Authors: Colin Bateman
'Special
order? Okay. Gimme that number.'
I
gave him the number. He said he needed five minutes, could I hold on? I said
no, I'd call back.
During
the five minutes, the only word exchanged between Alison and me was
'Cheapskate.' She was the one who said it. There were a thousand words I could
have fired back. She wouldn't have understood the half of them. Instead, I gave
her the fingers. She gave them back.
She
was the mother of my child. For now.
I
called Joe. He said, 'How I know you are who you say you are?'
I
said, 'Well, you don't. Except I am, and I will swear to that on my mother's
grave.'
'Shit,
how I know she ain't still alive?'
'Well,
you don't. But I wouldn't lie about my mother; you Mexicans can relate to
that.'
Alison
rolled her eyes at me. I rolled them back. She reached across and put us on
speakerphone.
Joe
said,
'You Mexicans
? What the fuck are you, Scottish?'
'Aye.'
'You
Mexicans.
You got no jurisdiction here, I don't got to tell you nothing
about Buddy Wailer!'
'Buddy
Wailer?'
'That's
right, you heard, way over there in Scotland, in your stupid-ass kilts. Buddy
Wailer, you don't want to get involved with Buddy Wailer.' 'Joe, listen to me.'
'I
ain't Joe.'
'Well
listen to me, Manuel Gerardo Ramiro Alfonzo Aurelio Enrique Zapata
Quetzalcoatl.'
'How'd
you do that?'
'Do
what?'
'Remember
my name. Nobody remember my name.'
'Names
are important. It's my job, Manuel.'
There
was static on the line for half a minute. No, that's a lie, with digital lines
there isn't really static. There was nothing for thirty seconds. Then he said:
'Okay, what you want to know?'
'This
Buddy Wailer? He bought the V-cut?'
'He a
collector, he a regular here. Sure, I order for him.'
'What
can you tell me about him?'
There
was another long pause. Longer.
'Manuel?'
'I
tell you this about Buddy Wailer, and this all. He tall, real tall. He thin,
real thin. He never say much, he nice to me, but my friend, one time my friend,
works in the hotel, was in Buddy Wailer's room, delivers something, towels
maybe. Buddy not in the room, he leaves them in the bathroom, he come out, sees
like gift box, hatbox, on the bed. My friend, he curious, high-roller room,
what this guy Buddy got in the box, 'spensive gift for some girl? He open the
box. You know what in the box?'
'No.
What?'
'A
head. A head in the box. My man, he scream, and he get outta there, and he tell
no one, no one but me, and not till he drunk.'
'Why
didn't he inform the ...?’
"Cos
he scared. He tell the police, maybe he get to be hero for half an hour, and
then they send him back cross the border or worse, plus he scared shitless Buddy
Wailer come lookin' for him, and next thing,
his
head in a box. Me? I
curious. I talk to people, I ask the questions, this guy with a head in the
box, and I find out he does whacks, that's what he does, he does whacks and he
thinks it funny to keep their heads in a gift box. That sick? Or that scary?
Buddy Wailer, tall, thin, head in a box Buddy Wailer, he creep me out. He does
whacks, that's what he do, his job, he whacks people and that scares the crap
outta me.'
Manuel
Gerardo Ramiro Alfonzo Aurelio Enrique Zapata Quetzalcoatl hung up.
I
looked at Alison, and she looked at me, and in a rare moment of unity we said,
'Fuck!' together.
'Well,'
I said, 'that's the end of that case.'
'Absolutely,'
said Alison.
'I'm
never even thinking about Augustine Wogan again.'
'And
I don't give a ripe fig if Arabella is pushing up daisies or taking it up the
arse from some toyboy in Rio.'
'I
don't care if I never see Pearl Knecklass's ample bosoms again.'
'Sugar
tits can bugger off.'
'I'm quite
happy selling my books. There's not a big living in it, but there's enough for
me and my family.'
'And
I'll still bring in a little extra from the jewellery, though I do intend to be
a full-time mum. I can work from home, I can do like costume jewellery parties.
It doesn't have to be jewellery either. It can be Avon or Kleeneze or sex aids.
On the whole I prefer sex aids. Metaphorically speaking.'
We
leant on the counter, facing each other.
'Whacks,'
I said.
'Whacks,'
she said.
'Soon
as he said whacks, I knew it was over, we don't need that.'
'Not
with little Orinoco on the way.'
'Not
with little Bulgaria on the way.'
'Not
with little Tobermory on the way.'
'Not
with little Bungo on the way.'
'Not with
little Wellington on the way.'
Alison's
eyes narrowed. So did mine.
She
said, 'Are you done?'
'Nope.'
'You
are done. You're bluffing.'
'You
forget, I have total recall.'
'Why
are we talking Wombles when we should be talking whacks?'
'Because
I'd rather talk Wombles than whacks. No one was ever killed by a Womble, though
they did murder a few songs.'
'Madame
Cholet,' said Alison, raising her fist triumphantly.
