Frank smiled and said, ‘No one remembers what a barman looks like, Kenny. But if it makes you feel any better, take a couple of weeks off and when you come back I absolutely guarantee none of the punters will recognise you. What d’you say?’
I had my doubts, but if Frank wanted you to do something then you usually ended up doing it. And it wasn’t as though I had much to lose.
‘How about a trial period?’ I suggested.
‘Okay,’ Frank said. ‘If it works out I’ll double the money you’re on now. Stick with me and you’ll go a long way.’
‘I’d like that,’ I told him.
The skill set required to be ma?tre d’ at the club included boundless affability and a good memory for faces and names. I was adept at both. Within a month of my first ‘Hello, sir, and how are we tonight?’, I felt as though I’d been blowing smoke up people’s arses for years.
What with the increased hours, I began to see less of my usual crowd. Eventually, I moved out of Brian’s flat and into a place in Holborn. Frank took on a separate office near Marble Arch, but still put in regular appearances at the Galaxy. On the last night I worked for him, he arrived at ten and went straight upstairs.
For the last month he’d been in a pissy mood. I’d put it down to pressure of work, or difficulties at home. Frank had married his accountant’s daughter and there were rumours that it wasn’t a happy union. Whatever had put his nose out of joint, he didn’t mention it at our weekly meetings when we’d review the staff rota, and Frank would ask who’d been in of any note.
Also on the agenda had been pilfering. Half a dozen cases of Scotch had walked out of the stockroom. Frank delivered a lecture about running a tight ship and instructed me to find the culprit. It hadn’t been hard. Around the time the thefts had ramped up, we’d taken on a guy called Eddie Jenkins. When I went through his coat pockets, I found a copy of the key.
If I’d torn a strip off Eddie and handed him his cards, things might have panned out a whole lot better for both of us. Instead I asked Frank if he wanted me to sack him or involve the police. He told me to send him up after we closed, and that he’d attend to it personally.
Something about his tone set off warning bells. At the end of the night I was about to tell Eddie to leg it when Farrelly materialised like a malign imp. He told Eddie that Frank wanted to see him, adding that I could fuck off whenever I felt like it.
I picked up my jacket and left.
I’d been in my flat twenty minutes when I decided to return to the club. Eddie deserved a slap, but something told me he was going to get a whole lot more. I felt responsible for grassing him up and guilty that I hadn’t dealt with it myself. Hopefully I’d arrive at the Galaxy to find it empty and locked.
I entered the kitchen through the back door. Fluorescent strips blinked several times before kicking in. Harsh light bounced off the polished steel of tables, pots and racks of knives, emphasising the emptiness of the usually bustling room.
In the clubroom, dirty glasses littered the tables and cigarette smoke hung in the air. I resisted the urge to down the remains of a brandy and crossed the room. At the side of the stage were the doors that led to the stairs. I’d made it to the first landing when I heard Eddie scream. I took the next flight in three bounds, and knocked on the door. A few seconds and then I heard Farrelly’s voice.
‘Who is it?’
‘Kenny.’
‘Fuck do you want?’
‘I need to see Eddie.’
‘Piss off.’
‘Just for a couple of minutes.’
‘Don’t make me tell you again . . .’
I took a deep breath and opened the door.
Eddie’s ankles and wrists were gaffer-taped to a chair. He was unconscious and there was a mess of crimson on his shirt. Cables of blood and saliva trailed from his mouth. Two small lumps of bone and gristle lay on the floor.
Almost as shocking was the state of Frank. Three hours ago he’d been immaculate in a tailored suit. Now his shirtsleeves were rolled to the elbows and his hair was damp with sweat. In his right hand was a pair of pliers. You didn’t have to be Einstein to make the connection between these and the items on the floor.
‘You fucking arsehole,’ Farrelly said, getting up from the chair by Frank’s desk.
‘Best leave, Kenny,’ Frank said, raising a hand to stop him. Farrelly bridled like a junkyard dog forbidden a discarded sirloin.
‘All this for less than two hundred quid?’ I said.
‘He needed to be told,’ Farrelly replied.
‘I’d call this a bit more than being told.’
‘No one gives a toss what you think.’
‘At least I’ve got a brain to do some thinking with.’
I didn’t see Farrelly’s hand move until it was clamped around my throat. ‘Say that again,’ he said, peppering my face with spittle. ‘Because you’re one smart-arsed comment away from making that sorry cunt look like he cut himself shaving.’
Anxiety at what might be happening to Eddie turned into the gut-curdling fear of what could happen to me. Farrelly looked as though he was going to waive the need for another smart-arsed comment when Eddie spluttered and groaned. It took a few seconds for him to recall where he was and what had happened to him.
‘I’m . . . sorry . . . Frank,’ he said. ‘I swear to Christ . . . I’ll pay it back.’
Farrelly uncurled his fingers from my throat. As he crossed the room one of Eddie’s teeth skeetered off his boot and ricocheted against the skirting board.
‘Is that right?’ he said, crouching next to him. ‘Or will you just piss off back to Taffy land and that’s the last we’ll ever see of you?’
‘No,’ Eddie said, tears rolling down his puffy cheeks.
‘Because if a wanker like you gets away with it, they’ll all be queuing up to take the piss. A tooth for every case is all we want. Fair’s fucking fair, son.’
‘Take the money out of my wages, Frank,’ I said.
I hoped that paying back what Eddie had stolen might appeal to Frank’s sense of proportion.
‘Go home, Kenny,’ he said. ‘Take tomorrow off and forget about it.’
‘Not without Eddie.’
Farrelly produced something that I thought was a lighter until he pressed a catch and a four-inch blade shot out.
‘If you want to take your boyfriend home, you’ll need to cut him loose,’ he said. ‘And if you’ve got the bottle to come for this, then I guess I’ll have to let you have it.’
Farrelly might have handed the knife over. Or by ‘letting me have it’ did he mean point-first into the eye? Tough to tell, as his face was as blank as weathered stone.
‘Changed your mind?’ he asked. ‘Then you’d best leave before I change mine.’
‘What if I tell someone what’s going on up here?’
Farrelly shrugged as though I’d asked him what might happen if I leapt off the roof of the Swiss Centre.
‘So I’m just meant to leave you to torture him, am I?’
‘Or stick around and watch,’ he said.
‘If I go, that’s it. I’m not coming back. Not tomorrow, not ever.’