The face was back, tighter than ever. This time he was chewing something, and the muscles in his cheeks and neck were standing out like a diagram from Gray’s Anatomy. There were crumbs around his lips and every now and then a very pink tongue shot out and carried one off to the cave of his mouth.
‘Lang?’ The tongue was working round the inside of his mouth now, running over his gums and puckering his lips so that for a moment I thought he was going to kiss me. I let him wait.
‘Where am I?’ I was pleased to hear that there was a thoroughly ill-sounding croak to my voice.
‘Yeah,’ said the face. If it had enough skin, I think it might have smiled. Instead, it moved away from whatever I was lying on, and I heard a door open. But it didn’t shut.
‘He’s up,’ said the same voice, quite loud, and the door still didn’t shut. Which meant that whoever controlled the room controlled the corridor too. If it was a corridor. For all I knew, it could have been the gantry to a space shuttle. Or from it. Maybe I was in a shuttle, about to leave the world very far behind.
Footsteps. Two pairs. One rubber, one leather. Hard floor. Leather steps are slower. Leather’s in charge. Rubber’s a flunky, holding the door, making way for leather. Rubber’s the face. Rubber Face. Easy to remember.
‘Mr Lang?’ Leather had stopped by the bed. If it was a bed. I kept my eyes closed, a little frown of pain on my face. ‘How’re you feeling?’ American. A lot of Americans in my life at the moment. Must be the exchange rate.
He started to move round the bed, and I could hear the crunch of dust under his shoes. And the aftershave. Much too strong. If we became friends, I’d tell him. But not now.
‘I always wanted a bike when I was a kid,’ said the voice. ‘A Harley. My dad said they were dangerous. So when I learnt to drive I crashed the car four times in the first year just to get back at him. He was an asshole, my dad.’
Time passed. Which I couldn’t do anything about.
‘I think my neck is broken,’ I said. I kept my eyes closed and the croak was coming along nicely.
‘Yeah? Sorry to hear that. Now tell me about yourself, Lang. Who are you? What do you do? You like movies? Books? Ever had tea with the Queen? Talk to me.’
I waited until the shoes turned, and slowly opened my eyes. He was out of vision, so I fixed on the ceiling.
‘Are you a doctor?’
‘I’m not a doctor, Lang, no,’ he said. ‘I’m surely not a doctor. A son-of-a-bitch is what I am.’ There was a snigger somewhere in the room, and I guessed that Rubber Face was still by the door.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘A son-of-a-bitch. That’s what I am. That’s my job, that’s my life. But hey, let’s talk about you.’
‘I need a doctor,’ I said. ‘My neck…’Tears started in my eyes, and I let them come. I sniffed a bit, choked a bit, put on a cracking good show, if I say so myself.
‘If you want to know the truth,’ said the voice, ‘I don’t give any kind of shit about your neck.’
I decided I was never going to tell him about his aftershave. Not ever.
‘I want to know other things,’ said the voice. ‘Lots and lots of other things.’
The tears kept coming.
‘Look, I don’t know who you are, or where I am…’ I faltered, straining to get my head off the pillow.
‘Fuck away, Richie,’ said the voice. ‘Get some air.’
There was a grunt from over by the door, and two shoes left the room. I had to assume that Richie was in them.
‘See, that’s kind of the idea, Lang. You don’t have to know who I am, and you don’t have to know where you are. The idea is that you tell me things, I don’t tell you.’
‘But what…’
‘Did you hear what I said?’ There was suddenly another face in front of mine. Smooth, scrubbed skin, and hair like Paulie’s. Fluffily clean, and combed to ridiculous perfection. He was about forty, and probably spent two hours a day on an exercise bike. There was only one word for him. Groomed. He examined me closely, and from the way his gaze hung over my chin I guessed that I hadareasonably spectacular injury there, which cheered me up a bit. Scars are always handy for breaking the ice.
Finally his eyes met mine, and the four of them didn’t get on at all. ‘Good,’ he said, and moved away.
It had to be early in the morning. The only excuse for that strength of perfume was that he’d only just shaved.
‘You met Woolf,’ said Groomed. ‘And his air-head daughter.’ _ ‘Yes.’
There was a pause and I could tell that 1’d pleased him, because the smile changed the sound of his breathing. If I’d denied it, wrong number, no speakee Engleesh, he’d have known I was a player. If I came clean, he might take me for an idiot. All the evidence pointed that way, after all.
‘Good. Now. Mind telling me what you talked about?’
‘Well,’ I said, frowning in concentration, ‘he asked me about my army record. I was in the army, by the way.’
‘No shit. He knew that, or you tell him?’ Another big think from the idiot.
‘I’m not sure. Now that you mention it, I think he must have known it already.’
‘Girl knew it too?5
‘Well, I can’t be sure of that, can I? I didn’t pay much attention to her.’ Good thing I wasn’t wired to a machine for that one. The needle would have gone into the next room for a lie-down. ‘He asked about my plans, what sort of work I was up to. Which isn’t much, to be honest.’
‘You in intelligence?’
‘What?’
The way I said it was supposed to answer his question, but he kept going.
‘In the army. You fought terrorists inIreland. Were you involved with intelligence.’
‘Good God, no.’ I smiled, as if I was flattered by the idea. ‘What’s funny?’
I stopped smiling.
‘Nothing, it’s just… you know.’
‘No, I don’t. That’s got a lot to do with why I’m asking. Were you in military intelligence?’
I took a painful breath before answering.
‘Ulsterwas a system,’ I said. ‘That’s all. Everything that happened there had happened a hundred times already. System was everything. People like me just, you know, make up the numbers. I slogged around. Played some squash. Had a few laughs. Good fun, really.’ I thought I might have overdone it with that, but he didn’t seem to mind. ‘Look, my neck… I don’t know, there’s something wrong. I really need to see a doctor.’
‘He’s a bad guy, Tom.’
‘Who is?’ I said.
‘Woolf. Real bad. I don’t know what he’s told you about himself. I’m kind of guessing that he didn’t tell you about the thirty-six tons of cocaine he’s brought intoEurope in the last four months. He tell you that?’ I tried to shake my head. ‘Nah, I figured he’d forget to mention that. But that’s bad with a capital B, wouldn’t you say, Tom? I’d say it was. The Devil’s alive on earth, and he’s selling crack cocaine. Yeah. Sounds like a song. What rhymes with cocaine?’
‘Pain,’ I said.
‘Yeah,’ said Groomed. He enjoyed that. ‘Pain.’ The leather shoes went for a stroll. ‘Ever noticed how bad guys mix with bad guys, Tom? I’ve noticed that. Happens all the time. I don’t know, they like to feel at home, shared interests, same star sign, whatever. See itathousand times. A thousand times.’ The shoes stopped. ‘So when a guy like you starts holding hands with a guy like Woolf, I got to say that makes me not like you very much.’