Algy raised his eyebrows. ‘A razor,’ he repeated. ‘You ought to get out more, and learn some new slang. You sound like Mott The fucking Hoople.’
McBain’s eyes flashed angrily. ‘Just go, fatty,’ he shouted. Algy walked slowly through the door without saying anything, and reappeared a moment later carrying a small, strangely shaped guitar. The body of the instrument was only an inch or so wider than the elongated neck and was painted blood–red.
‘I’ve just got this on appro, McBain,’ said Algy. ‘Take care of it, will you.’
‘Of course,’ said McBain slyly, ‘I’ve just got to get ready.’ He left the room by the door we had recently entered.
‘He’s fucking mental,’ said Algy.
‘Why do you stay then?’ I asked.
‘Money,’ said Algy bluntly. ‘Do you know how much he earned after tax in the last financial year?’
I shook my head.
‘Nearly half a million,’ Algy continued. ‘And pounds sterling, not dollars. Besides, I quite like the silly cunt. And it’s an easy job. It’s nice here in the summer when it’s warm.’
‘Why don’t you get some heat?’ I asked.
‘He won’t have any noise in the house apart from his own, no workmen, nothing. We need a new roof, but he won’t have it. I just run around with buckets when it rains.’
‘What about all that?’ I pointed at the RSJ. ‘Someone must have worked on that.’
‘He had it done before my time,’ said Algy, ‘when he was out on tour. He won’t go out at all now, not even to the shops. I get everything he needs.’
‘What’s he doing now?’ I asked.
‘Don’t ask me. Getting wired I expect.’ Even as Algy spoke, McBain came back into the room. He was now wearing a long black coat hanging open over his shirt and pants. He looked like a character from a spaghetti western and I remembered the guns in his bedroom. He’d also applied some eye make-up I noticed, and now his dark eyes stood out in his face like the devil’s.
‘Right Algernon,’ said McBain. ‘Lights.’ The big man went and sat behind the control board on one of the leather chairs and hit a switch. The console lit up like the flight-deck of Concorde. His hands flew across the switches. The lights around the edge of the room dimmed and left only a few spotlights illuminating the centre of the room.
McBain strode across the centre of the floor, turning switches on the amps and tiny red and orange lights ignited. A hum of power began to fill the room and I could smell the odour of valves warming up from the older equipment.
McBain touched a button on the upright organ and the horns on the speakers began to rotate. He went over and stood by a small box covered in pedals and tripped switches with the toe of his boot.
‘Drum machine, bass synthesizer,’ he intoned. ‘Algy, is the computer link switched on for the Hammond?’
‘Check,’ said Algy, suddenly the pro.
‘Tape machines?’ asked McBain.
‘Check,’ repeated Algy.
McBain walked from microphone to microphone tapping them with his fingernails. As he hit each one an electronic crack sounded in the room from the PA system.
‘All systems go,’ said McBain.
‘Check,’ said Algy.
McBain went over to the centre mike and whispered, ‘One, two, test, one, two, test.’ His amplified voice filled the studio. From the pocket of his overcoat he carefully withdrew a long, fat joint and poked it into the corner of his mouth. He lit it with a wooden match that he struck with his thumbnail. Very Clint Eastwood, I thought. Then he picked up the tiny guitar by its strap and slung it over one shoulder. Algy tossed him a long curly lead the same colour as the guitar with silver jack plugs at each end, which winked under the spotlights. McBain plugged one end into the jack socket on the guitar body, and the other into the smallest of the amps arranged around the room.
‘AC 30,’ he said. ‘An original, and still the greatest.’ Then he picked up a sawn-off pool cue that was lying on one of the shelves and stood in the middle of the room with long, leather-clad legs astride.
‘Ready, Al,’ he called.
Algy went back to the controls and the hum from the amplifiers increased.
‘Check, McBain,’ he said for the last time. ‘Ready to roll.’
