To Indigo, Tanith Lee [best ereader for comics .TXT] 📗

It was then that my startled eyes, swirling back to focus on him, saw instead the man I’d seen previously on the train. He was still bald and still in his brown shirt. He leaned at the bar, watching us casually, what might be a Bloody Mary, or only a tomato juice, in his hand.

“That’s Mr C,” said my sudden companion. “It’s quite all right.” He turned his dark head and nodded, friendly, at the bald man, ‘Mr C,’ who nodded back and turned away.

“What is this about?” I asked. The most crazy idea of undercover policemen surged through my mind.

“No, Mr Phillips, that is to be my question.”

He had an educated voice, with the faintest hint of an accent, which might be Greek – or Egyptian, even something farther south-east of the Med. Accents aren’t my forte.

“Your question. What…?”

“Precisely. What is this about?”

“What is wh…?”

“No, no, Mr Phillips. Let’s cut to the chase, as they say.”

“Why are you calling me Phillips?”

“Because, Mr Phillips, that was the name I was given on your behalf.”

I stared at him. “Who gave it to you?”

He lowered his eyes with a knowing modesty. His lashes were like a woman’s, as with the Mediterranean or Middle Eastern male type they often are.

“Someone gave it to me,” he said, “who supposed you were in a little trouble. That you might need – a little assistance.”

I sat there. I noticed in a sort of blind irrelevance the black hair at his throat, a thin tarnished chain on his right wrist narrow as a hair, a wind-up watch. Although his clothes were of quality they had no labels.

Something snapped home in my brain. “When you say trouble…”

“No. It is you who have said the ‘trouble’.”

I heard Lewis Rybourne’s voice in my head first. “Oh, Roy. What shall I do?” Yet somehow Rybourne didn’t fit this kind of thing; I couldn’t imagine it, that he might know someone from this – calling. And then instead a female voice, high, light and foolish, said to my inner ear, as it had through the phone – “… my friend – she doesn’t see him now… I really can’t help you.”

Tish Ackrington. She’d panicked after my call. She’d phoned up her hit-man acquaintance. Someone’s found out – she couldn’t tell him it was her fault I had, not that it had been. And he must have said, I’d better pay him a visit. And then Brown Shirt had gone to my hotel. All the while I’d been checking Joseph Traskul wasn’t on my trail, ‘Mr C,’ had been. And now here was this one, using my pseudonym, relaxedly loose as his shirt and dangerous as an adder.

“I think – I may have been misunderstood,” I said.

“No, not at all. You have someone in your life who gives you some grief. Isn’t that so, Mr Phillips?”

I’d said nothing of that to Tish, but twittering idiot that she was, I reckoned it was easy enough even for her to put two and two together.

“I’m very sorry but…”

“I see,” he said. He looked directly into my face and smiled again. His perpetual smiles were quite unlike Sej’s. This man’s smiles all had a definite purpose. They were masks.

“I’m extremely sorry,” I said, “if you’ve been bothered unnecessarily.”

“Ah well now, Mr Phillips. You see, in our line, very often we find a customer is at first a little unsure. For example, he may not be quite certain what we are able to offer him, nor if he’s able to afford to recompense us for our very fine work.” He sipped once more at the Coke. “We operate on a sliding scale, shall I say. And we have several forms of merchandise. If one’s not suitable, it is very conceivable something else can be suggested. We are most flexible, Mr Phillips. Do please, for your own sake, give this a little more thought before making your final decision. The package can be something very small, or something of medium size. Or, naturally, our deluxe model. Everything will be tailored to your own particular needs. This can, to some extent, apply also to our prices.”

I gazed at him in sick fascination. He was not like similar characters in my books. Most of those had been of the eastender sort, fists on the table and words unminced.

The deluxe model. I assumed this meant murder. And the other options – the packages – beating up, hospitalization, or just intimidation, a warning.

I looked down at my drink.

The man across from me said, “Guinness. Have you ever drunk it in Ireland, Mr Phillips?”

“No.”

“You should.”

He knew too much. It seemed fruitless to deny it all again.

“Er, Mr…”

“Call me,” he said, “Cart.”

I thought Cart was what he said. He didn’t remonstrate when I employed it. “Mr Cart…”

“Just Cart. In this matter, I am at your service.”

“At this point I’m not sure I do need your – any help.”

“That was not the impression I, or my colleagues, received.”

“I may have overreacted.”

He wasn’t smiling. Above the rim of his glass his adder-black eyes stuck to mine.

Could I shake him off?

I doubted it. I cursed myself. I, not Tish, was the idiot.

Inside some compartment of my mind also, a low voice whispered that after all, this man was one of business, as he said. He did what he was paid for. And – if Joseph Traskul were as insane as I’d first believed, to have access to this atrocious alternative – might become necessary. Or was he insane? Was he maybe only different to the rest of us, spontaneous – compassionate. Brilliant.

And against all that, the other thought. And if he is my son?

I said, “I value very much the fact you’ve contacted me. It’s still possible I may need – but right now there have been sudden other developments.”

“This can happen.”

“Can I ask…?”

He waited. His eyes were gelid now. They didn’t blink, or move away.

“If I required… something very slight. A small package.”

“A thousand K,” he said. “That may seem a lot, but there