Getting back to what he was doing to Gemma, Greg Swags interrupted him, knocking on the door maybe. The sound of knocking didn’t come through because of the noise the saw was making. What happened exactly I couldn’t see. Picasso went off camera. My guess is he looked through the peephole, saw Greg, opened the door and caught him unawares. Dig in the gut, something like that. Then dragged him in. I saw that bit. Greg was doubled up, not out. That came when Picasso hit him across the back of the head with the coffee table. Then he put away his tools. Nothing like a neat tradesman. All except for a scalpel – he put that between Greg’s fingers then slung it behind the settee. So that’s why Chilly Winters was still holding Greg. His prints on the scalpel. Strengthened his case nicely. Picasso had set Greg up. That was it. Then he pulled off his bloodstained sweater and surgical gloves and was out the door.
This bastard was impressing me.
I got a few hours’ kip then went to see Charlie Swags. I wasn’t sure whether or not to tell him I’d found the laptop. If I did, I’d have to tell him I’d taken it off Lucille. Which meant I’d have to say where she was. She’d be dead if I did that.
Now things with me and Charlie weren’t the same as they used to be. Years ago, before he got to be as big as he was now, we used to work closely together. I’d do most of the thinking, and he’d supply the muscle. We’d get into a few scrapes, but y’know how it is – it comes with the job. The laughs had gone. These days he’d come to me for a favour, like that thing with Drake, I’d think up a plan, then he’d tell his hired help to carry it out. I’d get a cut, but that would be it. Whether or not he’d see it like that, I don’t know. It was how I saw it though. He was above himself.
I’ll give you an idea of what I mean. Take security. Charlie’s security mad. You have to press the intercom button at the entrance gate and say the magic words ‘Red Dock’ before his honchos’ll let you in the fucking place. Big house with pointy roofs on all sides, big lawns, high perimeter walls. The Irish president has fewer heavies. Charlie even has bulletproof windows in his Merc. And a black Merc too. Maybe the cunt thinks he is the president. You’d understand it if he was forever ducking, but nobody’s taken a shot at him in years.
Not my type of house though. Didn’t fancy it. Some big-shot bishop used to live in it. All arched windows and grey scabbled stone. Lose your key and you’d need a battering ram to open the fucking door. Imagine living in a house a bishop used to live in, for fuck’s sake. I dunno, some people get grand ideas.
‘Red?’
‘Kane, how’s it going?’
Jerry Kane. Charlie’s head man. Give him the wrong answer to ‘Who the fuck’re you?’ and your dentist bills go up. A guy hit him with the head one night and knocked himself out. Just as well – Kane would’ve buried him. He’d called Kane ‘Chinky eyes’. Kane’s what you might call Charlie’s chief clearer-upper. If Charlie says ‘Kane’ll take care of it’, it usually means some insurance company’s about to pay out on a life policy.
I was wearing my ‘Fuck me, things are bad’ face, in light of the day’s events, Greg arrested and all. So was Kane, though he always looks like that.
‘Charlie’s waiting for you, Red. He’s out the back.’
‘Right.’
As I crossed the hall, Charlie’s wife was in what she calls the ‘drawing’ room, tinkling the grand piano, which none of them could play, with one hand, a glass of something in the other. I put my head in the doorway and nodded hello. She looked up and waited, as much as to say, ‘Any news that’d help Greg?’ I shrugged, meaning no. Back she went to Three Blind Mice. They sounded drunk as well. My guess was she was also on Valium.
Oddly enough, it was she who’d introduced me to Charlie. Years ago when I was in my teens, I fancied myself as a private detective. She’d hired me to see if he was up to anything. So I tailed him and then purposely let him see me. He grabbed me by the throat and said, ‘What the fuck’s the crack?’ and I said, ‘Well, Charlie, we’re all trying to make a few shillings.’ I indicated that his good lady was concerned about their marriage vows in relation to him fucking other women then let him talk me into keeping my mouth shut. For a consideration. I told his wife he was a saint, billed her as well and got paid twice. I had to or she’d’ve wondered why not. A small scam. But there’s always an angle if you go looking for it.
Sabina her name is – though everybody calls her ‘Bin’. A decent-looking redhead in her prime. But after years of sixty a day and a couple of goes at the facelifting, with the odd tuck here and there, the word ‘prime’ gets relegated. The old story – big shot keeps wife around because she’s the mother of his kids. Any lip and she knows the result. So she keeps her tongue in her head and her position – the wife of Charlie Swags. She’d settled for it.
The ‘back’ was like the Botanic Gardens’ greenhouse: the love of Bin’s life now that Charlie no longer gave two fucks whether she hired private investigators to follow him. You can always tell when
