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CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: SKIN AND BONES
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TIME TICKED BACK AND forth in tandem with the metronome on Tommy's desk, filling the otherwise silent room with anticipation. As Tommy closed the door, he took one look at Helen sitting at his desk, then at Alfie somewhere behind her, his back to the room as he stared out the window, and went straight for the decanter of whiskey on the sideboard.
"Good morning, Mr Solomons," he said while pouring himself a sizable amount.
"Yeah it is," answered Alfie without turning his head. "This is a nice little place you've got here, Thomas. What is it? A foreclosure of a gambling den for some poor young lord who you pumped full of opium in one of your casinos? Or is that just tittle-tattle?"
"Drink?" Tommy asked, ignoring him.
"No, I don't touch it mate, and both your lovely missus 'ere--" Finally, Alfie moved so he was standing beside Helen, though he was a little too close if Tommy's narrowed eyes glaring daggers at him had anything to say about it. "And your housekeeper said you're not allowed to drink. Mary, right? Well, Mary said you are suffering from so many injuries from your sporting life that your head is like some sort of smashed vase that has been stuck back together by a horse."
"Take a seat, Alfie," Tommy muttered.
He waited for him to comply, leaving the space beside Helen empty for Tommy to move into. With one hand planted on her shoulder and the other routinely switching between his whiskey and a cigarette, he commanded how this conversation would go. Opposite them now was Alfie, who stared shamelessly at Tommy's fingers pressing into Helen's skin, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. He sat with wide-spread legs in one of the chairs Tommy kept for visitors, the taut muscles of his thighs pressing visibly against the fabric of his pants.
To the right of them, Charlie played with his bear in a world of his own, socked feet wriggling against the carpeted floor. Helen split her attention between the importance of Alfie's presence and the boy momentarily left to his own devices. Part of her wondered if she should've taken him back to Frances and James, just in case their meeting went disastrously wrong, but Tommy made sure to keep her where she was with another knowing squeeze of her shoulder.
"Word in London is that you can be found wandering the streets of Birmingham stark naked, throwing away money," Alfie remarked. "A view I'm sure you, Mrs Godfrey, love to appreciate, but the folk of Birmingham and by extension of London are rightfully alarmed. You talk to dead people. You believe that you are powerful enough to summon Jews of a very particular standing up to the gentile wilderness wherein you live in order for them to do your fucking bidding, mate."
"And still you came."
Alfie lifted his shoulders in a shrug. "Yeah, well, you know, I was passing, wasn't I?"
