Free Jack Carter's Law by Ted Lewis Page B

want you to go to my place first,” I tell Con. “Charlie’ll be staying with me tonight so you take him up there and stay with him while I walk round and try to get hold of Gerald and Les. If Tommy phones take the message.”
    “Right,” says Con.
    The traffic’s turning out now, most of it suburb-bound after the passengers have had a night out in London’s wonderful West End. The wind has got up again and is sweeping the broad wasteland of the Elephant with sheets of drizzle.
    We arrive outside my flat and I give Con the extra keys and Con helps Charlie out of the Scimitar and into my place and I slide over into the driver’s seat and take the car round to the club. When I get inside I collar Alex the doorman.
    “Have Gerald or Les phoned in?” I ask him.
    “Not as yet, Mr. Carter,” he says.
    “Jesus,” I say. “And they gave you no idea of where they’d be?”
    “Well, they went out with the Americans so it could be the Antibes or then again it could be Arabella’s Stable.”
    Yes, I think to myself, and knowing Gerald and Les it could be Terri Palin’s house in Camden Town or some other amusement arcade. The Americans like a bit of English, especially if it is trained to act like the real upper crust. And isn’t it just fucking typical of Gerald and Les on a busy night like tonight to go out without leaving their tonking address?
    “Mrs. Fletcher might know,” Alex says. “She’s still upstairs. She’s been interviewing a couple of performers.”
    It often happens this time of night. Girls in this particular line of work never see daylight before midday and their free time starts at 1 AM if they’re lucky.
    “She still busy?”
    “One of the acts is still up there.”
    “Get her on the extension for me. I’ll talk to her at the bar.”
    Alex walks away to his duty and I make my way through into the bar. Billy has the mixture waiting for me and presents it to me like he’s auditioning in front of Nureyev. Then for the second time that night I get the tones of Peter the Dutchman’s voice like treacle in my earhole.
    “I’ll buy my own this time,” he says. “The other way’s too much like hard work.”
    “And you’ll know all about the other way,” I tell him.
    He slides onto the next stool but one, knowing better than to push his luck by getting on the closer one.
    “Who let you in, anyway?” I ask him.
    “Don’t be like that, Jack,” he says.
    Billy the barman discreetly places himself closer to me than he does to Peter and waits. Peter asks for a Campari and soda and the barman still waits until I give him a weary nod and he goes off to do his stuff.
    “Nice high-class staff you’ve got in here these days,” Peter says, watching Billy reach up for the Campari bottle.
    “Like the clientele,” I say.
    “Oh, that’s right,” Peter says, “you were asking how I got in. Well, I got in by Gerald and Les’s invitation. I was on my way when you saw me in Maurice’s. Dutch Courage, if you’ll pardon the pun. I thought Gerald and Les would have put you in it, and I would have mentioned it only I didn’t think Maurice’s was the time or the place. Not for that, anyway.”
    The barman’s extension rings and he lifts the receiver. I look at Peter.
    “Put me in what?”
    “Put you in why Gerald and Les are talking to me. The little tickle I’ve brought them. The little outing.” Billy brings the telephone over to my part of the bar.
    “Mrs. Fletcher,” he says.
    I motion for him to put the phone down.
    “You’ve brought a job to Gerald and Les?” I say to Peter.
    “That’s right,” he says.
    “And they’re buying it in?”
    “Even righter.”
    I can hear Audrey speaking on the other end of the line. I don’t want Peter’s pleasure to be greater than it already is so I fake a faint grin and shake my head and pick up the receiver.
    “Jack?” Audrey says.
    “Yes.”
    “What’s going on?” she says. “You didn’t answer.”
    From the way she’s talking