Reflex (27 page)

He looked sick.

“Secondly,” I said, “I'll see that it gets known all over the place that people would be unwise to ask you to their parties, despite your little goodies, because they might at any time be raided. Unlawful possession of certain drugs is still an offense, I believe.”

“You . . . you . . .”

I nodded. He couldn't find a word bad enough.

“I know where you go, to whose houses. Everyone talks. I've been told. A word in the ear of the drugs squad and you'd be the least welcome guest in Britain.”

“I . . . I . . .”

“Yes, I know,” I said. “Going to these places is what makes your life worth living. I don't ask you not to go. I don't ask you to stop your gifts. Just to tell me where the heroin comes from. Not the cocaine, not the marijuana, just the heroin. Just the deadly one.”

The faintest of crafty looks crept in around his anguished eyes.

“And don't,” I said, watching for it, “think you get away with any old lie. You may as well know that what you tell me will go to the drugs squad. Don't worry, buy such a roundabout route that no one will ever connect it with you. But your present supplier may very likely be put out of business. If that happens, you'll be safe from me.”

He trembled as if his legs would give way.

“Mind you,” I said judiciously, “with one supplier out of business, you might have to look around for another. In a year or so, I might ask you his name.”

His face was sweating and full of disbelief. “You mean it will go on . . . and on . . .”

“That's right.”

“But you
can't
.”

“I think you killed George Millace. You certainly tried to kill me. You very nearly killed my friend. Why should you think I shouldn't want retribution?”

He stared.

“I ask very little,” I said. “A few words written down . . . now and then.”

“Not in my writing,” he said, appalled.

“Certainly, in your writing,” I said matter-of-factly. “To get the spelling right, and so on. But don't worry, you'll be safe. I promise you no one will ever find out where the tip-offs come from. No one will ever know they come via me. Neither my name nor yours will ever be mentioned.”

“You . . . you're
sure
?”

“Sure.”

I produced a small notebook and fiber-tipped pen. “Write now,” I said. “Your supplier.”

“Not
now
,” he said, wavering.

“Why not?” I said calmly. “May as well get it over. Sit down.”

He sat by one of his glass and chrome coffee tables, looking totally dazed. He wrote a name and address on the notepad.

“And sign it,” I said casually.

“Sign . . .”

“Of course. Just your name.”

He wrote:
Lance Kinship
. And then, underneath, with a flourish, added
Film Director
.

“That's great,” I said, without emphasis. I picked up the pad, reading what he'd written. A foreign name. An address in London. One tentacle under the axe.

I stored away in a pocket the small document that would make him sweat next year . . . and the next, and the next. The document that I would photograph, and keep safe.

“That's all?” he said numbly.

I nodded. “All for now.”

He didn't stand up when I left him. Just sat on his black lacquer chair in his T-shirt and white trousers, stunned into silence, staring at space.

He'd recover his bumptiousness, I thought. Phonies always did.

 

I went out to where Clare and Jeremy were still waiting, and paused briefly in the winter air before getting into the car.

Most people's lives, I thought, weren't a matter of world affairs, but of the problems right beside them. Not concerned portentously with saving mankind, but with creating local order: in small checks and balances.

Neither my life nor George Millace's would ever sway in the fate of nations, but our actions could change the lives of individuals; and they had done that.

The dislike I'd felt for him alive was irrelevant to the intimacy I felt with him dead. I knew his mind, his intentions, his beliefs. I'd solved his puzzles. I'd fired his guns.

I got into the car.

“Everything all right?” Clare asked.

“Yes,” I said.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

 

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