Quintin Jardine - Alarm Call

I picked up the phone and I called my dad. In the few times in my life when all else has failed, he’s always been there. As soon as he heard my voice, he knew that it wasn’t just a ‘hello’ call.

‘What’s up, son?’ he asked me.

‘Dad, I want you to do something for me. My life might depend on it. I want you to call Susie and tell her I’ve promised you that I haven’t betrayed her. You don’t need to know the details; just tell her I’ve sworn that to you on a stack of Bibles and asked you to pass it on word for word.’

‘I take it that you’ve already told her this but she’s having trouble believing you.’

‘You take it right.’

‘Then what makes you think she’ll believe me?’

I thought about that one for a bit. ‘Dad,’ I told him, when I’d worked out the answer, ‘I might know that you’re not perfect, but nobody else does. As far as Susie’s concerned, when Moses came down from the mountain with the Ten Commandments, he looked just like Mac the Dentist.’

He chuckled. ‘I never did tell you about that burning bush I saw on the way home from the pub one night, did I? Okay, son, I’ll do it; I won’t promise that it’ll do any good, but I’ll do it. Oh, aye, and by the way, your sister’s got engaged. The guy even came and asked me if it was all right. He’s not so bad after all; a crap golfer, but not so bad. Goodnight.’

Hey, I thought, a piece of good news .

I went back into the laptop and read Ellie’s message. It confirmed formally what my father had just told me, and what she’d let slip a week before. I sent her a quick

Congratulations, I couldn’t be more pleased for you .

then looked at Jonny’s. He told me the same story, then asked,

What do you think of the law as a career, Uncle Oz? Harvey seems to be pretty well fixed .

I replied,

I know two sorts of lawyers, the boring ones and those who overcome the turgidity of their profession and remain interesting, amusing human beings. If you believe you can be the latter, go for it .

I think Jonny sees me as a Moses substitute as well. I hoped that after I’d climbed out from under the ruins I found myself buried in he’d feel the same way.

I looked at the box again, in case there was another message from Susie. There wasn’t. I clicked a button and deleted everything, then switched off once more.

I checked my watch; it was coming up for two. I left Prim with the rest of the champagne, told her to order whatever lunch she wanted from Room Service, then went in search of the big man’s suite.

As he’d said, it was just along the corridor. I knocked on the door and, as always, when it opened everything went dark. Everett Davis is so big he blocks the light from nearly every doorway he approaches. I still laugh when I remember the first time he came to see me in Glasgow; I thought there had been an unscheduled eclipse.

Since those days Daze, to give him his ring name, had gone on to become one of the biggest names in sports entertainment, as professional wrestling is called now for very good US tax reasons. He was everything in the game, performer, talent spotter, promoter and president of a company that he had founded and built to the point at which it was quoted on the New York Stock Exchange.

As I stepped into his suite I had entered the presence of a genuine dollar billionaire.

‘It’s great to see you, Oz,’ he began. ‘I want you to know how much I appreciate your being here. It could be the difference between success and failure for this movie.’

I looked up at him; way up. ‘Come on, man, failure’s never an option for you. I might make you a few more dollars; that’s what you mean, isn’t it?’

‘Let’s just say I’ll appreciate having your name on the marquee when we premiere.’

‘Is Diane here?’ I asked.

‘No, she’s in Jersey with the family.’ Everett’s kids are around the same age as mine. ‘Before we go in there,’ he said quietly, ‘gimme a rundown on your ex’s problems.’ I gave him the quick, five-minute version, leaving out all the aggravation between me and Susie.

‘This guy’s in Vegas, you reckon?’ he asked, when I was finished.

‘So we believe.’

His eyes grew hard; you wouldn’t want to be the cause of him looking like that. ‘If you need any help to round him up, I’ve got a small army here.’

‘Man, you’re a large army in your own right. Thanks for the offer; I’ll bear it in mind if I need help, but I’m looking forward to crucifying this guy myself.’

He led me into the suite; it wasn’t as big as mine. The table was set for lunch, four places, and the other two were occupied by my friend Liam Matthews, who had the lead role in Serious Impact . . although he’d be billed below me … and the director, Santiago Temple. I’d never met him but I recognised him from the pages of Empire magazine. A couple of waiters were hovering in the background, ready to go to work.

‘Hi, slugger,’ said Liam, in his light Irish accent. He looked at my patched-up ear. ‘What the hell did that?’

‘A soft-nosed point three eight bullet, according to what was in the rest of the chamber. That’s what you get when you’re an all-action movie star, sunshine.’

‘On this movie, when I shoot you, I’ll be using blanks, I promise.’

‘I may not take you on trust.’ Liam and I weren’t always pals. In fact, the first time we met I took a punch at him for chatting up my wife; I was married to Jan then.

‘I will check every round personally,’ said Temple.

I shook my head. ‘I’ve never met you before,’ I told him. ‘You may not know the difference between a dummy and the real thing. I think I’d rather the armourer did it.’ I was grinning when I said it, but I wasn’t kidding. There have been accidents in the past: take a look at the end of the short career of Brandon Lee.

He glanced at the plaster. ‘What’s under that?’ he asked me.

‘Some very neat stitching; makeup should be able to hide it, if you’re worried.’

‘As it happens, I’m not. The rescheduling will give you time to recover.’

I looked at Everett as we took our seats and the waiters moved in. ‘Come again?’

He smiled. ‘Something I’ve been holding out on you. You’ll have noted that the majority of your scenes involve Jerry.’ I had; I was to play the smooth bad guy, and Jerry Gradi was to play my muscle. ‘Well, we’ve had a little problem.’ Jerry’s nearly as big as Everett; I couldn’t imagine any of his problems being little, but I was wrong. ‘He’s caught chickenpox from his little boy,’ said Daze with a huge smile, ‘and he’s been quarantined.’

I had to grin too, at the thought of the mighty Behemoth being flattened by a few spots.

‘He’ll be out of action for another week,’ Everett went on. ‘However, Santiago’s managed to move things around. If it’s okay with you, we’ll switch your scenes with Liam to this week and compress your action with Jerry into the week following, but with the best will in the world, we can’t get you into action before Wednesday, at the earliest, and maybe even Thursday.’

I found myself wondering whether that would give me time to fly home to see Susie, but I realised pretty quickly that if I did I’d be lucky to be able to spend more than half an hour with her, and that wouldn’t be nearly enough. Still, hopefully it would give me a window to get Prim’s thing done.

‘It’s okay with me,’ I said.

That was the only piece of business we had to do, and it was over in a couple of seconds. The main purpose of the get-together was to give me a chance to get to know Santiago, or Santi, as he insisted I call him. He was an earnest young guy, still in his twenties; he’d done fewer movies than I had, and he’d only directed two of them. However, I knew that Everett wouldn’t have hired him if he’d had any doubts about his ability to deliver a good product, so I felt comfortable with him from the start.