Lil was making notes on who to aim out the door and who she was going to put in their place. She had a natural head for business; even her husband had admitted that. But she had been born in the wrong era; women were not supposed to be earners and listened to or respected. Patrick, who trusted her judgement, had still not seen fit to give her the fucking time of day. She knew she should let it go, leave the past where it was, in the past. But, somehow, she never seemed able to forget about it.
She concentrated on the paperwork once more and, as always when her brain was occupied, she relaxed. She worked out what was what and unravelled Lenny's complicated system, a system that was so easy a child could have done it. She felt the rush again, the rush that was caused by sheer hard work and pregnancy. The club was quiet for the moment; early evening in Soho was not profitable for the hostesses and so she didn't expect them in. Any that did arrive early she would assume were hiding out from either pimps or dealers; often both. That or they were trying to earn money as quickly as possible to pay off said pimps or dealers. They were fools and she knew they would not realise that until it was far too late to do anything about it.
The life she led was not to everyone's taste, she knew, but her almost encyclopaedic knowledge of the hostess clubs and their different earning potentials was something her son saw as an asset to him. She had started this club and she had worked this club, from both sides of the fence, and now she was determined to make it a really big earner.
As the clock struck seven-thirty she heard the door of her office open and when she saw Ivana creep into the room she wanted to scream. The girl was always trying to get her attention and she irritated her beyond measure.
'What can I do for you, Ivana?' She tried to make her voice light and friendly; after all, the girl earned them a small fortune in her own way.
'Can I ask you something in private, Lil?'
Lil nodded her head quickly, the urge to get rid of the girl all important now.
'Course. What is it?'
She expected the usual hostess crap: how they were going to leave for another club because they'd been offered more money and that they would take their regulars etc. It was a common theme with hostesses. She also knew that a few of the girls met some of the men outside the club and she accepted and understood them doing that. Not that she would ever say that out loud, of course. The girls were not fools; if they met the man outside, he paid less for his case and was quids in and the girls got more than usual for going case in the first place. As long as it wasn't too often and no one took the piss, Lil was quite willing to turn a blind eye. The weekend warriors were the ones who would suggest that to the girls and she wanted them out of the club anyway. Freeing up the table for moneyed punters was more important to her than the girl taking a quick one.
Ivana was still not talking and Lil was getting even more impatient with her than she did usually.
'Ivana, love, any chance you can descend to planet earth?'
The girl was definitely nervous and Lil wondered what she had done now. Lots of the girls found themselves in outrageous situations; that was the nature of the beast. Once they left the premises and went case they were at their most vulnerable. Most girls used a short-time hotel in Shaftesbury Avenue. It was only a few minutes' walk but they cabbed it because there was no law about soliciting on private property and, as long as they didn't hit the pavement with their punter, they were safe as houses from Old Bill. Once inside the hotel though it was a different thing altogether. The man could turn nasty, refuse to pay any extras and she had even seen working girls who had been robbed at knifepoint, gang-raped or just battered for no other reason than that they were there. It was a dangerous game all right. So, as Lil steeled herself for Ivana's little speech, when the girl finally plucked up the courage to talk, she was not expecting what she actually heard her say. For a few moments she thought she had to be imagining it.
'What did you say?'
Ivana licked her lips in an anxious manner and Lil was once more reminded of just how beautiful the girl was.
'Well, talk to me then, I ain't got all bloody day.'
Ivana took a deep breath and then she repeated in a careful and controlled voice, 'There is a dead body in the basement.'
Lil sighed heavily.
Of course there was, why wasn't she surprised?
'Are you sure, Ivana?' She was convinced this one was a druggie; she knew she liked a drink.
'Of course I'm sure. I went down there to see if Patrick was about, you know.'
Lil nodded. All the girls were after him; for more reasons than his boyish good looks.
'And I saw it, a dead person. I shut the door and then came straight up here. But Lil, someone else could go down there, you know. It needs to be locked or something.'
Lil looked at the girl with new eyes. She wasn't even trying to score Brownie points, she was genuinely worried that someone might discover it and cause aggro.
Lil nodded and then she said nonchalantly, 'Did you recognise them?'
Ivana shook her head vigorously. 'No. It's some black bloke.'
She saw Lil's skin blanch and she rushed to her. Lil could hear genuine concern in her voice.
'You OK, Lil?'
She sat back in the chair and forced herself to smile gently.
'Well, Ivana, thank you for bringing that to my attention.'
Ivana looked into her eyes and Lil saw herself as a girl and she knew then that was why she irritated her.
Took, Lil, I ain't told no one and I ain't going to, but don't treat me like a mug. I came up here to stop anything happening.'
Lil nodded and Ivana saw the tiredness and the worry that was ingrained in this woman's face. She'd always wondered why Lil Brodie disliked her so much when she saw Lil Brodie as a role model.
'I know, love. I'll see you get something for this, OK?'
'I don't want anything, Lil. I just want to keep my job here. I like it. It suits me.'
Lil was still feeling faint but managed to say jovially, 'Course it does, darling. You're still brand new.'
Chapter Twenty-Five
Detective Scanlon was not a happy bunny. In fact he was fuming. When he had been summoned, and that was the only way he could describe it, he had wondered if the whole thing was a wind-up. He was not a man to be ordered around, in fact he had an allergic reaction to anyone ordering him about or trying to tell him anything.
As he sat in his car outside the club in Soho and watched the people walking by, he felt the anger again. That this little shit was in a position to dictate to him was showing him just how much the world he knew had changed.
He had been earning a crust of this kind since he had been on the beat. It had started off with him turning a blind eye. As the years had gone on, he had carried on taking money because he had got to a stage where he was dependent on it. He needed it to provide the things he now saw as his right.
It was only now that he had been summoned like a naughty schoolboy, by a child no less, that what he had been doing finally hit him. At some point he had known that he would be called on to perform some task to justify the wages he had been pulling in all this time. It stood to reason. He had a feeling that the time to pay for it was now. And he didn't want to do it. But the man inside this building owned him and, because of that, he could feel the enormity of what he had been doing for so long.
He got out of the car and, waving off his sergeant, he walked through the drizzle into the warmth of the club. The brightness inside the foyer was too much for his eyes after sitting in the dimness outside plucking up his courage, and he could feel them watering. He coughed nervously as a young lady with small breasts, a tight dress and long permed hair dyed a suspect shade of red smiled at him in a friendly manner. She was sitting behind a polished counter and, perched on a high stool, she gave the impression of being far more important than she actually was. He saw the bouncer eyeing him and knew he was as aware of his name and his occupation as he was himself. The shame set in then and he asked the young lady for Patrick Brodie. The doorman motioned towards him with his head and he followed him through the club seeing the hostesses sitting smoking, waiting for the next punters to arrive. He walked across the dance floor where a stripper was bending over naked. She had just finished her act and was picking up her discarded clothes from the floor. She wasn't even pretty close up; in fact, she had certainly seen better days. The thick make-up that looked so glamorous under the lights was flaking off but she looked Scanlon over as if he was something she had found on the bottom of her shoe. She made him feel even more like the traitor he was. The whole place seemed to reek of decay and his eyes alighted on the men already seated around the dance floor. They had the look of men who paid for female company, from their ill-fitting suits to the scuffed and well-worn briefcases that would have been presents from the wives and children who had no idea where the men in their lives actually spent their leisure time.