The Mammoth Book of Vampires: New edition (Mammoth Books) Page 2

  Of course there were other beauties available, through the agencies, even on the streets if you knew where to search. But most of the hustlers Gavin knew had faces that seemed, beside his, unmade. Faces that looked like the first workings of a sculptor rather than the finished article: unrefined, experimental. Whereas he was made, entire. All that could be done had been; it was just a question of preserving the perfection.

  Inspection over, Gavin would dress, maybe regard himself for another five minutes, then take the packaged wares out to sell.

  He worked the street less and less these days. It was chancey; there was always the law to avoid, and the occasional psycho with an urge to clean up Sodom. If he was feeling really lazy he could pick up a client through the Escort Agency, but they always creamed off a fat portion of the fee.

  He had regulars of course, clients who booked his favours month after month. A widow from Fort Lauderdale always hired him for a few days on her annual trip to Europe; another woman whose face he’d seen once in a glossy magazine called him now and then, wanting only to dine with him and confide her marital problems. There was a man Gavin called Rover, after his car, who would buy him once every few weeks for a night of kisses and confessions.

  But on nights without a booked client he was out on his own finding a spec and hustling. It was a craft he had off perfectly. Nobody else working the street had caught the vocabulary of invitation better; the subtle blend of encouragement and detachment, of putto and wanton. The particular shift of weight from left foot to right that presented the groin at the best angle: so. Never too blatant: never whorish. Just casually promising.

  He prided himself that there was seldom more than a few minutes between tricks, and never as much as an hour. If he made his play with his usual accuracy, eyeing the right disgruntled wife, the right regretful husband, he’d have them feed him (clothe him sometimes), bed him and bid him a satisfied goodnight all before the last tube had run on the Metropolitan Line to Hammersmith. The years of half-hour assignations, three blow-jobs and a fuck in one evening, were over. For one thing he simply didn’t have the hunger for it any longer, for another he was preparing for his career to change course in the coming years: from street hustler to gigolo, from gigolo to kept boy, from kept boy to husband. One of these days, he knew it, he’d marry one of the widows; maybe the matron from Florida. She’d told him how she could picture him spread out beside her pool in Fort Lauderdale, and it was a fantasy he kept warm for her. Perhaps he hadn’t got there yet, but he’d turn the trick of it sooner or later. The problem was that these rich blooms needed a lot of tending, and the pity of it was that so many of them perished before they came to fruit.

  Still, this year. Oh yes, this year for certain, it had to be this year. Something good was coming with the autumn, he knew it for sure.

  Meanwhile he watched the lines deepen around his wonderful mouth (it was, without doubt, wonderful) and calculated the odds against him in the race between time and opportunity.

  It was nine-fifteen at night. September 29th, and it was chilly, even in the foyer of the Imperial Hotel. No Indian summer to bless the streets this year: autumn had London in its jaws and was shaking the city bare.

  The chill had got to his tooth, his wretched, crumbling tooth. If he’d gone to the dentist’s, instead of turning over in his bed and sleeping another hour, he wouldn’t be feeling this discomfort. Well, too late now, he’d go tomorrow. Plenty of time tomorrow. No need for an appointment. He’d just smile at the receptionist, she’d melt and tell him she could find a slot for him somewhere, he’d smile again, she’d blush and he’d see the dentist then and there instead of waiting two weeks like the poor nerds who didn’t have wonderful faces.

  For tonight he’d just have to put up with it. All he needed was one lousy punter – a husband who’d pay through the nose for taking it in the mouth – then he could retire to an all-night club in Soho and content himself with reflections. As long as he didn’t find himself with a confession-freak on his hands, he could spit his stuff and be done by half ten.

  But tonight wasn’t his night. There was a new face on the reception desk of the Imperial, a thin, shot-at face with a mismatched rug perched (glued) on his pate, and he’d been squinting at Gavin for almost half an hour.

