‘Oh?’
‘Long story.’
I was parked further up Sauchiehall Street, closer to the Locarno Ballroom. We walked back.
‘It’s a great car,’ she said as I held the door open for her. Then, come-hither-ingly: ‘Could we go for a drive?’
‘Sure,’ I said. My plan had been to drive Jeannie out of the city, park up on Gleniffer Braes, where there were great views of the city, and trick her into a blow-job. But try as I might I couldn’t get out of my head the image of Little Caesar chomping down on a cigar. It was then I saw the dark-coloured 16HP parked a few cars back. Sneddon was taking my protection just a little bit too seriously. Take the night off, guys, I thought.
‘Gimme a second; some friends of mine…’ I said to Jeannie and I walked up to the 16HP. I could see it wasn’t Twinkletoes and I guessed it was the other thug whom Sneddon had promised to lend me. The guy behind the wheel started his engine as soon as he saw me approach. I noticed that he had a large dressing on his cheek and it was then that I recognized him: he was one of the goons who had jumped me in Argyle Street. Specifically he was the fella whose cheek I had split open with the length of pipe. It was clear he was in no mood for a rematch without his pals and he slammed into reverse, braked, ripped teeth off his gears and sped off down Sauchiehall Street. I ran back to my car and tore out after him.
The 16HP squealed into Blythswood Street and headed down towards the river. He ripped across the junction with Bath Street and just missed being side-slammed by a Rover. I swung around the tail of the Rover but a gap had opened up between us. He reached the Clyde end of Blythswood and swung a left without slowing onto the Broomielaw.
I had to brake hard for a truck which stopped in my path while the driver bawled out of his cab and accused my mother of all kinds of acts, all indecent, some illegal and at least one of which I thought was physically impossible. I bumped up onto the kerb to navigate round him. It was only when I checked out of my side window that I realized that Jeannie was still sitting next to me. She was staring at me, eyes wide and mouth slack with shock.
‘Get out,’ I said as gently as I could. ‘I have to catch this guy. It’s business.’
She still sat stunned. I reached over and opened the door and gave her a shove towards the street. ‘Out! Quick!’ She got out wordlessly and stood on the pavement still gawp-mouthed. ‘I’m sorry, Jeannie… I’ll call you…’
I floored the accelerator and fired the Atlantic along Broomielaw in the direction of Paddy’s Market. The 16HP was nowhere to be seen but I knew if I made the right decisions I could close on him. He had either turned back into the city towards Glasgow Cross or had crossed the Clyde into the South Side. I put my money on the South Side: he would stand more risk of getting snarled up in the city and me catching up.
I swung across the Albert Bridge. Crown Street was empty of cars. From here he could have taken the Carlisle road or headed back towards Govan and the Paisley road. Or he could even have headed off into the Gorbals, but I reckoned that would have been a bad move: actually, anyone heading off into the Gorbals, at any time, for any reason, was a bad move. In his case an Austin 16HP would have looked as much at home in the Gorbals as a priest in an Orange Hall.
On a hunch, I turned towards Govan and followed Paisley Road West. Again I drove as fast as I dared but still caught no sight of the
16HP.
I stopped under the railway bridge, switched the engine off and rolled down the window. The street was silent except for a Number Nine Corporation tram that trundled its way past heading from Paisley to Maryhill. Sam Costa and his ludicrous moustache grinned inanely at me from a tattered poster, advising me that Erasmic shaving lather was just right. The night air had a texture to it, like the cold greasy soot that smeared the railway arches.
He was gone. He could have taken any one of a dozen different directions after I had lost him dumping Jeannie on the pavement. I thought back to that moment and felt like shit, as I usually did when it came to reflecting on how I’d treated women.
There were thousands of Jeannies in this city: uncomplicated girls with crap lives who looked to the dance halls and the cinemas for a scrap of glamour. All they wanted was a few moments while they were still young in which they could pretend that they wouldn’t, after all, end up swapping the grey drudgery of working in a factory or at best a shop for the grey drudgery of slaving for a man who would show them little affection and no respect and leave them with an army of kids to care for. The monotony of their week punctuated only by loveless whisky-drenched fumblings on a Saturday night. Or maybe the odd beating.
I thought of poor Jeannie and the meagre dreams and aspirations that she may have had and felt sorry for having dumped her like that. Then I thought of how she had reminded me of Edward G. Robinson and started to laugh as I turned the ignition.
I knew I’d lost the 16HP, but I decided to trace my way back along the river-edge quays just in case. There were a hundred nooks and crannies, alleys and yards where you could lie low. But my thinking was that the driver of the 16HP had used my temporary halt to put as much distance between us as possible.
If Glasgow was the Empire’s industrial heart, then the Clyde was its main artery. I drove past Mavisbank Quay, Terminus Quay with its railyards and finally Kingston Dock. As I drove, stark white lights hovered over the ink sleek waters of the Clyde.
Even at this time of night and this far into the city the river glittered with tugs, boats and barges and I could see the occasional fountain of sparks where some nightshift sculpted steel.
I caught sight of a car pulled off the main road into a narrow cul-de-sac between two warehouses. It wasn’t my guy. The steamed windows of an ancient Ford told me hasty fornication was the motive for stealth in this case.
I drove on and into King Street, my mind no longer on my quarry but on why I was being watched by Lillian Andrews’s accomplices – and I was pretty sure that was who I was dealing with. The man behind the wheel had been the same guy who had been part of the clumsy snatch squad in the Bedford truck. Their lack of finesse didn’t fit with the professionalism with which my office had been turned over. Nor did it fit with the uneasy feeling I’d had for the last few days that I was being followed by someone who was too good to be seen. It was true that the guy in the 16HP could have been more obvious, but only if he’d had a sign on his windscreen saying, ‘I’M FOLLOWING YOU LENNOX’. Two outfits? It would fit with my Fred MacMurray lookalike and his Middle Eastern pals.
Instinctively I felt they were connected with Tam McGahern in another way, not through Lillian. But everything that Rufus Jeffrey had told me about Tam’s military service and connection to the Middle East nagged away at me. That was a link that could tie Mr Double Indemnity and his camel-jockeys in with Lillian. I drove back over Glasgow Bridge and back to where I’d dumped Jeannie. A good hour had passed and, of course, she was gone. Everything was fucked up.
I needed a drink.