26

‘He calls me, orders me to find Billy McQueen. I don’t care what it takes, he says, find him. Break a few skulls if you have to.’ John Twiddie slurped up a good measure of McEwan’s heavy into the funnel of his mouth. ‘Haggs gets on my tits something serious. Go here. Do this. Do that. I’m like a dog on a leash, doll.’

Rita was busy rearranging her rings. She liked to move them around. It’s true what people said, she thought; variety is the spice of life. She liked the reflections the little gems made. She finished her Bailey’s and stuck the glass on the counter and tilted her head to catch the afternoon sun that came in at an angle through the window of the upstairs bar at the Ubiquitous Chip in the West End of the city.

‘And where do I find Billy McQueen? Eh? Where do I start looking? I don’t know the guy.’ Twiddie drained his pint. His nose throbbed where the stud was situated. ‘He’s not at his house, Haggs says. So give that a body swerve. He might be in England, Haggs says.’

‘England? Big place, England.’

‘Needle in a fucking haystack, hen.’

Rita was finally satisfied with the arrangement of her rings. ‘You have to respect Haggs. He’s a self-made man. He’s seen you all right with a few quid. You don’t have to love him.’

Twiddie made a hawing sound, meaning mibbe, mibbe not. He was thinking of the way the van had caught fire last night. He was remembering flames filling the front, and black smoke drifting towards the wasteland, and the alkies waking up and pushing aside their sheets of newspaper and watching the van smoke and fizz for a time, then they crawled back under their papers or into their threadbare sleeping bags and wondered if they were having DTs.

Through the dull ache of hangover, Twiddie remembered the sound of the fire brigade in the distance, then him and Rita running away from the scene. Holding hands, laughing, collapsing near an old railway arch. And still laughing. They had fun together, and Twiddie liked that. He thought Rita was a knock-out in the looks division. She was sexy, firm tits, easy to arouse, keen to please.

Twiddie ordered two more drinks. Heavy for him, Bailey’s for her. McQueen, one-legged man. How bloody hard could it be to track down Wan-Fittit?

He’d make some phone calls. He’d leave a few questions out there in the right places and mibbe get a few answers. He picked up his pint and winked at Rita. She leaned forward on her stool and adjusted the knot of his tie, which was an Armani knock-off, red with small pink dots. Twiddie thought it went well with his counterfeit Versace suit, a three-piece black number with very short lapels.

He set down his glass and spoke quietly. ‘If that old fucker Mallon had talked, then we wouldn’t have this shite to wade through –’

‘If is a wee word with a big meaning,’ Rita said. She adjusted the gold-plated paperclip that pierced her left earlobe then she poked Twiddie in the chest. ‘Why don’t you just make your phone calls, lover?’

‘Will do.’

Twiddie looked round the bar. The clientele was mixed, some shabbies hanging about in the hope of a free pint from passing acquaintances, a few low-class criminal types, a well-known author and a gaggle of his girlie acolytes, an undercover detective Twiddie made immediately, a drunken Australian woman who kept wanting to sing ‘Waltzing Matilda’ only to be shushed every time she uttered a few notes. It was a drab sort of place, but fashionably situated in a narrow lane close to Byres Road, where an assortment of students and trendies shopped and ate. Twiddie, who’d been born in the clapped-out Cranhill housing estate in the east of the city, the Drug Casbah, thought he’d come up in the world when he drank in The Ubi.

He found a quiet corner where he could use his cellphone. Reception wasn’t terrific but at least he had a good view of Rita sitting up on her stool, long legs and red leather miniskirt and some spangled stuff in her hair that sparkled when the sun caught it. She looked a picture. A wanker’s dream. He loved when they went to clubs and she danced her arse off for hours.

Twiddie punched in numbers. He talked to people in different parts of the city. Mad Cross-Eyed Logan, who ran betting shops in Shawlands and Govan, said he hadn’t seen McQueen in months. Bobby McPherson, operator of a profitable ticket-forging enterprise and nicknamed Bobby Christ because of his intense religious beliefs, said he hadn’t heard a dicky bird about Wan-Fittit in weeks. Patrick ‘The Cowboy’ O’Hare, who’d once borrowed heavily from McQueen to establish a chain of dry-cleaning establishments throughout the city, said he no longer did business with Billy, and his loans were all paid off. Teejay Guptah, owner of the Patna Palace Curry House in Bath Street, said he thought he’d seen McQueen the day before yesterday near George Square, but he wouldn’t swear to it.

