‘You all right?’ he asked her, touching her arm.
‘Yeah, sure.’ Angel trembled. His hand was still on her arm. She tried to pull herself together, tried to act as though nothing was happening, even though he was sending an electric current right through her. She wondered if he knew what he had done to her, what he was still doing. (Ricky used to tell her a junkie couldn’t fall in love, but she always knew he was wrong.)
‘Well, back to work,’ she said brightly, wanting Brian to notice how energetic she was, how eager to please, how quickly she had become indispensable.
Cold raindrops splattered the pavement. A man staggered around the corner into the narrow passageway where Angel stood waiting in a doorway. ‘If I were you,’ said Angel, ‘I’d want to come in out of the rain.’
The man stopped in his tracks, swaying slightly. He was about forty-five, with bloodshot eyes, a large red nose, and puffy cheeks threaded with broken veins. He wore a crumpled beige raincoat over jeans and a polo-neck jumper. ‘I’ll come in if you will,’ he told her.
Angel and the man sat down at a candle-lit table. He didn’t seem to care that there was no sign of a show; he never once looked at the stage. He was sliding a calloused hand up Angel’s thigh when the taloned manageress appeared with the bill, demanding two hundred pounds. ‘Wha’?’ he asked, dazed, no different from any customer that night. The manageress repeated her demand, and he jumped up, roaring like a lion, knocking her back with a swipe of his hand.
The bouncer was on him in a flash; they rolled on the floor, knocking over chairs and tables and candles. The bartender leapt across the bar and into the melee. Angel ran towards the office, screaming for Brian. He opened the office door, shoving past her.
The bouncer and the barman got back on their feet, pulling the man up with them. They held him still while Brian punched him in the stomach, over and over.
He slumped forward; they let him go and he dropped to the ground. Brian went through the man’s pockets, finding less than fifty pounds. ‘Get the son of a bitch out of here, then lock the doors and bugger off home.’ He yawned, smiling ruefully, ‘I don’t know about you lot, but I’ve had it for tonight.’
Brian and Angel stayed for an hour after the others had left. Brian counted up the night’s receipts while Angel swept up broken glass, emptied ashtrays, wiped down tables. ‘What are you doing, Angel?’ he finally asked her. ‘What the hell do you want from me?’
‘Nothing. I’m just trying to help, that’s all.’
‘Why?’
‘What do you mean why? You said yourself you were my knight in shining armour, didn’t you?’
‘Let’s get out of here, OK?’
Angel stood outside waiting, watching the neon lights of Soho wink out, one by one, while Brian pulled a set of metal gates across the doorway. The rain had finally stopped and the air smelled clean and scrubbed and full of promise. There was a pink glow on the eastern horizon; Angel imagined herself absorbing that glow. She felt beautiful and alive, like that first rush of liquid sky, when you feel like kissing God full on the lips. She wondered if it was possible to feel this way forever, feel this way watching a thousand sunrises with Brian by her side, feel this way without drugs. And then she thought, I’d like to try. She heard a padlock click into place, and turned to see Brian signal her to follow.
They turned the corner and were confronted by the leering face of menace. A man, his clothes torn, his face savaged, was waiting. Angel knew him at once; it was only an hour since his rough hand had worked its way up her thigh. He lunged at her, twisting her thin arms behind her back, and raised a steak knife to her throat. ‘I want my money.’ Angel couldn’t believe this was happening; the man didn’t have a knife an hour ago, he must have stolen it from a restaurant.
‘You what?’ said Brian.
‘You robbed me! I want my money back.’
‘Piss off,’ said Brian.
Angel tried to say Brian’s name, but she couldn’t speak. She could hardly breathe; the serrated edge of the blade was pressed close against her windpipe.
‘I’ll slice her fuckin’ head off.’
Brian shrugged. ‘Be my guest.’
‘Huh?’
‘Do you think I care what you do to her? She’s just some piece of shit from the streets of King’s Cross, does blow jobs in cars for a tenner. I only used her tonight ‘cause I was desperate. I mean, look at her!’
‘All I want is my money,’ said the man, ‘I had forty-nine pounds. That was all I had in the world.’ His grip loosened. Angel could finally breathe again. She gasped for air, scalding tears streaming into her open mouth. Brian’s words hung in the air, solid and tangible, and something inside her died forever.
‘Forty-nine pounds!’ Brian nearly doubled over laughing. ‘For her? Well, she’s all yours now mate, do what you want with her.’ He backed away, palms up. ‘I’m off.’
An ugly sound pierced Angel’s ears, a cry that didn’t sound human. Angel fell to the ground, hitting her head. Everything went dark for a moment, then there was another sound, the scraping of blade against bone. Her eyes slowly came back into focus; she saw Brian clutching at his chest. She watched him crumple.
The man in the raincoat turned towards her, the restaurant knife in his hand dripping blood. ‘I didn’t want to. I never meant…’ And then he was gone.
Angel’s eyes darted from side to side; she was in a narrow alley, just before dawn, and there was no one around. No one anywhere. She looked up, saw empty windows. No faces, no prying eyes.
She crawled towards Brian on all fours. A puddle of blood formed beneath him, growing larger. She gently brushed the hair back from his eyes before stroking his cheek and tracing the outline of his lips with one finger, exactly the way he had touched her once – when was it? Only a few hours ago? It seemed like a thousand years – back when he was a knight in shining armour and she, a beautiful damsel in distress. He made a horrible noise: a kind of gurgling. Then he didn’t seem to breathe any more.
Angel reached into his jacket pocket and carefully removed his wallet.
NOW’S THE TIME by JOHN HARVEY
They’re all dying, Charlie’
They had been in the kitchen, burnished tones of Clifford Brown’s trumpet, soft like smoke from down the hall. Dark rye bread sliced and ready, coffee bubbling, Resnick had tilted the omelette pan and let the whisked eggs swirl around before forking the green beans and chopped red pepper into their midst. The smell of garlic and butter permeated the room.
Ed Silver stood watching, trying to ignore the cats that nudged, variously, around his feet. Through wisps of grey hair, a fresh scab showed clearly among the lattice-work of scars. The hand which held his glass was swollen at the knuckles and it shook.
‘S’pose you think I owe you one, Charlie? That it?’
Earlier that evening, Resnick had talked Silver out of swinging a butcher’s cleaver through his own bare foot. ‘What I thought, Charlie, start at the bottom and work your way up, eh?’ Resnick had bundled him into a cab and brought him home, stuck a beer in his hand and set to making them both something to eat. He hadn’t seen Ed Silver in ten years or more, a drinking club in Carlton whose owner liked his jazz; Silver had set out his stall early, two choruses of ‘I’ve Got Rhythm’ solo, breakneck tempo, bass and drums both dropping out and the pianist grinning, open-mouthed. The speed of thought: those fingers then.