The Norway Room (6 page)

7

It is less than two years since Hsinshu called me to his side. ‘The gambling is good business here in Birmingham, Shuko. Lucrative.' As he finished the word, which he always pronounced slowly, breaking it apart to three syllables, a small smile took his mouth; very satisfying to see.

‘Shuko, there is a market for another sort of gambling, that could also be very lucrative.' I waited. There was a task coming.

‘There are those who prefer a more dangerous way to lose their money. They tire of cards, dice, the wheel.' He looked at me. ‘Dogs I think will take their fancy. Fighting dogs. To the death.'

I use two white English women, Diesel and her partner Pauline. Diesel, who is built like a sumo, sources suitable venues. It is of amusement to me that despite the money our venture has brought her she still keeps her snack wagon near the M40. It is called Bite-Inn and is popular with lorry drivers. Her grey hair is cut very short and she wears dungarees. I can rely on her to find venues that are ideal. They are usually old industrial spaces where three or four hundred may gather. There are many such places in Birmingham.

The dogs used to come from a variety of sources. Pauline raised a number of both pits and tosas, but these were unlucky dogs – unlucky for her; destroyed too quickly for her to replenish her stock. Now I use Knighton, a white English from the Mendy. He is reliable, and provides good fighting dogs of several aggressive breeds, mostly Staffs, very strong dogs, admirably stubborn. I don't know where he gets them from, nor do I need to, for he never lets me down.

We are neighbours of sorts, Knighton and I. I live on the sixteenth floor of Nimrod House; Knighton in one of the streets of houses that circle the tower. It is not inconceivable that a firecracker thrown from my back window could be carried by the wind to his home. Or is that just fancy?

I do not spend much time in my flat. I keep very little there. My needs are simple. A bed. My shrine. A chair, a low floor table, and a television. Some books: classics in Mandarin, modern works in Cantonese, the
I Ching
of course, some English books on chess and poker, both interests of mine. I rarely eat there so there is little in the kitchen. Teas. A bottle of vodka, some beers. I buy my Chinese cigarettes in bulk, through the Dragons, cigarettes without filters, and it is the blue-and-gold packs of these that occupy most of the space in the kitchen cupboards.

It is the flat in which we executed Jimmy Slim, and I have lived there since that night. After Jimmy Slim, bound and gagged, had been thrown from the window into the silent blackness of the night, collected from the ground below and disposed of, I set up within the room a small shrine beneath the window from which we threw him, which was only right and respectful, and part of the Code of the Dragons. Having behaved treacherously, working as a spy for one of the black gangs in the city, the Dobermans, he tried to hide in this flat on the Mendy. At that time it was completely empty. Jimmy Slim sat hiding on the floor here for many hours before we found him.

The term
on the Mendy
is interesting. It is used obviously to refer to the Mendelssohn Estate, which is on the west side of Birmingham, but it is also a term used frequently in the city to refer to the practice of sub-letting a flat or a house while its legal tenant is in prison; a practice that apparently started here, and continues, although it is just as prolific on other estates.

My flat was empty for a long time before Jimmy Slim sought refuge there. My feeling is that its last tenant died in jail. A feeling only, for I have not investigated the matter. I pay no rent. No one bothers me. It must have been sorted. At some time someone has been paid – or threatened – to see that it drops off the city council's records. There are a lot of sorted flats on the Mendy, as there are on all the estates. Jimmy Slim's friends from the black gangs must have told him about it. The three other flats on this floor are unoccupied, and have been for a very long time, at least by human beings. The smell and the heat emanating from them suggest other living forms flourish.

The 16 button in the lift does not work, so it never stops here. It is no bother for me to climb the stairs from the fifteenth floor. Sometimes if I have occasion to return here in the daytime I may see some hooded figure entering or leaving one of the other doorways of the sixteenth; youths not much beyond school age. We Chinese are more careful of our youth I think.

