by Reginal Hill
"Maybe," said Joe. "Get the impression your ma doesn't much like him."
"You've noticed? Thing is, Mum's a bit of a racial bigot," said Zak.
"Your mother?" said Joe indignantly. "She seems like a lovely lady."
Zak burst out laughing.
"Joe, you should travel more. You'd soon find the world is full of nice guys and lovely ladies who would torch their can seats if they thought your black ass had sat there. Works both ways. But in fairness to Mum, it's only Welshmen she thinks should be forcibly repatriated. One nearly got Dad fired from his job a few years back. That set up the prejudice. When Starbright first appeared, she tried to be nice to him. But when he refused to sit and eat with us, she took offence. I tried telling her it was because he was vegetarian, but she wouldn't wear it."
"Starbright vegetarian?" said Joe incredulously. "You can't look like that without eating whole bullocks!"
"You should see his lip curl if you offer him a smoky bacon crisp," said Zak.
"No, thanks. So he doesn't come into the house much?"
"Just when he brings me home. He likes to make sure no one's lurking."
Then he takes off for the night?"
"Only if I'm not going out. And only since he sorted the tabloids. First few nights, he patrolled about just to discourage the local paparazzi who thought I might be into stripping off without drawing the curtains. Not necessary any more since he found a couple and spoke to them sternly. But if I need him, I just ring him on his mobile and he's here in no time."
"He knows how to use a phone?" said Joe. Then added guiltily, "Sorry. That was stupid."
"I noticed. OK, time I was on the road. Busy day ahead. Abe's promised me a real going over. Then I promised Doug I'd give him an hour ..."
That'll be an hour and six minutes," said Joe.
"Sorry?"
"He's an agent, isn't he? He'll want his ten per cent."
She gave him the rather tired smile of one who'd heard all the agent jokes and said, "Anyway, Joe, what I'm saying is, what with knocking hell out of my body and knocking hell out of Douglas, I'm going to be too tied up to keep you company
That's OK," said Joe gently. "You see, not much use me hanging around the only person I don't suspect, is there?"
"What? Oh yeah. Sorry. Now it's me being stupid."
"But I'll see you safe to the Plezz," he added.
"Great. With you in a sec."
He heard her run upstairs. He went out into the hall and started to get into his donkey jacket. Then he paused, thought, took it off and hung it up again.
Zak came down the stairs a couple of minutes later looking unhappy.
"You've been talking to Mary?" Joe guessed.
"She thinks you're some sort of perv, after our Eddie," said Zak.
"I don't think so," said Joe. "But she knows I'm not a baggage handler."
He stooped to pick up Zak's holdall which lay in the hallway and gave a little stagger.
"See what I mean?" he said.
That brought the smile back to her lips and they went out together.
Starbright didn't make such a meal out of getting into the back of the Mini this time and they were quickly on their way.
After they'd been going a few minutes, Zak said, "Joe, your coat! You've forgotten it. You'll catch your death."
"Couple of laps with you will warm me up," said Joe. "I'll drop by and pick it up later."
It was, he thought, about as insouciant as you could get without flaunting an ebony cigarette holder and calling yourself Noel, but his gaze met Starbright's in the rear-view mirror and he read deep distrust in those sharp little eyes.
At the Plezz he insisted on carrying Zak's bag through to the changing rooms where Starbright said, "I'll take that now," and plucked it from Joe's sweaty grasp with one finger. Then he went into the changing room.
Joe said, "Is he an honorary lady or what?"
It's OK," said Zak. "I'm the only one using this place in the mornings. The Spartans don't get in till late afternoons, early evenings. Starbright just likes to make sure everything's clear."
The Welshman emerged.
"OK," he said.
"See you, Joe," said Zak.
"Same time as yesterday?" said Joe.
"I'll be ready at the same time," she said. "Hope you might make it a bit earlier."
Crack goes the whip, thought Joe. But, shoot, a man would have to be mad to object to being whipped by such a cracker!
