Balzac of the Badlands Read online

  I say, ‘Come on. There’s no need for this is there, Inny?’

  ‘Fuck off,’ is his Wildean retort.

  ‘Look, I’m just looking for Homo. Take it easy. I’m on my way.’

  ‘I’ve been waiting two years for this,’ he says.

  Great. Revenge. Retribution. The reasoning of a retard. Inaccessible rushes forward. There’s a whoosh in front of my nose as the pool cue slices through the air. He’s more Little John than Bōjutsu master, he overswings. I throw the bottle. It hits him bang on the temple. He goes down.

  ‘Lucky,’ Eric says.

  ‘Exceedingly,’ I say as I hop the bar.

  I take the cue from Inaccessible, prod him with it to make sure he’s sparko. He is. I give the cue to Eric.

  ‘I’m off,’ I say. ‘When he comes to, buy him a drink on me.’

  And I’m out of there.

  ***

  It’s after breakfast before Jonathan Eaves has a clear idea of what has happened. He thinks. He tries to say. As he enters the downstairs bathroom, he sees his reflection in the mirror, it’s as if the shadow from last night has accompanied him, covering him in turn in its shadow. As a child, allowed to stay up late to watch nature programmes, he remains emotionless as a lioness crushes the throat of a zebra, as a pack of African hunting dogs eat alive a young impala, as a crocodile drags a pregnant wildebeest under the dirty waters of a raging river. He turns away, leans down, turns on the taps, and takes a long draught of cool London water. He sits unblinking as mantises strike, seals are clubbed, whales harpooned. He runs his hands over his face as if brushing off cobwebs, opens his mouth and eyes wide to stretch the skin on his face. A dream. Hallucination. His grey eyes dark, livid, the whites the colour of scalded almonds. He stares. His mind taking his body to a place where he cannot feel pain. The morning for Jonathan Eaves is the time to take stock, think forward, devise yet another way of outwitting his rivals. What’s left of them. The night camera turning the turtles’ eyes green, their flippers excavating a hole, then the reverse suck, the push, the egg slippery and out, and another and another. This morning, lost in the knowledge of defeat, he thinks of Spain and the long drive up the coast to Cadaqués, his favourite journey. He closes his eyes, waits for the next scene – the death of a lame tiger cub, a baby elephant lost on the savannah, a gathering of hyenas trailing an antelope and its afterbirth. He’ll leave the physical war to Martin. He really doesn’t need this right now. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees what looks like a turtle’s egg, creamy white, waxy, glistening. In the shower, his hair hangs loose around his shoulders; his chest, still muscular from daily workouts, expands as he takes in the tumid air, the facial mud pack infusing the steam with a swampy stink. But he’s not sure a turtle’s egg is segmented. He moves his hands over his body, thinks of his wife, and the never-ending procession of toy boys he pays for to keep her where she is, who she was. He’s not sure a turtle’s egg has mouth hooks. The job – the one he’d been planning for months – has not gone as he wished. Rumours of the O’Reillys, Turkish gangs, and Kurdish do-gooders, he knows to be just that – rumours. He’s not sure a turtle’s egg can wriggle. Looking out into the white-tiled bathroom, as clean and antiseptic as a surgery, he traces in the condensation on the shower’s curved glass walls a name. He stares at the name for a while, smiles, raises his hand and imagines a face behind the name staring in at him. He makes a throat-slashing gesture with his right index finger. He tries to close his eyes but his eyelids are set, rigid. Under his fingernails. Between his toes. He can feel the things in his ears, edging towards his mouth, his nostrils. His armpits. His navel. He looks again, as the name slowly disappears in the steam, the letters dissolving into drips and falling into the foamy pool around his feet – the name crossed out with a single line drawn through it. Feel them in his pubic hair, his foreskin, his anus. In his eyes. In his eyes. As he’s about to step from the shower, the water slowing, not hurting now, caressing with softer needles, he feels something he hasn’t felt in a long while, the stirrings of his penis, he reaches down to touch it, lengthening, and the shower is now of black and white tiles, the fittings are porcelain and stainless steel, and he feels a hand running over his chest, and feels firm breasts on his back, the ticklish prickle of pubic hair on his arse, and he looks down and sees strands of long red hair coiling into the trap; then a nose snuggles into his neck and in the clouded mirror he sees a pair of clear blue eyes. Snap back. He runs his hand over his face, feels, and tastes the peanuty give of the creatures, in his mouth, in his nose, in his eyes.

