She swallowed hard, although whether that was from the rancid stench or some repressed emotion was anyone’s guess. ‘We were supposed to be bringing these home to Cyprus,’ she said.
‘I heard, yeah.’ Finn, the part-time philanthropist. ‘Noble as all fuck, he was.’
She shook the crutch, tossed it aside. Bear wandered in, licking his chops. ‘No need to get pissy,’ she said.
‘I just said he was noble as all fuck. What more do you want?’
She shook another crutch, threw it down. Bear had a nuzzle at it, wandered off. ‘Some people used to get sniffy about it, alright,’ she said. A tart edge now to her tone. ‘Mainly because it made them feel bad about not helping out.’
‘Not me.’
She gave a light shrug. ‘I guess some people are more inclined to help.’
‘Spare me the noblesse fucking oblige, alright? The guy had more time and money than was healthy, he was working off his guilt and impressing the pants off you in the process. Nice work if you can get it.’
‘Jealous much?’
‘Keep talking,’ I waved a crutch at her, ‘and you’ll be needing one of-’
A dull clunk. Her eyes widened.
The crutches were telescopic, the kind with holes punched in the lower half so they were adjustable to the user’s height. I pushed the metal knobs in, twisted the bottom half of the crutch free. A silver-grey flash-drive dropped out onto the concrete.
Neither of us reached for it. Instead we stared at the rolled-up canvas protruding from the top half of the crutch.
‘What’s that?’ Maria said.
I slid the canvas free, unfurled it. A landscape scene, some upland moor of rock and heather, a vast sky, a storm brewing.
There were sixty-plus crutches in the pile. We went through them all. Twenty minutes later we were staring at nine canvases in total, all landscapes. Each one signed, none of them by Finn.
The one that caught my eye was a fiery sunset, a vermillion blaze I could’ve sworn I’d seen in the very recent past, hanging opposite a bank of elevators in a hospital lobby. Not that my testimony would’ve been worth shit. Any half-decent lawyer would’ve torn me to shreds, this on the basis that I’d been pie-eyed on pills at the time, and perhaps understandably distracted as I staggered upstairs to visit my son, comatose in intensive care.
‘I don’t get it,’ she said.
‘Maybe the crippled orphans were supposed to pin them on their walls,’ I said, ‘brighten up the place a little.’
36
Maria pocketed the flash drive, got the leash on Bear. More of a chain, really, with a plaited-leather grip. The canvases went back into the crutches. Originals, I was guessing, their fake twins hanging on walls all over the country. I wondered if they were all Finn’s work, or if he hadn’t brought some of the Spiritus Mundi crew in on the scam.
Either way, they’d come in useful the next time I saw Tohill. Nine originals in oil had to be worth at least the equivalent of ten grand in coke in a trade, especially when the oils could well be that thread Tohill was looking to pull.
We stepped out into the blazing sunshine, blinking against the glare. Bear tensed, growled low in his throat.
He was leaning back against the Phaeton, shades on, face upturned to the sun. Basking, both hands in the pockets of the waist-length leather jacket.
Toto fucking McConnell.
‘So I’m on my way over to Herbie’s to see what the story is about a certain delivery I’m expecting,’ he said, ‘because for some reason Herb isn’t answering his phone, when I get a call from one of the boys, says he’s seen Jimmy’s motor only it’s not Jimmy driving, it’s this guy he thinks he knows from the taxi rank, Harry Rigby, only he’s wearing an eye-patch so he can’t be sure. Now this is interesting, because Harry Rigby should know something about this certain delivery I’m waiting on, so I ring Jimmy to see what the score is, why Rigby has his car. Except Jimmy isn’t answering his phone either. So I tell the guy to stay with the Phaeton, keep me posted. Next thing I hear, Rigby’s down at the docks, the PA building, where the guy he vouched for a couple of nights back took a dive onto one of my cabs. So here I am, wondering what’s what.’
There was no one in the battered Golf he’d parked to one side, but that meant nothing. He could’ve had a couple of guys staked out anywhere, maybe waiting outside the yard.
‘I vouched for Finn that he’d pay for his weed,’ I said, stacking the crutches against the Phaeton’s boot, ‘not that he wasn’t suicidal.’
‘Sure,’ Toto said, ‘only Herb says you got the paying bit wrong too. What’s with the crutches?’
‘They’re for a charity Finn used to run with Maria here,’ I said, nodding back to where she stood rigid with the effort of restraining Bear. ‘They were planning to get married.’
‘Sorry to hear it,’ he said, dipping his head at Maria, a brief bow. ‘Condolences on your loss.’
‘Who’s this?’ she said.
‘Just some business I need to take care of. You get in the car.’
Toto slipped his left hand out of his pocket, held it up. ‘Stall the ball. No one’s going anywhere yet.’ The gesture, his tone, got Bear growling again. ‘Keep a good grip of that hound,’ he told Maria, ‘or I might get nervous.’ He came back to me. ‘So what’s the story? Jimmy being family, you can start with him.’ He saw something in my eyes, stood away from the car. Tightened his grip on whatever it was he had buried in his right pocket. ‘Rigby,’ he said, ‘I got enough problems right now. And the last thing I need is my sister chirping in my ear, wondering where Saint fucking James is, if he hasn’t done another runner, send out a search party. Where’s he at?’
Jimmy, as it happened, was lying prone and semi-conscious about two feet from where he stood. Sweat sliding down the back of my thighs at the prospect of Toto’s sister trying to ring him, Jimmy’s phone sounding from the boot.
‘It’s complicated,’ I said.
‘So give me bullet points.’
‘That, uh, delivery,’ I said, ‘it’s gone.’
‘Gone?’
‘I got run off the road coming back from Galway, ended up in hospital.’ I shrugged. ‘The cops have it.’
‘They found it in the car?’
‘That’s right.’
‘What’d you tell them?’
‘Said I knew nothing about it, they must have planted it there.’
‘And they just let you waltz out free.’
‘No, I bolted from the hospital when they brought me down for an X-ray.’
‘So they’ll be looking for you right now.’
‘It’s not exactly a manhunt, and no one got around to reading me my rights, but yeah. If they find me, they’ll pull me in.’
‘Fuck.’
‘Toto,’ I said, ‘it’s on me. I know that. And I’m making it good.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘I got this gig going on, someone’s asked me to retrieve their personal belongings. Paying me ten grand to do it.’ No point in telling him about the twenty straight away, he’d want the lot off the bat. ‘Soon as I deliver, the ten grand goes to you, leaves us clean on the, y’know, delivery.’
‘First off,’ he said, ‘that delivery was needed for tonight, I was specific on that. And I was guaranteed. So there’s penalties.’
‘I know all that.’
‘Yeah? So how’re you going to pay that off, you’re up the fucking Swannee on ten grand worth of product? And where the fuck,’ he said, ‘is Jimmy?’