He made one last call, this time to Gio the Gasman, so-called on account of his occasional habit of wearing a World War II gas mask because he was allergic to petrol fumes and pollen. Most of the time the Gasman hung out on the corner of Sauchiehall Street and Dalhousie Street, chain-smoking cigarettes hand-rolled in dark brown paper. He spent hours watching the street, grooving to the sounds of his Walkman.

He answered Twiddie’s call with his usual greeting. ‘Hazzo.’

Twiddie asked, ‘You know Wan-Fittit McQueen? You know his house?’

‘Nope,’ said Gio.

Twiddie mentioned the address in Novar Drive, Hyndland. ‘I want you to go there. Keep an eye open for him.’

‘How much is it worth?’

‘I’ll give you twenty.’

‘Twenty-five and I’m scooting, Twiddie. Vrooom. Vrooom.’

‘Right. But leave the mask at home, eh? Keep a low profile.’

Twiddie stuffed his phone into a pocket. He walked back to the bar, where Rita was finishing her Bailey’s and was just about to set the glass down on the counter when a man approached her, and Twiddie thought, Aw Christ, no. The man, who wore a flesh-coloured eyepatch over his left eye, was Lou Perlman.

‘Well I declare,’ Perlman said. ‘The Bobsy Twins, Rita and John. This is my lucky day.’

‘Lemme guess,’ said Twiddie. ‘You played a horse and it won.’

‘Only mugs gamble,’ Perlman said. He moved close to Rita and Twiddie and extended his arms in such a way that he managed to draw them both into his embrace. ‘My babies. My wee babies. And what have youse two been up to lately?’

Lou Perlman, in brown suit and a gold kipper tie that might just have been fashionable when Carnaby Street was new, had been born and brought up in old Gorbals, before city planners had demolished the place. Twiddie feared him: he was as hard as a bag of shaved steel.

‘Up to nothing, Lou,’ Rita said. ‘Do you never shave?’

‘Every third day.’ Lou Perlman tightened his embrace. ‘Your beauty takes my breath away, Rita. I gasp. I feel like Willie Wordsworth strolling through a field of daffodils when I look at you.’

‘Pull the other one,’ Rita said, and shook a leg at him. ‘It plays “The Bluebells of Scotland”.’

‘So. Bring Lou up to date. Lou likes to be au courant with affairs.’

‘Oh coo-rawn?’ Twiddie asked.

‘French, Tweedledum. Comprenez? I see your wee moustache is flourishing. Frankly I’ve seen more hair on a parrot’s arse. You still running errands for Long Roddy, eh?’

‘Who?’

Perlman laughed, a smoker’s bark. Twiddie didn’t like this proximity to the cop. Perlman smelled of police stations. Tobacco and sweaty shirts and something dusty and metallic, maybe rusty, like old radiator pipes, and a hint of cheap soap. These scents reminded Twiddie of hours he’d spent in custody.

Perlman released the pair. He looked at Twiddie, who couldn’t hold the policeman’s hard stare, then he turned to Rita, who was altogether more defiant.

‘I wish you’d piss off and leave us alone,’ she said. ‘We’ve got a right to privacy, don’t we? We’ve got a right to sit here in the Chip and have a quiet wee drink, don’t we?’

‘Rights,’ Perlman said. ‘People are always moaning and whining about rights. You know what rights do, Rita? They get in the way of law and fucking order.’ He caught Rita by the wrist. Her assorted jewels jingled. She rang like a cash register. ‘Where were you last night?’

‘At home watching a video.’

‘Boy Wonder here was with you, right?’

‘Yeh, he’s always with me,’ she said. ‘Aren’t you, lover boy?’

‘Aye,’ said Twiddie. ‘Never leave her side.’

‘And what were you two scumbags watching? The Towering Inferno? The Day the Earth Caught Fire? Or something new from the Arsonist’s Video Rental Emporium?’

Rita said, ‘Just because I once set fire to an abandoned building you’ve got me down as a pyro.’

