Doctor Who_ Illegal Alien - Mike Tucker [18]
Ace grabbed a London Transport badge as a trophy and she and McBride headed off over the bridge. Beneath them, the Thames, dark brown and turbulent, made its way inexorably towards the sea. Ace liked the river. It had seen plagues, fires, and wars before, and this would not be the last. Despite all that humans could do, it would still be here, a constant companion to London and its people.
By the time they arrived at Mama's Bar the two of them were soaked through, and the Doctor's umbrella had seen better days. Mama's was unimpressive from the outside, a shabby wooden frontage under a railway arch. A badly faded sign that might once have been cheerful and brash swung in the wind.
Ace and McBride hurried under the railway bridge, grateful for the shelter. Ace shook the water from the umbrella and McBride pushed the door open.
Ace's senses were assaulted by warmth, light, and smoke -a total contrast to the street outside. Mama's was a huge room. There was no attempt made to hide its railway arch origins. A few people looked up as Ace and McBride entered, but soon turned back to their own business. Ace dumped the sodden umbrella into a stand near the door and followed McBride towards the bar. Tables were scattered everywhere -different styles, heights, and colours. One wall had been separated off into booths with crude wooden screens and figures lurked within them, wreathed in cigarette smoke. The roof looked as though it had been patched more than once. A metal bucket stood on the bar, water dripping into it from overhead with a steady tattoo of tinny pings, and tiny rivulets of water trickled from all sides across a concrete floor which sloped towards a metal drain in the middle of the room.
A huge, oldfashioned jukebox stood in one corner. Ace stopped and mentally pulled herself up. Oldfashioned to her, maybe, but at the moment it was, no doubt, the height of modern music technology. Music was playing nothing that Ace recognised, something about the 'Santa Fe Trail'.
The long, low bar filled the back of the room. It desperately tried to affect a stylish American feel and fell a long way short of the mark. Baseball memorabilia were scattered over the back wall amid posters, pennants, and too few bottles of spirits. A grubby and torn American flag was draped over the counter. McBride was in conversation with the barman, a huge black American in a white vest, furiously polishing beer glasses. He looked up as Ace approached.
McBride pulled out a stool for her.
'Ace, this is Mama. Mama, Ace is a friend.'
Mama flashed her a smile that made his vest look grey, put down his glasses and leaned across the bar. 'Any friend of Cody's is liable to be bad news, but you're a good deal prettier than most, so what can your Mama get you?'
McBride butted in. 'A beer for me, a cream soda for the kid.' Ace grimaced, 'I hate cream soda. I'll have a beer too.'
'Make that a Coke, Mama, and a couple of doughboys. Is Sharkey in yet?'
Mama jerked a thumb towards one of the booths. In the gloom, hunched over a beer, was a small rattylooking man whose clothes were several years too old and several sizes too big. Sharkey had been McBride's stool pigeon since the private eye had arrived in London. Most of the time he just concerned himself with smalltime crime blackmarket stockings and cigarettes, an outlet for merchandise looted from bombedout shops but McBride had quickly learned that Sharkey had a good pair of ears and a nose for other people's business. If there was something big going down, then Sharkey was liable to know who, where, and when, and in McBride's business that was very useful.
Pale and nervous, Sharkey nodded a greeting at McBride, immediately checking all corners of the bar to see if anyone was watching. McBride did a quick check of the room himself to see if Sharkey's paranoia was justified. The bar was just beginning to fill up with the earlylunch crowd a few of the