Verismo Bliss - Chapter 11

11.

There was a pounding in his head like a woodpecker had set up home in his brain. There was a party behind his eyes, but not a middle class dinner party with pleasant conversation, no, this was a teenage party that had been gate crashed by the Hell’s Angels and the Outlaws. His chest hurt when he breathed in and out, like a broken accordion. His jaw felt like Cassius Clay had been using it for jabbing practice. His mind was unfocussed and hazy like it had wandered off on its own into a pea-souper Victorian East End. Ah, come Jack and put me out of my misery, Harry thought.
Harry really didn’t want to open his eyes, but when he felt his leg getting wet he thought he better drag himself back into the world. When he opened his eyes he saw a world that mirrored the noise and nausea in his head. He could smell petrol and fear. And violence. Violence did have a smell, it was like sweat and animal dung, and was a heavy smell like ammonia.
He was in Covent Garden, he knew that, but he wasn’t sure what street. He was curled up in a doorway, spooning with a man whose clothes smelt like they had been cleaned at the Shit Hole Launderette in a town called Faeces. People were running and shouting and smashing and hitting. A lot of the people doing the running, shouting, smashing and hitting were dressed in white or red. England: home and away. Three lions rampant.
But all of this Harry picked up peripherally for his interest was mostly focussed on the reason his leg was getting wet. Following the rancid yellow stream of liquid that was cascading over his legs upwards, he came to a fat sexual organ with an angry blue vein, being held and directed by a hand that King Kong would have been proud of, though, as far as Harry knew, King Kong never wore a heavy gold ring with the flag of St George on it. The pisser was wearing a white England top, the special edition for the recent Germany game that had, above the English crest (over the heart, natch), the one solitary gold star, which represented the one solitary World Cup success, in-between two dropping bombs, one with 14-18 on and the other 39-45. Two World Wars and one World Cup. The shirt barely covered the heavily tattooed arms of the pisser that declared that he was English and Proud, these colours did not run and that his favourite sort of pooch was a bulldog. On top of this was a face that was laughing and snarling at the same time. The teeth were bright and glittered with one gold one. The jaw strong, The nose flat. The eyes slits. The hair like a 60’s Mod. The spittle on the lips a product of the venom he was spouting.
‘Fucking dirty tramp.’
This outburst was accompanied by a kick to Harry’s accordion ribs which made him wheeze an out of tune polka. Harry tried to drag himself up to kick the shit out of the fucker but all he managed to do was fall heavily on his doorway comrade. The glory of England laughed and ran off, kicking in the headlights of a Mercedes-Benz that had the audacity to be parked in England’s green and pleasant land.
Harry lurched up into a sitting position and his stomach lurched with him. When he’d finished puking into the gutter, he felt a little better.
It started to rain. This didn’t dilute the high spirits of the rioters who were chanting Ing-er-land as they ran amok. Harry could see a black pall of acrid smoke pouring from behind the buildings opposite him. The evening sky was red between the pregnant nimbostratus clouds.
He recognised where he was now: it was Shelton Street. At least those Raf-Med fuckers had dropped him close to the office. He’d have preferred not to have been dropped in the middle of the March For England, which obviously had become Riot For England (who’d have figured?), but it was still preferable to being locked in a store cupboard with Adam Cannon and a hypodermic.
‘You seen her?’
The tramp that Harry had got comfortable with had sat up and was talking with fumes that could have started a forest fire.
‘Sorry?’
‘It’s Frank. Remember? I saw you with her. Nav. Navaho. Have you seen her?’
Harry shook his head. A glass pint smashed near them. ‘This is Shelton Street, right? Frank, I’m going to try and get to my office on Mercer. You want to come with me. Might be safer than here.’
Frank shook his head and a few insects fell from his matted beard. He took out a roll-up which looked as thin as one of the ears of corn that Pharaoh had dreamed about. ‘Nah, thanks, dude, but I’m good. They can’t see me, you see, I’m camouflaged.’
‘Camouflaged?’
