Free Take the A-Train by Mark Timlin Page B

kept looking at me and I toasted him with my glass. It wasn’t my round. He looked harder and when he spoke I knew it wasn’t a drink he was after, not from me at any rate.
    ‘You Babylon?’ he demanded in pure Kingston, JA.
    Shit, I thought, another half lemonade giving me fucking grief.
    ‘Fuck off,’ I said. ‘Do I look like bleeding Babylon?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Private,’ I said. ‘And I’m on my holidays, so relax. I ain’t going to nick you.’
    Frank still looked unhappy.
    Johnny cut in, ‘He’s all right, Francis. A diamond. He’s with Fiona.’
    Frank seemed happy with the explanation. ‘Want to buy some gear then?’ he asked.
    ‘What you got?’ asked Johnny.
    ‘A new steam iron and six Filofaxes, great for presents.’
    ‘How much?’ asked Johnny.
    Frank pretended to do some mental sums, although I knew he had the price fixed before he’d lifted the stuff. ‘Fifteen for the iron and a tenner each for the Filofaxes. There’s more than a tenner’s worth of filling in each one.’
    Johnny shook his head sadly. ‘No chance.’
    ‘Oh, come on,’ said Frank.
    Johnny dug in the box. ‘Take forty?’ he asked.
    Frank sighed deeply. ‘Give us a break,’ he said. ‘Fifty, the lot.’
    Johnny rotated his head like a turtle. ‘All right, you got it.’ He pulled out a roll of cash and peeled off five tens. Frank’s hand ate the money like a snake swallowing a small mouse.
    Mickey Lipman slid from his perch on the bar stool and on to the floor. He must have stood at least four feet nine. I swear he was taller sitting down. He pushed through the crowd. ‘Hello, my loves,’ he said. ‘Hello, Frank.’
    ‘Hello, Mickey,’ said Frank. The rest of us didn’t respond.
    ‘Give,’ said Mickey.
    ‘What?’ asked Frank.
    ‘Don’t fuck around. The dough.’
    ‘Jesus, Mickey, do us a favour.’ He looked around as if for divine intervention.
    ‘Give.’
    Frank reluctantly handed over the cash. Mickey counted it in less than a second. ‘I’ll take it off your bill,’ he said.
    ‘No, not all of it, I’m short. Give us some spends.’
    ‘I’m short too,’ said Mickey. He was right about that. There weren’t many shorter in the room.
    ‘Please,’ begged Frank.
    Mickey pulled a face. ‘A tenner,’ he said.
    ‘Sweet.’
    Mickey peeled off a single note and handed it back, then split.
    Frank smiled. ‘Want a drink?’ he asked the gathering. Johnny nodded, Fiona nodded, Frank looked at me.
    ‘Not if you’re skint,’ I said. He looked at Mickey’s retreating back and grinned.
    ‘ ’S’all right,’ he said. ‘I got a couple of watches in here.’ He patted his coat pocket. ‘I’ll knock them out later. If Mickey don’t see me, I’ll be cool.’
    I shrugged. ‘You talked me into it.’ I said. ‘I’ll have a beer.’
    Frank went to the bar and Johnny Smoke took his box of bent gear out to his car.
    ‘Nice boozer,’ I said.
    ‘It’ll do. You see life.’
    ‘You can say that again!’
    ‘Don’t go all copperish on me. You Babylon?’ she mimicked Frank. ‘I thought you were going to have kittens.’
    Frank came back with the beers and Johnny came into the pub with two big boxes of records. He unloaded them on to Phil and boogied round the pub some more.
    At ten o’clock the overhead lights in the pub dimmed which left only the bar, Christmas tree, juke box, pool table and a spot over the stage lit, and Johnny got to work. He was good, I’ll give him that. Noisy, but good. I looked around the pub, through the gloom, and saw an amazing amount of traffic in and out of the Gents. It looked as if the boys were powdering their noses with a vengeance. And the girls? The girls were rolling joints on the tables and getting bombed on marijuana and Pernod until their brains cooked.
    The big guy who ran the place could finally stand no more. He ran round the bar during a particularly frantic Led Zep/Public Enemy segue and confiscated a joint, then ran into the Gents to reappear