Lunching at Laura's Page 10

  ‘So I’m in touch. Don’t you offer a drink to a man?’

  He looked round the office as Preston went to the cupboard behind his desk and opened it to reveal mirrored shelves and a great many bottles and glasses. There were other cupboards fronted with the same glossy veneer as that on the other walls and between them there was a deep green flock wallpaper. The floor was covered in a thick shag carpet in an even more virulent shade of green, and the looped and swagged curtains at the high window which looked out onto a narrow back yard outshone both with their irridescent emerald.

  ‘You’ve been doing this place up again,’ he said as Preston handed him a tall glass filled with amber and ice. ‘Last time I was here, wasn’t it all purple?’

  ‘Too depressing,’ Preston said. ‘Anyway, I got bored.’

  ‘Christ, you must be coining it.’ Davriosh settled himself comfortably in the deep green leather armchair that faced the desk. ‘Why you want the headaches of what we’re doing – it’s beyond me – Cheers!’ And he drank thirstily.

  ‘I can’t stand this business. I told you,’ Preston said and drank as well. ‘However much money it makes, it’s a dirty horrible business. Rotten people on the stage and even more rotten people paying money to see ’em. What sort of a business is that for a grown man?’

  ‘Very tasty, I’d say.’

  ‘Not on your life. You come one night and see for yourself –’

  Davriosh looked shocked. ‘You know I never come in when the punters are in! That’d never do.’

  ‘You see? Like I said, a lousy business. If a businessman like you doesn’t want to be seen here, then how do you think I feel?’

  ‘Then go upmarket. Plush the place up a bit, go for the top end of the trade. Get some class girls and class punters, and then –’

  Preston shook his head. ‘Not enough gravy at the top end. The sort of punters I’d be pleased to associate with, the ones with the money, they’re too bloody fly. They expect value for their scratch. The more they’ve got the more they want for it. Then you have to start getting good acts and they make trouble, what with their big money and their agents –’ He laughed bitterly then. ‘Agents! A ponce by any other name, believe me – I tell you, it wouldn’t be worth it. The way it is I make a lot of money. It pays me to keep the shows shabby, use bad acts – I mean, did you ever see anything so dreary as that scrubber out there? Varicose veins, an arse two inches nearer the floor every time I look at her – but she’s cheap. Got a nasty mouth on her, no class, but she’s cheap. I tell you, it gives you ulcers.’ He finished his drink and got up to pour another. ‘The sooner I’m in with you and Statler full time, the happier I’ll be. Just let me know what’s going on, that’s all I ask.’

  He sat down again, pointedly ignoring the way Davriosh was holding his empty glass and lifted his brows at him. ‘So? What’s been happening?’

  ‘Not a lot. What do you expect in five minutes?’

  ‘It’s been a month since you first came to me, Davriosh. A month. Big talk, big promises, and all I’ve had so far is one lunch and a lot more talk and nothing else. I’ve given you good money for this –’

  ‘There always has to be development money for new schemes,’ Davriosh said and set his glass down on the desk with a little clatter. ‘Or do you think I’m going to run my feet off, seeing people, arranging things, for nothing? Why should I beat my head out for you? There’s got to be something in it for me –’

  ‘Listen, Davriosh,’ Preston said and leaned forwards and tapped the desk under his nose. ‘You’re in as an equal partner with me, but you haven’t put in equal money or anything like it. My investment is money, yours is work. And I want to know what work you’ve done for my cash. I’ve got money earmarked for this project I can’t touch because I’ve made a deal with you, and I’ve put some hard stuff in your hand. A goodly number of C notes you’ve had and don’t think I don’t remember how many. So, I want to know what’s happening. Is Statler reliable? Is it all going to happen? What’s the progress, for God’s sake?’

  ‘So, no need to get excited. There’s progress,’ Joe said peaceably and pushed his glass forwards. ‘Listen, you don’t have to be so mean with the whisky, do you? I need a drink. It’s been a long day, already.’

  Grudgingly Preston poured him another drink.

  ‘Now,’ Davriosh leaned back happily. ‘Progress report. I’ve been making the searches, know a lot more about how the properties stand. Both of them in the Yard are complicated. I’ll tell you that for a start. Laura’s – well, I’m still trying to work out who owns what there, though I can tell you it’s a freehold. The other one, that’s interesting.’

