A Cool Breeze on the Underground (19 page)

22

Tuesday morning neal decided to have a whopping big breakfast. He picked a table in the dining room that gave him an easy view of the door and dug into his
Times,
along with two fried eggs, hot cereal, toast, bacon, sausage, and a pot of coffee. He took his sweet time about it, but nobody joined him.

Then he went for a walk. The day was a scorcher, a real bitch, but if they wanted to play games, he’d play games. Nobody picked him up at the hotel door, certainly not the guy from last night, but it would be just like Friends to show him one tail so they could pin a different one on him. And he just wasn’t ready for company on this thing—not yet.

He took a right down Piccadilly and set a torrid pace to Green Park tube station. He bought a 20p ticket from the machine and headed down the stairs, changed his mind, and walked back out on the street. He strolled down Queen’s Lane, nice and slow, stopped at a cart and bought an ice cream, thought about Allie, and turned around and went back to the tube station. But now he picked up the pace, fast and hard, so if anyone was following him, it would cost them a hell of a sweat. He took the train to Leicester Square, rode the escalator to street level, rode the escalator back down to the trains, and took a Northern Line train to Tottenham Court Road, where he got off the train, switched to the Central Line, and continued on to Bond Street, where he switched to the Jubilee Line and rode it back to Green Park.

By this time, he was convinced that Levine had called his boy off, and he was soaked with sweat and covered with grime, but he felt good, as if he was working again, as if he was in first-class gumshoe shape. He was psyching himself up; talking himself into it; going undercover, deep undercover.

He could see the boat-hire dock on the Serpentine from the deck of the restaurant. He sipped an iced coffee and waited. He had a good hour before Colin was supposed to show up. Time enough to check out the terrain, time enough to be ready if anyone was setting him up. Neal Carey wasn’t taking any chances.

“I cant swim, rugger,” Colin warned as he gently lowered himself into the little squat paddleboat.

“I’ll save you,” Neal answered. He watched Allie, Crisp, and Vanessa getting into another boat. Neal was having a good time, and taking a little spin around the manmade lake in the center of Hyde Park wasn’t a bad way to kill a sweaty afternoon. And he enjoyed Colin’s discomfiture.

They paddled out toward the middle of the Serpentine and then just let the boat drift. Neal placed his jacket on the bottom of the boat and lay down on top of it. It felt gloriously cool down there. He left Colin sitting up in the heat. In the distance, he could hear Crisp and Vanessa singing at the top of their lungs—some song he didn’t recognize but guessed was a butchery of Gilbert and Sullivan.

“So what is it, rugger?”

Careful, Neal lad, he thought to himself. This is it.

“My client is over here buying a book.”

“I hope you’re ‘avin’ me on.”

“The book is worth twenty thousand pounds.”

That got your attention, didn’t it, Colin?

“What book is worth twenty thousand quid?” Colin asked suspiciously.

“The
Pickle.”

He went through the whole thing. About Smollett, the first and second editions, Lady Vane, the trip to Italy, the missing volumes.

When he had finished, Colin said, “So?”

“So our client, the guy I’m doing security for, just bought it for ten thousand pounds.”

“Ten in’t twenty, lad.”

“And I know someone who’ll buy it for twenty, Colin baby.”

And I have you hooked, Neal thought. Colin was only a silhouette at the moment, but the silhouette was leaning way forward, listening hard.

“You can get ’old of this book?”

“With your help.”

“I’m all ears.”

“Jesus Christ!”

The boat rocked suddenly. Neal saw a head bobbing in the water. Then the head came over the side of the boat.

“Alice, for bleeding Jesus’s sake … ?”

“I felt like a swim.”

She hauled herself into their boat. “I was lonely,” she said. “I missed you. Besides, look what those assholes are doing over there.”

Those assholes Crisp and Vanessa were ramming their paddleboat into any other boat they could catch. They were at this moment in hot pursuit of a pair of Japanese tourists. Security guards at the dock were climbing into a rowboat.

“Jump back in, love. Me and Neal are ‘aving a business discussion.”

“Let her stay. It’s about her.”

“What about me?”

“I want you to ball a guy.”

