Will Self - The Book of Dave

'I thought you didn't do kids?' Dave got up, ready to leave.

'A man's kiddies is different, daddies is different. Ya see, divorce business is ninety per cent women, ninety per cent. Why? 'Coz they're cats, ain't they, cats … curiosity gets 'em every time. Minute hubby's gotta few items on his Mastercard bill he can't square, they wanna know the colour of the bint's pubes he's tomming around with. Gotta know — haveta know. It's not about love, it's not about money, it's not about kiddies — it's just bloody curiosity. You're different — it's your kiddie. Call me sentimental, go on, call me sentimental' — the Skip Tracer skipped over to a grey filing cabinet on top of which were lined up five full bottles of single-malt whisky and yanked from behind them a silver-framed photograph of a teenage girl with a mouth full of orthodontistry —'but I love my kiddie, wouldn't want to be parted. No way, no way … Anyway, Gold says there's a money angle, which is?' He slapped the photograph back down and closed in on Dave, still waggling the penknife.

'This.' Dave handed him the card. 'I had this Brice in the back of my cab; he works for the bank that are handling the buyout of my ex's new bloke's company. His name is Cal Devenish — '

'Oh him!' The Skip Tracer was delighted. 'I've heard of'im, well, whassthe beef?'

'I heard this bloke on his mobile saying he didn't think Devenish was kosher, thought he was spending more money than he could possibly have —'

'I like it, I like it — liking it, liking it. You wanna know how much he 'az? I'll tell you!'

The Skip Tracer leaped for his desk, yanked up the receiver of one of the four phones on it and punched a string of digits without even looking: 'Channel Devenish, that's right, love, D-E-V-E-N-I-S-H. I dunno, Charlotte Street probably, yeah, yeah … Hello, Channel Devenish? Yeah … Barry Forbes here, City Desk at the Standard, we're doing a thing on your buyout, can I have a word with the Financial Director … and that is? Bob Gubby … sure, thanks … Mr Gubby? Barry Forbes here from the Standard, yeah, yeah, just a short item on the buyout, and, well, you actually … people are impressed … we all know FDs are the real deal makers, juss wanned to check some facts, no time to look up the clips … corporate bankers … I see, yes … in the Haymarket, and they're the seniors? Excellent. One other thing, d'you have a photo? Black and white preferably, bike it over if you could, mark it for my attention and I'll pass it to the picture desk. Barry Forbes, that's right, F-O-R-B-E-S. Brilliant, brilliant…' He broke the connection and redialled while hissing at Dave, 'Carrot, see, mug thinks he's gonna be in the evening rag, carrot, give 'em carrot, it's like nosebag for desk jockeys — hello?' he said, returning to the phone, 'Bob Gubby here at Channel Devenish, could I speak to our corporate manager? Mr Hurst, that's right… he's at lunch? Well, his secretary will do … Hello, Bob Gubby here at Channel Devenish, yes, I know he's at lunch, I just need to check something quickly … is that a Barbadian accent? Really, I love Barbados, I was on holiday there last year, no, near Speightstown …'

The Skip Tracer's chat-up was like hypnotizing someone with a pendulum: the trick lay in its very obviousness. From the secretary he elicited Cal Devenish's personal bank details: 'We're worried a payment hasn't gone through and everyone's at lunch at this end. Yes … a big payment … I thought I might have the account number wrong … it looks like a five, but it could be an eight … 'Digit by digit he extracted the account number, without the young woman on the end of the line even realizing that he'd provided her with no accreditation at all except holiday snaps and a false name. 'Carrot, see, big dick Barbadian one!' he snapped at Dave when he'd broken the connection. Then he called Devenish's bank and pretended to be a manager from another branch: 'He's applied for a loan here … nothing large, but I felt I ought to check it out …' With each call he made, the Skip Tracer morphed astonishingly: from City Editor to Financial Director, from FD to Bank Manager. His voice changed, his accent changed, his wiry body coiled and stretched across the desk. 'I see, really?' He scribbled a number on a pad and chucked it over to Dave while still on the call. 'Well, that is strange, but very rich men can be, can't they? And it's all business for us, no?'

Dave was looking at the number, which had six digits. The Skip Tracer hung up. 'Carrot, see, loan, get it, nosebag, banker nosebag, that is — a loan.'

'He's got over seven hundred grand in his current bloody account!' Dave expostulated.

'£743,485 to be precise,' the Skip Tracer said. 'He's fucking loaded. But I don't do pro bono, my son, no way Jose, I'm not some fucking ambulance chaser. You'll have to cough up, on the nail, on the nail. And no borrowing to pay me.' He wagged a finger. 'I know those sharks, I know the vig.'

'Aren't you worried about them tracing all of that?' Dave put in. 'All those dodgy calls?'

'Cummear.' The Skip Tracer pulled Dave to his feet and tucked his arm around the bigger man's neck. Dave smelled sweat and aftershave — both of them were lashing off him. 'I'm gonna like you, son. I'm gonna enjoy doing stuff fer you, b'lieve me. B'lieve it. Cummear … see the flex, see the phone wire, lets follow it …' The Skip Tracer three-legged Dave out the door and in through the open door of the adjoining office. It was empty save for a pile of phone directories and smelled of new carpet tiling. The phone wire snaked across the chequerboard and disappeared into a wall. 'There it goes into its little hole. Company that rents this gaff' — he laid a crooked finger against his tip-tilt nose — 'I've never seen 'em. They'll be one of those nosebag fronts with their name on a plate in an accountant's office on the Isle of Man. Ironically it might be the same bean counter who fronts up for your man Devenish. Geddit?'

Dave was renting Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on the full-flat. The open-top, straight-six Bentley was a pig to handle, and the wings were mostly useless in Central London. The flying car grunted and squealed at the rank under the heavy steel joists of St Pancras. A fare came flapping out of the greenish aviary of the station, a tall stick of a man, his white beard and black robe giving him a vulturine appearance. 'Where to, guv?' Dave asked him, and the fare replied stiffly, 'Parl-men-till.'

The fare was a tedious old fucker, who couldn't forbear from lecturing Dave on London's architecture. Dave hated birds — especially old human ones; he hated their alien stare, their hollow bones, their greasy feathers, their hard, pointed lips. The fare's thesis was simple: the city had ceased to evolve after the Great Fire. The last three hundred and fifty years were only a series of recapitulations, the erection of new-old buildings, tricked out in the styles of lost civilizations. He pointed out the neo-Gothic station frontage, its triplets of lancet windows complete with quatrefoils, its angled and flying buttresses, its iron pinnacles and gabled niches. Despite himself Dave craned to look up and piloted Chitty Chitty Bang Bang into the gulch being excavated for the Channel Tunnel terminal. Luckily, its wings spontaneously unfurled, the huge car swooped back up on to the roadway. The fare was unfazed. He discoursed on the wooden, barrel-vaulted roof of King's Cross, then directed his attention to the neoclassicism of the terraced houses lining Royal College Street — their snub facades alluding to the possibility of stately porticos, their anorexic pilasters referencing temples long since crumbled. 'Vares nuffing nú unnersun, mì sun.' The fare spoke the broadest of cockney, vowels crushed to death by rumbling lorries on the Mile End Road. 'Doan ask wy ve öl daze wuz bé-er van vese, coz U aynt gó ve nous fer í. Lemme tellya, no geezer az a fukkin clú abaht iz oan tyme, yeah? Ees juss lyke a fukkin sparrer — '