McBain turned and his coat swirled around his legs. He looked good in the beam of the spotlights. He appeared to come alive in the electronic hum and the years seemed to drop from his thin frame. As he stood there poised with the pool cue raised I flashed that I had seen him before, on some TV show, but I couldn’t remember exactly where.
The atmosphere in the room began to get to me and as I waited for his song I could feel the skin on my back begin to shiver. He stood for another moment with the cue held aloft. Algy watched him like a hawk.
Suddenly McBain spun and smashed the cue with all his strength on to the Chinese gong and it rang like a perfectly pitched church bell. Before the echoes began to die he hit the guitar strings with the cue and ran it up the frets until it reached his left hand which was gripping the strings at the top of the neck of the instrument. Without a glance he flicked the cue at Algy who caught it one-handed. McBain brought his right hand down and hit a power chord on the guitar. The noise was intense. As the first chord burst from the speakers Algy bent over the console and suddenly it was if there were another five or six instrumentalists in the room with us. The reels on the tape machines began to turn and the keys on the Hammond organ began to move up and down as if a ghost was playing the keyboard. Although the sound was deafening in the confined space it was crystal clear. Algy must have been a genius at the controls.
McBain took the joint from his mouth and passed it to the big man without missing a beat. Then he swung round again to face the mike and began to sing. His voice was deep and powerful and I recognised the melody at once. The song had been high in the charts the previous summer. Then it had been performed by some American pomp-rock outfit. I hadn’t liked it. But McBain’s version stripped the song to the bone and I realised that with the orchestration removed it was indeed a great tune.
He was smashing a lead break from the little guitar and he moved away from the mike and, lost in the music, began to dance on the carpeted floor. He duck-walked back and forth, jumped, spun until the lead from his instrument wrapped around his legs and threatened to trip him. He extricated himself with a grace I hadn’t expected. He strutted and posed as he played, ripping notes from the guitar and soon I too was lost in the music.
Even in the cold room, sweat broke from his face and as the make-up he wore ran, he appeared to weep black tears. His face was contorted with concentration as he first coaxed, then bullied the guitar in his hands. The minutes flew by and I was completely wrapped up in the performance. All of a sudden I could tell he was building to a climax. A string broke with a sound like a pistol shot. He grinned. His movements became even more agitated and even Algy seemed to sense something coming. As McBain hit the final crashing chord he slipped the guitar from his shoulder, lifted it and rammed the body against the gong until the room was filled with shimmering sound. Then in an explosion of feedback McBain crashed the instrument into an amplifier. Then he lifted it by its slender neck and swept a tape machine to the ground. He ended the performance by hammering the body of the guitar into one of the organ speakers, smashing the horn to the floor. When the guitar was completely demolished he stood with the remains in his hands. Broken wood littered the floor. He tossed the neck with the strings hanging loose to Algy.
‘Is that good care, old boy?’ he asked with a big smile on his face.
Then with a short bow to me he left the room, slamming the door behind him.
Algy left the console and began to switch off the equipment piece by piece.
‘Cunt,’ he said.
I started to ask if McBain always behaved like that but my voice sounded strange in my ears after the noise they had endured that day. Gradually I found I could hear myself again. Algy had started to clear up the mess.
‘What was all that about?’ I asked.
‘He was just showing off,’ replied Algy. ‘He doesn’t often get an audience these days.’ He continued to clear up the debris. ‘He was only showing off with the gun, too. He’d never have hit you down there on the range. He’s too good. It’s a shame he’s changed so much. He was the best laugh I’ve ever met, and women – Christ, they used to call him Romeo, he had so many women. I can’t remember the last time he had a woman here.’ Algy looked like a big, sad old grizzly and it made me sad too.
‘I think I’d better go now,’ I said.
‘Fine,’ said Algy.
‘How do I get through the gate?’
‘I’ll see you out.’
‘Can I say goodbye to McBain?’ I asked.
‘Don’t bother, he’ll be stoned by now.’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘Tell him thanks – and I did remember him after all.’
