Don Winslow - A Cool Breeze on the Underground

You did? You did? It didn’t take long for it to sink in. You working-class heroes were on some beach in France while I was sweating my balls off on the Main Drag looking for you!

“Colin, you aspire to the middle class.”

“I aspire to a ’eap of filthy lucre.”

“Yeah?”

“Not ‘arf.”

“Maybe I know where you could get it.”

There followed what could be called a significant silence.

“Where’s ‘at?”

Neal set the chair back on the floor, put his cup on the railing, and stood up. He stretched and yawned. “We’ll talk.”

He patted Colin on the head and walked out.

Always leave ’em wanting more, he thought.

The next morning, Neal was in a doctor’s office, wincing bravely, fighting back the pain.

“Did that hurt?” Dr. Ferguson asked him. He bent Neal’s leg back again.

“A little,” Neal answered, lifting his head up from the examining table.

“You have a nasty strain here, I believe. You can get dressed.”

Neal slowly brought himself into a sitting position and struggled back into his shirt. “Thanks for seeing me at such short notice.”

Ferguson didn’t look up from his prescription pad. “Any friend of Simon’s, as the saying goes…”

Ferguson tended toward chubby, and seemed quite content with it. He had an owlish face and a full head of brown hair. He lived in the same St. John’s Wood house that held his office. Not that he needed to. He had considerable private income in addition to his practice. He confessed a public passion for cricket, a private passion for his wife, and a secret passion for first-edition books, hence the Simon Keyes connection. Neal had found his number in Simon’s address book.

“I feel really silly, falling down the stairs,” Neal said.

“Yes, well, those stairs of Simon’s…” Ferguson answered. He handed Neal the scrip. “This will help you sleep. Also ease what we physicians like to call discomfort.”

“I just can’t find a comfortable position.”

“‘As the actress said to the bishop.’ Yes, back injuries are inconvenient that way. Next time, you really should consider hurting your ankle. Simon tells me you’re interested in books.”

Neal tossed in another small wince as he lowered himself from the table. “You talked with him?”

“I was motoring up north and popped in at the cottage unannounced. He was quite gracious about it. He tells me you’re a Smollett scholar.”

“Hardly a scholar.”

“And you’re here looking at his collection.”

Thank you, Simon, Neal thought.

“It’s incredible.”

“Does he still have the Pickle?”

Neal gave him his best Mona Lisa, inscrutable smile.

“I see that he does,” Ferguson said. “Right. Try to stay off your feet. Lie flat, no sitting. If it’s still giving you trouble in a week, come back and we’ll have another look.”

“Thanks again.”

“Don’t thank me. Just filch his Pickle and bring it over in the dark of night.”

Ferguson chuckled at his joke.

Neal chuckled. Then he winced. Then he chuckled again.

There was still a good hour or so before the shops would open, so Neal treated himself to a long walk through Regent’s Park. He went down Park Road through Hanover Gate and found a footpath that took him across the lake past the boat house. By the time he reached the south gate of the zoo, his shirt was soaked but he felt good sweating the weekend’s poisons out of his system.

He stopped in at a grocer’s on Regent’s Park Road and bought ten bottles of Coca-Cola, ten bottles of Pepsi, twenty Aero chocolate bars, three packages of sugar-coated tea biscuits, a pound of white sugar, two jars of honey, a dozen eggs, bread, butter, and jam.

He found a linen shop and bought two sets of sheets, three bath towels, and a dozen hand towels. At a small athletic shop, he bought four pairs of gym socks. An expensive little stationer’s shop provided him with an expensive little attache case with combination locks. His last stop was at the chemist, where he exchanged Ferguson’s prescription for a large plastic vial of sleeping pills.

Simon’s flat was brutally hot and stuffy, so the first thing Neal did was open the windows. Then he laid his groceries out in the kitchen and put the soda in the refrigerator. He tore the sheets up into thin strips and left them in the bedroom, then taped the towels to the sharp corners of the dresser and bedside table. He tied knots into each of the gym socks. Then he removed the bright white bulbs from the ceiling light and the bedside lamp and replaced them with low-wattage frosted bulbs. He took half of the sleeping pills and left them in the bathroom cabinet and put the rest back in his pocket.

Back in the sitting room, he removed the four volumes of Smollett’s Peregrine Pickle and placed them in the new attache case. He memorized the combination and locked it up.

By the time he was finished, it was noon, and already steamy hot out on the street. He bought a Times and grabbed an outdoor table under an umbrella at a sidewalk cafe. He had an espresso and a truly goopy Italian pastry as he scanned the paper. It didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for: the London Philharmonic at Albert Hall. Thursday night. Proceeds to go to the World Wildlife Fund. Prince Philip to make opening remarks. Public welcome. And a large SOLD OUT notice bannered across the ad. Buy early next time, public.

He downed another espresso and grabbed a taxi back to the hotel

An already harried concierge looked up from his list of problems. The house was jam-packed with tourists. “Yes, sir?”

“Yes. Would you have any tickets available for the Philharmonic on Thursday evening? July second?”

“Let me check, sir.” He looked into a thick book. “No, sir. Terribly sorry. All booked.”

“I’ve already booked. Name is Carey.”

The concierge sighed through his smile. “That is different, sir. Let me find you.” He went back to the book. “Sorry again, Mr. Carey. I don’t seem to find you here.”

Neal could hear impatient shuffling starting behind him. “Maybe it’s under another name. I’m with a party.”

He let the silence hang.

The concierge gave in first. “Which party might that be, sir?”

“The Henderson party.”

Back to the book.

“At this hotel, sir?”

“Wouldn’t use any other.”

“Thank you, sir.” The concierge looked over Neal’s shoulder at the next guest and gave a quick smile indicating his tolerance. Then he perused the book again. “No. Sorry, sir.”

“Oh dear. Maybe she’s using her married name.”

The concierge could not resist a two-beat comic pause before he intoned, “And if we knew what that name was, sir, we might be able to find it.”

“Zacharias. Z as in zebra, a as in appropriate, c as in choreography, h as in-”

“I think I can take it from there, sir.”

No luck.

“Sorry once again, Mr. Carey. Are you quite certain-”

“Well, maybe Susan didn’t make the arrangements, maybe Nell did. Could you look under Taglianetti?”

“Mr. Carey, we are just a bit busy at the moment. Would it be terribly rude of me to ask if you would be so kind as to look yourself and then inform me of your progress?”

“No, not at all.”

“Here you are, then.”

He handed Neal the book. Neal scanned it, looking for the names of married women who were going to the affair alone. He found five, their room numbers inked in beside them. He ran a chant several times through his head: Harris, 518; Goldman, 712; Ulrich, 823; Myers, 665; Renaldi, 422. Then he hurried to his room and wrote them down.

Now for the tedious part, he thought.