‘Sure. In the street. I am the street and the street is me. If you see Nav, tell her I miss her.’
Harry stood up and shook his leg. His head swirled a little, but after steadying himself and taking deep breaths of the acrid smoke filled air, he began to feel more like his normal unhealthy self. He was bloody hungry though.
Noise filled the air. Angry sounds. And screams. He saw little pockets of running battles. Glass scattered like diamonds across the cobbled stones. A car lay on its side. A kid, no more than 12, sat on top of it, surveying the scene like a king of the hill.
Harry turned at the sound of a rhythmic beat. A jungle, tribal beating of truncheon on shields. It was the black clad riot police beating out a rhythm and advancing down Shelton Street, towards Harry. Arching through the air, twirling like a lost fire poi, a Molotov cocktail rose and fell amongst the cops, splattering like lava from a volcano. The riot cops stepped up their pace and the English boys ran to meet them with a chant of Ing-er-land. Harry took the opportunity to make his way towards Mercer Street. The Garden was a mess. Sure, it wasn’t the most salubrious place at the bets of times, but he resented these idiots coming into his area and smashing up the buildings and the people.
Harry’d been in situations like this before and found it best to walk with purpose, not too fast or too slow, and stare straight ahead. Certainly don’t look at anybody else. It was the Garden Walk and the Garden Stare. But he knew he did have one thing going for him, which kept the White Army from punching his lights out, he was white.
He turned into Mercer Street and cursed. So bleeding close and so bleeding far. There was a fight right outside the entrance to his office. Then he realised he recognised who was fighting and he burst into a run, his chest feeling like somebody was pouring burning gasoline into them.
There were five Marchers For England, grouped around the street, one was waving a metal pole around his head, and all were pointing, cursing and throwing punches and kicks towards the four people who were arranged around the front of the narrow building. The entrance door had been redecorated with some nice white paint which said: Wops Fuck Off. The wop in question, Paolo Rossi, may have been bleeding from a head wound, but you got the impression that he wasn’t going back to Italy any time soon. With Paolo were three others, all bloodied but still fighting, that Harry recognised: Spike, the Big Issue seller who was still looking for his fare back to the North East, Neo, whose Neapolitan colours were now stained with red, and, most bizarrely of all, Oliver Falsham, who, if asked to wager, Harry would have said would be marching with the Ing-er-landers, not fighting them.
Harry steamed into the group. He rugby tackled the guy with the pole, sending him sprawling across the street. Suddenly, the rage and impotence he had felt since being caught at Raf-Med, being drugged, being pissed on, came pouring out of him. It came roaring through his chest and down his arms and leapt out of his fists into the young man’s face, which was going to take a few days, at least, to meld itself back into normal. Harry would probably have done permanent damage if one of the guy’s mates hadn’t booted him with his size 10 across the back and sent him sprawling across the street.
But, with the pole bearer out of the fight, the odds were now in Harry’s teams favour. Harry managed to unleash a lot more of his aggression, as did Paolo, who looked a very accomplished pugilist, no street fighter he, whereas Oliver and Neo were wild with their attacks, maybe only connecting with fifty percent, whilst Spike, his survival skills learned on the street, knew that one kick in the balls was worth ten punches to the face. Soon the Ing-er-landers were heading towards Shelton Street to meet up with the mob now turning its ire upon the police, with the typical salute of the English, the two fingers jutting upwards.
‘Let’s get inside before they come back,’ Harry said.
Harry bolted and locked the door from inside. Paolo opened the door to his sweatshop; the Ukrainian workers were hiding under the work benches, their eyes wide and scared. They were sharing cigarettes, like the last ones offered to firing squad victims, even though it was illegal to light up inside. Paolo said something to them in Slavic and made a calming gesture with his hands. This relaxed them somewhat, but none seemed ready to get out from under the tables yet.
‘You ok, Paolo? That’s a nasty head cut,’ Harry asked.
‘You should look in the mirror. Compared to you I look like a Greek god. I’m fine, Harry, I got worse running with the bulls in Pamplona. Those shits out there! Who the fuck they think they are calling me a wop?’
