The Life and Loves of Gringo Greene (26 page)

   Her mouth fell open. Her head shook slowly from side to side. She probably didn’t even know she was doing it.

   ‘Even if I wanted to have dinner with you, Mister Greene, which I don’t, I would not be able to accept your kind invitation, as we are strictly forbidden from fraternising with clients.’

   Gringo grinned. ‘No fraternising with the enemy, eh?’

   ‘I wouldn’t go so far as to describe you as the enemy, Mister Greene.’

   ‘Well that’s a relief.’

   ‘I will be honest with you; I think you have a lot on your plate here. You should be concentrating on that.’

   She made to stand up. Gringo did too.

   ‘No, sit there for a second,’ she said.

   In the next moment she was on his side of the desk, standing behind him.

   ‘I think you need to totally rethink your strategy, Mister Greene,’ and she reached over his shoulder and slipped something into his breast pocket and tapped it softly. He hadn’t seen her pick anything up, and she’d slid it into his jacket with the slight of hand that would have done Mungo the Magician proud. She turned about and opened the door.

   ‘The meeting’s over, Diane,’ she called. ‘Show Mister Greene out.’

   Gringo stood and gathered his things together.

   ‘Thank you for listening,’ he said.

   ‘Oh, I will always listen, Mister Greene, I am a very good listener,’ and with that she smiled demurely and closed the door behind him. Diane beckoned Gringo away down the corridor.

   ‘Clever woman, your boss,’ said Gringo.

   ‘Oh she is, Mister Greene, she is that. Very clever indeed, shooting star they say.’

   A shooting star, eh? No one had ever described Gringo Greene as a shooting star, leastways not that he knew of.   He stopped half way down the corridor. She stopped too, thinking he might have forgotten something.

   ‘Would you care to have dinner with me?’ he asked, peering hopefully into her bright eyes.

   He thought there was a hint of a smile there, as if for a fleeting second she imagined she’d worked her magic on the man again, and then she said, ‘I can’t Mister Greene, we are not allowed to you see, and anyway, my boyfriend, he plays for Tott’numb, and he’d kill me if I went out wiv anyone else, and anyway, you are
far
too old for me, no offence like, but thanks for asking.’

   ‘None taken,’ he mumbled, and they barely spoke again.

On the way back to the car Gringo considered his afternoon. Two dinner invitations issued and both rebuffed. Perhaps he was losing his touch, or was he?

   He tipped the papers onto the back seat and jumped into the front and hurriedly withdrew the card from his breast pocket and read every raised inked word.

HM Customs & Excise

VAT Section.

Ms Julie Cairncross

Senior Investigator

Julie, that was different. He’d never had a Julie. Beneath that were numerous contact numbers, an email address and website, and then almost buried at the very bottom in tiny letters it said: 
After Hours: 246-1549
.

   Then a thought came to him, surely to God VAT inspectors, who, let’s face it, must often be dealing with out and out crooks, did not give out their personal numbers to their victims. That didn’t make any sense at all. But there it was:
After Hours: 246-1549.
Gringo grinned. He couldn’t wait for
after hours
to arrive. He couldn’t wait to try that number. In the meantime he would have to mosey on back to the office and call Messrs Soloman and Streeter, for he had some sweet words to share with those two fine gentlemen, and he didn’t care one jot if they were his bosses or not.

As it turned out Soloman and Streeter were both engaged in vital meetings and were not to be disturbed under any circumstances; in other words, they were refusing to take his calls. If they hadn’t done so by tomorrow night he might award himself the day off, he might jump in the car and drive to Reading, and he just might vent his anger on their faces.

   Rebecca almost jumped into his office and sat on his desk and crossed her pink-corded legs.

   ‘Hi Gringo, man,’ she flirted, ‘how are you today?’

   Gringo pointed to the door.

   ‘Close the door and sit in the chair!’

   She jumped to the door and closed it; still not realising he was in no mood for frivolity, but when she glanced back at his face she knew different.

   ‘When you come to my office you don’t sit on my desk, understand? You sit in the chair, and only if I ask you.’

   ‘Yes Gringo,’ she pouted. ‘What’s the matter with you today?’

   He pointed into her face. ‘And you
don’t
ring me at home, ever again!’

   ‘It was only a bit of a laugh.’

   ‘Ringing at half two in the morning is not a bit of a laugh!’

   ‘Eh?’

   ‘You know what I’m talking about!’

   ‘I swear, Gringo, I’ve never rung you in the middle of the night. Never. Why would I? The only time I ever rang you weren’t in.’

   ‘Are you sure?’

   ‘Positive.’

   ‘All right, Becky, but don’t ring me at home again, now be on your way and get some work done.’

   The girl exhaled through rumbling lips and for a moment Gringo thought she might burst into tears. She tugged the door open and stormed through the general office.

   Gringo hadn’t closed the blinds.

   Melanie could see something of the heated conversation going on before her, though she couldn’t hear a word, and as Rebecca stormed past her, Mel said: ‘What’s going on, Becky?’

   ‘Don’t ask me! Gringo’s gone bloody mental!’   