  ***

  My next stop in the HSSJ hunt is the Old Ale Emporium, about five minutes’ walk. And off I go past the charity shops, the bookies, the shops that sell a strange mish-mash of items – old Hoovers, chess sets, fresh plums. Past the Arab women in their hijabs and burqas, the Hasidim in their samets and shtreimels, the teenage boys with their tzitzits, and the men with their long rekelechs – don’t know how they remember to put them on.

  There’s no one in the Emporium. Not a sausage. It’s now 11:30. Where the fuck is H?

  ‘Half a Stella,’ I say to the Polish girl behind the bar, her nose stud reflecting the fruit machines’ flashing lights. Her hair tied back, the tightness of her forehead makes her look like she’s about to ask a question or is pondering a difficult numbers game on Countdown.

  ‘Got any papers, love?’ I say.

  She bends down, I catch a glimpse of very white breasts cupped in a sports bra. Not bad. She hands me a pack of green Rizlas.

  ‘Newspaper,’ I say.

  She says nothing, bends down and comes up with a Guardian.

  ‘Cool. Cheers, darling,’ I say.

  Not a word. Not a smile. Nothing. I shake my head and take a seat at the bar. Drinking half the lager in one go, I scan the front page for the day’s occurrences. Not a lot going on in the world. Not a lot going on out of the world. Billy Boring. What happened to the days of ‘Martin Heidegger Ate My Naked Mole Rat’? I turn to the football pages. Not much there. Not much here.

  I finish my half, take the paper and empty glass back to Miss Happy and say, ‘You know Homo Sapiens Sapiens?’ She nods.

  ‘If he comes in, tell him I’m looking for him and it’s urgent.’

  ‘You are,’ she says.

  ‘I am,’ I say – damn now I’m gonna have that Neil Diamond song in my head all day.

  ‘You are,’ she says again.

  ‘I am,’ I say, and I’m singing in my mind, ‘LA’s fine, sunshine most of the time, the feeling is laid back, palm trees grow and the rents are low.’

  ‘And you are,’ she says.

  Jeez, this could go on all day, ‘I am,’ I say, and my mind hears, ‘But, you know I keep thinking about making my way back.’

  ‘Who are you?’ she says.

  Penny drops. ‘“Well, I’m New York City born and raised, but nowadays, I’m lost between two shores…”’ She stares at me.

  ‘Balzac. Just tell him Balzac’s looking for him.’

  ‘Tola,’ she says.

  ‘Over there,’ I say pointing towards the ladies’.

  ‘No. My name is Tola,’ she says, attempting a smile, ‘I am from Gdansk in Poland.’

  ‘Er, hi, Tola from Gdansk in Poland. You know what they say, “LA’s fine but it ain’t home, New York’s home but it ain’t mine no more.”’

  She frowns. I know this because her ponytail rises two inches. Blown it.

  ‘Be seeing you, Tola from Gdansk in Poland,’ I say.

  ‘You go,’ she says.

  ‘I am,’ I say, but to no one there. Not even her hair. ‘Shut up!’ I shout to myself.

  Looking right along the parade just to make sure Inaccessible’s not come round – and I don’t mean to my way of thinking – I dart across the road, dodging white vans, silver Mercs, and black Beemers. The street is busy. Women shopping. Men on their way to social clubs. Kids skipping school. A group of Somali teenagers loiter outside a newspaper shop. They are
tall and skinny. All wear dark tracksuits, white trainers, their fingers long and thin, eyes as hooded as their heads. They make sucking noises as I walk past. Just about to give them a look, when I notice they are all eating Magnums and have huge ice-cream-eating grins on their faces. Makes a change. Next stop The Salisbury and if I can’t find Mr. Homo Sapiens Sapiens Jones there, I’m gonna start to worry.