Paolo made as if to unlock the door and resume the fight. But Harry stood in his way.
‘Let it go. The cops will see to them now.’
‘I don’t get it,’ Paolo said. ‘Why do they fall for all that shit?’
‘The shit the papers push, about all the country’s ills being caused by immigrants? Because it’s the easy way. Blame somebody else for all your problems. Make a cause. Make yourself the underdog who isn’t going to take anymore. The English like an underdog, especially when it’s themselves.’
‘Fucking papers.’
Harry shrugged. ‘You gotta look at who owns the papers and what their agendas are. Of course, the irony is that all the people who really stir this up are living in some Caribbean Island and probably only pop back home to Blighty once or twice a year.’
Harry suddenly went dizzy and had to steady himself against the wall. Paolo reached out to him. ‘You ok?’
‘I just need a drink and a bath.’
Paolo held his nose. ‘Well, now you mention it…’
‘Join me? In the drink, that is, not the bath.’
‘I’ll stay down here and get these lazy bastards back to work.’
Harry turned to the others. ‘Post ruck drink anyone?’

Upstairs in his office he poured everybody some whiskey and they sat in silence for a moment, checking out their personal aches and cuts and hoping that nothing was permanent. Harry downed two quick shots and then went to the cabinet in the corner and opened the third drawer down; he pulled out a pair of chinos. Always be prepared. He glanced up at the picture of the Golden Gate Bridge. Did they have shit like this in Frisco? For the millionth time he wondered how his life could have been different if only he and the girl from…but what was the point? That was as dead and over as a dodo getting it on with a panda.
In the tiny bathroom attached to his small office, Harry tugged off his trousers and hurled them onto the floor. Standing there, in his underwear, he looked at himself in the small mirror that he shaved by. He could do with a shave now. He could do with a week at a health spa. He wasn’t sure where all the damage had come from, from Raf-Med or the fucking neo-skinheads, but he did know where the anger inside was coming from. That was from his hurt professional pride; he was really fucking up this job. His black eye, his bleeding lip, his aching chest would all mend given time, but what about his pride? How was he going to fix that? He looked at his raggedy face in the small round mirror. Underneath all that pain he was looking old; the creases across his face and the grey hairs were multiplying like a virus on a Petri dish. Hell, he didn’t mind looking old, he just minded feeling old.
His smart beeped at him and pulled him back from the brink of full blown melancholic reverie. It was Ramona Noche and he considered ignoring it for a moment. Just for a moment.
‘Yeah?’
‘Harry? Thank God. You ok? I just saw the news, about the rioting around Covent Garden. I was worried you might have been caught up in it.’
‘I was out of town. Came back to find Paolo under siege.’
He heard her gasp.
‘Don’t worry, he’s ok. It takes more than a bunch of delusional kids to do Rossi over.’
‘And you? How much can you take?’
‘Me? Don’t people read detective novels anymore? They make PI’s out of hard boiled concrete. Nothing touches us.’
‘I’d like to see you, make sure you’re ok.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Besides, I have some information…on Gloria Isles.’
‘What have you got?’
‘Let’s meet for dinner. Kill two birds with one stone.’
‘Which two birds?’
‘The information I have, and to satisfy my desire to see you.’
There was a loud bang from outside.
‘I gotta go, Ramona. I’ll call later and arrange something.’
He hung up before waiting for a reply, had a twinge of guilt at his attitude, and then went back into the office, pulling on the chinos as he went.
Neo and Oliver were at the window.
‘The police are taking charge,’ Oliver said.
Neo snorted. ‘In the immortal words of Jello Biafra: It’s all over but not quite, the pigs have just begun to fight, they club your heads, kick your teeth, police can riot all that they please.’
Oliver looked at the pink topped neo-punk. ‘You’re defending the rioters?’
‘Nope, just explaining the situation.’
Harry interrupted. ‘Where’s Spike?’
‘He said he had to go; wanted to check on a friend of his.’
