by Bill James
‘I’m not at a high enough rank to handle ramifications, sir.’
‘Ralph can see beyond the actual – the gunning incident – and discover the real objective. Result? Future vendetta warfare on the streets, maybe. Ralph possibly killed or for ever disabled? The whole tranquil, precious drugs dealing concord – Ralph–Manse Shale – disrupted, maybe permanently destroyed. What chance balance when one scale has been emptied or vastly reduced?’
They drove down to The Monty together, Harpur at the wheel in an unmarked car. Iles said: ‘Snotty, snooty, disdainful, those alternative explanations of the “hefty” hoisted girder’s purpose in “I Spy”: defence or air-conditioning. More crude sarcasm. Likewise the scoffing El Cid remark.’ They turned left into Shield Terrace. Iles whistled gently. ‘El Cid is there in the porch, Col. He seemed to be staring after somebody, and not fondly, body tense. Don’t go into the club car park yet. It would alert him. Let’s watch for a minute.’ He pointed ahead. ‘Look, the green Peugeot is pulling out. There’s a metered space. Did I spot a thong-flash as the driver climbed over from the rear into the driving seat?’
‘If there was the flash of a thong, I don’t know anyone more likely to see it than you, sir,’ Harpur replied.
‘What was she doing on her own in the back?’
TWELVE
Enzyme had been to Silver Bells And Cockleshells twice previously. He really enjoyed these visits. He loved the bold, bright, friendly decor: vivid wallpaper in blues, reds, yellows and so on, giving picture versions of fairy tales and nursery rhymes. Jack and Jill climbed up a manageable looking mauve hill to fetch the pail of water, but then in the next scene came tumbling down with the spilled grey bucketful dousing them, Jack holding his severely injured head; both were smiling, though, at the arse-over-tit fun of it, so as not to frighten the nursery kids. A cream-coloured, milk-heavy cow flew over a slim, white moon, the cow grinning grandly at this exceptionally unusual lift-off. A big, virtuoso tabby cat, eyes closed in concentration, soloed a violin concerto, standing on its two back legs, the fiddle tucked in professionally under the thick-whiskered chin, an orchestra of other cats in the background on cellos, timpani, brass, woodwind. He had the feeling that their music would be joyful and loud with confidence, probably a Mozart piece. This bucked him up.
The children and Judy’s staff at Silver Bells And Cockleshells always seemed happy, too, and this gave Enzyme’s spirits an extra boost. For a short time he could stop yearning for the past glistening distinction and wealth of the Gordon Loam dynasty and, instead, enjoy thinking that he could restore all the family’s success, even improve on it. That’s what a cow jumping over the moon was about – unlikely achievement, brilliant, tuberculin-tested optimism. Of course, he took care not to get physically close to any of the children, or it might look as though he was on paedo sorties. Nurseries did attract crummy interlopers, mostly male. This was the kind of dirty reality the fantasy rhymes and tales provided an escape from.
The first time he’d come it was to tell Judy he fancied the .38 Smith and Wesson and ask whether she could fix him up, plus a tidy packet of ammo. He’d explained that what he needed was a pistol he could rely on to stop, and drop, immediately anyone artistically troublesome within a range of, say, twenty-five metres. An enemy still on his or her feet could fire at you, even if you’d put a good quota of bullets in him or her. To bring about instant collapse they had to be the right kind of terminating bullets and, obviously, in the right parts of his or her body. Smash someone’s elbow with a round, fair enough, but he or she would still have the other arm and its trigger finger working OK.
Gordon Loam didn’t want a big, lumpy handgun, though, liable to give a boob-and-bra bulge under his jacket. He required the gun as an essential aid to his career in the Fine Arts. However, because this would be regarded by most as a very cultured and aesthetic job, carrying a pistol – carrying a badly stashed pistol – might seem oafish in the better type of gallery. But, in fact, the pistol was vital equipment, just as much as up-to-date records of auction-house sale prices, or a magnifying glass for signatures; though the gun should be kept hidden, if possible, at least until use.