‘He’ll like that,’ said Algy and, after a pause, ‘Call again sometime, it gets a bit lonely here during the day. I’ll buy you a drink.’
I felt a sudden warmth towards the big man. Being alone with an eccentric musician and his mother for weeks on end must begin to tell.
‘I’ll do that,’ I said. ‘Here’s my card.’ I hauled another from my pocket. ‘I gave one to McBain earlier, but he wasn’t interested.’
‘Cheers,’ said Algy. ‘You can’t phone here, we’ve only got the internal system working. But I’ll write our telex number down. It might come in handy sometime. Mind you, don’t give it to anyone. The papers do those stupid “Where are they now?” articles every so often and it freaks him out. I’m going to trust you. Don’t let me down, or I’ll get a bit annoyed.’
‘Believe me Algy,’ I said. ‘I’ll do my best not to annoy you any time. In fact I’ll guarantee it.’
He smiled a big broken-toothed smile and wrote a six-figure number on a scrap of paper. I put the paper carefully in my wallet.
He took me down to the gates which he opened with another remote control and watched me as I climbed into the E-Type.
‘Nice wheels,’ he shouted. ‘You’ll have to let me have a drive some time.’
I made a circle with my thumb and forefinger then drove off in a shower of gravel. He waved once then stepped back and allowed the iron gates to close.
5
I
took the bundle of cash straight round to Ted Dallas’s garage. It was just down the road in Putney, and well flash like the man himself. There wasn’t a car on the forecourt that had a price tag of less than ten grand, and most were in the low twenties.
I stopped on the way and deducted the twenty per cent I’d been promised for recovery. I calculated that I’d earned two hundred and fifty three pounds and ten pence. I couldn’t be bothered with the odds so I just took five fifty-pound notes and stuck them in my back pocket.
Ted wasn’t best pleased. He was fatter, balder and sweatier than I remembered from the previous day, and in a worse mood. ‘You can’t take commission on VAT,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to pay that to the government.’
I sat perfectly still in his office at the back of the showroom overlooking the service bays and said absolutely nothing.
‘I meant you to take twenty per cent of the eleven hundred pounds. That’s two hundred and twenty. You owe me thirty quid,’ he said. He had all the figures in his head. I’d had to use a calculator.
‘The deal was for gross,’ I said. ‘Take it or leave it.’
He collapsed into his big leather chair behind a desk that was big enough to declare UDI and wrung his hands. I could almost hear the perspiration oiling the skin.
‘I’m sorry Nick,’ he said. ‘Forgive me, things are not good.’
‘That’s not what you said yesterday.’
‘I know. But circumstances can change very quickly in this business.’ He looked at me for comment but I kept schtum. ‘You’ve done well with this debt,’ he went on, ‘better than I expected. Perhaps you’d like to earn some more commission.’
‘On the VAT,’ I interrupted.
He waved away the comment. ‘We can come to an arrangement. I have some beautiful motors on the lot, perhaps you’d fancy one.’
‘Charlie does my cars,’ I said sharply.
‘I know, but it never hurts to have more than one iron in the fire, does it?’
‘I’m not interested, Ted,’ I said. ‘I don’t like debt collecting. It makes me do things I don’t like to do, like telling lies to old ladies. And sometimes you can get your head kicked in.’
‘But you’re good at it,’ he insisted.
‘No thanks, mate,’ I said. ‘I got you a bit of dough, more by luck than judgement. If you’ve got more outstanding debts I suggest you go to a firm that specializes.’
‘I can offer you more,’ he pleaded. ‘Twenty-five per cent of the gross.’
‘No.’
‘Thirty.’
‘Forget it Ted,’ I said. ‘I’ve done what I said I’d do as a favour to Charlie, and that’s that.’ Before he could say more I got up and went. I left Ted Dallas waiting for the earthquake that would finally pull his fun house down and went home.
On the car radio the weather man was forecasting snow.