Harry walked to the window and looked out. The police were on the rampage, truncheons slashing at anything that moved. Of course, they would say it was justified and point to how many injuries they sustained, but still…
‘You seen Nav, Harry?’
‘Everybody keeps asking me that – I’m beginning to feel worried myself.’
Neo gazed around the office. ‘She came back here with you?’
‘It’s not much, I know, but she said it was better than Worm’s feet, remember?’
‘But she’s been here since then,’ he said it as a statement, not a question. Harry thought he noticed a slight quiver in his voice, as though he was trying to suppress anger.
‘Sure, just under a week ago, she’d done me a favour and then stayed here with me.’
Harry could see Neo’s hands balling into fists. ‘Nobody has seen her since then. Did you…did you fuck with her?’
Harry lent against his desk. ‘She’s a pretty girl, to be sure, but maybe a little young for me, don’t you think?’
‘What I think,’ Neo said, stepping towards him, ‘is maybe you tried it on with her, I saw the way you looked at her, and anybody alone with her would do the same, but maybe when she said no you wouldn’t take no too good and maybe things got out of hand…’
Harry slapped him across the face. ‘Kid, you’ve been doing too many imagination improving drugs. Just because she wouldn’t let you fuck her don’t let your jealousy cloud your judgement.’
Neo flashed a fist at Harry’s face, but Harry ducked and caught the arm and spun Neo round. ‘Calm down, Neo. A lot of people have been throwing hits at me these last couple of days and I really don’t think you deserve the payback for all that, but you will get it if you keep pushing. Ok?’
Harry felt Neo begin to relax in his arms. Oliver poured himself another whiskey and returned to the window. Harry let Neo go.
‘I’d better go,’ Neo said.
‘It’s still pretty hairy out there,’ Harry said.
‘I’ll go to the Roxy.’
‘Neo, I’m sorry for what I said. I like Nav, she’s a good kid – if I had a daughter I’d be happy if she was like Nav…’ He thought for a moment. ‘Or maybe not, she’d be a lot of worry. Anyway, I don’t know where she is, but I’ll keep an ear out for her. I’m sure she’s the sort of person who disappears from time to time.’
Neo nodded. ‘She does, it’s just this time feels different.’ He held out his hand, Harry went to shake it, but Neo grabbed him by the elbow, ‘Keep the faith. See you round, man,’ he called over his shoulder to Oliver, and exited stage right.
‘God, the way some people live,’ Oliver said, knocking back the drink.
He was wearing a red shirt, outside his black jeans, and desert boots. His fingers were adorned with rings. A crucifix hung around his neck. Except for a slight swelling under his right eye, you would never have figured he had just been in a fight.
‘Oh, we all have to find our way, and some of us don’t have the money to choose our lifestyles.’
‘It’s not about money, it’s about style.’
Harry poured another drink; it was beginning to numb the pain, and offered the neck to Oliver, who held out his glass. ‘I don’t have many prejudices, but one of them is, that I’d trust a kid dressed in safety pins and bondage trousers over a banker dressed in a three piece any day.’
Oliver smiled. ‘That’s only because the power lies with the suits, not the safety pins; what is there to trust in a punk?’
Harry let it go. You couldn’t argue with myna birds or the rich. ‘So what are you doing slumming in the Garden?’
Oliver smiled and ran his fingers through his long light hair. ‘Oh, I like slumming it from time to time - it makes me appreciate my money and style.’ He gazed around the sparse office. ‘My father can’t be paying you very much to find my sister. Maybe he hired you because he knew you weren’t cracked up to finding her; maybe he doesn’t want her found. I mean, this is a man who could hire a whole police force to find his daughter, why would he hire some low life in Covent Garden?’
‘I’ve asked myself the same question. You tell me, why doesn’t your father want Gwen found?’
Oliver downed his drink and slammed the glass on the table so hard that Harry thought it might shatter. Oliver’s hand was trembling now and he had to steady himself on the windowsill. ‘Sorry for my…my words…I didn’t mean to insult you. I just…I want her out of here.’
‘Gwen?’
‘Sure, who else? I want her home and safe.’