He nodded at Starbright and walked away. He'd just reached the end of the corridor when he heard his name called.
He turned and saw Zak emerging from the locker room.
She was holding a red envelope between the thumb and index finger of her right hand.
"I didn't want to mess up fingerprints this time," she said.
"Good thinking," said Joe, wondering what the shoot she imagined he was going to do with any prints he found, even if he had the faintest idea how to set about finding them.
He took the envelope with exaggerated care, inserted a pencil under the flap and tore it open. Then, still using the pencil, he extracted the postcard inside. Unfortunately as he got it out, the card slipped and fluttered to the floor which rather ruined the Great Detective routine.
Avoiding looking at Starbright he stooped and picked it up. It was another cat postcard, showing five of the creatures gnawing at bones on a platter. The message was written in the same neat round hand.
GET SHERLOCK OFF THE CASE. OR WE WILL.
"They're getting worried," said Joe, feeling both flattered and disturbed.
"So am I," said Zak. "What do they mean, or we will?"
"Maybe they're going to make me a better offer," he said. Then, seeing that she didn't think it a joking matter, he went on, "It's OK, really. They're just huffing and puffing. What are they going to do?"
But in his mind he heard the bang as his electric kettle threw him across the room and he smelled gas.
"What are you going to do, Joe?" she asked, regarding him with a trust which like the message was both flattering and disturbing.
I'll talk to Hardiman, check if there's been anyone hanging round. I'll need to show him the note, that OK?"
"Yeah, sure. He's got a right to know," she said.
Because you're seriously thinking about throwing the race? wondered Joe.
He said, "See you later," and headed along the maze of corridors till he came to the director's office. The door was ajar. He knocked, an ill-tempered voice called, "What?" and he went in to find Hardiman glowering at him from behind a mound of paperwork.
"Oh, it's you. If this is just social, I'm up to my armpits ..."
"It's professional," said Joe.
"Whose profession? Mine or yours?"
"Both. Something you ought to see. Zak found it in her locker. Which was locked."
He handed over the note, adding, "There's been others."
"Following up the phone call, you mean? This why she hired you? She should have told me."
"Perhaps. I'm telling you now. Anybody seen hanging around looking suspicious recently?"
"Joe, you've seen what this place is like. Full of workmen. Plus there's the Spartans who've been training here nights. Could be one of them's pissed off at Zak's success. Some people hate it when someone else makes the grade that they missed out on. That's what it sounds like to me, good old-fashioned spite."
Was the man's determination to play this business down suspicious? wondered Joe. Time to press hard and see if anything gave.
"Well, I take it a bit more serious than that, Jim. There's been other things."
"Such as?" said Hardiman sceptic ally
"Can't say," said Joe.
"What? Oh, not that client confidence crap again. Listen, Joe, word of advice. If you really think you've stumbled across something criminal, then wouldn't it be in everyone's interest including yours to bring in the professionals?"
A lesser man might have resented the implications of bo
th stumbled and the professionals.
Joe said mildly, "Zak is adamant. No cops."
Hardiman said, "Perhaps it's time you reminded her, she may be big enough to run her own life now, but if I get convinced anything's likely to happen that could have repercussions for the Plezz, then I won't ask anyone's permission to bring in the fuzz."
His face set hard with determination and his nose seemed to swell, reminding Joe uncomfortably of the teenage Hooter's capacity to inspire terror by his mere presence.
"I'd prefer if you did the reminding," he said.
Hardiman relaxed and laughed.
"Still the same old Joe. Weaving and ducking at the first sign of trouble. No need for me to warn you about looking after your own interests. Now if you don't mind, I got work to do."
He turned dismissively to his piles of correspondence.
Joe walked away pondering these things.
What he wanted to concentrate his mind on was an in-depth PI analysis of Hardiman's suspect rating, but all he could think of was his same old Joe crack. What the shoot did he expect a fourteen-year-old kid, small for his age, to do when set upon by the school heavy? Run? He wouldn't have got five yards. Fight? He wouldn't have lasted five seconds. So he'd offered the soft answer and if it hadn't always turned away wrath, it had at least sometimes transmuted a kick in the goo lies into a cuff round the ear.