  ***

  She hopes that soon this will be a memory. She knows she should go home. She can’t. The disappointment. Just that. Years ago now. It seems. She lives in a one-bedroom first-floor flat on Pemberton Road off Green Lanes and pops out to the Yasar Halim bakery to buy pide (Turkish pizza) and to the off-licence for a couple of bottles of wine as a few friends are popping over around seven, then they are going to go for a drink and maybe a curry. The memory will disappear, be replaced by other events. But why not now? It is cloudy, quite warm for November – she isn’t wearing a jacket, just her fleece – not much of a wind, but there is rain in the air, humid. She never knew there were so many insects. Or birds. Years ago. Now. The lights from the shops give the sky an orange glow, and the sky seems suspended from the lampposts as if it is a marquee or tent. Why run? Why doesn’t she just go home? They saw her, she tells herself. The cars, frowning with intention, slowly snake along the lane, issuing the occasional frustrated parp. That woman. Years ago now. Think. Dad will help. Motorbikes weave in and out of the cars, dodge buses, people scurry across the road. Remember the time she cut herself on barbed wire and he sucked her finger, wrapped it in his handkerchief until they reached the hospital? There is a smell of garbage, oozing rubbish bags, battered fruit like discarded light-bulbs, the vegetables give off a turfy hum, cardboard boxes soggy and forlorn trail into the road. And what about the time the pelican bit her and Dad chased it and it took off slow and gaping into the California sky. Years ago. Now. She buys pastries with cheese and ham, aubergine and green peppers; the shop has sold out of pide – it is also out of baklava – and there isn’t much choice it being so late. But she can still hear the gunshots. The streets have a bleachy undertone, a washed-out ammonial sharpness, maybe from the butchers scouring their tools and trays, whatever it is it makes her eyes water, she stops to wipe them. As she does, a young man runs past her, both arms held to his side. Years ago now. A popping sound. Strange. Not like in films. The guttural shouts. The woman’s calm orders. The jog and dip of the lorry. The sudden blinking of eyes. The look of hope smeared with doubt. Who are they? It’s supposed to be easy. The lorries come off the ferry. They follow. They force the lorries to stop. They change drivers. They park in the yard. They let the people out. They. Running quickly, the young man steps into the road and back on to the pavement. Years ago. Now. As she wipes her eyes, she follows the young man’s progression and watches as other shoppers ignore him. The smell of diesel reminds her of her childhood. ‘Just be careful,’ her dad says, ‘No playing by the machines. Stay near the office where I can see you. Away from the crates. And don’t pet that dog. It’s there to do a job.’ Years ago now. And so she wants to bring the people to a place where she feels safe. Once. Knows. Years ago. Now. Too many movies. Too many books. Too many boring nights at home in front of the television. What she wouldn’t do to be there now. They followed. She is sure. As the young man steps into the road in his fishtailing run, she looks down at his hands – in each he carries a Samurai sword.

  ***

  Opening the pub door, my mobile vibrates again. I switch it to ringtone and the Somali kids all turn and look in my direction. Thought I’d changed that bloody tune. So, here I am, Balzac, in the middle of the badlands, standing outside the pub frantically trying to stop my phone playing bloody Bach or whatever bewigged old codger The Mermaid downloaded over my I Wanna Be Sedated tune. It’s Mrs. Beckford.

  ‘Mrs. Beckford.’ I say. ‘No. Is he back?’

  ‘–––-’

  ‘Meeting up with my partner to run a few things by him. Someone with you?’

  ‘–––-’

  ‘Good. No. I’ll call you. I promise. Just hang in there.’

  ‘–––-’

  ‘Bye.’

  The poor moo. Sounds like Niagara Falls.

  I put my moby away and open the door to The Salisbury public house. Rough. I’m talking badger’s arse, and the poor badger’s got a bad case of crusty haemorrhoids. It’s already smoky. Stinks of stale beer, tobacco, cheese and onion crisps. It wasn’t long ago they did this place up. Wasn’t half bad. Decent grub. Got rid of a lot of unsavouries – people not pub snacks. About three months later, it was back to ripped seats, smelly carpets, and fly-blown toilets. How? No idea. I think the pub did it to itself; embarrassed by its makeover, it lost the shine, the sheen, sullied itself, stopped caring.

  I walk through what used to be the public bar – too bright, too many windows, too easy to be seen – past the wilting pot plant smooching with the fruit machine and into the old saloon – darker, colder, smelling of disinfectant, furniture polish, farts. And there he is in all his splendour – Homo Sapiens Sapiens Jones. He’s looking at a newspaper, studying the horses. I’ll get him a drink. I think I’ll have coffee, that half of Stella’s knackered me.

