Colin was in trouble.
He knew it as soon as he wheeled his bike down the old home street and saw two Chinese hanging around the corner. They were Dickie Huan’s boys, and no mistake, and Colin flashed on the meat cleaver doing its bit on his fingers, and he turned the bike around. The two lazy effin’ bastards hadn’t seen him, and he headed toward East London and the old neighborhood, hoping Crisp would have the sense to do the same thing.
He didn’t, of course. His first instinct was to find Colin, so he trudged dutifully back to the flat. Some good hash and a pint had helped to soothe his pains, and as he turned the corner to home, he was even thinking that the new facial arrangement might make him more interesting-looking.
“He won’t be here,” Vanessa said, pouting. Her head hurt, her man looked as if he’d been at a football game, and she figured that Cola had fucked everything up, anyway.
“We’ll wait.”
They didn’t notice the leather-clad Chinese kids on the corner. Chinese usually just fought Chinese and stayed in their own neighborhoods, so Crisp had no problem with them. He just wanted to quaff a couple more pints, toss some dollers, and go to bed. It just wasn’t his night. They were good, these Chinese kids. They gave the two kweilo, the shitty-looking boy and his strange girlfriend, enough of a head start and then followed them into the building and up the stairs, timing it so they arrived at the door just as Crisp was opening it.
The larger one jumped Crisp from behind, hauled him through the door, and landed on his back. He drew the knife out and stuck it in Crisp’s neck, just enough to bring a trickle of blood. The other one put a revolver to Vanessa’s head and pulled the hammer back. She kept her mouth shut.
“Where’s Colin?” the big one asked, edging up the pressure of the blade.
The day had really gone to shit, Crisp thought, it really had. “Dunno.”
“He owes money.”
“I dunno where he is.”
“He owes money.”
“I’ll get some. Let me up.”
“You know where he is.” It wasn’t a question.
“No, I don’t.”
The Chinese kid stuck the point of the stiletto into Crisp’s ear, just short of the eardrum.
Crisp wondered whether the incredible thump of his own heart pounding was the last thing he’d hear.
“You know where Colin is.”
“He’s on a bike chasing some Americans who stole his money!”
The sound of Vanessa shouting this surprised Crisp, who was trying to lie absolutely, perfectly still. He breathed a little, then he felt the blade slip out of his ear.
What might be described as a heavy silence ensued. Finally, the aural surgeon asked, “Colin doesn’t have the money?”
He didn’t sound real pleased.
Colin wasn’t exactly filled with delight to be skulking back to the old neighborhood, either. But he could go under here, get lost and stay lost, at least until he could figure out a way of finding Neal and getting his money. Because, if he didn’t, he was finished in London.
It isn’t easy trail someone who knows you, especially when your mark also knows you’re a detective, and especially when you’re working on the same case. It makes for a long day.
However, Joe Graham didn’t care how long the days were, or the nights. He did care that the last tune he had heard from Neal Carey, the boy was trapped and about to get it but good. And he also cared… cared a whole lot… about what Neal had told him on the phone. That he’d been set up-by their old buddy Ed Levine.
From some angles, it made sense. There were no files in the office on Allie’s previous adventures and there should have been. So maybe Ed had destroyed them. And Ed was working real closely with John Chase, and Ed was ambitious. And Senator Chase had been diddling his stepdaughter, which didn’t make good campaign material So maybe it was possible that Ed had sent Neal to London not to make sure that Allie came home but to make sure she didn’t. And Ed hated Neal. So maybe it was possible that old Ed was cleaning a bunch of troubles off his desk, and settling an old score. Maybe.
But then from other angles, it just didn’t fit. He’d worked with Ed for over ten years, and in ten years you get to know a guy. And Ed had a good career going already; why fuck it up to go with a prick like Chase? And Ed wasn’t the sort of guy who stands for somebody abusing a kid… he had proved that in an alley years ago. Which was another thing-Ed liked to settle his scores in person. If he wanted a piece of Neal, he’d take it himself.
No. Neal was wrong. It wasn’t Ed.
Unless Ed was following orders. From Kitteredge, who got them from Chase. No, that wasn’t possible. The Man wouldn’t do that, not for a crummy Vice-Presidential candidate, not for the Prez himself. It couldn’t be Kitteredge, either.
So who else? Who had access to information? Keyes’s address?
The answer was where it always was: on the street.
And it wasn’t easy staying on the street with a guy who knows who you are, but now they were dealing with me, Joe Graham thought, and I’m the best there is. I taught Neal Carey everything he knows.