6
T
he snow came the next morning, before dawn. By the time I got to the office there was maybe an inch-and-a-half of the stuff lying on the ground.
I was wearing my navy Armani, because with two-and-a-half hundred burning a hole in my bin, tax free and definitely no VAT to pay, I’d given old Eddie a bell and asked her if she wanted to get together for the evening. We’d decided to bloat out on Dim Sum and dive down The Limelight or somewhere, score some socially unacceptable drugs and fuck all night. I arranged to meet her after she’d finished work at the biscuit factory, dump the BMW and get significant. The biscuit factory bit was a joke – actually she worked in publishing. The rest was serious.
But that was the day everything warmed up except the weather and arrangements had to be changed.
First there was Cat.
There was something wrong with the animal. He was eating ten times a day and swelling up like a blood blister. He was getting too damned affectionate as well. Very unlike him. Purring and rubbing up against my legs and generally making a bloody nuisance of himself. That morning he was so over the top he nearly drove me radio rental. Finally I picked him up by the scruff of the neck and threw him out of the front door. He spat at me, just like the old Cat. Then collected his dignity with a savage look in my direction and went and stretched out on the warm bonnet of the E-type. The snow had temporarily stopped and I stood on the pavement enjoying the crisp, cold air and brushing the cat hairs off my dark worsted trousers when the young guy who had recently opened a hole-in-the-wall takeaway Chinese just down the high street came sauntering round the corner. One very smart geezer that, first-class degree in English from a redbrick up north. But he tended to hide his light. He didn’t want to appear too clever and upset the punters. They liked to feel superior to the guy who dished out the special fried rice for their suppers. So he tended to compensate. The cleverer he was being, the more inscrutable he got and the thicker his accent became.
He didn’t fool me. I knew his mother. She ran a rare book depository off Bond Street, lived in Hampstead and drove a Mercedes 220 SL. You don’t get too many of them to a tin of lychees, let me tell you. Still the youngster wanted to make his own way, and why not?
‘Morning Tel,’ I greeted him. His name was Terence Chan. There’s nothing wrong with that.
‘Good morning,’ he replied.
Cat breathed a miaow. The Chinese went over and stroked his head.
‘Nice cat,’ he said.
‘Once upon a time he’d have had your hand off for that,’ I remarked.
‘Not no more, eh?’ the Chinaman grinned.
‘I think he’s sickening for something.’
‘Sure is,’ the Chinaman went on, the grin on his face spreading from ear to ear.
‘You know about cats?’
‘Sure do.’ The grin stretched even further. I felt like I was being would up like a clockwork kipper and waited for further explanation but none was forthcoming.
‘Go on then,’ I said.
‘You know what makes up a cat’s day?’ asked Chan.
‘Give me a clue.’
‘They spend eighteen hours sleeping, three hours washing, one hour eating. What does that leave?’
‘Two hours,’ I answered.
‘Right, what do they do for those two hours?’
‘Act superior most of the time,’ I said. Cat gave me a dirty look before he submitted once again to Chan’s attention with loud purrs of joy.
‘Right,’ said Chan, ‘but they also get fuckeefuckee.’
‘What?’
‘They get laid,’ he said. ‘Just like us.’
The truth was beginning to dawn. ‘Do you mean what I think you mean?’ I asked.
‘That’s right.’ He was laughing fit to bust by then. ‘Your cat gonna be a mummy.’ He exploded in peals of laughter. ‘He no a he, he a she. You going to be a daddy, you dummy.’
Thanks a lot, I thought. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Sure I’m sure. I got lots, lots of kittens.’ He suddenly looked crafty. ‘You no want kittens, I take. Go good in Chow Mein. Number one delicacy.’ He was beginning to sound like a cockney Charley Chan.
‘Are you kidding?’
‘No kidding Mister Nick. You gonna have fine kitty cats real soon.’ He went off still chuckling and giggling. I felt right agitated. I was sure he was having me on about taking the kittens, but I thought I might give the Chow Mein a miss for a while.