  ‘Pint of Guinness, please,’ I say, ‘and a black coffee.’

  ‘Instant?’ the barperson says. I’m not being PC here. I have no idea what sex it is.

  ‘If that’s all you’ve got, yeah, s’pose.’

  ‘Do you want milk with your black coffee?’ it says.

  ‘What?’ I say. ‘Er, no. You got any sweetener?’

  ‘Not since the last time I looked,’ it says. ‘I’ll bring ‘em over.’

  I pay and walk up to HSSJ. He’s engrossed in his calculations. His hair, long and unwashed, curtains his face. He’s sweating, chewing a small red plastic pen, and his lips are foamed with Guinness. I met H five years ago.

  I was working on another dodgy insurance job. A personal-injury claim. Boring or what? I spent three weeks watching some geezer in a neck brace slowly walk down his garden path, slowly turn his whole body to look at passing women, slowly get into his car, slowly get out of his car. Soon as he gets home, he draws the blinds so no one can see in, probably breakdances to The Beastie Boys. Whiplash. Yeah, right. I poke around his bins, follow him to the shops, the cinema, his mother’s, and not once does he drop the act. About as mobile as King Tut and as stiff as John Holmes’s surfboard. I needed to get into the house. So, I ask around and one name keeps cropping up – Homo Sapiens Sapiens Jones. Not one you can forget. Top B&E man. And I don’t mean bacon and eggs. I ask a few mutuals to tell HSSJ I’m looking for help on a case, I’d pay, no questions asked. He says he isn’t interested. I appeal to his vanity and arrange a meet. Homo Sapiens Sapiens turns up at the Raj eight on the dot and, over a few onion bhajis and a plate of chicken tikka, I talk him round. Next day, we watch Mr Whippy’s house – I call the case Slo-Mo, My Lovely – and wait for the plank to go out. H slips around the back of the house. As he disappears, the front door opens and a hand beckons me. I cross the road and H’s face smiles from the doorway. How? I’ve never asked. We have a look around and can’t see anything I can use against the geezer. This is what I do. I drop the blind and turn the fourth slat above the windowsill the other way. Genius. So when he drops the blind, one will stay open and if he doesn’t notice, I can sneak up and take photos. H is nowhere to be seen. I go to the back door, not wanting to leave by the front. H is sniffing flowers in the back garden. ‘Job done.’ I say to him. I turn to walk along the alley at the side of the house and H is in front of me making sure it’s clear. Again, I’ve never asked. That night, my plan works and I manage to get some shots of Mr Whippy, sans neck-brace, attempting auto-fellatio. Pretty good attempt, too.

  Since then, H has helped me out on most cases and not just getting in and out – he moves faster. I don’t just mean in a bodily sense. His mind gets to the end of a problem before I’ve worked out how much time and trouble it’s going to cost.


  ‘H,’ I say.

  Looking up, he pushes his glasses on to the bridge of his nose, and says, ‘Balzac.’

  ‘Drinks coming over.’

  ‘Much appreciated,’ he says.

  ‘What do you fancy?’ I say, gesturing toward the paper.

  ‘A horse equipped with functioning limbs and heart preferably being steered by a diminutive Irishman,’ he says.

  ‘I need your help.’

  ‘Fire away, old chap.’

  ‘Missing persons – plural. Woman, 26, went missing two days ago. She took money, make-up, blah-blah. Father came to see me. Busies not interested.’

  ‘Do you have a photograph?’

  ‘Of the daughter? Yeah. Not bad,’ I say, flicking a photo from my wallet on to the beer-ringed table.

  ‘I concur,’ he says.

  ‘Far as I can tell she never left London. I contacted a few of her friends. They haven’t seen her and know nothing about her skipping town. Work said she’d taken a few days’ holiday. Spoke to ex – knows nothing. Was just about to start checking hospitals this morning when her mother calls.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Now the father’s gone missing. Said he was on his way to buy a paper. Hasn’t come home. She tried his mobile, his work phone – sometimes he goes into the office – Beckford Haulage – and works for a few hours before it gets busy. He’s probably looking for his daughter.’

  ‘Doesn’t believe you’re the new Sherlock Holmes, then?’

  ‘I did as much as I could. I mean, the daughter’s probably got the hump about something and shot off for a few days. Parents are over-protective.’