Buenos dias! Still have absolutely no desire to write anything. I’ve been ‘wasting’ all my creative energy writing long threads on IMDB and arguing with all and sundry about Precious, Bronson and Catherine Breillat. This is neither enlightening, edifying, nor fun, but it fills my days. Sadly.

Because I will soon have no blog readers left (oh, boo-hoo), I have given you something to read. This is the start of a ‘mainstream’ novel I attempted about a year back – maybe 6-9 months (I’ve told you; I have a shit memory). I like it, but I only have 10 pages of it and I think it unlikely I’ll finish it. However, it lets me get 2 – 3 blogs without writing anything, so yippee!!!

There is news, but it’s of the warning variety – not dire warning, just alert warning, you drama queens – DANNY Volume 2, I’ll Be Your Dog Edition, is being withdrawn, as is Cult Fiction. One expires at the end of this year and the other the beginning of next year, but I forget which is which. Anyway, one of them (Cult Fiction, I think?) is up for renewal at the end of December, and I’m not renewing it. Likewise, the dog edition of 2 doesn’t sell so it’s going too. So, if you want either of them get them now, before you can’t.

That’s it, no more news. Told you it wasn’t exciting. Enjoy the ‘story’. I’ll give you the rest in due course. Bet you’re all dying of excitement…

There were a lot of rumours about the beautiful Jew: that he wasn’t really Jewish, that he had diamonds sewn into his penis like tribal scarification, that he had been smuggled out of a concentration camp as a foetus.

None of them were true – although no-one had had the nerve to check his penis.

He ran a jewellery business in Manhattan’s lower East side. Whether that was an odd place for him to be or not, I don’t know. I was never in New York.

His jewellery business was an odd amalgam of the traditional Jewish diamond trade and fabulous fakes – costume jewellery to the stars. It was the kind of jewellery worn by Joan Crawford and Bette Davis – showy, large and bristling with invented stones: pink diamonds, purple sapphires and amber the colour of melted toffee.

There were exotic and fantastical animals, and fashionable motifs of the day, clutches of fruit and berries and Art Deco leaping stags.

I don’t know which of the two businesses had come first; the legitimate diamond trade or the faux bijouterie, but he was as much part of one as he was of the other while, somehow, remaining nothing to do with either of them.

It was part of his appeal, perhaps, that he seemed somehow detached from what he did. And, of course, he was stunningly beautiful. That is, beautiful in a rather austere, unsettling way, where you felt your stomach turn over at the sight of him, and something in you tighten almost in fear, like you better guard against your own desire to succumb to the power of that perfection.

He was charming too, of course, and well-read and dressed impeccably, if somewhat dully. Not for him the loud raucous ties of gangsters and spivs, or the show of ostentatious wealth. It was that, partly, I suspect, that earned him the reputation of having the diamonds hidden under his skin. It had started out as a joke. He was so circumspect with his wealth that he never showed it. The owner of Saphir & Silverstein, heir-apparent to a huge precious stones & metals empire, never even wore so much as a signet ring.

It was said that his real name was Tolya, a Russian name that he either chose not to use or that no-one dared call him. He was called Mr Saphir to his face and the Beautiful Jew behind his back.

It seems odd, in retrospect, that his nickname was kept hidden from him – hardly an insult, beautiful – but it tells you something of the nature of people’s fear of him. The only reason to find someone’s beauty an insult is because it is either all they are or their beauty caused intimidation, fear and envy rather than admiration. Considered the smartest of the city’s gangsters at that time, I leave my reader to construe why beautiful was the insult we all used to ward against his evil eye.

And his eyes were indeed evil. It is an overused metaphor of otherness in literature to give the protagonist unusual eyes. But it is a truth that the beautiful Jew’s eyes were easily the most unusual thing about him. Bright pale blue, they were the eyes of a psychotic. They contrasted sharply with his very black, thick hair, cut closely and sculptured into his skull.

Even his eyes engendered rumour. The family name Saphir, meant just that – one who works with sapphires. Those who were sane and uninvolved with him believed it was no more than a business name from generations in the diamond trade. Others, who knew more of his origins, surmised he had bought the business and had simply dropped his own Russian name and superimposed the old, established name. And his enemies believed the business name was him: eyes cold as sapphires and a heart as icy as silver.

If he was a bad man it was hard to see it. On first meeting he was charming and polite, speaking in a refined voice that sounded like years of Harvard rather than a life shivved through the lowest Polish ghetto. His mother had been Polish, it was rumoured, escaped from a concentration camp death with a fellow Jew, a Russian with no name.

It seems odd now that we all knew so little of him, that there were no real antecedents to be found. For a man in his position he seemed to have little in the way of enemies out to disrupt him, no-one seeking to unearth his darkness – for darkness he surely had.

But all this doesn’t interest you. You want to know how I met him, why I met him, me who had never gotten closer to real wealth and power than cleaning their hair out of plugholes.

