Gone Cold
Page 6
Zoey said, “I fancy it already.”
As I gazed across the street, I laid out the plan. “I’ll head in first, order a beer. Zoey, you come in after ten or fifteen minutes. Act like you don’t know me.”
“Shouldn’t be much of a challenge, should it, little brother?”
I ignored her comment for the moment but damn well meant to address it later.
“Detective,” I said, “you’ll keep an eye on the place in case we need backup. You all right for an hour or two?”
“Of course.”
As I turned and started toward the bar I heard Zoey asking Ashdown for money.
“Since when do you pay for your own drinks inside a pub?” Ashdown sneered.
“Oh, bugger off,” she shouted. “Maybe it’s not drinks I’m bent on paying for. Ever think of that?”
Once I stepped onto the curb on the opposite side of the street, I was mercifully out of earshot. I opened the metal door to the Old Soak and was immediately greeted by an odor I couldn’t define. That and a middle-age male bartender who eyed me up and down as though I’d just told him I meant to rob the place.
There were only two other patrons in the pub, both elderly gentlemen seated at the bar, staring into tall glasses of ale. I flashed on a street sign I’d seen just a few blocks back. Depicting a pair of stooped-over stick figures, it read: WATCH FOR THE ELDERLY. Implied in that warning, I now realized, was that Springburn’s elderly might well be drunk out of their gourds. At least the two old soaks seated at this bar clearly were.
As I took a barstool I motioned to the tap and said, “Pint of Tennent.”
The bartender didn’t say a word, didn’t crack half a smile, just grabbed a cloudy pint glass from the drain board behind him and started the pour.
I drank down half the pint in a swallow. What I really craved was a double espresso, something to sharpen the senses rather than dull them. But when in Rome, and all that. And from the looks of the place, had I ordered anything sans alcohol, the bartender would have swiftly tossed me out on my British-American ass.
Ashdown was right. Had I come to Glasgow alone I’d never have gotten answers. At least not without a gun. And a willingness to use it.
But now we had a far more effective weapon in our arsenal.
And several minutes after I finished my first pint, she stepped inside the pub with a disarming smile painted across her ruby-red lips.
“Shot of your cheapest whiskey,” Zoey called across the bar.
“Right away, lass.”
Was it me? Or had the bartender’s mood just vastly improved?
Chapter 14
As night fell, the pub began to fill. I’d tossed back about four pints and flushed another couple down the toilet so as not to arouse suspicion or draw the ire of the grizzled barkeep. As long as I kept tossing money on the bar, I figured he’d continue serving me. But I also had the distinct impression that the Old Soak strictly enforced at least one unwritten rule: If you’re not drinking, you’re leaving—by force, if necessary.
Which wasn’t an issue for Zoey. By close of Happy Hour, my sister had consumed an almost unthinkable amount of liquor, and there seemed to be no stopping her. Not that anyone but myself was trying. The pub’s patrons, the great majority of whom were male, encouraged her like we were at a frat party. Not that she needed much encouragement either.
Best I could do was keep an eye on her, step in if some boozer began misbehaving.
But she didn’t make it easy, repeatedly parading outside for smokes with plastered teenagers. I clung to the hope that Ashdown could monitor her from his crossover, which conceivably remained parked on the opposite side of the street, though I hadn’t really instructed him to stay put. He, too, had the photos on his phone and could feasibly be touring the innumerable dive bars along the road, his English accent be damned.
One pub called Bishop’s was on this very block.
Shortly after my sister returned to the bar following a smoke with a trio of teenage boys, the door to the pub opened again, and the atmosphere suddenly transformed. Like a rowdy classroom suddenly gone silent. From my spot at the end of the bar, I craned my neck to make out our newest reveler. A kid, somewhere in his early twenties, sporting a goatee and a badly receding hairline. Skinny, scrawny even, yet with the strut of a professional footballer.
Dressed in a navy tracksuit straight off the set of The Sopranos, the kid sauntered through the throng, which parted in a way that would have made ambulance drivers jealous.
