Beck: Your beers. My whisky. Why do we come here? It’s a pig sty.
Freeman: No one’s going to be watching us here. There’s nothing wrong with the beer.
Cassatt: This is what I got to show you, Jerry. It looks like nothing but it fucking got me inside.
Freeman: Is that a key? Looks like a little metal badge. What’s the logo?
Beck: LPS. Life Patent Strategies. I thought your mate here might want to expand his horizons. That’s a key to a locked door, Mike. You keep it in your wallet. You’ll need it next time you go back.
Cassatt: There won’t be a next time. That place gave me the fucking creeps. It’s a fucking prison. Getting out of the can is a piece of piss compared to getting out of there. And it was in the middle of fucking nowhere. It’s a long way out to Campbelltown that time of night.
Beck: It doesn’t matter when you go, that place never stops. It’s real money. Another world. You don’t walk away from chances like that, you take them. I’m getting another whisky.
Freeman: You got through that one quickly enough, mate. Jesus, he gives me the shits sometimes. What was he doing taking you to that place?
Cassatt: What he’s always doing. Fucking jerking himself off. Another world. Crap! I don’t need it if it is.
Freeman: You going to keep that little badge thing?
Cassatt: Yeah, think I will. Might be handy if I’m dealing with old Jerome one day. You never know. Might be a problem for him that he gave it to me. Did you see the news last night?
Freeman: No, mate. I don’t bother with all that shit.
Cassatt: I turn on the TV and it’s fucking Paulie talking about something or other. I thought, yeah, you cunt, where’s Ambro? The way the fucking press talk about him, it’s like he’s Christ on skates. They should talk to me. I’ll tell them how I fucking near knocked his front teeth out-
Freeman: Mate-
Cassatt: No, he says, I won’t shoot him. You fucking cunt, Paulie. If I tell you to shoot Eddie, you fucking shoot him. He’s there on the carpet at your feet. Do it!
Freeman: Matey, keep your mouth shut. You’re fucking on tape. Beck’s back.
Beck: You should listen to me. You can manufacture there, you can experiment there. You can turn out something new. You can do a good business out of that place.
Freeman: I thought we came here to talk about sparklers.
Cassatt: No one’s going to let us into that place. Everyone wears a white coat.
Beck: If you pay the rent, why not? It’s what everybody else does.
Cassatt: We don’t need a setup like that for the shit we sell. Who was that joker you met in the corridor? The one with no fucking hair or ears, like he came out of some horror movie. He knew who you were, mate, and you knew him. It looked to me like the last thing you two wanted was to see each other.
Beck: He’s nobody.
Cassatt: He wasn’t acting like that. He acted like you were the nobody and he didn’t know what the fuck you were doing there. What were you trying to prove? The guards fucking near spat in our eyes when you walked in. They don’t like you there. They let you in because they had to. No, mate. You don’t have that to offer.
Beck: You don’t know who I am. I do have that to offer. But those guards, they’re like you. They won’t see the realities. I’m the side of the business they don’t like to think about. I’m just reminding God’s daughter who I am and who she really is. She won’t insult me again. If she doesn’t like it, too bad.
Cassatt: Who the fuck is God’s daughter?
Beck: (laughter)
Freeman: Something tickle your funny bone, mate? Must be a pretty funny joke.
Beck: It is, believe me.
Freeman: How come you can get into a place like that?
Beck: Because I know where the money comes from. I know how it gets spent. That building is the biggest washing machine in the world.
Cassatt: Where does that much money come from?
Beck: From the old man. God the Father. The Alpha and the Omega. That’s how he sees himself.
Freeman: That tells us a lot.
Beck: Then don’t ask questions. You said we were here to talk diamonds. Okay, we will. I want to get another shipment over here. The same arrangement as last time. Can we do it?
Cassatt: Just where do you get your rocks from, mate?
Beck: Why?
Cassatt: I’m curious.
Beck: From a place called Kisangani. I’ve got people there.
Freeman: Kisangani? Sounds like kiss my arse.
Beck: It’s a town in the Congo, a diamond market. The last time I was there, four years ago, it was a war zone. You wouldn’t have lasted five minutes.
Cassatt: What were you doing there then?
Beck: We went there because we were hiding something.
Freeman: What do you hide in a place like that?
Beck: There’s a civil war on, mate. Dead people. What else?
Cassatt: Keep your voice down. Do you want to tell the whole fucking room?
Beck: Who’s here? Some bitch at the bar doing her business. We went there for Jean, God the father, for his daughter. She didn’t know, she said. No? She must be stupid. Their names aren’t on the papers but they knew what we were doing there. Jean told me to my face, you go there and you do this. You come back and you tell me what happens. And they think they’re better than me.’
Cassatt: What are you talking about, mate?
Beck: This place is shit. Why do you want to drink in this pig sty? Because it suits you?
Freeman: If that’s how you feel, I might fuck off, mate. I don’t know about you but I’ve got better things to do.
A second conversation followed almost immediately afterwards, again beginning with Freeman’s voice giving the date and time. It was just a few days after the previous meeting. They were at someone else’s house this time, neutral ground. Beck wasn’t there. Baby Tooth was. Arrogantly alive, he gave Harrigan his catch-all almost straight off. There were sounds of him arriving, the offer of a drink, and then the Ice Cream Man talking.
Cassatt: I found her, mate. I found where Paulie’s stashed Ambro. It’s so fucking obvious, I should have thought of it myself. I’m on my way out there as soon as I can get away.
Baby Tooth: I’m glad to hear it. I was pushing my luck getting that address out of my old man. I didn’t want to do it for nothing.
Freeman: Didn’t he ask you why you wanted to know, mate?
Baby Tooth: (laughter) You’re joking, aren’t you? What you don’t know can’t hurt you. He just called in a favour from his mate, old Roger, and gave me the address on a piece of paper. He didn’t say a word. Didn’t even look me in the eye. Far as he’s concerned it never happened.