Larry pulled a tissue from the box on the bedside cabinet and handed it across.
“He was always trying to find me, and he got so messed up. In his head, you know? He was on the street, boozing, doing dings. Mickey was a born loser. He died one.” Von Joel’s head jerked around on the pillow. He looked directly at Larry. “I’ve got that stolen money stashed. McKinnes must have told you about it.”
“Come on, now,” Larry warned him, “don’t—”
“Mickey was the only one I could trust with picking it up. I gave him my word he’d be okay...” Von Joel let out a shaky breath, drawing his hand down over his eyes. “All he had to do was get his act together.”
“Listen...” Larry was getting agitated. “You shouldn’t be telling me this.”
“I couldn’t get back into England to collect. I was trapped, hunted by the cops, and by the blokes I’d screwed. So I needed Mickey. The dough was stashed in the trunk of a girlfriend’s car.” With a half smile he added, “In a police pound.”
He started to cough, his chest rattling ominously. Larry helped him sit further up against the pillows.
“All he had to do,” Von Joel went on, “was deposit it in a safety box, then fly to Italy to join me, bringing the key with him, of course. I had to know it was safe, you understand? Then, when the heat was off me, I’d collect it.”
Larry had given up trying to protest. He would save it for later. Meanwhile he sat and listened. He was fascinated.
“I had hired a boat, it was moored off the harbor, and I waited for him. See, I couldn’t be sure Mickey could handle bringing the cash, I didn’t want to get him in trouble. Anyway, I waited most of the night, and then, after hours of just sitting there, I heard him. He was singing, actually singing, and shouting out my name. He was so eager to see me, waving his arms around, standing up in his little rowboat, drunk out of his mind. He’d already dipped into my dough, he’d got a flashy suit on. He kept on yelling, ‘We did it, Eddie, I did it, Eddie...’ ” Von Joel’s eyes pressed shut for a second. “Then he fell.”
“Christ,” Larry breathed.
“I jumped in, of course. The current was a real bitch. I couldn’t see anything, everything was cloudy and murky. I was in the water for hours trying to find him. For a while I could actually hear him, ‘Eddie? Eddie? Eddie...’ ”
Larry had to lean forward to catch the words choked in Von Joel’s throat. “He was calling me, kept on calling me, and it got fainter and fainter, but I couldn’t see him, I couldn’t find him, and I clung on to the stupid bloody boat he’d rowed out in, hanging on, hoping I’d see him, find him...” His voice was no more than a whisper. “I never found him, Larry, I never found him. I kept up the search all night, but he just disappeared... My brother, in that fuckin’ stupid suit, and all the past, our past, kept coming back, like when we were kids crying and holding on to each other because we had no one else. I could see him, Larry, when he was... eight, maybe less. He had this spiky hair, you know, the kind that no matter how many matrons spit and lick it down, still sticks up at the back, and I remember him sayin’ ‘Don’t go, Eddie, stay with me.’ But when I was adopted, they didn’t even let us say good-bye. Mickey was up in a window, shouting out, ‘He’s my brother, don’t take my brother away...’ and I couldn’t wait, never even turned back. I just wanted to get the hell out of that shit hole!”
Larry didn’t know what to say, so he remained silent, watching as Von Joel continued. His voice was flat, unemotional now.
“The Coast Guard found his body two weeks later. I went to identify him. Then it came to me. Why not let Mickey be me? That was when I did the switch — my watch, my wedding ring...” Von Joel shook his head. “The key went in the ocean with Mickey and it stayed there. That’s the crazy part! The dough, it’s still sitting in the bank vault.”
Larry picked at the edge of the bandage on his hand.
“Why are you telling me this?” he said.
“When you smile you remind me of Mickey. No other reason.”
Von Joel rubbed his damaged shoulder while Larry tried to see matters straight, tried to ignore the distortions of flattery and sentimentality.
“I’ve never killed anyone, Larry. I fence cash, I make deals, but I never hurt anybody. On my life. But Mickey...” Von Joel’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I still hear him some nights, calling out for me, and I can’t find him.” He shook himself. “I’m not all bad.” He sighed. “At least I saved you, Larry.”
“I’m glad you did,” Larry said, wondering how much of this he should tell McKinnes.
Next morning, talking to the chief in the busy operations room at St. John’s Row, Larry decided to keep the details of his visit sketchy. He told McKinnes that Von Joel was fairly weak but appeared to be mending. He added that there was no apparent breakdown in the rapport he and the prisoner had established during their time together in the safe house.
“I think he relies on me, in a way,” Larry added.
“Keep up the visits,” McKinnes told him. “It’s good he trusts you.” A telephone on the desk beside them rang.
McKinnes snatched it up. “Yep!” He covered the mouthpiece. “Nothing on the shooter we found,” he told Larry, half listening to the caller. “Ballistics are still working on it. Serial number’s been filed off, of course.” He jerked his head at the door. “Go home. Take a break.” He stiffened suddenly, giving the caller his full attention. “What? Shit! No, no, nobody’s mentioned it. I’ve got no option then, have I? I’ll sort it.”
McKinnes slammed down the phone as DI Shrapnel appeared to tell him the car was ready. McKinnes pulled him aside.
“They need all the safe cells,” he muttered. “They’ve got a bunch of IRA suspects coming in off the boat. We’re going to have to find a place for Myers.” He watched Shrapnel make a sour face. “You think I like it?”
“Do they get priority, then?” Shrapnel demanded as they moved away. “This is a bad time, Jimmy. We need all the men we’ve got...”
Larry watched them go. All at once he was feeling ignored again. Excluded. He had forgotten what an unpleasant sensation that was.
He looked around the room, watching men and women hurrying around in overlapping circuits, waving paper at each other and shouting down telephones, sustaining the drama of a top-level operation against the frenetic background of computers and radio links and fax machines. Larry wanted to be a part of this productive maelstrom. He needed to be a cog, because involvement was essential to his sense of himself. He was not one of nature’s loners.
He stared at a deskful of stacked files and photographs, wondering at the amount of activity one man could set in motion. It occurred to him that maybe there was something to be said for loner status after all. Especially when there was no alternative. At its best, solo operation made for focused efficiency. And properly handled, it meant the incidental glory did not have to be shared.
He had an idea.
The Sheffields’ house was small and neat, with a smell like a freshly opened tin of wax polish. Moyra Sheffield showed Larry into the lounge, explaining that she had been about to have elevenses when he rang the doorbell. While she went to the kitchen Larry put his coat over the back of a sofa and sat down.
He looked around the room, imagining himself in a G-Plan advert where they had used too much colored ink. The floral curtains had the same pattern as the matching two-seater sofas; the carpet was floral, too, though darker and with larger flowers. There was a strenuous sense of pairing and mirroring, as if nothing could be allowed to stand out on its own. The window ledge and sideboard were crowded with vases, posy bowls, and tiny porcelain knickknacks; in the corner was a display cabinet filled with Capo di Monte.