“Do I go straight through to get to the gym?” Resnick asked.
“Why d’you want to do that?” the girl said, not looking at him, concentrating on the man in the sweatsuit. There was a plastic badge pinned to her loose pink top and on it, in lettering not unlike that of the sign, Jane was written in purple ink.
“Why do people usually?”
An eyebrow lifted, not far. “You’re not a member.”
“No.” He was beginning to feel like the Dyno-Rod man.
“Oh, then you got one of those things we sent out. Leaflets. Three free sessions. Through the door, right?”
“Right.”
She looked past Resnick to the man. “I told Victor it was a stupid idea.”
Something or somebody landed heavily on the floor immediately over their heads.
“You’ve got to hand it in,” she said to Resnick. “The leaflet. Otherwise you can’t get the sessions.”
Resnick shook his head. “I tore it up.”
“All in one go,” the man said, “or did you take it a little bit at a time?”
Jane thought that was very funny. The laughter broke from her and when she tried to stifle it tears came to her eyes and tight wheezing sounds caught in her throat. She was in danger of choking or, at the very least, of her makeup cracking apart.
“Easily amused,” Resnick observed.
“Jane, she’s got a great sense of humor.”
“Don’t you think you should do something?” Resnick said, looking at the way her eyes were growing increasingly alarmed, trapped in the center of her face.
He shrugged and moved lithely around the bar, a couple of well-placed pats in the small of the back, an energetic release of air, and Jane was sitting up right as rain with a carrot and wheat germ cocktail in her hand.
“I’m here to see Warren,” Resnick said. “I was told he’d be in the gym.”
“Why d’you want to see Warren?” the man said.
“Why do you need to know?”
“We don’t encourage folk walking in off the street and…”
It was getting tedious. Resnick took out his wallet and showed his identification.
“I’ll fetch him,” the man said.
Resnick put the wallet away. “I’ll find him.”
There was just a moment when he thought the man might be about to try and stop him, but the muscles relaxed and a finger pointed along the short corridor. “Up the stairs. Left. Straight ahead.”
“Yes,” said Resnick. “Follow the noise.”
High-toned sweat and embrocation. Up here the effort was real and nobody bothered too much about keeping the backs of their shorts rolled over so that the designer labels showed. As weights were lifted and set down, the boards vibrated beneath Resnick’s feet. A small-boned Chinese woman lay on her back, legs arched into the air, while a fifteen-stone instructor added another ten pounds to her load.
“That’s not all she can do.”
Resnick angled his head to the right.
“Restaurant where she works. I was in there once. Nice place. Not your take-away. Linen napkins. Finger bowls. These guys came in from the pub; one of them, real foul-mouthed, objectionable. Sits there ordering the lagers, making remarks at the other customers. Everyone staring down into their chow mein, pretending it isn’t happening. She goes over and tells him to be quiet or leave. He starts calling her a few choice things, so she says she’s going to call the police. He grabs at her, misses, up from the table, trying again. She turns, cool as you like, one foot in his balls and the next one takes his eye out. Out. Well, dangling. They have to sew it back in casualty. Four-and-a-half hours. Can’t see the scar, but he’s got this dreadful squint.” He held out his hand. “I’m Warren.”
“Detective Inspector Resnick.”
“I figured.”
The handshake was firm and smeared with sweat. Warren was a couple of inches shorter than Resnick, ageless, his skin glistened and, yes, his muscles had been nurtured to the point where they were awesome. He was wearing loose-fitting gray sweatpants and a black cotton vest that stuck to back and chest. Bare feet.
“Let’s talk in here.”
Resnick followed him into a small room next to the men’s changing room, a couple of chairs and a desk, rosters pinned with bright yellow tacks to a hessian-covered board on the wall.
“Staff perks,” explained Warren, sitting down, gesturing for Resnick to do the same.
“You know Georgie Despard,” Warren said.
“A little.”
Warren laughed. His teeth were even, the one left of center had a tiny gold star set into it. He said, “Georgie says you’ve been on his case for years.”
Resnick shook his head lightly. “Not any more.”
Warren laughed again. “He’s fly, Georgie.”
“How come you know him?”
“Him and my old man, they were up in the Smoke together. Years back. His folks had moved up here and, oh, that wasn’t right for George. He wanted some action. My old man’d grown up there, like him. George went back. Fine times. I’d see ’em getting ready, suits, shiny suits. They’d start weekends up West on a Friday night, the Flamingo. Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames. John Mayall. That bloke who threw himself under a Tube train-what was his name? I forget it now.” He stretched back in the chair and sighed with the pleasure of remembering.
“I don’t imagine all they got up to was dancing.”
Warren leaned easily forward. “Sorry about not coming up to the station.” He shuddered. “Something about those places.”
“As long as you’re still willing to talk.”
“About Macliesh?”
“Unless there’s anything else you…”
“Macliesh.”
“All right.”
“You’ve got him banged up for doing that woman.”
“He’s in custody.”
“Not for long.”
“How’s that?”
“I mean, for all I care about the bloke, he could stay there. It’s where he’s come from and he’ll be back, one way or another. They always are. Don’t know how to get on in the world, his sort. No idea of, you know, coming to terms with it.”
“The time I’m interested in…”
“The Monday night, right? When it happened. According to the papers, anyway. Has to be.”
“Has to?”
“That’s when Macliesh has got me pulled in for his alibi.”
“You saw him on the Monday?”
“Met him here. In the bar. Him and Mottram.”
“Mottram?”
“Scouser.”
“Friend of yours or Macliesh’s?”
“Macliesh’d never set eyes on him before. I know him from the States. Used to go over, every year, bodybuilding contests, exhibitions, Mister Universe.”
“Mottram was a body-builder?”
Warren smiled and showed his inlaid tooth. “If Mottram stood still on a grating, he’d go down it. No, he was working with a couple of fighters, corner work; he was a good cuts man. Then his fingers went.”
“Started to shake?” said Resnick. “Stiffened?”
Warren was still smiling. “Got into an argument with this bloke who had an ax.”
Resnick thought about it: not for too long.
“What was he doing here? In the city.”
“Drifting around. Bumming what he can. He’d been in that day, earlier. I told him to stick around and see what Macliesh came up with.”
“One thing I don’t see,” said Resnick. “How Macliesh was talking to you in the first place? I don’t see the connection.”
Warren pulled a sweater up from the floor and slipped it on; the sweat was beginning to dry cold. “If I’m going to carry on talking…” He glanced at the closed door, “…it’s just inside this room right? There’s nothing else here to interest you, just Macliesh. Right?”
Resnick nodded.
Both men knew that the policeman would not forget whatever Warren told him, that he’d file it away, worry over it, use it how and when he could. They also knew that whatever was said, there would be no witnesses.
“Time to time,” Warren said quietly, “if there’s a job wants doing that might need a little muscle, people will put people in touch with me. It’s nothing organized, just word goes round the clubs. Late, you know. They see me on the door in a made-to-measure suit, bow tie, looking hard. Like I say, people talk to people. I don’t know who Macliesh talked to except that he ended up talking to me.”