Amphetamines and Pearls (12 page)

‘Amphetamines?'

He nodded again. ‘Mostly. How did you know?'

I put it down to intelligent guesswork and went on.

‘Howard said she owed and owed big. He wasn't prepared to cover for her any more. If you talk again to her recording manager at Dragon he'll tell you the same story. All the fall guys she had been leaning on and putting the bite into were moving out of the way and letting her do her own falling. And she didn't like it: she was used to softer landings. She grew to think that was all other people were for: catching her when she fell.'

Neither of us spoke for several minutes. In the smallness of that office we were both left with our own thoughts of girls falling.

Then Tom said: ‘You knew her pretty well.'

I looked back at him and he understood the look. I carried on with my story.

‘Howard reckoned that whoever had sold her the stuff was moving in to take payment. Or else to snuff her out as a warning.'

‘He wasn't supplying her himself, then?'

I shook my head: it still hurt. ‘Not by the end.' She wanted more stuff than he could get. Besides
…'
I couldn't stop myself breaking into a yawn. I had forgotten that it was still early and I hadn't exactly had a restful night's sleep. I tried again. ‘Besides, he was being edged out of the market.'

Gilmour looked more interested.

‘You told me before about a guy called Jupp who you thought was trying to pull the dope market together and get the really heavy, expensive stuff into the business. Do you think it might have been from one of his contacts that Candi was buying?'

He thought about it but not for very long.

‘Yes, that's very possible.'

‘Would Leake have had this information, about Jupp and what he was up to?'

Gilmour wasn't sure and he said so.

I said: ‘Then you might pass it on to him with my compliments. Tell him that it may be that if he finds out who Candi was buying from then he might find a murderer.'

Personally I wasn't too certain about that, but it sounded convincing. At least Tom said he would pass on the information. But his face didn't show how convinced he was either.

He said: ‘You'd better go out and get something to eat. You don't look any too good.'

I didn't feel it: but the thought of food made me feel a lot worse. But there were things I wanted to do and it was time to do them now. And quickly, before I was beaten to it.

I stood up and thanked Tom for the help and the drink.

As I was on my way through the door he called me back.

‘Scott, I said before that if you can get anything on Jupp or any of his boys we'll be grateful. But don't let us know when it's too late: or it may be too late for you too. You best remember you won't be playing with punks when you tackle them. That Winston, for instance. He sure is one big black mother!'

I thanked him for the advice and shut the door behind me, I guessed that now he would let up the blinds and let in the light of day.

When I got on to the street the light of day didn't look too appealing to me. There were places I would rather be than walking the streets at this hour. I would rather be in the warm, in the dark.

I found myself thinking about Jane.

I found myself thinking about Sandy.

I found myself thinking about Vonnie.

I found myself thinking about Candi.

It wasn't any use: my thoughts were getting colder all the time.

I went home and started my daily round of coffee. When I thought it was a respectable hour for making calls and I guessed that the kidneys would be warming on their silver tray, I phoned Thurley.

I told him I had definite information about his daughter's whereabouts. There was a long silence in which he must have thought I was speaking from the grave. Then I asked if he had the three hundred there and ready. He said no but he would send John to the bank for it.

His voice was still emptier than usual: he was losing a little of his command, a little of his cool.

‘Are … are you sure you have seen Buffy?'

‘Sure I'm sure.'

‘But where? Is she all right? Can't you tell me over the phone? Then I can send John round to fetch her.'

Yes, I bet you could, I thought.

I said: ‘Never mind where for now. I'll tell you all of that when I get there. But take it from me, when I saw her she looked to be in pretty fine shape. And mixing with some very friendly people: very loving.'

I could sense that Thurley didn't understand what the hell I was rambling on about. Which was just fine. I wanted him to stay as confused as he could. And I wanted him to think that I knew a lot more that he didn't feel safe about my knowing.

But I thought I had better suggest I wasn't the only one in the know. I didn't want to arrive at the Thurley residence and find a repetition of the earlier attempt to gun me down.

So I said, ‘You remember Tom Gilmour at West End Central? Well, I've just been taking an early breakfast with him. I told him I was on the way round to see you. He said to be sure to pass on his regards.'

I hung up and got over there as fast as I could.

When I got there the door was open and there was no John to usher me in. Maybe he was still at the bank. Maybe. I found his master out on the terrace.

Thurley was wearing a hacking jacket and a pair of jodphurs. I didn't know if he had been riding or was about to. Perhaps he rode into town as shotgun when John fetched the money from the bank. Or perhaps he liked the image. I didn't like his image: I thought his image stank.

It stank of privilege and hunting foxes so that your dogs could tear their bellies open with their bare teeth—dogs you had kept starved so that the lust for meat drove them to any lengths for their kill. Well, Thurley had a pretty pack of hounds and I thought I had just dealt with two. And dear John, hovering behind the coffee pot, was a third.

But what Thurley really killed with was something much less obvious and more appealing than men with guns. It came in the shape of cylindrical or spheroid pills, or it came as pure white powder. It killed through the mouth or through the vein. And every time it began to kill it brought in money. And if the money stopped coming before the kill had happened then John or someone like him would go round with their gun bulging inside their jacket.

For Thurley did none of this. He never touched the stuff, never even saw it. He just arranged that such and such a shipment be made, met and paid for. Then he sent it to someone like Jupp who sold it on the ready-made market. Except for a small amount that was kept back for special customers. Customers almost as special as Thurley himself. And someone with rather more style took that to its destination. Possibly someone presentable like John. Or more possibly someone respectable like Martin, someone with the ability to move without suspicion.

‘You seem strangely preoccupied this morning, Mr Mitchell.' Thurley was standing in front of me, offering me a cup of coffee.