In this trade, deals of tens of millions of dollars, and even of pounds sterling, had become commonplace; and, as a result, all kinds of international crooks and crookedness had also become commonplace. So had occasional serious gun play. People would die for their art, or for someone else’s. Naturally, he’d also asked for a gun offering complete accuracy, in case the person targeted by him was carrying a valuable painting, or paintings, which had to be preserved intact, not riddled. Otherwise, killing the carrier would lose some of its point. Bullet holes in the repro Blake at Ember’s Monty didn’t matter. Bullet holes in a Manet or Monet would matter, could be deal-breakers. You did not see for sale in catalogues a masterpiece ‘with perforations’. Monet had done that famous blueish painting of lilies on a lake, and it was so well-known you’d never be able to convince a possible buyer that some of the plant life and canvas under it were torn open as a special new ploy by the artist.
The dignity, beauty and general worthwhileness of art had attracted Enzyme to it as an occupation. He felt that the family history more or less compelled him to enter such a high status vocation – either Art, or the church, or soccer management, or the law. And he needed the .38 automatic to safeguard that esteemed status. In a way, Enzyme regarded this search for quality as comparable with Ralph Ember’s ambition for The Monty, although Gordon Loam saw one considerable difference: Ralphy’s obsessive wish was hopelessly, pitiably, fucking nuts, whereas Enzyme meant to win through and had the inherited flair, audacity and toughness to win through. Ralph might eventually transform The Monty, and a cow might jump over the moon, and pigs might fly. Enz wondered whether without realizing it at the time, due to drink and bar bravado, he had blasted off at the Blake because he considered Ralph Ember’s ridiculous efforts unconsciously caricatured, lampooned, Enzyme’s own much sounder purpose.
Judy had told him at their introductory meeting that she didn’t have a .38 S. and W. actually in stock, but she’d go to her wholesale source and see what might be available. He hadn’t been convinced that she really was without the model he wanted, though. This opening negotiation had struck him as a vetting session where she made a judgement on whether he was what he said he was, and whether it would be sensible and secure to deal with him. That kind of caution he’d entirely understood and sympathized with. He’d had her name, and the Silver Bells And Cockleshells’ name, from a couple of hobo-level hangers-on in the pictures and sculpts network. He came to Judy with no solid validation. Enzyme hadn’t expected her to produce something at once for this nobody from nowhere. That was how she’d inevitably think of him when he originally turned up. Although Judy might have heard something of the Gordon Loam family’s magnificent history, she had to deal with the difficult and dicey present.
Obviously, the crèche was an ideal front for the gun and ammunition business. Parents hoping to make arrangements for their children to be enrolled here would look in to settle things with Judy, and Enzyme might have been one of them; although in reality his daughters were much too old for a nursery. He and she could go to her private office, as if to discuss fees and diets and character foibles of a potential child newcomer. She had a triple-lock safe in there containing the armament, strictly guns and bullets only. She’d emphasized to Enzyme that she never dealt in grenades on account of possible risk to the nursery’s little innocents.
On his second call, when some trust had been built between them, and the deal for the .38 completed, she’d said: ‘I might accidentally pull a grenade pin, and it would go off, possibly setting all the others off, too, causing the whole sodding shebang to come down on the dear ones. Mothers and fathers trust me with their babes, and I cannot escape that responsibility. It is something central for me. I won’t sell the chemical irritant Mace, either – so useful for quelling nuisance people – though I know a company offe
ring it at a very attractive price. Suppose there were a slip-up and some of it circulated downstairs. It would upset me to see children hawking, spitting, gasping, their eyes inflamed. It’s as well you know my limits and principles. I’m an advocate of ethical trading.’
An outsize teddy bear had been fixed to the safe door with cheery, colourful tapes to soften the impression otherwise given by the tall, formidable-looking steel surface. Judy had to lift the plump left leg of the teddy to get at one of the combination dials. Enzyme had found the toy gave a pleasant homely touch. Teddies and all that Winnie the Pooh stuff would probably have been very much features of well-to-do households like the Gordon Loam’s in the last century. The bear did suggest, though, another resemblance to Ralph Ember – The Marriage Of Heaven And Hell rubbish intended to conceal the real rough-house reason for that thick defensive platter above Ralph Ember’s accounting desk at The Monty bar.
