The Long Glasgow Kiss

by Craig Russell

  There was a lot about Glasgow, about Scotland, that itched at me like a nettle rash; but there was also much about the Scots I liked. One of their most redeeming qualities was the way they accepted different shades of Scottishness. Just as it was possible to call yourself an Irish-American, there were identities within Scotland that were unique, but taken as part of the Scottish identity: Italian-Scottish; Jewish-Scottish, the variation that had given birth to a totally unique cultural phenomenon of the bar-mitzvah cèilidh, where yarmulkes and kilts were required dress; and, since the end of the war, there had been a new Caledonian breed: the Polish-Scot.

  Tony the Pole Grabowski was one of the thousands of Polish servicemen who had fought alongside the British Army or in the skies above Britain. Many had died defending an island they had only known for months. The vast majority of the British-based Free Polish Army had been stationed in Scotland. I had a soft spot for the Poles: the Polish First Armoured Division had been attached to the First Canadian Army and I had seen them in action. And having seen them, I had counted myself very lucky to have been on the same side as them.

  After the war, like so many of his countrymen, Tony the Pole had decided he preferred the pattern on this side of the Iron Curtain and had become a resident alien, then a naturalized British citizen. He had married a Scottish girl and had settled down in Polmadie, in the south of the city. Polmadie was about as picturesque as its name suggested: a maze of tenements and 1930s’ Corporation semi-detached houses – mind you, in a city with districts called Auchenshuggle and Roughmussel, Polmadie was positively lyrical. And a semi-detached was a palace compared to a Gorbals slum.

  Tony the Pole’s day job was as a greengrocer. Being Polish, he hadn’t understood that fruit and veg – unless they had been fried or were capable of being fried – were always at the bottom of any Glaswegian shopping list. Maybe that was why greengrocery had remained Tony’s day job. It was his night job that had brought in the real cash – Tony the Pole Grabowski opened doors, all right. He had been, without doubt, the best peterman in Scotland. There had not been a safe he couldn’t crack, one way or another. But the peterman’s life was a perilous one. There was always the threat of the missed foothold, the slip from a drainpipe, the fall. Or the danger of silent alarms, night watchmen, or patrolling bobbies with a soft tread. So Tony, when he had saved enough to keep his family comfortable and before he had been locked into a box himself, had quit the peterman business and had resigned himself to a world of wilting cabbages and wrinkling tomatoes. Except, every now and then, Tony would organize a card game or set up a book on a sporting event. Just to supplement the income from peas and sprouts.

  I found Tony the Pole behind the counter of his shop on Cathcart Road. He was a short, squat man with a broad Polish face and an even broader Polish accent. He was balding and had shaved off what had been left of his hair. From the darkening rim that swept from temple to temple, I guessed the time must have been nearer five o’clock than I had thought.

  ‘Hi, Tony … whaddya say, whaddya hear?’

  Tony laughed at the movie line. He actually giggled, an action at odds with his squat, powerful frame. He was a James Cagney fan and at our first meeting had been entranced by my ‘American’ accent. Since then, every time I met him, I greeted him with the Rocky Sullivan line from Angels with Dirty Faces. I had once tried Bogart from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre on him but had withered under his disapproving gaze.,,

  ‘Hey, Lennogs. Vad daya zay? Vad daya hear? It’s been a vee vile, neebour …’ Tony’s party trick was made all the better because he didn’t know that speaking in the Glasgow vernacular and a thick Polish accent simultaneously was a party trick. Anyone learning a new language tends to speak in the idiom they are exposed to. As far as learning English had been concerned, Tony had been exposed to the linguistic equivalent of gamma radiation: Glaswegian English. Now, Tony bantered and pattered like a native Glaswegian, yet almost every initial consonant was substituted with v or z. It was as hilarious as it was impenetrable and it cracked me up every time I heard him. But I never let it show.

  ‘Hi, Tony. How’s business?’

  ‘Ze ushual. Cannae complain … widnae dae much use iv I did …’ Tony said, the usual mix of Will Fyffe and Akim Tamiroff. Maybe a little Bela Lugosi thrown in. ‘Vot’s occurin’?’

  ‘I’m looking for a bit of information.’

  ‘Vell you’ff come to ze right place … I know my onions.’ He laughed his girlish laugh and indicated his counter stock with an open-armed gesture.