“How much?”

“Five thousand pounds.”

“What, is he really gross or something?”

They barely outpaddled the water cops, who had picked Crisp and Vanessa up and wanted the whole gang. The Japanese couple had abandoned ship, however, necessitating a rather complicated bilingual rescue effort, which gave Neal and his crew time to paddle to shore, dump the boat in some bushes, and run out to Rotten Row. They hailed a cab at Alexandra Gate.

“Westminster Bridge,” Neal told the cabbie.

“I’m not balling anybody on Westminster Bridge,” said Allie.

“Ten thousand,” Colin said.

“Five, and there’s more to it.”

“I’m not balling anybody on Westminster Bridge.”

“Ten or forget it.”

“Forget what?”

“Where on Westminster Bridge?” the driver asked.

“No place,” said Allie.

“Just on the Embankment is fine.”

Neal paid the cabbie and started across the pedestrian walkway on the bridge. The view up and down the Thames was one of his favorites. It might be the best spot to see London, he thought, and he stopped about halfway across to take it in. Off to his right was a postcard view of the tower of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. To his right stretched Victoria Embankment. Right in front of him was Colin.

“Seven, then.”

Neal turned his back and leaned over the railing on the downriver side, “Thursday night, Goldman’s wife is going to a concert at Albert Hall. Goldman doesn’t want to go, says he hates that stuff and he’s going to the latest James Bond flick at the Odeon. But what he really wants is to get laid. I mean laid. He wants me to set him up. So I told him okay, I’ve worked it out. He’s going to go to my room to do it, in case the old lady gets bored, comes back early.”

“What—”

“Shut up and listen. He keeps the books in a locked briefcase in his room. While he’s making happy in my room, I’m going to be in his … guarding the briefcase.”

“They’re goin’ to figure out it was you.”

“No shit. The agency will send people. In fact, I know just the guy they’ll send. Guy named Levine. Very big, very tough. I’m going to need to disappear for a while. Can you handle that?”

“Sure.”

“If things get rough?”

“I’ll get rougher.”

Neal leaned farther over the railing, pretending to think it over. Let Colin see thousands of quid slipping away. “I don’t know, Colin. I’m taking a big risk here …”

“Take it.”

Neal turned around and rested his back against the railing. He took his time checking out the boats and barges in the river below him. He studied Waterloo Bridge as if he was thinking of buying it. He looked from Colin to Allie to Colin to Allie and back again. Allie could not care less. Colin would sell Alice to the gypsies for a shot at five thousand pounds. Neal knew a few things about scams. One thing was that you never talk anybody into a scam; you let them talk you into it. He ran his reluctant-virgin act for just a few more seconds.

“All right,” he said. “But it’s going to take some preparation.”

“One more time,” Neal said.

A collective sigh filled Colin’s flat. They’d already been at it for three hours and gone through it several dozen times, and fucking Neal had banned all alcohol, hash, pills, and smack from the planning session.

“Come on,” he repeated.

Crisp recited, “Colin and me wait outside the ’otel—”

“And—”

“An’ I try to dress like a human being. Neal points out missus goin’ as she comes ou’ the door. Colin and me follow ’er an’ stick to ’er like glue.”

“Good. Why?”

“Ya didn’t ask why before,” Crisp whined.

“Tell me why, you can have a pint.”

Four people instantly volunteered the answer. Neal hushed them and looked at Crisp. “Yes?”

“Because, if the missus gets bored a’ the concert—which personally I can’t imagine—she might decide to come ‘ome an’ that would fuck up the ’ole thing.”

“Correct.” Neal heard echoes of Joe Graham telling him to always fill his lies with lots of details. You have to keep Crisp and Colin out of the way for a while, so give them a mission and make them concentrate on it.

Neal took a bottle from his bag and dangled it in front of Crisp. “Then what would you do?”

“Get to a phone box and ring you.”

“Where?”

“Goldman’s room.”

“When?”

Crisp grinned proudly. “Right away.”

Neal tossed him the bottle and looked at Colin.

“I stay with the missus and find a way to stall ’er.”

“But…”

“I don’t ’urt ’er.”

