Verner moved swiftly across the foyer. As Aggie and her pimp stepped on to the pavement outside the hotel, he was only feet behind them. An old, but beautifully maintained Ford Granada was parked on the kerb on the double yellows, a driver ready and waiting. Aggie opened the back door and glided in. The pimp went to the passenger door.
Verner was behind him.
‘I want to talk business,’ he said to the man’s back.
The black man rose slowly to his full height — six-three — and rotated slowly, his eyes wide at the gall of someone approaching him like this.
‘I don’t do business.’ He had a deep, booming voice with a Manchester accent, which even when spoken normally had the power to intimidate. He had a cut across the upper part of his left cheek that had been stitched badly. He was not a stranger to blades.
Verner held up his hands and stepped back. ‘I need something and I’m willing to pay for it. I’m a stranger in town and I need help.’
The black man towered over Verner. As well as being tall, he was wide and looked dangerous. In spite of that, Verner was not awed. He knew he could have taken him down within a second.
‘What is it you want, stranger?’
‘A gun.’
‘Fuck off,’ he laughed loudly.
The pimp turned away and reached for the door handle.
‘I’ll be in the Printer’s Arms,’ Verner said, giving him the name of a pub he’d seen on a dark side street off Deansgate. ‘I’ll be in the bar until eleven. I mean what I say. I’m not a cop or anything. I’ll pay good cash for the right one — a handgun, preferably a pistol. Five hundred for the right one.’
The pimp regarded him unsmiling. He blinked and got into the Granada. The car swished away into the night. Aggie craned her neck to look round through the back window. Verner waved. He knew he was in business.
As the name suggested, the Printer’s Arms had once been the haunt of members of that profession, particularly in the days when Deansgate housed the massive regional offices of newspapers like the Daily Mail. It had been frequented by typesetters and journalists alike and was not unlike the pubs that once used to be found off Fleet Street during its heyday. It was small, crowded, noisy and friendly and still retained that atmosphere, although the clientele now frequenting it consisted mainly of the middle-aged denizens of Manchester who knew a good pub when they tasted one. Its media history was just that — history.
Verner struggled hard to find a place at the bar.
He ordered a pint of Guinness, very cold, very black and wonderful. He sipped it as he leaned on the bar.
The sex with Aggie had been a good relief for him. It was just what he had needed: quick and straight to the point.
Now what he needed was a gun. He wanted that to be quick and straight to the point, too. He knew Manchester’s underworld was flooded with illegal firearms and that getting hold of one was easy, if you knew who to ask. Verner did not, but guessed that a pimp would know or would, in fact, be able to supply one. It had been a risk, but calculated.
A small man with a round, pock-marked face squirmed into the bar alongside him and ordered a short. He was mid to late thirties and Verner knew he was it.
He waited for the approach, sipping the Guinness, not taking any notice of the man. He had an urge to sink the drink in one, but held back. He had to have full control of his faculties and even one pint of the black stuff could be a deciding factor in business like this.
The small man sniffed his whisky. Without looking at Verner, his nose hovering over the rim of the glass, he said, ‘I hear you’re looking.’
‘Depends what for,’ Verner answered, knowing that the conversation would be in code, just in case they were being listened to by the cops.
‘What do you need?’
‘Something small, light, compact, reliable.’ He could have been describing a condom. ‘And never used.’
‘Could be difficult. Secondhand is usual.’
‘I have the right amount.’
‘I might be able to find what you need.’ He tossed his drink down the back of his throat and shivered as it hit the spot. He slammed his glass on the bar. ‘One for the road,’ he told the barman. For the first time he looked at Verner, who saw that the guy’s complexion was atrocious. He quickly drank the second whisky. ‘I’ll be outside the door. Give me five minutes. . Oh,’ he checked himself, as though this was an afterthought, ‘show me the colour of it.’
Verner placed his pint down, opened his jacket and let the small man see the contents of his inside pocket.
‘Good enough,’ he said and then was gone.
A moment later, Verner quit the bar too.
By the time he stepped outside, the gun dealer was nowhere to be seen, having vanished like a rat into the darkness. Yeah, vermin, Verner thought with a mental sneer. He disliked having to deal with such people, but necessity was driving him here. He dashed across Deansgate, dodging the traffic, and backed into the shadow of a shop doorway from where he could see the main door of the Printer’s Arms.
A few legitimate customers came and went.
Fifty metres down Deansgate, a car stopped and the pockmarked man who had just been in the bar got out. He leaned back into the car and conversed with the driver before slamming the door shut. The car set off, then turned down by the Printer’s Arms, disappearing up the poorly lit side street. It was being driven by Aggie’s pimp.
The small man walked to the door of the pub.
Verner walked back across the road, coming up behind the small man, who was no wiser that he had been across the road, watching.
‘This way.’ He indicated to Verner that he should follow him down the side street.
‘Can I trust you?’
The small man sniggered, but said nothing.
Verner followed. Within metres, the brightness of Deansgate had been replaced by the dark of the narrow street, the sound of vehicular and pedestrian traffic just a background murmur.
He led Verner to a small car park at the rear of what could have been an office building. There was one car on it, the one Verner had seen drop the small man off a few minutes earlier, the one driven by Aggie’s pimp. Verner’s senses were acute. He could sniff the danger in the air and was ready for anything, supremely confident of his abilities, no matter what might come his way.
‘Stop here,’ the small man said. He took a small torch out of his pocket and flashed it a couple of times, then said, ‘Come on.’ He walked towards three huge metallic dustbins on wheels on the car park, pushed right up to the building. They were due to be emptied soon. The smell said that.
As they approached the bins, the black pimp, together with another man, a white one, stepped out and revealed themselves.
Verner took stock of the situation.
‘I thought you might be able to help me,’ he said to the pimp.
The black man’s wide smile flashed in the darkness and Verner almost giggled at the stereotype.
‘What have you got?’
‘Come over here, back here.’ The black man took a pace backwards and to one side. He also had a torch in his hand, which he flashed down to the ground. There was a large piece of oily rag spread out, once part of a blanket, with two pistols on it and four magazines. Verner recognized the makes and models immediately.
One was a mass-produced Eastern Bloc monstrosity, the other a reasonable-looking Glock.
‘How clean are they?’
‘Does it really matter?’
‘To me it does. How reliable are they?’
‘Sold as seen,’ said the black man.