Since I supervised the clearing away of Jimmy Slim from the tarmac at the side of Nimrod House I have never seen any connection between my life serving Hsinshu and my sleeping arrangements, for that is pretty much all they are, here on the Mendy. There are a few Chinese in this vicinity; Feiyang, who keeps the takeaway on the estate, and to whom I am related. Feiyang himself is British-born Chinese but his mother is the cousin of my father. There is also Pian Li, who is known to the English around here as Charlie Chann and keeps the gym on the estate known as The Works, and Zusanli who runs the martial arts centre. Wei Lin, the hairdresser.

Occasionally I visit my relatives: at New Year of course, and at Ching Ming each April; six months ago I attended Feiyang's wedding. I do what is right by custom but no more.

8

Envoy
. It is a special word. For a special role. Hsinshu was speaking English. ‘You will be my envoy. Go as a businessman. Offer Mr Stretton the sum agreed; it is not ungenerous. Explain there is time. A month for a decision. Two further months to vacate. There will be a generous bonus if he agrees to go immediately.'

And so it was – businesslike. That word is correct for Stretton too. Not hostile, not aggressive, but cold, abrupt; short words, quickly spoken, quietly spoken – no nonsense. There is certainly something of the Metal element about Mr Stretton, but that is not, I think, his true element. I believe that his principal energy, like my own, is Wood, but whereas mine is of the strong tree, his is of the seed, full of potential, full of plans, consumed by the instinct to grow.

There was no doubt that the beautiful woman beside Mr Stretton was of the Metal element. She sat at a desk side-on to Mr Stretton, her blonde hair seeming to glow in the gloomy room; scarlet fingernails. I told Mr Stretton that I would to prefer to speak with him alone. ‘There is no need, Mr Wood,' he said, using the name with which I had made my appointment. ‘Trudy is my assistant. She knows everything about the business. I wouldn't make any decisions without discussing them with her.'

But he discussed nothing with her. ‘The club is not for sale, Mr Wood. Nor is it going to be. It's my business and that's the way it will stay. In fact, I may shortly be looking to expand. You might slip me the word if you are aware of anything coming on the market.' There was a roughness of tone in Mr Stretton's voice, as if the words were churned out industrially from some workshop located at the bottom of his throat.

‘It is possible that this offer, although already generous, may be improved upon, sir.'

‘Not interested. No deal, Mr Wood. You'll have to tell your boss, it's no can do. See the gentleman out, Trudy.'

‘It is a very good offer,' I said to Trudy as we made our way downstairs. ‘And as I said, financially it is not the last word.'

‘No,' she said. ‘But what Mr Stretton says is. He's not a man to change his mind.'

Usually I have no difficulty at all in keeping my mind on my work. There is little else I wish to think of. But as I made my way back to the casino I found that the image of Trudy had found a place in my brain; one which I feared would be difficult to dislodge.

I am wary when it comes to women, and try now not to follow inclination. From the time he was a very young boy my brother, whose birth contravened the family laws of our country, was with the Chinese Circus of Chengdu Province. At eighteen he married Tai Yuan, a former Young Pioneer gymnastics champion, three years his senior, who joined the circus as a tumbler. I met her for the first time on the day of her wedding. I was not prepared for my feelings. Lust certainly, a mountain of it, but besides that, and more alarming for me at that time, a lake of tenderness. Within a few weeks we were making love whenever we could. I looked at my brother's face of happiness and felt nothing, but for Tai Yuan it was an agony.

She was sure the son she gave birth to a year later was mine. ‘Break the law,' I told her. ‘Soon it will be spring and the circus will be on the road again. Have another child. Your husband's child.'

It was towards the end of summer when I visited them in Guillin. From the audience I watched her throw her body into the air, turn it into a circle, leap high through hoops and raise it from the ground straight and true and at an angle to her head. The audience cheered loudly.

The next day when we met in some place I could make love to her, I had condoms. ‘There is no need,' she said when she saw them. ‘I am sterilised now. I am a tumbler. I don't want to stop my work again. I don't want to break the law.'

