by Ian Rankin
‘Well, he says he got the cheque and a Rolex as security.’
‘Did the mystery man ever come back for his watch?’
‘Harry says no. He says he flogged the watch and cashed the cheque.’
‘Did Bob ask him why he hung on to the cheque so long? It took him nearly six months to cash it.’
‘Bob did mention it. Harry said something about mislaying it and then finding it again.’
‘This guy’s wasted as a counterfeiter, he should be on the improv circuit. I know comedians in New York couldn’t make up stories that fast.’ He paused. ‘Or that full of shit either.’
‘What can we do?’
Hoffer’s eyes widened. ‘You mean that’s it? You can’t lean on him a little? What about the trusty British truncheon? You guys are purveyors of torture equipment to the world, you can get this slob to talk.’
Edmond shook his head slowly throughout.
‘You’re right we can lean on him, but only so far. Harry knows the score. If he doesn’t want to talk, he won’t.’
‘Jesus.’ Hoffer sat back. ‘I don’t believe this. All right, where is he?’
‘Who?’
‘Perry Mason. Who the fuck d’you think I mean? I mean Capaldi!’
‘He’s probably on his way home by now.’
‘Where does he live?’
Edmond looked like a cricketer who suddenly finds he’s walked on to a baseball diamond. ‘Wait a minute,’ he said.
‘Tell me where the fuck he lives!’ Hoffer reached around his back to scratch it. Or maybe he was tampering with the stitches on the ball.
‘He lives in north London,’ Edmond said. Then he gave the American the address.
Tottenham seemed a pretty sleepy place. Though it was a warm summer’s night, there weren’t many people on the streets. What people there were on the streets were black, which didn’t bother Hoffer one bit. He didn’t have a racist bone in his body. He’d take on anyone. He was running up some good cab receipts for Walkins. He got a couple more blanks from his driver and gave the guy a healthy tip. The house where Harry Capaldi lived was a narrow three-storey building, its third storey no more than an attic. But from the doorbells, it had been sliced and diced into three apartments. Hoffer rang Capaldi’s bell. There wasn’t any answer. He looked around him. The street was quiet and dark. It was like they’d turned down the juice; the street-lamps were a puny glow most of which was obscured by insect life.
Hoffer charged the door with his shoulder. He kept low, putting his weight against the keyhole. The door gave a little, but then resisted. At the second attempt, it flew open. He walked quickly to the first floor. There was no use knocking at Capaldi’s door. The guy was either in and not answering, or else not in, and the only way to answer it one way or the other was to keep on going. This time it took a good four attempts before the door gave. When it did, it brought Hoffer into a hallway smelling of cooking fat and stale beer.
‘I only want to talk,’ he called, pushing the door closed. ‘I’m not the cops, I’m just a guy. Mr Capaldi? Hey, anyone home?’
There was a light on in the room at the end of the hall, and the sound of a TV or something. But Capaldi could have left it on when the police had come to take him to Vine Street. Or maybe he left it on all the time whatever, so nobody’d think the place was empty. Hoffer eased the Smith & Wesson out of his pocket and felt a little more comfortable.
‘Mr Capaldi?’ he repeated. Then he pushed the door at the hall’s end. It was a cramped room, mostly due to the large piece of photographic equipment sitting in the middle of it. Edmond had mentioned this. It was for taking reduced-size photos and fixing them on ID cards and the like. As Edmond had said, you couldn’t prosecute; Capaldi was legitimate owner of the equipment. And he was always too clever to let them find anything else, no fake IDs or blank forms, nothing incriminating.
There was an old dining table by the window, the sort with legs which folded beneath it and wings which folded down so it didn’t take up space. Something was making a noise beneath it, a cat or dog. Hoffer crouched down and took a look, then walked forward a couple more steps to get a better fix on it. He crouched down again and pocketed the gun.
‘I think,’ he said, ‘we’d talk more comfortably if you came out of there, Mr Capaldi.’
Capaldi came out stiffly from beneath the table. He was shaking, and had to be helped to a chair.
