and even if he had known them he’d still have vowed to give up gambling. And he had … kind of. He was playing match kalooki, a card game so boring you could hardly call it gambling – or so H told himself.

  Ten o’clock on Sunday night and H found himself sitting opposite Blackie, mano y mano. A stack of notes lay in the middle of the table. Grimly, H cast his eyes over it. He still couldn’t control the urge to gamble! What was wrong with him! He wanted to scream! H’s talisman sat vindictively next to him on the table. Next to that H had a shot glass of JD. While this had hardly been touched, Blackie was uncharacteristically drunk. He drank steadily from the tumbler of Mount Gay which sat next to him.

  Blackie and H were nearing the end of a game. Each of them had just one playing card in their hand. H had a nine, Blackie a queen. The deck lay to one side of the money and each of them, in turn, picked from the top. Each was waiting for one card to close out the game. In the joyless, heavy silence between them they picked with the regularity of a metronome.

  It was H who picked the winner. A jack. Blackie had a set of three jacks in front of him and H laid his freshly-picked jack alongside them. Game over. He scooped up the money in the centre of the table. It was over £300 but the blank manner in which H scooped up and pocketed his winnings would have told Blackie that the win gave H no pleasure. Blackie looked back at him with the leaden eyes and the slack jowls of a man in serious need of sleep.

  ‘Man, you lucky tonight!’ It was Blackie’s face that had emitted the words but you could hardly tell; the man was so pickled with rum that the muscles in his face looked as though they’d been pumped with Botox. Blackie collected the cards and shuffled them.

  ‘Really? My life’s like a bad plane crash: Beverley wants me to stop gambling, I want to stop gambling, but I can’t stop gambling and I’m ‘lucky’! Is that right, Blackie?’

  ‘Listen, man, listen. I know dis chap once. He used to come to my old place in Ladbroke Grove, regular! Ibazebo. Nigerian chap. ’E don’t come no more since ’is wife ketch ’im wid a nex woman an’ brok ’is arm. Now ’e an’ ’is wife split up. Anyway, ’e was a sharp Nigerian man, brilliant min’. It was ’im dat tell me dat ’e t’ought gamblin’ was a, was a … ’ow did ’e put it?’ Blackie’s eyes glazed over as his face personified the expression ‘the lights were on but nobody was home’. They came back into focus. ‘’E did say gamblin’ was a kind of a comfort; comfort for de … ’emotionally insecure’. Das ’ow de man put it.’ Blackie paused as though he’d just revealed the secret of the universe and H should have been be shocked by its simplicity. H was not shocked but he could feel his blood beginning to boil. Blackie carried on talking as he now dealt the cards.

  ‘I had to stan’ up in de man face and tell ’im ’e tarkin’ rrrrrubbish! All de time ’e’s gamblin’ an’ ’e cian see what ’e doin’! Gamblin’ … is a … spiritual t’ing; a t’ing dat can bring us closer … closer to Gawd. I mean …’

  H couldn’t contain himself any longer. ‘Blackie?! You’re the one talking rubbish!’ He dropped the cards he’d been dealt on to the table and rose.

  Blackie looked up at him with uncomprehending eyes. ‘I tarking rrrrubbish?’

  H bent down to speak directly into Blackie’s leaden, black, greasy face. ‘Remember Dipak? Did gambling bring him closer to God?’

  Blackie’s face took on a look of fear. ‘Dipak?’ Blackie whispered the name.

  H turned to leave but turned back. ‘You’re drunk and you’re talking out of your arse!’ H jammed his talisman in his pocket and swept out of the shebeen.

  ***

  The night was surprisingly warm as H turned into Wardour Street. The air was still. The street buzzed as H passed through and arrived on to Shaftesbury Avenue.
He paused. He pulled his talisman out of his pocket, pumping it nervously, turning it over and over and over. Blackie was a good man but when he’d had a few drinks you just couldn’t talk to him. H knew he could leave this scene behind for the next ten, fifteen, twenty years, come back and Blackie would be exactly the same. A little more battle-scarred, a few fewer teeth.