On the fourth day of my stay I sat in a practice tent watching Tai Yuan throw herself around the sand circle there, yelling as she did so, fierce as the tigress. And as she paused for rest, slumping forward so that her arms swung beside her legs, and breathing deeply, she raised her head and caught sight of me. It was not hatred in her eyes as she rose to an upright position, but it certainly was not love. And now the word people use, certainly in the West, when they speak of right, of wrong – moral. If I can find meaning in what those eyes conveyed, it was something to do with that word, moral. But alone it is not enough. Moral something. Moral exhaustion? Perhaps. It is close. Or possibly that other word they are so fond of here, disgust.

*

It was not the last time I saw her. I saw all three of them each New Year at my parents' house. I used to watch Tai Yuan looking at her husband playing with his son; the boy up on his shoulders, throwing him into the air. The boy's birthday fell too close to New Year to justify a special visit, so I waited until the August Moon Festival when I could take gifts for the boy. And it was not the last time I made love to Tai Yuan. It happened every time we were together, and I do not regret it. They are memories I love. But with each visit we spoke less, and nothing of consequence, and so I do not know whether she intended to kill the boy or not. The van she was driving went over a cliff edge in Fujian Province. There was only her and the boy in it.

My brother now has another wife, and another son. It was in the year of Tai Yuan's death that I left China and came to find my friends here, so I have never met my brother's second wife, or their son, although each New Year I receive a photograph of all three and their good wishes. It would be unlucky for them not to send it, and I in my turn send gifts and wishes. I have now passed forty and so can add the word blessing to my greeting to my younger brother. There is no need for a photograph, he knows how I look.

CARROW

9

Carrow was back. The city hadn't changed. Why should it? It was only a year. No: all the changes were his own.

Copper – no more.

Highly paid bodyguard – no more.

Jamaican beach bum – no more.

Grieving son – well he'd take a check on that.

Was he unhappy? No. Happy? Well he'd take a check on that too.

But the night was good. The dark wet cold Birmingham night. He'd stepped outside the Norway Room to breathe the city's damp air – to mix it with some nicotine. A month ago he had been breathing the salty Caribbean winds of Bluefields Beach. But he was glad to be back. The muted throb of electronic music seeped out through the old walls of the Norway Room, something to keep him company beneath the blue lamp.

He inhaled. Good. But a spliff would be better. And a woman. He looked at his watch. Three a.m. The time door duties slowed down. No one would mind if he went for a shufty round, see what he could fix up. He'd be back at the door before four – throwing-out time.

A nurse. Perfect. ‘Ruthie,' she said. And he knew he was in even before she said ‘I've got a weakness for black guys.'

And she obviously had. He noticed the framed photograph of one with his arm around her on the sideboard as soon as she led him into her flat. ‘Is he yours?'

‘Yes.'

‘Where is he?'

Ruthie put the picture in a drawer. ‘Away for a bit.'

‘Inside.'

‘Inside,' she repeated.

The next day when the time came to leave – toast, coffee, cigarettes all finished – he didn't want to go.

‘What's his name?'

The question surprised her. ‘Howard. Howie.'

‘How long?'

‘Another three months. If he behaves.'

‘I'd like to come back some time.'

‘Tonight if you like.'

‘I used to be a copper.'

‘Yeah.' Thoughtful. ‘I can see that.'

It was blatant – these things always are. The Rover snails up Firth Street. Eases to a halt outside the Norway. Empties four Chinks. All in suits. The lanky one pulls the gun. Carrow feels it jab into his forehead before his vision can focus the moving object.

‘The boss.'

No point arguing. Day eight, Carrow thinks. Eight days here, and now I've got a gun slapped into my head. He drops his cigarette. He understands the score. He is not in danger so long as he obeys instructions – at least that's what he tells himself. He turns. Slow. And easy. Leads them in. ‘It's okay' – he nods to Mia at the desk – ‘they're with me.' Round the dance floor. Up through the Oslo Lounge. He feels like a boxer on his way to the ring for a prizefight, flanked by his entourage. Along the corridor. He stops at Stretton's door. The gun comes out again. Rests on the back of his collar. Kisses his neck. He bangs his fist on the door.

‘Yes?' Bad-tempered.

