by Ian Rankin
“What is this, a joke? I’m supposed to wear these things all the way to London?”
He crunched the plastic cups in his beefy fists and got up to use the bathroom. There was a guy four rows back who kept laughing at the in-flight movie, some Steve Martin vehicle which had left the factory without wheels or any gas in its tank. The guy looked like he’d have laughed at Nuremberg.
The bathroom: now there was another problem. A Japanese coffin would have been roomier. It took him a while to get everything set out: mirror, penknife, stash. They’d been sticky about the knife at airport security, until he explained that he was a New York private detective, not a Palestinian terrorist, and that the knife was a present for his cousin in London.
“Since when,” he’d argued finally, “did you get fat terrorists?
Come to that, I’d be better armed with the in-flight knife and fork.”
So they’d let him through.
He took a wrinkled dollar bill from his pocket and rolled it up. Well, it was either that or a straw from the in-flight drinks, and those straws were so narrow you could hardly suck anything up. He’d read somewhere that eighty percent of all the twenty-dollar bills in circulation bore traces of cocaine. Yeah, but he was a dollar sort of guy. Even rolled up, however, the dollar was crumpled. He considered doing a two-and-two, placing the powder on his pinky and snorting it, but you wasted a lot that way.
Besides, he was shaking so much, he doubted he’d get any of the coke near his nose.
He’d laid out a couple of lines. It wasn’t great coke, but it was good enough. He remembered the days of great coke, stuff that would burn to white ash on the end of a cigarette. These days, the stuff was reconstituted Colombia-Miami shit, not the beautiful Peruvian blow of yore. If you tried testing it on a cigarette tip, it turned black and smelled like a Jamaican party. He knew this stuff was going to burn his nose. He saw his face in the mirror above the sink. He saw the lines around his mouth and under his eyes, coke lines. Then he turned back to the business at hand and took a good hit.
He wiped what was left off the mirror with his thumb and rubbed it over his gums. It was sour for a second before the freeze arrived. Okay, so he’d powdered his nose. He doubted it would put wheels on the movie, but maybe he’d find something else to laugh at. You never could tell.
Hoffer ran his own detective agency these days, though he managed to employ just one other tec and a secretary. He’d started in a sleazy rental above a peep show off Times Square, reckoning that was how private eyes operated in the movies. But he soon saw that clients were put off by the location, so he took over a cleaner set of offices in SoHo. The only problem was, they were up three flights of stairs, and there was no elevator. So Hoffer tended to work from home, using his phone and fax. But the clients were happier now that Hoffer Private Investigations was above a chichi splatter gallery selling canvases that looked like someone had been hacked to death on them and then the postmortem carried out. The cheapest painting in the shop covered half a wall and would set the buyer back $12,000. Hoffer knew the gallery would last about another six months. He saw them carry paintings in, but he never saw one leave. Still, at least Hoffer had clients. There’d been a while when he’d been able to trade on his name alone, back when the media exposure had been good. But stories died quickly, and for a while the name Hoffer wasn’t enough.
Twelve thousand dollars would buy about eight weeks of Hoffer agency time, not including expenses. Robert Walkins had promised to deposit exactly that sum in the agency’s bank account when Hoffer had spoken to him by phone. It was funny, speaking to the man again. After all, Walkins had been Hoffer’s first client. In some ways, he was Hoffer’s only client, the only one that mattered.
The Demolition Man was in action again, and Hoffer badly wanted to be part of the action. He didn’t just want it, he needed it. He had salaries and taxes to pay, the rent on his apartment, overhead, and money for his favorite drugs. He needed the Demolition Man. More crucially, he needed the publicity. When he’d started out for himself, he’d hired a publicity consultant before he’d hired an accountant. When he’d learned enough from the publicist, he’d kicked her out. She had a great body, but for what she was costing him he could buy a great body, and it wouldn’t just talk or cross its legs either.
When he’d got the call from London, he’d been able to pack his bags in about thirty minutes. But first he’d called to get a ticket on the first available flight, and then he’d called Robert Walkins.
“Mr. Walkins? This is Leo Hoffer.” On the force, they’d all called him Lenny, but since he’d left the force and re-created himself, he’d decided on Leo. The Lion. So what if he was actually Capricorn?
“Mr. Hoffer, I take it there’s news?” Walkins always sounded like he’d just found you taking a leak on his carpet.
“He’s in London.” Hoffer paused. “London, England.”
“I didn’t think you meant London, Alabama.”
“Well, he’s there.”
“And you’re going to follow him?”
“Unless you don’t want me to?”
“You know our agreement, Mr. Hoffer. Of course I want you to follow him. I want him caught.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll transfer some funds. How much will you need?”
“Say, twelve thou?” Hoffer held his breath. Walkins hadn’t been tight with money, not so far, though he’d nixed Hoffer traveling club class.
“Very well. Good luck, Mr. Hoffer.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Then he’d packed. It didn’t take long because he didn’t own a lot of clothes. He checked with Moira at the office that she’d be able to control things for a week or so. She told him to bring her back a souvenir, “something royal.”
“What about a pain in the ass?” he’d suggested.
