Two-Way Split (26 page)

 They walked towards the bar across an uneven flagstone floor.

"Is he here?" Pearce asked. The place was beginning to fill up, the lunchtime crowd arriving in force. None of the few solitary drinkers looked like his vision of an arms dealer. Or, to be precise, an arms dealer's lieutenant.

"Patience," Ailsa said.

He shrugged. When they reached the bar, he placed his elbows on the counter. "You want a drink?"

She held up her hands and pushed her palms through a ribbon of smoke. "Let me handle this."

Two barmen and a barmaid looked busy behind the counter. A couple of minutes passed. The girl was first over. White blouse. Tartan skirt. Striped tie. Hair in pigtails. She said, "Can I get you?"

Ailsa said, "We're here to see Joe-Bob."

"Nice." She was chewing gum. "Can I get you?"

"Can you let him know we're here?"

She placed her hands on her hips and strolled over to one of the barmen and whispered in his ear. After a while, he came over. He said, "Can I get you?"

Ailsa repeated what she'd told the girl.

He said, "And you are?"

"Ailsa."

"Right. And your friend?"

"Pearce." Pearce held out his hand.

The barman looked at it, then held out his own. "Roy," he said, squeezing Pearce's fingers. He leaned over. "Follow me. Joe-Bob's waiting for you."

Roy led them through an arched doorway into a wide corridor. Laminated plastic signs indicated that toilets were straight ahead. Roy turned left. He ducked under another arch and stepped into a cramped space. Benches lined opposite walls, with only a couple of feet between them. The ceiling was low enough to force Pearce to keep his neck bent. He got a good view of the seven or eight flattened cigarette butts littering the floor. Somebody had been kept waiting. Roy fished in his waistcoat pocket, found a key and unlocked a door marked
Private.
One after the other, they stepped into a small, square, unfurnished room with a dark blue curtain draped along one wall. The other walls were white and bare. Roy pulled the curtain to one side and revealed a brass-studded oak door. He rapped on it.

While he waited for an answer, he said, "Just out of interest, I don't suppose either of you would be interested in buying a live lobster?"

"Not for me." Pearce looked at Ailsa. "How about you?"

She thought for a second. "Nope."

Pearce said, "What kind of a question is that, Roy?"

Roy said, "Mate of mine's got a couple of dozen lobsters he's trying to shift. Said I'd ask around."

The door opened inwards.

A man's head appeared. Shaved at the sides, a two-inch wide strip of dyed red hair running down the middle. A Mohican minus the spikes.  His face had the well-fed look of a chipmunk and his stomach spilled out over his belt. He was breathing hard. Climbing the stairs had knocked the wind out of him.  He took a handkerchief out of his shirt pocket and wiped his forehead. He said, "Ailsa," and smiled.

"Joe-Bob." She smiled back and stepped through the doorway into his arms. They hugged and pecked each other on the cheek. Ailsa said, "I like the Mohawk." Roy beckoned to Pearce that he was leaving them. Probably off to check on his lobsters. Pearce nodded.

Ailsa pulled away from Joe-Bob's embrace and said, "Joe-Bob. This is Pearce. Pearce. Joe-Bob."

Joe-Bob's fingers dipped once again into his pocket and surfaced with the handkerchief. He mopped his head, transferred the handkerchief to his left hand, and extended his right. "Any friend of Ailsa's," he said.

The correct response was, "Likewise." Pearce said, "Cut the crap, Blowjob. You got the ammo?"

"I see," Joe-Bob said, withdrawing his offer of a handshake. He dabbed at either side of the red strip of hair on his otherwise bald head "I see. Would you close the door, please?" He turned and began to walk downstairs, planting each foot securely before daring to shift his considerable weight.

Ailsa followed Joe-Bob. Pearce brought up the rear, quietly humming "Stand By Your Man." He began to see why Joe-Bob's progress was so slow. It wasn't the fact that he was a fat bastard. The steps were worn and narrow and weren't designed to accommodate Pearce's steel toe-capped work boots. Even with his feet placed sideways, the rim of his boots hung well over the edge. He couldn't help thinking that this would be a good place for an ambush.

"Is all this subterranean shit necessary?" he shouted downstairs.

Joe-Bob's voice floated up to him. "I was in prison once. Never again."

"Thought you'd have liked it. All those naked men."

"Pearce. Christ. Sorry, Joe-Bob. My friend has a thing about drug dealers."

Joe-Bob said, "I'm not a drug dealer."

Pearce made it to the foot of the stairs and looked around. A fold-up chair sat in front of a trestle table. On the table sat a half-full cafetiere, a mug, a saucer with two chocolate biscuits resting on it, a pearl-handled gun, and a light-blue box with orange and green borders. Behind the table, half-a-dozen more chairs were stacked against the wall.

Joe-Bob sat down and picked up the gun. "Help yourselves to a seat," he said.

"I'll stand," Pearce said.

"I see." Joe-Bob waved the gun at Ailsa. She flapped her fingers at him and gave a little shake of her head. "You going to kill somebody, Pearce?" Joe-Bob asked.

"None of your business."

"Fair enough. Ailsa said you wanted bullets for her Tokarov pistol. There they are." He pointed to the box on the table. "Hope you know what you're doing."