Carrow tries the handle. Unlocked. Opens the door. Stretton looks up from his desk. Counting cash. Trudy side-on to him doing the same. The gun slips from Carrow's collar to rest on his shoulder. Stretton's fingers leave the notes. He leans back in his chair. Takes in the picture in his doorway. Not too surprised it seems. Trudy stops counting. Reaches out to a cigarette smouldering in the ashtray. Hard blue eyes. Scarlet fingernails, with glitter. Slowly she brings the cigarette to her lips. Cool, Carrow thinks.

‘Go and have a drink, Carra,' Stretton says. ‘Take Trudy with you.' The gun slides from his shoulder. The Chinks shuffle a path for them to leave. He hears the door slam shut. Trudy leans against the corridor wall. ‘I'm staying here,' she says. Still smoking.

At the bar he orders a Bacardi. Ice and lime. Thinks Jamaica. Thinks Bluefields Beach. Thinks Fort Clarence. Tries not to think of his mother. He takes a hefty slug. Toga comes across. ‘What's goin' down?'

‘Search me. Gun in my head and they want the boss.'

‘Dragons.'

‘I thought this place was clean.'

‘It is.' A sneer curves his lips. ‘Must be business. I'd heard there was a spot of interest. Takeover.'

Danger. It was in the way he kissed her. That's how you know. Especially on the second night. The kissing. And touching. Slow. Smiles and sighs. That's dangerous.

‘Old people?'

‘Yes.'

‘And you like it?'

‘I've done all sorts. You have to. A&E. Gynaecology. Intensive care. But I'll stick with this. Geriatrics. It's what I like.'

When he'd first seen her, dancing in the Norway Room, she'd been in a silky black dress. Now he thought nurses' uniforms. Imagined her in one, pushing a wheelchair. He didn't want to see what was in the chair.

It was more than lust. Or there was an interceptor. A feeling that he wasn't looking for. Not right now anyway. He'd had enough of feelings. But it was there. She played with his ear. ‘I'll see you around,' he said.

It was inevitable that Carrow would come across some Birmingham faces here on the door at the Norway. They had their own pubs, places like the Little Moscow in Tyseley, the Last Morsel in Aston and the Earl in Newtown, but the younger guys liked a night out in the clubs as much as anyone. And there were the opportunities: watching; checking out what was what – something to take back to the boss; networking. Then, his third Saturday in, he sees Kieran and Pricey from Crawford's mob lining up to come in – all nicely dressed and well behaved. They recognised him. A sort of nod from Kieran. Now he wasn't the law it seemed he could at least be acknowledged.

A little later Kieran came up to him. ‘Crawford heard you was back. Dutchland didn't work out then?' Carrow said nothing. He saw Pricey lurking in the background. ‘I suppose he thought you'd go back on the force. But it looks like you've decided against that?'

‘That's right.' He didn't add – for now.

‘Well, Crawford would like a word. It's no good asking me what about. I don't know. He could be offering you door work at one of the clubs. But I doubt that, somehow.' Kieran took a card for the Spotted Hippo from inside his jacket. On the back was written a mobile phone number in blue biro. ‘Give him a ring. Make an appointment.'

The Spotted Hippo at eleven in the morning – dull and dingy. The scarlet stage curtains, rich and vivid in stage light, were just garish in the gloom of the standard overhead lighting that exposed stains on the carpets, cigarette burns on tables, brown plush seating the colour of dried blood. The glittering poles were pointless without their female pendants. The bars that edged the room were shuttered and locked. A strong smell of air freshener. Two heavy-eyed young women pushed Hoovers around.

The guy who had let Carrow in – all bouncer gear, at this time in the morning – led him through the club to Crawford's office.

Stretton's office at the Norway was a grubby, windowless little room. Crawford's office was spacious and light; you could see the Rotunda from a tall window behind Crawford's desk.

Crawford had a reputation for being immaculately dressed, the price he paid for suits. Today it was a blue suit, white shirt, red silk tie. He rose beaming, arm outstretched. ‘Mr Carrow. Good morning. It is Mister now, isn't it? You're not working undercover for Dowd, or anything like that?' He laughed, but it was only just a laugh. Sean Dowd had been Carrow's boss on the force, another man known for being well dressed – and for his ruthless ambition. Quite similar, Dowd and Crawford; just on opposite sides of the line.

