Just Can't Help Believing, page 13
* * *
“He wants to speak to you again.”
Persico pulls the phone away from The Pirate’s ear and places it to his own. “Vinnie,” he says.
“How many fuckin’ Mexicans do you know that sound like that?” Vinnie asks.
“Sounds like a fuckin’ pirate to me,” Persico replies.
“The Pirate isn’t called the fuckin’ Pirate because he wears an eye patch and has a cock-sucking parrot on his mother-fuckin’ shoulder, you dumbass fuck!”
“So who’s this fuck I have here?”
“How the fuck do I know! I couldn’t understand a fuckin’ thing he said.”
“Mother fuck!”
Persico’s rage is fully focussed on the time-waster tied to the chair, whose stupid fuckin’ voice he’s about to silence for good.
He picks up his knife, but his next act isn’t to force it through the back of Captain Hook’s head ― that’s coming ― but to slip it inside his trouser pocket and head to the door, which is being knocked again.
* * *
My sweaty right hand on the handle, my left gripping its side, I have George’s stupidly oversized suitcase hoisted vertically to head height, ready. Breathe, I tell myself, as Heidi taught me. Just breathe. Don’t think about the guy with the gun. The guy with the gun who, seconds from now, will have it pressed into my face while I beg for mercy. That’s assuming he doesn’t just shoot me dead on sight, splattering my brains over this ludicrously luminous suitcase. Don’t think about him at all.
* * *
Persico opens the door to no one again, and as he takes a step out into the corridor to see who the fuck it is playing ding-dong ditch with the wrong guy, an outsized pink suitcase crashes into the side of his head, knocking him down and out.
* * *
“Are you okay? Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Oh Jim, thank Christ! My hands are tied to this chair.”
The belt of the bath robe is knotted tight and, though I pull, tear and pick at it, I just can’t prise it apart.
“Hurry up, mate! He’ll wake up in a minute!”
“I’m trying! I can’t do it!”
“You want my knife?”
“What knife?”
“The Elvis one I bought off Weasel Face. It’s in my pocket.”
I take the knife and saw at speed through the towelling until it frays and frees George.
“Trust in Elvis!” he declares, as we leap over the prostrate body in the doorway and flee for the airport.
16
“Oh yeah baby, that’s right. You wanna do it harder, huuh… Come on… Oh, yeah… Ooo… Who’s a big boy, huh?… That’s it… faster… ohhhh… yeah… Ooo… right there… ohhh… I’m nearly there. Oh… Oh… Oh God… I’m coming!… I’m coming!… I’m… Oooooooo!”
Caleb is flustered.
“Was I a bit too loud?” Cindy asks.
“I could hear you through the door,” Caleb replies testily.
“I’m sorry. He’s a regular who has to call at the exact same time each day when his wife is doing Pilates,” explains Cindy, stretching over the stained arm of the two-seater couch that doubles as Caleb’s bed to reach for her pack of Marlboro Lights, which sit atop her DVD of The Lone Ranger.
She blows a stream of smoke that comes to a halt just short of the TV screen, caught in the sunlight which streams in through the partly open curtains.
“You don’t have to do this no more,” Caleb says.
“Do what, hang out with you?” Cindy sucks on her cigarette. “I don’t have to do anything. And I don’t need anyone to tell me so. Okay?”
“It’s just…”
“Chief, let me stop you there.”
“But how can you let…”
“This is your second warning,” Cindy advises, derailing Caleb’s train of thought. “Strike three and you’re out. As an American, you should be quite familiar with those rules. Now go pour me a squash,” she orders, throwing The Lone Ranger DVD at Caleb’s feet. “Episode 37, ‘The Angel and the Outlaw’.”
Knowing this is a warning he’ll never heed, but fearful of pushing Cinderella away, Caleb opts to stay silent, slipping the DVD into the tiny TV that sits atop a microwave, then turning to look at Cindy, her face alight with a smile as she bites down on a raspberry jam sandwich.