But cuffs and kicks were no longer on the options menu, at least not publicly, and on the whole he preferred Hardiman's mistaken belief that the old school relationship still survived to the hearty pretence that they'd once been great mates.
As for the man's suspect rating, could be all that stuff about a spiteful Spartan was a version of his own feelings trotted out to throw Joe off the scent. Which would make his threat to call in the cops a bluff. Or a double bluff ?
It was all very confusing to a guy who had to make up his own answers to The Times crossword puzzle then invent clues to fit them. Perhaps he ought to listen to Hardiman's advice and start thinking about his own interests. These people were threatening him. Get Sherlock off the case. Or we will. No, more than threatening, trying to kill him! Except, of course, that the threat had come after the attempts, which even a crossword-challenged PI knew was not the usual order of things.
Maybe there were some shady big boys in the background who were using a mole to plant the notes, and the latest note was really aimed at the mole so that if, as hoped, Joe's tragic death in an accident had made the headlines that morning, the mole wouldn't immediately blame his or her employers. Resenting Zak's success enough to make you conspire in her humiliation didn't necessarily mean the mole would go along with murdering innocent parties.
Was he being too clever or just not clever enough? Either way it had a depressing effect which only a strong injection of caffeine could cure. He headed for the cafe. Still no food in sight but the coffee machine was bubbling. He poured himself a cup, took a seat, drank deep, then leaned back and closed his eyes.
"Hi, Joe. This a private cloud or can anyone sit under it?"
He opened his eyes to see Doug Endor smiling down at him.
"Anyone who's crazy," said Joe. "Pour yourself a coffee and pull up a bed of nails."
For a chirpy Cockney sparrer, the agent didn't seem to have much to say. For several minutes they sat in silence, drinking coffee. The track below was deserted. A few workmen moved among the spectator seating, checking numbers, while others were taking down some scaffolding under the press box.
Then Zak and Abe Schoenfeld came out on the track and everyone stopped what they were doing.
The runner and trainer trotted together down to the first curve where they paused and went into a discussion.
"Bends are the key indoors," said Endor. "Outdoors, longer your distance, less they matter. Indoors, whatever you run, you spend as much time leaning sideways as you do standing straight."
"Hardiman says these are good bends," said Joe.
"That's like saying a bog what don't suck you under first time you step on it is a good bog," said Endor. "You ever see Zak run, Joe?"
"Only on the telly."
"In the flesh is something else. There she goes now."
Zak was taking her tracksuit off. She stood at the starting mark. A word with Schoenfeld, a momentary crouch, then she was away. Joe felt a lump in his throat. Poetry in motion seemed a tired old cliche when the papers used it, but what else could they say? She did four circuits then came to a halt and went back into discussion with the coach.
"Shouldn't bother with a race," said Joe. "Folk would pay just to watch her run by herself."
"I like that, Joe," said Endor. "Fink we could use that. Probably get you a royalty."
"I'm sorry?"
"Commercials, Joe. Always on the lookout for a catchy phrase."
"You mean Bloo-Joo?"
"No, they're small beer, small purple beer, ha ha. They got Zak when she was up and coming. Now she's up, or close to it, they'd need to pay ten times the money for half the time, you with me? It's the new generation of deals I'm talking about."
"Like Nymphette?"
"What you know about Nymphette?"
"Something about doing clothes as well as scent and stuff."
Endor laughed and said, "Scent and stuff. I love that. They're the classy end of the young cosmetic market, Joe, and next year they're branching out into the snazziest range of casual wear you ever saw. And they're hot to have Zak fronting up their sales campaign."
"So it's all set up?"
"We're just arguing decimal points," said Endor confidently. "That ain't just poetry in motion you see down there, Joe, that's a bestseller on the hoof. Zak is going to be seriously rich."
"And you too, I suppose?" said Joe.