  We were interrupted by a small woman in a headscarf, pinnie and faded tartan baffies – as carpet slippers, for some reason light years beyond my ken, were known in Glasgow. She was somewhere between thirty and eighty. Glaswegians generally bypassed middle age, taking the direct road from youth to decrepitude. The indeterminately aged woman placed her order and Tony snapped open a bag with the kind of theatricality that only greengrocers and stage conjurors seem to attach to paper bags. He dropped the onions into it and, with the same conjurer’s flourish, spun the bag around to seal it.

  ‘Zere you go, hen …’ Tony beamed as he handed the bag to the woman in slippers. She shuffled from the shop.

  ‘Vad kind of invormation?’ he asked after she was gone.

  ‘This is all very discreet, Tony. Just between you and me … No one will know that you are my source. I just need to know if anyone’s been trying to tout a big bet on the Bobby Kirkcaldy–Jan Schmidtke fight. I mean a serious wager.’ I was relying on Tony’s good will. No bribe or threat here: it was always easier if your source was poor or yellow.

  ‘Oh aye, here vee vucking go … “Between you and me”, my Silesian arze … You’re vorking for one of ze Zree vucking Kings, I’ll bet. Who zent you here, Villie Zneddun?’ said Tony. It was like having a conversation with Count MacCula.

  I ignored the question. ‘That’s not important, Tony. Has anybody been trying to lay over the odds on Bobby Kirkcaldy losing?’

  ‘Naw. I vould have heard about it. I’d have had to broker it wiz zome o’ ze bigger buoys …’ The skin on his brow corrugated, the limit of his frown indicating the ghost of a long-dead hairline. ‘Hold on … zere vas something. A couple of wee gobshites …’ Tony pronounced the insult ghubzhides. ‘Zey vere in ze Zaracen’s Zord … about zree veeks ago. Zey vere comin’ ze big bollogs …’

  I knew the Saracen’s Sword, the pub Tony referred to. He used it as an informal office much in the same way I used the Horsehead Bar.

  ‘And they wanted to place a bet?’

  ‘Naw … no’ qvite. Zey made oot zat zey vere just interested in finding oot vat vey it vood vork. Zey vere a couple of vee bambots acting ze big bollogs, like I zaid. I got ze impression zat zey didn’t have ze money to lay a big bet, but zey vere expectink to get ze money.’

  ‘Where from?’ I asked and only through a monumental effort resisted the impulse to turn my ‘w’ into a ‘v’.

  ‘Vuck knows, Lennogs. I zink zey vere just talkin’ shite. Ken vat I mean?’

  ‘But they were talking about placing a bet against Bobby Kirkcaldy?’

  ‘Naw … I didnae zay zat. Zey didnae zay vat vay zey vanted to bet. Zey just vanted to know who vould take on a big bet like zat. I didnae pay zat much attention tae zem, tae be honest. Like I zaid, zey vere just a couple o’ vee vankers talking shite, like.’

  ‘And what did you tell them?’

  ‘Zat it vould be me vot vould broker a big bet like that. Get ze big buoys involved. Me or Zmall Change MacFarlane. But zat vas bevore Zmall Change got his coupon stoved in.’

  ‘Small Change MacFarlane?’ I felt a tingle in my scalp.

  ‘Aye … ’course I vould normally zend zem to Zmall Change. But ze only bet Zmall Change iz takin’ now is who’z next to get it up ze arze viz ze devil’s pitchfork …’ Tony chuckled more than giggled this time.

  ‘Have the police been to see you since the murder?’

  ‘The Polis? Naw … zey dinae bother wiz me.
As far as zey’re concerned I’ve nae got a record. Zey dinnae know half ze shite I’ve been up to. And everybody kens zat I’m straight noo.’

  ‘So these two young wideboys … do you know who they are? Did you recognize them?’

  ‘Naw. A couple ov vucking Flash Harrys, iv you azk me. Didn’t pay much attention to zem, ken vot I mean?’

  ‘Okay, thanks, Tony.’ I shook his hand and made to leave. Something occurred to me and I turned back to the short, smiling Pole. ‘What do you know about Jack Collins? He was Small Change’s partner in a couple of businesses.’

  ‘Aye … Did you know he vos also MacFarlane’s bairn? Illegitimate bairn? Zmall Change and Mamma Collins had been playin’ a vee game ov hide-ze-kielbasa, as vee used tae zay back in ze ol’ country.’