To some he offered a nod, others a look that made them instantly shy away, like mares from a rattlesnake.
The bartender stopped mid-pour, turned, and snatched an ice-cold rocks glass from the freezer. Then he reached for the top shelf, opened a fresh bottle of Dalmore, and decanted three fingers, neat.
Sliding it carefully across the bar to his latest guest, he said, “On the house, mate.”
The kid in the tracksuit swallowed the Scotch in a single go. Slapped the empty glass onto the bar, said, “Another, then,” and slid over a pile of cash half as tall as the pour.
The chatting, which had briefly ceased, rose again, and the mood for the most part returned to normal. Yet a palpable air of trepidation lingered, like tear gas over a peaceful assembly.
I raised my brows in Zoey’s direction. She replied with an inebriated shrug and a single finger that slurred, I’m on it, then she turned back to her current companion with a salacious grin and a question on her lips.
Several minutes later she strolled over to me, said in my ear, “The tracksuit’s name is Kinny Gilchrist. He’s the son of some local gangster known as The Chairman.”
I stole a glance over at the kid and his newly arrived entourage. They were seated in the back corner booth, which had been occupied by a different group of hooligans only a few minutes earlier.
“Any luck otherwise?” I said.
Zoey shook her head. “I showed the photo to a few of the blokes I took outside for a fag. Not a one claimed to recognize the girl. Or the wanker she’s with in the pic.”
“It’s possible he’s not local,” I said, partially deflating. “But I’d like to confirm it with the Gilchrist kid. If he’s as connected as your friend over there suggests, he’ll know everyone in the neighborhood, if only for purposes of self-preservation.”
“Want I go over and present him with the photo?”
I shook my head. “Not right away. And not alone. Too risky. Think maybe you can lure him outside?”
“I can try.”
“Let’s call that plan A, then.”
“And plan B?”
“I’ll let you know plan B soon as I think of it.”
* * *
Twenty minutes later, Zoey was alone in the back corner booth with Kinny Gilchrist. I was anxious for her to draw him outside so that he and I could have a word, but she seemed to be enjoying his company, which shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise. Ashdown notwithstanding, my sister clearly had a thing for bad boys. The younger the better.
Finally I glimpsed her lift a pack of cigarettes off the table and motion toward the door. Kinny shook his head, wrapped his bony arm around her bare shoulders, and dug a platinum Zippo out of his tracksuit. I glanced at the bartender, who seemed to be paying them no mind—even as the kid lit Zoey’s cigarette a foot or two below a conspicuous sign that read: NAE SMOKIN OR YER OOT ON YER ARSE.
Enough, I thought. I need to move things along.
I drained my pint of Tennent and abandoned my barstool. But just as I started toward the corner booth, the Gilchrist kid stood up and signaled a couple of his boys. Then he turned toward the restrooms. One of his boys, the brawnier of the two, followed him to the toilet. The other took Gilchrist’s seat in the booth beside my sister.
I continued toward her. As soon as the Gilchrist kid vanished behind the door marked BOG, I leaned across the table and said, “My apologies, Miss. But do you happen to have an extra smoke? I left mine at home, under the delusion
that I’d actually be able to abstain for a few hours. But I’m a lost cause. Now I’m afraid it’s either bum one or head home early.”
With the lit cigarette clasped between her lips, Zoey lifted the pack to offer one to me. But the boy pressed her hands back down to the table and said, “That last part sounds like an idea, mate. Have a safe ride home an’ all.”
As I leaned in a bit closer, my eyes instinctively narrowed. Calmly I said, “Nothing against you, but I think the decision is hers. Mate.”
His hands moved away from Zoey’s and clenched into fists, his nails biting into his palms. In the vicinity of his left temple, a prominent vein pulsed. The outer corner of his left eye twitched. I could see in his gaze that he was fantasizing about doing violence to me.
He said, “Naw so long as she’s sitting in Kinny Gilchrist’s booth, it ain’t.” His Scottish burr apparently swelled with his sense of indignation.
I leaned in closer still.
