Don Winslow: A Cool Breeze on the Underground

Neal struggled to his feet, went in, and crumpled into the other chair. His ribs were burning and it was hard to breathe.

“First things first,” Colin said. “I’ll take the book now…”

“In the bedroom,” Neal said. His eyes began to focus. He recognized the gun as Hardin’s.

“Yeah, ’at’s right, Neal. I thought the other cottage was your little love nest at first. Alice luv, get the book, will you, dear? Before I blow Neal’s ’ead off?”

She went upstairs.

“Neal, Neal, Neal,” Colin said sadly. “You ‘ad to make this difficult.”

“Take the book. Leave Alice.”

“No, I don’t think so. Ah, ’ere’s your beloved. Alice, open the case.”

“Both dials to fifty-three,” Neal said.

She opened the case and set it on the table. Colin leaned over to gaze at the book. “Better late than never, hey, rugger?”

He was getting comfortable now. He held the shotgun against his hip in the crook of one arm. His finger was on the trigger and he had the barrel pointed at Allie. “Neal lad, give us the name of the buyer,”

“I’ll trade you the name for Alice.”

“Well that’s quite generous of you, considerin’ I ‘ave the book, Alice, and this shotgun, and you ‘ave fuck all.”

“I have the name.”

Colin lowered the barrel, dropping it down to Allie’s knees. “It would be a shame, Neal, but I’d do it.”

His finger tightened ever so slightly on the trigger. Allie turned dead white, her teeth sinking into her lower lip.

“Dr. John Ferguson, Eleven St. John’s Wood.”

The barrel swung to Neal’s face. “Truth?”

Neal nodded.

“If I find it isn’t, Neal, I’ll take a knife to ’er pretty face, and…” He winced and shook his head.

“It’s the truth.”

“I believe you.” He stepped back and leveled the gun back at Neal’s face. “Well, lad, I’ve never shot anyone before-”

“Don’t hurt him and I’ll go with you,” Allie said.

“You’ll go with me anyway, Alice.”

“I’ll do anything you want. For as long as you want. Just don’t hurt him.”

Colin didn’t take his eyes from Neal. He had made the mistake of underestimating him before. “How can I believe you, Alice?”

“I don’t know! I swear!”

“I’ve got an idea.” He fished out a set of works from his left pocket and dropped it on the table. He followed with a small glassine envelope. “Cook it up and shoot it, there’s a good girl.”

Allie grabbed it. He had brought it all. She had just lit the match under the spoon when Neal said, “Alice, don’t.”

Colin tightened his finger on the trigger. “Shut up.”

A gun makes you see the world in a whole different way. All Neal wanted came in one single, fervent prayer: Don’t let it go off. Please don’t let it go off.

Allie tied the rubber hose around her arm and pulled tight. She chose a vein and lowered the needle to it. She was crying. “Promise me, Colin, you won’t hurt him now.”

“A deal’s a deal.”

Neal was trying to fight through the fear. If he lost her now, he lost her forever. She’d never fight her way back again. Not through the dope, and the selling herself. Not through what Colin was planning for her. Not through the ghosts that haunted her.

You’ve blown it, he thought. Blown it. You haven’t done anything you started out to do.

And you haven’t told her about her father.

“He’s not your father,” Neal said. He felt dizzy. He saw Colin’s jaw tighten. Saw the barrel of the shotgun.

“What?” Allie asked. She froze with the syringe a millimeter from her arm.

“Shut up!” Colin yelled. Another ounce of pressure on the trigger and it would go off.

Neal felt as if he were swimming through fear, fighting to the surface. “John Chase is not your father. What he did to you was horrible, but he’s not your father. Remember that.”

“Who are you?”

Neal spat out the words as fast as he could, before the shotgun’s roar could drown him out.

“They sent me to bring you back. Your mother wants you back, and John Chase is not your father.”

“What are you fookin’ on about?”

“All this time…” she said, staring at Neal.

“Shoot it or I shoot ’im. Now!”

She looked at Neal for a moment more, then touched the needle to her arm.

“Allie, don’t!”

She pushed the plunger. It was a strong mix and took only a couple of seconds to hit. Her knees buckled but she caught herself on the table, then shook her head once. Twice. Peace flowed over her, into her.

Neal sank back in his chair.

“Right,” said Colin. “Well, ’ere we go.”

He grabbed the briefcase and shoved Allie toward the door.

“Cheers, rugger.”

Allie’s attack was feeble, heroin slow, but her raking nails hurt anyway and threw off his aim as he knocked her aside and turned to face Neal, who had sprung from the chair.

The blast caught Neal square in the chest and set him down in a bloody heap on the floor.

Colin hit Allie in the stomach with the butt of the gun, then crouched over Neal and felt his neck for a pulse. He didn’t find one. He grabbed Allie by the elbow and shoved her outside toward his motorbike.

Neal had felt the first wicked shot of pain, and then a great sleepy, bloody weight pressing down on his eyes and his chest, and then blessed oblivion.

Dr. ferguson answered the telephone, only mildly surprised that someone would be ringing him at that time of the evening. He sometimes wished he had gone into specialized practice, with its nicely specified hours, but for the most part he was pleased with his work and with himself. Dr. Ferguson was a man content. He had a public passion for books, a private one for his wife of twenty-odd years, and an addiction to trout fishing that went beyond all reasonable bounds.

He lived modestly for a wealthy man, an heir. He preferred to put his money into important things such as rare books, an Argyll retreat, and a share in a trout stream in that same shire. So he set aside part of his house in London’s St. John’s Wood for an office, and saw most of his patients there or at the hospital. When the telephone rang on this particular evening, his nurse was long gone, so he answered it himself.

Rare was the caller who warned him not to interrupt, and Ferguson listened with rapt, if a tad annoyed, attention to the manic stream-of-consciousness verbal style of this lower-class young man and allowed a good ten seconds of silence to pass before he deigned to respond.

“Ah,” he said, “may I speak now?”

Receiving an affirmative reply, he said, “First, may I inquire how you came to be in possession of these volumes?… Actually, it is my business, considering that you are asking me to purchase them… I see. I see… No, tonight would not be convenient… Yes, I’m quite sure. I don’t do business at night, you understand… regardless of what you have been led to believe. I do, in fact, know a Mr. Carey, but he is a tobacconist and I rather doubt that he would- The soonest I could possibly see you would be at, let me think, tomorrow at half past one… Yes? And your name?… Well, I shall have to know- Yes, Mr. Smythe, I shall look forward to meeting you at half past one tomorrow. Good evening.”

When the rather desperate young man rang off, Ferguson sat down with two fingers of whiskey and searched his brain for any trace of a Neal Carey who had some connections with books. An hour or so later, he came up with an answer.

Allie’s world had become a cloudy mix of grief and sleep. Lying in the filthy Bayswater flat that was Colin’s new retreat, she would wake up from a drugged sleep and remember Neal and the pain would start again. It wouldn’t last for long, because Vanessa would pop her a quick one again, a small shot of smack that would send her back into reverie and sleep.