‘Mm.’ Kelly grinned. Pulling back her hair, porn-star style, she dropped her head towards his groin and began licking it off. ‘I love Beck’s . . .’
‘What?’ Alain Costello said irritably. How could he concentrate on Dead Space 4 when Tuco wouldn’t shut the fuck up?
‘Do you want to spend the next twenty years in prison?’ Tuco repeated in French. ‘Are you deliberately trying to get arrested?’
Alain glanced at the handset sitting next to him and shook his head.
‘Well?’ the old man demanded, his voice sounding even more pained over the speakerphone.
‘Je vais me faire arrêter si tu me laisses ici dans cette bordelle.’
‘Tu aurais dû être plus prudent.’ Sitting in the elegant Rococo calm of his fifth-floor duplex apartment on the Rue Frédéric Bastiat near the Champs Elysées Tuco angrily paused the DVD he was watching on his state of the art equipment. The frozen screen captured Forest Whitaker in blank close-up. Approaching the end of Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, the eponymous assassin was about to meet his inevitable fate. It was a film Tuco had seen dozens of times, but he still resented having to interrupt it in order to lecture his infuriating son. ‘The way of the Samurai,’ Tuco whispered to himself, ‘is found in death.’
‘Salvatore has disappeared,’ whined Alain. ‘Where is your man?’
The fucking boy wouldn’t even let him mumble in peace. ‘What?’
‘Your new business associate here in London – why has he not come to help me?’
Because he’s no fool, Tuco thought. He doesn’t want a moron like you dragging him down. ‘He said he would try to help.’
‘Why hasn’t he turned up, then, eh?’
‘These things take time.’
‘Have you told him about what happened to your last business partner here?’
‘Tais toi!’ Tuco exploded. ‘Now is not the time. Just stay where you are and I will let you know when we have a plan to get you back.’
All he got in response was a series of bleeps from Alain’s computer console. Dropping the phone, he restarted the movie. ‘Meditation on inevitable death should be performed daily,’ he said grimly. ‘Every day without fail, the Samurai should consider himself as dead. This is the way of the Samurai.’
Fully erect now, Swann caught Sandy’s eye and blushed violently. Sandy was surprised by how – well, troll-like – he looked. Lots of body hair but already going bald on top; no real muscle definition, which surprised her, given that the guy was supposed to be, like, a major athlete. And a flat, featureless face that only a mother – or a hooker – could love. Yet this was a guy earning two hundred grand a week, two hundred and fifty, according to some papers. If that didn’t make you wet, well, there was no two ways about it, you were in the wrong game.
‘The Candypants girls,’ he mumbled.
Kelly let out a harsh laugh. ‘Hardly. Those slags are not in our league.’ Sitting back on her haunches, she pulled her dress over her head. Surprised to see that she was naked underneath, Sandy had another mini panic-attack about the quality of her underwear. Swann’s penis quivered in anticipation, pre-cum glistening on the tip.
‘We’re the fuck-your-brains-out girls.’ Kelly pulled her bag onto the bed. Unzipping a side pocket, she took out a Trojan Magnum, pulling open the foil wrapper with her teeth. Signalling for Sandy to join her, she carefully unrolled the condom over Swann’s penis. ‘I’d give you some more oral,’ she grinned, ‘but I don’t think you would be able to handle it.’
Swann grunted something that might have been agreement. Tossing the empty vodka miniatures in the direction of the waste bin, Sandy slipped onto the bed next to Kelly, who had lowered herself onto Swann and was moving her pelvis slowly in an anti-clockwise direction. Immediately, she felt Swann’s stubby fingers between her legs and Kelly’s tongue in her ear. She shrugged off the tongue but let the hand stay where it was.
‘So,’ Kelly laughed sexily, tickling Swann’s balls with her free hand, ‘have you ever had a threesome before?’
Sandy wouldn’t have thought that it was possible but Swann went even redder. His head looked like it had just been boiled in a pot. All he needed was an apple in his mouth and he could have been served on a platter at a banquet. ‘Er, no.’
Pulling off the Trojan, Gavin Swann knotted it and chucked it on to the carpet. According to the alarm clock on the table by the bed, he had held out for just over twelve minutes before collapsing, spent, on the bed. The whole thing had lasted about eleven minutes and twenty seconds longer than Sandy would have imagined. Kelly had called it just right.
Reaching across the bed, Swann picked up the phone next to the radio alarm and called down to the concierge’s desk.
‘Nick? Hi, it’s . . . yeah, yeah,’ he looked over at the girls and blushed again slightly, ‘they were good, yeah. Look, Nick, can you send one of your boys out to get me some fags? Twenty Marlboro, yeah. Great. I’ll pay ’em when they bring them up. Thanks.’ Ending the call, Swann got up from the bed and disappeared into the bathroom. For several minutes the girls were treated to the sound of the young man’s prolonged bowel movement.
‘Oh my God!’ Sandy whispered, as another satisfied grunt bounced off the bathroom tiles.
Kelly raised her eyes to the ceiling. ‘Just be grateful he actually uses a toilet. One girl was telling me about a guy who wanted to do a shit on her chest.’
‘No!’ Sandy covered her mouth in shock horror. Way back, in the far recesses of her brain, there was the slightest realization that she should be feeling disgusted, rather than just titillated.
‘Yes,’ said Kelly, shimmying into her knickers, ‘and he wouldn’t even pay for it.’
They heard the sound of the toilet flushing, followed immediately by a knock on the door.
‘Gavin,’ Kelly shouted. ‘Your cigs are here!’
Emerging from the bathroom, Swann took a bathrobe from the closet and pulled it on before opening the door. Accepting the Marlboro from the bellboy, he stepped back into the vestibule, picked up a small, navy-coloured Nike holdall that was sitting on the floor, next to a pair of trainers. Dropping the bag on the table, he unzipped a side pocket and pulled out a fistful of fifty-pound notes. Sandy watched as he counted out four and stepped back to the door.
‘You gave that guy two hundred quid for a packet of cigarettes?’ she asked as he reappeared.
Swann looked at her blankly, as if he was struggling to remember who she was. Ignoring the question, he ripped the cellophane off the packet and stuck a cigarette between his teeth. ‘Got a light?’
Kelly dug into her bag, pulled out a packet of matches and passed them to him.
‘Ta.’ Lighting the smoke, Swann sucked it down greedily. Exhaling, he went over to the mini-bar and removed another bottle of beer. Flicking off the top with a bottle-opener, he chugged down half of the beer before letting out a satisfied burp. ‘Good times.’
Kelly was starting to get pissed off. ‘I need a drink.’
Swann gestured at the mini-bar. ‘Help yourself.’
Stepping past him, Kelly knelt down and looked inside. After a moment, she scowled at Sandy. ‘You drank all the sodding vodka.’
Collecting up her bags, ready to go, Sandy shrugged.
‘Get a drink in the bar downstairs,’ Swann said. Reaching back into the holdall, he counted out another wad of fifties and handed them to Kelly.
‘Ta,’ she said, smiling.
Swann looked from one girl to the other. ‘And remember to keep your mouths shut.’
Kelly placed a hand on his arm. ‘Don’t worry, sweetie,’ she said. ‘We’d never talk to the newspapers, would we, Sandy?’