Quintin Jardine - Alarm Call

I shrugged my shoulders and lied a little. ‘I don’t have to. I can hand you over to the FBI as a material witness.’

‘In what?’

‘Their investigation of your accomplice for fraudulently obtaining a US passport; John Wallinger called them in this afternoon.’ I wasn’t one hundred per cent sure that he had, but I took a chance. ‘These days, with international terrorism and everything, they take that as a helluva serious offence. So here’s the way it is: you either stay here, incommunicado, under our guard all the time, or you go in the bin.’

She smiled; I knew she was going to hardball to the end. ‘Oz, you can’t guard me. You’re going to be busy finding my friend, remember.’

‘Who said I was going to be your jailer? We’ve got just the man for the job. You know big Jerry Gradi, the Behemoth, our co-star who’s in chickenpox quarantine? Well, he and his family are in suites five and six, one floor down. Sally, his wife, was a wrestler too.’

Her smile faded and her eyes narrowed. ‘I remember Jerry; I also remember saving his life in Barcelona. He owes me; he won’t keep me prisoner.’

‘He will,’ said Everett, ad-libbing like the true pro he is. ‘He’ll do it to keep you from going to jail, and he’ll do it because, as much as he does owe you, he owns a part of the company and he stands to lose out if what you do shafts our project.’

Prim glared at him and held out her wrists. ‘Slap on the cuffs then,’ she snapped, then glared at me. ‘But I’m still not telling you a bloody thing.’

Liam and I searched her room before we put her back in it. We found a cell-phone, which I confiscated; I checked it, but after she had used it, as I was certain she had, constantly, to keep her partner in touch with what was happening, she’d deleted all the numbers she’d dialled. We also found a small clear glass bottle, which I was fairly sure had held the GHB. I pocketed that to send to the lab.

But we found nothing else, no hint of the identity of the mystery man, only her passport, some papers from Fairmile and Company, the books I’d bought her and some boarding stubs from our flights.

When she was safely tucked up in bed or at least lying on it in a monumental huff I went back out to play my only card.

I retrieved Roscoe Brown’s home number from my list and called it, feeling so grateful that when I’d suspected him of being the spy in my camp, I hadn’t gone blazing into him.

‘My hero!’ he exclaimed, as he answered. ‘What the hell was that action in San Francisco? Did you bribe the guy? Your price has gone up another three million after that, and nobody’s arguing.’

‘It may go down to zero very soon, if I drop a ball I’m carrying.’ I explained the problem to him and heard him deflate.

‘I need to ask you about one of your clients, Roscoe. I know you keep us all confidential, but this is important to both of us. It’s a guy by the name of Paul Patrick Walls, in reality Paul Wallinger.’

‘Who?’ Roscoe asked; not a good sign. I repeated both names.

‘Ah, him. Oz, he’s been gone for years. He got silly with Miles Grayson a few years back, and he paid the price, as does everyone who bad-mouths Miles. I only kept his name on my list to fatten it out. I don’t know where he is, and I don’t know what he’s doing.’

‘I do. He’s in a permanent vegetative state in a clinic in New Mexico. But that’s beside the point. When he was on your list, can you recall any particular buddy he had, anyone he was close to?’

I’ll swear the sound I could hear on the phone was Roscoe scratching his shiny black head. ‘PP Walls,’ he muttered. ‘PP Walls.’ He lapsed into silence. ‘Yes, there was one client he was close with. They looked alike so that led to their bonding in a way. PP did some doubling for this guy, when he was reasonably big. The Nickster, Nicky Johnson.’

Nicky Fucking Johnson. Prim’s old lover. Why wasn’t I surprised?

‘Where is he now, Roscoe?’

‘Dramatically speaking, my friend, he is in the shitter, for the same reason PP was. But, hell, you know all about that. However, the Nickster has a second string he falls back on. He’s a pretty talented singer and pianist, and since his movie career went bad, he’s been doing those gigs. Not as Nicky Johnson, though; he still has vain hopes of a movie come-back. When he plays the clubs he uses his real name.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Didn’t it appear on your divorce papers?’ Roscoe really does know everything.

‘No, that was a quickie job; no names, no fuss. So what’s he called?’

‘Nichols, Johnny Nichols.’

I laughed out loud. Johnny Nichols. Jack Nicholson. So he hadn’t been taking the piss in Minneapolis after all, just playing around with his own name.

‘Do you know where he is, Roscoe?’ I asked, a little urgently.

‘Sure I do. I got him a club gig last week, starting yesterday. He’s playing Le Bistro Theatre, in the Riviera, Las Vegas. Does that help you?’

I felt a huge smile engulf my face. ‘Oh, it helps. Does it ever help! Tonight Mr Nichols is going to get the biggest ovation of his life.’

Liam called the Riviera, putting on a wonderful star-struck Irish tourist act, and told the reservations desk that his aunt in Dublin had seen a great cabaret singer called Johnny Nichols the last time she was in the USA, and had told him not to come home without his autograph.

The hostess told him that it was his aunt’s lucky night: Le Bistro Theatre did four shows every evening, and Johnny Nichols was scheduled for eleven thirty. There were vacancies, and he’d be able to buy a ticket at the box office before the show.

We delivered Prim into the tender hands of Jerry and Sally Gradi. . I saw the Behemoth through the door of their family suite: he was still covered in spots and looked a likely non-runner for even the following week. . and headed along the Strip in one of the Bellagio’s courtesy limos. (I’d have been happy with a taxi, but Everett doesn’t fit into one too easily.)

We passed Caesar’s, Treasure Island, the Fashion Show Mall. . too bad Prim was locked up, I thought, she’d have loved that. . and the Stardust, before we came to the relatively modest frontage of the Riviera. Clearly it was one of the oldest casinos on the Strip, dating back before the days of the imitation cities, but there was plenty of buzz about it when we stepped inside.

The ten o’clock show was only halfway through when we arrived: we could hear the laughter from inside Le Bistro as we went past, following the directions to the box office. When we got there I asked the woman who was on duty if she could find the theatres manager for us.

‘Can’t I help?’ she asked.

‘No.’

‘Well, if you’re sure?’

‘The theatres manager, please.’

She picked up a phone and pressed a button. ‘Mr Ricci,’ I heard her say. ‘There are three gentlemen here to see you.’ There was a pause and she looked at us. ‘Who are you?’

‘My name’s Oz Blackstone, the gentleman on my left is Mr Liam Matthews and our acromegalic friend is Mr Everett Davis.’ (Actually Daze doesn’t suffer from acromegaly at all. He’s just naturally enormous, but I’m chuffed that I know the word and, being an actor, I like to show off from time to time, to time, to time, et cetera.)

Mr Ricci must have recognised at least one of the names, because he came without any further argument. As soon as he saw the big man, he placed us. As the song goes, or would if he was a footballer and not a wrestler, ‘One Everett Davis, there’s only one Everett Davis. .’.

The manager was a tubby guy in his fifties, and keen to be helpful from the off. He might have figured that he didn’t have enough security on the premises to handle us, but we didn’t care whether he was being genuinely friendly or just discreet. ‘How can I help?’