Neal raised his eyebrows.

“At all.”

Neal looked at Allie, who was making a very successful effort to look indifferent. Colin snatched the book out of her hand, opened the window, and threw the book into the street. Allie rolled her eyes.

“I get all dressed up,” she said, staring pointedly at Neal,
“like a little lady
… and I wait in the bar.”

“Where…”

“Where I have one drink, that’s all, and I wait for Neal to come get me. Neal introduces me to Mr. Wonderful and leaves. I ball his brains out and I take my time about it. I make it last. Then I take my money and come straight back here.”

“What else—”

“I take it easy on the smack.”

“How easy?”

“One pop.”

He offered her a beer. She offered him her middle finger.

“Colin?” he asked.

“We wait for an hour outside Albert ‘all, if she doesn’t come out, we go to the tube station at Covent Garden. We watch for you. If you have your jacket off, then it’s fucked and we make an ‘asty exit. Jacket on, we follow you into the street. We get into the cab behind you. Follow you to the buyer’s ’ouse. Wait outside. You come out— an’ you better come out—with two bags. One wi’ our money, one wi’ yours. You give us ours and get back in your cab. We sit in the cab for five minutes so we don’t know where you’re takin’ your nicker, you mistrustful bastard. You meet us ’ere, later. We hide you till it’s safe.”

“Vanessa.”

“I wait here by the phone to take messages. Sexist and boring.”

“Questions?”

There weren’t any. They’d been over it so many times the past two nights that they didn’t want to take a chance that he’d make them do it again.

“All right.” Neal stood up and stretched. The rest of them hustled for their drug of choice. Colin opened two pints and handed Neal one of them. Vanessa and Crisp lit a bowl of hash and flipped on the telly. Allie slipped into the bathroom.

“She’s a junkie,” Neal said.

“She’s not.”

“How many times a day now?”

“Two or three. Just little pops, rugger.”

“Not in her arms, I hope. Goldman sees needle tracks, might turn him off.”

“This little piggie went to market, this little piggie stayed ’ome. This little piggie went wee-wee-wee …”

“Doesn’t it bother you? You love her, right?”

“She’ll get off it.”

“Yeah.”

Neal stepped out on the balcony. Colin followed him.

“Five now,” he said. “A thousand a month for two months, assuming I’m still in one piece.”

“Done.”

Oh, Colin, Neal thought. You agreed to that one awfully fast. What are you up to?

“I’ll take Alice shopping tomorrow,” Neal said. “Get her something killer.”

“You do that, Neal lad.”

Yeah, Neal, Colin thought, you go shopping. I’ll go shopping.

23

Colin hated tea. Hated the smell, the taste, even the feel of it as it slithered down his throat. He had sworn when he split the home scene that he’d never choke down another cup of the omnipresent shit the rest of his natural life.

Nevertheless, he sipped it graciously as he sat in a booth in the back room of the Hunan Garden across the table from a smiling Dickie Huan.

Dickie Huan was a middle-aged Chinese who had several restaurants, an unshakable faith in free enterprise, and a great tailor. On this particular afternoon, he sported a dark gray three-piece pinstripe, a silk salmon shirt, and a blood-red tie. Aware of Dickie’s sartorial sensibilities, Colin had done his best to dress for the meeting. He was aware that his all-white suit looked a bit gamy compared to Dickie’s conservatism, but it was the best he could do for the occasion.

“How is tea?”

“Super.”

Dickie Huan also hated tea, but believed in tradition. He smiled gently over his raised cup. “What brings me the pleasure of your visit?”

Colin swallowed hard. This bit needed great balls. “I’m looking to expand my market.”

Dickie Huan said nothing. This was obvious. Everybody was looking to expand his market.

Colin continued: “I want to enlarge the scope of my operation.”

Again, Dickie didn’t respond—just for fun.

Colin spit it out. “I want to buy heroin from you.”

“Everyone does.”

Colin tugged at his collar. The tie felt like a noose around his neck. “I understand you’re expecting a shipment.”

Dickie raised an eyebrow and smiled, although he was very pissed off that this round-eye freak with pins through his ear knew this much about his business. “So?”