"I take my percentage, yeah," said Endor. "Why not? Labourer's worth his hire, right? But I gotta work for it, believe you me. Not like being a lawyer, say, where you can be a millionaire just sitting on your hands and watching the clock tick up a pony every minute."
"Don't tell me about lawyers," said Joe fervently.
"You sound like you got trouble," said Endor. "Anything I can help with?"
An agent offering free help? Maybe there's hope for world peace after all, thought Joe.
But no harm in telling the man about his problem with Penthouse Assurance. He still had their insulting cheque in his pocket, and though events since he got it had tended to sideline his indignation, he was still determined not to sit under their cavalier treatment. Except he hadn't got the faintest idea what to do next.
They're trying it on," said Endor after he'd heard the story.
"Listen, Joe, what you want to do is go along there, front it out with them, let them see that you're not going to roll over, know what I mean? The difference between what they've given you and what you're claiming is peanuts to them. Let them see you'll fight 'em all the bleeding way and they'll soon up their offer."
"You reckon?" said Joe. "Trouble is, like you just said, lawyers cost a fortune, even ordinary lawyers. Penthouse'll take one look and know that I don't have the kind of money to put at risk in a court case, 'cos if I did, I wouldn't be getting so het up about this deal anyway!"
"You don't have to have the money nowadays, Joe," said Endor. "This new legislation means we're going to be like the Yanks. You can cut a deal with a lawyer that means no win, no pay."
"You sure?" said Joe doubtfully.
"Certain," said Endor. "Anyway, it's worth a try. You can do anything if you don't let the bastards grind you down. Look at me. Started with nothing, now I'm farting through silk. All down to hard work and clear thinking. Set yourself a goal and go for it, Joe. Like Zak before a race. She don't just fink she might win, she's bleeding sure she's gonna win!"
They sat in silence for a while, watching Zak flow round the track beneath them. Endor might be a Cockney blow-bag, thought Joe, but that didn't mean he was stupid. On the contrary, Joe guessed he used his self-made kid act to lull you into a false as
sessment. He glanced at his watch. His grand plan was at some point to head back to Sycamore Lane on the pretext of picking up his donkey jacket and having a casual chat with Mrs. Oto. But she wouldn't be back till after lunch, which Joe proposed taking in Daph's Diner which wasn't a million miles from Penthouse Assurance.
He finished his coffee and rose.
"You'll have to excuse me," he said. "Got a date with my insurers."
Thirteen.
The Penthouse Assurance building was a monument to the affluent eighties, rising like a lighthouse out of a sea of lesser commercial development, much of which had clearly drowned in the depths of the post affluence depression. But Penthouse had survived and prospered and its dayglo concrete seemed to create a kind of force field which left it untouched by the squally rain.
All the visitors' parking spots were full, so Joe slipped the Magic Mini into a four-space bay marked CHAIRMAN, between a wine-coloured Bentley and a white Merc. How the shoot could one man come to work in four cars anyway?
The foyer was tastefully carved out of pink marble with artificial windows through which streamed artificial sunlight. Better than real windows through which you could see real rain? wondered Joe. Not that there was a shortage of your actual water here. Down one high wall ran a cascade tinkling into a fern-fringed pool in whose depths gleamed silver and gold.
Joe smiled at the receptionist and said, "Thought they'd have got a mermaid."
For a moment she almost smiled back, then recalling the dignity of her position she said, "Can I help you?" in a tone which didn't sound optimistic.
"I'd like to see Mrs. Airey in your Claims Department, please."
"Is she expecting you?"
"If she's got any sense," said Joe.
The receptionist let this pass and went on, "Because I know she's very busy. Perhaps I could get one of our claims clerks to ..."
"No," said Joe, who wasn't a naturally assertive person but knew that with certain types, like Jehovah's Witnesses and shop assistants keen to sell you an expensive tub of gunge to clean the shoes you just spent your last farthing buying, you had to be unwaveringly firm. "Has to be Mrs. Airey."