D.E.? Going through the addresses at the back of the book, she found any number of people with N for a first or second initial, and addresses for several clubs, among them the Club Des Esseintes. That was in Brewer Street, just around the corner.
The Club Des Esseintes.
9
H is haircut cost more than the average suit, and his suits individually cost more than the average good-condition second-hand car. Clive Broome had the Business sussed, and the first thing he had learned was the importance of always being well turned-out. If transactions needed to be made in venues where his style would be suspicious, he could always buy some spiky-haired lout to handle it. He preferred not to get too close to the retail end of the trade anyway. He was moving up the pyramid, and he wanted everyone he dealt with to know it.
Most nights of the week, Clive liked to screw somebody. But he insisted on sleeping alone. He hated the thought of waking up with a pair of alien elbows in his ribs and the sheets in a mess. After they had done the business, he had shifted last night’s cunt into the spare room. By the time he was ready to get up, she was long gone. He also liked to sleep late.
As far as he could tell, nothing was missing. Gretchen, from Barnet, with a butterfly tattoo. She should not be hard to find. If any of his things had taken a walk, he would have the Sergeant Major cut one of her boobs off. Or give her to Mr Skinner.
He went cold, fast-forwarding through yesterday’s business. The call from Mr Skinner, the deliveries, the white faces of the girls, the disposal. That was not over yet. One down, he told himself, one to go. He should not really get involved in deals like that. But they were useful. The Games Master was such a strange customer. It was well worth the risk of the disposal job to have Mr Skinner wrapped up and tied in with something messy. The man was monied enough to have some pull somewhere, and Clive could always use someone with pull. After the disposal, Mr Skinner owed him plenty. Still, Judi’s face had been a frightener.
After dressing, he sat down in his work-room to go through the post and deal with the morning’s telephone messages. Most of the letters were Christmas cards, from Business contacts and sentimental cunts, but there was also a whingeing note from his mother and his subscription copies of
Viz
and
The Economist.
Most of the people who had called him up had not left any sort of message, but Mink said that he had received the shipment of Brussels sprouts he had been expecting.
Clive still thought the vegetable talk was fucking stupid. He was supposed to be a wholesale produce importer, supplying his own chain of fashionably overpriced health food shops. Through design-oriented marketing, he had ridden the Green wave and successfully negated the duffel-coated hippie image of health foods to target the high disposable income of yuppies in high-stress jobs who would follow any dietary plan as long as it was expensive and minimal. The food business was even quite lucrative, but actually his real trade was drugs. The code-names just made Mink feel like he was in a spy film. It was a typical dopehead way of justifying habitual paranoia. It also suggested he thought he was just playing a game, and Clive was serious about what he did for a living. He was not thirty yet, but already he had been in the Business twice as long as most of the people he worked with. It was all about being careful.
But Mink’s message was good news. Clive could now go down to the Hackney wholefood store and pick up the heroin his people were waiting for. New drug-of-the-month crazes like Ecstasy and crack might come along, and Clive was conscious that he had to keep such items in stock, while cocaine was capturing a more exclusive portion of the market but heroin was the white bread of the Business. There was always a market for the old staple diet of junkies. After a night in the space behind his airing cupboard, the
The Club Des Esseintes.
9
H is haircut cost more than the average suit, and his suits individually cost more than the average good-condition second-hand car. Clive Broome had the Business sussed, and the first thing he had learned was the importance of always being well turned-out. If transactions needed to be made in venues where his style would be suspicious, he could always buy some spiky-haired lout to handle it. He preferred not to get too close to the retail end of the trade anyway. He was moving up the pyramid, and he wanted everyone he dealt with to know it.
Most nights of the week, Clive liked to screw somebody. But he insisted on sleeping alone. He hated the thought of waking up with a pair of alien elbows in his ribs and the sheets in a mess. After they had done the business, he had shifted last night’s cunt into the spare room. By the time he was ready to get up, she was long gone. He also liked to sleep late.
As far as he could tell, nothing was missing. Gretchen, from Barnet, with a butterfly tattoo. She should not be hard to find. If any of his things had taken a walk, he would have the Sergeant Major cut one of her boobs off. Or give her to Mr Skinner.
He went cold, fast-forwarding through yesterday’s business. The call from Mr Skinner, the deliveries, the white faces of the girls, the disposal. That was not over yet. One down, he told himself, one to go. He should not really get involved in deals like that. But they were useful. The Games Master was such a strange customer. It was well worth the risk of the disposal job to have Mr Skinner wrapped up and tied in with something messy. The man was monied enough to have some pull somewhere, and Clive could always use someone with pull. After the disposal, Mr Skinner owed him plenty. Still, Judi’s face had been a frightener.
After dressing, he sat down in his work-room to go through the post and deal with the morning’s telephone messages. Most of the letters were Christmas cards, from Business contacts and sentimental cunts, but there was also a whingeing note from his mother and his subscription copies of
Viz
and
The Economist.
Most of the people who had called him up had not left any sort of message, but Mink said that he had received the shipment of Brussels sprouts he had been expecting.
Clive still thought the vegetable talk was fucking stupid. He was supposed to be a wholesale produce importer, supplying his own chain of fashionably overpriced health food shops. Through design-oriented marketing, he had ridden the Green wave and successfully negated the duffel-coated hippie image of health foods to target the high disposable income of yuppies in high-stress jobs who would follow any dietary plan as long as it was expensive and minimal. The food business was even quite lucrative, but actually his real trade was drugs. The code-names just made Mink feel like he was in a spy film. It was a typical dopehead way of justifying habitual paranoia. It also suggested he thought he was just playing a game, and Clive was serious about what he did for a living. He was not thirty yet, but already he had been in the Business twice as long as most of the people he worked with. It was all about being careful.
But Mink’s message was good news. Clive could now go down to the Hackney wholefood store and pick up the heroin his people were waiting for. New drug-of-the-month crazes like Ecstasy and crack might come along, and Clive was conscious that he had to keep such items in stock, while cocaine was capturing a more exclusive portion of the market but heroin was the white bread of the Business. There was always a market for the old staple diet of junkies. After a night in the space behind his airing cupboard, the
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