“You’re up,” the youth said.
Reeve took the cue from him. “Mind my drink, will you?” he asked Lardface.
“Mind it yourself.”
“Friends of yours?” the youth asked, beer glass to his mouth as they walked to the pool table.
Reeve looked back at the two drinkers, who were watching him from behind their glasses the way men watched strippers-engrossed, but maybe a little wary. He shook his head, smiling pleasantly. “No,” he said, “just a couple of pricks. Me to break?”
“You to break,” the youth said, wiping snorted beer foam from his nose.
Reeve never really had a chance, but that wasn’t the point of the game. He stood resting his pool cue on the floor and watched a game of darts behind the pool table, while the youth sank two striped balls and left two other pockets covered.
“I hate the fuckin‘ English,” the youth said as Reeve lined up a shot. “I mean a lot of the time when you say something like that you’re having a joke, but I mean it: I really fuckin’ hate them.”
“Maybe they’re not too fond of you either, sunshine.”
The youth ignored the voice from the bar.
Reeve looked like he was still lining up his shot; but he wasn’t. He was sizing things up. This young lad was going to get into trouble. Reeve knew the way his mind was working: if they wanted to fight him, he’d tell them to meet him outside-outside where his pals were waiting. But the men at the bar wouldn’t be that thick. They’d take him in here, where the only backup worth talking about was Reeve himself. There were a couple of drunks playing darts atrociously, a few seated pensioners, Manny behind the bar, and the road sweeper with the bad leg on the other side of it. In here, the two Englishmen would surely fancy their chances.
“You see,” the youth was saying, “the way I see it the English are just keech…” He said some more, but Lardface must have understood “keech.” He slammed down his drink and came stomping towards the pool table like he was approaching a hurdle.
“Now,” Manny said loudly, “we don’t want any trouble.”
Spikehead was still at the bar, which suited Reeve fine. He spun from the table, swinging his cue, and caught Lardface across the bridge of his nose, stopping him dead. Spikehead started forward, but cautiously. Reeve’s free hand had taken a ball from the table. He threw it with all the force he had towards the bar. Spikehead ducked, and the ball smashed a whiskey bottle. Spikehead was straightening up again when Reeve snatched a dart out of one player’s frozen hand and hefted it at Spikehead’s thigh. The pink haze made it difficult to see, but the dart landed close enough. Spikehead gasped and dropped to one knee. Reeve found an empty pint glass and cracked it against a table leg, then held it on front of Lardface, who was sprawled on the floor, his smashed nose streaming blood and bubbles of mucus.
“Breathe through your mouth,” Reeve instructed. It barely registered that the rest of the bar had fallen into stunned silence. Even Manny was at a loss for words. Reeve walked over to Spikehead, who had pulled the dart from his upper thigh. He looked ready to stab it at Reeve, until Reeve swiped the glass across his face. Spikehead dropped the dart.
“Christ,” gasped Manny, “there was no need-”
But Reeve was concentrating on the man, rifling his pockets, seeking weapons and ID. “Who are you?” he shouted. “Who sent you?”
He glanced back towards Lardface, who was rising to his feet. Reeve took a couple of steps and roundhoused the man on the side of his face, maybe dislocating the jaw. He went back to Spikehead.
“I’m calling the polis,” Manny said.
Reeve pointed at him. “Don’t.”
Manny didn’t. Reeve continued his search of the moaning figure, and came up with something he had not been expecting: a card identifying the carrier as a private investigator for Charles & Charles Associates, with an address in London.
He shook the man’s lapels. “Who hired you?”
The man shook his head. Tears were coursing down his face.
“Look,” Reeve said calmly. “I didn’t do any lasting damage. The cut isn’t deep enough for stitching. It’s just a bleeder, that’s all.” He raised the glass. “Now the next slash will need stitches. It might even take out your eye. So tell me who sent you!”
“Don’t know the client,” the man blurted. Blood had dripped into his mouth. He spat it out with the words. “It’s subcontracting. We’re working on behalf of an American firm.”
“You mean a company?”
“Another lot of PIs. A big firm in Washington, DC.”
“Called?”
“Alliance Investigative.”
“Who’s your contact?”
“A guy called Dulwater. We phone him now and then.”
“You bugged my house?”
“What?”
“Did you bug my house?”
The man blinked at him and mouthed the word no. Reeve let him drop. Lardface was unconscious. Reeve regained his composure and took the scene in-the prone bodies, the silence, the horror on Manny’s face… and something like idolatry on the youth’s.
“I could’ve taken them,” the youth said. “But thanks anyway.”
“The police…” Manny said, but quietly, making it sound like a request.
Reeve turned to him. “I’ll see you all right about the breakages,” he said. He looked down at Spikehead. “I don’t think our friends here will be pressing charges. They were in a car smash, that’s all. You might direct them to the nearest doctor, but that’ll be the last you hear about this.” He smiled. “I promise.”
He drove south until he reached a pay phone, and called Joan to check she was all right. She had arrived safely at her sister’s, but still wanted to know what he was going to do. He remained vague, and she grew angry.
“This isn’t just about you, Gordon!” she yelled. “Not now. It’s about Allan and me, too. I deserve to know!”
“And I’m saying that the less you know the better. Trust me on this.” He was still trembling, his body pumping adrenaline. He didn’t want to think about how good he had felt laying into the two private eyes.
It had felt wonderful.
He argued a few more minutes with Joan, and was about to plead that he was running out of money when she remembered something.
“I called an hour or two ago,” she said. “I got the answering machine, so checked it for messages.”
“And?”
“There was one there from a woman. She sounded foreign.”
Marie Villambard! He’d forgotten all about her. He’d left his home telephone number on her machine.
“She left a number where you can reach her,” Joan said.
Reeve cursed silently. That meant whoever was bugging his phone would have her number, too. He took down the details Joan gave, told her he had to go, and dug in his pockets for more change.
“Allo?”
“It’s Gordon Reeve here, Madam Villambard. Thank you for getting back to me, but there’s a problem.”
“Yes?”
“The line was compromised.” Two cars went past at speed. Reeve watched them disappear.
“You mean people were listening?”
“Yes.” He looked back along the dark road. No lights. Nothing. The only light, he realized, was the bare bulb in the old-style phone booth. He pulled a handkerchief out of his jacket and used it to disconnect the bulb.
“It is a military term, compromised?”
“I suppose it is. I was in the army.” The darkness felt better. “Listen, can we meet?”
“In France?”
“I could drive overnight, catch a ferry at Dover.”
“I live near Limoges. Do you know it?”
“I’ll buy a map. Is your telephone-?”
“Compromised? I think not. We can make a rendezvous safely.”
“Let’s do it then.”
“Okay, drive into the center of Limoges and follow signs to the Gare SNCF, the station itself is called Bénédictins.”