  The usual receptionist, Madox, was a closet-case Gavin had seen prowling the bars once or twice, an easy touch if you could handle that kind. Madox was putty in Gavin’s hand; he’d even bought his company for an hour a couple of months back. He’d got a cheap rate too – that was good politics. But this new man was straight, and vicious, and he was on to Gavin’s game.

  Idly, Gavin sauntered across to the cigarette machine, his walk catching the beat of the muzack as he trod the maroon carpet. Lousy fucking night.

  The receptionist was waiting for him as he turned from the machine, packet of Winston in hand.

  “Excuse me . . . Sir.” It was a practised pronounciation that was clearly not natural. Gavin looked sweetly back at him.

  “Yes?”

  “Are you actually a resident at this hotel . . . Sir?”

  “Actually—”

  “If not, the management would be obliged if you’d vacate the premises immediately.”

  “I’m waiting for somebody.”

  “Oh?”

  The receptionist didn’t believe a word of it.

  “Well just give me the name—”

  “No need.”

  “Give me the name—”, the man insisted, “and I’ll gladly check to see if your . . . contact . . . is in the hotel.”

  The bastard was going to try and push it, which narrowed the options. Either Gavin could choose to play it cool, and leave the foyer, or play the outraged customer and stare the other man down. He chose, more to be bloodyminded than because it was good tactics, to do the latter.

  “You don’t have any right—” he began to bluster, but the receptionist wasn’t moved.

  “Look, sonny—” he said, “I know what you’re up to, so don’t try and get snotty with me or I’ll fetch the police.” He’d lost control of his elocution: it was getting further south of the river with every syllable. “We’ve got a nice clientele here, and they don’t want no truck with the likes of you, see?”

  “Fucker,” said Gavin very quietly.

  “Well that’s one up from a cocksucker, isn’t it?”

  Touché.

  “Now, sonny – you want to mince out of here under your own steam or be carried out in cuffs by the boys in blue?”

  Gavin played his last card.

  “Where’s Mr Madox? I want to see Mr Madox: he knows me.”

  “I’m sure he does,” the receptionist snorted, “I’m bloody sure he does. He was dismissed for improper conduct—” The artificial accent was re-establishing itself “—so I wouldn’t try dropping his name here if I were you. OK? On your way.”

  Upper hand well and truly secured, the receptionist stood back like a matador and gestured for the bull to go by.

  “The management thanks you for your patronage. Please don’t call again.”

  Game, set and match to the man with the rug. What the hell; there were other hotels, other foyers, other receptionists. He didn’t have to take all this shit.

  As Gavin pushed the door open he threw a smiling “Be seeing you” over his shoulder. Perhaps that would make the tick sweat a little one of these nights when he was walking home and he heard a young man’s step on the street behind him. It was a petty satisfaction, but it was something.

  The door swung closed, sealing the warmth in and Gavin out. It was colder, substantially colder, than it had been when he’d stepped into the foyer. A thin drizzle had begun, which threatened to worsen as he hurried down Park Lane towards South Kensington. There were a couple of hotels on the High Street he could hole up in for a while; if nothing came of that he’d admit defeat.

  The traffic surged around Hyde Park Corner, speeding to Knightsbridge or Victoria, purposeful, shining. He pictured hi
mself standing on the concrete island between the two contrary streams of cars, his fingertips thrust into his jeans (they were too tight for him to get more than the first joint into the pockets), solitary, forlorn.

  A wave of unhappiness came up from some buried place in him. He was twenty-four and five months. He had hustled, on and off and on again, since he was seventeen, promising himself that he’d find a marriageable widow (the gigolo’s pension) or a legitimate occupation before he was twenty-five.

  But time passed and nothing came of his ambitions. He just lost momentum and gained another line beneath the eye.

  And the traffic still came in shining streams, lights signalling this imperative or that, cars full of people with ladders to climb and snakes to wrestle, their passage isolating him from the bank, from safety, with its hunger for destination.

  He was not what he’d dreamed he’d be, or promised his secret self.

  And youth was yesterday.

