The Game (Tom Wood)

SEVEN





Victor wasn’t sure what the difference was between a gentleman’s club and a strip joint, but the establishment he entered advertised itself as the former. A hulking doorman greeted him when he stepped inside and ushered him to a booth. There he paid a cover charge to an elderly woman who then instructed him on the rules of etiquette, ending with ‘Absolutely no touching.’

He nodded and descended a few broad steps onto the main club floor. It was light on patrons, being the afternoon. It was light on dancers because of the lack of patrons. The sparse crowd was perfect for Victor’s requirements.

To his right, along almost the entire length of the room, stretched a wide bar worked by a lone male bartender who passed the time practising tricks with a cocktail shaker. To Victor’s left were doors leading to rest rooms and others marked staff only. A U-shaped stage dominated the centre of the room, with five gleaming poles spread out along its length at equal intervals. A single dancer performed to generic electronic music. Nine men sitting around the stage, as far from one another as possible, were entranced by her listless routine and either didn’t notice or didn’t care that her expression was one of vacant boredom. An arched corridor glowing with ultraviolet light led off the back wall to the private performance area.

Aside from those that flanked the stage, there were a dozen round tables, each with four chairs, spread out around the room. Four of the tables were occupied by lone men, again with as much distance between them as could be achieved. Dancers accompanied three of those men.

The music was relatively quiet, because it was easier to convince a man to part with his money when he could actually hear. The chairs had leopard-pattern upholstery and huge prints of naked women hung from the walls in elaborate gilded frames. The lighting was dim to create a seductive atmosphere and smooth away any imperfections the dancers might have. The aim seemed to be a high-class establishment, but a club wherein men paid to see women take off their clothes could achieve only so much class.

Victor knew he looked out of place. Men who wore suits were at work. The kind of men who frequented a strip club at two o’clock in the afternoon didn’t know the difference between single and double breasted. If he had known in advance that he would be operating here he would have chosen his attire to blend in better. But it didn’t matter. He didn’t need to convince those already inside the club that he belonged there.

Up close the bartender barely looked old enough to buy alcohol, but he answered Victor’s request for an orange juice with a voice like the roar of a grizzly.

From his position at the bar, the club’s entrance was out of Victor’s line of sight. He didn’t want to give anyone who followed any clue to his watchfulness. He didn’t need to see someone descend the steps to know if he had been followed. The room had contained fourteen men when he’d walked in – nine sitting alongside the stage and four at tables, plus the bartender – and there were no drinks on empty tables belonging to men in the rest room or enjoying a private dance.

He paid for his drink and took it to a table set towards the back wall, from which he could watch the rest of the room. It was basic protocol, and any shadow who followed Victor in would expect him to show that most fundamental level of precaution. Failure to sit with such a view would only make the shadow suspicious. The team didn’t consist of seven or eight members if whoever had sent them didn’t feel those numbers were needed. They knew who he was. They knew who they were dealing with.

No one new had entered the room by the time Victor took a seat. The chair was sturdy and comfortable. He had an unobstructed view towards the steps. At the top of them, hidden by a wall, were the woman and the doorman in the entrance foyer.

One of the dancers led an unshaven young guy from his seat and across the room into the ultraviolet-lighted corridor. The guy couldn’t keep the smile from his face.

Victor was sipping orange juice when a man walked down the steps from the entrance foyer. He was about forty, casually dressed in jeans and a thigh-length leather jacket. He had long greying hair and a solid build of about two hundred pounds on a six-foot frame. The man reached the bottom of the steps and glanced once around the room. He took a seat beside the U-shaped stage.

Three minutes had passed since Victor entered. It seemed a little soon for a cautious team with two vehicles and plenty of numbers to send in a shadow, but he guessed their caution meant they didn’t want to lose a visual on him for any longer. Three minutes was plenty of time to slip out of a back entrance.

Thirty seconds after the man had sat down another man entered. He was about ten years older than the first, somewhere in his early fifties. He wore branded sportswear – navy jogging bottoms and a brown sweatshirt. He stood a couple of inches shorter than the first guy and looked fit and healthy. His thinning hair was trimmed short, as was his beard. He bought a bottle of beer from the bartender and found a table he liked the look of on the opposite side of the stage to Victor. It was two minutes before the new guy took his first sip.

At which point a third man entered the club. He was about the same age as the first guy, but wore a smart black business suit beneath a tan overcoat. He carried a brown leather attaché case in his left hand. He was average height and a little out of shape. His hair was dark and curly and his cheeks had a red tinge, as though he was hot or out of breath. Like the guy in the sportswear, he headed to the bar and ordered a drink. The young bartender with the bear’s voice worked the coffee machine while the businessman waited, looking a little nervous and excited at the same time.

Three men. Three potentials. But which was part of the team?

On first impressions all gave Victor cause for consideration and reason to dismiss. The first guy had the right physicality for a professional. His leather jacket was long enough to easily conceal a weapon – anything from a handgun to a compact sub-machine gun. But he had entered sooner than Victor would have expected from a member of a team with plenty of numbers.

The second man entered in what Victor judged to be the right time frame and was in shape, but he was a little older than Victor would have expected. The branded sportswear wasn’t the best choice of attire for this neighbourhood, but the colours were muted and he would have blended into the crowd in less affluent areas of the city. He was taking his time over his beer, either because he was taking his time or because he didn’t want the alcohol in his bloodstream.