  He settled more comfortably in his seat. ‘It was a freehold a long time, held by Jean Bosquet, French. It was a bloke, see, not a woman.’ He looked pleased at his own perspicacity. ‘But in the war he got nervous. First war I mean. It was in 1916, it seems, he got worried the Germans’d win, ’nd come over here and clobber him special, being he was French. Barmy, if you ask me, but there it was. So he sold the freehold to L and CD – you know the people I mean. Got that big parcel of property over at Covent Garden as well as here in Soho – you don’t? Never mind – it’s not important you should. Anyway, Bosquet sold on the understanding him and his family gets to have a long lease so they can keep the business. As I understand it, he wanted the cash for his freehold so he could convert it to gold, in case he had to run away to America or somewhere, but just in case he was wrong and the Germans didn’t win and come after him, he wanted to be sure he could keep his business. Canny buggers, the French, aren’t they? Anyway, that was what happened. It took some finding out, I can tell you but I got my ways. Got people I can talk to – you get real value out of a man with my contacts, Preston. So don’t go thinking you’re hard done by, because you’re not. So all right! Don’t look at me so ferocious! I was just telling you. So the shop’s on a lease –’

  ‘How long a lease?’

  Davriosh chuckled. ‘This’ll really get you. The old boy agreed a seventy year lease.’

  Preston stared at him and frowned. ‘So?’

  ‘So this is 1986!’ And Davriosh beamed his delight.

  ‘So, again!’ Preston said. ‘I’m still – oh! 1916 it was?’

  Davriosh bent his head once in an exaggerated nod. ‘1916. The middle of this year, the lease is up. June 24th. Quarter day.’

  Preston rubbed his hand over his bald head and grinned.

  ‘So come June we buy,’ he said in great satisfaction. ‘That makes it easy.’

  Davriosh shook his head. ‘Not so easy. There’s no way the L and CD won’t renew his lease. He’s got legal rights there – no, it’ll take a bit of wheeling and dealing to get him out. Not so easy, believe me. We want the freehold and we don’t wait till any lease is up to buy it. That’d be very bad business. We have to persuade L & CD. to part with it now. They’ll want to know why, and they’ll want a hell of a price. Unless we can box clever.’

  ‘How clever?’

  Davriosh grinned. ‘Well, there’s the Trust, ain’t there?’

  ‘The Trust,’ Preston said and frowned. ‘The Vinegar Trust? Those buggers who make my life a misery with their fussings and their – yes. The Trust.’

  ‘You got it. What we have to do is find a way to make them make a nuisance of themselves there in the Yard and L and CD’ll be so glad to get a buyer for the freehold they’ll let us have it for flumpence. The thing is, we got to find a way to get the Trust to make a pest of themselves. And I think I know how they can. That don’t mean to say it’ll work, mind you. It’s a bit dicey. But worth a try.’

  ‘The Trust,’ Preston said again and lifted his brows, so that his forehead creased. His bald head remained smooth and easy to see in the reflected light from the mirrors in the cupboard behind him, and Davriosh grinned at the oddity of the effect. It made him feel better to be able to laugh at this man behind his fancy desk in his superior office. Always moaning about his business and
how much he hated it, and making so much money he didn’t know what to do with it all. A man like that was easy to dislike and easier still to laugh at.

  ‘You said there’s a fella there you can handle. Remember?’ Preston said.

  ‘I remember. I’ve got a couple of contracts there one way and another. I’ve been talking to one of them. You know the bloke I mean. Seems a bright enough sort of fella. He’s bloody hungry, I tell you that. I like hungry people.’

  ‘I know,’ Preston said absently. ‘I told you that about him.’ He sat and stared at Davriosh for a long moment and then said abruptly, ‘There may be another way round it all.’

  ‘Oh? Not with him?’

  ‘Oh, yes, use him if you need him. He’ll come in useful over the other place. No, I have another idea –’ He sat and thought again, staring blankly at Davriosh and clearly not seeing him at all and then grinned slowly. ‘Listen, I have other ways of making people play the game the way I want them to. There’s someone else can help.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘If I told you that you’d be as clever as I am. And I like being the clever one. I’ll talk to him, see what I can do. You’ll just bugger it up, stupid way you go on sometimes. Meanwhile, you go on with the Trust. See how you can get them going.’

