Maybe the blood from McCann's cut forehead had got into his eyes, I don't know. He didn't seem to see the bearded man slide unconscious down the glass and onto the carpet; McCann's head went swiping forward and crunched into the plate-glass wall of the pool.
It cracked. There was a noise like a rifle shot, and I thought for an instant that it was the sound of McCann's skull splitting, then a line flicked up the glass wall, from top to bottom, and a thin, hissing spray of water leapt out at McCann's legs and torso.
He swayed, dazed, and his legs started to go.
I ran up to him, grabbed him as he slumped and got one of his arms over my shoulder. I half-knelt, then lifted and straightened, pulling McCann up again. I turned for the nearest exit.
The four or five bouncers at the bar had become six, including a small, very angry looking guy who I suspected was the manager.
They weren't behind the bar any longer; they were standing in a rough semi-circle in front of us, and three of them were holding pickaxe handles. A fourth one held what looked like the long lead weight out of a sash window. Number five slid a knuckleduster onto his large right fist.
The manager was armed only with a cigar and a look of quivering, apoplectic fury.
I wanted to swallow, but my throat had gone dry. McCann stirred, drew himself upright and wiped some blood from his face. The hiss of escaping water filled the bright space behind us with white noise. The still-spinning ceiling fan scraped laboriously across table and seat arm, grating on fragments of glass and highlighting the silence in the empty club with a hesitant beat like brushes on a snare drum.
The manager looked at us. McCann took his arm from over my shoulder. A frightened-looking waiter closed an opened emergency exit. The bouncers moved just a little closer. Another got up from the floor, coughing. The manager looked round at him, then back at us. The backs of my legs were wet; either I'd pissed myself or the leak from the pool was soaking my trousers. McCann stooped suddenly and came back up brandishing a lager bottle. 'Never mind, Jim,' he whispered throatily, 'we'll sell ourselves dearly.'
'Oh, Jesus,' somebody moaned.
I think it was me.
'Youse,' the manager said, pointing at me and McCann with his cigar just in case we thought he was talking to the bouncers, and seeming to have some difficulty controlling his voice, 'are go an tae regret this.'
I wondered if they'd let us go if we told them we already did.
The bouncers took a step forward. McCann snarled and without taking his eyes off them, flicked his arm back, smashing the lager bottle against the glass of the pool. The hissing sound didn't alter.
I was listening desperately for the sounds of approaching sirens, but there weren't any, just that hiss from behind, and the scraping of the dangling, lopsided fan, like the noise of a nonautomatic record-arm at the end of a record.
McCann brought the jagged-ended bottle back round in front of him and brandished it at the bouncers. They just smiled. The three with the pickaxe handles hefted them. The manager turned away. McCann's hand holding the broken bottle was shaking.
'Wait!' I shouted, and reached inside my coat with my right hand.
Everybody froze.
It took me a second or two — as I fumbled inside my jacket pocket— to work out that they thought I might have a gun.
It crossed my mind to try and carry on the bluff, but I knew it wouldn't work; they'd have to see a gun, and I didn't have one. I found what I was looking for and pulled them out.
Charge cards.
I flourished them at the manager. He shook his head once and turned away. The bouncers looked angry and started forward.
'No!' I screamed. 'Look; this is a platinum Amex card! I can pay!'
The bouncers hesitated; the manager looked round again, then came forward. 'Whit?' he said, then grimaced. 'What?' He said, more carefully. I gulped, waved the bits of plastic fiercely.
'Platinum! I swear! And the Diner's Club; they'll confirm... just call them up. I promise; just ask. There's a number you can call, isn't there? Just ask them! Please! This wasn't our fault, honestly, but I'll pay for it! All of it! Just call up! A couple of minutes; if they don't say it's all right you can let these guys do anything you like to us, but just ask, just call up!'
The manager looked unimpressed. He looked around the deserted, shattered club. 'Do you realise how much this is goan tae cost?'
'I can afford it! I swear to God!' I tried not to shriek too much. McCann was taking no notice. He was trying to stare down three of the bouncers at once, and growling every now and again.
'See that windae, on that pool?' The manager said, nodding behind us. I didn't take my eyes off him, but I nodded. 'That windae alone cost twenty grand.'
'Call it thirty! ' I shouted, and gave a sort of anguished, hysterical cackle. 'Say fifty for the lot!'
The man looked as though he was about to spit at us, or just shake his head and walk away and leave us to the bouncers, but I took a very tentative step forward, and with one hand outstretched, offered him the cards. He peered at them, then did shake his head, snatched the plastics from my grasp and headed for the bar. 'Don't let them move,' he muttered. The bouncers relaxed fractionally and just stood looking at us. I suddenly knew how a dying wildebeeste feels, surrounded by vultures.
'There's no point in this,' McCann whispered hoarsely from out of the side of his mouth. 'Might as well get it over with now as later.' He rocked forward on the balls of his feet. I heard myself whimper; I grabbed him by one shoulder, still not taking my eyes off the bouncers, who were looking very alert again.
'Oh God, please don't do anything, McCann,' I pleaded. 'Just wait a minute, will you? Please?' McCann shook his head and growled, but didn't do anything else. I could hear the manager talking somewhere behind the bar.
The next couple of minutes passed with a glutinous slowness. The hiss of escaping water behind us didn't change, and the slow four-beat scrape of the wrecked fan seemed to drag time out like entrails from some sacrificial victim. The carpet under our feet slowly soaked with water from the pool behind us. The bouncers were starting to look impatient.
The manager came back.
My heart beat in time to the fallen fan, shaking my whole body. Felt like you could have heard it in London. The manager looked ill. Pale. I looked down at his hands. He was holding my cards, and an Amex voucher.
A wave of relief swept through me with the intensity of an orgasm. 'Mr Weir?' the manager said, clearing his throat on the words. I nodded. 'Will you and your... friend come with me , please?'
My knees almost gave way. I felt like crying. McCann started, and looked at me disbelievingly. One of the bouncers stared at the manager. The little man with the cigar shrugged, nodding at me and holding up the Amex card. 'Yer man here could buy the whole fuckin club...' he said. He sounded tired, almost sad.
'With either card.' McCann dropped the broken bottle and stared at me, open-mouthed.
'What did we say? Fifty thousand?' The manager bit on his cigar, seemed to hesitate. 'Plus VAT,' he said, as though swearing. I thought about quibbling, but didn't. The bouncer who'd got the table in the balls right at the start of the fracas had recovered and was leaning beside me on the bar as I filled out the Amex voucher (I checked the figures carefully; Jesus, even I hadn't filled one out for this much before).
'That's amazin,' the bouncer said, dabbing at a small cut on his forehead with a napkin. 'Ah've got all your albums, know that?'
I re-checked the voucher, nodded. 'Oh, aye?'
'Aye; Ah went tae all yer concerts at the Apollo; an that wan at Barrowlands, remember?' I nodded. 'An the two in the Usher Hall; seventy-nine, that wiz, aye?'
'Eighty, I think,' I said.