Don Winslow - A Cool Breeze on the Underground

“Office hours.”

“Alice is wrecked.”

Colin shrugged. “‘At’s ’er business, isn’t it?”

“Could affect your business. High rollers don’t like junkies.”

Colin stared out the window. “Well, rugger, ’er business or my business, it’s none of your business.”

Neal glanced out the window. “Might be.”

“Ow’s ‘at?”

“I need a girl.”

Colin laughed. “Not Alice. I’ll set you up with someone else.”

“I need a girl for a job.”

Colin took a long draw on his pint before he said, “My da was on the dole is ‘ole fookin’ life. He was always tellin’ me, ‘Son, ge’ a union job. Ge’ a union job an’ you can fook off your ‘ole life.’ That was my da’s great ambition.

“Is this a union job, Neal?”

“No.”

“We’re interested.”

“It’s a one-shot deal, Colin. Lots of money but very tricky. No mistakes. My ass is on the line.”

“How much money?”

“Enough you won’t have to send Alice out on any more dates.”

Either a trace of shame passed across Colin’s face or he was even a better actor than Neal thought.

“I love ’er, Neal.”

“Right.”

“What’s the job?”

Neal shook his head. “Ill tell you tomorrow. The Serpentine. One o’clock.”

Because you can’t make it too simple, Neal thought. And you have to get him into a pattern of following instructions. Turn the relationship around. Otherwise, the whole thing will screw up.

“Why all the bother?” Colin asked.

“Yes or no?”

“Yes, rugger.”

The tail had picked Neal up in the square and followed him to the pub. He waited across the street and then stayed with him back to the hotel. He stayed a long way back and was real careful. The kid was supposed to be a pro.

Levine answered the phone.

“I’m calling in,” Neal said.

“Good boy.”

“Take your fucking tail off me.”

“What?”

“Next time, send someone knows what he’s doing.”

“Hey, Neal-”

“Take him off.” Neal hung up.

Levine looked at Graham and Lombardi. “That Neal is some piece of work. Little shit thinks I put a tail on him. Asshole.”

Graham’s rubber hand ground into his real one. He had trained Neal better than to see tails that weren’t there.

“Back off.”

“The kid’s on to something, I can smell it.”

The phone connection from London was bad, so he had to repeat himself. “He made you. Back off.”

“He didn’t make me.” “Who’s paying you? Off!” “You got it.”

The guy hung up the phone. He was pissed off. The kid was a pro. A real cute one.

Two scotches and a hot bath didn’t settle Neal down much. That fucking Levine, he thought. That fucking Levine is going to blow this whole thing. If I as much as smell that guy again…

Tuesday morning neal decided to have a whopping big breakfast. He picked a table in the dining room that gave him an easy view of the door and dug into his Times, along with two fried eggs, hot cereal, toast, bacon, sausage, and a pot of coffee. He took his sweet time about it, but nobody joined him.

Then he went for a walk. The day was a scorcher, a real bitch, but if they wanted to play games, he’d play games. Nobody picked him up at the hotel door, certainly not the guy from last night, but it would be just like Friends to show him one tail so they could pin a different one on him. And he just wasn’t ready for company on this thing-not yet.

He took a right down Piccadilly and set a torrid pace to Green Park tube station. He bought a 20p ticket from the machine and headed down the stairs, changed his mind, and walked back out on the street. He strolled down Queen’s Lane, nice and slow, stopped at a cart and bought an ice cream, thought about Allie, and turned around and went back to the tube station. But now he picked up the pace, fast and hard, so if anyone was following him, it would cost them a hell of a sweat. He took the train to Leicester Square, rode the escalator to street level, rode the escalator back down to the trains, and took a Northern Line train to Tottenham Court Road, where he got off the train, switched to the Central Line, and continued on to Bond Street, where he switched to the Jubilee Line and rode it back to Green Park.

By this time, he was convinced that Levine had called his boy off, and he was soaked with sweat and covered with grime, but he felt good, as if he was working again, as if he was in first-class gumshoe shape. He was psyching himself up; talking himself into it; going undercover, deep undercover.

He could see the boat-hire dock on the Serpentine from the deck of the restaurant. He sipped an iced coffee and waited. He had a good hour before Colin was supposed to show up. Time enough to check out the terrain, time enough to be ready if anyone was setting him up. Neal Carey wasn’t taking any chances.

“I cant swim, rugger,” Colin warned as he gently lowered himself into the little squat paddleboat.

“I’ll save you,” Neal answered. He watched Allie, Crisp, and Vanessa getting into another boat. Neal was having a good time, and taking a little spin around the manmade lake in the center of Hyde Park wasn’t a bad way to kill a sweaty afternoon. And he enjoyed Colin’s discomfiture.

They paddled out toward the middle of the Serpentine and then just let the boat drift. Neal placed his jacket on the bottom of the boat and lay down on top of it. It felt gloriously cool down there. He left Colin sitting up in the heat. In the distance, he could hear Crisp and Vanessa singing at the top of their lungs-some song he didn’t recognize but guessed was a butchery of Gilbert and Sullivan.

“So what is it, rugger?”

Careful, Neal lad, he thought to himself. This is it.

“My client is over here buying a book.”

“I hope you’re ‘avin’ me on.”

“The book is worth twenty thousand pounds.”

That got your attention, didn’t it, Colin?

“What book is worth twenty thousand quid?” Colin asked suspiciously.

“The Pickle.”

He went through the whole thing. About Smollett, the first and second editions, Lady Vane, the trip to Italy, the missing volumes.

When he had finished, Colin said, “So?”

“So our client, the guy I’m doing security for, just bought it for ten thousand pounds.”

“Ten in’t twenty, lad.”

“And I know someone who’ll buy it for twenty, Colin baby.”

And I have you hooked, Neal thought. Colin was only a silhouette at the moment, but the silhouette was leaning way forward, listening hard.

“You can get ’old of this book?”

“With your help.”

“I’m all ears.”

“Jesus Christ!”

The boat rocked suddenly. Neal saw a head bobbing in the water. Then the head came over the side of the boat.

“Alice, for bleeding Jesus’s sake…?”

“I felt like a swim.”

She hauled herself into their boat. “I was lonely,” she said. “I missed you. Besides, look what those assholes are doing over there.”

Those assholes Crisp and Vanessa were ramming their paddleboat into any other boat they could catch. They were at this moment in hot pursuit of a pair of Japanese tourists. Security guards at the dock were climbing into a rowboat.

“Jump back in, love. Me and Neal are ‘aving a business discussion.”

“Let her stay. It’s about her.”

“What about me?”

“I want you to ball a guy.”

“How much?”

“Five thousand pounds.”

“What, is he really gross or something?”

They barely outpaddled the water cops, who had picked Crisp and Vanessa up and wanted the whole gang. The Japanese couple had abandoned ship, however, necessitating a rather complicated bilingual rescue effort, which gave Neal and his crew time to paddle to shore, dump the boat in some bushes, and run out to Rotten Row. They hailed a cab at Alexandra Gate.