Mistress Murder Read Free Page B

years now they had carried on this rewarding game without a whisper of trouble. Snigger knew that he was by no means the only distributor for Golding’s imports from the Continent. Ray Silver was another, for instance.
    He was a big-time middleman and through his interests in a chain of seedy dance halls through London, he got rid of a much larger quantity than Snigger himself. Silver dealt mainly with teenage pep pills and reefers, but had a fair trade in the hard stuff: heroin, morphine, and cocaine. Snigger also knew that Paul’s visit now to the office at the back of the stage was to take Silver’s order for the next consignment from Brussels.
    Golding left the bar just before Rita came back, her curvaceous body sidling between the crowded tables. The barman looked covertly at her as she approached and wondered what had made Golding suspect that she was two-timing him.
    â€˜You’re soon going to get your cards and week’s money, sweetheart,’ he muttered to himself as the dark beauty pirouetted onto her stool.
    He leant back against his mirrored shelves and looked around the big room, now thick with cigarette smoke. His two full-bosomed assistants were serving as fast as they could go, and Albert, the waiter, rushed around the tables, his speed in serving varying with the expected size of his tip. He was a small cog in the drug market, being one of Silver’s distributors. Under cover of serving drinks, he would pass over packets of dope, the profits largely going to the club owner. Silver had no idea that his barman was a competitor under his own roof. Albert had a shrewd idea how Snigger passed his stuff across, but the barman paid him a regular sub to keep his mouth shut.
    Snigger leisurely polished an already gleaming glass as he looked around the big room, now full of chattering voices, the drone of the band and the click of fruit machines from the other corner. He looked up and down the bar – every stool except Golding’s being occupied. Amongst the line of tired businessmen, he noticed an M.P., a couple of stage and TV people, and a sprinkling of showgirls and strippers. The Nineties was no club for the mugs and tourists who crowded into Soho – it existed for the hard core of the West End population, a place where business and vice rubbed shoulders with sophisticated pleasure.
    His eye passed from a couple of attractive chorus girls to the man next to them. He recognised him as Conrad Draper, a big-time bookie who had benefited from many hundreds of pounds of Snigger’s money in past years.
    Like Gigal himself, Conrad was a product of the East End. He had catapulted to affluence and dubious fame about three years ago. Before that, he had been a wrestler and a strong-arm man for several unsavoury gentlemen of the turf. By means of some smart takeover bids, together with a deal of physical intimidation, he had rapidly ousted many of the smaller bookmakers and built up a monopoly of betting shops in Soho and the back streets of the West End. He had a finger in the protection rackets of the area and he was doing his best to become the A1 Capone of Central London.
    Snigger watched him out of the comer of his eye as he sat idly twisting a whisky glass in his fingers. He had a large unlit cigar in his mouth. It fascinated the barman to see him take it out occasionally, lay it carefully on the edge of the ashtray, and take out a cigarette to smoke. After a few draws, he would crush it out and put the cigar back between his fleshy lips. He was a good six foot two in height and had the shoulders of a wrestler, as well as the experience. He was handsome in a heavy sort of way, but his features were already thickening and he had a slightly bent nose as a legacy of his days in the ring. Since he had got near the top of the Soho mobsters, he affected an American drawl and style of dress. He wore a flashy blue drape suit with narrow lapels and was liberally decked out with tiepins and