He finished packing and called for a cab. He didn’t have any notes to take with him. All the notes he needed were firmly lodged inside his head. He wondered if he should take a book with him for the journey, but dismissed the notion. There were no books in the apartment anyway, and he could always buy a couple of magazines at the airport. As a final measure, he stuck his penknife in his carry-on luggage, and his mirror and stash in his inside jacket pocket. The knife, of thick sharp steel, was purposely ornate and expensive: that way people believed him when he said it was a gift for his cousin. It was French, a Laguiole, with mahogany handle and a serpent motif. In emergencies, it also had a corkscrew. But the real quality of the thing was its blade.
He knew the cab was on its way, which left him only a few minutes to make his final decision. Should he carry a gun? In the wardrobe in his bedroom he had a pump-action over-under shotgun and a couple of unmarked semiautomatic pistols. He kept the serious stuff elsewhere. Ideally, he’d go get something serious. But he didn’t have time. So he grabbed the Smith & Wesson 459, its holster, and some ammo from the wardrobe. He packed it in his suitcase, wrapped in his only sweater. The door buzzer sounded just as he was closing his case.
At London Heathrow, he phoned a hotel he’d used before just off Piccadilly Circus and managed to get a room. The receptionist wanted to tell him all about how the hotels were quiet for the time of year, there just weren’t the tourists around that there used to be . . . Hoffer hung up on her. It wasn’t just that he felt like shit. He couldn’t understand what she was saying either.
He knew he could claim for a cab, so he schlepped his stuff down to the Underground and took a train into town. It wasn’t much better than New York. Three young toughs were working the carriages, asking for money from the newly arrived travelers.
Hoffer hadn’t taken the Smith & Wesson out of his case yet, which was good news for the beggars. London, he decided, was definitely on its way down the drain. Even the center of town looked like it had been turned over by a gang. Everything had been torn up or sprayed on. Last time he’d been in London, there had been more punks around, but there’d been more life to the place too,
and fewer street people.
The train journey took forever. His body knew that it was five hours earlier than everyone around him thought it was. His feet were swollen, and sitting in the train brought on another bout of ear pressure. Plastic cups, for Christ’s sake.
But the receptionist smiled and was sympathetic. He told her if she really felt sorry for him he had a fifth of scotch in his bag and she knew his room number. She still managed to smile, but she had to force it. Then he got to his room and remembered all the very worst things about England. Namely, the beds and the plumbing. His bed was way too narrow. They had wider beds in the concentration camps. When he phoned reception, he was told all the beds in the single rooms were the same size, and if he wanted a double bed he’d need to pay for a double room. So then he had to take the elevator back down to reception, get a new room, and take the elevator back up. This room was a little better, not much. He switched the TV on and went into the bathroom to run a bath. The bath looked like a child might have fun in it, but an adult would have problems, and the taps were having prostate trouble if the dribble issuing from them was anything to go by.
There wasn’t even a proper glass by the sink, just another plastic tumbler. He unscrewed the top from his Johnnie Walker Red Label and poured generously. He was about to add water from the cold tap, but thought better of it, so he drank the scotch neat and watched the water finally cover the bottom of the bath.
He toasted the mirror. “Welcome to England,” he said.
He’d arranged to meet Bob Broome in the hotel bar.
They knew one another from a conference they’d attended in Toronto when both had been drug squad officers. That was going back some time, but then they’d met again when Hoffer had been in London last trip, just over a year ago. He’d been tracking the Demolition Man then, too.
“You mean Walkins is still paying you?” Broome sounded awed.
“I’m not on a retainer or anything,” Hoffer said. “But when we hear anything new on the D-Man, I know I can follow it up and Walkins will pay.”
Bob Broome shook his head. “I still can’t believe you got here so quickly.”
“No ties, Bob, that’s the secret.” Hoffer looked around the bar. “This place stinks, let’s go for a walk.” He saw Broome look at him, laughed, and patted his jacket. “It’s okay, Bob, I’m not armed.” Broome looked relieved.
It was Sunday evening and the streets were quiet. They walked into Soho and found a pub seedy enough for Hoffer’s tastes, where they ordered bitter and found a corner table.
“So, Bob, what’ve you got?”
Broome placed his pint glass carefully on a beer mat, checking its base was equidistant from all four edges. “There was a shooting yesterday evening at six o’clock, outside a hotel near the U.S. Embassy. A minute or two after the shooting, a bomb ex-ploded in a rubbish bin nearby. We had an anonymous call warning us, so we sent men over there. We arrived just too late, but in time to start a search for the assassin. But he’d been a bit too clever. We went for the building directly in front of the hotel, and he’d been holed up in the office block next door. He must have seen us coming. He called for an ambulance, gave them some story about being seriously ill, and they whisked him away to hospital from right under our noses.”
Hoffer shook his head. “But you’ve got a description?”
“Oh, yes, a good description, always supposing he wasn’t wearing a wig and colored contact lenses.”
“He left the weapon behind?”
Broome nodded. “An L96A1 Sniper Rifle.”
“Never heard of it.”
