Jessie Keane: Stay Dead

But you had to admire them somehow.

Antonio was moaning now, starting to come round.

Max forgot wheelchair man and walked over to where Antonio lay bleeding on the ground. He picked up his gun, tucked it into the waistband of his trousers with the other man’s gun. Knife in hand, he approached the man and looked down at him.

Antonio stirred, his eyes flickering open. Crying out in pain, he put his right hand over his left wrist, where the blood was still pumping out.

Max poked him with a toe and Antonio stared up at him with the pain-warped ferocity of a rabid dog.

‘My friend,’ said Max, ‘you’re going to bleed out in about forty minutes. You understand me, yeah? Because you were going to be the interpreter for that sack of bones in the wheelchair. Right?’

The man said nothing. His eyes flicked sideways, took in his dead companion slumped over in the chair, then back to the man standing over him.

‘Unless I get you to some help, you’re going to die,’ said Max. Judging by the way the other one had reacted, he didn’t hold out a lot of hope for this plan, but he had to try. ‘So tell me where Gina Barolli is, and you’ll get it.’

The man spat at Max.

‘That’s not nice,’ said Max, and put his foot hard on the place where the blood was spurting out. The man on the ground shrieked.

‘Tell me,’ said Max.

The man writhed and cursed in Sicilian.

‘Don’t fuck me around,’ Max advised him. ‘Speak English. Tell me where she is.’

‘She’s in hell and so will you be soon,’ he sobbed.

‘She’s not in hell,’ said Max. ‘She’s been making phone calls, saying things. And I’m here to see her and find out what she’s on about. Only she never shows, does she. Instead, she sends you two clowns – one dressed up like a pantomime dame and you without a fucking clue – to finish me off. Now why would she do that?’

Antonio said nothing.

‘This is going to get very painful for you if you don’t start talking,’ Max warned with a sigh. ‘I’m going to see Gina Barolli, one way or the other. So you may as well make this easy for yourself.’

‘Fuck you !’ shouted Antonio.

Max leaned down over the man and opened up his other wrist, too. The man screamed like a little girl as blood spurted. ‘Now look. You’ve got trouble. Twenty minutes tops, I’d say. People can live after this. If they get the right medical stuff done to them, and quick. But leave it too late, and you know what? Even in this hot sun, you’re soon going to start feeling very cold. First comes the shivers, and then you’re weak and disorientated, and then you pass out and the next thing is – you’re dead.’

‘Jesus…’ the man wept, rolling from side to side while the life’s blood flooded out of him and was sucked up by the sand.

‘It don’t have to be that way, though,’ said Max. ‘Tell me where Gina Barolli is, and help’s on its way.’ Max frowned. ‘Think I can do a bit of first aid, patch you up good enough to get you to the hospital. If you talk, that is. If you don’t, forget it.’

The man’s dark eyes were glaring up into Max’s. ‘I will never talk,’ he said.

‘Now see, that’s annoying,’ said Max, wondering what a Sicilian male would place more value on than loyalty. He thought he knew. He leaned down and unzipped the man’s fly.

‘What are you-’ the man babbled, bleeding, squirming.

‘What, you’re like your mate in the wheelchair? You’re prepared to die to keep her secret?’ asked Max. ‘Then you’re going to arrive in hell minus your prick, you cunt. Now talk, or things get ugly. That’s a promise.’

Oh, the fucking rain. How could she have forgotten about the rain? And the grey skies. A year in Barbados, and now Annie Carter’s default setting was blue skies, white sand, vivid sunshine. This was strange to her, but the damp air and the cool wind reminded her forcibly that this was home, where she was born, where she had spent most of her life. London. Traffic swooshing by in the downpour as she sat in the taxi from the airport. Grimy buildings looming like canyons overhead as the car edged along in thick traffic, the windscreen wipers sweeping back and forth in a sleep-inducing rhythm.

She’d love to sleep. She hadn’t slept on the plane, although she’d tried. Her brain just kept churning over what Tony had told her on the phone the day before yesterday – that Dolly was gone, lost to her, dead and never to return.

It choked her up, every time she thought about it.

And she thought about it all the time.

She hadn’t even spoken to Dolly recently. They called each other maybe once a month, just for a chat. Annie would ask how the business was going, and Dolly would always say fine and tell her what the girls in the club had been getting up to. There was always some funny story with one of the punters, Annie always put the phone down laughing.

The last time they’d spoken had been about a fortnight ago, and then there had been no suggestion that anything was wrong, and Annie had been blissfully unaware that that was the last time she would ever talk to her friend.

She just wished that she had been able to speak to Max before she left Prospect. She’d left him a note in their usual place, told the maid where she was going, and to tell him when he got back, but… she’d really needed him there when she got that awful news. And as usual he was away, busy, doing something that didn’t concern her.

A spasm of hurt lanced her as she thought about that. He was so secretive these days and she was thinking more and more… trying not to, but she was thinking that her gut feeling was right, that he was having an affair. Why else would he not tell her what he was doing, where he was going?

She was trying not to be all little-wifey and clingy and needy about this, but for God’s sake, he never told her anything! So yes, she felt hurt. And angry. And guilty and afraid, because she had secrets of her own. And on top of all that, now she had this to deal with – and where was he?

He’s fucking another woman …

Stop it!

Her mind was all over the place. Even things that should have been straightforward, like deciding where she was going to stay in London, had her going round in circles. The Holland Park house was standing empty, closed up, unstaffed and unwelcoming since Rosa, her old housekeeper, had retired. The Carter firm still owned the three nightclubs – the Palermo Lounge, the Blue Parrot and the Shalimar – and each had a flat above the premises. But Annie didn’t feel strong enough to go near the Palermo, to set foot in the place where Dolly had been murdered – not yet, at any rate. Besides, the Bill would have the flat cordoned off as a crime scene; most likely they’d have shut down the club too.

The Blue Parrot was being run by Gary Tooley, a tall blond vicious man who’d been one of Max’s most trusted foot soldiers for years and who cheerfully hated Annie’s guts, so he wouldn’t be putting out the bunting for her anytime soon. She didn’t like Gary, and when he phoned Max in Barbados she always left the room. And she’d noticed of late that after these calls Max was always cold and uncommunicative toward her. But then, Gary had never missed a chance to put the knife in where she was concerned. He was always ready to drip poison in Max’s ear about her.

Having ruled out Holland Park, the Palermo and the Blue Parrot, she’d booked herself into a hotel. Only now that she was back in London and the reality of Dolly’s death was beginning to sink in, the last thing she wanted was to be all on her own in a hotel room. For a moment she considered going to stay with her sister Ruthie in Richmond, but then dismissed the idea. Ever since they’d been kids their relationship had always been difficult, edgy.