  Davriosh took a sharp little breath in through his nose. He wasn’t going to rise to the bait. If the man wanted to goad someone, let him find someone different. But he registered the insult and stored it away deep in his mind.

  ‘They’ll need ammunition,’ he said. ’You can’t expect ’em to get interested when there’s nothing there to get interested in. That’s why I came to see you.

  ‘I told you to come and see me,’ Preston said.

  ‘I got no message,’ Davriosh said easily. ‘I came because I got work for you.’

  ‘I put up money. You do the work. And Statler –’

  ‘Never mind him at the moment. It’s what you have to do that matters.’

  ‘Have to do?’ Preston said in a soft voice. ‘I don’t have to do a thing.’

  ‘You will if you want to get this thing off the ground. Now, listen. This is what I thought. How many sex shops do you have?’

  ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘A lot. How many? And do you sell wholesale?’

  ‘Tell me why you want to know, and I’ll see where I go from there.’

  ‘That shop – tobacconist, right? Sweets, right? So why not newsagent too?’

  Preston shook his head. ‘No trade there. Little Yard like that –’

  ‘He sells his sweets and his tobacco enough to keep the business going. So why not a few more nice lines? High profit lines?’

  Again Preston shook his head. ‘I’ve looked at every outlet on the whole manor. I looked there years ago. His trade, it’s all class. Nice people. They buy quality tobacco, top cigars – they’re not into porn. If there’d been any business to be done there I’d have done it. It may be a lousy business I’m in, but I’m good at it. Bloody good.’

  ‘You never talked to him?’

  ‘Of course not. I don’t waste time on useless outlets.’

  ‘But there could be another use for it apart from taking money,’ Davriosh said and laughed. ‘Oh, sometimes, Preston, I despair of you, I really do. Call yourself a businessman! Call me stupid? You got to look a bit further than the end of your nose, you know! There’s more value to getting some stuff into that shop than just selling it. Now listen –’ And he leaned forwards confidentially. ‘I’ve been looking into it. Been buying a lot of sweets and cigarettes lately. There’s a nephew. Works there sometimes, helps the old boy out. He’s the only relation he got. Lives over on the Isle of Dogs. A smart fella is Simmy Bosquet. I’ve been talking to him.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Told him if he can get his uncle’s shop to start stocking some of the right stuff, displaying it nicely, then maybe we can do business. The old man won’t hear of it, of course. Not his class of business at all.’

  ‘What did I tell you?’

  ‘So,’ Davriosh said, as though the other hadn’t spoken. ‘So, when he goes away, which he doesn’t often do, the nephew takes over the shop for him. Mind you he doesn’t go often, the old man. Hasn’t had a holiday for over five years.’

  ‘All very interesting, I’m sure. But where does it all get me?’

  ‘So, listen, will you! So, I told Simmy if he can persuade his uncle to go on holiday for a month, six weeks, we’d pay for the trip. As long as he tells the old boy it’s his own money he’s giving him, and then –’

  ‘Why the hell should we pay –’

  ‘It’s impossible talking to you – you never listen. Do you want in on this business or don’t you? I’m telling you a way we can get the freehold and get it cheap. If you’ll listen for five minutes.’

  ‘I’m listening,’ Preston said sulkily.

  ‘All right. So, Simmy tells his uncle he’s giving him a present. Six weeks in France – the old boy likes to go back to visit the place his father came from – and he’ll look after the shop while he’s away. Okay. You put in the magazines, the really hot stuff, the day the old boy goes away –’

  ‘And the Trust find out,’ Preston said and for the first time began to look interested.

  ‘Find out? I should bloody cocoa! I lay a complaint, as a local resident, with the Council, with the Trust, with everyone I can. I’m a respected local chap, got every right to object. I go in one day, see kids there, right? So I complain. Now, just before all this you go to L and CD and offer for the freehold. You don’t mind the encumbrance of the lease, you tell em. You know about these things. You just want the freehold. You got long term plans for after the old man retires. You know he’s old, and you’re patient. They get dubious naturally, think there’s something going on and look for their share of the gravy. Only then the Trust starts making a drama. So the police get busy and licence questions come up and there you are. They sell their freehold so fast you don’t see it for the usual.’

