James Craig - Shoot to Kill

Dominic thought about it for a moment. He liked spaghetti westerns well enough, but he couldn’t remember anything about that one other than the title and the fact that Clint Eastwood was in it. Mind you, if he remembered rightly, Clint Eastwood was in most of them. ‘It’s a great line,’ he said limply.

‘Damn right!’ His host nodded vehemently. ‘Excellent advice. If only those useless bastards in Hollywood would pay attention now and again.’

Dom frowned. How did they get on to a rant about the movie business?

‘I always hate it,’ the old guy continued, ‘at the end of a film when the bad guy keeps talking away, unravelling the plot, and gives the good guy time to wriggle off the hook and save the fucking day. Just shoot the bastard, I say. You can explain everything to his corpse. Let the bad guy win for once – everyone would be cheering in the cinema!’

Everyone’s a critic , Dom thought sadly. ‘This guy, he had your name?’

‘Tuco Ramirez,’ the man laughed. ‘ The Good, the Bad and the Ugly was my dad’s favourite film, and Tuco, played by Eli Wallach, was his favourite character. We used to watch it all the time. That’s how I got my name. I was his little Tuco .’

‘I see,’ said Dominic, smiling weakly. Fucking hell , he thought, I’m going into business with a psycho granddad named after a crazy character in a cowboy flick . He felt a bitter pang of regret seep through his stomach, and gave himself a silent warning: Better keep your wits about you on this one, old chum .

‘It’s not my real family name, obviously,’ the old man explained.

‘No.’

‘I think of it more as my stage name, if you like.’

Dom took a deep breath and forced a smile on to his face. ‘Yes.’

‘Then there’s my nickname, the Samurai,’ Tuco said cheerily. ‘That comes from another movie entirely.’

‘Oh, really?’ Inside, Dom groaned as Tuco talked him through his other moniker.

Finishing his little spiel, Tuco took another mouthful of wine. ‘Good idea, don’t you think?’

‘Well . . .’

‘Don’t you have one? You could be, I dunno – The Professor.’

‘I don’t think-’

‘You should try it,’ Tuco insisted.

Dom made a show of thinking about the stupid idea for a few seconds. ‘I think it might be a bit late for me,’ he replied finally. ‘I reckon I would find it difficult to have more than one name. It might make me a bit schiz . . . confused.’

Tuco Martinez looked him carefully up and down. ‘You are wondering about my little show this morning?’

‘I try never to pry into other people’s business,’ Silver murmured, not meeting the older man’s gaze.

Placing his wine glass on the table, Tuco patted the corners of his mouth with a napkin. ‘That’s a very sensible attitude,’ he said. ‘But maybe not one that can be sustained when you are standing in the basement of a parking garage in Clichy-sous-Bois, trying not to get the diseased blood of some cretin on your shoes.’

Dominic lifted the glass of sparkling water to his lips. Looking over the rim he thought that maybe his dining companion did look a bit like Eli Wallach. You could see a similarity if you wanted to, rather like people who saw the image of the Madonna in a potato or a weeping Jesus in a pool of oil on the road. ‘You were making a point,’ he said evenly. ‘I understand that.’

Martinez raised a salt and pepper eyebrow. His eyes were hazelnut brown, hard and threatening. ‘Oh? And what was the point that I was making?’

Dominic smiled wanly. Tuco Martinez, all bollocks and bluster, was exactly the kind of business partner he thought that he’d successfully left behind. Sipping his wine, Martinez waited patiently for an answer.

‘You were demonstrating to me that no one fucks you over,’ Dominic said quietly.

‘That’s right!’ Martinez banged a fist down on the white table-cloth. ‘Those idiots,’ he gestured outside, ‘they thought they could steal from me. Well, now they know differently.’

‘I have never-’

‘I know, I know,’ Tuco waved away Dominic’s protest with an impatient flick of the hand. ‘But it is always best to have clarity at the beginning of a relationship, don’t you think?’

Dominic nodded. Glancing at his watch, he still harboured hopes of catching the Eurostar early enough to be home in time for dinner. ‘I would agree with that one hundred per cent.’

‘In London,’ Tuco continued, ‘they say that you are not the biggest but you are one of the best.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Or were one of the best,’ Tuco chortled. ‘You are in semi-retirement.’

Suddenly feeling the need for a drink, Dominic reached across the table and grasped the bottle of red wine before filling his glass. ‘You can’t retire in our game, can you?’ He took a long drink and immediately poured some more wine into his glass.

‘No, that’s very true.’ Raising his own glass, Martinez gave a toast. ‘Here’s to our new business partnership and to no more lessons in car parks!’

‘Yes, indeed,’ Dominic agreed over the clinking of glasses.

Tuco lifted his glass to his lips. ‘They were stupid. You would have done the same.’

Dominic raised his eyebrows. ‘That’s not really my style.’

‘Something similar,’ Tuco grinned. ‘I am sure we have similar instincts.’

What was the use of arguing with the fellow? Dom conceded the point. ‘True.’

Finally, it was time for something to eat. With the demise of his regular haunt, Il Buffone, Carlyle had found a new home from home at the Box Café on Henrietta Street. Barely a minute from the police station, just down from the piazza, it was cheap and, more often than not, relatively free of tourists. By now, the Ukrainian owner, Myron Sabo, knew Carlyle well enough to make his coffee scalding hot and not to bother him with too much chitchat. Since Myron was not known for his love of conversation, that was not too much of a problem. His pastries fell considerably short of the standard set by Marcello at Il Buffone but Carlyle was not the kind of man who wasted his time striving for perfection, not even when it came to cakes, so Myron’s establishment was more than good enough. Given that it was as near as dammit lunchtime, he ordered a latte and a large slice of apple strudel and, plucking a dog-eared copy of The Times from the rack by the till, he took a seat at the back. After a quick check to reassure himself that the raid on Everton’s hadn’t made it into the home news section, he flipped to the back pages to scan the all-important sports news. Inside, a full two pages had been devoted to the latest contract wrangle involving bad boy superstar Gavin Swann.

‘Two hundred grand.’ Myron appeared at the table, coffee in one hand, strudel in the other. He shook his head. ‘A bloody week!’ In slow motion, he placed the latte onto the table, still managing to spill a good portion of the murky brown liquid into the saucer. ‘After tax!’

Shocked by the Ukrainian’s sudden outburst, Carlyle grabbed the plate containing the cake before he dropped it. It was a generous slice of strudel by any measure and he didn’t want to lose it. Or, more to the point, he didn’t want to have to embarrass himself by picking it off the floor and then eating it. ‘I know,’ he said, once the plate had been carefully placed on the table, ‘it’s a complete joke. How can any footballer be worth that?’

For a few moments, both men contemplated the absurdity of the situation.

‘How can anyone be worth that?’ Myron wondered sadly.

‘Quite,’ said Carlyle. Closing the paper, he folded it in half and handed it back to Myron, signalling that the time for talking was over. Using the teaspoon from his saucer, he began a steady, determined assault on his cake.