* * *
Happy hour at The Sitting Duck amounts to Keith opening the curtains to allow a sliver of daylight to break through the thick layer of grime on the pub’s only window. It does not have the desired effect on Keith’s regulars, who look anything but happy as they recoil like Dracula when the light hits their faces.
“Blimey. Dad said you’d reached a dead end, but I wasn’t expecting that description to be quite so literal,” Heidi says, stirring the ice and slice in her sparkling water as she contemplates what Weasel Face told me.
“You and me both,” I reply, taking a swig from my pint.
“There can’t be any truth in it though, surely? I mean, your grandad?” Heidi says, her expression dismissive.
“That was obviously my gut reaction, too. But what if Elvis really was murdered and Grandad was in some way involved in his capacity as a CIA agent? Following orders. Is that the secret he was all set to share with me? God, listen to me. I’m starting to sound like one of those crackpot conspiracy theorists. Next thing I know I’ll have a colander on my head to block 5G signals and be signing off my emails as QAnon.”
I sigh, as Heidi sips her water.
“It would certainly be a valuable story, as your grandad suggested it was. You could have helped net him a stonking advance on a tell-all book deal and secured syndication rights to publish exclusive extracts in Juice.”
“Makes sense, no?” I reply.
“There is, however, the so-called ‘Son of Sam law’ which prevents offenders and their families profiting from their crimes,” Heidi says. “That includes all publicity, book deals included.”
“Which, from working in law enforcement, you’d expect Grandad to be aware of,” I reason.
“Which tells me your grandad wasn’t directly involved in the plot to kill Elvis, but he knew who was.”
“Caleb Jackson,” I say. “Listen to us. We sound like Fred and Velma when they’re about to unmask the villain in Scooby Doo.”
“And the man you call Weasel Face knows nothing more of Caleb Jackson or his likely whereabouts?” Heidi asks.
“Nothing,” I confirm. “Which is precisely what I’d be able to do, even if I did find him. I mean, he’s not going to confess anything to a complete stranger, is he?”
When Heidi thinks hard her temple twitches, as it does now, as though an invisible force is tapping Morse code on the side of her head. For once, her concentrated thought comes up blank.
“How’s your dad?”
“Remarkably chipper for someone who was almost murdered a few days ago. He was almost murdered again when he told my mum about it. Was it really a case of mistaken identity? Or did he do something mad without his medication?”
“He did plenty mad without his medication, most of it naked, but none of it warranted execution. Save perhaps for urinating all over someone in the gents’ toilet.”
Heidi’s hands shoot up to cover her ears. “I don’t want to know,” she says loudly. Then just as quickly she pulls her hands away and says, “He’s eternally grateful to you for saving his life. As are Mum and I. He’s even framed a picture of the two of you together. It makes you the only person on his wall who isn’t Elvis. Praise from my dad doesn’t come any higher than that.”
I raise a half smile. “I’m not sure I’ll remain as popular in the Watts household once I’ve told you the rest of my news.”
“Oh,” Heidi says, quizzically.
“It’s about the company,” I volunteer, taking another gulp of my pint. “Without Grandad’s miracle materialising, I have no choice but to voluntarily enter the company into administration. I’m out of time. And excuses.”
“What does that entail?”
“It means I cede control to the administrator, who has an initial eight weeks to decide on the best course of action for the company. There’s every chance they’ll conclude that it’s no longer a viable entity,” I say solemnly, the last few words spoken at a higher pitch on account of them having to squeeze past the lump in my throat.
“I’m so sorry,” Heidi says, reaching across the table to lay a comforting hand on mine. “I know what the company means to you.”
“The administrator will make many more redundancies than I could stomach, and I feel physically sick having to put you and the staff at their mercy,” I continue.
“Most of our staff are young and have no dependants other than themselves. They’ll move on,” Heidi figures.
“And you?” I ask.
“Well, I’m not jumping ship! So until I’m pushed, kicking and screaming, off the starboard side, I’ll do all I can,” she replies defiantly, giving my hand a little squeeze. “I’ll be fine. I promise.”