It was half past six when he arrived home. He was greeted by a huge pile of mail, pushing against the inside of the door. He’d been thinking of taking a holiday, somewhere hot and far away, and had made the mistake of signing up for some brochures. They’d become a torrent, more than a dozen fat catalogues that day alone, all boasting of better climes and scantily clad creatures.

   He tossed the heavy load onto the worktop and it was only then he saw the slim airmail envelope peeping out from between Cyprus and New Zealand. He glanced at it again to make sure he wasn’t seeing things, then snapped it up.

   The letter was postmarked New York and dated five days before. His name and address had been neatly written in green ink, that unmistakeable hand that he would recognise anywhere. His heart skipped a beat. He tore the envelope open and dragged out the contents.

   It was a large single sheet of paper, lined, narrow lines, lots of tiny torn holes on the left hand side, but to hell with that. His eyes went into overdrive.

Dear Gringo,

I was very surprised to receive your letter. Where on earth did you get my address? – but we both know the answer to that, don’t we. That woman could never be trusted with anything, but it will do you no good.

   Harry and I are now living together as man and wife. He’s a wonderful man and I am hoping to stay here for good. If he were to ask me to marry him I would jump at the chance.    

   You asked if I could ever forgive you, Gringo, but I don’t think I will ever be able to do that. I worked very hard for you and you didn’t even turn up to my leaving do. That was unforgivable. Sorry Gringo, but there we are.

   Please don’t write again.

   Lots of love,

   Glen

   XXX

   Gringo cursed and set the letter down. He half expected something of a telling off, but not this. Not such a cold slap in the face. What should he do now? There was only one thing he could do, he would write to her again. He read the letter one more time, searching for any crumb of comfort, but there was none to be found, none that he could detect even between the lines, and yet maybe there was, right at the very end.

  
Lots of love, Glen, XXX
.

   Why would anyone write such a cold letter and then end it with love and kisses? Perhaps it was a slip of the pen. Perhaps it was just the automatic way she always ended letters, as one always starts them with
Dear So and So,
even a letter to a murderer would be started with
Dear Murderer
, wouldn’t it?

  
It wasn’t much, but it was all he had.

   He thought of Ed again. If only he were here, he would know what to do. Eddie Wishaw, his former running mate.

   They’d met when they were both nineteen and had immediately formed a cast iron bond. Perhaps it was because they were so opposite, little slight Eddie with his cute face, bright blue eyes, and perfect blond hair. A puff of wind would have dispatched him to Siberia, but that didn’t stop the girls flocking to him like bees to delphiniums. The funny thing was he attracted an entirely different crowd of girls to the women who went for Gringo. That worked out fine, for there was never any serious jealousy or rivalry between them, not once in the six brief years they knew one another.

   They would go out on the prowl together, seeking new conquests, and would rarely come home alone. Afterwards they would compare notes as if it were the most important thing in their lives, which at that time, it was. What strategies had been a success, and which had failed, how far they’d managed to get, where they’d ended up, and plenty more intelligence to do with girls, and women, especially if one of them had hooked an older woman, who might have taught them a few new tricks.

  They were constantly on the look out for the new deal, something with which to impress the girls, anything fresh and exciting; anything the birds would never have heard of before, or felt before, or seen before, or experienced before. Little tricks to give them an edge over their competitors, when in truth, few rival firms could match Eddie and Kevin, as he still was back then.

   What would you do now, Ed? said Gringo aloud, as he sat alone in the kitchen.

  
Charm, my son, charm, that’s what you need to give it, loads of charm and flattery. No woman I have ever known has ever been able to resist a dose of the old C and F, turn on the charm, chuck in a bit of flattery, and you are home and dry, and while you are about it, don’t be afraid to use the L word either, because at the end of the day that’s what every woman really wants to hear, the L word. Chuck that in too, anything that gives you an edge, mate, and the world is your oyster. Oh, and one other thing, you can’t go wrong with a big bouquet of flowers, and preferably not from the supermarket, and never from a petrol station. Women adore flowers, even if they suffer from hay fever, it isn’t the flowers themselves, it’s the associated meaning.

   It was almost as if Eddie was there now, so clear was his southern voice, divvying up his precious advice.

   Fact was; Gringo had never used the L word, not in anger, not really meaning it. True, he’d answered the age old question
Do you love me, Gringo?
in the affirmative countless times, and had written Valentine cards by the hundred ending with:
Love you loads
, but in all of his life he’d never used the L word as it was meant to be used. How could he? Gringo Greene had never been in love. He didn’t know what it meant.

One Friday night shortly after Eddie’s twenty-fifth birthday they went out for an early drink, prior to going girl hunting. Gringo had bought two halves of lager and before either of them could take a sip Eddie had said: ‘There’s something wrong with me knackers, mate.’

   ‘Dose of clap, is it?’

   ‘No, no, much worse than that. The doc says I’ll have to have an operation, chop one of the old fellas off. This is serious.’

   The following week Eddie went into the General and had an operation. They opened him up to take a good look inside to see how far it had gone, and when they did, they couldn’t believe what they saw, and promptly closed him up again, still in shock.

   Three weeks later, Eddie was dead.

   The doctors said they had been amazed that he hadn’t been in severe pain, agony; that he had still gone about his urgent business, as any normal driven man might have done.