I met him in a Scottish castle named Dundraioch: literally, dark, dreary water. It was an odd place to meet a New York underworld type, I admit, if that’s what he was, but it was not as unexpected as it might first appear. The castle was always overrun with strange types – rock stars and actors finding ‘inspiration’, or drugged up millionaires recovering from rehab away from the glare of the paparazzi.

Dundraioch sat on Loch Ellan which, in turn, was contained within the 300 acre estate of the Inchellans. Lord Inchellan the third still owned it, but he was as English as tea & crumpets and had never lived in the place. His grandmother had expired her last there three years before and he had immediately turned it into a ‘retreat’ for the wealthy where they could sit insulated from the outside world in what amounted to a huge wildlife theme park which had never seen any intrusion from the outside world since 1306, the date when the castle had been built.

Then it had been a standard fortified Scottish keep, intended to keep robbers and the cold out, and peat smoke and wealth in. But over the years its scenic qualities – it sat on a small island on the loch, originally accessible only by wooden drawbridge but now only accessed by boat – had insured that the successive lairds had kept it on for huntin’, shootin’ and fishin’, adding wings and improvements as they came and went.

In its time it had seen every kind of dignitary, from Queen Victoria to King Hussein of Jordan, and more entertainment celebrities than you could care to mention, but it was only in the last three years that it had been whored out as a view-for-rent, albeit at a classy call-girl kind of price.

The rumours about the Beautiful Jew started well before his arrival. The first I’d heard was in the kitchen one morning where I was making toast for Mr Guy Ritchie’s party.

“Jason Isaacs, that’s what I heard.”

“Eh?” George Dalrymple met a lot of celebrities and chefed for them daily, but he knew fuck all about them. He never had time to watch TV; he was too busy cooking for the real thing.

“Jason Isaacs. You know, him that was in The Patriot… ‘Es on telly all the time,” Alison said.

“Never heard ‘o the man.”

Alison tutted. “You’re hopeless, you. Well, it’s ‘im anyway.”

“What is?” I asked, putting down the heavy silver tray.

“This geezer that’s supposedly coming over this weekend. From New York. The Beautiful Jew.”

“You what?” I was looking at Alison now, more perplexed than ever. Isaacs was called the Beautiful Jew? Since when? And wasn’t that a little politically incorrect?

Alison tutted again, rapidly losing the will to live. She took a deep breath, sighed, then said patiently, “Bloke, coming at the weekend. ‘E’s called the Beautiful Jew.”

“Jason Isaacs,” I said hopefully.

“No,” she said with more than a hint of asperity. “Not bleedin’ Jason Isaacs. He looks like Jason Isaacs. Supposed to. You know, all dark hair and blue eyes and kind of shiny sexy.”

I raised my eyebrows: If you say so. Then I asked, “Is he actually called The Beautiful Jew?”

She shrugged. “It’s what they’ve been saying. Don’t know his real name.”

“Is he a rapper or something?”

Alison laughed. “Hell, no. He’s a diamond geezer.”

I was more confused than ever. Letting the Ritchie’s toast cool I said, “A diamond geezer, from New York? Is this some friend of Ritchie’s?”

She laughed. “No. I mean a real diamond geezer. Sells ‘em. Only fourth richest man in the world, or South Africa, or somefing’,” she finished uncertainly.

I immediately lost interest. I’d met my fair share of business-men in this job, interspersed between the idols of stage & screen. But they were never so entertaining. Rich men get rich by working. All the time. You seldom got two words out of them other than “Phone” and “Papers?”.

They were supposed to come here to relax, unwind, but I never saw any of it. They always looked like they were heading off for another meeting when they went out on the boat. And they never went without a mobile and a laptop. I think for most of them rather than being a rest it was about getting more work done away from the hurly burly. I think it was head time rather than me time. And I mean head as in thinking. Only one out of every ten brought a mistress or wife, and they usually skulked around looking miserable, surfing the few satellite channels we got here.

George suddenly said, “Hoi, toast… eejut”, and I was obliged to load up and leave.

I forgot all about our ‘beautiful’ friend until I was bumping my way back over from Ardfellan in the land Rover and Gabriel said, “Hear we’ve got one of the world’s movers & shakers coming tomorrow.”

“Who?” says I.

“The Beautiful Jew.”

I nodded, trying to remember what had been said in the kitchen that day, the other weird talk that had been in the bothy, drunk at midnight on leftover champagne, and the crap about the diamonds supposedly inserted, with the design pricked out – if you’ll pardon the pun – under the skin of his penis like tribal scarification. I can remember asking Wee Billy how he knew that the great man had diamonds in his dick and there being general hilarity, but not much more sane information.

Gabriel shot me a glance and said, “Unimpressed?”

“Seen one, seen ‘em all.”

He laughed and said, “Bet Branson hasn’t got diamonds in his dick. Or Stanopolis.”