  H slipped his talisman back into his pocket and headed towards Chinatown. Out of the endless questions in his life he could hear Nina’s low, seductive voice. Providing answers. ‘If you wanted to take White Alan out of the game it would be so easy,’ the voice said. ‘He does the same thing every Sunday night.’ H passed Gerrard Street and headed deeper into Chinatown proper, turning left into Lisle Street. He walked a little way until he saw before him what he was looking for: the brightly lit Chinese restaurant called Yee Tsang’s. It was on the corner of Little Newport Street and Newport Place. He could see that the restaurant was busy and the diners, an equal mix of white and Oriental, ate and chatted, enjoying a late Sunday night meal. Life outside the restaurant was equally busy with people, tourists, passing by in both directions, and the shops around the restaurant were all open for business.

  H stood across from Yee Tsang’s and watched. The voice in his head continued. ‘He leaves the club about eleven and goes to Chinatown. He’s got a friend there. A Mr Tsang’. H took a step forward, as though in a daze, as though about to approach the restaurant, but then he stepped back. The voice continued.

  ‘He’s some kind of business associate. They meet up, they have a drink. They do their business. Alan will stay there for maybe half an hour. He normally has Gavin with him but I’ll make sure that he won’t be there this time. He’ll leave alone.’ As the voice in H’s head receded, he slipped into a doorway on Lisle Street, disappearing into the shadows.

  The street was quiet now and White Alan, looking cool and relaxed, stood at the door to Yee Tsang’s finishing a conversation with a short, jovial, stringy-haired Chinese man. Wearing a white, short-sleeved, linen safari suit, coupled with a silk cravat, Alan looked as though he’d just stepped out of a Laura Ashley fashion shoot. From the recess of the doorway next to Yee Tsang’s, H eyed him carefully, asking himself why this man had such an eccentric fascination for white.

  Moments later White Alan finished his conversation with the Chinese man, shook hands with him and headed up Newport Place. H remained hidden in the doorway. When he was about ten metres away, H now stepped out and followed. The voice in his head began again. ‘When he approaches Gerrard Street you do it there. It’s all small Chinese stores in that area, no one will say a word. It’s a tight-knit community, they won’t speak to the police.’ White Alan was at the top of Newport Place, about to turn into Gerrard Street. H picked up his pace closing in on White Alan’s back. ‘Twice. Shoot him twice. Make sure he’s dead. Then you go straight back to the office at Roxy’s. Before anyone knows he’s missing, you clean out the safe. Simple.’

  H moved silently and swiftly up behind White Alan. He was now close enough to reach out and touch him. Just as White Alan reached the beginning of Gerrard Street H grabbed his arm and spun him round. For the first time since H had met him, Alan’s face betrayed fear.

  ‘What? What do you want?’

  ‘I’m not throwing the fight. I’m not throwing it. You’ll get your fifteen grand and then we’re quits. It’s as simple as that.’ White Alan’s eyes quickly scanned H for signs of a weapon. Nothing. H looked coolly back at him.

  ‘Is that right?’

  ‘That’s more than right. What are you going to do to me, Alan? The bet has been laid.’

  Alan stared back at H, an uneasy smile on his face. ‘I don’t need to do anything to you. The question is what’re you going to do to yourself?’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means I know about you, Hilary. You tried to take Mancini as an amateur and he beat the shit outta you. And now you’re a gambler stuck on the cards.’ H just stared. ‘You’re one of life’s losers; one of the little people; a low life. You are going to let Mancini win, and not only win, you’re going to let him beat the shit out of you. Again. How do I know this?’ H still said nothing. Alan leaned in closer so that H could smell the stench of spicy pork on Alan’s breath. He whispered in H’s ear. Because you have no … moral integrity.’ Alan now leaned back and smiled playfully at H. ‘But also, if you don’t lie down, I’m going to cut you like a fookin’ grapefruit.’

  White Alan now conspicuously turned his back on H, smoothed out any ruffles that might have disturbed the lines of his linen suit, and continued on his way. H watched him turn the corner into Gerrard Street and go about his business. And only then did he realize that the hand that had spun Alan round was shaking.

  30.

  Wearing an ankle-length, sheer, figure-hugging, black dress, covered with sparkling black beads, Nina was two-thirds of the way through the last song in her set, Jennifer Holiday’s ‘I’m not going’. Her shiny black Manolo Blahnik strapless shoes gave her another three inches in height and Nina used them well. She knew she looked damn good and her slowed-down, vamped-up version of the song had the crowd, mostly gay men, cheering their approval.

