Eight Ball Boogie Part 22

"You can tell so soon? I'd have thought your investigations would be a little more rigorous than that."

"Trust me, Frank. She's f.u.c.king with a few more people too, only now we're talking metaphors. And that includes you."

Again he ignored the dig. I was impressed. I thought a slur on his wife's character would have been enough to get Big Frank out from behind the desk, seeing as how that'd be muscling in on Big Frank's turf. Instead he reached for the chequebook on the desk.

"That is good news." He picked up a pen. "What do I owe you?"

"That isn't the good news, Frank. At least, it might be good news but it's nothing you didn't know already. The good news is that you're getting a new partner."

"Partner?"

"Not in the biblical sense. You're a good-looking cove but you're not my type. I want in."

"In?"

"A cut, Frank. A percentage. A tidy little earner for doing sweet f.u.c.k all. And that includes not repaying the visit I had from the Dibble yesterday morning."

He didn't flinch. Not a twitch. He really was good. I thought about what Brady told me. If Conway inspired respect in Brady, then his office was the last place I should have been sitting. Then again, Brady hadn't been shot at, or forced to put his family on the run. Not that he'd told me about anyway, Brady seemed shy that way. But I was guessing that any of those reasons would have put Brady where I was and it was unlikely Brady would have been my side of the desk.

"You want to get into the real-estate business?" His tone was polite, but edgy, like he was playing to a crowd.

"The surreal-state business. Drugs, by any other name."

"I'm a bit old for doing drugs." He laughed, but it came up short, ending on a high note. He cleared his throat, reached for his Marlboros.

"You're never too old for a high, Frank. But I'm not talking about a few tokes. I'm talking about distribution, profit margins, the full nine yards. Word's out, Frank, you're the Candyman. I know it, the Dibble know it, and if they know it you can bet half of Christendom knows it."

"That's libel, Rigby."

"Slander, actually, and only if it's not true. Or is it the other way around?" I dropped him the shoulder. "What's your favourite Bond movie, Frank?"

He bought the dummy.

"What?"

"Your favourite Bond movie, everyone has one. Mine is Thunderball. Connery's the main man, the only Bond. Moore's too camp and Brosnan's too posh. Anyway, there's a line in Thunderball where Bond reckons that once is coincidence, twice is happenstance, three times is enemy action. Know that line?"

He shook his head, licked his lips. I sat forward, grinned, waded in swinging.

"You came to me two days ago, Frank. Gave me some bulls.h.i.+t about how your wife was s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around. Which didn't scan, any time I said she was playing away you jumped like someone was into your strides with a cattle prod. Which meant you had some other reason for being there. I don't know, maybe you knew the Branch boys were keeping tabs and you were looking for a patsy." I shrugged. "All you had to do was ask, Frank. I don't mind being anyone's patsy, so long as they pay for the privilege."

He didn't say anything.

"I played along, Frank. Did a little digging on the lovely Mrs Conway, not really expecting to find anything, because generally I wouldn't find water in a well, especially when the well is dry. So imagine my surprise when I discover that the lovely Mrs Conway is not only s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g someone but I manage to capture the Kodak moment."

His lips were clamped shut but his jaws were moving.

"Choice stuff, Frank," I needled. "I've heard about some of those positions but I never believed them possible. Still, they say the camera never lies."

Conway deserved a lot of things but the truth wasn't one of them. And if my instincts were right, my best bet was to push him all the way to the edge.

"Don't sweat it, there's usually something. A woman wouldn't be human if she didn't flirt a little, and your wife just happened to take it a step further." I paused. "Okay, so she took it about a triple jump further, but let's not split hairs. The point I'm making is, you didn't think she was s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around at all. So that got me wondering. Why does Big Frank want me thinking his wife is s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around? Then, yesterday morning, two Branch boys turned up in my office, asking about you. That's coincidence, Frank, in any man's book."

He rubbed at his nose with the back of his hand.

"Dry your eyes, I didn't tell them anything. All my clients are a.s.sured of discretion, even the ones that are f.u.c.king me around. But it got me wondering, so I did a little more digging and f.u.c.k me if I didn't turn up a sweet little potato, Big Frank Conway is running party favours through Belfast. A word to the wise, Frank, and I won't charge you a penny for it. I didn't have to dig very deep. So, let's talk profit margins."

His voice was scratched sandpaper.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"No? Then maybe I'm wasting my time talking to you." I kissed the dice, let them roll. "Do me a favour, Frank. Ring Tony Sheridan for me, I don't have his number handy. And if you don't have it, I'm sure the lovely Martina will be only too happy to oblige."

Snake eyes. He slumped back in the chair, deflated.

"What do you want?"

"Two things. For starters I want two grand a month for keeping my trap shut. That wouldn't pay your dry cleaning bill, I know, but I'm not greedy."

"What else?"

He was too quick, too compliant.

"Don't get smart on me now, Frank. I'll be surprised and I don't like surprises. You think I'm stupid? That I'd walk in here and start shooting my mouth off? Without taking out insurance against ending up like Gonzo?"

He'd done composed, he'd done panicked, now he was doing confused. He was wasted as an auctioneer. He should have been in Hollywood.

"Gonzo?"

"Gonzo. My brother, that enemy action I was talking about, the third coincidence. It's the other thing I want, to know why my brother was murdered last night."

His mouth dropped open. Either he knew nothing about Gonzo or Stanislavski was officially old hat.

"Your brother was murdered?"

"Someone fed him dodgy E. His brains came out his nose in the end. When the picture's developed, I'll send you a copy. You can frame it."

"Christ, Rigby." He was hoa.r.s.e by now. "I didn't even know you had a brother."

