Nightingale shrugged. ‘To be honest, Perry, I’ve never seen the attraction of shooting people for fun.’
‘It’s a game, man.’ He picked up a joint from an ashtray next to the video game console and lit it.
‘I guess,’ said Nightingale. ‘But you do it enough in a game and maybe the lines get blurred and people start to think that killing’s fun and that you always get a new life. And we both know that you don’t. You get killed and that’s that. There’s no reset button.’ He gestured at the girls. ‘I need to ask you something. Are you okay for them to be here?’
‘Off you go, girls,’ said Smith, patting the girls on the legs. ‘Wait for me in the bedroom. If I’m not up in ten minutes, start without me.’
One of the girls whispered in his ear and he grinned. He waved T-Bone over. ‘Give them a couple of wraps,’ he said.
The girls uncurled themselves from around Smith and left the room with T-Bone. In the hallway he gave them two wraps of crack cocaine and they went upstairs, giggling.
‘Fit, huh?’ said Smith.
‘Yeah, they say gentlemen prefer blondes. What are they? Russians?’
‘Latvians. And they’ll do anything for crack. Now, to what do I owe the pleasure, Nightingale? I thought you and I were old news.’
‘You sorted out the Reggie thing?’
Smith grinned. ‘Reggie who?’ He looked over at T-Bone. ‘You know anyone called Reggie?’
T-Bone shook his head. ‘Name don’t ring a bell.’
Smith stretched his arms out along the back of the sofa. ‘Looks like the Reggie thing, whatever it was, got sorted,’ he said. ‘So what do you want?’
‘Bit of business, actually,’ said Nightingale.
Smith blew a cloud of sweet-smelling smoke at him. ‘Not sure I wanna do business with a former cop,’ said Smith. T-Bone stood behind the sofa, his arms folded across his massive chest.
Nightingale reached inside his raincoat and pulled out a manila envelope. He tossed it onto the table in front of Smith. Smith leaned forward and picked it up, the joint clamped between his teeth. He opened the envelope and rifled through a thick wad of fifty-pound notes. He nodded and sat back, looking expectantly at Nightingale.
‘I need a gun,’ said Nightingale.
Smith grinned. ‘A gun?’
‘Yeah. A bloody big one.’
‘What’s your game, Nightingale?’
‘No game. I want to buy a gun.’
Smith’s nostrils flared as if he’d smelled something bad in the room.
‘My money’s good,’ said Nightingale. ‘I left the stuff I printed back at home.’
‘Do I need to get you to strip down again, Nightingale?’ His eyes hardened.
‘What, you think I’d wear a wire to get you on a gun charge?’
‘Last time I checked having a gun gets you a ten stretch.’
Nightingale sighed, opened his raincoat and began to unbutton his shirt. Smith took his joint out of his mouth and waved for him to stop.
‘I don’t want to see your raggedy arse again,’ he growled. He scratched his chin and then nodded. ‘Okay, this is how it’s going to work. You pick up that money and put it back in your pocket.’ He gestured with his joint at the heavy standing by the door. ‘T-Bone there is going to take you for a ride and show you what we’ve got. You’re going to give him the money and all’s well that ends well.’
‘Cool,’ said Nightingale, reaching for the envelope.
Smith lashed out with his foot and slammed his shoe down on the envelope, missing Nightingale’s hand by a fraction of an inch. ‘Just so we’re clear,’ said Smith. ‘If anything happens to T-Bone, if he so much as gets a parking ticket today, then I’ll come looking for you again and this time I won’t miss. Clear?’
‘Like glass,’ said Nightingale.
Smith moved his foot. Nightingale took the envelope and put it in his pocket. ‘Thanks,’ he said.
‘This ain’t nothing to do with me. This is between you and T-Bone.’ He grinned. ‘But you’re welcome.’
61
Nightingale followed T-Bone out of the house and along the road. The heavy was now wearing a Puffa jacket over his tracksuit, and black leather gloves.