“Grandad was right when he said you were one in a million,” I tell her.
“Is that why you texted to tell me you loved me?” she giggles.
“Don’t remind me. That’s Amber’s job. One she’s currently excelling at.”
“At least she’s excelling at that particular job. She’s driving me mad in the office. Yesterday she asked me to pretend she was Taylor Swift so I could conduct a mock interview with her.”
“It’s nice she’s showing such interest,” I decide.
“Not for me it isn’t. The interview took two hours because she constantly cut me off to ask questions of her own about my interview technique. I think she must have plans to be the next Oprah Winfrey,” Heidi suggests.
“As long as she’s happy,” I reply, before gulping down what’s left of my pint.
“Have they told you what the chances are of the business coming out of administration intact?”
“Statistically?” I clarify. “Lower than my chances of bumping into Caleb Jackson at The Brit Awards tonight.”
* * *
Caleb yawns and stretches his arms wide, which sees Cinderella tut her disapproval.
“Keep still for a second,” she tells him, on her knees, pulling at the zip of his trousers.
“I said stay still!” she repeats, annoyed.
“I am still!”
“Then there’s something wrong with this zip. I’ll go and get you another pair,” she says.
“I’m not sure about ’em anyway. They’re baggy,” Caleb moans.
“That’s the style. And they’re not baggy. They’re just not halfway up your leg like your other pair,” Cindy reasons.
Caleb’s ill-fitting, torn, and only pair of trousers is the reason why he’s stood inside the dressing room of Marks & Spencer, Cindy having told him not to show himself up by wearing those old things in front of all the celebrities at The Brit Awards, for which Caleb has been hired through a temporary recruitment agency to beef up the security numbers.
“Here,” says Cindy, handing Caleb a substitute pair. “See if they’re any better.”
To Caleb’s mind they are baggier still, but to Cindy they are “perfect”.
Thrilled with her work, she reaches up on tiptoe to plant a kiss on Caleb’s cheek.
Caleb’s involuntary response is to recoil, so that Cindy ends up kissing thin air.
“Whoa. What’s that all about?” she asks.
“I’m sorry,” he says, as shocked as Cindy by his reaction.
“It’s because I was working last night, isn’t it?” she fishes.
“I don’t know what it was,” Caleb replies, flustered.
“You’re wondering where my mouth has been, aren’t you? What I did with it? And you’re so disgusted by your thoughts you can’t bear to let my lips so much as brush your cheek.”
Too ashamed to admit that Cindy has landed right on the money, Caleb says nothing.
“Shit, Chief. Why did you have to go and spoil it?”
“I’m lookin’ out for you, is all.” insists Caleb, pressing his hands onto Cindy’s shoulders, which she instantly shrugs off.
“I told you not to do this,” she replies, grabbing her handbag from the floor. I don’t need you to protect me. I do what I do by choice. It’s my choice!”
“But it can’t make you happy.”
“I can tell you I was plenty happy before I met you!” she shouts. “And I’ll tell you something else ― you can buy your own bloody trousers!”
Cindy nearly pulls the changing room curtain from its rings as she yanks it open and marches through it, past a shop assistant who looks on as Caleb chases after her, his trousers so baggy they slip closer to his knees with every stride.
In a small room above Marks & Spencer’s shop floor a man is talking into a microphone as he watches the screen on his monitor. “Look alive, Charlie,” he says. “White male with trousers around his ankles, which he hasn’t paid for, heading towards the exit now.”
“Cinderella!” Caleb shouts for the third and last time, though his voice is drowned out by a high-pitched alarm, which sounds almost as soon as he loses sight of her.
“Do you mind coming with me please, sir?” the store’s security guard asks.
* * *
Cornelius’s hand is fishing in a jar of pickled onions, the one remaining onion having eluded the attentions of his thumb and forefinger, when Allena tells him the limousine has pulled up outside. Spoken through gritted teeth, these are the first words she has spoken to Cornelius since he entered her room gripping a pillow and she bloodied his nose with the flat of her hand.