“Technically it should be a plane and a boat respectively. And I should have a tea tray.”

Gabriel laughed again and said, “This job’s making you cynical.”

I shook my head. “The only place he’s got diamonds, my lad, is in a Swiss bank, making him lots of money so that you and I can fulfil his every whim.”

Gabriel laughed again and said, “From what I’ve heard, I might enjoy that.” He shot me a sly glance.

Gabriel was gay. Somewhat stereotypically, a fashion graduate who had done what I’d done – failed miserably to find a job on leaving university, come here for a ‘break’ and ended up staying a year and a half.

Unlike me. I was nearing thirty. Frighteningly nearing. I had trained in law and found myself imminently likely to hit the solicitorial highs of Bermondsey, doomed forever to walk the earth buying half-million-pound houses for dreary NHS doctors and aspirant girl VP’s of annoying media businesses or mobile phone networks. I could see a life of blackberries and high street Hugo Boss suits and rushed frappucinos from crappy London Starbucks’ with matted carpets, stretched out forever before me. So I dumped my life. All of it. Girlfriend – another second-rate solicitor – flat in Notting Hill with bijou kitchen/living combo, my bought-new Toyota Prius and my family: a Dad who thought I was mad, a little sister who thought I was a waste of space and a mother who thought I was ‘finding myself’.

She was wrong. I was running away from myself and knew it. Away from the certainty of my mediocrity. Maybe I thought mixing with the great and not-so-good would rub off on me, but serving their food and collecting their linen it seemed unlikely.

I didn’t even have a proper job. I was employed as ‘general domestic’, which in practice meant I was like a blend of butler/valet and chauffeur. The girls cleaned and maided for the women. Me and Gabriel tended to the men. Wee Billy and Cormac were ghillie’s assistants to Hughie, the actual ghillie.

I was senior by dint of having been there longest and being well-spoken, educated and not overly ugly, but I knew my rank was meaningless. If I walked out tomorrow they’d only miss me because of the disruption, not because what I did was so irreplaceable.

Except getting them grass, of course. We grew it ourselves. Pure profit, but they didn’t need to know that.

Gabriel took another hump with indecent haste, bringing me back to the conversation in hand. I’d forgotten what we were talking about till he said, “He’s flying in.”

I looked at him. “Who?”

He laughed and said, “The beautiful Jew. R’phael Saphir.”

I frowned at him. “Run that past me again.”

“R’phael Saphir.”

“Never heard that one before. Do you know him then?” I saw his glance and clarified, “Have you seen a picture? You know, in Hello or something?”

Gabriel laughed again and said, “He wouldn’t be seen dead in Hello. He’s not your common or garden celeb, you know. This isn’t some character who’s going to end up on Celebrity Disasters: Get me out of here. But yeah, I’ve seen him. Armani featured him along with a few other celebrity suits in one of their ad campaigns. It was some charity thing, otherwise I don’t think you’d have got him in it.”

I looked at him askance and said, “Oh, a principled millionaire.”

He did his usual laugh and said, “Billionaire, I imagine. But who cares if he’s principled? He’s rich, gorgeous and has diamonds in his dick. Hell, he’s a gay dream walking.”

It was my turn to laugh. “Yeah, right. And I imagine with a nickname like that, you might just get to fulfil some of them.”

Gabriel shook his head. “Likes the ladeez, I’m afraid. Although he’s never married one of them.”

“Frightened they’re all after his fortune.” There was a moment’s pause before I asked, “Why is he coming here anyway?”

Gabriel shrugged. “Why do any of them? Holiday, get away from phones, think up next global domination project – who knows?”

“Not rehab then? Is he a party lad?”

Gabriel shook his head. “Not a bit of it. Clean living. You know, ranch in Montana type. Entourage though.”

I looked at him. “Really? Who?”

He shrugged again. “Who knows? Accountants, financial advisors, trouble-shooters, Wall Street brokers… No doubt we’ll find out soon enough. Like I said, he’s flying in. Helicopter.”

Surprisingly, it was fairly uncommon for us to get ‘guests’ flying in. Most of them arrived incognito in large black Hummers, standing out like sore thumbs and burning up half the planet in one trip. Chauffeurs and limos were common enough, but aircraft not so much.

After that we returned to the more mundane details of our lives, discussing what would need to be cleaned out and if the tap was fixed in the McKellan suite yet. The Beautiful Jew was forgotten.

Not yet discovered the wonder of The DANNY Quadrilogy? You can check out all the volumes currently in print at Poison Pixie where you can read an extract of Volume 1 for FREE! Or start your collection on Amazon here where you can also buy a ‘sampler’, entitled CULT Fiction, containing an introduction to The DANNY Quadrilogy along with an excerpt from Volume 1, for only £2.99. But hurry, the sampler is being discontinued at the end of this year so you gotta move fast!

If you are a new fan who wants to know more about the background and history of DANNY, then visit The DANNY ‘Wikipedia’

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