A Glimpse of Death (David Mallin Detective series Book 7) Page 5

  By that time, my senses were swimming. This was the synthesis of sex, the throbbing impact that spiralled to ecstasy. It was the hallucination of impact. As far as I was concerned it beat all your amphys and your barbs. It left LSD for the babies. And it was killing me because I’m too old for that sort of thing.

  I clutched at his arm, put my face close to his, and bellowed:

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  My voice was caught and absorbed before it had got past my nose. As I watched, his face changed from blue to orange. His pupils were dilated and he seemed to be wrapped in his own ball of fantasy.

  “Out of here!” But he wasn’t watching my lips. To give more meaning to my request I dragged him off the stool.

  I was aware of several things at the same time. The first was that he was very much alive, in fact wildly aggressive. The second was that he was not alone. A shrieking background to the rhythmic noise now separated itself, and became concerted feminine voices. He had been far from alone. In fact, it must have been luck that had steered me through the writhing phalanx that surrounded him. Antrim had his own army of sycophants.

  A fist struck me in the mouth. It was his fist, and did not particularly deter me, but it showed that he was fully aware of what was going on. I started for the steps, dragging him behind me.

  I realised, at once, that Antrim was not, as I’d believed, simply one of them. He was their centre, their vortex, their Man. He was the wonderful creature who had access to exciting things like French Blues and even Meths. He was the focus of their life and they did not intend that he should be dragged away, probably not to be seen again. Fingers clawed at me, teeth snapped at me — and somewhere a finger touched a switch and there was an abrupt silence.

  I staggered. The impact tossed me like a sailor on a solid quay. The lights were still, and the screaming was suddenly a frightening, piercing weapon. I was at a distinct disadvantage in that I had only one usable hand, and the other I dared not spare from its supporting grasp on the stick. And he writhed as though in a fit. He was a wriggling octopus, all plunging wedgies and prodding knuckles. We covered four yards together. There was a gust of growling disapproval around me as the males stood back and watched. No doubt they were awed.

  Then the females threw themselves on me. There was a certain subtlety about their approach. If it’d been men I’d have expected impact and blows, and forceful thumps in delicate places. This assault had all the bland intensity of a swarm of wasps. I thought at first that they intended to strip me of my skin. They took me like a rosebud and tore off the petals; they fell upon me like salt on a fat slug and dissolved me, absorbed me, displaced me. There was no longer an arm between my fingers, and I wasn’t even certain that there were fingers on my arm. We flowed — I was oozed — up the steps. I felt nothing. By a million golden needles, I was anaesthetised. I floated in a cocoon of gentle agony through the door. I rested softly upon the pavement. I sighed to the high, clear sky and clutched at a stray whisp of toffee paper as evidence that I was alive. And then, on a cloud of release, I drifted into unconsciousness.

  Fingers were drifting across my brow like cold water sizzling on a hot-plate. My face burned. My whole body felt as though it was crying to crawl from my skin. I opened my eyes.

  I was looking into a pair of wide grey eyes with huge pupils, guarded by the black, spiked fence of her eyelashes. The eyebrows were a fine line reared up into her low, wide forehead, leaving twin peaks of her brows stripped clean and bare. Her cheeks were high but pallid. Sweat trembled on her upper lip. Her mouth was distorted with glistening pink lipstick and her chin was tiny and pointed. I loved her instantly for her smooth, cool fingers. She was about seventeen.

  I lay then, making the best of it while it lasted. I reckoned she’d been on a trip and was pulling out of it. LSD or Mescaline, I thought. Beneath the lipstick her mouth was pert. She seemed to be crooning.

  I said: “How do I look?”

  “You’re all red.”

  “But I’ll live?”

  She giggled. “Do you want to?”

  “For a little longer. There’s something I’ve lost that I’m looking for.”

  She brought her face to mine, so very close. Her eyelashes smelt like a creosote fence. “Any for me, old man? Any spare for me?”

