Full of Money

by Bill James

  ‘It’s good we could intercept you like this today, Larry,’ Dean said. ‘We didn’t want to come ringing your front doorbell – disturbing you and giving the street cause for talk first thing in the morning. When Adrian calls on some people at home, especially when it’s early, there can be neighbourhood interest. Rumour. Gossip, etcetera. If we conduct visits of that sort they will often have, well . . . to be frank . . . often have a sorting-out purpose.’

  ‘Sorting out?’ Edgehill said.

  ‘In a special sense,’ Dean said.

  ‘Which?’ Edgehill said.

  ‘Someone in the house needing to be sorted out,’ Dean said. ‘This wouldn’t have been decided hastily by Adrian and me, but it would have been decided on.’

  ‘The sorting out?’ Edgehill replied.

  Dean said: ‘If we arrived at your place, 19a Bell Close, pre-breakfast, folk on the estate could imagine you were in some sort of difficulty – could think you’d foolishly, disgustingly, crossed Adrian – been skimming from deals, say, and doing tetramisole or hydroxyzine mixes. Undue tetramisole or hydroxyzine, damaging the firm’s reputation for notable quality. In fact, of course, we wouldn’t have had that kind of ticklish, reprimand purpose in calling on you, but people form ideas of their own. It’s what’s known as their “perception”.’

  Edgehill wondered whether to people in Gideon he’d look like a Pellotte associate, though a lowly one, who could be required to stoop and take a kerbside briefing which wasn’t brief. He’d prefer not to have that sort of reputation, thanks. If Edgehill had owned a car himself and used it to drive to work, unwanted encounters like this would be impossible. But almost as soon as he bought his Whitsun flat he’d realized – been made to realize – that vehicle ownership here didn’t really serve, unless you were Pellotte or one of his staff, and – crucially – known to be one of his staff. Otherwise, if you kept a car in the street, pieces of it, or it itself, would disappear some nights, or days, and, in fact, as to pieces of it, most nights or days: anything removable. You might keep it elsewhere, out of the district, and go to pick it up by Tube train or bus or hike or folding bike, but you still had to pay insurance postcode related, and the postcode of your address, not the car’s, with bulky weighting for likely vandalism and, almost just as likely, taking, driving away and torching.

  ‘An informal encounter like this is better,’ Pellotte said. ‘I’m more comfortable with that. Doorstepping – so crude and potentially . . . potentially unpleasant.’

  ‘An Englishman’s home is his piss-hole,’ Dean said. ‘I guessed you’d probably be walking to the Tube at about this spot – the former fruit and vegery – around now, you see.’ He glanced sadly at the planked window. ‘We were fond of this shop. But the owner, Greymatter Charles, decided he needed no protection, and look what happened.’

  ‘What did?’ Edgehill said. ‘I was never clear on that. Nor about the other two shops.’

  ‘They thought if they banded together, formed a kind of cooperative, they’d be able to look after themselves,’ Dean said. ‘You’d imagine someone called “Greymatter” would have better judgement than that, wouldn’t you? But “Greymatter” – the name might have been a joke, meaning the reverse, like “Slim” for some fatso.’

  ‘We have a note showing your routine, Larry,’ Pellotte said. ‘That kind of very rudimentary information. Address and so on. Kept entirely confidential, believe me. You’ve heard of data security? Meet Dean, its greatest fan.’

  ‘Just a basic fact store,’ Dean said. ‘Nothing worrying in the least. Adrian would hate to be thought of as some Big Brother figure, wouldn’t he, watching everyone on Whitsun, creating dossiers? Again, not at all his way.’

  ‘My timetable is pretty simple and easy to chart,’ Edgehill said.

  ‘We’ve observed that,’ Dean said. ‘I don’t say this is unwise. You’re in a non-hazardous occupation. Why should you fear interference?’

  ‘Well, I should be moving on,’ Edgehill said.

  ‘And possibly a mention of some other factors,’ Dean said.

  ‘Which other factors?’ Edgehill said.

  ‘That Tate item on your show, certainly a triumph,’ Pellotte replied. ‘Most of the panel people had it so right in their discussion of the Retrospective, Larry. On the whole, very well-selected contributors.’

  ‘Which other factors?’ Edgehill said.