‘You play with matches, dearie. Fire intrigues you. You’re like the moth, Rita. Can’t stay away from the candle.’

‘That was years ago,’ she said. ‘You never let a person live anything down.’

‘I’ll try again,’ Perlman said. ‘Where were you pair last night?’

Twiddie asked, ‘You deaf?’

Perlman caught Twiddie’s nose firmly at the place where the stud had caused the bulb of inflammation, and he tugged Twiddie’s head downward. ‘What did you say, John?’ Perlman asked.

‘You’re hurting me,’ Twiddie said.

‘Speak up!’

‘I said you’re fucking hurting me.’

‘SPEAK UP, I’M LOSING MY HEARING.’

The suppuration on Twiddie’s nostril erupted under the pressure of Perlman’s fingers. Pus spurted into the policeman’s hand. He gasped in disgust and grabbed tissues from the dispenser on the bar and wiped his fingers. ‘Oh for fuck’s sake, Twiddie. This is scunnering.’

‘I got some on my suit,’ Twiddie complained.

‘It was your nose that exploded,’ Perlman said. ‘It was your conk that burst.’

Twiddie cleaned the lapels of his suit with tissues. ‘This is pure Versace, Perlman. One hundred per cent. I’ll sue. I’ll take you to court.’

‘Why don’t you just shut your fucking face? If anybody’s going to court, it’s you.’ Perlman crumpled the napkins and tossed them over the bar into a wastebasket. He had absolutely no desire to have Twiddie’s body fluids on his skin; it was an intimacy he didn’t need. He had better things to do than question the Weird Couple about their whereabouts. He had a murder on his mind. But he was the resident expert on Twid and the Fire Goddess.

He glared at Twiddie. ‘You see? This is what happens when you don’t deal with things, laddie. They fester. Sooner or later, oy, you’ve got a right bloody mess. One more time. Where were you last night?’

‘Watching a fucking video,’ Rita said wearily.

Perlman yawned. ‘Name?’

‘Scream,’ Rita said.

‘Engrossing.’ Perlman turned to Twiddie. ‘So you were nowhere near the vicinity of Orr Street last night?’

‘I don’t even know where Orr Street is,’ Twiddie said.

Lou Perlman slid a finger under his eyepatch. ‘Insect bit my eyelid, which is infected,’ he said. ‘This heat brings out some very strange flying things. As well as other oddities, such as a burning van near Orr Street in darkest Bridgeton, and a report – made by an alcoholic who was once an eye surgeon, if you like irony, if you know what irony means – that two people were seen running from the smouldering vehicle. This surgeon, a poor soul fallen on very hard times indeed, peered out of the cardboard box he calls home, and he saw a young man and woman flee the scene, positively hooting with merriment. It was the good doctor’s impression that the couple was drunk and celebrating … And you two were watching a video called Scream?’

Rita raised a hand in solemn mode. ‘Honest to God.’

Perlman sighed. ‘You stand by this, Twiddie?’

‘I do,’ Twiddie said.

Rita said, ‘Every time there’s a fucking fire, I swear,’ and she glared at Perlman, letting her sentence die.

Perlman looked round the bar. Then he said, ‘The fire brigade did a damn good job, got the flames out quickly. It wasn’t much of a fire, I’m told. An amateur job. Those fire-brigade guys, masters of their craft. I like to fish through debris. Get my fingers filthy.’

‘Zatafact?’ Twiddie said.

Rita shrugged and looked at her fingertips.

Perlman stared at the pair for a long time before he said, ‘Hope and pray you don’t see me again too soon. Vaya con dios, my wee pals.’

Twiddie and Rita watched him leave. Twiddie was sweating, and ran a finger between collar and neck. His nostril ached where the abscess had burst.

‘You think he knows anything?’ Rita asked.

‘No. He’s full of shite.’

‘Will you mention this to Haggs?’

Twiddie said no, no, definitely no. The word amateur bothered him.

Rita asked, ‘What does vaya – what did that old bampot mean?’

‘Something to do with God,’ John Twiddie said.

‘Was that Spanish or Jewish he was talking?’

‘They call it Yiddish,’ Twiddie answered and frowned at the door through which Perlman had passed.