“I want to buy a piece of it.”

“Where will you get this kind of money, Colin?”

“I’ll ‘ave it. Saturday.” Give myself a day to take care of Neal, he thought.

“Saturday is not today.”

What are you, a fortune cookie? Colin thought. But he said, “I’ll buy up to twenty thousand pounds’ worth.”

Dickie took a long time to answer. He wanted to phrase the insult just right. “I usually don’t sell such small allotments.”

“Then you must have a small amount to spare.”

Not bad, Dickie thought. Not bad at all. “Sorry, Colin. I have promised another party every little bit.”

Colin took a big chance. He thought for a moment about his fingers becoming Moo Goo Gai Colin, and then said, “I can put you into markets that John Chen can’t touch.”

Dickie’s burst of Cantonese obscenities brought three waiters trotting to the table. One carried a double Beefeater with a twist. The other two hastily cleared the teacups as their boss regained his composure. “How you know so much?” Dickie asked as he knocked back his drink.

Colin felt a sweet surge of confidence. “I keep me ear to the ground. Now, Dickie, this bit is just the first. I can put you in markets all over the city. Places Chinese can’t go.” Dickie Huan needed no reminder of the unsubtle racism of Britain’s punks. He colored slightly at the insult but decided to ignore it for the time being. After all, he wouldn’t mind expanding his own markets.

“Why you come to me, Colin?”

Colin smiled his most engaging smile and told the truth. “You’re the only one who might give me credit, Dickie.”

So the punk comes to the chink, Dickie thought. Outsider to outsider. He liked the symmetry of it.

“Come on, Dickie. I’ve never let you down on the hash deals, have I?”

“That is child’s play, Colin. Heroin is real business.”

“Then think about real business. Think about where I’ll be selling your heroin. Twenty thousand is just the start.”

Dickie Huan thought about it. He had indeed told John Chen he could have the whole shipment. But he could give Chen twenty thousand back, tell him that the shipment was smaller than he’d thought. A chance to break into the round-eye neighborhoods didn’t come every day.

“Come back into the kitchen, Colin,” Dickie said. He saw Colin turn pale. “You see too many films. Come on.”

Colin followed him back into a little steamy kitchen, where a half dozen sweating cooks were getting ready for the dinner crowd. Dickie leaned against a big, squat wooden chopping block. “Colin, you know if I save a piece for you, I cannot offer it back to the other party.”

“You’ll never miss him.”

Dickie nodded and said something in Cantonese to one of the cooks. The cook handed him a meat cleaver and stepped aside as Dickie grabbed a large piece of pork and slapped it onto the chopping block. Dickie was the son of a Nathan Road butcher and knew what he was doing. With rapid strokes, he chopped the piece of meat into slices and then whirled the cleaver again and chopped the slices into little squares. The whole demonstration took ten seconds, then he swept the cubes of meat into a pan. He hadn’t as much as touched the sleeves of his three-hundred-pound suit. He looked up at Colin and smiled. “Twenty thousand pounds. Saturday night. Don’t disappoint me, Colin.”

Colin left the restaurant whistling. Meeting Neal had been luck, he knew, but a lot of blokes would have settled for the twenty thousand. Colin had the balls to go for the big time.

Allie pirouetted prettily. The changing-room attendant beamed at her and then at Neal. They were such a cute couple.

“Do you approve?” Allie asked him.

“I approve.”

She tilted her head in a parody of fashion-magazine models. She looked drop-dead gorgeous. The new dress was a simple black sheath, off the shoulders and cut just low enough to hint at the pleasures of intimacy. A gold necklace highlighted the dress, her hair, and her eyes. The makeup was subtle.

“Will there be anything else?”

Neal looked to Allie.

“It’s your movie,” she said.

“That will be all, thanks.”

“Come on then, dearie, we’ll get it all wrapped up.”

As soon as the saleslady turned around, Allie stuck her fingers in her mouth, pulled her lips apart, and stuck her tongue out at Neal. Then she went to change.

Out on Oxford Street, he asked her to lunch.

“I didn’t know crooks went to lunch,” she said.

“Don’t do me any favors.”