  ‘Several of the people you get on there are quite knowledgeable, and all credit to you, Larry,’ Pellotte said. ‘I gather you’ll offer an occasional panel place to Detective Chief Superintendent Esther Davidson’s husband, Gerald. Fine idea. Distinguished bassoonist.’

  ‘The data shows he gets around a bit too much, but, still, an undoubted artist,’ Dean said.

  ‘Often these actual practitioners can talk so forcefully, are so down-to-earth and precise,’ Pellotte said.

  ‘Mind, we were glad you didn’t have that slimy fucker, Rex Ince, on the panel last time,’ Dean said. ‘He’s the sort who just has to snipe and niggle, doesn’t he? So predictably negative. Hardly what we might call aesthetic. No decorum. Talks like he’s the only fucker in the fucking world who ever heard the fucking words “perspective” and fucking “ambience”.’

  Dean, behind the wheel, had to lean forward to get these insights past Pellotte and to Larry through the window.

  Edgehill said: ‘We try to vary our—’

  ‘Ince is sad,’ Pellotte said. He gave a small wave of his right hand to scatter tolerance towards Rex Ince.

  ‘To quite a degree, Adrian believes in that famous adage,’ Dean said.

  ‘Which?’ Edgehill said.

  ‘“Live and let live”,’ Dean said.

  ‘Fine principle,’ Edgehill said.

  ‘Yes, to quite a degree,’ Dean said, ‘except when some totally unreasonable, sneaky, insolent fucker has to be countered, obviously.’

  ‘Which unreasonable, sneaky, insolent fucker?’ Edgehill asked.

  ‘Obviously, “live and let live” doesn’t necessarily mean someone like, for example, Ince. He’s Cambridge, isn’t he? A fellow of one of the colleges. A don, as they’re termed,’ Dean said. ‘Mind, I’m not necessarily against Oxford and Cambridge – or “Oxbridge” as they’re called together – though we’ve run across someone else from Oxbridge lately who didn’t really suit. Is this coincidence, or is it Oxbridge?’

  ‘Didn’t suit in which way?’ Edgehill said.

  ‘Yes, in his undergrad days he was at Oxford, this one,’ Dean replied.

  ‘Who?’ Edgehill said. ‘Did something happen?’

  ‘We had an eye on him, as you’d expect, but then, suddenly, unnecessary.’

  ‘The murdered journalist?’ Edgehill asked.

  ‘I’ve got a note somewhere about Ince and the college.’

  ‘And you’ve done surveillance on me, too?’ Edgehill said. ‘You have a note?’

  ‘Big, ugly, official word – “surveillance”,’ Dean said. ‘Not at all one Adrian would be happy with. We’ve familiarized ourselves in a general, practical and I trust helpful fashion, that’s all. What else are neighbours for?’

  ‘In strictly germane aspects only,’ Pellotte said.

  ‘Germane how?’ Edgehill said. Hell, he must get a car and vary his routes. After all, you could rent a lock-up garage on the estate and not leave your vehicle unprotected in the street. But the awkward thing about ‘lock-up’ as a term on Whitsun was it didn’t really mean ‘lock-up’, not in a lasting sense of lock-up. It expressed a hope only. ‘Lock-up’ definitely indicated you could lock up the garage when you first took it over, and the lock had been checked and replaced after a previous tenant. But, soon, the lock to the lock-up would be re-wrecked by visitors one night or day, drawn to it, naturally, because it was locked up and could therefore be assumed to have something inside worth locking up, such as a car, and/or items too hot to be kept at home or offered to a fence at a decent price yet, or a stack of crack, skunk, H and other commodities.
So, the garage wasn’t a lock-up except historically, and the car previously securely locked up in the lock-up was then in as bad or worse situation than parked on the street, where it would at least be in sight; if they left it there, that is.

