'Has it got aircon, this place? I'm not going anywhere without aircon. Not in this heat.'
'Of course it has,' I lied. 'And it's got nice views, too. You'll like it.'
'We'll see,' he said enigmatically and hung up.
This guy fancied himself, no question; and he wanted me to know he was no fool. I've met plenty of men like him before. Men who are sure they know the score on everything; who are streetwise enough that they can smell trouble a mile off. But everyone's got a weakness. It's just a matter of knowing where to look.
Five minutes passed, and I was just about to phone the cheeky sod again to see what the hell he was playing at when he emerged from the hotel entrance, dressed in a white, short-sleeved cotton shirt and jeans. He made his way straight to the car without looking around, which meant that he'd been watching it from his hotel room. Fair enough. I'd have done the same in his position.
He was medium height, early forties, with short dark hair and a thick moustache that followed the curves of his mouth and didn't look right on him at all. He had a muscular build that suggested he worked out regularly, and his face was fairly nondescript in so far as nothing actually stood out, except perhaps that it belonged to a man who knew how to handle himself.
I couldn't help but smile as I watched him approach in the rear-view mirror. So the man I'd once known as Billy West had changed his name — or part of it, anyway. I hadn't seen him in maybe ten years, but he didn't look much different than he had done then. Except for the 'tache. This was a new edition, and presumably part of his disguise. Because there was no way Slippery Billy West wasn't on the run. The man had spent a lifetime struggling to extricate himself from the jaws of justice, and with more than a little success too, especially where his dealings with me were concerned.
I'd first come across him back in London around 1991, when my colleagues and I in CID had put him under surveillance on suspicion of gun-running. He was an ex-soldier who'd served in the Falklands conflict and Northern Ireland, and who'd ended up being court-martialled when he and a fellow squaddie had held up an army payroll truck at gunpoint and relieved it of its contents. That was the only time, as far as I was aware, that he'd ever spent any time behind bars. Our surveillance of him for the gun-running lasted close to a month, and when we nicked him and raided the lock-up he was using for his business, we recovered three handguns and an AK-47 assault rifle. But in court, Slippery claimed to know nothing about the weapons, and used as his defence the fact that he wasn't the only keyholder to the premises, which was true. Two of his cousins, both of whom did work for him now and again, were indeed keyholders, and in the end it came down to the fact that it couldn't be proved beyond doubt that he was the one the guns belonged to, particularly as there were no prints on any of them. So he'd been acquitted.
I had the same trouble with him again a couple of years later when, acting on intelligence, I'd led a raid on his flat in King's Cross in the hunt for a significant quantity of cocaine. Unfortunately, the bastard had reinforced not only the front door but the bathroom door too, for a reason that quickly became apparent. We'd managed to batter down the front door after much effort, but by the time we'd got inside he'd already made it to the bathroom, along with his stash. I'll always remember the frustration I felt as we tried to force open the second reinforced door before he flushed the whole stash down the toilet. What was worse, we could hear him doing it. And he was whistling a jaunty tune at the same time, as if the sound of us trying to break into his place was the most natural thing in the world. After about five good heaves with the Enforcer, we'd finally got the door open, only to find old Slippery sitting comfortably on the throne with his trousers round his ankles, a recent copy of the Sun in his hands. He even managed a loud fart to add to the authenticity of his situation, before greeting me with a cheery 'Morning, DS Milne, I wondered what that noise was.' Which was him all over. As cocky as they come.
All that was left of the suspected half-kilo of cocaine he'd been in possession of were five plastic bags each containing trace amounts of the drug, which turned out to be enough to warrant only a two-hundred-pound fine.
Three weeks later, the guy who'd supplied us with the information that led to the raid, a former business associate of Slippery's named Karl Nash, was found dead in his Islington townhouse. At first his death was thought to have been due to a heroin overdose, but further investigation revealed that he'd been asphyxiated. There was, of course, an obvious suspect. Nash and Slippery had fallen out very publicly, but although Slippery was arrested and questioned in connection with the murder, there was insufficient evidence to proceed.
I think even he realized at this point that he was living on borrowed time, and shortly after that he'd quietly disappeared from the scene, and I hadn't clapped eyes on him since. Until now, that was. I wondered whether he'd recognize me or not. After all, we'd spent plenty of less than quality time in each other's company.
As he came by the side of the car I saw him glance casually at the back seat, just to check there wasn't anyone sat waiting there to garrotte him, before opening the door and getting inside.
'Mick Kane,' I said, putting out a hand.
He shook it with a softer grip than I'd been expecting and looked me in the eye. 'Billy Warren.'
For a couple of seconds there was nothing, and he even started to turn away, but then he looked at me again.
'What is it?' I asked him.
A slow and deliberate grin spread across his face. 'Fuck me, it can't be. Dennis Milne. Christ, you've changed a bit. Have you been having a bit of a nip and tuck, you vain bugger?'
So much for my disguise. 'I could hardly have announced my real name, could I?' I said, not bothering to deny his claim.
'Too right. I'd never have come down here. I wouldn't know whether you were going to nick me or shoot me.' He shook his head, still grinning. 'Blimey, it's a small world, innit? And full of surprises, too. Who'd have thought the copper who spent so much time trying to put me behind bars because he said I was a — what were your exact words, Dennis? — a lowlife bastard who's going to get what's coming to him, I think it was… Who'd have thought the copper who called me that would turn out to be a mass murderer?' His expression was full of mockery, but then it turned serious and his grey eyes hardened. 'You ain't gonna try and shoot me now, are you, Dennis? You have actually come with the money?'
'Unlike you, Slippery, I've got morals. I've only ever killed people who deserved it, and when I've had good reason.'
'What about them customs officers?'
'They were a mistake, and not one I'm ever going to repeat. I'm happy here. I don't need to complicate things by going back to that old game.' I turned the key in the ignition, put the Land Rover in gear, and pulled out into the road.
He was still watching me and I sensed a tension in him. He obviously wasn't entirely convinced. 'I bet you've always thought I deserved it,' he said.
'I did,' I told him. 'And I still do. But then again, when I came here this afternoon I didn't expect to be running into you. It's what you might call an interesting surprise.'
'Fair do's,' he said, and pulled a pack of Marlboro Reds from his pocket. He flashed it in my direction. 'Want one?'
'No, I quit. A while back now.'
'So, where's the case?'
'In the boot. You don't drive round the Philippines with cases full of money on your passenger seat. Not unless you want to lose them.'
He nodded, accepting the explanation, and we pulled out of East Brucal and turned right into the chaos of Concepcion Street, the noisy, fume-filled and dusty thoroughfare that was the heart of Puerta Galera. The traffic was heavy as usual, and the pot-holed road filled with all manner of exotic vehicles: hulking, multicoloured buses known as jeepneys that had people hanging precariously from every square inch of space; tiny mopeds with covered sidecars that often contained three generations of one family; battered old American Buicks and Fords; brand-new 500 and 1,000cc motorbikes ridden by bare-chested, helmetless and most definitely uninsured Europeans with their Filipina girlfriends on the back. The whole lot of them blasting on their horns as if their masculinity depended on it, and none of them going any faster than the choking pedestrians walking along the sides of the road.
Slippery lit one of the Marlboros with a match and opened the window, letting in a fiery waft of pollution. He chucked the match out and immediately shut the window again. 'Christ,' he said, taking a long drag. 'Is it always like this?'
'Always like what?'
He waved his arm expansively. 'Like this. You know, hot, smelly and noisy.'
