It Wasn't The Bullet (3) “Whaa…. wait a minute, miss. You can’t be taking this prisoner out of his room without permission.” He almost personified the stereotype of ‘wooden top’, short blond hair, the shiny buttons on his tunic at odds with how much authority he commanded. Sam gave him a withering look and spoke slowly, as if to a naughty child, “This patient needs to be x-rayed to make sure he won’t die. Dr. Moncton likes to be sure that the people in his care actually recover. If you would like to call the very busy doctor, you can dial extension 345 on any of the white telephones. I’m sure that he’ll leave the operating theatre to speak to you.” The policeman began to blush, and then recovered his composure sufficiently to say, “Well, ok miss, but I will have to escort you to the x-ray room.” Samantha nodded and started to push Charlie down the corridor. He closed his eyes and felt the hustle and bustle of a busy hospital whirr past him, and then an old home movie began to play in his head…… He was sitting in the Warwick Arms having a lunchtime beer, idly chatting to Ken, the barman, about how an actor could get elected as President of the United States. Charlie was positioned on the corner of the bar so he could monitor the only entrance to the establishment. He watched as a very determined looking woman marched out of the sunlight and into the pub. She paused for a moment as her eyes adjusted to the gloom, and then began to search the room. Charlie very much liked what he saw, but as always the image of Annie floated into his mind. She walked over to the bar and Ken, he buttoned up his burgundy cardigan and ran a hand through his silver grey hair as he shuffled over to where she was standing. It didn’t appear to Charlie that she was ordering a drink; he noticed Ken’s body language change from welcoming to defensive. Ken turned, looked at Charlie and arched his eyebrows, he mouthed the word,’ you’ and turned back to the woman. ‘Very subtle, Ken’ thought Charlie as the woman made her way to Charlie’s perch at the bar. She stood in front of him; a grim expression on her face, Charlie winced. “You’re Charlie aren’t you?” It was not really a question, so he just inclined his head a little and waited for her to continue. “You know my brother John.” She stopped and glared at Charlie, he made no move speak, “John Sunderland. You sell him heroin.” Charlie was startled for a moment, and at a complete loss for words. He just wasn’t prepared for that so he hushed her quickly. “That’s no talk for the bar, let’s go and sit at a table.” He grasped her arm and guided her to one of the solid faux oak tables near the back of the pub. On his way he said to Ken to bring him another pint and the lady vodka and tonic. They reached the table and Charlie pulled up a chair for her, and then sat down himself. She started to speak and Charlie said quite simply, “Be quiet. Wait for your drink.” He studied her during the silence. She was very pretty and very angry. Which somehow pulled her features into a very appealing visage. John Sutherland was a small cog in a big machine. Terry and Charlie were using him as the cut out man for the market in the area where he lived. He owed them a bit of money, not that they were worried unduly about that, more importantly John was addicted and that was not good for business. He lived with a waster of a girl, she called herself Lilly (but everyone knew her as Nancy, Terry’s joke echoed into his head) she was the one that was giving them the more pressing problems. She was a mainstream user of anything that would take her away from her own reality. Ken appeared and quietly put the drinks on the table then ambled away whistling tunelessly. “Yes I know John.” Charlie looked across at the woman warily, he was pretty sure that she wasn’t a policewoman. She seemed on the verge of tears, but behind that was a kind of intensity that made him wonder just what was driving her to seek him out. Then again, maybe she was drug squad, and in a minute there would be police everywhere. She sat staring at him unsure how to begin, he figured. “I know John, what do you want?” Charlie softened his voice; quite unrealistically he really was beginning to get a nice feeling sitting near this woman. “I went to see John a couple of days ago. I couldn’t believe how much he’d changed. I’m a third year nursing student and I recognised all the signs of an addiction, they teach us that for our work in casualty. I’m going to work at Kings Cross next year as a full time trauma nurse.” She stopped, probably wondering why she had revealed so much about herself to a complete. Charlie was beginning to lose track of the range of emotions in her face. “I’ve come to ask you to help him. Stop using him to sell your drugs; it’s not him it’s that fucking trollop of a girlfriend.” She put her hand over her mouth, and just as quickly moved it back to her other hand on her lap, “I’m sorry for swearing but she’s a horrible person, I wish she would die and then perhaps John would come to his senses and see what he’s doing to himself. Can’t you just say you won’t sell him drugs anymore, tell him you don’t need him to do your dirty work?”, she paused and then continued, “Please, I don’t want him to die, and I’m so afraid