“The police. They confiscated all the tapes and you owe me five hundred pounds.”
“They took your tapes?” said John. “Why did they take your tapes?”
“Because they were illegal. Snuff movies, they called them. You’ve ruined my standing in the borough. I will never be able to hold my head up at the next Lodge meeting. The brothers will make mock of me.”
“I’m terribly sorry,” said John. “But I had no idea that the tapes were illegal. As I told you myself, I hadn’t played them.”
“Yeah, but you must have known what they were.”
“Hardly,” said John. “I am as much an innocent victim of circumstance as you. I bought them in good faith from a bloke I met in a bar.”
“The police now have a tape of me saying that. Strapped to a chair with electrodes on my nipples.”
“Nasty,” said Jim.
“Handy,” said John. “Surely you’d own the copyright. You could rent out copies of that.”
“Wait there,” said Norman, “while I find a stout stick to beat you with.”
“No, just hold on.” And John’s palms went aloft again. “Good friends like us should not fall out over such a matter. Happily I am now in the position to make full recompense. If you will perform a simple service for me, all will be put to rights.”
“Eh?” said Norman.
John pulled out his cassette. “I just need a couple of copies of this.”
“More tapes!” Norman sought his stick.
“He seems most upset,” said Pooley. “Perhaps we’d better go.”
“He’ll be fine,” said John. “He’s all talk, Norman is.”
Norman returned with a gun. He pointed this at John.
“All talk?” Pooley said.
“Out!” shouted Norman. “Or I shoot you dead.”
“Where did you find that gun?” Omally asked.
“Someone hid it under my dustbin yesterday.” Norman worried at the trigger.
“It doesn’t work,” said John. “The firing pin is missing.”
“Give me half an hour and then come back. I’ll have it fixed.”
“There is really no need for any of this,” said Omally.
“Lean your head forward,” said Norman. “I’ll club you to death with the thing.”
“No,” said John. “Now stop stop stop. I will pay you back the five hundred pounds and give you another one thousand besides. All you have to do for me is make two copies of this cassette.”
“Strange as it may seem,” said Norman, “I don’t believe what you say.”
“Have I ever lied to you?” Omally asked.
Norman thought. “No,” he said slowly, “you haven’t. You have merely neglected to tell me the truth.”
“Just make two copies of this tape. Give me one back with the original and keep the other for yourself. It will soon be worth an awful lot of money.”
“Why?” Norman asked.
“Because it is a rare collector’s item. The first recording of a band that is soon to be famous.”
“What about my fifteen hundred quid?”
“I’ll give you that within the week.”
“Within the week?” said Norman.
“Within the week?” said Jim.
“Within the week, I promise.” Omally crossed his heart.
“You saw that, Jim,” said Norman. “You saw that with your own two eyes. He swore and crossed his heart and everything.”
“And I’ll shake on it too,” said John, sticking out his hand.
Norman shook Omally’s hand and Norman’s mouth was open.
“Within the week,” said John. “Now take the tape and make the copies. I’ll be back within the hour.”
John and Jim walked up the Ealing Road.
“You promised him fifteen hundred pounds,” said Pooley. “You promised it to him and you shook his hand.”
Omally shrugged. “It sounds a lot,” said he.
“It is a lot,” said Jim.
“Not when you split it in half, it’s not.”
“I suppose it wouldn’t be,” said Jim.
“I’ll tell you what,” said John. “The best thing for you to do would be to pay my half as well. I can owe you the difference.”
Jim drew up rather short in his stride. “What are you saying?” he asked.
“Oh, come on now, Jim. Don’t say you’ve forgotten already. We shook on it, didn’t we? Half the profits, half the expenses, we agreed. I hope you don’t intend to renege on our deal.”
“What?” went Jim. “What?”
“Look upon it as a kind of negative investment. We’ll be making millions soon. What’s a mere fifteen hundred to you?”
Jim Pooley shook his disbelieving head. “I have only been in the music business half an hour,” said he, “and already I’ve been done up like a kipper.”
“The day is yet young,” said John to Jim. “We haven’t got started yet”
Of all the noble men at arms
And Casanova’s love-nest charms.
And knights of old with painted spears.
Or pirates on the chandeliers[9].
No fellow that did e’er draw breath
Could aught compare to the griddle chef.
No long-dead earl of Arran’s Isle,
Who might have won some maiden’s smile,
By striking down that dragon bad.
Nor even Tom the farmer’s lad.
Could ever, though, in noble death
Compare at all to the griddle chef.
The griddle chef.
The griddle chef.
A hero bold and true.
“Two Wimpy Brunch,” goes up his cry.
“One with no onions, too.”
11
“All right, then,” said Jim to John. “I assume you have some kind of a plan.”
“And then some,” said John to Jim. “When it comes to a plan, I am ever your man.”
They stood in the sundrenched Ealing Road. Right outside the business premises of Bob the Bookie. The graffiti-spattered brickwork glittered in the sun, and the red and white plastic slash curtain at the doorway moved gently in the breeze, swaying sensuously, it seemed to Jim, bidding him to enter.
Jim bit his lip and folded his arms and turned his back on temptation. “Speak to me, John,” he said bravely. “Tell me of your plan.”
“It’s simplicity itself. I’ll get the tapes from Norman and I’ll make some important phonecalls. You’ll hasten at once to West Ealing.”
“West Ealing?” Jim gave his lip another small chew. “Now why would I, or indeed anyone, wish to go to West Ealing?”
“Because that is where the Stratster works. His name is Ricky Zed and he is the griddle chef at the Wimpy. You will visit him and employ your charms. I assume that the lead singer did not give you her telephone number.”
“You assume correctly.”
“Then you chat up Ricky, see if you can get it from him.”
“Will this involve lying?” Jim asked. “I’m not very good at lying.”
“Tell him the truth, then. Tell him that we wish to manage the band and tell him that they can expect a record contract by the end of the week.”
“And that would be the truth, would it?”
“Jim, I intend to have a record contract sorted by lunchtime.”
“Right,” said Jim in a thoughtful tone. “Right. By lunchtime. I see.”
“Well, there’s no sense in hanging around, is there?”
Jim shook his head. “I suppose not,” said he.
“Then off on your way, Jimmy boy. Make me proud of you.”
“All right,” said Jim. “I’ll give it a go. Because, after all” – and he jingled the meagre change in his pocket – “I really have nothing to lose.”
They shook hands in a professional manner, agreed to meet later in the Swan and went their separate ways.
Now Jim was no Marco Polo, and the lands which lay beyond the boundaries of the great Brentford Triangle[10] were mostly terra incognita to him. Normally the thought of such a journey would have filled Jim with dread and he would have done anything within his limited powers to avoid it. But he was on a mission here. Two missions, in fact. The first being to avoid the bookies and evade the dreaded Pooley. The second to succeed at something. He had never succeeded at anything, hadn’t Jim, and this, perhaps, would be his opportunity.
10
For those few who might be unaware of the fact, the borough of Brentford is enclosed within the boundaries of a triangle, formed by the Great West Road, the Grand Union Canal and the River Thames. Things do go on outside this triangle, but not things of very much interest.