The Melting Man

'Come on, honey. Flip it over. After that it's no hard feelings and loving kindness all round. Najib likes you and, what's more important, I like you and that spells a rosy future somewhere.'

Giving myself time to think, I said, 'Great help you've been — keeping Max on ice for me.'

'That? Honey, that was just for laughs. Come on, goose-pimples — give!'

I gave. I tossed the parcel to her and I deliberately threw it a little wide and a little short. It landed on the ground a foot in front of her and to her left. She flexed her gorgeous legs and bent, reaching for it with her free hand, her ample breasts sagging against the wet stuff of her white bra, and her eyes never left me except for the split second when eyes and hand had to coordinate to locate and pick up the parcel. It was the moment I wanted. I already had my hand on my trunks covering the bulge of the rubber torch inside. I had it out and jumped for her as her eyes came back to me. She made a good try. In fact she gave me a three-inch slash on my left arm but it was too hurried to be serious, just messy. It hit her as hard as I could just at the side of the right temple, really hard, and to hell with chivalry, and she went over on her back and stayed there.

I grabbed the parcel and ran, away round the lake in the opposite direction from which Najib's calling voice was coming. I didn't run for long, not in bare feet. But I kept going, hobbling fast, and luck was with me. I struck a small path, coated with dry pine needles and finally came back round to the grassy plateau.

Najib's Thunderbird was parked alongside my Mercedes. He'd left the ignition keys in so I took them and chucked them into the water. Then, without waiting to get dressed, I drove away, turning the heater up full blast. I couldn't wait to get to the nearest hot coffee and lace it with cognac.

As I drove down the track in the woods, and when I was almost in sight of the main road, a beaten-up yellow Citroen pulled suddenly out of the trees on to the track ahead of me and stopped. I braked to a halt about ten yards from it. Through the back window of the Citroen I could see a woman at the wheel. I waited for her to move on and while I did so, reached back for my shirt and trousers. I had them in my hand when the beaming, bespectacled face of Tony Collard appeared in the window across from me. He opened the door and got in, and, with a smoothness that astonished me, picked up the parcel from the seat and stuffed it inside his Windbreaker, reached back and got the shotgun, broke it and checked that there were no shells in it, and then, drawing a gun from his belt, said amiably, 'Just follow Mimi.'

He reached over and pressed the horn. The car ahead started to move. He prodded me in the ribs with the gun and I followed.

I said, 'If we've got far to go I'm not dressed for it.'

'We'll keep the heater going.' He looked admiringly at me and said, 'I had a bet with Mimi you'd make it. Five hundred francs. Great little gambler that girl. This is the thing there's all the fuss about?'

He held up the parcel.

I nodded.

'That's what your boss really wanted — not the car?'

'I wouldn't lie to you.'

'Course not, you're a buono raggazzo. But don't worry, Tony will take care of you and everything. You're my friend, in a sense.'

'What sense?'

'That I got respect for you. My old man always said if you want to succeed with people you got to work with their natures, not against them. How was Otto?'

'No complaints.'

'Good. Mind you, Otto had his points. The master mind — that's what he used to think he was, and he was to some extent. Do a job in France and scoot back to Italy. Do a job in Italy and scoot back to France. That's where we're going. A little hiding place we had this side of the border. Old mill, not working now, of course. Orchard with medlars and pears… lovely place for a kid to play. And a stream. Course, now Otto's gone that makes me the master mind. I can tell you, I had trouble with Mimi about it at first, but she's come round to my way. Did you have to rub out either of those two up there?'

We were out on the main road now and heading east. 'I was a bit rough with the girl.'

'Fix their car?'

'Yes.'

'Good. Then we can all relax.' He leaned back and lit a cigarette and began to hum to himself. After a while, he said, 'I don't mind being pushed around strictly in the way of business. Got to expect it now and then. Don't mind if anyone pushes Mimi around a bit, come to that. But' — he gave me a big smile and chuckled to himself — 'I'm dead against any bastards that could push a little baby around. That long-legged, dark number just chucked the feed bottle out of the window. It takes a woman, you know, to be really cruel to a little baby. You can see that's why I had to talk.'

'Absolutely.'

I knew it was no good trying to hurry him or force him to put events in order, and anyway, I was dog-tired and longing for something hot and fiery to be burning my gullet. I knew that I was going to have to deal with him but it wasn't the moment and I wasn't in the mood. His master brain had dreamed up some scheme but until I was dressed and in my right mind it would have to wait.

'My old man used to say,' he said, 'that a black child develops mentally faster than a white up to the age of twelve, and then it stops. They can't get beyond twelve. Something in it, I think, or that dark number must have thought I was an idiot. If he'd come down the road first I was going to take him. But I'm genuinely glad it was you.' He began to laugh. 'God, I'd like to see their faces now.'

Ahead of me, Mimi turned off the main road on to a B number.

Tony said, 'Make a lot of money in your job?'

'Enough.'

'Somebody asks you to do something, like, and you do it — no questions asked?'

'Sort of.'

'Must be interesting.'

'There's always something happening. Like now.'

That tickled him but he overlaughed it as usual.

Recovered, he said, 'I'd have liked working with someone like you instead of Otto. He was a randy, rotten runt. If you don't have nothing else in this life, my old man used to say, you've got to have respect for women. That's what he used to say, but he never acted like it. Some ways he was worse than Otto. Mimi's going to turn left up ahead. You'll have to get into low gear. Like the side of a house.'

I followed Mimi for a couple of miles up a steep, winding hill, and then we came out on to a wide plateau, fringed on three sides by woods. As Tony had said, there was an orchard, full of moss-covered fruit trees, a small paddock and a tall mill-house standing at the side of a stream. Attached to the mill-house was a low cottage with a paved yard in front of it.

I drew the Mercedes up behind Mimi's car in the yard. Ahead of us she got out, reached into the car and brought out a carry-cot, and then went into the house.

Tony said, 'If you don't try any tricks we'll get on well. Nothing's going to happen to you and your boss won't be able to blame you.' He grinned, winked at me, and added, 'Let's face it, we've all got to have our failures.'

He got out and, gun in hand, marshalled me into the cottage. The main room was large, stone-flagged, and with a kitchen range against one wall. Mimi sat on a chair, gave me a nod, and then opened her blouse and started to feed the baby.

'There's not much here, Tony,' she said. 'With all the upset. Get the fire going and warm some up. But you'll have to do something with him first. The baby food's in the case in the car.'

Tony went over to her, kissed the top of her head and kept his eyes on me all the time. Then he went to a door at the far side of the room, drew back bolts and opened it, motioning me to him.

'I think they wintered the goat or cows in here once. Kind of central heating for the house.' He chuckled. He waved me in.