  Also, the lock-ups tended to be in secluded, cul-de-sac corners of Whitsun Festival – and the same, probably, on Temperate Park Acres – locations where at dusk or later, or virtually any fucking time at all, group numbers could be unfavourable to you, and non-Festive and non-Temperate matters might happen when you walked to or from the vehicle, regardless of closed-circuit television surveillance, which, in any case, had usually been fucked up. On the whole, Edgehill knew the suburbs would have more comfortable conditions, including garages that were actually part of a house – i.e., integral – as with his parents’ avenue in Petts Wood, Kent, but, so far, Edgehill considered the burbs too distant – and, of course, pathetically . . . suburban. Larry had the awkward half-conviction that in his kind of work he should stay close to ordinary London lives. And this possibly meant where he was, for the present. A sort of rickety logic came into play – the only sort available to Edgehill currently. This said, forget car ownership and the very fluid meaning of that word, ‘ownership’, when applied to Whitsun cars, Larry, boy. Take public transport.

  ‘You speak of surveillance, Larry,’ Dean said. ‘No, no, no. Intrusiveness is simply not Adrian’s style. Clearly, that would hardly be live and let live. Why would we need to do surveillance on you, for heaven’s sake, Larry?’

  ‘Yes, we must let you get along,’ Pellotte said. ‘You’ll doubtless have a full day ahead, in preparation for the next A Week in Review. Simply, we wanted to touch base and express our approval. We are groupies of your show! But perhaps we’ll make contact again in due course. There are certain continuing matters. Substantive.’

  ‘Oh?’ Edgehill said. He disliked the sudden ‘but’.

  ‘Personal matters,’ Pellotte said.

  ‘Notable matters of a troublesome kind, extremely personal to Adrian individually – as a person,’ Dean said.

  ‘Personal? In what way?’ Edgehill asked.

  ‘Sensitive,’ Pellotte said. ‘Possibly you know something of it already?’

  Something of what, for fuck’s sake? Edgehill did not actually say this. People on Whitsun never talked to Pellotte like that. Nor people anywhere else, most probably. Although Edgehill wanted to answer Pellotte confidently, he decided it would be a kind of dangerous impudence to stick his head too far into the BMW through the window and direct his voice right at Pellotte, he wearing such a tie, and simply being Adrian Pellotte anyway. Yet, replying from the pavement, with a small gap between him and the car, Edgehill felt some of his words could get lost or mangled in traffic din. They might be key words. Edgehill realized that any words you spoke to Pellotte on notable personal matters – personal to him as an individual – certainly, any words might be key words. Altogether, this setting on Gideon seemed a dodgy way to hold a three-sided conversation. His back ached and, off and on, his eyes swam, from the effort of keeping arched. But no choice.

  ‘I’m uncertain what you mean,’ he replied.

  ‘Truly sensitive this matter, and fundamentally personal in a personal context, believe me,’ Dean replied.

  ‘We’re not talking trade, Larry,’ Pellotte said. ‘This goes beyond the commodities.’

  ‘Well beyond. Personal,’ Dean said.

  ‘I can’t tell how much you know of this exceptionally special matter,’ Pellotte said.

  ‘In what respect, Mr Pellotte?’ Edgehill said. He didn’t feel like risking ‘Adrian’.

  ‘This is what I mean by personal,’ Pellotte replied.

  Edgehill still didn’t see how anything personal to Adrian Pellotte as an individual could possibly involve him. And Edgehill longed to make sure that nothing personal to Adrian Pellotte as an individual ever did involve him.

  ‘Yes, perhaps we can talk more substantively later, Larry,’ Pellotte said. ‘I have a notion this would be advantageous.’

  ‘Advantageous to almost everyone,’ Dean said. ‘It’s part of that live and let live policy.’

  ‘This has been splendidly constructive,’ Pellotte said.

  Edgehill pulled back and straightened. Dean took the car away from the pavement and into the traffic. Edgehill resumed his walk. Occasionally, someone who’d grown used to seeing him on his morning trek would wave and smile, and he’d respond to the friendliness. Was he too harsh about Whitsun? Couldn’t it sometimes show worthwhile comradeship? Possibly the waves and smiles seem a little more deferential today because the BMW conference had been observed and much mobile-mentioned?

  ‘And did I see you up the road in a long chinwag with our Mr Pellotte?’ Udolpho Wentloog-Jones said.

  He ran the newsagent booth at the end of Gideon, not far from the station, did some minor pushing – so the word went – and knew pretty well everything about Whitsun. He lived in what was known as Old Whitsun, the original village-like district, and considered classier than the estate, as if Old Whitsun went back to Pentecost. Edgehill bought his Guardian and Sun from Udo every working day. ‘That car – it always tells a tale though, doesn’t it, Larry? Yet, what tale? The new lady chief of detectives, Mrs Davidson, might be interested to know you chat with Adrian Pellotte in a friendly manner.’