‘Who are you?’ he said. But Hoffer was busy pouring Irish whiskey into a used glass. He handed it to Capaldi.
‘Drink this. Sorry if I gave you a fright.’ He looked over at the table. ‘You’d hardly believe a full-grown man could squeeze into there, would you?’ Then he turned back to Capaldi and grinned. ‘You must’ve been scared shitless. Who’d you think was ringing your bell, aliens? Think I was going to suck your heart out? Nope, all I want to do is have a little talk ... Jesus, what’s wrong with your head? It’s like a fucking snowstorm.’
‘Who are you?’ Capaldi repeated. He found his cap and placed it firmly on his head.
‘Doesn’t matter who I am, Mr Capaldi. What matters is, I want to know about Mark Wesley.’
‘I already told the police, I only met the guy — ’
‘I know, in a bar. But between you, me, and the police, that’s a crock of shit. Now, they can’t do much but tut-tut and send you off with a warning. Me, I can do better than that.’ He produced the gun again. ‘I can shoot you.’ Capaldi looked like someone had stuck him to the chair with superglue — head, arms, legs, the lot. ‘Now, I don’t want to shoot you. I don’t know anything about you, it may be you’re a very nice man, generous to a fault, friendly with the neighbours, all that jazz. To be frank, that doesn’t mean squat to me. I still might have to shoot you, unless you start telling me what you wouldn’t tell the police.’
Hoffer leaned forward and lifted the whiskey glass from Capaldi’s unresisting hand. He turned the glass around to drink from the clean side, and finished the whiskey in a single gulp. Now that he was calmer, he could hear a thudding bass sound from upstairs, shaking the ceiling and walls.
‘Ten seconds,’ he said quietly. ‘And I’m not counting aloud.’
He always believed in giving people time to consider their next move, especially when they were scared senseless. He’d been that scared himself once or twice in the past, and you really did lose your senses. You could eat, but not taste. You couldn’t smell anything, except maybe your sweat. Your sense of touch was restricted to the cooling damp of your trouser legs, or the gun nuzzling your head. You certainly couldn’t see straight, or hear rational arguments.
It was good to have some time to adjust.
‘Nine, ten,’ Hoffer said. ‘Shame it has to end like this, Mr Capaldi.’ He touched the gun to the counterfeiter’s head.
Capaldi started to speak, sort of. It took him five or six goes to utter the single word ‘Jesus’, and a few more tries before he could manage ‘Don’t shoot me.’
‘Why not?’
‘What?’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I’m not ... because I ... Jesus, all I did was ...’ He came to a dry stop.
‘All you did was what? Make him up a new ID? What?’ Then Hoffer too stopped, his mouth gaping. ‘You son of a bitch,’ he said at last. ‘You’ve seen him, haven’t you? I mean recently, in the last day or two?’ He glanced towards the photographic equipment, all set up with a flash-lamp and a chair for the sitter.
‘He’s still in town, isn’t he?’ Hoffer could hardly believe it. ‘Why’s he still here? No, wait.’ He knew there were other questions to ask first, so many of them it was a matter of getting the order right. Capaldi was staring past Hoffer’s shoulder. When Hoffer turned his head, he saw why. There were two big black men standing in the hall, looking in on the scene. They had their mouths open, lower lips curled.
‘No problem here, guys,’ Hoffer called.
But there certainly was a problem. They’d probably seen the busted main door,
and now Capaldi’s door in the same state. And whoever they thought Hoffer was, he wasn’t police. Even the cops in Tottenham didn’t pack a .459 with their handcuffs.
They ran for the front door, yelling out someone’s name. He could hear them climbing the stairs, heading for the second floor. Hoffer looked back at Capaldi, seeking an explanation.
‘They deal a bit of dope,’ Capaldi said. ‘They don’t like strangers.’
‘Oh, shit.’ Hoffer started pulling Capaldi to his feet. ‘You’re coming with me.’
But Capaldi resisted. More than that, he was still too scared to operate his legs, and Hoffer couldn’t carry him, not with dope dealers on his ass.
