I stood up. ‘I’m going to have to think about this, Tony,’ was all I said. We all knew what I meant.
He lit his cigarette and jammed it into the corner of his mouth. ‘Yeah,’ he muttered, unfolding his body from the sofa and making for the door.
‘I’ll be in touch,’ I said.
He jerked to a stop and half turned. ‘No way,’ he said. ‘You want to talk, get Richard to call me and we’ll set something up. I don’t want you anywhere near Manassas, you hear?’
I heard. He walked out the door and I moved over to the window, snapping the standard lamp off as I went. I pulled the blind back a couple of inches and gazed down three storeys to the shiny wet street below. A taxi sat at the traffic lights, its diesel ticking noisily above the background hum of the city. The lights changed and the taxi juddered off.
‘I’ve never worked for gangsters before,’ I remarked as I watched Tony dodge out of the front door and double back past the student residence.
‘It can’t be that different. Some of your other clients have been just as dodgy, only they were wearing suits.’
‘There’s one crucial difference,’ I said. ‘With straight clients, if you succeed, they pay. With gangsters, unless you succeed, you pay. I’m not sure I can afford the price.’
Richard put an arm round my shoulders. ‘Better not fail then, Brannigan.’
Chapter 19
Even I don’t know many people whose doors I can knock on just after one in the morning in the absolute certainty I won’t be waking them up. But I didn’t have any qualms about this particular door. I pressed the bell and waited, leaning up against the doorjamb to shelter from the persistent night rain.
After Tony had sloped off into the groovy world of nightclub Manchester, I’d felt too wired to go home to bed. Richard had tried to talk me into a Chinese followed by cool jazz in some Whalley Range cellar known only to a handful of the true faith. It hadn’t been hard to say no. I’ve always thought jazz was for anoraks who think they’re too intellectual for train spotting, and my stomach already felt like it had been stir-fried. Besides, I knew exactly how I could profitably fill the time till sleep ambushed me.
The door opened suddenly and, caught unawares, I tipped forward. I almost fell into Gizmo’s arms. I don’t know which of us was more appalled by the prospect, but we both jumped back like a pair of fifties teenagers doing the Bunny Hop. ‘You don’t believe in office hours, do you?’ Gizmo demanded belligerently.
‘No more than you do. You going to let me in? It’s pissing it down out here,’ I complained.
I followed him back upstairs to the computer room, where screens glowed softly in the dim interior and REM reminded me that night swimming deserves a quiet night. ‘Tell me about it,’ I muttered, shaking the raindrops from my head well out of range of any hardware.
‘Gimme a minute,’ he said. There were only two chairs in the room, both of them leather desk chairs. I sat in the one Gizmo wasn’t occupying and waited patiently while he finished whatever he’d been in the middle of doing. After ten minutes, I began to wish I’d brought my own games software with me. I cleared my throat. ‘Be right there,’ he said. ‘This is crucial.’
A few more minutes passed and I watched the headlights on Stockport Road sneak round the edge of the blinds and send slender beams across the ceiling, an activity that could give counting sheep a run for its money. Then Gizmo hit a bunch of keys, pushed his chair away from the desk and swivelled round to face me. He was wearing an elderly plaid dressing gown over jeans that were ripped from age not fashion and an unironed granddad shirt. Eat your heart out, corporate man. ‘Got some work for me, then?’ he asked.
‘Depends. You found another job yet?’
He snorted. ‘Come round to take the piss, have you? Like I said, Kate, I’m too old to be a wunderkind any more. Nobody believes in you if you’re old enough to vote and shave unless your name’s Bill Gates. No, I haven’t got another job yet.’
I took a deep breath. ‘You make a bit of money on the side, don’t you? Doing bits and pieces for people like me?’
‘Yeah, but not enough to support a habit like this,’ he said wryly, waving a hand round at the computers and their associated software and peripherals.
‘But you’re good at finding the weak points in systems and worming your way in, aren’t you?’
He nodded. ‘You know I’m the best.’
‘How do you fancy working the other side of the street?’
He frowned suspiciously. ‘Meaning what, exactly?’
‘Meaning going straight. At least in normal working hours. Meaning, coming to work for me.’
‘Thought you had a partner who did all the legit security stuff?’ he demanded. ‘I don’t want charity, you know. I either want a proper job or nothing.’
‘My partner is taking early retirement due to ill health,’ I said grimly.
‘What’s the matter with him?’
‘Delusional psychosis. He thinks he’s in love and wants to live in Australia.’
Gizmo grinned. ‘Sounds like an accurate diagnosis to me. So what’s the job description?’
‘We do a lot of corporate computer security work, liaising with their software engineers and consultants to make their systems as unbeatable as we can get them. We also work with people whose systems have been breached, both plugging the holes and trying to track what’s been raided and where it’s gone. We’ve done a little bit of work with banks and insurance companies tracking money that’s been stolen by breaching Electronic Fund Transfers. I know enough about it to pitch for the business, but not enough to do the work. That’s where I’m going to need to replace Bill. Interested?’
He spun round on his chair a couple of times. ‘I think I might be,’ he said. ‘Are you talking a full-time job or ad hoc consultancy?’
‘I’ll be honest, Giz. Right now, I can’t afford to take you on full time. Initially, it would have to be as and when I can bring the work in. But if you’re as good as you say you are, we’ll generate a lot of word-of-mouth business.’
He nodded noncommittally. ‘When would you want me to start?’
‘Mutually agreed date in the not-too-distant?’
‘Dosh?’
‘Fifty per cent of the net? Per job?’
‘Gross.’
I shook my head. ‘Net. I’m not a charity. Shelley has to put the pitch document together and she has to do all the admin. Her time comes off the fee. Plus phone expenses, faxes, photocopying. Most jobs, it’s not big bucks. But sometimes it starts to run into money. Net or nothing.’
‘I can live with it. Net it is. Six-month trial, see how we both go on?’
‘Suits me. There is one thing though, Giz…?’ His red-rimmed eyes narrowed in suspicion. ‘Well, two things,’ I continued. ‘A haircut and a smart suit.’ I held a hand up to stem the protest I knew was coming. ‘I know it breaks your heart to spend money on a suit that could be better spent on a new genlock adapter. And I know you think that anything more sophisticated than a number one all over once a year is for girlies, but these are deal breakers. If you like, I’ll even come with you and make the process as painless as possible, but it’s got to be done.’
Gizmo breathed out heavily through his nose. ‘Fuck it, who do you think you are? I’ve managed to avoid that kind of shit working for Telecom, why should I do it for you?’
‘Telecom have just fired you, Giz. Maybe corporate image had something to do with it, maybe not. Bottom line is, Telecom were a necessary evil for you. Working for me is going to be fun, and you know it. So get the haircut, get the suit.’