'There’s something I’d like to know.'
He played with his glass, not taking a sip from it, just looking into the brown liquid as if the answer might lie amongst the bubbles. Curiosity and the dangerous faint hope of an easy score kept me in my seat.
'Go on.'
'I’d like to know what Inspector Montgomery had on my dad.'
The sentence hung in the air, a bridge between Bill’s world and mine. A bridge I wasn’t sure I wanted to cross.
Eventually I said, 'So why don’t you ask him?'
'It’s not as simple as that.'
'Sorry to hear it.' I reached for my jacket. 'I’m in the entertainment game. Complicated isn’t my scene.'
'Hasty.'
Bill raised his index finger and I found myself hesitating.
Sam said, 'At least hear him out. If you don’t like what he says then no hard feelings.'
My half-finished drink sat on the table before me; the cigar Bill had given me still stretching tendrils of smoke into the air. I sighed.
'OK, go ahead.'
Bill’s smile was dry.
'Policemen and businessmen: it’s no secret that sometimes one hand washes the other.'
'Yet somehow no one gets clean.'
He shrugged.
'It’s ancient history now. My dad and Inspector Montgomery had an arrangement, as I said, Monty helped my dad out at a very difficult time; he owed him and old loyalties die hard.'
'So?'
'My dad died three months ago.'
'I’m sorry for your troubles.'
Bill took a sip of his drink.
'He was only sixty-eight. It was unexpected.'
'Natural causes?'
'You’re not in murder central now, Jock, this is civilisation. He had a heart attack. It was instant.'
'So where do I come in?'
Sam’s smile was tense. 'It’s really just a matter of…'
Bill interrupted him.
'You save me the unpleasantness of laying my hands on an elderly policeman.'
Bill ordered more drinks. Out on the dance floor the music had changed to an R’n’B
beat. The girls still had their stockings and panties on, but now they’d each equipped themselves with high heels and were stalking around the men waving purses in front of them, getting the audience to pay up if they wanted them to go further.
In the booth Sam said to Bill, 'William’s straight up. Tell him the whole story and he’ll help you out. Won’t you, William?'
I shrugged.
'See?' Sam smiled. 'I told you he was the boy for the job.'
Bill shook his head.
'What does it matter? We’ll be gone soon.' He took another puff of his cigar and resumed his story. 'I said that Monty and my dad went way back?' I nodded. 'Well, they didn’t like each other. In fact, I’d go as far as to say they hated each other’s guts, but they helped each other out. I asked my dad why once and he changed the subject. I assumed it was just business.' Bill gazed out over the dance floor, but I got the feeling he wasn’t seeing the half- naked girls still teasing the drunken policemen. 'Last week Monty shows me an envelope and says my dad paid a lot of money to keep its contents quiet. If I keep up the payments I can keep it quiet too.'
'So what was in it?'
Sam interrupted. 'He didn’t say.'
Bill gave Sam a stern look.
'He was enjoying himself. Said it was something my dad wouldn’t want me to know, but now that he was dead it was up to me to decide whether I wanted to or not.' Bill took a swig of his drink. 'My dad was no angel, but…'
'But you don’t think there would be anything diabolical in his past.'
Bill shrugged.