  ‘And how do we get the old boy out, then? So we’re the ground landlords, then what?’

  ‘That’ll be a doddle. Just get the freehold and we’re dealing from strength. But first things first. Okay, then? You’ll come up with the money for this? Development money, you see. It’s what your side of this business is. Me, I do the work, get the ideas, make them happen. All you have to do is find a few bob. Peanuts to you, six weeks in France.’ And he let his gaze roam around the room, at the thick flock of the wallpaper and the leather furniture and the gold pen and pencil on the desk.

  ‘And what about Statler?’ Preston said, and again smoothed his hand over his bald head, as though even saying the man’s name made him nervous.

  ‘He takes the freehold off our hands. At a profit. Then he gets the lease refused renewal come June. He’ll know a way, you see if he doesn’t,’ Davriosh said promptly. ‘And then –’ He grinned. ‘Then him and me’ve got other people who can sort out Laura. While we deal with this stage, he’s getting on with what has to be done there. There’s more than one way to skin the old cat. A lot more than one,’ and he laughed, the same fat chuckle he had produced when he had seen the girl gyrating with her vacuum hose. ‘And he’s got the right sort of help.’

  Preston looked alarmed. ‘Has he brought in more people on this? I thought it was a three way split?’

  ‘It is. If there’s anyone else to be paid, Statler pays him. And he will. He’s got a lot riding on this. He wants that development at Little Vinegar Yard so badly he can almost taste it. He’ll pay all he has to get it going. We’ll still be in as thirty-three per cent partners, however much he pays to other people to make it happen. We’re sitting in the right place, believe me. We went to him with the idea, didn’t we? We showed him how juicy it was, didn’t we? Well, I did. So, we deserve what we’ll get out of it. Don’t you worry. As long as you do it the way I said, we’re all right. But it takes money.’

  ‘All right,’ Pr
eston said, and opened a drawer in his desk and took out a cash box. ‘Let me know how much you need and I’ll give you half, with the rest when you can assure me the old man’s ticket’s booked and he’s ready to go.’

  ‘And you’ll be ready to shift the stock in?’

  ‘I’m always ready,’ Preston said and sighed heavily. ‘I’ve got plenty of the horrible stuff. Horrible. It’s the only word for it, but what can I do? That’s the sort of business this is. The sooner I get out of it the better.’

  And he opened the cash box and pulled out a pile of fifty pound notes. ‘You told them there’s no question of cheques, I hope? I never pay for anything important by cheque.’

  ‘Of course not,’ Davriosh said. ‘Who does, when it’s real business. No, cash is fine. Now, here’s the way I see it –’ And he took a sheet of paper covered with figures out of his pocket and put it down in front of Preston. ‘That’s what we’ll need –’

  Outside in the auditorium the sound of the record player started again, and he lifted his chin. ‘Blimey, is the show starting already? Time I was off. I can’t be doing with being here while all that’s going on.’ And he got to his feet, tucking the pile of notes Preston had given him into his breast pocket as he went. ‘People talk, they see you in places like this –’ And he hurried out into the auditorium. But it took him a good deal longer to get to the curtained exit.

  10

  Joel walked slowly up the middle of Berwick Street, his hands deep in his trouser pockets so that his coat bunched up behind him, and let the atmosphere of the place seep into him.

  He’d been to street markets before of course; they weren’t totally unknown in North America, but there they had always seemed contrived, carefully invented and highly commercial arrangements cunningly designed to make people spend their money whether they wanted to or not. But here it was different. This place felt as though it had grown organically, as though the stalls and the stallkeepers had been here for hundreds of years, growing and spreading haphazardly along the greasy garbage-piled gutters, obliterating the shop fronts that lined the streets with the rickety canvas-draped erections that were the stalls, responding always and only to the demand for goods to buy rather than setting out to stimulate the need. Looking at the men in their sacking-aproned busyness and the women bundled in their thick duffle coats with their hair tied in scarves and their grimy fingers peering out of truncated mittens, he could almost see their ancestors standing in the shadows behind them. Their clothes would have been a little different, though not a lot, and some of their wares less lavish, but they had been here, scrabbling the same precarious living the people of Soho always had, selling their meagre offerings to people who could barely afford to pay for them –