that he will.” She pleaded directly into Charlie’s eyes; he felt that she was peering into mind, prying out his thoughts. “What’s your name darling?” Charlie inquired trying to keep his voice even. “My name is Samantha and I’m not your darling. I’m twenty-two years old and I live in Hampstead. I’m five feet seven inches tall, I don’t like curries but I like Italian food. Do you what to know my bust size?” She sat prim and indignant, her face flushed with anger, had she thought that he was making a pass at her maybe, her mood had changed swiftly again. “Hey, you know my name why can’t I ask for yours? Sorry if I offended you but I was just trying to be friendly.” She glared at him and said nothing. “Look I’m not selling drugs to anyone; I don’t know how you came to think that I have anything to do with John’s situation. If I can help I will but I don’t know quite how.” Samantha seemed to be composing herself, perhaps mentally rehearsing what she was about to say, and then she lent down and picked up her purse, Charlie tensed his muscles ready to get himself over the table and pull the gun out of her hand, but all she pulled out was a pack of Silk Cut mild. “Do you have a light, please?” Charlie slid a gunmetal Zippo over the polished surface to her waiting hand. She flicked the lighter and drew down the first of the mild smoke, exhaled politely away from Charlie’s face and spoke, “The last time I was at John’s house the trollop wasn’t there. John was as high as a kite, all happy and giggly, I asked him what was going on and at first he told me not to worry, and than he started to get a little mean. Telling me just because I was family didn’t mean I could interfere with his life, and all that nonsense. Then looking around the room, I happened to notice this plastic bag with powder in it. It was jammed not very well underneath one of the cushions of the sofa. I went over and snatched it up. John just freaked out, really freaked. Like I was holding an atomic bomb or something. Screaming at me to put it down, so I held the little bag and its contents to ransom over that rancid fish tank. He told me everything, Charlie.” The last sentence was delivered with an air of finality, like she had rehearsed this threat in front of a mirror . Well, much as he was getting turned on by this sweet pretty woman standing up to him, it wasn’t going to go her way. “You must have me confused with some other Charlie. I work in the music industry. Of course I see a lot of drugs and stuff but I don’t sell them.” “I know that you won’t tell me the truth, but he can’t be that important to you. There must be plenty of people who would do what John is doing; it doesn’t have to be him. Please give him a chance.” “Look I can go and talk to him as a friend, but I don’t really know him very well and he probably won’t listen to me but I’ll try.” “John told me you were a dangerous man. He said I should try and find you and not Terry because he’s less afraid of you. I look into those hard blue eyes of yours and I see a man capable of many things. Please help my brother.” Samantha stubbed out her half smoked cigarette and picked up her purse from the floor and got up to leave. Charlie said nothing, and stared into space deliberately avoiding any form of eye contact with her. He was left with the sound of a slow afternoon, and wondering why he was feeling like doing something for somebody he didn’t know. Charlie stayed for about half an hour and then bidding goodbye to Ken, headed around the corner to Bloomfield Road and Terry’s flat. Terry lived on the second floor of one of the Victorian houses that abound in Maida Vale. The tree lined street bordered on one side by the canal that would take you right into the heart of Camden if you were so inclined and on the other side were the three storey white painted townhouses. Most of the houses had been converted into three separate dwellings back in the early seventies. He skipped up the four street level stairs and rang the middle bell of the three. The plaintive voice of Dr. John wafted through an open window somewhere nearby. He could sense Terry going through the motions of swearing at the doorbell, opening his security locks and then bounding down the short carpeted staircase, and as if on cue the door popped open, Terry standing in his white socks, track pants and grey t-shirt, holding a box of tea bags in his hand. “’Ello son, I‘ve just put the kettle on, you want a cuppa or what. ‘Bout time you tasted a proper cup of tea with the fucking poncey piss that you make.” “I’ll try and drink the whole cup before it turns to fucking cement. When will you learn to make a cup of tea that tastes like tea?” Charlie replied as he followed Terry up the stairs and into his abode. “You go fuckin’ steady there, young Charlie. Hold up, go sit yerself down I’ll be back in a jiff.” With that he headed off to the kitchen at the back of the house and Charlie sauntered into the living room and fell onto his amazingly overstuffed settee. This should be an interesting conversation he mused to himself. Terry bounced back into the room holding two cups of tea and a cigarette hanging onto his lip. He handed off one tea to Charlie and went to sit on his multi-coloured beanbag. Terry was one of those