Jack Carter and the Mafia Pigeon Read Free

finally made it. At last he’s got his castle in Spain. In a manner of speaking. So it works out fine for all of us. He’s a big wheel and we’ve got a front.”
    I shake my head.
    “Besides,” Gerald says, “Wally was so chuffed the way we attended to his old lady’s arrangements, he felt he was doing us a favour, not the other way around.”
    I light a cigarette.
    “Lovely,” I say to him. “A fairy tale of old Soho. Warms the cockles, it really does. Wolf Mankowicz should write it.” I click out the lighter flame and inhale. Then I say: “What was it Wally’s old lady went out with?”
    There’s a small silence before Gerald says:
    “Now look—”
    “Cervical cancer, wasn’t it?” I say.
    “Now look—”
    “Fine looking woman, Wally’s old lady was. Pity she was took from us so soon. A great loss.”
    “Now look—”
    “You see?” Les says to Gerald. “See how your fucking policies divvy up?”
    Gerald turns his back on me and looks up at the ceiling. “Jesus Christ,” he says. “Jesus fucking Christ. You start doing some cunt a favour and then you digress a little bit how you do some other cunt a favour and suddenly it’s all snide innuendo and that. Jesus fucking Christ.”
    “I tell you,” Les says, “that’s what you get if you try and treat the workers as equals. They bite at your balls.”
    I smile and look at Les.
    “In that case I don’t know what you’re so stand-offish for,” I tell him. “Seeing as how you’ve got no balls to lose.”
    Les stands up and Gerald snaps out of his supplicant pose and shifts his body between Les and me although Les doesn’t move an inch in my direction once he’s got up. There’s a lot of eyeball stuff between the two of them and eventually Les sits down the way he was always going to do. Then he gets up again and goes over to the drinks and makes himself another one and sits down where he was before and then he lights a fresh cigarette. Gerald doesn’t move, he just stands there with his back still to me.
    The silence goes on for a bit longer and I’m just about to finish my drink and get up and go when the door opens and who should come in but Audrey looking for all the world as though she’s spent the afternoon relaxing at the hairdresser’s instead of humping away in bed with me. Everybody looks towards the door when it opens and Audrey stands there taking in the atmosphere before she closes the door behind her. Then she says:
    “What happened? Did the Arsenal lose the replay?”
    Les clears his throat and would complete the job by spitting if it wasn’t his own carpet. But Gerald behaves differently from usual: instead of going through the slagging routine with Audrey he walks over to her and puts his arm round her shoulders and shepherds her into the room like a protective host would a shy late arrival. Audrey looks at him in complete suspicion.
    “What’s all this in aid of?” she says.
    “You know bleedin’ well, darlin’,” Gerald says. “Don’t come the old one-eyed soldier with me.”
    Gerald and Audrey make their picturesque way over to the drink cabinet.
    “Now then, sweetheart,” Gerald says. “What would you like to drink?”
    “Jesus Christ,” says Les. “My stomach isn’t this strong. What’s the matter with you?”
    “Leave it out, will you?” Gerald says. “We celebrated our wedding anniversary last night.”
    “What the fuck are you talking about?” Les says. “Your wedding anniversary isn’t till April.”
    “So?” Gerald says. “What do you do on the night you get married?”
    Les just looks at him.
    “Right,” Gerald says. “So we celebrated that, didn’t we.”
    Audrey shrugs his arm off her and starts to make herself a drink.
    “Bit of all right, wasn’t it, darlin’?” Gerald says to her.
    “I don’t remember,” Audrey says.
    Gerald grins at Les and he puts his hand up the back of Audrey’s skirt and feels her fanny from the rear at which Audrey knocks over the glass