James Munro: The Money That Money Can't Buy

"Fine," said Craig. "She sends you her love."

"What would you like?" asked Allen.

"Scotch," said Craig. "Teacher's for preference. No ice. Water on the side."

Allen nodded then and brought him his drink. Craig was accepted. Even so, he felt like a fool. Passwords to Craig could never ever sound like conversation, much less replace it. He knew that the men and women around him had heard and forgotten what he had said, but he remembered. He talked for a while about Linda, her husband Frank, and their children—Arthur had failed "O" level French again; Elaine still had a brace on her teeth—went out to dine on gazpacho, arroz a la Valenciana, and fruit, then returned to the bar. Allen was waiting for him, and came at once from behind the counter and took him into the living room behind it. The living room was furnished throughout by Liberty's, and on the walls were pictures of George Allen: Allen at school, Allen in the first fifteen, Allen as house prefect. Then more pictures: Allen in the RAF regiment in Aden, Singapore, Hong Kong; Allen as a tea planter, a PRO man, a car salesman; and finally Allen as publican, shaking hands with pop singers, bullfighters, film stars. Craig liked the setup less and less. Allen poured Spanish brandy and Craig asked for ginger ale. When it came, Allen said: "I heard you were on your way. What do you want?"

There was a tycoon's preoccupation in his voice: so much to be done, so little time to do it in. Craig watched as Allen's neat brandy disappeared, and another, larger shot replaced it. He said nothing.

"Look sport," said Allen. "I'm a busy man. I'm running a bar. The bar makes money. I don't live in Wogland because I like it—and this is my high season. Now what do you want? If I can help you I will."

"Your bar makes you thirty pounds a week from April to September," said Craig. "Your boat makes you another twenty—smuggling. That's fifteen hundred a year. We've paid you a couple of thousand for the last three years. You're not doing me any favors, Allen. You're paying off six thousand quid."

Allen picked up his glass and poured down the brandy. His face at once turned a fierce, banked-down red, and he opened his mouth to yell.

"If you start anything," said Craig, "I'll knock you unconscious. And you won't work for us again. Ever."

Allen sat at the table, his hands groping for the brandy bottle. Craig eased it away from the searching fingers, stood up, walked round the table, and hauled Allen to his feet. Allen's body resisted the thrust of the hand in his shirt collar, but he came up anyway.

"I want politeness," said Craig. "And cooperation. And I want them now. We've heard about, you, Allen. You're lazy. You want the money. You don't want the work. We don't see it like that. We want you to start earning, old son."

Allen said: "All right. All right. This shirt cost me a hundred and sixty pesetas."

Craig let him go; and Allen smoothed out his shirt collar.

"Just tell me what you want," he said. "If I can help you I will."

Craig's right hand reached for Allen's neck, the V formed by the splayed forefinger and thumb across the throat, the thumb depressing the carotid artery, the forefinger hard on the nerve behind the ear. Pain exploded in Allen's face, but he learned at once how foolish he would be to yell as the pressure of thumb and forefinger increased. Craig spoke to him, his voice unhurried and utterly certain. "You belong to us, Allen. We own you. When we say jump, by Christ you jump. We know all about your smuggling, remember. You try it on and we give you to the Spaniards. On a plate, old boy." The pressure of thumb and forefinger increased, and the pain boiled in Allen's neck, then was suddenly, mercifully gone.

"I'm sorry," Allen began.

"Don't be," said Craig. "You hate me. But I can destroy you. Just accept that."

Reluctantly, hating himself, Allen agreed.

"We're going to pick up a man called Jean-Luc Calvet," said Craig. "You know him."

"Of course I do," said Allen. "He's a French painter. One of these beatnik types. Lives down the road in Estepona."

"You never told us about him," said Craig.

"Nothing to tell," Allen said. "He's just a painter. Sells little sketches of landscapes and fishing boats and that. Does very well too."

"He's a Russian," said Craig. "He also sells little

sketches of Gibraltar, and he's a paymaster for Spanish Communists."

"You're joking," said Allen, and added quickly: "I mean he's a very good painter."

"He's a very good spy, too," said Craig.

3

That night Calvet was giving a party. His little house was crammed with expatriate Swedes, Germans, and Englishmen, including a couple of officers from Gibraltar who were laying down Calvet oils as their ancestors had laid down port. The gin and whisky, smuggled from Gib, were excellent, and the kef, brought from Morocco that day, mixed deftly enough to ensure that it brought nothing but peace, and perhaps a little too much laughter. There were never any fights at Calvet's parties. Craig drove down there at two in the morning, and the party was loud indeed. He left the car in the square, and walked down to the quayside. A group of fishermen were unloading boxes of fish from a caique-like craft with an enormous and antiquated diesel engine; others were watching from a cafe, part house, part awning, and with them were a beat-poet, an anti-novelist, a musique concrete composer, and their disciples, who drank local brandy and deplored Calvet's party, to which they had not been invited. Craig drank coffee, and listened to their chatter. The party should be through by four.

He finished his coffee, walked out of the village to a headland, sat down and waited. His patience was absolute. He could wait for days, and be as swift and deadly at the end as if he had just arrived at the fight. At last, very faintly, he heard the throb of engines, and saw the riding lights of Allen's cruiser. The engines stopped, and there was the squeak of wood on metal as Allen moved his dinghy to the shore, beached it and scrambled up. His breath reeked of cognac.

"All set," said Allen. "Ready when you are, squire." He lurched into Craig as he moved, and Craig reacted at once to the dense weight of metal on his body. His hand moved, quickly and precisely, and came out with the gun that Allen carried. A Beretta. An Italian automatic, eight-shot, with a light and nervous trigger. The safety catch was off. Craig took the magazine from the butt, put it in his pocket, and gave the gun back to Allen.

"If I want a gun I'll bring a gun," he said.

"Just making sure," Allen said. "He could be tough."

"He is," said Craig. "But we don't want him dead."

He led Allen back to the car, and they drove out of town, then waited in the dark till four, while Allen fidgeted and whined for cognac, and Craig just sat, not smoking, not speaking, waiting until it was time to move. They went back into Estepona and parked near Calvet's house just after four. By twenty past, seven people had left, by half past the record player had ceased.

Craig drove up to the house, got out, and looked at the windows. They were small and steel-framed.

The door was three heavy slabs of olive wood, with a hand-forged lock that he could open with a hairpin, but he had heard the thick slam of metal bolts as the last guests left. He pounded on the door with his fist. The noise boomed and echoed in the empty street. At last he heard footsteps, and his muscles tensed for action.

A girl's voice asked: "Who is there?" and Craig continued to pound on the door. "What is it?" the girl asked again, and Craig shouted in half-incoherent Spanish about guests at the party, an accident on the Marbella road, and a man dying, perhaps dead, and my God why did they have to drive when they had drunk so much?