Jack Carter and the Mafia Pigeon Read Free Page A

she’s filling as she starts fetching round a swing which is intended to connect with the side of Gerald’s head, but he’s prepared for it and he grabs her wrist before she can connect. He laughs and says: “What’s the matter? Frightened Jack might get a flash of your sweet little bum?”
    Audrey doesn’t answer, not verbally anyway. She just gives him the look.
    “Well don’t you worry about that. Jack’s broadminded. He’s seen plenty, haven’t you, Jack?”
    “I’ve seen some,” I say to Gerald.
    Audrey wrenches her hand away from Gerald’s grip and turns back to the drinks and sets her glass straight and starts all over again. Gerald winks and walks away fromher and says: “Giving the old lady a seeing to from time to time makes a nice little change. You forget that nobody does it like the old lady. But you single men don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?”
    Les ignores him and I stand up.
    “Where are you going?” Gerald says.
    “I’ve got some work to do. I’m one of the workers, remember?”
    “Hang about, hang about,” Gerald says. “Les didn’t mean what he said. It’s just his time of the month.”
    Les doesn’t say anything.
    “You didn’t, did you, Les?” Gerald says, looking at him. Les shifts a bit on the crackling leather and looks out at the black plate glass and says:
    “No, all right. I didn’t mean it.”
    Both Audrey and me look at Les as though we’re witnessing the second coming. Gerald beams at me and says: “You see? If Les says he didn’t mean it, he didn’t mean it.”
    “You mean he didn’t mean it when he said he didn’t mean it.”
    Gerald looks blank.
    “Forget it,” I tell him and start towards the door.
    “What in Christ’s name’s going on?” Audrey says.
    “Oh, nothing,” Les says. “We’re only offering him the holiday of a lifetime, two weeks of carefree sunshine at the resort of his choice.”
    Audrey looks at me and you’ve got to hand it to her, she’s a great little performer.
    “So what’s wrong with that?” she says to me.
    “I told them I’d prefer Skegness.”
    “The villa,” Gerald says. “He can have the villa to himself for a whole bleeding fortnight.”
    “I might get lonely,” I tell him.
    “What’s the matter?” Audrey says, her face absolutely straight. “You frightened of flying or something?”
    I just look at her but not the way I’d like to.
    “Here,” Gerald says, and for once I’m glad he’s missed the point. “Is that what it’s all about? You scared of aeroplanes?”
    I’m about to answer when Les cuts in.
    “You ever been abroad before, Jack?”
    I don’t answer.
    “That’s it,” Gerald says. “He’s never been abroad before.”
    “As a matter of fact, no, I haven’t,” I say to him. “But that doesn’t have fuck all to do with it.”
    Les slaps his thigh and comes as close as he’ll ever come to laughing.
    “Brave old Jack,” he says. “Jack the fucking lad. He’s nervous of leaving his patch.”
    “Listen,” I say. “Leave it out.”
    “You’re right,” Audrey says. “He wouldn’t know how to say ‘Leave it out’ in Spanish.”
    “Listen—”
    “Fuck me, Jack,” Gerald says. “You should have said. Now I understand what the routine was all about.”
    “The routine—”
    “Come fly with me, come fly, let’s fly away,” Audrey starts off singing.
    “Listen,” I say. “I didn’t say anything. If there was a routine, it came from that cunt over there, and that I can do without.”
    “So why are you cutting off your nose to spite your face?” Audrey says.
    “I—”
    “That’s right,” Gerald says. “Don’t let Les put the mockers on it.”
    “That’ll be the fucking day, when he puts the fucking mockers on anything I ever do.”
    “Right,” Gerald says. “Then you’ll go, then?”
    “I—”
    “What’s to stop you?” Audrey says. “Obviously not the flying. Obviously not Les. And obviously, if you get my meaning, not the