Оливер Блик - The Highbinders

“Should I?”

“Perhaps. Somebody broke his neck for him this afternoon. Over in Hammersmith.”

Deskins was staring at me over his drink. I decided not to say anything. There wasn’t anything to say yet.

“Billie Batts, you remember, got his throat cut in Highgate this morning. Guess what Billie Batts’s full name was.

“William Batts,” I said.

“William Wordsworth Batts.”

“You’re trying to tell me, in your own wonderful way, that there’s some connection between the two.”

“They were father and son.”

“Why the different surnames?”

“Billie Batts’s old mum left Curnutt years ago when Billie was only a kid. She divorced him and married a chap called Batts. He legally adopted Billie and gave him his name.”

“How long have you been waiting here?” I said.

Deskins shrugged. “Half an hour, perhaps.”

“You haven’t been waiting half an hour just to tell me this.”

“You in a hurry?”

“I’ve got some money to win.”

Deskins nodded. “You know where I’ve been earlier this evening?”

“Where?”

“Over in St. James’s Square having a bit of a read.”

I had to think about it. “The library’s there,” I said after a moment. “The London Library.”

“It’s hard on the eyes,” Deskins said, and rubbed his as though to prove it.

“My column,” I said. “You were reading my column. I’m flattered that you read it. I’m even more flattered that the library would have it.”

Deskins nodded. “I read some of the ones you wrote while you were here in London.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“You had a nice light way of putting things.”

“Thank you.”

“But you wrote about some right bastards, didn’t you?”

I nodded. “Mostly.”

“Half of the ones you wrote about are inside now.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“The other half should be.”

“Probably.”

“You wrote a couple of columns that I liked especially.”

“Oh? Which ones?”

“About Tick-Tock Tamil. You remember Tick-Tock?”

I nodded. “I remember him.”

Deskins smiled at me over his drink. “Old Tick-Tock could flog a gold watch if anyone could. But you know something?”

“What?”

“We never got a complaint. Not one. Tick-Tock was a clever bastard, he was. He never really sold them, you know. He made his victims think that they were stealing them from him and when they found out that they’d been had, well, they were too ashamed to do anything about it. But you wrote all that, didn’t you, except that you changed Tick-Tock’s name.”

“That was the deal.”

“The only thing you didn’t write about was Tick-Tock’s partner, the chap who supplied him with the watches.”

“Tick-Tock wouldn’t tell me who he was.”

“His name was William Wordsworth Curnutt. Billy Curnutt. Locksmith. Family man. Forger. Churchgoer. Father of the late Billie Batts and dead himself of a broken neck at fifty-one.”

“Well, you’ve had a busy day, haven’t you?”

“After I left the library, I began thinking about it. I got to thinking that there’s something that connects you with it all, St. Ives. You were out at Highgate this morning where Billie Batts got his. You once wrote a column or two about Tick-Tock Tamil who was once the partner of Billie Batts’s old dad — who’d just died of a broken neck. And then there’s Eddie Apex and the Nitry brothers and God knows what you’re seeing them about. But somehow, it’s all connected, isn’t it?”

“I don’t see how,” I said.

“Well, I couldn’t either so after I left the library I decided to drop round and see Tick-Tock to find out whether he might know something. Tick-Tock lives in Paddington, you know.”

“Does he?”

“He’s always lived in Paddington. He was born there. For the past six months he’s been living someplace where he shouldn’t and they’ve been trying to get him out, but he’s got the law on his side, so there he stays and pays damn all rent. So I thought I’d drop round and chat him up a bit. But guess what I found?”

“What?”

“No Tick-Tock. He’d cleared out.”

“Just when you needed him.”

“That’s right. Just when I needed him.”

“That’s too bad.”

“Oh, not really. I’ve got another good lead.”

“What?”

Deskins put his glass down on the bar. “I’ve got you, St. Ives, and I’ve also got the feeling that you’re all I’m going to need. Thank you very much for the drink.”

The twit dealt. That’s how I still thought of Robin Styles, the overly elegant young man who just might possibly be worth a few million pounds or so within the next few days or weeks, providing I got his sword back for him.

He had wanted to play, of course, but he had exhausted his credit earlier in the evening and neither Wes Cagle nor I would accept his marker so we let him deal the head-to-head stud game that we were playing in Cagle’s fancy office. We were playing no limit, raise-when-you-want-to poker, and we had been playing for three hours and I was nearly a thousand pounds down.

Five-card stud, when played by two persons, is often dull, relentless gambling, even when played for very high stakes. You tend to get overly reckless or overly cautious, neither of which makes for good poker. I had been too reckless earlier in the night and now I caught myself overcompensating by playing too carefully.

Cagle played like a machine, a huge six-foot-seven, 275-pound machine, some of it fat, that loomed over the green baize of the round Victorian table, dwarfing both Robin Styles and me. Cagle rode his luck when he had any. He rode it hard, too hard perhaps, and I kept waiting for the hand that he would have to ride because his skill and his luck and everything that made him a gambler would tell him that this was the hand that both of us had been waiting for all night — the hand that would bust one of us.

It was a pleasure to watch Robin Styles deal. He seemed to go with the elegant room that was Wes Cagle’s office. It was Victorian, but gracefully so, with the best that age had had to offer. Whoever had decorated it had known that mauve can be a pleasing shade, if it’s done right, and Cagle’s office was done right. He had the only inlaid roll-top desk that I had ever seen and there were chairs and a couch that curved elegantly and looked comfortable. The bric-a-brac was just that, bric-a-brac, but it went with everything else and I thought that the decorator had succeeded in accomplishing what he had set out to do: create a room in which vice might flourish. All kinds of vice.

Cagle and I were down to our shirt sleeves, but Robin Styles sat there, and dealt, looking well pressed and unrumpled, his jacket still on, but his tie loosened an inch or two to signal that he was feeling at least part of the strain. If he had fixed his tie, he would have looked as if he were all set to drop by for a noon drink at his club. Probably Guards.

He dealt effortlessly and as prettily as anyone I have ever seen. The cards flowed from his fingers, landing exactly where he wanted them to. He probably did everything well with that same effortless grace, except the one thing that he wanted to do well more than anything else. Gamble. He still gambled like a twit.

He had just dealt me the two and four of hearts. The four was my hole card. Cagle had a king showing. He bet a hundred pounds on it so I assumed that he had paired it. I called. My next card was the ace of hearts. Cagle got a jack of diamonds. Robin Styles called my hand for what it was, a possible flush. I checked to Cagle who bet another hundred. I called.