  “Where’s my stick? Can you see my stick?”

  A brief touch of panic brushed her eyes. Then she sighed. “It’s in your hand.”

  And so it was. I struggled to my feet and she grasped me round the waist. She was a slip of a thing; my stick was heavier and stronger. I wondered when she’d last eaten. When I finally got to my feet I saw that she was wearing flared jeans and a man’s shirt, with a tattered little jacket over it. She’d have been five feet two, maybe six stone. Her great slabs of shoes were like foundations into which somebody had wedged her.

  “What’s so different about you?” I asked. “You were in there, I suppose?”

  “Man, that was some scene.”

  “So why? You could have left me to die in peace.”

  She pouted at me. “And let you get away?”

  Even in youth I hadn’t been much.

  Now I counted myself lucky that a sedate lady in her forties called Anne was interested in seeing me again. Flimsy creatures of seventeen didn’t usually pursue me.

  “I admit I can’t run,” I said. “But I don’t see why you’d follow.”

  Then she tried to twist her delicate features into an expression of disgust. It was comical. “They’re stupid! Me, I’m bright. Don’t you think I’m bright? Everybody says so.”

  “It’s perhaps not too bright to have been in there in the first place. It’s certainly stupid to take what you’ve taken.”

  “Oh, you’re cute.” She eyed me slyly. “So you’re carrying, is that it?”

  I stared at her.

  “You are!” she cried. “I can see. I knew at once. You’re no fuzz. Else why the stick? No, not you. You’re the big man. That Antrim, he’s nothing with his French Blues and his bennies. But you’re big. I could see that. So what you carrying, man?”

  Was I stupid to feel disappointment? Fortunately, I wasn’t certain of its cause; the confirmation of what I’d guessed about her, or the realisation that it was not myself personally she was chasing.

  “I’m not carrying, love,” I said gently.

  “Get on.”

  “Nothing. No acid, no tea, no coke. Nothing.”

  She drew in her breath with a sharp hiss. “You’re just saying that.”

  “I’m saying it. Go home, my dear.”

  Then she threw herself at me, pounding my chest with those tiny fists. “You’re a liar,” she screamed. “You’re the big man.”

  I detached her, balancing so that I could get both hands to her wrists. It was like clasping live twigs, full of sap but frail. She grew quiet. She suddenly clung to me, whimpering. Gently, so as not to disturb her, I drew back the sleeve of the frayed jacket, but there were no puncture marks. I tried the other. No marks. They start with their arms, and it’s only when they run out of unscarred skin that they go on to the insides of the thighs. She was clear. I felt a ridiculous, heady delight. For one moment it had seemed that I had a junkie to contend with, but her panic and her depression were only the aftermaths of the hallucinogen she’d been on.

  “Better go home, love.”

  She raised her head. Mascara streaked her cheeks. “Where?”

  “Oh Lord.” I pressed her away from me and balanced her on her blocks. I reached down and retrieved my stick. “Now be a good girl and go away.”

  I turned. Just the turning was bad. I began to walk, and couldn’t remember which leg I limped on. My whole body limped. And then I became aware of the plod of her shoes after me. She kept pace. I paused, and glanced around. She positively danced in mischief, flaunting her fleetness at my battered bulk. I began to walk again. The footsteps kept pace, they gained on me, and then her arm came through mine and she looked up at me
with her whole face flirting. She did not support me. She hung on my left arm, reminding me which leg was the dud, and it was I who supported her.

  “Come on, daddy, let’s go places,” she said, showing me her pretty little teeth.

  There’s one thing you can do in critical situations like this. You can look right into that smile, then slash it away with a big, fat open palm. But I’m not the man I was, and anyway I was off balance.

  “You wouldn’t like the place I’m going,” I said weakly.

  “Try me.”

  “I’m going to take in an organ recital.”

  “Heh!” she said, frowning. “That’s the living end.”

  “A concert organ, not electronic.”

