Chapter 15.
“Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.” He clamped his arm over his left hand, trying to stop the bleeding but it didn’t do much good, it just kept seeping through his fingers and onto the floor.
“What the hell? Why did you do that?”
“You think that’s bad? You ain’t seen nothing” and he spat on the floor.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, stop with the Mafia shit, and give me a towel or something.”
The man pulled what seemed to be a rag out of his coat pocket and threw it on the ground in front of Joshua. Joshua looked at it, trying to decide what was going to do him more harm, letting the blood flow or wrapping it in this once white, oily mess. He shrugged, things couldn’t get that much worse, and picked up the rag, wrapping it tight round his left hand. He pulled it tight into a knot, and sat back against the wall.
“Now we talk” said the man.
“It’s warm for this time of year, isn’t it?” and he felt the harsh slap of the man’s hand on his face.
“Jesus! What was that for?”
“Listen, wise guy…”
“I said, stop the Mafia talk… I can’t take you seriously like that”
“You had better start taking me seriously” the man snarled. “You’ve upset a lot of people.”
“So you keep telling me.” Joshua breathed heavily, still out of breath from running, the effects of the champagne long gone. So true, he thought, how quickly you could become sober.
“My father…” he started.
“Your pops ain’t around no more.”
“I said…” Joshua reacted angrily, and started to get up. The man pushed him back down with the heel of his boot.
“Bloody hell that boot stinks! What did you do, step in dog shit?” Joshua wiped at the smear of it that was on his jacket. “God, I hate dog shit. Why the hell…”
“Yeah, well, I had to run after you, didn’t I? Almost tripped up and went headways because of that. That’s your fault, that is, if you’d just come to our meeting like you said…” his tone was still angry, but had slipped into a local accent.
“I told you, I was dealing with it. If you’d let me carry on, we’d be having a different conversation now. Bloody hell” he added, looking at his jacket, “have you got anything to wipe this off? Do you know how much this jacket cost?”
“I know it’s money you don’t have… I mean, I know you ain’t got the dough…”
“I said!” shouted Joshua
“Yeah, and I ain’t taking orders from you!” the man shouted back.
“Why the hell do you want to talk like some American gangster anyway?”
The man sniffed, and pulled on the lapels of his black top coat.
“Fact is, I’m going to America. Next week. Going up in the world. I’m going to see some really important people, in New York. They’ve heard good things about me, and they want to see me.”
“That’s what they told you?”
“Yeah” the man was suddenly defensive. “Why would they lie?”
“What have they told you, exactly?”
“Well…” the man sat down next to Joshua, settled himself back on the cold steel wall. “It’s like this. You know - Mr. Steele…”
“I can’t believe he chose that name” muttered Joshua.
“What was that?” asked the man sharply.
“Nothing” Joshua sighed. “Go on.”
“Yeah, well, like I said, Mr. Steele, he’s got connections in America. He’s branching out. The market here, well, it’s all right, but out there, well man, it’s like – amazing! You know, me and him, we went out there, a few weeks ago, for some important business meetings, and we…”
“Just the two of you?” Joshua interrupted.
“Yeah… well, no, not exactly. I mean there were more like five or six of us, but he, you know, specifically asked that I go with him. Specifically. He wanted me there with him. Anyway, we went out there, you know, to New York. I tell you what, man, you ain’t never seen anything like it…”
“I’ve been there” Joshua talked wearily.