  Edgehill tried to work out what the ‘our’ meant in ‘our Mr Pellotte’. ‘Our’ geographically – because he lived on Whitsun? ‘Our’ because he had a sort of eminence, and therefore gave distinction to the community, as, say, ‘our gracious Queen’ did in the national anthem? ‘Our’ because Udolpho knew him and assumed Edgehill must also?

  ‘They’re into the arts,’ Larry said. ‘We had a word or two about the programme I work for.’

  ‘A word or two or a couple of thou. A Week in Review? Well, yes, I know he’s interested. Books. Art. Dean, also. That kind of area. I bump into some of Adrian’s people now and then, you know, on a business footing, and they speak of these habits. Plus, his daughter – a worry. Did he mention that? I expect he mentioned that. This would be his purpose in talking with you?’

  ‘Pellotte’s daughter? Never met her. Never heard of her,’ Edgehill said. Might this be the ‘personal’ topic? Oh God, involvement with Pellotte’s family.

  ‘It’s to do with the programme, in a way,’ Udolpho explained.

  ‘Which way?’

  ‘He’s got two daughters. But Dione. Doing something with that guy you use plenty as chairman on A Week in Review discussions.’

  ‘Rupert Bale? Doing what with him?’

  ‘Doing something.’

  ‘A relationship?’

  ‘You know, like a would-be couple. Did he want to talk about that? I don’t think he likes it. Well, you wouldn’t expect him to. Nor Dean. Bale – he lives on Temperate, doesn’t he?’

  ‘So?’

  Other customers required serving. Udolpho turned away.

  After a couple of minutes, when they were alone again, Edgehill said: ‘No, I’ve never heard any of this.’

  ‘It’s private – not a general buzz. But in the way of trade I talk to some of his staff now and then. It’s been referred to. Not always as satisfactory. No, not satisfactory. I thought he must have been . . . well, describing things for you. It seemed some considerable conversation you had. Like important.’

  ‘No, not about that.’ Or possibly, yes. Had the later part of it been about that, but kept muffled, coded, delayed?

  ‘No? Really? Well, forget I spoke, will you?’ Wentloog-Jones said. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have. He’s subtle – Adrian. He’d probably arrange a street rendezvous just to touch base, as he might say. Then, later, the crunch.’

  ‘Touch base?’

  ‘Make contact. A preliminary. Did he say “touch base”? That’s a phrase of his. It’s often his way in negotiations, and so on. Then a follow-up . . . follows. Did he say he might look you out again – for something “substantive”? Another of his t
erms. They’re not necessarily threatening. Not necessarily at all.’

  Edgehill went on towards the station. Was he getting pulled into something on Whit, something special, something exceptionally fucking special, and exceptionally fucking dicey? Petts Wood, or a spot suburbanly similar – did he suddenly hear them calling him, like glib sirens? He wouldn’t say his wish to up-camp from Whit, and from contact with people like Pellotte and Dean, a matter of snobbery and/or gutlessness, not totally. For him, at least until the Gideon seminar today, it had consisted almost entirely of the slightly laughable, unquenchable, relentless desire for off-street parking, or – not an impossible aim – a garage actually attached to the property. He’d come to revere the term ‘integral’ to describe a garage, the way some could be thrilled by a religious or erotic or fiscal word. His Whitsun flat itself was only just off-street, and, on the whole, not a pleasant street in any of the standard meanings of ‘pleasant’.

  Ten years ago – certainly twenty – people in his kind of executive post would probably have set themselves up in a place considerably different from Whitsun. However, when he bought the flat, London prices were still preposterous, and getting more so. And he had been a print subeditor then and not earning so well. In standard style at the time, he’d planned to get what he could afford under the post-Thatcher buy-not-rent policy for estates – i.e., the Whitsun flat – wait for it to appreciate, and use the increase to set himself up after a couple of years in a non-estate area, say Ealing, Camden Town, Battersea. But values there – in Ealing, Camden Town, Battersea – went ahead vastly faster than the worth of his Whitsun place. He stayed stuck.