“Who the fuck,” I said slowly, raising the volume of my voice with each syllable, “is Kinny Gilchrist?”
Several of the surrounding patrons fell silent at the mere mention of the Gilchrist name.
I waited as the young Scot took my measure, his lips curling up in a canine snarl, revealing a set of rotting teeth and an advanced case of gingivitis.
The answer to my question finally came from just over my shoulder.
“I am, aren’t I?”
I straightened my body and half turned to look into the kid’s eyes. I sensed fire behind them but little else. Thought, The hell with it. If Zoey can’t get the little prick outside, I will.
“Well, Kinny,” I said, “you might choose your friends more wisely. Wouldn’t want someone sullying your good name now, would we?”
He took the bait, stuck his skeletal face in mine. “Do you not ken who you’re fucking with? Or are you totally mental?”
He was grinding his teeth, though I wasn’t sure whether it was a physical manifestation of his anger or a result of the lines of coke he’d just snorted in the men’s room.
“Look,” I said, “I came over here to bum a cigarette. But if it’s a fight you want, why don’t we step outdoors?”
His face drained of color. Beads of sweat formed on his upper lip, which had started to tremble. He didn’t understand how someone could possibly be calling him out in a public house in his hometown. Clearly he wasn’t used to mouthing off to strangers. Springburn probably didn’t see many to begin with, especially not in dives like this.
“Raymond,” the Gilchrist kid finally said to the much larger guy standing behind him, “I don’t have time for this shite. Glass this cunt, will you?”
Kinny Gilchrist stepped aside as Raymond made a show of pouring the remainder of his pint on the floor. Several more patrons fell quiet and formed a loose circle to observe.
Once the pint was empty, Raymond stepped forward. Then, with the glass gripped tightly in his hand like a weapon, he threw a powerful right hook aimed at my jaw.
It came fast, but he’d telegraphed it in such a way that he might as well have gift-wrapped it too.
With a sharp smack, I caught Raymond’s wrist in my left palm. Then I leaned back, clenched my teeth, stiffened my neck muscles, took aim, and lunged forward, delivering a Glasgow Kiss, quick and dirty.
Raymond’s head snapped back like he’d been shot, his nose shattered, his nostrils spewing blood down the front of his shirt like faucets.
I turned to Gilchrist, but he’d spun on his heels and darted for the exit before his buddy even hit the floor. The kid from the booth, the one who’d been so protective of my sister’s cigarettes, was right behind him.
Shaking off the head butt, I grabbed hold of Zoey’s hand and we scrambled toward the front of the pub.
In a show of appreciation, the crowd parted as quickly for us as they had for Gilchrist earlier.
Just before we hit the door, I told Zoey, “Make straight for Ashdown’s crossover. Get in and lock the doors. Tell him there’s no need to shadow me; I’ll be fine.”
As soon as we pushed through the door, we were hit head-on by a hard, cutting wind. Gales so mighty they were like living things. Living things that had just been playing dead before.
“Told ya,” Zoey shouted as I let go of her hand.
I turned left, ran straight into the gust. Thanks to the reflective stripes running up the arms and legs of his tracksuit, Kinny Gilchrist was visible from a block and a half away. Even with my eyes reduced to slits from the wind.
Which remained every bit as brutal as the moment I’d first stepped into it.
On the bright side, the frigid air sobered me up right off. And after the first few strides, my legs seemed to be carrying me just as fast as they had a year ago in the jungles of Central and South America.
Running hard, I found myself consistently gaining on them. Trying to predict their movements along the way.
If they’d had a car, I thought, surely they wouldn’t have parked this far from the pub. Which meant they were probably making for one of their homes.
Far behind me I heard an engine roar to life and imagined Ashdown ignoring the message I’d passed to Zoey.
Just as well, I thought. If the Gilchrist kid had reinforcements somewhere nearby, I might well be needing backup after all.
The Gilchrist kid and his remaining buddy skirted a fallen trash bin and turned left down a side road named Mollinsburn.
I leapt over the bin and maintained pursuit, the headlights from Ashdown’s crossover crawling up my back as I took the corner.
