Black Widow. Jessie Keane

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       13

      ‘Mrs Carter?’ It was Tony, bursting through the door with a struggling blonde in tow. He looked at the girl still trying to get dressed, and the rumpled, white-faced man, and the gun in Annie’s hand. ‘You okay?’

      The white-faced man ran a hand through his thinning blond hair. He looked balefully at Annie, then at Tony.

      ‘Are you telling me this is Max Carter’s missus?’ he demanded.

      ‘Who is this wanker?’ Annie asked Tony, indicating the man.

      ‘Club manager. Lou Morris.’

      ‘Will you get your effing hands off me, you great ape,’ snarled the blonde with Tony. Then she saw Annie and grew still.

      Annie looked around at the assembled company. Five people in Max’s office. The last time that had happened, someone had got themselves shot. She flicked the safety back on and pocketed the gun.

      ‘Can we all calm down?’ she said smoothly. She crossed the small room and threw open the window. Traffic roared outside and fumes billowed in, but it was better than the stink of stale sex and unwashed bodies.

      ‘You,’ she told the girl from the desk, who had gathered up her clothes and was now partly dressed. ‘You work here?’

      The girl nodded. Bright blue eyes and straight brown hair. She looked terrified. ‘I’m a hostess.’

      ‘What’s you name?’

      ‘Roberta,’ she said.

      ‘Well, Roberta, you never do anything like this again in any of the Carter clubs, you got me?’

      Roberta nodded.

      A pound note fluttered to the floor and she stooped, blushing, to grab it.

      Annie looked at her in disgust.

      ‘And don’t sell yourself so damned cheap,’ she told the girl. ‘Go on, get out.’

      Roberta hustled past Tony and the blonde.

      Annie turned toward Lou and looked at him as if he’d just crawled out from under a rock.

      ‘You’re the manager here?’

      ‘That’s right,’ said Lou with bravado. ‘Jonjo Carter hired me last year.’

      Annie nodded. ‘And I’m firing you this year. That’s sort of neat, don’t you think?’

      ‘Now wait.’ Lou looked outraged. ‘Just because I poked one of the girls over the desk?’

      ‘No, because I don’t like your face and I don’t like your attitude. Now—keys. You’re the manager; you’ve got keys, yes? Hand them over.’

      Lou looked at Annie’s face. Then at Tony’s. The blonde was still, watching.

      ‘Ah, what the fuck, I hated the job anyway,’ snarled Lou, rummaging in his jacket pocket and slapping a bunch of keys into Annie’s waiting hand. ‘But you’re gonna be sorry you did this,’ he warned, pushing past her and past Tony and the blonde, and stamping off down the stairs.

      ‘See he goes straight off the premises, Tony,’ said Annie. ‘Don’t want him helping himself to the fixtures and fittings, do we?’

      Tony pushed the blonde further into the room and followed Lou out through the door, shutting it firmly behind him. Annie shrugged off her coat and went around the desk and sat in Max’s high leather chair.

      Right here was where she’d been shot. She looked at the wall behind the chair, where the bullet that had passed through her and had imbedded itself. The wall was smooth now, neatly repaired. No trace of that traumatic event remained. But there was still a safe in the corner. She looked at it.

      A combination safe. She wondered what was in there, and if it was enough. She doubted it.

      She turned back to the blonde and nodded to the chair on the other side of the desk.

      ‘Hiya, Jeanette. Take a seat. We need to have a chat.’

      Jeanette looked sulky. She slumped down into the chair and stared at Annie mulishly.

      ‘You didn’t even say goodbye,’ said Annie coolly. ‘And I thought we were such good friends, too.’

      ‘You’re joking,’ snorted Jeanette.

      ‘That’s right,’ said Annie. ‘I am.’

      ‘So what do you want? I’m supposed to be on again in fifteen minutes.’

      ‘You’re not,’ said Annie.

      ‘Not what?’

      ‘You’re not on again in fifteen minutes. In fact, you’re not on again ever, not here.’

      ‘Oh come on!’ Jeanette burst out. ‘You can’t fire me too! I ain’t done nothing wrong and you know it. Listen,’ she whined, ‘I’m just keeping my head down and doing what I’m paid for, that’s all. I don’t want to know about your business, I don’t want to get involved.’

      ‘But you’re already involved,’ said Annie. ‘Remember? You’re involved because you were there, right there in Majorca, when it happened. I was out of it; they doped me. But they didn’t dope you. So you were conscious all the way through. You saw what happened. And I need to know more about what you saw.’

      ‘I’ve already told you. Nothing.’

      ‘You said there were four of them…’

      ‘Three, four…maybe more. I’m not sure.’ She shook her head, frowning. She pulled her red robe closer around her. ‘It was all so confusing. So fucking frightening. I’ve never been so scared in my life.’ She looked at Annie. ‘I thought they were going to kill me.’

      There was a tap on the door. Tony poked his head around it.

      ‘He’s gone, Mrs Carter. Anything else?’

      ‘Yes, СКАЧАТЬ