  ‘Was that common knowledge?’

  ‘Oh aye … Everybody knew zat. I’ve never had vuck all to do vid young Collins, zough.’

  ‘One other thing. Bobby Kirkcaldy has a minder of sorts. Claims he’s his uncle …’

  ‘Oh aye … I ken zat old skurvysyn vell.’

  ‘Skurvysyn?’ I asked. I had been concentrating hard, untangling the Breslau from the Glasgow in each of Tony’s utterances, but he’d taken me beyond any recognizable landmark.

  ‘Aye … skurvysyn. Bad vord in Polish. How do you zay in English? Fucker … no. Zat’s no’ right. Arzehole … Maybes. Vanker? No, zat iznae right eezer. Zon of a Bitch …’

  ‘All right, I get it Tony …’ I held my hands up. ‘What do you know about him?’

  ‘Just zat he’s a bad bastart. Bare kinuckle fighter vay back ven. Zen he vos a fixer. Used to fix boxing matches by scaring ze shite out ov fighters. Bad vee bastart no mistake. But zere’s no vay he vould be involved in fixing up Kirkcaldy’s fight. Or at least so zat it vent against Kirkcaldy. He kens vat side his vucking bread iss buddered.’

  ‘Thanks, Tony. See you around.’

  ‘Vaddya zay? Vaddya hear? Eh, Lennogs?’

  I left the beaming Pole behind his counter. I still hadn’t got anywhere, but someone was playing with the light switch in that small, dark room at the back of my brain.

  I tried Lorna again from a call box. Still no answer. I was becoming seriously concerned and I decided that once I’d done all I had to do that day, I’d take a drive down to Pollokshields and see what, as Tony would have put it, voz occurin’.

  I drove up into Partick, parked on Thornwood Drive and walked to Craithie Court. There was a pleasant, late afternoon light and I had that cloyingly melancholy feeling again. The Young Women’s Hostel in Craithie Court was off Thornwood at the top of a gentle hill and I had a view down the street, a corridor of sandstone tenements, to where the forest of cranes marked the edge of the Clyde. There were more cars parked in the streets here and cars were beginning to change the shape of the area. For the last six years there had been plans to dig a tunnel under the Clyde to make it easier to move from north to south. Whether the local inhabitants were keen that Govan, on the opposite bank of the Clyde, should have such ease of access to Partick was something I couldn’t comment on.

  When I got to the Hostel, I knocked on the administrative office door. Difficult though it was to believe, I did have some hard and fast moral codes and rules of behaviour, one of which was that I would never hit a woman. The matron who answered the door was one of the best arguments for my moral stance I had encountered. Burly isn’t an adjective normally attached to women, but it stuck to the hostel matron like crap to a shirt-tail and I would never have hit a woman like her for fear she might hit me back. She was dressed in a dark grey suit of tweed so abrasive that I was sure some religious order somewhere must use it for mortification.

  ‘Can I help you?’ she asked. I didn’t answer right away, mesmerized as I was by the way her eyebrows knitted themselves together above the bridge of her nose and by the rich baritone of her voice. I explained that I was looking for Claire Skinner, and that it was business-related.

  ‘Then you’ll have to arrange to meet her somewhere else. No male visitors here.’

  Such steadfast but ill-placed guardianship of virginity brought to mind empty stables with locked doors. I brought all of my weapons to bear on Hairy Mary, including my not-inconsiderable homespun Canadian charm. None of them worked on her and she raised an eyebrow, or more correctly one half of her cyclopean eyebrow in weary disdain. I decided, because I had a Plan B up my sleeve, to drop it for the moment. I shrugged as if it had been no skin off my nose but big trouble for someone else and made to leave. She let me. She’d seen that trick, along with all the others, before.

  CHAPTER TEN

  I drove back into town and parked the Atlantic in Buchanan Street where I could have a clear view of the Alpha Hotel’s main entrance. It was sixish when I parked and it was another half hour before Devereaux arrived back. He was dropped off by a marked police Wolseley: if Devereaux was a private detective and the City of Glasgow Police was extending him this kind of courtesy, then I decided it would be a good idea for me to change my brand of cologne. I certainly was doing something wrong.

  Devereaux got out of the car and trotted into the hotel. I gave him a couple of minutes to get into his room then locked the Atlantic, crossed the street and walked into the lobby.

  The desk clerk was a small dark man of about forty who smiled welcomingly at me despite the fact that he was small, forty and a desk clerk.

