“At least.”
“So when you seeing him?”
“Couple of days, tops. Relax.”
Sheena sucked at her bottom lip; she didn’t know whether to believe him or not. But when she’d tried talking to the others about it, Diane had been preoccupied with Melvin, who was throwing up all over everywhere, and Lesley-Lesley was so far out of it, she didn’t even know who Sheena was. Which left Sheena herself walking round town with a handgun that could, in all probability, be tied into a shooting, even attempted murder.
“Sure I can trust you, Ray-o? You’re not winding me up, stringin’ us along?”
“Course not.”
“Here. You’ll be needing this, then.”
She had unsnapped her bag and lifted out the Beretta and was passing it across into Raymond’s willing hand, when Raymond saw, in the corner of his eye, Resnick briskly crossing the street toward them.
“Fuck!”
“What? What’s up? What?”
Raymond barely had time enough to tuck the weapon underneath the loose flap of his shirt, down inside the back of his jeans, before the bell above the door rang and Resnick walked in.
Seeing him, Sheena’s face set like sour milk.
“Sheena. Ray-o.” Resnick smiled, sniffing the air between them.
“Mr. Resnick,” Raymond stumbled, balance shifting from one foot to the other.
Sullen, Sheena said nothing.
“Didn’t know you two knew one another,” Resnick said pleasantly. “Though if I’d thought about it, I suppose I should.”
“Sheena was just looking for something for her mum,” Raymond said. “For the kitchen, like.”
Sheena’s look cut him off at the knees.
“How is Norma?” Resnick asked.
“Fine,” Sheena managed. “Better wi’out seein’ you.”
“I dare say.”
“You reckon the microwave, then?” Raymond said. “This one over ’ere.”
“Sod off, Ray-o,” Sheena said, turning toward the door. And, with a parting look at Resnick, “I don’t know what he’s on about. I was passin’, that’s all.”
The shop door closed with a slam and left Resnick and Raymond staring at one another, Raymond aware of nothing as much as the cold metal hard against his spine.
“Nice lass,” Resnick said.
Raymond carried on staring, open-mouthed; he had to be taking the piss.
“Seeing one another, are you?”
“Am I buggery!”
Resnick shrugged easily. “Just a thought.”
“Slag like that.”
“She wasn’t in here for the microwave, then, not like you said?”
Raymond could feel himself beginning to blush. “She were, yeh. ‘Course she were. What she said, just, you know, showin’ off.”
Resnick smiled benevolently.
“Girls.” Raymond laughed. “Who can fathom ’em, eh?”
“You wouldn’t have anything in the way of computer software?” Resnick asked. “Fresh in. Top-of-the-range stuff, mostly. Adobe Photoshop. QuarkXPress.”
Raymond blinked, backpedaling. “Not my thing, Mr. Resnick. Dixons, Curry’s, that’s where you want to try. That place along Castle Boulevard, never can remember the name.”
“You’re sure of that, Raymond? You’ve got nothing?”
“Yeh, dead sure.” He was beginning to breathe more easily now, the color in his cheeks starting to fade. That break-in out by the University, the Science Park, that’s what this was about. He’d been offered the gear, sure enough, but had turned it down.
Resnick wandered over toward the boxes of CDs. He’d picked up a few things here before, some Charlie Parker, a Chet Baker set recorded in Milan, Baker singing as if he were wearing somebody else’s teeth. Now all that tempted him was a Mills Brothers compilation with Ella on one track, Louis on another.
“Third off to you, Mr. Resnick,” Raymond said encouragingly. “Fair close to givin’ it away.”
“Okay, Ray-o, you’ve got a deal.” He handed over a five-pound note and told him to keep the change.
“You know pretty much what’s going on, Raymond,” Resnick said, stuffing the package down into his pocket. “Keep your ear to the ground.”
“Don’t know ’bout that.” Raymond said hesitantly. Was that what this was all about? Resnick trying to turn him into one of his snouts?
“You’ve not heard of anyone trying to sell a pistol, a Berretta, last few days?”
The barrel was burning a hole into Raymond’s back.
“Raymond? Ray-o?”
“No, no. Nothin’ like’ that, I swear.”
“But if you did, you’d give me a call?”
Raymond wiped his palms down the sides of his jeans and nodded. “Okay, yeh. Yes, sure.”
Resnick took a card from his top pocket and placed it alongside the till. He could have as easily reached round behind Raymond and lifted the Beretta out from underneath the tail of his shirt.
“Any complaints with the disc,” Raymond said, “full refund, right? No questions asked.”
Resnick pulled the door open and, with a final glance back at Raymond through the glass, began to walk toward the bridge.
Thirty-five
The first thing Resnick did, after bending to scoop up the post, was sneeze. And sneeze again. It could have been the beginning of an unseasonable cold, far more likely a reaction to cat hairs and dust. He’d tried paying a woman to come in and keep the place under control, clean and tidy; had tried several times, in fact, without avail. If they’d been any good they’d soon moved on to more profitable things, less than good and he would swear when he looked around the house was in more of a state than it had been before. And they lost things, moved things, broke a cup that had belonged to his grandfather and which had survived the journey from Poland, snapped an arm from a statue of Duke Ellington his favorite uncle had given him for his twenty-first.
So Resnick kept the dirt at bay as best he could; his favored method being to wait until the dust had collected itself into wispy balls in the room corners and along the skirting boards, then reach down and snag them as he passed.
On the way home, he’d stopped off at the deli and bought a small container of sun-dried tomatoes, a larger one of marinaded aubergine. He dipped a finger into the oil at the bottom of the latter and brought it to his mouth-coriander, garlic, and something else he couldn’t immediately identify.
A swig of beer and he cut two slices of rye bread and covered each lightly with mayonnaise; scorning a fork, he laid the slippery flesh of the aubergine across one of the slices and several of the skinny strips of tomato here and there over that. Licking his fingers clean, he ferreted around for what else he could find. There was a thickish piece of smoked ham, from which he stripped away the fatty edge; the fat he shared with Bud, the smallest of the cats, the rest of the meat he smeared with mustard before placing it on the second slice of bread. From various and sundry chunks of cheese, he selected a soft Taleggio, cutting away the orange rind before setting the cheese on top of the ham. The rind he dropped on to the floor, where it was argued over by the cats.
All Resnick’s sandwich needed now was something crunchy at its center and he cut a dill pickle in two, eating one piece there and then before placing the other on top of the cheese and swiftly pressing the whole thing together. Holding it together with one hand, he cut the sandwich in half with the serrated edge of the bread knife and carried it on a plate into the front room.
Among the stacks of black and brittle 78s Resnick’s uncle had allowed his young nephew to browse through whenever he had visited the house, along with others by Dinah Washington, Billie Holiday, the Ink Spots, and Ella Fitzgerald, there had been several records by the Mills Brothers. “Dinah,” “Swing it, Sister,” “You Always Hurt the One You Love.” Resnick had liked the smooth sweep of their voices, had been intrigued by the way they mimicked the sounds of instruments with their mouths.
He set the CD he’d bought from Raymond to play and was biting into the second half of the sandwich and listening to “Paper Doll,” when the phone started to ring. Twisting in his chair, he could just reach the receiver.