  “Yeah?” she said, disbelieving. “Show me then, poppa.”

  I sighed. “It’s a long way to walk with a baggage on my arm.” But the reference was too ancient for her.

  “Then I’ll drive you,” she said. She drew me to a halt. Delightedly, she twisted me around.

  It was one of those little sports cars that couldn’t be smaller and still get an engine and two people between the wheels. It was blue and battered and open.

  “That?”

  “Get in,” she invited optimistically. “Where we going?”

  “The Mason’s Hall.”

  “Squaresville,” she decided, and we got in.

  The bucket seat accommodated one cheek. The handbrake was way beyond reach. She squealed in delight and I lifted my weight. My stick was pointed over the windscreen like a cannon, and we screamed away from the curb, the body resting on the tyres my side.

  It is not a good thing to ride with somebody who is on a trip. Their coordination disappears and they don’t know front from back. They see sounds — the sharp brilliance of a high C on the trumpet. And they hear colours — the soft bassoon caress of chrome yellow. I didn’t know whether this one had come back yet, and wondered if she heard the next traffic light as a variation for three instruments.

  “What’s your name?” I asked, courting disaster.

  “Carol.”

  “Carol what?”

  “Nosey!” she said, twitching her mouth.

  “Where do you live, Carol?”

  “Some place.”

  “How long since you’ve been home?”

  But she’d had enough of questions. She rushed a B flat amber and took a sharp left, relying rather hopefully on my weight over the wheels. She blasted her horn at nobody and swerved to avoid him, and crash-stopped in front of a nondescript building with dim and forbidding lights.

  “You ask too many questions, Mr Big,” she said, sulking. Her eyes were very dark, her mouth low. “You getting out?”

  There’s a tiny door. With it open I could just about fall out into the gutter. I levered myself upright. Bach softly weaved patterns in the night. She seemed about to cry.

  “Go home, Carol,” I said, and with one brief flicker of a disappointed pout she let in the gear and drifted gently into the darkness.

  I squared my shoulders and prepared to enjoy Emilio Sarturo, who would also not be carrying, but who, I suspected, would shortly be carrying a hell of a lot.

  CHAPTER V

  I don’t know what it takes to play the organ. Nimble feet and trained fingers, I guess, and an agile mind. For any instrument I’d have thought soul, heart, some emotion. But Emilio Sarturo played Bach, which has always seemed to me to have mathematical symmetry and unfeeling pattern. Perhaps that was why it appealed to Sarturo. He played it magnificently. Not a wrong note — I suppose — not a false chord. But he played it with a stone-cold detachment, the same emotion with which he’d condemn anyone to death.

  I listened to him playing, and my heart didn’t lift to the music. It was chilled by his merciless precision. I’d paid my money, so I reckoned I had a choice, and mine was just inside the door for a quick getaway if advisable.

  Sarturo looked just as evil from the back.

  This was a small concert hall with a stage perhaps large enough for an octet, and beyond it was the organ, the pride of the Mason’s Hall. It was powerful. Sarturo pulled out the Bombard, and the air vibrated against my chest. I leaned back against my stick, viewing the packed hall of middle-aged and elderly people, and wondered whether there was really much difference between this and the youngsters’ disco. The applause was more polite but quite as enthusiastic. Only the participation was absent.

  I got no more than a quarter of an hour of it because I’d been late. As the crowd began to stream towards me I retreated outside into the shade of one of the doric columns at the head of the steps. They moved past me, muttering their praise, and I waited. After a while a long black and ancient limousine drew up in front of the steps, and four prime specimens climbed out.

  They stood at the four corners, defying anybody to pinch the hub-caps, and at last Sarturo appeared, buttoned up in a long, flapping coat and a wound muffler, though it was only cold enough for my parka. Even with the coat he was a fragile straw, round shoulders bent against a wind that was merely a whisper. His face was thinner than I recalled it, a yellowed parchment map of the road to perdition, and he was no longer wearing his gold-rimmed spectacles. Perhaps he thought they undermined his authority. One finely-boned hand clutched his collar to his throat, the other gestured in impatience to move one of his thugs fractionally further away from the car door. He pottered down to the foot of the steps and the door was whipped open at the last possible moment. I stepped into the open.