  ‘Can I help you, sir?’ he asked, still smiling.

  ‘Yeah, you sure can,’ I grinned back. I hammed up my accent a bit. Generally Brits couldn’t tell me from an American, providing I avoided diphthongs. Americans pronounced diphthongs flatly; we positively yodelled them. Linguists called it Canadian Raising. The Americans just called it Canuck. ‘I’m looking for a buddy of mine,’ I said, dodging diphthongs. ‘Dex Devereaux from Vermont. He’s registered here I think.’

  ‘Yes sir. Do you want me to send a boy to his room to tell him you’re here?’

  ‘Before we do that, I just want to make sure I got the right Dex Devereaux. If it is he’ll have been booked into the hotel from Washington DC, is that right?’

  The clerk continued to smile. ‘I’m sorry, sir, I can’t give out that kind of information.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ I said. ‘I quite understand.’ I took three pound notes from my wallet and laid them on the reception desk, my fingers pinning them to the mahogany.

  ‘I believe you are correct,’ said the clerk, still smiling, and the notes were gone. ‘Shall I send a message?’

  ‘That won’t be necessary,’ said a voice from behind me. I turned and saw Devereaux standing behind me. He must have been waiting in the lobby. ‘Hey there, Johnny Canuck … Your surveillance skills stink,’ he said and looped a firm, guiding arm through mine. ‘Let’s take a walk.’

  We headed out of the hotel and Devereaux suggested we take my car. As he did so he waved a hand vaguely in the Atlantic’s direction. My guess was that he had spotted it, or me, from the back of the police car that had dropped him off.

  ‘Where do you want to go?’ I asked.

  ‘Somewhere quiet,’ he replied, without letting the smile drop from his face. ‘Where we can talk.’

  Ten minutes later we were parked beneath a sheltering arch of trees on Kelvin Way where it dissected Kelvingrove Park.

  ‘Nice day for a walk,’ said Devereaux as he got out of the car. I followed, locking up the doors. He led the way into the park and in the direction of the museum and art gallery until we found a tree-shaded bench. Devereaux was in a suit of exactly the same style and cut as he had worn the night he’d called at my flat with Jock Ferguson, except this time it was blue. Several shades too light a blue for a local ever to have worn. I imagined it would have looked okay in the swelter of a New York summer, but amongst the muted tones of tweed- and serge-bound Glasgow, it was the sartorial equivalent of a screeching jazz trumpet played through a loudspeaker.

  ‘So you thought you’d try to find out who booked my hotel room f
or me?’ he said, and placed the straw trilby on the bench next to him, exposing the precision engineering of his flat-top haircut. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and drew it across his brow before putting the trilby back on.

  ‘This is all very Graham Greene,’ I said. ‘Parleys in parks, that kind of thing.’

  ‘Did you think that was how to work out who had sent me here?’ Devereaux ignored my diversion. ‘My client?’

  ‘Your client?’ It came out almost a snort. ‘If you have a client, then their motto is Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity.’

  Devereaux laughed and eyed me as if appraising me. There was a hint of respect in his gaze. Also a hint of the lion appraising the antelope.

  ‘Yep, Jock Ferguson was right,’ said Devereaux. ‘You are a smart cookie. Okay, you got me.’

  ‘So what do I call you?’ I asked. ‘Special Agent Devereaux?’

  ‘Dex will still do just fine. And what we talked about the other night was all true.’

  ‘So what in hell’s name is so important about John Largo that the FBI send one of their finest on a tub all the way over to Glasgow.’

  ‘Actually I flew. To London. I took the train up here. And John Largo is that important. Seeing as you’re so all-fired curious about me, and seeing as you enjoy an interesting relationship with the local law enforcement, I thought it would be good for you and me to have a talk without Jock Ferguson present.’ Devereaux stood up and we started to walk through the park.

  ‘You don’t trust Jock?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m just cautious, that’s all.’

  ‘Yet you’re prepared to trust me?’

  Devereaux laughed. ‘Now, there’s a question: do you trust a man who doesn’t really trust himself? Well, let me tell you, Lennox, you’re an interesting kind of guy. You’ll have guessed that I’ve been through everything that’s on file about you. War record. Post-war record. I know that you deal with crooks. I know that you’ve done the odd crooked thing yourself. And I know more than you might think I would know about everything that happened last year.’