“Yeah, all right, well you may have seen something like it, then, but man, it was big. I mean, really big. And everyone, they were there, and we had these meetings, I mean, they were HUGE meetings. I mean, one” and he turned excitedly to Joshua, “I’m telling you, no word of a lie, we all got onto this plane, and it was this tiny plane, like, it only had about fifteen seats. Can you believe it, fifteen seats! Anyway, it was really plush, you know, all decked out in leather and the seats were enormous. I mean, these were more like armchairs that seats, and on a plane! And each of them had this, like, bowl, at the end of each arm. Anyway, I got on last, which was a bit of a mistake, because there was more than fifteen of us there, so all the seats were taken, so I had to stand, which was kind of hard, really, because when the plane took off I stumbled a bit and went straight into this guy, and I kind of burnt myself on his cigar, went straight into my face….” The man rubbed his left cheek and for the first time, Joshua noticed a burn mark in the middle. “Anyway, they were talking about all these crazily important things, stuff you know, that you wouldn’t believe, like…” He stopped abruptly. “Ah, there you go again, you’re trying to trick me, ain’t you? I ain’t saying what they talked about. Point is, I was there. Your dad, he would have been there, an’ all. Why’d you have to be such an idiot? I hear you got involved with some really worrying people, Joshua. Mr. Steele, he’s the least of your problems. And he ain’t happy.” The man’s accent swayed between cockney and some off-kilter New York slang.
“Ah…” Joshua brushed down his jacket. “He’ll forgive me. I just need a bit more time.”
The man sniffed. “That ain’t what I heard, Joshua. That ain’t what the man has been saying. He’s been saying that you’re in trouble. He’s been saying that you’re in deep shit. You been pissing around with the wrong crowd, and you owe all over the fucking place. You owe in some serious fucking places.”
“Ah, come on. I know what I’m doing. I just need a little more time.”
“Yeah? Then why you sweating so much?”
“I’m sweating because you’ve been fucking cutting me, and hitting me! Jesus Christ, I thought we were friends!” Joshua spat out.
The man sighed. “I’m telling you, man, it ain’t so simple anymore. You can’t just bully me round now, not like before…”
“I never bullied…”
“Of course you did. You were the big man, weren’t you? Fucking untouchable, weren’t you. I’ve often wondered about people like you, how you can be so… so confident. You acted like nothing would ever bother you, you could do what you wanted, couldn’t you. I mean” and he chuckled, “you still do, don’t you! I mean, like there’s me, explaining myself to you, ain’t I, justifying myself. I mean, why do I give a shit, seriously, why should I, I mean, I went to America, that’s a big deal, you know, that’s a big fucking deal. For me. Right?” He shook Joshua’s shoulder, and Joshua winced.
“Ouch! Don’t do that!”
“Hurts, does it, there?” The man smacked him in the shoulder again and Joshua cried out in pain. The man spat on the ground.
“No, don’t you fucking tell me not to do that. I’m the one in charge here, remember? I’m the one who’s threatening you, I’m the one who’s cutting you up…” and with that he reached down and squeezed Joshua’s left hand, hard.
Joshua’s scream rang out into the empty warehouse, and he jumped up and turned on the man, grabbed him with his good hand and with surprising force pulled him up and shoved him against the wall. “Fucking stop it! I’m in trouble, all right! I don’t need your shit! I don’t need your big man shit! Just fucking stop it” his screams and shouts almost tearful. And as if the sudden energy that had made him react and find the strength to pull his captor up had, just as suddenly, dissolved and burned into nothing, he dropped his grip and fell back down onto the cold, wet floor and allowed the sobs of self-
pity to take hold of him.
The man looked sideways, then upwards, as if for guidance, and then he sighed and dropped his hands and let himself fall to the floor again. Jon Goldsmith was thin and lithe, he didn’t have the traditional build of an enforcer, but he worked out, almost obsessively, and his muscles were like stone to the touch. This was the traditional story, he thought to himself as he looked at the sniffling form of Joshua Reeves. How he felt, a mixture of pity and contempt. This man, before him, who he used to have to follow, used to have to listen to, protected, by his family, by his connections, of course, but most of all by his natural self-confidence. Born with a silver fucking spoon in his mouth and he knew it, didn’t he just.
And now what, Joshua, and now what. Now you’re in trouble. Now your father can’t protect you, God rest his soul. Now you crawl back into the arms of whichever impoverished soul you want, but now it’s payback time for you.
Forty eight hours, Mr. Steele had said. Give him another forty eight hours and then you can do what you like. Make sure he knows you mean business, then give him one more day. If he can’t pay back by then, then forget it, we’ll just have to write it off. You sure you’re up for it, Mr. Steele had asked. You sure you can be objective? Of course I can, he had said, I’m a professional. I know that, he’d said, I know that, but when it’s personal it’s different, and I need to know that you can handle it.