Pearce stepped forward and picked up the box. It said 50 naboju/cartridges. Bullet/Strela. Type FMJ. 7,62X25 Tokarov.

"Nice gun," Joe-Bob said. "You know the Tokarov's a dangerous weapon?"

"It's a gun. It fires bullets. Of course it's dangerous."

"I don't mean that. It doesn't have a safety. You have to half-cock it."

"Speak English."

"You got the gun with you? I'll show you." Joe-Bob laid his own gun on the table.

Pearce reached behind his back and extracted the Tokarov from his trouser belt. He hesitated for a second. Joe-Bob already had a gun. If he wanted to shoot Pearce he could have done so by now. Pearce handed over the Tokarov.

Joe-Bob demonstrated. "That's the slide and trigger locked. See?"

Pearce nodded. "And when I want to fire it?"

Joe-Bob showed him.

Pearce nodded again. "Okay. Load it for me."

Joe-Bob sighed. "Your mum never teach you any manners?"

Anger ballooned inside Pearce. He banged his fist on the table. The saucer rattled and Joe-Bob's pearl-handled gun spun a couple of inches anticlockwise.

Ailsa grabbed Pearce's arm. "Don't." Coffee sloshed from side to side in Joe-Bob's mug.

Joe-Bob said, "I'm loading it, for crying out loud." He popped the clip, opened the box and started shoving bullets into the clip.

"You okay?" Ailsa asked Pearce. He nodded and she let go of his arm.

"You got eight rounds," Joe-Bob said. The bullets clicked in place.

"More than enough," Pearce said.

Joe-Bob pushed the last bullet home and slid the clip back in the gun. "Happy killing." He offered Pearce the gun.

Pearce reached out his hand.

Joe-Bob snatched the gun away. "Money, first," he said.

Pearce dug in his pocket and dropped a pile of notes on the table. "That enough?"

"If you weren't Ailsa's friend," Joe-Bob said, running a hand along his single strip of hair, "I'd take exception to your attitude."

"Gee," Pearce said. "I don't think I'll sleep tonight."

Joe-Bob picked up the notes and started counting. He dropped two tenners on the table and put the rest of the cash in his jacket pocket. "Get out of here," he said.

Ailsa said, "Thanks, Joe-Bob." She turned to go. Pearce followed her.

Joe-Bob said, "The money on the table's yours."

Pearce didn't look behind him. He said, "That's your tip, Cowboy."

1:30 pm

Since arriving back home, Hilda Pearce's stink had faded. When Robin held his face in his hands, it was Carol's White Musk he smelled. He shivered as he got off his bed, feet crunching broken glass. The pictures he'd destroyed earlier were strewn across the floor. He walked through the debris to his sitting room and banged on the wall with his fist. No good. The rumble of gunfire continued. Maybe he should go next door and kill the deaf old bastard. "Turn it down," he yelled.

Stuffed with money, the holdall lay on the table. Robin kept telling himself that having all that money was a good thing, but it didn't seem to matter. He didn't care any more.

Banging on the wall made no impression. He kicked the skirting board and a black scuffmark appeared on the white paintwork. He shouted, "Turn the damn bastard TV down." He was a bit sensitive at the moment and the constant racket was driving him mad. He couldn't live here any more. Home shouldn't be like this. He'd have to start looking for another flat.
 Hang on a minute. Slow down.
Within the last twenty-four hours he'd killed two people. Why was he whining about a blaring television set? He laughed aloud at the ridiculousness of it all. He was losing his sense of perspective. Bad news. Loss of perspective led to bizarre acts like holding up petrol stations with water pistols. Anyway, if he moved, where would he go? Share with Eddie again? Bugger it. It wasn't important.

It didn't matter. Nothing mattered. Eddie screwing Carol didn't matter. Hilda Pearce didn't matter. Death didn't matter. Carol was dead and it didn't matter. He was a murderer and it didn't matter. Carol was dead.

Shit. His stomach was lined with ice.

He walked over to the piano, opened the lid of the piano stool and took out the envelope containing the PI's photographs of Carol and Eddie. He'd hoped Carol might have found them. But why would she? She didn't know they existed, so there was no reason for her to have looked for them. He set the envelope on the piano stand. The pictures didn't matter. He didn't care any more. He wouldn't look at them. He sat down and punched a G minor chord. He hit it again and found himself playing the opening of "Dido's Lament" from Purcell's opera,
Dido and Aeneas.
The chromatics and suspensions collaborated to produce harmonies likely to break the heart of any normal human being. Not his. Oh, no. His hands hurt, but he didn't care. He sang along.
"No trouble."
The tension in the D/E-flat false relation was agonising. Didn't mean anything to him. Remember? He repeated the bar. "
No trouble."
His hands were on fire.
NO. "In my soul."  
He brought his fist down on the keyboard. Dissonance clogged his eardrums. He slammed the lid shut.

Lifting the envelope off the stand, he ripped it open. The photos fell out. Ten of them. He picked up the top one, which had landed face up. In it, Carol was holding hands with Eddie. Eddie was smiling for the photographer, crooked teeth displayed in his too-small mouth. She was looking into his eyes. Had she loved him? She was dead. What did it matter? He'd killed her. God help him.

What was Eddie going to do when he found out? Most likely he'd be philosophical about it.
Carol's dead?
Hey, life goes on.
This mean a two-way split?