Charlie Fucking Gilbert.
The man she had once trusted. The man who had promised her the earth. Her guts coiled with the hatred she harboured for him.
Because look where she had ended up. At the age of nineteen she was working on a sex-chatline, verbally masturbating guys over the telephone wires.
Tracey walked numbly towards the seated bodyguard. He looked tiredly at her and stood up as she approached the door through which his boss had just gone.
‘ Where ya goin’, girl?’
‘ I need to pee,’ she said truthfully. ‘The toilet’s through there.’ It was — down along the ground-floor hallway, last door on the right.
The bodyguard raised his big square chin and dark bushy eyebrows in a kind of acknowledgement and nodded slightly. His eyes bore down the length of his broken nose. ‘How much d’ya cost, babe?’
‘ I’m too fuckin’ expensive for you, ya greasy dago,’ she responded, and tried to push past him. He grabbed her arm and pulled her roughly towards him, raising her up onto tiptoe so that her belly was at his groin level. He was already hard. She could feel it through her clothes.
‘ Don’t push your luck, babe. If I want you, I have you.’ His breath was enhanced by garlic.
Tracey uttered a short laugh of contempt, even though she was fully aware that she was very close to annoying him. Her eyes traversed slowly down to his hand, the big fat fingers squeezing like a vice around her bicep. ‘Let go.’
He eased his grip slowly. His mouth was open and his nostrils were dilating. Long hairs grew out of them. His ears also sprouted a bushy forest. He had blackheads on his nose and around his mouth. Specks of perspiration were dotted all over his face.
All these things Tracey saw as she regained her proper footing.
All these things made her cringe and find him utterly repulsive.
She edged past, through the door.
‘ And don’t go upstairs,’ he told her. ‘Or else.’
Kruger looked down at the object he held between his left forefinger and thumb.
It resembled a doll’s eye with a sty in one corner of it and was surrounded by a rubber sucker rather like the tip of a kid’s arrow, though it was half the diameter. In his right hand was a palm-sized portable TV which he flicked on. The tiny screen, four centimetres square, was fuzzy for a few moments then gradually cleared and came into focus, giving him a dear, monochrome, slug’s-eye view of the underside of his chin and his nostrils, transmitted from the lens he was holding in his fingers.
He pointed the lens towards a shop doorway and saw that image reproduced on the screen. Kruger was impressed. He could see why this was one of his top selling lines. It was like having an extra eye on the end of your fingers.
He was standing at the rear of the comms van which was parked in a quiet street. Myrna and Dale stood next to him. Kelly was in the van, the back doors being open. She peered over Kruger’s shoulder, looking at the tiny TV.
‘ Excellent,’ she said. ‘The lens has a powerful night intensifier built into it which self-focuses and adjusts to the available light. There’s a mike fitted in the lens too which can give pretty good results, even through glass.’
Kruger nodded approvingly. He was not sure if there would be any call to use the surveillance kit tonight, but decided to take it along just in case. ‘Are you receiving okay?’ he asked Kelly.
She turned into the van, switched on a monitor, made a couple of minor adjustments and the screen blinked into life. She saw exactly what Kruger saw on the mini screen. ‘Yep — no probs.’
Kruger looked at Myrna and Dale.
Like himself, they had changed into more appropriate clothing for the little foray ahead, having ditched their party gear for all black — jeans, T-shirts, jackets and sneakers which had been kept ready in the van for such an eventuality. ‘We play it by ear — literally,’ Kruger said. ‘We don’t know what the hell’s going on there. They could just be playing cards. We’ll leave Jimmy watching the front. Myself and Myrna will go to the rear of the property to see if there is any way of getting a view inside. Dale, you be our lookout, okay?’
Both nodded.
Myrna was now raring to go, having got her second wind.
‘ Anybody any further suggestions?’ Kruger asked.
They shook their heads.
‘ Let’s go then — and take care.’ He picked a set of aluminium extending ladders which were part of the van’s equipment store and hauled them over his shoulder.
Tracey took her time in the restroom. Her mind was in complete turmoil. She had never expected to see either of the two men again, particularly Gilbert. He had conned and tricked her, and used and ultimately abused her, then discarded her into the clutches of people who did it all over again. It was only through her strength of character that she had risen from the gutter to her present position — on the kerb of the sidewalk. But at least it was upwards.
She finished peeing and washed her hands carefully, soaping them thoroughly whilst she continued to think about Charlie Gilbert in particular.
She looked up from her hands and caught sight of her reflection in the cracked, dirty mirror above the washstand. She closed her eyes quickly, not wishing to see the ragged reflection of someone who had been a drug abuser from the age of thirteen. The skin sagging off the bone, sunken eyes, dried-up, wrinkled lips.
The reflection of a drug addict who had not yet died, but would do so, in the not-too-distant future. She opened her eyes and sneered at herself, briefly able to see the discoloured gums in her mouth.
She sniffed and blew her leaking nose on a paper towel. Above her was the sound of clumping feet moving about.
Her watery eyes rose towards the ceiling.
The alleyway behind the shops was pitch black. Briefly Kruger regretted not taking Kelly up on her offer of night-vision goggles. However, he took his time, allowed his eyes to adjust and used the night-eye in his fingers to assist himself and Myrna as they walked down the alley, monitoring their progress on the tiny TV screen.
She stayed at his shoulder, a cool hand gripping his bicep.
The extension ladders hung off his other shoulder.
He led the way without incident to the rear of Bussola’s place.
The building was pretty much as Kruger expected it to be, making him glad he’d brought the steps. This was a high-crime neighbourhood and the rear of the disused shop was boarded up with sheet steel, riveted for the rest of time — or until demolition — into the brickwork.
Fortunately, the first-floor windows were just that — windows. There were two, quite large, both with drapes drawn across and lights on behind, indicating occupation. Running below the windows was a metallic catwalk which formed part of the fire escape. The folding ladders which were an intrinsic part of the escape were secured at that level, out of reach from below.
Kruger swung the set of ladders off his shoulders and gently leaned them against the shop wall. He gazed upwards at the underside of the fire escape. Slowly, quietly, he eased out the ladder extension.
The rubber tips of the ladders rested on the outer edge of the fire escape.
‘ Hold ‘em tight,’ he whispered to Myrna. He slid the night-eye and TV into his pocket and started to climb, rung by careful rung. When he was almost at the top, he hoisted himself onto the fire escape and dropped silently onto the catwalk.
He reached through the rails and held the top of the ladders as Myrna ascended.
She came up nimbly, leapt over the rail and landed next to Kruger, crouching down without a sound. Kruger relayed their progress to the team via the radio, whispering his message.
The two of them shuffled along the catwalk on all fours towards the first window. They stopped underneath it and listened. No noise emanated from inside; nothing seemed to be going on. Kruger took a chance. He eased