‘We’ll finish our chat later,’ he promised, then ran for the door. He could hear loud voices upstairs, not just two of them but three or four or five. He started down the stairs for the front door. He could hear footsteps pounding after him. Finish it now or keep running? He wondered if they’d fire on him out on the street? If yes, then it was better to make a stand here. But some instinct told him to get his fat self outside. There were houses on one side of the street only, the other being wall and embankment leading to a railway line. He didn’t know which way to run. There didn’t seem an obviously busier road in either direction. So he took a left and ran.
There were more houses, then some lock-ups, and then a corner shop. The street met another one at a T-junction, and he made the junction just as four figures came cautiously out of Capaldi’s building. One of them pointed at him, and another raised a pistol. It could have been anything, airgun, starting-gun, even a water pistol. Hoffer wasn’t taking any chances.
As far as he could aim, he aimed over their heads, but not so far over their heads that they’d think he didn’t mean business. A couple of them dove back indoors again, but the one with the pistol kept cool and fired off two shots. The first hit some harling on the wall of the corner shop, while the second went through its display window, leaving large radial fractures around the hole.
‘Fuck this,’ said Hoffer, letting off a couple more and not caring where they went. He turned the corner into the new road, ignoring the people who were coming to their windows and doors. They seemed to go back inside pretty damned quick, but at least they came to look, which was more than would’ve happened in New York. At the bottom of the street, he saw a busy well-lit road, buses passing along it. He thought he recognised it from the cab ride. He kept turning around, but no one seemed to be following him. He knew they’d probably get a car first and follow him in that. Gun-toting drug dealers were so lazy these days.
‘Damn,’ he said, ‘I could do with some dope, too.’ Maybe they’d sell him some before taking off the top of his head. He’d known dealers kill their victims by ODing them. Well, let them try that trick on him with a mountain of opalescent coke, he’d put them out of business before he died.
He’d tucked the gun into his waistband and closed his jacket. He wasn’t running any more, just walking very briskly. There were sirens ahead. Yes, he’d passed a police station on the way here. He walked into a pub as the sirens approached, looked around the interior as though searching for someone, then stepped out again when the sirens had passed. There was an Indian restaurant coming up. It was curtained from the road, nobody could see in or out.
If he kept moving, someone would stop him, be it police or irate dealers. There were no cabs to be seen, and the buses didn’t move fast enough to be havens. He could walk, or he could hide. And if he was going to hide, why not hide somewhere he could get a meal and a drink? He pushed open the door of the Indian place and found another door which he had to pull. The restaurant was quiet, and he got the table he asked for: in a corner, facing the door. Anyone coming into the restaurant had to close the first door before opening the second. For a second or two, they’d be trapped between the two. He’d be able to pick them off while still spooning up the sauce, like a scene out of The Godfather.
‘Quiet tonight,’ he said to the young waiter.
‘It’s always quiet midweek, sir.’
After the meal, he had a couple of drinks in what seemed to be an Irish bar, not a coloured face in the place. There was a sign on the door saying ‘Sorry, No Travellers’. He almost hadn’t gone in, but then the barman explained that it meant tinkers, gypsies, not visitors. They all had a good laugh about that.
He took a taxi back to Capaldi’s flat and made the driver go straight past it. Now that he thought of it, Capaldi would be long gone. He might not come back till all the heat had died. He might never come back at all. He’d either talk to Hoffer, and the D-Man would kill him, or he’d stay quiet and Hoffer might kill him. It wasn’t much of a life, was it?
‘Piccadilly Circus, please,’ Hoffer told the driver.
‘You’re the guv’nor.’
It was unfortunate they’d been interrupted. All Hoffer knew now was that the D-Man had stayed in town after the assassination, when normally he’d have taken off. Why? That was the question. What was there for him here?
The tip-off, it had to be the tip-off to the police. The assassin was mad about it, and maybe he was going to do something about it. He’d be tracking down his paymasters. He’d be seeking out whoever set him up.
‘I’ll be damned,’ Hoffer said to himself. At this rate, even in a city of ten million people, they might end up bumping into one another by accident.
He spent the rest of the drive wondering what his opening line would be.