I took it and nodded.

‘But you have found Buffy?'

I nodded again, ‘Yes, I've seen her. I can tell you where. Do you have the three hundred?'

‘Really, Mr Mitchell, you do seem rather unnaturally concerned about your fee. I thought such matters were normally settled up at the conclusion of a case. In retrospect as it were.'

I looked at him and still didn't like what I saw; not one inch of fatted flesh, a laundered and scrubbed surface.

‘We're at the conclusion of the case, all right, Mr Thurley. Don't you worry about that.'

He was uncertain. He hadn't even expected to see me again—at least, not alive. As a mention in the newspaper of passing interest, maybe. Something inconvenient to be swept out of the way like an offending piece of dirt that had no rights to life.

He couldn't understand what had gone wrong with the two hoods he had sent round to get rid of me for good. But the fact remained he was playing it well: no chips in the veneer as yet. Perhaps it was time to make some.

This I was about to enjoy;

‘Tell me, Mr Mitchell, only the other day you said you had not achieved anything. Now you say you know where dear Buffy is. How did you manage to move so smartly?'

I sat down. I was going to relax for this one.

‘In my job you have to move smartly. Take this morning for instance. You'll never guess what happened to me at ten minutes past five this morning
… 
?'

I let it hang on the morning air, but that was so flat the water in the ornamental pond didn't crack its face into a smile.

He asked, ‘At ten past five this morning?'

‘At ten past five my house was broken into by two guys with guns who wanted to choke me off. They'd tried before but their arguments weren't persuasive enough, so this time they were told to finish me off period.' I paused long enough for his eyes to drop away from mine and flicker back. ‘That was what you told them, Mr Thurley?'

He looked as if he had been hit full in the face and when he had wiped away the shock he protested.

‘You are either joking in rather poor taste, or else there is something more sinister behind that absurd accusation.'

‘Cut the crap, Thurley. You wanted my nose out of things all along and when I turned up at the scene of one of your prize drops last night that was more than you could take.'

‘Really, Mr Mitchell, I have no idea what would constitute a prize drop as you term it and have no idea where you might have been last night. Nor would I be interested to know. My sole concern with you is that you find my daughter—which you claim to have done. If I wanted you “out of the way”, then why, pray, would I hire you in the first place?'

I stood up. I sensed that we were getting near the climax. And I didn't want to miss the best view.

‘Okay, Thurley. Just listen. You hired me because you half-realised that you wouldn't be able to scare or buy me off, though you kept trying that too. But you thought that if I was working for you that would give you a reason to be near me, so that if I found anything out that looked as if it might endanger your operation you would be in a good position to shut me up. Fast.'

I looked at him. Still not a hair out of place. He stood there looking for all the world like an advertisement for England in an American magazine.

‘You said something about an operation, Mr Mitchell?'

‘A nice clean line in drug peddling, Mr Thurley.'

He was still smiling. He still looked unruffled. The gun that nestled in his hand was small but deadly enough from that range: it was a shiny .32.

I stared down the end of it.

‘I always thought of them as ladies' guns—or are you just being genteel?'

‘Under the new set of circumstances, Mr Mitchell, I think we can dispense with the witty remarks, don't you? Now, before we do anything about your absurd allegations I believe that you have some information about my daughter. I think you should let me have that now.'

I started, my eyes on the finger that rested against the trigger.

‘I saw her last night. You know that I was at a certain party, of course. Well, she was there.'

He didn't believe me and he said so. I told him that I had proof. I reached in my pocket and handed him a number of frames from the film I had taken with me when I left.

He took them and held them up to the morning light. There he was in the garden of his country house, surrounded by all that natural life, staring at tiny pictures of his sixteen-year-old daughter in a blue movie.

His chin drooped, the hand holding the frames faltered, that with the gun moved slightly away from its target. I jumped and the gun went off. I don't know where the bullet went but it didn't hit me. I wrenched the little gun from his grasp and he hardly struggled at all: he was numbed by the images he held in his hand.

‘You asked me if I had found her. Well, there she is. Served up as dessert for the jaded sexual appetites of a group of people half out of their minds on the dope that they got from you in the first place.

‘And why do you think she ended up in that film? I'll tell you why. Because you drove her there. Because you knew she was smoking dope when she was still at home but you thought it was smart not to bother about such trivialities. And when she got on to bigger things she left home and looked for ways of paying for it. She found them all right. Thanks to you. You really were a provident father, weren't you?'

Thurley was a different man; all the starch had wilted, had been washed out of him.

‘Mitchell, you can't believe that I
…'

‘That you knew she was making movies for people to jerk off to? No. I don't think you knew that. But it was the market you were into and it was probably peddled by the same organisation. You were in dirt up to your arsehole, Thurley, and you know it.'

‘What are you going to do?'

‘I'm going to get the money that's coming to me, then I'm going to have a word with your friend, John. Then I'll see.'

He called John from the house, where of course he had been listening all along. I couldn't figure out why he hadn't interfered before, but I guess he was well house-trained. He came out on to the terrace.

‘John, fetch Mr Mitchell the money.'

He disappeared and we stood there, two men with nothing between them but a few torn dreams and a little. 32 with a silvery barrel and a pearl handle. While we were waiting for John to return I thought a lot of things about the gun. From the looks on his face, Thurley was thinking about less pleasant things than even I was.

The moustache reappeared with a package wrapped in plain white paper and tied neatly with string. He had been busy!

I told him to open it on the table and count it. It was all there. Now all I had to do was get out—after I had asked friend John some questions. He was standing across the table and he still hadn't made a move. The .32 was still in my hand and now I pointed it at him.