Jack Carter's Law (28 page)

“What you should never do,” I tell him, “is do deals with villains. They just can’t be trusted. You take my word for it.”

Hume clenches his fist and hits himself on the forehead, just twice.

“Those cunts,” he says. “Those fucking bastards.”

“You really should have smelt it,” I tell him. “I mean, a bird like that. A place like that. A man of your experience.”

“Those fucking chancers. I had it made. With what Jimmy was going to put out I could have had twenty of you in the fucking dock. I’d have had more space than Reid.”

“Yes, well, don’t be like that. Look at it this way: I’m saving you a lot of bother. Instead of Walter having the snaps, we’ve got them. And me and Gerald and Les are much more reasonable to deal with than Walter. We wouldn’t use them as a lever the way Walter would have. I mean, we’ll
never
use them. We’re much too nice for that.”

There is silence for a while.

“All right,” Hume says. “Tell me.”

“You know what I want. And Jimmy apart, there are some events that have happened during the last twenty-four hours that you’ll be laying at the door of the Colemans and one or two other people you won’t find it hard to fit up. I mean, fitting people up is no new game to you, is it?”

“And if I tell you where to find Jimmy?”

“We’ll smack his hands for him, won’t we?”

“He’s guarded day and night.”

“ ’Course he is.”

“You’ll never manage it.”

“Don’t you worry about that. Think of all the other things you’ve got to worry about. Like what would happen if the pictures went to the Commissioner and the press. Think of all the fun you’d have thinking up your explanation.”

“What about the Colemans? If I try to pull them they’ll blow the whistle on me.”

I shake my head.

“This time tomorrow they won’t be in a position to blow the whistle on anybody. Ask Eddie. And so anything that happens from now on you can put down to them.”

There is another silence.

After a while Hume says, “Jesus Christ.”

And then, after he’s said that, he begins to tell me what I want to know.

--

Jimmy

W
HEN
I
GET BACK
to the flat Peter is lying on the chaise longue reading a copy of
Vogue
. Mallory is on the other side of the screen sitting bolt upright on one of the Swedish chairs, his briefcase lying neatly on his lap. As I appear in the doorway Peter drops the magazine and sits up but Mallory stays the way he is, motionless, vacant.

“What happened?” Peter says.

I walk through the lounge and open the bedroom door. Lesley is now in bed, propped up with two pillows at her back. Con has wound a damp towel round her head and has cleaned up Lesley’s mouth and he is now sitting on the edge of the bed, talking to her. They are both smoking and although Lesley’s face isn’t going to be straight for the next three weeks and in the meantime she’s going to need a good dentist, she’s better than she seemed earlier, both physically and mentally. Con looks up immediately I appear in the doorway and then I have both him and Peter asking me what happened with Hume. I turn away and push past Peter and pick up Eddie’s black case from the tabletop and take it into the bedroom and motion for Con to get off the bed, and then for both him and Peter to go out of the room while I talk to Lesley. When they’ve closed the door behind them I sit down on the bed and put the case between Lesley and me and open up the lid. She looks at the money but it doesn’t seem to do an awful lot to brighten up her expression.

I light a cigarette and I say, “It isn’t that I think there’s any danger of you going to the law, but there’s one or two things I want to tell you, just in case. First, I know you only know what you were asked to do. Why should you know any more? You were fixed to set Hume up and you were paid for it. But what you will realise is that having done what you’ve done, you won’t be all that popular if you go in to see them with your story. But by the same token, things having worked out a certain way, nobody’ll be coming to see you either. From any direction.” She doesn’t say anything. She’s stopped staring at the money and now she’s looking at me but her expression is still the same.

“And if nothing I’ve just said does anything for you, there’s twenty thousand Christmas presents in the case that for a start will buy you a little sunshine to convalesce in.”

She doesn’t say anything for a minute or two. We carry on looking at each other.

Then she says, “I might prefer chancing the law. Seeing you and those others done might make me get well sooner.”

Her voice is without expression and because of what’s happened to her mouth she sounds like a different person.

“But we won’t, not now. That’s the point. You’d be turning the money down for nothing.”

“Only on your say-so.”

I shrug.

“And if you’re telling me the truth, why the money? You don’t need to do that.”

“Walter didn’t need to set up Hume. But he did. Everybody likes a little insurance.”

“I could take the money and still drop you in it.”

“Well, look at it this way,” I tell her. “If you did, we’d know you were the only person who could.”

An expression of remembered pain pulls briefly at her features. She doesn’t say anything else after that.

I get up off the bed and stub out my cigarette in the ashtray on the bedside table and walk out into the lounge and close the door behind me. Con and Peter are standing there with their mouths open, like when West Germany knocked England out of the World Cup in Mexico. I go to the dresser and pour myself a drink.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Con says. “What’s happening?”

“We’re going to wish Jimmy Swann a Merry Christmas,” I say. “But first we’ve got to pick up one or two things along the way.”