“I’m hungry. Where do you want to go?”

“New York.”

“For a burger, right? I know what you mean.”

“They have good burgers in Stockton?”

“They have McDonald’s.”

They found a funky little French place that didn’t care he wasn’t wearing a tie or she was wearing jeans.

She knew her way around the menu, he noticed with amusement. Stockton is famous for its continental cuisine. She ordered the vichyssoise, a fillet, tarragon chicken, and apricot mousse. She also suggested the wines. He had what she had.

Maybe there was still tine to do this the easy way, he thought.

“Ever think about going home?”

“What for?” she said through a mouthful of potato soup.

“Burgers.”

She shook her head.

“Family?”

“That’s what I ran away from.”

“Maybe it would be different.”

“It wouldn’t be.” She took a sip of the white wine and sat back in her chair. “Anyway, what about Colin?”

“I dunno. What about Colin?”

She gave him a cold smile, a practiced, ambiguous gesture meant to indicate simultaneous interest and indifference. A poker player calling but not raising the pot.

“Are you coming on to me?” she asked.

“No.”

“Good.”

She went back to her soup.

“How come you don’t like me?” he asked. “What did I do?”

“I like you. Let’s just say I haven’t had a real good experience with men, okay? Nothing personal.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

During the chicken, she said, “I’m in love with him.”

“With him or with his dope?”

“What’s the difference?”

None.

It was a great lunch and the bill said so. He paid it and left a generous tip.

“Thank you for lunch,” she said when they got outside.

“What did you say?”

“I said thank you. It was nice of you. Not part of the bargain.”

“You’re welcome. Thanks for the company. You want to take a walk in the park?”

She looked at him hard and smiled. “You are coming on to me,”

“I’m just saying you have options.”

“Yeah? What kind of options?”

“You can take a walk … in the park.”

“If I told Colin you came on to me, he’d kill you.”

“He’d try. You’re a valuable piece of property.”

“He loves me.”

“Sure, why shouldn’t he?”

“It’s not just for the money I make.”

“Yeah? What’s your share. of this job? What is he cutting you in for? Five thousand? Three? Two? We’re running out of numbers here, Alice.”

She blushed. “Colin handles all the money. He takes care of me.”

Neal laughed at her.
“He
takes care of
you?”

“He says I won’t have to do that anymore after tonight. He promised … no more dates.”

“Until he needs money again … then he’ll turn you back out, and he
will
need money. You’ll shoot it all up your arm.”

He saw her wince and watched her think.

“
Which
park?”

“There’s another option right there.”

She signaled a cab. “St. James’s Park,” she said. “By Horse Guards Road.”

He let her lead him to the tea kiosk there, where she bought two huge sweet rolls.

“After that lunch?” he asked.

“Not for us, idiot. Come on.” She walked him over to the lake, where the ducks drifted off the shore, waiting for silly people with huge sweet rolls to feed them. She handed Neal one of the rolls and said, quite seriously, “Now, you break it up into little bits and toss it to the ducks. And try to spread the wealth around, so they all get a little.”

He watched her feed the ducks. She gave it all her attention, as if she was the only person there and that was all she had to do in the world. Her smile lost its angry edge for the ten minutes or so that the roll lasted.

“You do this a lot?” he asked her.

“No.”

She trembled a little. “We better get going,” she said.

“Why?”

“Big night tonight.”

“Are you cold? It’s a hundred and ten out.”

“I need to go home.”

“Because the smack is there.”

“I need to get ready, Neal.”

“Just breathe deep.”

“Fuck you.”

“It’ll get worse, Alice.”

She sat down on a bench. He sat beside her. “So, tonight’s my last date, huh?”

“If you want.”

She nodded her head a few times. The color was starting to leave her face. “Yeah, sounds good to me.”

“Then it’s your last date.”

She chortled. “Oh, you’ll protect me, right? Get me off the smack? Keep me off the street?”

“That’s right.”

“Okay, white knight,” she said, standing up. “Get me into a cab. I have to get home.”

He dropped her at her flat, kept the cab, and went back to the hotel He didn’t feel like watching her shoot up, and he had stuff to do. As the lady said, big night tonight.