‘Where you parked?’ growled the heavy. Nightingale pointed at the MGB. ‘That works?’ said T-Bone. ‘What is it, clockwork?’
‘It’s a classic,’ said Nightingale.
‘That’s rust around the wheel arch, innit?’
‘A bit. When you’re that age you’ll probably be a little rusty around the edges.’
T-Bone chuckled. ‘You’re a funny man, Nightingale.’
‘I have my moments,’ said Nightingale. He took out his cigarettes and offered the pack to T-Bone, who shook his head. Nightingale lit a cigarette and blew smoke up at the sky, careful to keep it away from the other man. ‘So how did you get a nickname like T-Bone?’ he asked. ‘You got a bit of an appetite?’
T-Bone shook his head. ‘Nearly killed a guy with a stake once.’
‘What? A piece of meat?’
‘Broken bit of wood. Like doing a vampire. He had a machete; I had a stake.’
‘And how do you get from impaling to T-Bone?’
‘It’s ironic, innit?’ he said. ‘You never have a nickname?’ He grinned, showing two gold front teeth.
‘They called me Birdy at school.’
‘Nice,’ said T-Bone. He nodded at the MGB. ‘You get in your toy car and follow me. We’re going to a lock-up in Streatham.’
‘Streatham? That’s not far; why don’t we go in the same car?’
‘Because I’m not riding in your piece of shit and you’re as sure as hell not riding in my motor. If we get stopped I want deniability.’
‘We won’t get stopped.’
‘You don’t know that. Black man in an expensive car, he’s got a target on his back. So you follow me.’ He jerked a thumb at the MGB. ‘How fast will that thing go?’
‘I’ll keep up with you. I’ll pedal real fast.’
T-Bone laughed and clapped Nightingale on the back. ‘I like you,’ he said. The smile vanished and he gripped Nightingale’s shoulder. ‘What Perry said back there is only half the story,’ he said. ‘Anything happens to me you’d better hope I don’t get bail because I’ll personally be tearing off your balls and shoving them down your throat. Hear?’
Nightingale nodded. ‘I just want a gun,’ he said.
‘I know. A big one. Don’t worry about that; we’ve got big guns coming out of our arses.’
‘Nice image,’ said Nightingale. He blew smoke. ‘Let’s go. I’ve got things to do, rivers to cross, mountains to climb.’
‘What?’
Nightingale grinned. ‘My clock’s ticking.’ He dropped the cigarette onto the pavement and stamped it out.
T-Bone went over to a black Porsche SUV and climbed in. He waited until Nightingale was in the MGB and then pulled away from the kerb and headed south. Nightingale kept close behind. T-Bone slowed down when they reached Streatham and after they’d driven along the High Road he made a right turn and then a left and then drove down an alley between two rows of houses. They came to a block of six brick-built lock-up garages with metal doors and corrugated iron roofs. There was a black Lexus there, its engine running. T-Bone parked facing it. Nightingale pulled in behind the Porsche and parked. As he climbed out, T-Bone was hugging two big black men who had got out of the Lexus. Nightingale recognised one of them from the photographs that Dan Evans had shown him by the Serpentine.
T-Bone said something and they all laughed, then T-Bone pulled out a set of keys, unlocked the door of one of the lock-ups and pushed it up. The other two went back and leaned against the bonnet of their Lexus, their hands deep in the pockets of their overcoats. As Nightingale walked over to the lock-up, one of the men pulled something black and metallic from his pocket. Nightingale’s heart began to race but then he realised it was a Magnalite torch. The man chuckled as he switched on the torch as if he knew what Nightingale had been thinking.
T-Bone waved for Nightingale to join him and disappeared inside the lock-up. The man with the torch pushed himself off the Lexus and followed T-Bone. There was an old Jaguar there, its boot facing outwards. T-Bone pulled the door down behind them. ‘Don’t want anybody looking in,’ he explained. He used another key to open the boot, then stood to the side to allow Nightingale to see into it. The other man used his torch to illuminate a dozen or so sackcloth-wrapped packages.