  “Sarturo!”

  He stopped dead, one hand outstretched towards the edge of the open door. His head twitched. Four men stood like sentinels, their hands hovering over their lapels. I moved towards him.

  “Can I have a word, old chap,” I said politely.

  His head came round, and he looked at me over his shoulder. I could not have been a frightening sight, due to the hopping twist with which I had to negotiate the steps. The four warriors relaxed. Sarturo turned and straightened himself to his full five feet five.

  “Who are you, and what do you want?”

  “I’m the night guard on gate No. 3 at Marston’s,” I said, not exactly truthfully, “and I wanted to talk to you about Henry Saturn.”

  That I had connected him with Saturn at all claimed his attention. His rheumy, faded eyes considered me, and the grey tip of his tongue touched his lips. He was safe, he knew, to walk around openly in this town. At some time a transfer of drugs and money would take place, and even then an intermediary would be used. There was nothing to fear, and only his curiosity I could play on.

  “What do you know of Henry Saturn?” he demanded.

  “I thought we could discuss it somewhere else.”

  “Hmm!” He considered it. He could lose nothing by revealing his temporary residence, as he’d be aware that the police were keeping tabs on him. He might lose something by admitting that he’d even heard of Saturn. “Ridiculous name,” he said testily. “Get in the car.”

  It would have seated eight or nine. With myself beside Sarturo there was room on the back seat for another two. But two of the thugs sat opposite, frowning at this unusual proceeding, one sat on an occasional seat and squirmed, and the fourth got in with the driver. Sarturo settled himself. He gave a signal. We moved off. The engine had been run in, on, and out. Sarturo brooded. Nobody lit a cigarette. The passing town lights flickered on their set, granite features.

  We drove to the King’s Hotel. This is not the best in town. Five years ago, Sarturo would not even have considered it. We entered in a conclave, marching across the palmed foyer like the seven of spades, me entrenched in the middle. The driver separated himself to get the key, then rejoined us. We wedged into a lift. Six huge chests consumed the air. Sarturo panted. We conclaved again along the corridor. Sarturo paused. There was a sudden, hissed instruction, then five of us entered. The door closed, and one of the three remaining heavies put on the light.

  It was probably one of their better rooms. The pattern was not comp
letely worn from the carpet and the curtains still tried to drape with faded dignity. Easy chairs modestly displayed the cigarette burns on their arms and their sagging seats. Sarturo headed directly for one of them. It sagged very little more from his pitiful weight. Then he snapped his fingers and there was immediate attentive movement. One of the thugs crossed to the standard lamp standing behind Sarturo, inserted his hand into its shade, and switched it on. At the same time the one who’d remained with his back to the door put out the main light. The room re-achieved some of its lost grandeur, and Sarturo sighed. It must have been painful for him, that room.

  I moved sideways, standing by the power plug from which the cord snaked to the standard lamp. The third thug hurried over to the sideboard and poured a double whisky, plain, and brought it back to Sarturo. He clutched it.

  “Now what,” he said, “about Henry Saturn?”

  “I’m not interested in Saturn,” I told him. “He was only your hired gunman, and I used his name to attract your interest.”

  His chin sank into the muffler. He became aware of it and made an angry gesture, and the one who’d performed with the lamp came and unwound it. A length of scraggy neck was revealed. Sarturo cleared his throat.

  “Was?” he whispered. “Then it’s true?”

  That he had not obtained every detail surprised me, and then, when I thought about it, failed to. His background setup was probably as faded as the rest of it. But I was still intrigued that Berenice had not phoned him.

  “He was shot,” I said. “About midnight. Yes, he’s dead.”