  Where was he to go now? The flat would feel like a prison tonight, even if he smoked a little dope to take the edge off the room. He wanted, no, he needed to be with somebody tonight. Just to see his beauty through somebody else’s eyes. Be told how perfect his proportions were, be wined and dined and flattered stupid, even if it was by Quasimodo’s richer, uglier brother. Tonight he needed a fix of affection.

  The pick-up was so damned easy it almost made him forget the episode in the foyer of the Imperial. A guy of fifty-five or so, well-heeled: Gucci shoes, a very classy overcoat. In a word: quality.

  Gavin was standing in the doorway of a tiny art-house cinema, looking over the times of the Truffaut movie they were showing, when he became aware of the punter staring at him. He glanced at the guy to be certain there was a pick-up in the offing. The direct look seemed to unnerve the punter; he moved on; then he seemed to change his mind, muttered something to himself, and retraced his steps, showing patently false interest in the movie schedule. Obviously not too familiar with this game, Gavin thought; a novice.

  Casually Gavin took out a Winston and lit it, the flare of the match in his cupped hands glossing his cheekbones golden. He’d done it a thousand times, as often as not in the mirror for his own pleasure. He had the glance up from the tiny fire off pat: it always did the trick. This time when he met the nervous eyes of the punter, the other didn’t back away.

  He drew on the cigarette, flicking out the match and letting it drop. He hadn’t made a pick-up like this in several months, but he was well satisfied that he still had the knack. The faultless recognition of a potential client, the implicit offer in eyes and lips, that could be construed as innocent friendliness if he’d made an error.

  This was no error, however, this was the genuine article. The man’s eyes were glued to Gavin, so enamoured of him he seemed to be hurting with it. His mouth was open, as though the words of introduction had failed him. Not much of a face, but far from ugly. Tanned too often, and too quickly: maybe he’d lived abroad. He was assuming the man was English: his prevarication suggested it.

  Against habit, Gavin made the opening move.

  “You like French movies?”

  The punter seemed to deflate with relief that the silence between them had been broken.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “You going in?”

  The man pulled a face.

  “I . . . I . . . don’t think I will.”

  “Bit cold . . .”

  “Yes. It is.”

  “Bit cold for standing around, I mean.”

  “Oh – yes.”

  The punter took the bait.

  “Maybe . . . you’d like a drink?”

  Gavin smiled.

  “Sure, why not?”

  “My flat’s not far.”

  “Sure.”

  “I was getting a bit cheesed off, you know, at home.”

  “I know the feeling.”

  Now the other man smiled. “You are . . .?”

  “Gavin.”

  The man offered his leather-gloved hand. Very formal, business-like. The grip as they shook was strong, no trace of his earlier hesitation remaining.

  “I’m Kenneth,” he said, “Ken Reynolds.”

  “Ken.”

  “Shall we get out of the cold?”

  “Suits me.”

  “I’m only a short walk from here.”

  A wave of musty, centrally-heated air hit them as Reynolds opened the door of his apartment. Climbing the three flights of stairs had snatched Gavin’s breath, but Reynolds wasn’t slowed at all. Health freak maybe. Occupation? Something in the city. The handshake, the leather gloves. Maybe Civil Service.

  “Come in, come in.”

  There was money here. Underfoot the pile of the carpet was lush, hushing their steps as they entered. The hallway was almost bare: a calendar hung on the wall, a small table with telephone, a heap of directories, a coat-stand.

  “It’s warmer in here.”

  Reynolds was shrugging off his coat and hanging it up. His gloves remained on as he led Gavin a few yards down the hallway and into a large room.

  “Let’s have your jacket,” he said.

  “Oh . . . sure.”

  Gavin took off his jacket, and Reynolds slipped out into the hall with it. When he came in again he was working off his gloves; a slick of sweat made it a difficult job. The guy was still nervous: even on his home ground. Usually they started to calm down once they were safe behind locked doors. Not this one: he was a catalogue of fidgets.

  “Can I get you a drink?”

  “Yeah; that would be good.”

  “What’s your poison?”