I put my drink down by the telephone and before they can start asking the whys and wherefores I’ve got Sammy Hale on the phone and at first, until he’s convinced who’s calling, he’s understandably cagey, which is one of the things he’s paid to be. I tell him what we want and that we’ll be over inside the hour to pick the stuff up and he tells me it’ll be ready. I put the phone down and the gabble starts again but I quieten them down by telling them I’ll explain in the car. Then I put my hand on Mallory’s
shoulder and shake him out of his trance and tell him that it’s time to go. Mallory raises his head and looks into my face as if that helps him to understand what I’m saying to him. Eventually he rises and I shepherd him across the lounge and out of the flat and Con and Peter follow and we go down the stairs and out into the street. I tell Peter where I’m parked and to go and get Lesley’s Mini and follow us to Sammy’s. This brings more abuse from Peter but I remind him of our earlier conversations and he goes off to get the Mini while Mallory and Con and I walk down to where the other car is parked. Con and Mallory get in the back and I get in the driver’s seat and switch on the engine and we wait for Lesley’s Mini to appear. I look at my watch. The atmosphere in the car is thick with Mallory’s fear. It’s like waiting for a drip of water to fall from the mouth of a tap; any second I expect Mallory to blow it, for the words to come streaming out, but they don’t, not until the very last minute, when I see the flashing of Peter’s headlights in my driving mirror, and then it all comes out, a stream of consciousness as inventive as the “One-Note Samba,” running together into one long plea for his life. I tell him to shut up and pull away from the curb but he doesn’t stop and for the next five minutes we’re treated to descriptions of Mallory’s wife and children and their lives without him, when of course Mallory is only thinking of his life without himself.

After a while I can’t stand it any longer so I pull in to the curb and say to Con, “All right. Let the cunt out.”

Mallory stops in midstream.

“You what?” Con says.

“Let him out.”

“You’re joking.”

“All right, I’m joking. So let him out.”

In the driving mirror I see the lights of the Mini as Peter pulls in behind us. Con begins to speak again but I cut him short.

“So what can he do? Go to the law?”

Con digests that and then leans across Mallory and opens the nearside door. The door swings open but Mallory doesn’t move. In the mirror I can see Peter get out of the Mini and walk along the pavement towards us.

Still Mallory remains where he is so I turn round in my seat and I say to him, “Look, just get out of it, will you? If Gerald and Les want you put down I’ll come looking for you in the New Year. Until then it’s up to you. So just piss off, will you, before I start remembering how this whole fucking shambles started.”

Peter appears at the open door and bends down and sticks his head inside the car.

“You’re not doing it here?” he says.

“Piss off,” I say.

“He’s letting him go,” Con says.

“What?” Peter says.

I look at Peter. Peter steps back and straightens up.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he says.

“Out,” I say to Mallory.

Mallory suddenly jerks to life and slithers out of the car. Peter braces him and then feints like a striker trying to sell a defender a dummy and Mallory falls back against the car and rolls against it a couple of times, his briefcase banging on the roof and then he manages to coordinate his legs and takes off down the street, the snow lending an odd softness to the fury of his retreating footsteps.

Peter mentions Jesus again and spits into the snow and turns away and walks back to the Mini. Con slams the door and I pull away from the curb and drive off down the street. We pass Mallory on the way, oblivious of the car, sprinting through the falling snow, focusing only on the unexpected years he now has in front of him.

Ten minutes later we’re in Hammersmith. I park outside Sammy’s place. Con and I get out of the car and go up the steps and ring the doorbell. Almost immediately Sammy opens the door and just as quickly closes it behind us. We negotiate the pram and bicycle in the hall and Sammy ushers us into his flat. Rachmann would have loved it, but Sammy prefers money to wallpaper. His fat wife is watching the colour telly, the only visible proof of the money he’s being paid. As for the rest of the flat, it’s the kind of place you try very hard not to notice while you’re in it and to forget after you’ve gone. Sammy indicates the table. A dirty tablecloth is draped over the objects that Sammy has laid out for us before we’ve arrived, only underneath we’re not going to find a nicely set out tea party. The doorbell rings and I tell Sammy to go and let Peter in. Sammy’s old lady takes no notice of us and carries on watching the telly. She doesn’t even move when, from behind the concertinaed paneling that divides the flat into two, comes the sound of a crying baby.

I peel back the tablecloth. Con and I look at the stuff that Sammy has laid out for us and while we’re doing that Peter comes into the room and pushes between us and has a look at the tabletop. A great smile spreads over his face.

“Oh, favourite,” he says. “Fucking favourite.”

I stand to one side so he can get a better view and as I do that I notice that Peter is carrying a shiny black case, a case that I last saw twenty minutes ago, lying on Lesley’s bed. Con happens to catch my eye and follows my line of vision to what I’m looking at. Then he looks back at me and closes his eyes and shakes his head. But Peter only has eyes for what’s on the tabletop.

“Oh, yes,” he says. “The fucking berries, that’s what this is. The fucking berries.”

He puts the case down and reaches over the table and picks up the rifle with the telescopic sights and starts
handling it as though he’s playing with himself. I pick up the case and open it and close it again. The twenty thousand is still there. The baby is still crying and Sammy’s old lady is still doing nothing about it.

Con has opened his eyes again and I stare into them and then I say to Peter, “Tell me about it.”

Peter is still drooling over the rifle.

“What?” he says, not really having heard me.

I tap the case. “Tell me about this.”

Peter glances at the case.