"He wasn't brother enough to say, but that's not the point. You mightn't have known him as my brother. Some people knew him as Gonzo. Other people knew him as Eddie. You knew him, about four years ago, as Robbie. Robbie Callaghan."

He swallowed hard.

"Ding-ding, that rings a bell. Good old Robbie, Robbie the fall guy. Did his time without a squeak, kept your nose clean. He gets out and all of a sudden he's called Gonzo again. Or was he still calling himself Robbie? I only ask because I want to know what we should put on the headstone."

"Robbie's dead?"

"Someone slipped him a Mickey Finn. I'm betting it was you, even though the Dibble are thinking the same."

He gave me his best goldfish impression.

"Jesus, Rigby. I knew nothing about "

It looked convincing, but then Big Frank was only a movie away from a nervous breakdown in the Dorothy Chandler pavilion. I stood up.

"Maybe you did and maybe you didn't and maybe you know someone who did. If you do, tell them this. Whoever had him killed had a reason for doing it. Tell them I said the reason wasn't good enough. No matter what it was, it wasn't good enough. Which is why we're talking payback."

He nodded, reached for the Marlboros.

"You smoke too much, Frank. Be carrying a brown envelope the next time you see me and make like I'm a TD."

I strolled out through the foyer, slow, so my legs wouldn't give way. The secretary was still furious. She really needed to get out more, or maybe invest in a battery-powered appliance.

"You've lipstick on your teeth," I said, and heard my second new swear word of the week.

19.

I strolled up the street, settled into the window table of a cafe diagonally across from Conway's office. The place was clean, quiet, the tables covered with white-and-red checked plastic cloths. The smile the waitress flashed was also plastic but she didn't look anywhere near as fresh as the tablecloths. The coffee wasn't warm mud but it wanted to be.

The street was thronged but I'd have spotted Helen Conway with one eye tied behind my back. She emerged from the office with Frank in tow, disappeared around the corner. I left the waitress a tip don't get married 'til you're thirty-five and disappeared after them.

They crossed the street, turned another corner onto the old bridge, tripped up the steps of the Connaught Arms Hotel. I gave them a minute to get comfortable and then I tripped up the steps of the Connaught Arms Hotel too.

The foyer was warm and humid, sultry as Faulkner's socks. The gold lame decoration tacked up over the reception desk bore the legend 'Happy Xmas'. Silver dis...o...b..a.l.l.s were suspended from the dusty light-shades, each one boasting a sprig of mistletoe. Off to the right, an avocado three-piece suite that had seen better days in a far better place menaced a ring-marked coffee table.

The windows stretched from floor to ceiling, affording a dirt-streaked view of the river as it frothed over the weir beneath the bridge. In the distance, maybe a quarter mile away, I could see the new bridge. If I squinted I could make out the bench where I'd been sitting just before taking my header into the river, so I didn't squint. In front of the windows were long, shallow ashtrays filled with sand, cigarette b.u.t.ts and one or two plastic plants.

Off to the left, the doors of the hotel bar were wide open and the Christmas spirit was going down in doubles. I crossed the foyer to the reception desk, standing sideways on so I could watch the door of the bar. I tapped the bell on the desk, which was the receptionist's cue to ignore me completely. The collar of her gleaming white blouse was stiffly starched but pretty much everything else sagged. Her chins had chins and her make-up foundation was threatening to collapse under the weight of her expectations.

I coughed, polite. Still she leafed through the sheaf of papers on the desk. I coughed again, a more phlegmy effort. She pushed back the rimless spectacles that had slipped to the end of her nose and stared, imperious.

"Yes? Can I help you?"

"I'd ask for the manager, only a Hilton like this couldn't afford any other staff after meeting your demands."

"I am the manageress."

"Then start doing your job."

She pushed the spectacles back again, only this time they hadn't slipped.

"Excuse me?"

"You're excused. I'd like to see a room, please."

She looked me up and down, not liking what she saw. I didn't like what she was looking at. I hadn't shaved in two days, my clothes were still damp, and the last time I looked in the mirror a kitten had been using my face as a trampoline.

"I am sorry. We have no vacancies."

"Last time this place was booked solid, the Black and Tans had burned out half the town. But that's not the point. I don't want a room, I want to see a room."

She was fuming. Actually, she was a fuming ventriloquist. Her lips were clamped tight but the words clipped out, vocal chords on semi-automatic.

"I don't understand."

"I want to know who's booked the room, the one I want to see. Show me the register."

She made an involuntary movement towards the leather-bound register that lay open on the desk in front of her. Then she caught herself, smoothing out the wrinkles of her thought process.

"I will have to ask you to leave. If you refuse, I will call the Guards."

"Call them. I haven't seen a cop in nearly two hours and I'm starting to get lonely."

We stared. Her hand hovered over the telephone.

"Will you please leave?"

"No. Call the Dibble. I want to make a complaint."

"A complaint?"

"Yeah. I'm concerned about the moral depravity of your hotel. I'm also outraged by the decor, but there's nothing the Dibble can do about that."

"Moral depravity?"

"The words knocking and shop might ring a bell."

"Knocking shop?"

"Knocking shop. Hammer house. Brothel. Bordello. Call it what you want, the tarts are in and out of here on roller-skates. That's moral depravity. I'm offended. Blame the Christian Brothers."

She might have been an old dragon but she was still a dragon. She nearly singed my eyebrows.

"How dare you?"

"Oh I dare, I dare." I grinned. "Look, there's nastier stuff going on in this dump than a few farmers getting their festive jollies and I don't begrudge the livestock their Christmas break. Letting me look at the register will go some way to making sure the nasty stuff doesn't happen here again. Okay?"

"What kind of "

"Show me the register or ring the Dibble."