12
Bel and I sat waiting for our meeting with Joe Draper. His production company had a set of offices on the top floor of a building near Harrods. We’d arrived early so Bel could do some window-shopping. I offered to buy her anything she liked, but she shook her head, even when I said I’d dock it from her pay. Actually, we hadn’t stayed long in the store. She’d looked a bit disgusted with it all after a while. She’d hooked her arm through mine as we’d walked to Draper Productions.
‘Relax,’ she’d told me.
We’d spent last night in bed together, Bel asking questions about my life, and me deciding how to answer them. I’d deflected her for a while by talking about guns. She knew a lot about guns and ammo, but that didn’t mean she liked them. They scared the hell out of her.
Now we sat in Draper’s offices, pretending to be CID. We were wearing the same clothes as yesterday, down to the black leather gloves. We weren’t leaving fingerprints anywhere. Bel flicked through a trade mag, while I watched Teletext. There were three monitor-sized TVs in reception, all with the sound turned down. One of them was showing a looped montage of recent Draper output. The secretary kept deflecting calls to Draper’s assistant.
‘I did that,’ I said. Bel looked up from her magazine. Teletext was running a news page, all about how two East European countries were about to close their shared border. Tensions had been high between the neighbours since the break-up of the Soviet Union, but a recent perceived assassination attempt on a diplomat based in London had brought things to a head.
‘Maybe you should do something about it,’ she whispered. The whisper wasn’t necessary, the secretary having put on headphones so she could start some audio-typing.
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know, own up or something, say the diplomat was never your target.’
‘But that would mean telling them who my real target was. I quite like it that they’re not sure.’ I was smiling, but Bel wasn’t.
‘You could start a war, Michael.’
I stopped smiling. ‘You’re right. Maybe I could offer Draper the exclusive.’
She slapped me with the magazine, then went back to reading it. Teletext flipped to its News Directory. There was some story near the bottom about a shoot-out on a north London street. It was coupled with another story, some get-tough-on-drugs speech the Home Secretary had made. I didn’t think it meant anything, but I got up and went over to the secretary. She stopped her tape.
‘Yes?’
‘Do you have a handset for t
he TV?’ She looked disapproving. ‘I don’t want to change channels, I just want to check a story on Teletext.’
Without saying anything, she opened a drawer and brought out a couple of remotes.
‘One of these has Teletext,’ she said, restarting her tape.
‘Thanks a million,’ I muttered. I aimed one of the remotes and pressed three digits. Up popped the story. There was a bit about the Home Secretary first, then a slim paragraph about gunshots fired in a street in Tottenham. It was the street where Harry the Cap lived. Maybe some people believe in coincidence. I’m not one of them. I knew Hoffer was getting too damned close.
Just then Draper’s door opened and a young man and woman came out. They were dressed like students, but carried briefcases. The boy had a ponytail, while the girl’s blonde hair was cropped short and tipped with red dye. They shook hands with Draper, then headed for the door. Draper checked something with the secretary, then came towards us.
‘Sorry to keep you, Inspector West.’
‘That’s all right, sir, we appreciate your finding time to see us.’
He was ushering us into his office. ‘The gloves are a nice touch,’ he said. I didn’t get it. ‘I used to produce a cop show called Shiner, maybe you know it?’
‘I used to watch it,’ said Bel. Draper looked pleased.
‘Only,’ he said, ‘the Inspector in that used to wear gloves like yours.’
‘I see,’ I said. Draper saw that he hadn’t scored any points, and shifted in his swivel-chair.
‘I’m not sure how I can help. I’ve already told your colleagues everything I can think of.’
‘Just a few follow-up questions, sir. A fresh perspective.’
‘Well, okay then.’ He clasped his hands in front of him. ‘Tea or coffee?’
‘No, thank you, sir. This is DC Harris, by the way.’
Draper had been staring at Bel. ‘We’re thinking of pitching a police documentary series,’ he informed her. ‘Ever wanted to be on television?’
She smiled professionally. ‘I don’t think so, sir. Bright lights make me nervous.’