On his first visit to the nursery Enzyme had waited below among the children while one of the minders went to find Judy. He’d freighted some tremendous delight into his face as he looked at the cat and the fiddle, the laughing cow and Jack and Jill. He thought that if Judy were studying him from somewhere unobserved she should be able to tell from his crazily exaggerated response to the wallpaper that this was someone laboriously putting on a cover act: not an enquiring parent, but a would-be gun customer.
Today, naturally, there was no need for a repeat of the happy rapture at sight of the spilled bucket, the amusing animals and a dish and spoon, both with long, spindleshank legs and running off together. Judy was waiting, and they went immediately to her office. She closed and locked the door. He said: ‘I popped over, Judy, because I thought you might be a trifle perturbed by that rather skittish piece in the “I Spy” column.’ He’d decided he had to speak first and set the tone of their tête-à-tête: pre-empt. He wanted a light-hearted, debonair approach to this situation. He was a Gordon Loam, and he didn’t fancy being slagged off first by a big-time pusher and slummy club owner, and then by the boss of a dumping ground for pre-school, un-potty-trained young.
He realized he might have sounded very crushed and nervy when he rang half an hour ago. This had to be corrected, and quickly. Gordon Loams did not get crushed and nervy, especially on account of a rather impish, inconsequential carry-on at that unwholesome drinking club. There was surely a hearty tradition of exuberant, unconstrained behaviour by people of some class in plebby dumps like The Monty. ‘A rather scapegrace episode, I’ll admit, Judy, but once it was over, it’s over.’
‘So what the fuck are you doing here now?’ she replied.
He nodded and chuckled slightly, like someone who recognized he had a case to answer – but could answer it with charming ease. ‘A fair question,’ he said. He felt prepared to be damned gracious. He tried to stay aware that this was a woman with acute sensitivities. She would not do grenades or Mace. ‘Yes, utterly fair.’
‘So, what’s the reply?’ she said. ‘Do you know how to spot a tail and deal with it?’
‘A tail?’
‘A car following you.’
‘Why would a car follow me?’
‘The paper says you fired a pistol in The Monty.’
‘Well, no, with respect, Judy, it doesn’t exactly say that.’ Correct her, but in gentle, civilized, calm style. Undermine her. Diminish her. Let her see she was up against decades of inherited, unshowy poise.
‘No, it doesn’t exactly say, but definitely. Why would you want to pay for the damage if you hadn’t caused it?’ she said. ‘What are you, a charity? What you did is probably an offence. Having an unlicensed gun is certainly an offence. Some people might wonder where you got it. Some people might watch you. Some people might track you to the Silver Bells And Cockleshells and decide this might be your supplier.’
‘You mean police?’
‘Think about it.’
‘I didn’t see anything.’
‘That’s why I asked if you were used to watching your rear. This would be a vehicle not immediately behind but lurking at, say, one remove. Are you familiar with the tactics?’
‘No, but I’m sure, nothing.’
‘Well, you don’t sound sure.’
Gordon Loam thought this cow wouldn’t squander her energy by jumping over the moon. Her efforts would go to watching for the nitty-gritty perils she lived with on the ground. Cud was being chewed. Himself.
‘You’ve done some time, haven’t you?’ she said.
‘I’ve never mentioned that. How do you know?’
‘I read in the Press of someone I’ve supplied goods to banging off at club ornamentation and I’m bound to wonder if what he’s banging off with is the article I supplied. So, it would follow I carry out some brisk research on him.’
‘I’m not keen on that.’
‘No, I don’t expect you to be. But perhaps I should have done it a lot earlier, such as before I supplied him with what I supplied him with.’
‘Research where?’
‘There’s a lot of information about if you know where to look for it.’
‘But where did you look for it?’
‘Now, don’t make yourself seem even more stupid than you have already. Am I going to disclose my founts to you?’