people that looked a lot taller than he really was. His muscles rippled under his t-shirt but you just knew that he was not a body builder and the economic way he moved always gave the impression of a man to be wary of. “You just popped round for a chat? I didn’t think we had anything to take care of today. Unless you want to go and deal with that fucking ponce Jacky. We’ve got to get him to fucking understand a few fucking things Charlie. ‘Es mouthing off all over the fucking park, stupid cunt. I mean I like ‘im and that but, fuck me; we’ll all get mullered if he carries on like that.” Charlie couldn’t help but smile when he was in the company of Terry. He knew that they were best friends, in a very real sense. Terry had taught him everything and Charlie hadn’t let him down, they were a team. “I don’t think you are going to be too happy with this Terry. Armfull John’s sister came to see me this afternoon,” “Do fuckin what!?” Terry spilled some of his tea on the carpet, it immediately changed colour from beige to dark brown, Terry looked down, "Oh fuck me!” He tried to sop up the liquid using his foot, “What do you mean she came round to see you?” Charlie repeated the conversation to Terry and when he finished he looked over at his friend. He seemed to be deep in thought, the ash of his cigarette fell onto the indigo patch of the bag and he muttered, “Oh, fuck me.” He brushed the ash into the tea stain and looked up, “So she’s a good looker, eh? I dunno Charlie, I mean she’s right, we could do a lot better with someone else, I mean the blokes a complete fucking idiot.” He paused and rubbed his blonde crew cut hair. “Ok Charlie be the knight in shiny black armour. We’ll split what he owes down the middle, fifty-fifty. All right me old mate? Is she a looker? Maybe you can a get a date, been so long since I seen you with a bit of skirt, I’ve been thinking you’re turning into a fuckin’ poofter! Ha-ha. Fuck me Charlie; it’s been three years since Annie.” Terry must have seen the cloud of anguish pass over Charlie’s face because he stopped and said, “Fuck me! You drank all the tea,” he started laughing and Charlie just grinned at him stupidly, he would never live this one down. He had become the only person, besides Terry, who had drank a whole cup of ‘T’s Tea’ . He spent another couple of hours with Terry chatting about this and that, and then left to go and do his good deed. He wasn’t quite sure how he was going to achieve this but he was confident that he could make something up on the spot and play it by ear. Charlie gunned his silver Ford RS1600 racing machine toward Cricklewood, he was musing on what Terry had said a couple of months back, that he was driving a ‘please bust me machine’, he was right as usual. However when he changed down to third and felt his body pushed back into his seat as he accelerated he knew that he would just have to take his chances and not do anything silly, driving wise that would be. He was coming into the tree-lined streets of West Hampstead when he began to turn things over in his mind about what to do with Armful John. He pulled onto the side road he was looking for and found a parking spot two or three hundred yards away from John’s house. Charlie came to a decision just like that. It often happened to him this way, he never was very good at searching for ideas or making plans, it always came to him in a blinding flash and more regularly than not, it turned out to be right. He reached beside him for the armrest and pulled it up exposing the normal car junk that seems to amass inside everybody’s car. A crushed empty cigarette packet: various clumps of small change and sweet wrappers. Charlie’s junk, though, was carefully placed there. He tugged at the plastic liner and it came away from the main structure revealing a strip of black plastic under the bottom of the insert tray. Rummaging his pockets he finally found the small clasp knife he needed to pry up the innocuous plastic cover. It peeled away easily, exposing Charlie’s shoulder holster, in which rested his gun. The metallic smell of gun oil faintly wafted it’s way into the car, Charlie inhaled the graphite scent then took the gun out of it’s sheath and stuffed it, barrel down into the waistband of his Levis, so only a the butt of the pistol was visible. Opening the car door he reached over to the back seat for his beaten up black silk bomber jacket, he got out of the car and locked the door and put on the jacket. He surveyed the parked cars as he adjusted the jacket to feel comfortable making sure he had covered the weapon that was now pressing in the small of his back. Charlie was looking for drug squad, John after all was committing a pretty serious crime and wasn’t exactly the most subtle dealer on the planet. Terry and he had one spent the whole evening watching his house, just after they had given him the contract to sell their product, the trail of misfits and junkies traipsing in and out had them really scared. Not once did John ever have even a cursory glance up and down the road. They gave him a few pointers after that, but Charlie was sure that lasted until the first hit. He saw nothing that made him wary so he strode off to the house. It was very easy to spot, amidst the other houses