Harry finished his drink. ‘You said you want her out of here. You mean Covent Garden?’
Oliver nodded.
‘You know she’s here for sure?’
‘Don’t you?’ he said, turning, his hair falling across his face. ‘That’s what you told my father – that she was here in the Garden.’
‘So you come looking for her? Like a good half-sibling.’
Oliver’s lip trembled. He looked vulnerable all of a sudden. His pupils were enlarged. He looked in need of a teddy bear. Harry remembered the pictures he had seen on Gwen’s memory card; Oliver had the same vulnerable look on his face then, though that was more down to the vulnerability of pleasure.
‘I had a spare day,’ he said, his voice suddenly hardening, but his eyes still large like a frog in the strangling hands of a schoolchild.
‘I had a spare day yesterday. I took a trip out of the city, went up to Leeds.’
‘Leeds?’
‘Sure, I heard the shopping there is excellent. And, whilst there, I thought I’d drop in on Raf-Med, see what it was like where you worked.’
‘Is there a point to this?’
‘Ah, that is the question, isn’t it? They were very accommodating at the office, gave me a guided tour. I’m sure you know Alison Graham, nice woman? Hot too.’
‘Really, Harry, if you have a point I’d like you to get to it.’
Harry stood away from the desk. ‘Only that I’m getting pissed off being fucked with. You know the biggest hurdle to a detective in his searching for the truth? It’s the people who hire him. They lie and conceal and prevaricate. If only they were honest from the get go then the case would be solved straight away. If they were honest with each other then they wouldn’t even have to waste their money on me. Now, if your father did hire me because he thought I’d make a lousy job of it then he’s made an awful error. See, when I take a case I like to get it solved. I also like to lift up every rock on the way and find all the truths lurking there, no matter how slimy. I try to tie every loose end, whether the client wants them tied or not. So, if you’ve got anything to tell me, then tell me now.’
Oliver, during this discourse, had reddened in the face, either with shame or rage, Harry couldn’t tell, but now he relaxed and weighed his words carefully.
‘Don’t look for conspiracies where there is none. It’s a boring case of an unhappy home spewing forth a teenage girl into rebellion. Just find her and let Daddy know she is fine.’
Oliver walked to the door.
‘That Spike, you know him?’
‘Sure,’ Harry said.
‘He told me he’d seen Gwen. Delighted in telling me how hot she was in fact, and that given half a chance…anyway, I’m sure I don’t have to paint you a picture. When I told him I was her brother he was effulgent in his apologies.’
Oliver smiled like a cat would smile playing with a broken winged bird.
‘I told Spike to keep an eye out for her,’ Harry said. ‘He sees most things that go on around here. And he’s only human. Gwen is a very attractive girl judging by the pictures I’ve seen. Don’t you agree?’
Oliver turned and left the office.
Harry’s smart buzzed at him. It was a withheld number; probably somebody selling the latest in fake grass for fake gardeners, that years latest hot fashion.
‘Mr Reed? This is Martin Falsham. Mr Cannon has informed me about your activities at Raf-Med Leeds. He also told me how he dealt with the matter. Whilst I do not condone his actions, I feel he was justified in acting strongly against you. However, I won’t press charges against your trespassing if you don’t consider any action against Raf-Med. As a sign of good grace I will deposit a good will amount in your account. I have decided that, as from this moment, it would be best for all concerned that I terminate your employment. Again, I have authorised payment into your account; if you believe this does not cover all your expenses then please submit your receipts through my secretary.
‘Goodnight, Mr Reed, and thank you for your co-operation.’
So that’s how a captain of a pharmaceutical titanic conducts business: they talk, you listen.
Harry poured another whisky. He was over his limit, but there was a numbing pain that he needed to drown, besides the physical ache.
He gazed through the window and looked down on two cops, helmets off, sharing a joke, their truncheons and riot shields smeared with dark red. Across the roof tops a black pall of smoke choked the life out of the last light of the day.
Harry raised his glass to Covent Garden.
He’d find Gwendolyn Falsham. No matter what.