Оливер Блик - The Highbinders

I was nodding away at this when a police constable stopped in front of me. He had blond hair, sideburns, and pale blue eyes that were still no friendlier than they had been the evening before in front of the Black Thistle.

“Well, Mr. St. Ives, you’re looking a bit better this morning.”

I nodded. “Constable Wilson, isn’t it?”

“That’s right, sir. I must say you were coming on a bit strong yesterday, what with your karate chops and all.”

“I don’t know any karate chops,” I said. “I thought I was being mugged.”

“In broad daylight?” Constable Wilson seemed almost shocked at the idea.

“Sorry,” I said, “I keep forgetting that it can’t happen here.”

“Well, certainly not can’t, but when it does, it’s usually the coloreds involved.”

“Why a night in the pokey and a day in court?” I said. “Why didn’t you just pour me in a taxi and ship me home?”

“Huh,” he said. “Put you in the hands of that lot in your condition and you would’ve been mugged. Or worse.”

“I thought all London taxi drivers were polite. Friendly.”

He grinned, but I couldn’t detect much humor in it. “Like all London bobbies, right?”

“Sure.”

“Well, we might have done, if you hadn’t come on with that karate.”

“I don’t know any karate,” I said.

Finally, my name was called and I was in the courtroom, standing in the dock, feeling something like a latterday Jack the Ripper, and there was Constable Wilson presenting his case, telling everybody how drunk I had been, but that I didn’t have any previous record, and the magistrate, not really caring, asked me how I chose to plead, and after I said that I chose to plead guilty, I was told to step down and pay the man.

The man was back down the long hall and up a flight of stairs that led to the Chief Clerk’s office where a friendly-looking type who was about forty pounds overweight kept up a steady line of chatter with what, for the most part, seemed to be an old and valued clientele.

When he got to me, I said, “St. Ives, Philip,” and he ran his finger down a list and said, “Yes, sir, Mr. St. Ives. That’ll be fifty pence, no checks accepted, and we hope everything has been satisfactory.”

“It’s been perfect,” I said and handed him a pound. He gave me the change, a receipt, and a “Thank you very much, come again.”

It was ten o’clock by the time I came out on to Marlborough and the gray Rolls was waiting right where it was supposed to be. The uniformed chauffeur held the door for me, I got in, and Eddie Apex said, “How did it go?”

“I was fined about a dollar twenty. I guess there’s something to British justice after all.”

“You’d better tell me about it again,” he said.

“I’ve already told you about it.”

“You sounded groggy when I talked to you this morning.

“Has this thing got a bar?” I said.

“Of course. Whisky?”

“Whisky’s fine.”

It was a fitted bar with cut-glass bottles and crystal tumblers. Eddie Apex poured me a drink, but didn’t fix one for himself. “Still a bit early for me.”

“By jet lag it’s four in the afternoon,” I said and took a sip of the drink. It was good Scotch, possibly the best, but with my cigarette palate, I couldn’t be sure.

“All right,” he said, “let’s go over it again.”

I looked out the window. We were on Edgware Road and turning west into Bayswater Road at Marble Arch. “Well go to my place,” he said. “Okay. I’ll run it by again. I got into Heathrow on Pan Am at around nine yesterday morning. I caught a cab and went to the Hilton. I called you and told you I’d arrived and we agreed to meet at eight that evening. After that, I ordered up breakfast and a couple of drinks and then I went to bed. At four o’clock my phone rang. It was a man. He didn’t try to disguise his voice. He said that he represented the people that you were dealing with and since they were now going to be dealing with me, they’d like to look me over. I said fine. They told me to buy a carnation, wear it in my lapel, and be at the Black Thistle on New Cavendish Street at six-fifteen sharp. I called you, but the guy who answered your phone said you were out and wouldn’t be back until seven. Well, the Hilton didn’t have a red carnation, so I bought a pink one and arrived at the pub about ten minutes early. I bought a drink, but before I could take a swallow, a rather tweedy type knocked it out of my hand with his elbow.”

“What did he look like?” Apex said. “The tweedy type.”

“Late twenties, running to fat, about six feet tall, bald and blond, pinkfaced, with a two-inch scar on his crown. The scar was puckered. Mean anything to you?”

“Nothing.”

“Well, he insisted on buying me another drink. I agreed and that was my mistake. He doped the drink. I know that there’s nothing that’s supposed to work that fast, but it did.”

“Chloral hydrate won’t work like that,” Apex said.

“It wasn’t chloral hydrate. Chloral hydrate just makes you go to sleep. This stuff caused awful cramps, then nausea, and then euphoria.”

“Then you got into the fight with the coppers.”

“That’s right — and spent the night in jail.”

“What do you think?” Apex said.

“What do I think? For Christ’s sake, Eddie, it’s your territory. What do you think?”

“I’ve never been in on one like this before. That’s why I asked what you think.”

I finished my drink. “You haven’t told me anything yet. You haven’t told me what’s been stolen or from whom. In fact, you haven’t told me anything at all except welcome to London.”

“We really haven’t had a chance to talk, have we?”

“No. We haven’t.”

“So what do you think?”

“About last night?”

“ Yes.”

“Well, I think you’re dealing with some people who don’t quite trust you,” I said.

Apex nodded. “I already know that.”

“And they wanted to find out whether they could trust me. So they tell me to be at a certain pub at a certain time, drug my drink, and watch me get arrested.”

“Do you think the cops were in on it?”

“Not in on it, but they would have been involved sooner or later. I would have passed out in the gutter if they hadn’t come along when they did. And that must have been the object of it all — to get me arrested.”

“Sort of a test, right?”

“I can’t think of anything else. If I’d kicked up a fuss and started talking about drugged drinks and why I’m here and demanding to see the ambassador, the thieves would probably tell you to find yourself another go-between. But since I took it and kept my mouth shut, they’ll probably figure that we can do business.”

“Have you ever been through one like this before?” Apex said.

“No, but I’ve dealt with a lot of nervous types who’ve wanted to run a check on me. Usually it’s meant nothing more than standing around some phone booth in a busy supermarket parking lot waiting for a call that never came. A lot of thieves, the amateurs especially, like to look the go-between over.”

“What do you think of these, from what you’ve seen so far?” Apex said.

“I don’t know what they’ve stolen yet, do I?”

“No, but what do you think? About the thieves, I mean.”

“Well, they don’t trust you, do they, Eddie?”

“No, they don’t.”

“Then I don’t think they’re amateurs.”

The gray Rolls drew up in front of a four-story town-house which was painted that peculiar thick London cream that can mask a lot of age as well as a lot of decay. We were in Knightsbridge and the house faced one of those well-cared-for little green squares that have a fence around them with locked gates to keep out the riffraff.