‘It's Mister. Carra to my friends.' He'd see what he made of that.

Crawford led Carrow to a pair of leather armchairs and a small table that held an open pack of cigarettes, a couple of lighters and a glass ashtray. ‘I was sorry to hear about your bad news. Your mom. Especially coming right on top of the Holland business.' Carrow was taken aback. How the hell did he know all this about him? Holland, yes. It had been in the papers here. But his mother?

Crawford lifted the cigarettes, selected one and put it in his mouth. He lifted the packet to Crawford, like a tennis player showing new balls. ‘Fag?'

‘Thanks.' Crawford lobbed the pack towards Carrow.

When both men had lit their cigarettes Crawford started. ‘Why I've got you in here Carra is to offer you a little job. Nothing to worry about. It's all legit. Just because you're no longer in the force doesn't mean you're not the same honest bloke you've always been.' He looked hard at Carrow. ‘You know I've either got an interest in, or own, quite a number of the clubs in the city centre?'

Carrow nodded. He could have said, And those you don't own are paying you protection, but he left it, for now. Just see what the man was up to.

‘Now a place I've had my eye on for some time is the Norway Room. Your own place of work. Negotiations with Stretton are in the very early stages. He's a wily bird. You don't know him very well yet, but believe me he is. This little incident last week with the Chinese, he said nothing to me about it, I've had to discover it through other sources. But I hear you were involved.'

Crawford leaned forward, put his cigarette in the ashtray, put his elbows on his knees, clasped his hands. A friendly smile on his face. ‘In the drawer of my desk over there is an envelope with two grand in fifties in it. It can be in your back pocket in five minutes. What I want is information. Nothing more. The Chinese turn up I want you on the mobile straight away. That's another thousand. Also any comings and goings.' Carrow was about to speak but Crawford cut him off. ‘The reason I'm dishing you such a payday is because you're experienced enough to know exactly what I mean by comings and goings. You'll be well paid for anything you put my way. All I want from you is information. It's not going to lead to anything unsavoury, and even if it did there is no way you would be implicated.'

So there it was. Carrow knew now what Crawford was after. It was a job offer – of sorts. And he knew pretty well immediately that he was likely to accept. If he was going to stick around at the Norway and take the risks, he might as well make some money out of it – and Crawford was offering big bucks. He wasn't getting into anything he couldn't get out of. He could sniff a few things out for Crawford, go along so far, then cut out if necessary. Crawford knew that with his connections on the force anything seriously over the line could go to them, so he wasn't likely to try and push him into anything technically unlawful. So why not go with it? It was a boring job most of the time at the Norway and this would make it a bit more interesting; a lot more lucrative anyway.

‘It crosses the line and I'm out.' Carrow waited. Crawford nodded. ‘But if it's just information – well, I'm happy to oblige.'

‘Good man.' Crawford stubbed his cigarette and rose. ‘How was home by the way?'

‘Home?'

‘Jamaica.'

‘Home is here, Birmingham, where I was born and raised, just like you. But Jamaica was good.' He phoneyed a Jamaican accent. ‘
Excellent, mon
.'

Crawford dropped the envelope on the table. This felt like a scene from a film. Was Crawford going to ask him if he wanted to count it? He did, which made Carrow smile. ‘I'm sure it's fine,' he said.

How many actors had bagged good paydays saying those words?

‘I've a feeling some of the gangs might be trying to get a toe in as well as the Chinese. Not for the place, they're not in that league, but on the supply front. What's it like at the moment?'

‘Pretty clean. Some punters doing coke in the toilets, but not much and definitely not bought on the premises. Never seen any evidence of weed or ganga. And certainly not crack.'

Crawford nodded. ‘Okay. But you know the crews. Dobermans. Newtown Aces. Any of them turn up for a night out, let me know.'

Crawford rose. ‘Come over here.' He beckoned Carrow who followed him over to his desk. ‘I would also like a call' – he pressed a couple of keys on his laptop – ‘if this girl turns up one night.' And there staring out at him was Ruthie.