He decided he’d been wrong to think of her as chirpy. Dogged. Belligerent. Self-protective. He still regarded the eyebrows as expressive, but not friendly-expressive, suspicious-expressive, resentful-expressive. ‘Founts?’ he asked.
‘In this business – the kiddy-care business, I mean, not the armament section – in this caring business it’s necessary to do checks on all sorts. There are founts from which info flows.’
‘I’m on no sex register.’
‘I accept that. But sex isn’t the only area they’ll dig into if you ask. If you ask and pay.’
‘So, you asked?’
‘Not until the report of the club escapade. Previously, I’d used my own judgement. As I said, a mistake.’
Someone knocked the door. Judy lowered her voice. ‘It will be Fern, one of the helpers. She’ll want to discover whether we’re shagging in here. It’s an interest of hers.’
‘What is?’
‘Other people having it off. I don’t think she gets much herself. It’s envy. I’ll tell her you’re not on the sex register, shall I?’ Judy answered the knock at full voice now. ‘Yes?’
‘Shall I bring teas?’ the woman said.
‘Yes, tea would be lovely,’ Judy said.
‘But the door is locked,’ the woman said.
‘I’ll unlock when you bring it.’
‘Milk and sugar? I’d remember better if you opened the door now and told me face to face.’
Judy looked at him.
‘Milk and one sugar,’ he said.
‘Milk and one lump for each of us, Fern. I said lump, not hump, mind.’
The woman gave up.
Gordon Loam wasn’t certain of the best way to act. Would Judy take it as a slight if he treated Fern’s imaginings as preposterous? The atmosphere was deeply unfavourable to love-making, anyway, but Fern couldn’t know that. Gordon Loam got a diversion going: ‘Judy, I hate to think I might have made you uneasy. I said to myself, as soon as I saw the “I Spy” gossip, that I must come over to Silver Bells And Cockleshells at once, to explain and apologize.’
‘And by coming over to explain and apologize you may have made things worse. Perhaps you’ve created an obvious link between, on one side, you and the gunman and, on the other, me and the nursery. I don’t thank you for that.’
This infuriated him – the quiet, deadly way she phrased it: ‘I don’t thank you for that.’ What she meant was: ‘I curse you for that.’ But instead of coming out straight with it, she softened things, turned a forthright, no-nonsense positive into a milk-and-water negative. Management-speak. It was how someone in authority, and/or with some class, might tell off a subordinate – say, a duke or pop star to his butler. It was reproof, but reproof a little und
erstated so as not to seem like a rich and/or upper-crust bully; in other words, condescension. It was the kind of patronizing technique his family in the past would have used on their servants: noblesse oblige material; a slap-down, but tempered for the shorn lamb.
Because she ran a couple of businesses she thought it OK to behave like a marchioness. She was divorced, and he could understand why. Being alone and in charge had probably changed her from someone acceptable to this. She had a well-looked-after slim body for her age, a strong – maybe overstrong – face and features, and she was dressed in high-grade cling-fit jeans and a roll-top purple sweater. When she’d smashed through the glass ceiling, though, a bit of glass must have sliced off a dollop of feminine sweetness.
‘But at least you don’t come here carrying that gun,’ she said. ‘Or not in a shoulder holster, anyway. No giveaway mound.’
‘I couldn’t have brought it.’
‘Oh?’
‘It’s gone.’
‘Gone where, for God’s sake?’
‘Look, Judy, as soon as that foolishness took place at The Monty, I realized there might be results that could threaten you.’ He gave this maximum earnestness. ‘I realized that perhaps there’d be some means of tracing the weapon to yourself as provider. So, I did what I hope you’d expect me to do as safeguard of your interests. Those interests were my priority.’
‘Did what?’ she replied.
‘Got rid. Gun and remaining rounds.’
‘Got rid?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘How? Where?’
‘You’re perfectly entitled to ask for details.’
‘Yes, I know. How? Where?’
‘I drove to the headland at Rondon Point. The load is in about six fathoms of shifting, murky, tumultuous sea and getting pulled and flung by an undertow further and further from land.’