For a while, Livingstone sat motionless in the front passenger seat of the car, studying the club’s entrance and contemplating how the evening would pan out.
His brooding was interrupted by a group of drunken girls who stumbled past the car, their off key singing easily drowning out Liam and Noel. Their party frocks were covered in glitter and tassels, and one of them wore a banner that proclaimed her as the bride to be. As Livingstone followed their erratic passage with his eyes, one of the them suddenly lurched into the road and threw up. A couple of girls tottered over to help her while the rest of the group stood on the kerb, laughing and shouting profanities. His driver, Meeks, thought it was all very entertaining, but Livingstone wasn’t in the mood to laugh. ‘Fucking skanks,’ he muttered under his breath.
Linking their arms through hers, the drunk’s friends guided her back onto the relative safety of the sidewalk and the group resumed its unsteady journey along the road.
Stepping out of the car, Livingstone told his driver to go back to the hotel and wait for him there; he didn’t know how long he would be but he would make his own way back after he’d concluded his business.
Livingstone crossed the busy road, nimbly dodging between cars that had no intention of slowing down for him, and walked towards the nightclub’s garishly lit entrance.
The club might not be the most salubrious of establishments but it was obviously very popular. A slow-moving line of between forty and fifty people hugged the wall to the left of the building, laughing and joking as they queued good naturedly to get in. Quite a few of them looked like they were already half-pissed.
The punters were being vetted at the entrance by three Eastern European looking bouncers who were checking to see that they met the age restriction and token dress code. All three men, Albanians or Romanians from the look of them, were big lumps, over six-foot tall, with shaven domes, facial scars and broken noses. One had a tattoo of a snake curling around a dagger running from the back of his ear all the way down the right side of his neck. Working in silent unison, they reminding Livingstone of a well-trained pack of attack dogs.
A nightclub wouldn’t have been Livingstone’s first choice for such an important meeting, but for some unfathomable reason the man whose particular skill set he’d driven all the way from London to hire had been adamant that they met there.
A flickering neon sign above the club’s main entrance proclaimed its name was ‘Crosby’s,’ but two of the bulbs at the top of the O had shorted out, making the letter look like a U.
Two man-mountains in ill-fitting penguin suits were guarding the door to the VIP entrance on the opposite side of the building, and they watched Livingstone with undisguised suspicion as he approached them.
Attired as he was in an Armani suit of virgin wool worn over a purple Givenchy silk shirt, it must have been clear that Livingstone was minted, but as he reached the entrance the two doormen sidled up to each other, blocking his path. They regarded the well-dressed man as though he were a vagrant begging for scraps. ‘This is a VIP only entrance,’ the one on the left said.
‘Yeah, VIPs only,’ the one on the right echoed.
There was an air of lazy aggression about them. The one on the left made a point of sucking his teeth disrespectfully, while the man on the left repeatedly clenched and unclenched his fists as he stared menacingly at the visitor.
Livingstone was unmoved. He had been born in a London slum thirty-five-years ago, and had grown up immersed in the unforgiving violence of gang culture. These pussies didn’t frighten him.
Both doormen were of African descent. They had chubby faces and pronounced foreheads that loomed over eyes bereft of intelligence or initiative.
‘Do you know a man called Goliath, bruv?’ Livingstone asked, unperturbed by their open hostility.
‘Who wants to know?’ the one on the left demanded, jutting his head forward aggressively.
‘Yeah, who wants to know?’ the one on the right parroted.
Livingstone sighed impatiently. He hated dealing with lackeys. ‘Look, I’m here to meet with someone, his name is Goliath. I was told that if I mentioned his name at the VIP door someone would come out and collect me.’
The two bouncers looked at each other, looked at Livingstone, shrugged. ‘Never heard of him,’ they said in tandem.
Anger flared. ‘Let me speak to your boss,’ Livingstone told them, allowing an edge to creep into his voice.
The doormen, identical twins called Isaac and Andre Kalu, were used to drunken punters who got stroppy when they didn’t get their own way. The ones with money, like the man in front of them, were normally the worst behaved.
The twins shared another glance. They were both more than happy to thump anyone who overstepped the line – or anyone that didn’t for that matter – but there was something about the coldness of the man’s stare that made them hesitate.
A clipboard magically appeared in the hand of Isaac, the doorman on the left. ‘Show me your name on this list,’ he demanded, belligerently thrusting it out towards Livingstone.
‘My name’s not on your stupid list,’ Livingstone said, waving the clipboard away impatiently.
That drew a scowl. ‘Then who should we say is calling?’ Isaac demanded sullenly.
‘Yeah, who should we say –’
‘My name’s not important,’ Livingstone snapped, cutting Andre off. ‘Just tell Goliath that the man who wants to hire him is outside, but won’t be for much longer if he’s not shown some FUCKING RESPECT.’
After a moment’s hesitation, Isaac clicked his tongue against the back of his teeth in agitation and then lumbered over to a concealed panel in the wall beside the door. Flipping it open, he snatched out a red telephone on a long
