John Harvey - Last Rites

When she caught sight of him in her rearview mirror, he was still standing there like some overgrown kid in the playground, stubborn and close to tears.

Raymond hadn’t been back in the shop much more than half an hour when Sheena Snape waltzed in. Sheena with her hair tied back, one of those skimpy sweaters that buttoned up the front and stopped several inches above the navel, black jeans that clung to her like a second skin. When she spoke, a smear of red lipstick shone bright on her front teeth.

“Ray-o, listen, I’ve been thinkin’.”

“Yeh?”

“What we was talkin’ about yes’day, you know.”

“Yeh, what about it?”

“I was thinkin’ maybe I should never’ve come here, right? Maybe I should’ve gone to someone else all along.”

“Why? What …? What you on about? What …?”

Sheena looking around at the second-hand tumble-driers, third-hand fridge-freezers. “I mean, you know, I don’t want to be rude, Ray-o. Insulting. But, you know, somethin’ like this, it’s a bit out of your class, know what I mean?”

“Bollocks!”

“Charming.”

“I can handle it,” Raymond said, puffing himself out. “No problem, you see.”

Sheena stood looking at him squarely: the watery eyes that never seemed quite true, the pallid skin that was always damp with sweat. “You got a buyer, then? That what you’re saying?”

“Yeh.”

“Yeah?”

“Almost.” Raymond held up finger and thumb to illustrate how close he had come. “I was talking, just now, just before you come in. This bloke, dead interested. Exactly what you’ve got. Exactly.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeh.”

“Two hundred.”

“At least.”

“So when you seeing him?”

“Couple of days, tops. Relax.”

Sheena sucked at her bottom lip; she didn’t know whether to believe him or not. But when she’d tried talking to the others about it, Diane had been preoccupied with Melvin, who was throwing up all over everywhere, and Lesley-Lesley was so far out of it, she didn’t even know who Sheena was. Which left Sheena herself walking round town with a handgun that could, in all probability, be tied into a shooting, even attempted murder.

“Sure I can trust you, Ray-o? You’re not winding me up, stringin’ us along?”

“Course not.”

“Here. You’ll be needing this, then.”

She had unsnapped her bag and lifted out the Beretta and was passing it across into Raymond’s willing hand, when Raymond saw, in the corner of his eye, Resnick briskly crossing the street toward them.

“Fuck!”

“What? What’s up? What?”

Raymond barely had time enough to tuck the weapon underneath the loose flap of his shirt, down inside the back of his jeans, before the bell above the door rang and Resnick walked in.

Seeing him, Sheena’s face set like sour milk.

“Sheena. Ray-o.” Resnick smiled, sniffing the air between them.

“Mr. Resnick,” Raymond stumbled, balance shifting from one foot to the other.

Sullen, Sheena said nothing.

“Didn’t know you two knew one another,” Resnick said pleasantly. “Though if I’d thought about it, I suppose I should.”

“Sheena was just looking for something for her mum,” Raymond said. “For the kitchen, like.”

Sheena’s look cut him off at the knees.

“How is Norma?” Resnick asked.

“Fine,” Sheena managed. “Better wi’out seein’ you.”

“I dare say.”

“You reckon the microwave, then?” Raymond said. “This one over ’ere.”

“Sod off, Ray-o,” Sheena said, turning toward the door. And, with a parting look at Resnick, “I don’t know what he’s on about. I was passin’, that’s all.”

The shop door closed with a slam and left Resnick and Raymond staring at one another, Raymond aware of nothing as much as the cold metal hard against his spine.

“Nice lass,” Resnick said.

Raymond carried on staring, open-mouthed; he had to be taking the piss.

“Seeing one another, are you?”

“Am I buggery!”

Resnick shrugged easily. “Just a thought.”

“Slag like that.”

“She wasn’t in here for the microwave, then, not like you said?”

Raymond could feel himself beginning to blush. “She were, yeh. ‘Course she were. What she said, just, you know, showin’ off.”

Resnick smiled benevolently.

“Girls.” Raymond laughed. “Who can fathom ’em, eh?”

“You wouldn’t have anything in the way of computer software?” Resnick asked. “Fresh in. Top-of-the-range stuff, mostly. Adobe Photoshop. QuarkXPress.”

Raymond blinked, backpedaling. “Not my thing, Mr. Resnick. Dixons, Curry’s, that’s where you want to try. That place along Castle Boulevard, never can remember the name.”

“You’re sure of that, Raymond? You’ve got nothing?”

“Yeh, dead sure.” He was beginning to breathe more easily now, the color in his cheeks starting to fade. That break-in out by the University, the Science Park, that’s what this was about. He’d been offered the gear, sure enough, but had turned it down.

Resnick wandered over toward the boxes of CDs. He’d picked up a few things here before, some Charlie Parker, a Chet Baker set recorded in Milan, Baker singing as if he were wearing somebody else’s teeth. Now all that tempted him was a Mills Brothers compilation with Ella on one track, Louis on another.

“Third off to you, Mr. Resnick,” Raymond said encouragingly. “Fair close to givin’ it away.”

“Okay, Ray-o, you’ve got a deal.” He handed over a five-pound note and told him to keep the change.

“You know pretty much what’s going on, Raymond,” Resnick said, stuffing the package down into his pocket. “Keep your ear to the ground.”

“Don’t know ’bout that.” Raymond said hesitantly. Was that what this was all about? Resnick trying to turn him into one of his snouts?

“You’ve not heard of anyone trying to sell a pistol, a Berretta, last few days?”

The barrel was burning a hole into Raymond’s back.

“Raymond? Ray-o?”

“No, no. Nothin’ like’ that, I swear.”

“But if you did, you’d give me a call?”

Raymond wiped his palms down the sides of his jeans and nodded. “Okay, yeh. Yes, sure.”

Resnick took a card from his top pocket and placed it alongside the till. He could have as easily reached round behind Raymond and lifted the Beretta out from underneath the tail of his shirt.

“Any complaints with the disc,” Raymond said, “full refund, right? No questions asked.”

Resnick pulled the door open and, with a final glance back at Raymond through the glass, began to walk toward the bridge.

The first thing Resnick did, after bending to scoop up the post, was sneeze. And sneeze again. It could have been the beginning of an unseasonable cold, far more likely a reaction to cat hairs and dust. He’d tried paying a woman to come in and keep the place under control, clean and tidy; had tried several times, in fact, without avail. If they’d been any good they’d soon moved on to more profitable things, less than good and he would swear when he looked around the house was in more of a state than it had been before. And they lost things, moved things, broke a cup that had belonged to his grandfather and which had survived the journey from Poland, snapped an arm from a statue of Duke Ellington his favorite uncle had given him for his twenty-first.

So Resnick kept the dirt at bay as best he could; his favored method being to wait until the dust had collected itself into wispy balls in the room corners and along the skirting boards, then reach down and snag them as he passed.

On the way home, he’d stopped off at the deli and bought a small container of sun-dried tomatoes, a larger one of marinaded aubergine. He dipped a finger into the oil at the bottom of the latter and brought it to his mouth-coriander, garlic, and something else he couldn’t immediately identify.