John’s was one that looked like was an abandoned refugee camp. On either side the two small rectangular front gardens were neat and tidy, both had had vain attempts to plant various types of roses and the required suburban rhododendron bush. The garden in-between had an upturned bicycle minus the front wheel, a broken, dirty washbasin, various remnants of clothing that had spilled from a ripped plastic bin bag and bizarrely a miniature train set up in an oval configuration complete with station. He shook his head and walked up the short path and hammered on the door. He heard the stereo being turned down, which was a shame; Charlie rather liked Coney Island Baby. As the lock on the door clicked he pushed hard, he heard a grunt and a muffled thump and the door sprang open to reveal John lying on the green filthy hall carpet appearing very bemused and then very worried. Charlie looked down on him, squeezed through the opening and gently closed the front door. John was still. His eyes glazed and red, but wide open. “Alright John. Get the kettle on, I’m parched.” “Of course Charlie,” he said getting unsteadily to his feet, in fact he had to use the wall to balance himself, Charlie imagined he could actually see John’s knees knocking together. “I’ll, er.., get that tea together, do err… you take, err.. sugar?” “Tut, tut, John boy, you don’t know how your boss takes his tea?” “Well I do but, er.., I, er…..I forget.” “No sugar, just milk will be fine.” “That’s good, ‘cause we don’t have sugar.’ he sniggered a stoners laugh and disappeared down the dimly lit hall. All the curtains were permanently closed in this house, as were the windows, which accounted for the lingering smell of burnt sugar indicative of someone cooking up heroin recently, and stuff that Charlie did not want to visualize. He walked into the front room where he could him the now muted sounds of Lou singing about newspapermen losing their teeth; on the ragged excuse for a sofa laid two entwined bodies. It was difficult to tell the sex of either of them as they seemed to be dressed in the same clothes, torn dirty jeans, greasy lank long hair and sweaters held together with holes. They looked at him without any real expression or interest, like he was some kind of weird living art form. He didn’t like what he had to next but he had to make a first impression; a bad one. He walked quickly over to the hi-fi and picked up the LP throwing the stylus upward and abruptly ending Lou’s story before he reached the end. One of the creatures on the couch stirred and said in a slurry voice, “Hey man, we were listening to that. Put the sounds back on man.” Charlie just stared at him with distain. “Fuck man I mean it put it back on or there’s going to be a problem.” Charlie reached the man before the last word had left his mouth and grabbed his nose and squeezed. “Get… Out.” The girl, who by now had realised that this was perhaps not a drug induced ‘thing’ but was actually happening, let out a tiny yelp. The boy started to struggle against the pressure of Charlie’s thumb and forefinger; he gave his cheek a viscous hard slap with his right hand and said, “Get. The…Fuck…Out.” He let go and took one small pace backward. The boy made a great effort to untangle his body from the girl and the couch and finally stood, breathing heavily in front of Charlie. “Man, we ain’t leaving until we done our business with John.” Charlie paused one beat and struck out, spinning the boy round and ramming his head into the wall, denting the plaster and causing the girl to scream. He held the boy in an arm lock, his left palm keeping his head pushed into wall. He turned to the girl and spoke softly, his voice pitched deliberately just above a whisper, “Shut up.” The girl stopped the noise but her mouth remained wide open. Charlie pulled back on the boy and tossed him in the direction of the door; he stumbled and fell onto the floor just as John entered the room. “Charlie what’s going on, what are you doing?” “Housework, Johnny, cleaning the place up.” The boy got to his knees with a face of fury, Charlie kicked him hard, and the fury turned into a broken nose and loose teeth. The girl whimpered, Charlie turned to her and swiftly hit her twice, once on each cheek with the front and back of his hand. “Get out.” The girl, sobbing now and using the sleeve of her jersey to wipe the snot off her nose, stumbled over to her boyfriend and tried to lift him up; he slowly got to his feet. They both headed out into the hall, he heard the front door click open and a slightly high pitched male voice spit, “I better not see you out on the street, I’ll fucking fix you” The girl was saying ‘shut up, Billy, shut up.’ The front door slammed shut and Charlie turned his attention to John was completely aghast at what had just transpired in his living room. He still held the two cups of tea in his hands; he moved his right hand forward and said, “No sugar, right?” “Yes John, that’s right.” The two stayed in silence for a moment. Then Charlie continued, “ Put the cups down, sit on the chair, and listen very carefully to what I have to say. First of all, where’s the slut.” “Who?” “The fucking slut, the whore you try to fuck once a week.”
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