“It’s British, a serious piece of goods. He’d tweaked it, added a flash hider and some camouflage tape. The telescopic sight on it was worth what I take home in a month.”
“Nobody ever said the D-Man came cheap. Speaking of which . . . ?”
“We don’t even know who his target was. There were four people on the steps: a diplomat and his wife, the secretary of state for the DSS, and the journalist.”
“How far was he away from the hotel?”
“Seventy, eighty yards.”
“Unlikely he missed his target.”
“He’s missed before.”
“Yeah, but that was a fluke. He must’ve been after the reporter.”
“We’re keeping an open mind. The diplomat seems sure he was the intended victim.”
“Well, you have to keep an open mind, I don’t. In fact, I’m famous for my closed mind.” Hoffer finished his drink. “Want another?” Broome shook his head. “I need to see anything you’ve got, Bob.”
“That’s not so easy, Leo. I’d have to clear it with my—”
“By the way, something for your kids.” Hoffer took an envelope from his pocket and slid it across the table. “How are they anyway?”
“They’re fine, thanks.” Broome looked in the envelope. He was looking at £500.
“Don’t try to refuse it, Bob, I had a hell of a job cashing checks at the hotel. I think they charged me the same again for the privilege, plus they had an exchange rate you wouldn’t accept from a shark. Put it in your pocket. It’s for your kids.”
“I’m sure they’ll be thankful,” Broome said, tucking the envelope in his inside pocket.
“They’re nice kids. What’re their names again?”
“Whatever you want them to be,” said the childless Broome.
“So can you get me the info?”
“I can do some photocopying. You’ll have it first thing in the morning.”
Hoffer nodded. “Meantime, talk to me, get me interested.
Tell me about the deceased.”
“Her name is Eleanor Ricks, thirty-nine, freelance journalist.
She covered the Falklands War and some of the early fighting in ex-Yugoslavia.”
“So she wasn’t just puffing fluff ?”
“No, and lately she’d made the move into television.
Yesterday she had a meeting with Molly Prendergast; that’s the DSS minister.”
“What was the meeting about? No, wait, same again?”
Hoffer went to the bar and ordered two more pints. He never had to wait long at bars; they were one place where his size lent him a certain authority. It didn’t matter if he wasn’t wearing great clothes, or hadn’t shaved in a while, he had weight and he had standing.
That was one reason he did a lot of his work in bars.
He brought the drinks back. He’d added a double whiskey to go with his beer.
“You want one?” But Broome shook his head. Hoffer drank an inch from the beer, then poured in the whiskey. He took two cigarettes from one of his packs of duty-free, lit them, and handed one to Broome.
“Sorry,” he apologized, “bad habit.” It wasn’t everyone who wanted him sucking on their cigarette before they got it. “You were telling me about Molly Prendergast.”
“It was an interview, something to do with Ricks’s latest project, the one for TV. It’s an investigation of religious cults.”
“And this MP has something to do with them?”
“Only indirectly. Her daughter was involved in one for a while. Prendergast and her husband had to fight like mad to get her back. In the end, they virtually had to kidnap her.”
“And that’s what Ricks wanted to talk about?”
“According to Mrs. Prendergast.”
“You don’t sound too sure.”
“I’ve no reason to suppose she’d lie. Besides, her story is backed up by the program’s producer.”
“What’s his name?” Hoffer had taken a notebook and pen from his pocket.
“Joe Draper. One strange thing: somebody called the hotel.
They asked for Eleanor Ricks and said it was urgent. She was paged, but she didn’t take the call. Not many people knew she was going to be there. Draper’s one of the few.”
“Which TV company is it?”
“It’s a small independent production company. I think it’s just called Draper Films or Draper Visio
n, something like that.”
“You work too hard, Bob, you know that? I mean, you’re a seven-day man, am I right? Of course I’m right. You’ve got to rest your brain sometime.”
“It’s not easy.”
“But if you don’t rest your brain, you start forgetting things, like whether it’s Draper Films or Draper Vision. I mean, little things, Bob, but little things can be the important things. You’re a cop, you know that.”
Broome didn’t look happy at this little lecture. In fact, he finished his drink and said he had to be going. Hoffer didn’t stop him. But he didn’t hang around the pub either. It reminded him of a few bad Irish bars he knew in and around the other SoHo.
He headed across Shaftesbury Avenue and into Leicester Square, looking for interesting drugs or interesting whores. But even Leicester Square was quiet. Nobody worked a corner these days.
It was all done by mobile phone. The telephone kiosks were full of whores’ business cards. He perused them, like he was in a gallery, but didn’t find anything new or exciting. He doubted there was anything new under the sun, though apparently they were doing mind-boggling things with computers these days.
There were some kids begging from their doorway beds, so he asked them if they knew where he could find some blow, then remembered that over here blow could mean pot. They didn’t know anyway. They hardly knew their own damned names. He went on to Charing Cross Road and found a taxi to take him to Hampstead.
This was where the D-Man had carried out his other London hit, at an office on the High Street. As usual, he’d kept his distance. He’d fired from a building across the street, the bullet smashing through a window before entering and leaving the heart of an Indian businessman who’d been implicated in a finance scam involving several governments and private companies.