Behind me the vehicle’s tires screeched.
As it tore a left after us, I chanced a look over my shoulder.
And realized it wasn’t Ashdown’s crossover, but a dark green SUV with windows tinted blacker than the street.
The SUV gained speed as it blew past me.
Shit, I thought. They’ll snatch up Gilchrist and his pal and I’ll be right back at square one. I pushed myself harder.
But a few seconds later, when the Gilchrist kid stole a glance back at the SUV, I caught a look of fresh terror in his eyes. He lowered his head like a sprinter and went for the burn.
That’s when I noticed the SUV’s rear driver’s side window gliding down.
A thick arm reaching out.
At the end of the arm was a gun.
And on the trigger, a pale finger just itching to fire.
Chapter 15
Fifty feet ahead of me, the SUV passed Gilchrist then swerved to the left, banking onto the sidewalk, blocking his path.
Gilchrist stopped on a dime. But his friend’s reflexes weren’t quite so cooperative; his momentum carried him well past Gilchrist, nearly to the door of the SUV. And a single blast from the .45 damn near blew his head clean off.
His corpse struck the wet pavement with a gory splat. Blood immediately began seeping into the paper-thin layer of just-fallen snow, tinging it raven black in the moonlight.
Gilchrist let out a shriek worthy of a young Jamie Lee Curtis as he spun, slipped, picked himself up, and bolted toward me.
I scanned the block. Halfway between us was an alley. I had no idea where it led, but it looked like Gilchrist’s only out. So as the dark green SUV started to reverse off the curb, I darted forward and grabbed him by the tracksuit before he could fly past me.
Sounds of gunfire erupted all around us. Loud. The kind of cannon-like explosions that’ll cause you to wake with tinnitus the next morning. Accompanying the shots, shattered glass, chipped bricks, the cry of metal on metal from doorways.
I covered Gilchrist with my body, pushing him forward into the alley, which was dark and narrow and—Christ, no—a dead end.
I surveyed the space. If not a back exit, I’d been hoping to find a ground-floor window to duck into or a doorway to use for cover, but nothing. Not even a few loose bricks we could use for weapons. The alley was empty save for a single scummy gray Dumpster that wouldn’t stop a bullet fired from a BB gun.
To throw them off, I turned and made for the opposite end of the alley until I couldn’t. Once I was forced to stop, I stood stock still, trying to catch my breath, staring dejectedly up at the massive brick wall before me as though Gilchrist had gotten over it but I hadn’t. Hopefully the occupants of the vehicle were too dumb to realize that the wall’s elevation made scaling it a physical impossibility for either of us, even working in concert.
Behind me the SUV idled in the maw of the alley.
When I wheeled around, two young men were spilling out of its doors, one from the passenger seat, the other from behind the driver.
Both held weapons but only the latter appeared to be carrying a gun, the .45 caliber Heckler & Koch that had killed Gilchrist’s pal from the booth in the pub.
As they approached, the one with the gun leveled it at me.
I thought about the girl who may be Hailey and cursed myself inwardly. I didn’t give a damn about the Gilchrist kid. What was I doing protecting him? I tried to reassure myself that he was my best chance at identifying the man in the photo with my daughter. But it was more than that; I couldn’t deny it. I’d chased the kid out of the pub and now, right or wrong, I felt responsible for him.
“Where is he?” the gunman shouted.
The other, who was carrying a metal pipe, cried, “Just give him up, auld man, or we’ll do you too.”
In the distance the faint hum of another engine caught my attention.
“Come on, then,” the gunman said. “Dinnae be a tube. You’re naw his minder, are you?”
I stared hard at the two men. Even in the dim light of the moon, I could tell the gunman had bad skin, a permanent victim of the lethal combination of teenage acne, untrimmed nails, and a lack of discipline. The other one, the one with the pipe, was a good-looking kid. Tall, well-dressed, probably from money. Most important for my purposes, both had distinctive looks I would have remembered. Which meant I could be relatively certain that neither of these two were at the Old Soak a few minutes earlier. And that afforded me options.