“Of course I can fucking handle it” Jon muttered to himself.
“What?” Joshua’s voice was hard to understand behind the sobs. Jon knelt in front of him and leaned over him, got his face right next to Joshua’s ear. “I said, Joshua” he allowed the words to fall slowly out of his mouth, “I said, Mr. Steele said there were no more chances. He said if you don’t have the money this time, I can do what I like. He reminded me” and he paused, watching Joshua’s eyes flicker nervously to his own, “he reminded me about school. He reminded me about all those times…” Joshua’s eyes widened…” all those times, do you remember, Joshua? He did. I do.” He took out his knife again and pushed it against Joshua’s neck. He squeezed and a tiny red line appeared on his neck. Joshua squeezed himself back against the wall and looked fearfully into his eyes. “You’re not so fucking cocky now, are you”
Joshua swallowed and shook his head slowly.
“Why?” he asked.
Jon pulled himself back and stood up. Panting, he wiped his mouth with the handle of his knife. “Why what?” he asked, his voice croaky from effort.
“Why are you coming after me now? After all this time?”
Jon spat on the ground. He looked at Joshua, at the blood seeping slowly from his neck, and his voice softened slightly. He sighed, and lowered himself back down to the ground, so he was sitting back next to Joshua. He glanced at the sad, broken figure next to him and spoke softly. “I guess there’s no harm in telling you.”
“I remember,” he continued, “what, a year ago, that when your dad died?”
Joshua nodded tiredly and Jon continued. “Yeah, Mr. Steele, he was itching to get to you. Almost the first thing he did, when he heard there was no money. I remember him giving the order to get you in. I think he thought it was revenge time. Time to get things sorted. We went after you hard, I remember, but we never found you, did we. And then suddenly, just one day, he said leave it. No explanation, nothing. You could tell he was really pissed off.”
Despite himself, Joshua chuckled. “I guess he was. He never managed to deal with me, did he?”
Jon made a non-committal grunting. “Yeah, well that as may be. But the other day, I got the call back from him. You were back on. Bring you in, make you pay” He glanced at Joshua. “Whatever you were doing, you stopped doing it.”
Joshua sighed and held his hand to his throat. It had all been fine, he thought. It had all been going so fucking well. “She didn’t do her job so well” he muttered.
“What?”
“It wasn’t me. I didn’t stop doing anything.”
Jon grunted. “I’m guessing someone was protecting you. I’m guessing they stopped.”
Joshua shrugged, and winced with the pain “Someone found me”
“Who? Who found you?”
Joshua closed his eyes. He could still remember his shock.
The man suddenly in front of him, and Joshua didn’t need to ask who he was. He knew. Everyone knew who he was, and everyone was afraid of him. He was suddenly there, in that bar that Joshua used to frequent.
“Mind if I take this seat?” he had asked, and Joshua had scowled, about to say something nasty when he had recognised something in the man’s eyes, and had said nothing, just nodded.
“I had business with your father” the man had said, smiling, and Joshua had closed his eyes. The man had inspected his nails. “I would very much like to meet your girlfriend” he had said.
What could he do? Compared to him, Ada was nothing. Mr. Steele was nothing.
Now as Joshua looked back at Jon, he realised he couldn’t even remember what the man looked like. “You’re nothing compared to him.”
Jon studied him. “Forty eight hours. That’s how much time you have. After that you’re mine.”
Joshua’s lips opened into a cracked smile. A single droplet of blood drifted slowly down his chin. “You don’t understand. “ His voice was dry, his breath catching. “What you’re asking, it doesn’t matter. What can you do? You can torture me, you can kill me. That’s nothing…” and he stared into Jon’s eyes, “that’s nothing compared to what he would do.”
Jon looked at him for a long moment. “You’ve got forty eight hours” but he didn’t sound certain.
Jon took a deep breath. He looked in Joshua’s eyes and knew that he could never do it.