  “Vodka.”

  “Surely. Anything with it?”

  “Just a drop of water.”

  “Purist, eh?”

  Gavin didn’t quite understand the remark.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “Man after my own heart. Will you give me a moment – I’ll just fetch some ice.”

  “No problem.”

  Reynolds dropped the gloves on a chair by the door, and left Gavin to the room. It, like the hallway, was almost stiflingly warm, but there was nothing homely or welcoming about it. Whatever his profession, Reynolds was a collector. The room was dominated by displays of antiquities, mounted on the walls, and lined up on shelves. There was very little furniture, and what there was seemed odd: battered tubular frame chairs had no place in an apartment this expensive. Maybe the man was a university don, or a museum governor, something academic. This was no stockbroker’s living room.

  Gavin knew nothing about art, and even less about history, so the displays meant very little to him, but he went to have a closer look, just to show willing. The guy was bound to ask him what he thought of the stuff. The shelves were deadly dull. Bits and pieces of pottery and sculpture: nothing in its entirety, just fragments. On some of the shards there remained a glimpse of design, though age had almost washed the colours out. Some of the sculpture was recognisably human: part of a torso, or foot (all five toes in place), a face that was all but eaten away, no longer male or female. Gavin stifled a yawn. The heat, the exhibits and the thought of sex made him lethargic.

  He turned his dulled attention to the wall-hung pieces. They were more impressive than the stuff on the shelves but they were still far from complete. He couldn’t see why anyone would want to look at such broken things; what was the fascination? The stone reliefs mounted on the wall were pitted and eroded, so that the skins of the figures looked leprous, and the Latin inscriptions were almost wiped out. There was nothing beautiful about them: too spoiled for beauty. They made him feel dirty somehow, as though their condition was contagious.

  Only one of the exhibits struck him as interesting: a tombstone, or what looked to him to be a tombstone, which was larger than the other reliefs and in slightly better condition. A man on a horse, carrying a sword, loomed over his headless enemy. Under the picture, a few words in Latin. The front legs of the horse had been broken off, and the pillars that bounded the design
were badly defaced by age, otherwise the image made sense. There was even a trace of personality in the crudely made face: a long nose, a wide mouth; an individual.

  Gavin reached to touch the inscription, but withdrew his fingers as he heard Reynolds enter.

  “No, please touch it,” said his host. “It’s there to take pleasure in. Touch away.”

  Now that he’d been invited to touch the thing, the desire had melted away. He felt embarrassed; caught in the act.

  “Go on,” Reynolds insisted.

  Gavin touched the carving. Cold stone, gritty under his finger-tips.

  “It’s Roman,” said Reynolds.

  “Tombstone?”

  “Yes. Found near Newcastle.”

  “Who was he?”

  “His name was Flavinus. He was a regimental standard-bearer.”

  What Gavin had assumed to be a sword was, on closer inspection, a standard. It ended in an almost erased motif: maybe a bee, a flower, a wheel.

  “You an archaeologist, then?”

  “That’s part of my business. I research sites, occasionally oversee digs; but most of the time I restore artifacts.”

  “Like these?”

  “Roman Britain’s my personal obsession.”

  He put down the glasses he was carrying and crossed to the pottery-laden shelves.

  “This is stuff I’ve collected over the years. I’ve never quite got over the thrill of handling objects that haven’t seen the light of day for centuries. It’s like plugging into history. You know what I mean?”

  “Yeah.”

  Reynolds picked a fragment of pottery off the shelf.

  “Of course all the best finds are claimed by the major collections. But if one’s canny, one manages to keep a few pieces back. They were an incredible influence, the Romans. Civil engineers, road-layers, bridge builders.”

  Reynolds gave a sudden laugh at his burst of enthusiasm.

  “Oh hell,” he said, “Reynolds is lecturing again. Sorry. I get carried away.”

  Replacing the pottery-shard in its niche on the shelf, he returned to the glasses, and started pouring drinks. With his back to Gavin, he managed to say: “Are you expensive?”