Black Widow

So Jimmy had been as good as his word and hadn’t told the boys the truth—that Max wasn’t going to be coming back, not soon, not ever. Jimmy had kept quiet, as they had agreed he should, and that was good.

All good, thought Annie tiredly as the car glided smoothly through the rain-drenched streets of London’s East End. Oh yeah. Fucking wonderful. Spring was coming, but today it still looked like winter. She looked out at the grimy terraced houses, the people milling around in the sodden grey streets, the shops, the traffic.

She was back.

But everything was different. Everything had moved on.

Ronnie and Reggie Kray had been banged up a year ago for shooting George Cornell, one of the Richardson boys, in the Blind Beggar, and for doing Jack ‘The Hat’ McVitie at Blonde Carol’s.

Yeah, things had changed.

The Beatles had split up. And Dolly had told her that all through this last winter the maxi-skirt had been favoured by trendy London girls over the chillier mini.

Little changes, big changes. Some bad, some good.

Annie feared that, for her, nothing was ever going to be truly good again.

As Jimmy had told her, the Palermo Lounge was open, the red neon sign shining brightly above the set of red double doors in the sullen daylight. She had brought Max’s keys but she didn’t need them. It felt odd to just walk in during the day. The Palermo, like Max’s other two clubs, had always been very much a nightclub. But today there was a jungle beat going on inside.

There was a man on the door, and Tony introduced her as Mrs Carter. She saw the man’s expression change then. Saw the glint of respect that the Carter name commanded.

She went in, Tony dogging her footsteps.

Annie paused and looked at the poster board. Her eyes widened. She glanced at Tony, but Tony was suddenly finding the ceiling of great interest. Annie pushed through another set of double red doors and the beat of the music shot up to deafening levels. She went down the stairs and paused halfway.

The lights in here were dim—Christ, how come no one broke their necks on these stairs coming in here? She looked down and saw about fifteen punters sitting at tables in a fug of cigarette smoke, some clutching drinks bought from the bar at the far side of the room, others just goggling open-mouthed at what was happening on the brightly lit elevated half-circle that passed for a stage.

Above and to both sides of this ‘stage’ were thick red velvet drapes edged in gold. Annie remembered those drapes. At their apex were the gold letters MC.

Max Carter.

In the centre of the stage, a girl wearing black pants, bra, suspenders, and stockings was gyrating wildly in time to the music, her huge tits bouncing around like melons in a sack, her blonde hair turned silver by the spotlights. As Annie watched, the girl leered at the watching crowd and reached back, unhooking her bra. The massive tanned breasts jumped free and there was a feeble roar of encouragement from the watching men.

Fuck it all, thought Annie. Max would hate this. What’s happened to this place?

The girl was parading around now, clutching her breasts—not naked, but brandishing gold nipple tassels—and wiggling them provocatively in the faces of the watchers.

‘Get ’em off,’ shouted someone.

Annie remembered her Aunt Celia, once proud madam of what was now Dolly’s Limehouse brothel, telling her that men didn’t like topless dancers wearing tassels.

‘If they can’t see the nipple, they feel cheated,’ Celia had told her. ‘To a bloke, a naked tit has to be completely naked, or he feels put out.’

No danger of anyone here feeling cheated for long. The girl was now swinging her hips and leaning over the front tables, inviting the front-row watchers to pluck off her tassels.

Annie looked over to the bar as movement there caught her eye. Two girls were loading trays with drinks and gliding off between the tables, wearing tiny black skirts and white waist pinafores. They were topless. They deposited the drinks on the tables, smiling wearily at the punters, dangling their exposed dugs right under the noses of the men. As Annie watched, several of the punters grabbed a quick feel.

For fuck’s sake, thought Annie. It’s Tit City in here.

Jonjo. This was all down to him, she was sure of it. Left to his own devices, he’d installed his own idea of what passed for good entertainment.

Fucking Jonjo.

‘That girl,’ she said to Tony, having to shout to make herself heard above the noise, ‘on the stage.’

Tony nodded.

‘Don’t let her leave. I want a word with her.’

Tony nodded.

‘I’m going up to the office.’

A punter plucked off a tassel. The crowd cheered. Annie went back up the stairs and passed through the red doors again. She unclipped a rope on which was hung a small sign saying PRIVATE—STAFF ONLY, and clipped it back across when she’d passed through. Then she ascended a smaller staircase. At the top of the flight of stairs she paused before two doors. One she knew was a tiny flat, the other an office. She selected the smallest of the keys on Max’s bunch, labelled ‘P/Office’. She inserted the key in the lock, but it was already unlocked. She pushed open the door.

There was a naked girl spread-eagled on Max’s desk, her legs up around the neck of a man who had his back to Annie. Annie stared at his white spotty buttocks pumping away—his trousers were around his ankles—with first surprise and then distaste. What the hell?

The girl spotted her first and let out a small shriek. The man half turned.

‘Fucking hell, what do you think you’re doing?’ he demanded.

Annie’s face froze into an icy mask. ‘I was under the impression I was coming into my office,’ she said coolly. ‘Or am I wrong? What is this, a knocking shop now?’

He pulled out of the girl and Annie caught a flash of cunt and another, even less welcome, of a wet, deflating dick. She turned her head away as the girl scrabbled up, snatching clothes off the floor. The man adjusted his clothing and carried on shouting the odds, as if she was in the wrong here.

‘Look, I don’t know who the hell you are, but you’d better get out now or you’ll be next over this desk, sister,’ he yelled at her.

‘Really?’

Annie pulled a hand out of her black coat’s capacious pocket and suddenly Max’s gun was there. She put the muzzle of the gun flat against the man’s forehead and flicked off the safety.

The girl screamed and froze.

‘What the fucking hell…?’ wailed the man, staggering back against the desk, trying to get away from the gun, staring at it cross-eyed in horror.

Annie’s eyes were ice.

‘Shut your noise,’ she said to both of them. The girl fell silent, the man was breathing heavily. ‘This is a hair trigger,’ she told the man. ‘You know about hair triggers?’

The man gave a tiny nod, then groaned and shut his eyes. Sweat was starting to pour out of him. He stank already. Disgusting.

‘Good. Now tell me—who the fuck are you, arsehole?’

13 (#ulink_6c3378b9-249e-5ea4-a72e-fa653a27519d)

‘Mrs Carter?’ It was Tony, bursting through the door with a struggling blonde in tow. He looked at the girl still trying to get dressed, and the rumpled, white-faced man, and the gun in Annie’s hand. ‘You okay?’

The white-faced man ran a hand through his thinning blond hair. He looked balefully at Annie, then at Tony.