I stared at myself some more. I looked rough as guts and only half as welcoming. I thought, ‘I wouldn’t like to bump into myself on a dark night.’
My hair looked too long and I had the bloated Jim Morrison, Paris ’71 look about me — the way he looked on four packs of Marlboro and a couple of bottles of brandy a day.
I kept hearing ‘The End’. Round and round in my head, ‘This is the e-e-end’. After a power of drink I passed out. Came to with bats swooping me. My hands shook so badly I missed with every swipe at them. But they soon left. They never last long. And anyway, it’s the buzzards you really need to worry about.
I glanced up at the barman; he polished a pint glass, arm rested on his gut. He’d missed my blackout and I didn’t want to stay for him to catch the next one. I got up to leave.
In the daylight outside, I squinted. The sun started to creep through the clouds. I stumbled into the touristy centre of the city. Kilted mannequins strayed from every shop front and cutesy Greyfriars Bobby dogs begged to be picked up and drop-kicked into touch.
‘Enough’s enough,’ I thought. ‘Get me back to the East End and some blue-collar bliss.’
The Scott Monument looked black against the skyline, casting a shadow toward the tightly packed tenements of the Old Town. A breeze brought up the city smog, blew it down Princes Street. Diesel fumes, strong enough to taste, swirled about. The only thing that knocks out those babies is the brewery fumes. I thanked Christ for their absence.
I felt no joy to be this deep in the heart of a chocolate box. A crippling embarrassment crept up on me, and I pulled up my collar. All very Mel Gibson in Conspiracy Theory — but who was I kidding?
‘The way you look, Dury, your own mother would be lucky to pick you,’ I told myself.
On the pavement an American tourist stopped me. He looked like he’d just walked from the pages of a Ralph Lauren catalogue. All veneered teeth and spray-on tan. Hitting fifty, but fighting it. He smarmed at me; I expected to be asked something as dumb and inane as all Americans ask when they stop you on Princes Street. Something like: ‘Can you tell me how to get to Rabbi Burns’ synagogue?’
I tried a side step. Tourist was light on his feet, obviously working out too. He jumped before me and produced a Groucho Marx style cigar. ‘Have you a match, buddy?’ he said.
I looked him in the eye and hit him with: ‘Not since Errol Flynn died!’
He stepped back to let me pass. As I walked off, I glanced round to catch him put his mouth into an O and remove the cigar, stupefied.
Some people are so easy to set straight. But something told me Nadja might not be such a pushover.
4
The Shandwick looked plush. Billy’s girl obviously had a taste for the finer things in life. I’d passed the place many times but had never been in. I’d promised Debs to visit as a treat one of these days, but that seemed like a long time ago, before we started communicating through lawyers.
Col had given me a description of Nadja, he said she looked classy, but was ‘A little gold-digger’. Straight away, I saw he was wrong on one count, either that or Col and I had different ideas of class.
She had the standard footballer’s wife look: peroxide blonde, shag-me boots, what the Scots call ‘All fur coat and nae knickers’.
I took a chair at her table on the back veranda and introduced myself. ‘I’m Gus Dury,’ I said.
‘Should the name mean something to me?’ said Nadja, as she pinched her lips into a little red cupid’s bow. ‘Very cute,’ I thought.
I hit back. ‘Maybe once.’ I mean, who was I? A nobody? Well, yes, but she didn’t need to know that.
She paused, lit a cigarette, Dunhill, asked, ‘Why are you here, Mr Dury?’
Starting early, eh? I matched her with: ‘I think we both know why.’
A smooth blue trail of smoke left her lips as the waiter arrived, with a menu as thick as the phonebook.
‘Will you be having lunch with us, sir?’
I had to do a double take. Couldn’t remember being called that for a long time. ‘Eh, no.’ Wasn’t planning to stay long. ‘Nothing, thanks.’ I felt ready to drink the place dry, but kept focused.
Nadja raised her heavily mascaraed eyes. ‘Bring him a tea… Earl Grey.’
She waved him off, I stuck my hand in front of him. ‘Better make it an Earl Brown, pal!’
‘Excuse me, sir?’
‘I don’t do tea. I’ll settle for hot chocolate, though.’
Nadja shooed the waiter away with an impatient flurry of her carefully manicured mitts. ‘Who sent you?’ she said.
‘Sorry, no can do. Client confidentiality.’ It felt good taking the reins. ‘I need to know a few things like, for a kick-off, when did you last see Billy — features intact?’ What the hell, she didn’t seem to need pussy footing around.
‘I have no idea,’ she snapped. She looked rattled, puffed briskly on her Dunhill, ‘Maybe it is three weeks.’
‘That’s a long time. What did the police say to that?’
Her expression hardened at the mention of the filth, but her voice somehow managed to soften, ‘Business quite often took Billy away for long periods of time.’
Business. The last time I clapped eyes on the lad his business was collecting football stickers and looking for swaps. He’d barely hit twenty. Now I know this is a moneyed old town and people can rise faster than Basil’s hackles, but something didn’t quite square with the Billy I knew.
‘What business?’ I said.
She looked away, avoiding eye contact. She took a brief glance at her watch and a flash of tongue came out to moisten her lips. ‘I have no idea.’
‘You’ve already used that one.’ I wasn’t buying it a second time.
Nadja leaned forward, drew deeply on the Dunhill, and then flung back her carefully layered blonde hair as she wet her lips again.
‘Mr Dury, I understand perfectly that you have a job to do,’ she smiled at me, showing off a set of teeth that seemed far too white and far too straight to be this far from LA, ‘but could you keep me out of your… investigation?’ She whispered her last word with a pout.
I had her pegged.
‘That’ll never happen,’ I snarled. The words sounded just as harsh as I’d hoped they would. I even managed a rasping, throaty little alkie’s cough at the end, just to ram home how immune I was to her charms. ‘You’re out, plod’s in — that’s the deal, and believe me, I’m a lot easier to get on with.’
She quickly stubbed out the cigarette. It snapped off at the filter. She started firing out words at me: ‘He worked for a man called Benny Zalinskas. He has some properties that Billy looked after. You know, keeping tenants happy, that kind of thing. He took care of Benny’s business. Now, is there anything else you need to know? Or can I let you get on with… whatever.’ She threw herself back in the chair, arms raised to the ceiling in exasperation. It seemed an overly theatrical gesture for these genteel surroundings; Edinburgh ladies who lunch don’t generally raise more than a pinkie in company.
I pressed harder. ‘And what else does Benny do?’
Col had told me that Billy started out driving a van, humping furniture from one gaff to another. It seemed a big jump to hear he’d been running the show. I’d known people to make big jumps in this city before, but generally not from so far down.
‘I do not understand. What is it that you mean?’ said Nadja.
‘Any work that might not be so… above board?’
She shook her head wildly. A loud huff pulled in a few more glances, and then she stood up to leave.
‘I don’t think I can be of any more help to you,’ she said, bringing her heels down hard on the Shandwick’s expensive quarry tiles.
I frowned. Looked down at her seat and motioned, sit. I was ice. God knows where I found this line in cool.
‘I’m gonna need names, numbers and addresses,’ I said. ‘Unless you’d sooner deal with plod.’