The Bullet Trick

I lifted my head, breathing in again, hoping my covered features looked blunt and dignified, like an Easter Island statue.

'Is it in this one?'

I waited. Sylvie didn’t respond.

'Ah, I thought you might be one of those girls who like to torture men.'

No one in the audience would have noticed, but Sylvie gave a short intake of breath.

She recovered quickly and said in her calm, even voice.

'Number two.'

'Is it in this one?'

This time she answered me.

'No.'

'Aha, you’re not an easy girl to work out, Sylvie. I’ve got a suspicion that you might be rather good at lying.'

The stage was so quiet that I might have been standing there alone. I felt the warmth of my own breath inside the bag, then Sylvie said, 'Number three.'

I waited. This time it was my silence that ruled the stage.

'OK, if I’m wrong you go off with a week’s wages. Is it in this one?'

There was an instant’s hesitation and then Sylvie answered me.

'No.'

It was the hesitation that told me. I took my chance, snatching the hood off then grabbing the final envelope, ripping it in two and drawing out the money and the photo.

The audience applauded and I raised my voice above their clapping, 'Thank you Sylvie, you’ve been a wonderful assistant. People from Scotland have a reputation for being mean, but it’s a cruel slur and to prove it I’m going to make sure that you don’t go off empty-handed.'

I presented her with the photograph of the crown jewels. Sylvie held it close to her head and bowed prettily to the audience. We exchanged a quick kiss, and then I watched her slim figure descend into the darkness and the applauding audience beyond.

I thought that would be the last I saw of her.

Glasgow

THE PAST IS like an aged Rottweiler. Ignore it and it’ll most likely leave you alone.

Stare into its eyes and it’ll jump up and bite you. It was no more than coincidence that an old face came out of the darkness, but it felt that by living half in the past I had invoked old times to slip from the shadows.

I’d decided not to favour one bar above the rest. Glasgow’s got a hostelry on every street corner and a fair few in between, so why confine yourself to one pishy pub when you have the choice of plenty? I’d long been a travelling man so I travelled from one shop to the next, moving on before I could be hailed and hassled by any Jimmy/Bobby/Davie deadbeat who lived his life propped against the bar. I was a sailor on drink’s high seas, while they were merely landlubbers.

I favoured places with no mission other than to empty your pockets, fill you full of bile and kick you into the street at closing time. I had no time for quizzes and karaoke, pub grub and Sky Sports. Anything more entertaining than a puggy machine and I was out of there.

I had thrown my noose a little wider that night. From the outside it looked like my kind of place, trad dad, no theme, no music, no enthusiastic throng of patrons slapping each other on the back or measuring up for square goes.

The illusion hung together when I went inside. The only decorations were drink advertisements, but my radar should have gone on alert: they were for long-abandoned classic campaigns — My Goodness, My Guinness; Martini & Rosso; Black and White Whisky — there was even a green fairy sparking out of a cup under the power of absinthe.

The bar was a square island in the centre of the space. I was pushing the boat out. It was my third pub, fourth pint. I was going to make a night of it. See if I could get to the point where I’d lost count.

I kept my head down, my attention caught by the red carpet, busy with an abstract design which seemed to shift out of focus then arrange itself into a mosaic of grinning devils. I wondered what other people saw in the pattern. Flowers? Vast cities? Angelic girls?

The thought preoccupied me and I’d approached the bar before I realised this wasn’t the kind of place I’d thought it was.

The revelation lay in the beers. As well as the compulsory piss-poor Tennents Lager there was a variety of real ales and a pretentious clanning of single malts. It was a spit-and-sawdust theme pub, an ersatz recreation of the traditional Scottish howf, but lacking the essential ingredient — misery.

But even a poor pub is hard to leave. I ordered a pint of lager and stood leaning against the slop-free bar, counting the green tiles that covered the gantry wall. My pint was three-quarters down in the glass and I’d reached 150, estimating and adding together the fractions of divided tiles, when I felt a hand fall in between my shoulder blades. I tensed, steeled myself for a confrontation, turned and came face to face with Johnny Mac.

My first instinct was to walk away, but the thought came and went and I was still standing there. It was seven years since I’d last seen him, but Johnny hadn’t changed much.

There were a few creases round his eyes I didn’t remember and maybe his hairline had withdrawn a little from his temples. But he was still scrag-end thin, his dark hair still unfashionably long, but just short enough to ensure his curls lost none of their bounce.

When we’d hung around together, long second-hand coats had been the fashion. I’d worn an old herringbone tweed that smelt when it got wet and Johnny’d more or less lived in an olive-green army greatcoat that had served as a second blanket on his bed at night.

I probably wasn’t one to judge, but Johnny didn’t seem to be following fashion any more. The old greatcoat was gone, replaced by a navy parka with a small rip in the sleeve that appeared to have been mended using a bicycle repair kit. Beneath the parka he wore a T-shirt with a diametric pattern that meant nothing to me. His jeans were scuffed, splattered with the same paint that decorated his worn-out trainers. Johnny’s mouth bent into a wide grin and I noticed a gap where his left incisor used to be.

'I thought it was you. God, I don’t believe it.' He draped an arm around my shoulder and pulled me into a hug that was traitor to his west coast of Scotland origins. 'Hey, Houdini, long time no see. How’s tricks?'

The barman caught Johnny’s eyes, and saved me from answering. Johnny slacked his grip, letting me pull free as he leaned in towards the bar and started to stumble through a round of drinks. He was pissed, but only the meanest of pubs would refuse him service.

Anyone looking at Johnny Mac would know he’d be no trouble drunk or sober. He finished the order with a nod to me.

'And whatever he’s having.'

'No, nothing for me, I was just on my way.'

'Dinnae be bloody daft.'

'No, Johnny, I’ve got to be off.'

The barman was used to these friendly altercations. He wiped his hand on a towel, waiting for me to be persuaded. Perhaps he was on profit share because when Johnny demanded, 'Give him a pint,' he poured me another lager.

'We’ve got a table over there.' Johnny nodded towards a far corner of the pub.'

'I told you, I can’t.'

The words came out harsher than I’d meant. The barman glanced back at us, maybe wondering if he’d pegged Johnny wrong and there was going to be a fight after all. The drink cleared a little from Johnny’s eyes and he seemed to see me properly for the first time.

'What’s the problem?'

'I’ve got to be somewhere.'

He glanced up at the hands of the bar-room clock ticking beyond a quarter past ten. His voice grew less insistent.

'Aye, well spare me ten minutes. We’ve not seen each other in an age. How long has it been? Six years?'

'Something like that.'

'Mebbe longer.' Johnny picked up his pint of heavy and sucked the head off it. A rim of foam stuck to his upper lip; he wiped it away and took another pull looking at me over the brim of the glass. 'So what’ve you been up to?'

'Nothing much.'

'Still practising the black arts?'

'No, I gave that up. It’s a mug’s game.'

'Never thought I’d hear you say that, Billy boy.'