'Madame
Cholet,' I agreed. 'And also?'
'There
is no other.'
'Tomsk,'
I said.
'Damn,
you're good. When civilisation crumbles and anarchy prevails, your knowledge of
1970s children's television programmes will surely see us through.'
'Was
there a television version? I was talking about the books by Elisabeth
Beresford. The first one appeared in 1968 and subsequently—'
'Let's
get back to the whacks, and what we're going to do. This is serious.'
'Of
course it's serious. But I thought we'd decided what we were going to do.'
'No,
we discussed it, we didn't decide. I'm not sure if we
can
just drop it.
I don't know why anyone would ever need a can of worms - maybe it has something
to do with fishing - but we seem to have opened it. They, whoever
they
are, must know that we've been looking into this, which would appear to me to
make us fair game if they're still in the market for whacks. And maybe we
should stop saying whacks.'
'What
would you prefer? Execute? Assassinate? Just plain murder is as good as any. We
need to walk away. We don't need this. We need to let them know that we've
dropped it.'
'So
how do we do that, an advert in
Whack Weekly?'
'We
let it be known. I slip it to Pearl.'
'Metaphorically
speaking.'
'Sorry?'
'Never
mind. What if it's not Pearl?'
'Then
we tell Dr Yes himself.'
'And
how do you do that without getting us deeper in the shit? He'll be worried that
we know something and are just holding off, intending to blackmail him later.
He might still say, let's play safe and whack them. He'll phone up Buddy Wailer
in Vegas and say, I have another job for you, those pesky amateur detectives
need whacked.'
'I
wouldn't say we were amateur.'
'You
wouldn't? I don't mean amateur as in crap, I mean amateur as in it isn't our
primary way of making a living. We're like Nick and Nora Charles.'
I
looked at her. I beamed. 'You know Nick and Nora?'
'Doesn't
everyone?'
'No,
my dear, everyone doesn't.'
'We
are
meant for each other. We could call him Asta.'
'A dog
name rather than a Womble name? I think you might have stumbled on to
something. Ah,
The Thin Man.
When crime was crime, and the killer just
killed people; he didn't worry about making a suit out of their skin.'
'Simpler
times,' agreed Alison.
'Except
who said Buddy was in Vegas? Who says he's not down the road bunked up in a
hotel, waiting for orders? It's only a couple of days since Augustine was
offed. Maybe Vegas is too hot for him anyway; maybe he's moved over to this
side of the Atlantic. Maybe the exchange rate is better.
Certainly
the
exchange rate is better. There's no VAT on books, and there's certainly none on
murder.'
I
sighed. I rubbed at my head. I had the beginnings of a migraine. I'd had the
beginnings of a migraine since 1973. Sometimes it developed. Sometimes it
didn't. It could go one way. Or it could go the other. Stress didn't help, but
I lived in a perpetual state of it. Mostly it was caused by the state of the
independent bookshop business. Then it was the internet. Lately it had been
downloads. Buddy Wailer was added stress. I didn't need it. I couldn't do
anything about piratical downloads, but I could do something about Buddy
Wailer.
We
drummed our respective fingers.
Alison
said, 'You know what we're coming to?'
'Pretty
much.'
'Far
from walking away from this, we need to walk towards it, and quicker.'
'We
need to solve it before it solves us.'
'We
need to find Buddy Wailer, connect him to Dr Yes, and connect Dr Yes to
Augustine, and all before Buddy Wailer whacks us.'
'We
don't know that he's looking for us.'
'We
don't know that he isn't.'
We
nodded.
'No
time to waste,' I said.
'I'm
on flexi. I'm all yours. You have a plan?'
'I
have a plan.'
'Do
you want to put it up before the committee?'
'Nope.'
'Good.
I like a man who knows what he's doing.'
'Uhuh.'
'Uhuh
what?'
'I'm
waiting for something sarcastic. Or caustic. Like, I like a man who knows what
he's doing, and when I meet him I'll let you know.'
'You
have a very low opinion of me.' 'And vice versa.'
We
sneered. But there was a hidden smile behind them.
'We're
a perfect match,' said Alison. 'Lead on, Nick.'
'After
you, Nora.'
'Where
are we going?' she asked.
'Starbucks
is as good a place to start as any.'
'Thought
so.'
Halfway
up the road I said, 'I'm not naming our baby after a dog.'
'Damn
right,' said Alison.
The
plan wasn't a hugely complicated one. The Mystery Machine, the No Alibis van,
with its chalk outline of a body on the side and
Murder is Our Business
to go with it, was hardly appropriate for staking out the premises of Liam
Benson,
freelance photographer - news, corporate and public relations.
We were instead settled in Alison's red Volkswagon Beetle. Liam had a smallish
office on the corner of a newly built unit in a business park in the Titanic
Quarter. Belfast had about sixteen of these quarters, which was good for the
city but bad for anyone still grappling with the fundamental basics of maths.