  It was during this cheering that Nina suddenly saw a flurry of activity in the audience. Alan must have just entered the club. She saw him barging his way through to the bar where he joined Gavin. He yanked Gavin’s shoulder and the two of them disappeared round the side of the bar and out into the hallway.

  Nina was a professional. She took great pride in what she did and she certainly wasn’t going to rush the end of the song. But this was one of those moments when she wished she wasn’t so professional. At the song’s end, instead of going to the bar and ordering her usual Tanqueray and tonic, Nina went round the side of the bar and edged out into the hallway. She couldn’t see but she could hear Alan talking with Gavin at the top of the stairs. Alan did not seem too happy.

  ‘… He’s a fooking liability!’

  ‘I’ll watch him, I’ll make sure …’

  ‘He bloody well told me he’s not going to take the fall!’

  ‘Alan, I’ll take care of it: I’ll see exactly what needs to be done and I’ll take care of it. Calm down …’

  ‘You fooking calm down! You fooking calm down!’ Alan was almost screeching. ‘Do you know how much fooking money is riding on this?!’

  As Nina remembered the conversation she’d had with Hilary the night before she could feel the panic rising up in her stomach.

  ‘Do you want me to pay him a visit? Lean on him?’

  ‘No, I want you to pay him a visit and tell him what great integrity he’s got! Of course I want you to fooking lean on him! Break his fooking legs! Do what you have to do but he takes that fooking fall or someone’s going to pay! And I’ll fooking tell you now it’s not going to be me! Do you fooking understand that?!’

  ‘Yes, Alan.’

  ‘Yes, Alan. Now fook off and get to work!’

  Pause. Nina could feel the thickness of the silence.

  ‘Er … Alan, if I physically, if I have, if someone hurts … he isn’t going to be fit to …’

  Nina held her breath. She waited for Alan’s response to Gavin pointing out the flaw in his plan.

  ‘Has that bitch Nina come up with anything?’ Nina flinched at the sound of her own name.

  ‘Has she?’

  Before Nina could hear Gavin’s reply one of the barmen squeezed past her on his way to the cellar under the stairs. ‘Are you going to stand there all day, Nina?’

  His mild reproach was loud enough to be heard at the top of the stairs. Nina immediately slipped back into the club. She sat at the bar to think. She wasn’t sure what had happened with Hilary that evening but whatever had happened had left Alan in a murderous rage. She was scared. She crossed the dance floor and entered a door, using a security code that she tapped out on the keys. Inside was a small dressing room. This was where Nina had her things; a change of clothes, shoes, her coat,
her handbag. Nina opened her handbag and took out her mobile phone. She dialled and listened. After four rings a man’s voice answered.

  ***

  Nina picked H up waiting outside the Royal Court Theatre by Sloane Square Tube station. It was just after three in the morning and he stood alone, in the quiet of the night, smoking a cigarette. He saw her coming and stood next to the kerb as she drove up in her Z3 Roadster. She leant over and opened up the passenger door. He tossed away his cigarette and climbed in.

  ‘I didn’t know you smoked?’

  ‘Once in a while.’

  ‘I used to smoke. I gave up on Friday.’

  ‘I’m very happy for you.’

  ‘I give up every Friday.’ She looked across at him expecting at least a smile. Nothing.

  Nina pulled away from the kerb, drove back around Sloane Square and on to Sloane Street. She knew something serious had happened tonight between Hilary and White Alan and that’s why she had called him. That’s why she’d called him? Why had she called him? The poor bastard had had a rough week. She’d take him back to her place which at least looked like somewhere you might want to be and give him a drink. Maybe even a warm bed. Maybe even her bed. She could see the pain in his face and felt like stroking him. She glanced quickly over at him and looked away. He was staring out of the window. Thank God for that! Her face had suddenly flushed! Holy Mary, mother of Jesus!

  ‘You look like shit!’

  The look he gave her came slow and hard.

  ‘Is that your idea of conversation?’

  Nina kept her eyes fixed on the road. ‘I … we … well, what do you want from me?!’

  ‘Nina, you called me.’

  ‘So? Yes, I know I called you. So what of it?’ She could feel his eyes boring into the side of her face and she knew why. She was talking gibberish!