He looked younger than his years, with thinning short red hair, a faceful of freckles, and tapering ginger sideburns plus dark red mustache. He was tall and lanky, with arms that seemed to be controlled by someone else. He flapped them as he led Reeve down the short hall into the living room.
“What did I think of it? I agreed with Empire.”
Halliday seldom had an opinion of his own-only what he’d gleaned from the reviewers and the theorists. There was a homemade bookcase, precariously angled, which held his store of film knowledge. There were library books and books he’d bought or lifted from shops. There were bound volumes of magazines, scrapbooks full of reviews from newspapers and magazines. He had video recordings of several years’ worth of Barry Norman and the other film programs. He slumped into his large easy chair and jerked a hand towards the sofa. There was, of course, a film playing on the TV.
“Going through your Scorsese period?” Reeve asked. He recognized the film as Mean Streets. “How many times have you watched this one?”
“About a dozen. There are a lot of tricks he does here that he uses again in other films. Look, this slo-mo run through the bar. That’s in Goodfellas. Later there’s a good bit with Harvey Keitel pissed. How come Keitel plays Catholics so often?”
“I hadn’t noticed he did.”
“Yeah, I read that somewhere…” Halliday’s eyes were on the screen. “Music, too, the way he uses music in this film, like he does in Goodfellas.”
“Tommy, did you get the birdy?”
Halliday nodded. “You’re not going to like it.”
“How do you mean?”
Halliday just rubbed his thumb and forefinger together.
“Not cheap, huh?”
“Not cheap. The Colombians I used to deal with, they aren’t around anymore. They worked for the Medellin cartel, but the Medellin people got shafted by the Cali cartel. So now I seem to be dealing with Cali, and they’re not quite so-I don’t know-friendly. Plus, as you know, this stuff is thick on the ground in Colombia but thin on the ground over here…” He looked at Reeve and smiled. “Thank God.”
“So what did it cost?”
Halliday told him.
“What, did I buy the whole fucking crop?”
“You bought enough to get you into bed with the Dagenham Girl Pipers.”
Looking around the living room, or indeed the rest of the house, you would not suspect Tommy Halliday of being a dealer in everything from drugs to arms. That was because he kept absolutely nothing incriminating on the premises. Nobody knew where the cache was hidden, but Reeve guessed it was another reason for Tommy’s choice of this part of Wales. There was a lot of countryside around, mountains and forests frequented by hikers and picnickers-a lot of potential hiding places in those sorts of terrain.
No, the only things about Tommy’s house that might make someone suspicious were the antisurveillance devices and the mo-bile phone. Tommy didn’t trust British Telecom, and in the house he used the phone with a portable scrambler attached. The scrambler was U.S. Intelligence Corps standard, and Reeve guessed it had been “lost” during the Iraqi war. A lot of armed forces equipment had been lost during the campaign; a lot of Iraqi gear had been picked up quietly and tucked away for resale back in Britain.
Most of the arms Tommy dealt in, however, were eastern bloc: Russian and Czech predominantly. He had a consignment of Chinese stuff for a while, but couldn’t give it away it was so unreliable.
Halliday glanced at his watch. “Wait till this film’s over, all right?”
“I’ve got all the time in the world, Tommy,” Reeve said. He didn’t mean it, but he found that the time spent in the living room was time well spent. He cleared his mind and relaxed his muscles, did a little bit of meditation, some breathing exercises Joan had shown him. He gathered himself. And when he’d finished, there was still half an hour to go.
“Mind if I use the equipment?” he asked.
“You know where it is.”
So he headed upstairs into the spare bedroom, where Tommy kept his weights and a couple of exercise machines. Reeve worked up a sweat. Sweat was the quickest way to void toxins from your body, assuming you weren’t in the mood for sticking two fingers down your throat. From now on there was a regime he would follow: exercise when he could and eat well. Keep his mind and body pure. He would guess Jay had kept fit. He’d recruited from a gym: no mere accident. He probably frequented a few gyms. Reeve had to prepare as best he could. He considered taking steroids, but ruled them out quickly: their effects were short-lived, the side effects long-lasting. There was no “quick fix” when it came to fitness. Reeve knew he was pretty fit; family life hadn’t completely destroyed him, it had just robbed him of a little willpower.
Joan-he should call Joan. When he got downstairs the film was finished, and Halliday was on his computer. The computer was new, and boasted CD-ROM. Halliday was studying some kind of film encyclopedia, open at Mean Streets.
“Look here,” he said, pointing feverishly at the screen. “Maltin gives it four stars, ”a masterpiece‘; Ebert gives it four; Baseline gives it four out of five. Even Pauline bloody Kael likes it.“
“So?”
“So it’s a film about a couple of arseholes, one smarter than the other, but both of them plainly fucked from the start. This is supposed to be great cinema?”
“What did you think of De Niro?”
“He played it the same way he always plays those roles, eyes all over the place, demented smile.”
“You think he’s like that in real life?”
“What?”
“What do you think his background is?”
Halliday couldn’t see where this was leading, but he was prepared to learn. “Street punk, a kid in Brooklyn or wherever, same as Scorsese.” He paused. “Right?”
Reeve shook his head. “Look up De Niro.”
Halliday clicked the cursor over the actor’s name. A biography and photograph came up.
“See?” Reeve said, pointing to the relevant line. “His parents were artists, painters. His father was an abstract expressionist. This isn’t a street kid, Tommy. This is a well-brought-up guy who wanted to be an actor.”
“So?”
“So he made you believe in his character. You got no inkling of his background; that’s because he submerged it. He became a role. That’s what acting is.” Reeve watched to see if any of this sank in. “Can I use your telephone?”
Halliday flapped an arm towards the windowsill.
“Thanks.”
Reeve walked over to the window.
“So you know about films, huh?” Halliday called.
“No, Tommy, but I sure as shit know about acting.” He picked up the telephone and dialed Joan’s sister. While he waited for an answer, he pulled the curtains apart an inch and looked out on to the ordinary lower-middle-class street. He’d parked the Saab outside another house: that was an easy rule to remember. Someone answered his call.
“Hi there,” he said, recognizing Joan’s voice. The relief in her next words was evident.
“Gordon, where are you?”
“I’m at a friend’s.”
“How are you?”
“I’m fine, Joan. How’s Allan?” Reeve watched Halliday get up from the computer and go to a bookshelf. He was searching for something.
“He’s missing you. He’s hardly seen you lately.”
“Everything else okay?”
“Sure.”
“No funny phone calls?”
“No.” She sounded hesitant. “You think they’ll find us here?”
“I shouldn’t think so.” But how difficult would it be to track down the wife of Gordon Reeve, to ascertain that she had one brother and one sister, to locate addresses for both? Reeve knew that if they needed a bargaining chip, they’d resort to anything, including ransoming his family.