Judging by appearances the businessman looked the least likely. His waistline wasn’t fitting to the speed and fitness that were a part of the profession’s job description, but he was in the most common age bracket and had entered more or less when Victor would have anticipated. The man looked very much like someone on their first anxious venture inside a strip club, but the suit and attaché case suggested he had come straight from his place of work. Yet lunchtime was over. And if he didn’t need to get back to the office, coffee was not the best drink to calm his nerves and cool him down.

Victor dismissed the man in the leather jacket, not for the timing of his entry into the club but because he hadn’t bought a drink at the bar. A shadow would have felt an overwhelming compulsion to purchase one to establish his bona fides. The man in the leather jacket knew he didn’t need to spend his money on alcohol to watch the dancers so long as he spent his money on them. Because he was a regular.

The other two men both had beverages. They had both entered within the right time frame. There was nothing to single out one as more likely than the other. Both could be civilians, and either could be a shadow.

Which, Victor realised, was the point.

Both were part of the crew. Each was a shadow. The team was maintaining its cautious approach. They were concerned about the club and Victor’s motives for entering it. They were worried he had made the surveillance and was attempting to draw it out or shake it off. They couldn’t avoid sending a man inside, because they couldn’t afford to lose visual contact in case he was trying to dump them. But if he was trying to draw out surveillance he would be expecting a shadow to follow and would almost certainly make whoever followed him in.

But they couldn’t know for sure whether he was in fact trying to draw out surveillance or just interested in naked flesh. They had to send one man inside to re-establish a visual on Victor, and if they were overestimating his aggressive counter-surveillance tactics, it didn’t matter if they sent in another man needlessly. But they had gambled that if the club was a counter-surveillance ruse then he was already on to them and sacrificing the anonymity of an additional man was no great loss when they had to send one in regardless. But with two entering shortly after a civilian there was a chance at least one watcher would remain undetected.

Three of the crew identified left either four or five that Victor hadn’t seen. They wouldn’t all be men, because a competent team wouldn’t limit its options needlessly, but a woman couldn’t enter a strip club inconspicuously. Discounting the two drivers and the two passengers needed to relay information, there were between three and four pavement artists. The young guy in the cap wouldn’t be involved again for a while to avoid the risk of standing out, especially as they feared Victor might have spotted him, so that left two or three. And as the two shadows that had followed him inside were both men, then at least one of the remaining team members would be a woman and that woman would almost certainly be on foot.

Victor left his orange juice on the table and strolled over to the bartender, a casual walk, in no rush. The young guy straightened up as Victor neared and placed his fingertips on the edge of the bar.

‘What can I get for you, sir?’

‘I’ve got a delicate problem I’m hoping you could help me with.’

‘Problem?’

‘Yeah,’ Victor breathed. ‘I think my wife might have followed me here.’

The young guy suppressed a smile and nodded. ‘I understand, sir.’

‘You do?’

‘Sure. It does happen from time to time. Wives can get funny about this kind of thing. We can let you out of the back whenever you’re ready to go, and she won’t be allowed in on her own. Women have to be accompanied by a man. Which is not as uncommon as you think. Couples looking for to add some spice often—’

‘That’s very kind of you,’ Victor said, ‘but I’m wondering if you could ask the doorman to check if she’s out there.’

The bartender hesitated a moment, then nodded. ‘Yeah, sure. No problem at all.’

‘Thank you, you’re a lifesaver.’

The bartender produced a smug look, as though he considered this favour to have equivalence with saving a life. ‘What does she look like?’

Victor said, ‘She’s a brunette.’ A blonde or redhead would be too noticeable. ‘She’s tall.’ A shadow had to be at least of average male height to be effective in crowds. ‘She’ll be on the opposite side of the street if she’s there.’ The best vantage point. ‘I don’t know what she’s wearing, sorry.’ Better than supplying an incorrect guess.

The bartender nodded along as he committed the details to memory. ‘I’ll go ask.’

Victor turned and rested his elbows on the bar behind him while he pretended to be captivated by the bored dancer on the stage. He didn’t look at either of the two watchers, but he knew they would glance his way or keep him in their peripheral vision.

It took a little under three minutes for the young bartender to return. He was already nodding before he reached Victor, who would have preferred the absence of such an obvious gesture so as not to draw the curiosity of the watchers, but short of shouting to the bartender to stop, there wasn’t anything he could do.

‘She’s out there all right,’ the bartender said, happy to be playing a part in the apparent drama. ‘On the opposite side of the street, just like you said she would be. Unless there’s another brunette hanging out for the sake of it, of course. Not especially tall though, but I guess it’s a matter of opinion. You want me to show you the back way out?’

‘Where does it lead to?’

The bartender said, ‘There’s an alley that runs parallel to the street out front. You can take a left or a right and she’ll never know you were here.’

Victor pretended to think. ‘I appreciate the offer, but if she is out there then she knows I’m here. Slipping out the back won’t change that. I don’t want her taking it out on you guys instead of me. I’ll deal with her. Thanks for the assistance.’

The bartender nodded and went to serve another customer. With maps available at the touch of a screen the team would know about the alley and its two exits. If they were concerned enough about losing a visual on Victor to send two watchers inside the club, then they would have both exits of the alleyway under surveillance. Which meant each of the two vehicles would now be parked instead of doing circuits. The man in the cap would be in the back seat of one of the cars, because they couldn’t take the risk of putting him on foot again.

Two inside the club. Five sitting in cars. One woman outside. All possible routes watched. No way to go without being watched. No way to escape the surveillance.

But the team had made one crucial mistake. In sending in two watchers they had inadvertently given Victor all of the team’s positions.

So there was no longer any need to escape.