Tony Black - Paying For It

I’d only one word for the way I felt about the opulence of Nadja’s room: appalled. I’m a working-class bloke, it’s in the contract.

The carpet felt so soft that it added an extra layer to the air-cushioned soles of my Docs. But I couldn’t feel comfortable here. I’d no place in my life for gilt mirrors and walnut marquetry. Tried to tot-up the cost of furnishing a room like this. Couldn’t do it — had seen nothing like it in the Argos catalogue. All I did know, I’d need several lifetimes to afford one cabriole leg of the table Nadja treated like a piece of MFI flat-pack.

‘I need a cigarette,’ she said, slamming the drawer shut.

She seemed on edge — just how I wanted her.

I let her hang. Wandered about the place. Caught sight of a Peploe on one of the walls.

‘You don’t like the picture, Mr Dury?’ said Nadja. She’d found some tabs, lit up and blew smoke in my direction.

‘Not my style.’

‘What is?’

‘I’m more a “tennis player scratching her arse” kinda guy.’

She winced, found me coarse. I wasn’t the type she usually dealt with. Thought, ‘Tough shit.’ She’d just have to get used to roughing it with the proles for a while.

‘Do you plan to take me prisoner in my own suite, Mr Dury?’

I’d a mind to do much worse. A man had been killed, a man I’d got close to. The image of Milo’s burned remains stabbed me, called for revenge, and the anger inside me wasn’t choosy who paid.

‘You really are quite a piece of work, aren’t you, Nadja?’ I said.

She hesitated, stalled with her cigarette halfway to her mouth. ‘I’m quite sure I do not know what it is you mean.’

I walked over to the drinks cabinet, poured out a large Courvoisier, swirled it around in the bottom of the glass. When I turned round, Nadja had lowered herself onto the chaise. She crossed her long legs delicately in my direction. ‘Please, give me one.’

I sighed. ‘Sorry, but I’ve come out without my white gloves.’

She looked confused, but undeterred. Shot me a smile.

‘Let’s get something straight from the off,’ I said. ‘That kind of shit isn’t going to cut any ice with me.’

‘Excuse me?’

I fired down the brandy, said, ‘I don’t do fuckstruck.’

Her act slipped away. She sat forward, elbows on knees. ‘What do you want?’

‘I seem to remember telling you what I wanted some time ago.’

‘And…’

‘Here we are again.’ I reloaded with brandy.

‘Look, Mr Dury, when a man, a how do you say… private investigator, comes to ask the questions about my personal life I have little to say.’

I drained the glass, held it in my hand, some weight in these crystal jobs. As it hit the wall the noise came like gunshot.

‘Okay — Okay,’ said Nadja. ‘I’ll tell you what you want to know. I just had to be sure who you were before I could speak.’

‘And your little helper, he filled you in?’

‘I wanted to know who you were working for. I couldn’t trust that you might be from them.’

‘ Them?’

‘From Zalinskas.’

She fell to bits. Head in hands. Tears. The works.

I moved a chair in front of her, turned it around, sat down.

‘I know about the Latvian girls. My friend found out too — and they murdered him.’

‘Yes. Yes…’

‘You and the Bullfrog, you’re in it together.’

‘No — Yes. With Billy. It was his job.’

‘Billy brought in the girls?’

‘Yes. But, there were many things he did that I did not know of.’

I reached out, lifted up her head. ‘Such as?’

‘I do not know. Really, there were some things Billy wouldn’t even speak to me about.’

I remembered Col’s words, about Billy being close to making his pile. I wasn’t buying that Nadja didn’t have more to give.

‘And Zalinskas, he knew all about Billy’s… activities?’

Nadja looked towards the window, placed a curl of hair behind her ear. She shook her head.

‘I see.’ Now we were getting somewhere. ‘So Billy was branching out on his own?’

She stood up, pressed down the sides of her skirt.

‘Mr Dury, I shouldn’t be telling you of this — any of it.’

‘Why?’

‘It will put me in danger.’

I stood up quickly, knocking over the chair. ‘You’re already in danger, don’t forget that.’

‘But these people — you do not understand. If they knew, they would kill me too.’

‘Knew what?’

She turned away, started to move off. I grabbed her by the arm, stopping her in her tracks. ‘Knew what?’

‘Billy… he was talking about making a lot of money in a hurry, he was on to something.’

‘On to what?’

‘I do not know what, he had some information and I think Zalinskas thought he should not have it.’

I squeezed her wrist. ‘What do you mean, information?’

‘I do not know any more. I promise. I have told you everything. Oh, Mr Dury I promise you, this is all I know.’

I dropped her arm. She sobbed, placing a hand where I had gripped her.

She’d caved. She might still be useful to me, but there was nothing left in the well right now.

‘Wait! Where are you going?’ she yelled out.

I said nothing, walked to the door.

‘Wait! Wait!’ She ran after me, grabbed at my shoulder as I reached for the door handle. ‘I’m scared!’

I unhooked her hand, said, ‘So hire a bodyguard.’

On George street I noticed that my knuckles were grazed. Told myself: ‘You’ve been running around like a psycho, Gus.’ Didn’t feel too proud of myself. Walked about playing with pop psychology solutions to my ‘life issues’. Christ, sounded like nonsense. Remembered Doddy once said: ‘The trouble with Freud is that he never played the Glasgow Empire on Saturday night after Rangers and Celtic had both lost.’

Now that made sense.

I headed down the Mile, stopped to scratch my head at the concrete and glass fag packet added on to the side of John Knox’s house. Oldest house in Edinburgh, ruined by some wanky architect’s ego. ‘How do they get away with it?’ I thought.

I stared skyward in disgust, when I heard a voice that cut me like a Stanley blade.

‘Hello, Angus.’

I lowered my gaze. ‘Mam.’

She stared at me wide-eyed, a look that said she’d just seen death wakened before her.

‘God, you’re thin, son. Are you well?’

‘Yeah… yeah, I’m fine, Mam.’

‘There’s hardly a pick on you. Are you eating?’

‘Yes, Mam, I’m fine.’

She gathered up her bags, fidgeted before me. Her eyes looked the deepest of blue as she took me in.

‘It’s been a while, son.’

‘It has that.’

‘I saw, whatsisname — the fellah from the pub.’

‘Col. He said you spoke.’ Earned myself another flash of those eyes. ‘I’ve been meaning to… well, you know… what with one thing and another.’

‘He’d have told you that your father’s none too well.’

‘He did.’

She shook her head. Her hair was iron grey now and hollows sat in her cheeks, ‘Yes, he’s not a well man at all.’

I looked away. It felt like the only thing I could do to hide my utter indifference, said, ‘That right?’

‘He can’t leave home. I think he might be, oh, what do you call it? Homophobic.’

I couldn’t laugh. ‘Oh, he’s that all right,’ I said, ‘and other things besides.’

She tucked her handbag on her elbow and reached out to me. ‘It’s good to see you, son.’

I smiled. This was my mother, I’d no quarrel with her. She looked to be in pain at the sight of me. Her own son, who she’d been forced to grab a few moments with in the street.