But tonight, the show must go on, which means Allena escorting The Family to The Brit Awards and keeping a watchful eye on its youngest member, eighteen-year-old Nina Tucker, with whom she has shared her bed since rebuffing Cornelius’s instruction.
Allena’s non-compliance means Cornelius is left with no option but to go along with the money-making plan he green-lit the last time he lost big, though he’s always intended that promise to remain empty.
After gulping down the vinegar from the jar till it rolls off his chin, and crunching loudly on the onion that falls into his gaping mouth, he thumbs through images on his Samsung Galaxy phone. Then he belches, long and loudly. Satisfied.
17
Amber’s head is tilted to the left as she struggles with one of her earrings in front of the bathroom mirror. The long, white, cowl-neck dress she’s wearing emphasises every curve on her near six-foot frame.
“How are they managing to stay in?” I ask, nodding at the reflection of Amber’s breasts which look as if they are about to free themselves from their satin captor.
“Toupee tape,” she cheerfully reveals.
Both earrings in, Amber turns on her heels to face me.
“How do I look?” she asks.
“Sensational,” I reply, unscrewing a miniature whisky I’ve taken from the mini-bar and draining it direct from the bottle.
“You need to slow down,” she warns, having obviously noted I’ve been drinking since my meeting with Heidi, eager to escape the reality of my situation. “Can you grab my phone and put it in my clutch bag? It’s by the bed.”
“When did you buy a new phone?” I ask, holding a Samsung Galaxy in my hand.
“This morning. It supposedly takes the best pictures, so I thought it would be great for tonight.”
I want to ask her if she’s kept the receipt. But as usual I say nothing.
Drink up. Get through this.
* * *
Caleb is in a foul mood. He’s heard precisely nothing from Cindy since she stormed out of the store, and the security firm he’s working for tonight has insisted he wear a name tag. Not an issue in itself, but the dumbass who took down Caleb’s details over the phone must have flunked English, as instead of writing Chief, as Caleb insisted, he missed out the letter ‘i’. Being mistakenly labelled ‘Chef’ at The Brit Awards, where a few thousand A-list guests are expecting first-class food, has done nothing to improve his state of mind.
The paparazzi click and call to the artists as they arrive and pose, hoping for a spot on the front page, and a sudden surge in camera flashes forces Caleb to raise a hand to shield his eyes.
As he turns to see whose arrival has caused the commotion, he locks eyes with po-faced Allena. The guy they call Cornelius, and a merry band of preening kids, are at her side, blanketed in strobe lighting.
“What happened to your nose?” one of the paparazzi shouts at Cornelius.
Cornelius offers no explanation, but Caleb would swear he saw Allena’s eyes smile in response.
* * *
You have got to be kidding.
Simon Royce springs from his seat like a jack-in-the-box at the sight of Amber approaching, his ridiculously hued face the shade of a basketball.
“Please, allow me,” he says, pulling out the seat next to his for Amber, his paid-for teeth, like Stonehenge in a snowstorm, dominating his smiling visage.
It appears that the ignominy of sharing a press table at The Brits with Roman FM is Juice’s purgatory before it falls into the fiery bowels of hell tomorrow morning, along with the rest of Bath Time Inc.
Simon Royce has turned his back on someone I assume is his partner to try and engage Amber with his witless banter.
“Could we get another bottle of red, please?” I ask the waitress assigned to our table.
“You haven’t opened the one you’re holding yet,” comes the reply from Royce’s luckless companion.
“I like to plan ahead,” I reply.
“You’re Taurus, aren’t you?” she ventures, her tongue forcing her cheek outwards to reinforce her confidence.
“Actually, I’m Jimmy.”
“Taurus, as in the star sign. Hello!” she grates.
“In that case, yes, I’m a Taurus,” I confirm, hoping that will end the conversation.
“I knew it! You want to know how I know?”
I really don’t. But it turns out her question was rhetorical.
