Ruiz reaches across the table to Brendan Sobel. “Brendan, nice to finally meet.”
Sobel is so stunned he shakes his hand.
“And you must be Yahya Maluk. We haven’t met,” says Ruiz, “but I know you by reputation.”
The banker looks completely nonplussed. He glances from face to face, waiting for an explanation.
Ruiz turns to Chalcott. “Another American. Welcome to our shores.”
A waitress offers to take Ruiz’s coat.
“Thanks, love, but I’ll hold on to it. Can’t be too careful. Thieves about. Don’t want to put temptation in their way.”
She looks at his shabby coat and frowns.
“I’ll have a Peroni,” he says, giving her a wink.
Chalcott is glaring at Sobel. “Who is this clown?”
“Vincent Ruiz.”
“There you go-you do remember me,” says Ruiz. He pours himself fizzy water from a green bottle. Sips. Then he picks up the menu. “I’m ravenous. Any recommendations?”
Sobel whispers something to the driver, who has gone quiet, touching nervously at his mouth with a napkin.
“Oh, and I’m sorry about your car. That broken window. Just to prove there are no hard feelings, I’ll pay for the damage.”
Ruiz pulls an envelope of cash from his jacket, tossing it on to the table where banknotes spill across the white linen. “You left that on the front seat of my car. It’s all there-count it if you like.”
Yahya Maluk pushes back his chair. “I didn’t come here for this sideshow. Who is this man? What’s he doing here?”
Chalcott tells Sobel to get Maluk out of the restaurant.
“You’re leaving so soon? We’ve hardly had a chance to talk,” says Ruiz. “I was going to ask you about Mohammed Ibrahim. He’s looking very healthy for a man who died a few years ago and then escaped from jail. How was Ramsay’s restaurant in Maida Vale? I’ve heard good reports. The man has a potty mouth, but he can cook up a storm.”
Blood has pooled in Maluk’s cheeks like pink flowers. He wipes a film of perspiration from his top lip, stammering, “How does he know about Ibrahim? You said nobody…”
“Shut the fuck up!” says Chalcott.
The driver leads Maluk down the stairs. Luca and Daniela get another set of pictures as they leave.
The upstairs waitress has come to the table with Ruiz’s beer. She is staring at the money.
“Don’t get too excited,” he tells her. “It’s not your tip. This is what you call a bribe.”
She hesitates and walks back to the kitchen.
Ruiz shakes out his serviette. “You’re probably wondering how I found you, Brendan. You’ll find my mobile phone on the floor of the car that you sent to my daughter’s house. It was tracked to the garage beneath your offices. While on this subject-I’d like the phone back.”
Chalcott is staring at Sobel, who is altering the position of his body, trying to disassociate himself from the conversation or to disappear sideways.
“What do you want, Mr. Ruiz?”
“Call me Vincent, please. And you are…?”
“I don’t think that’s important.”
“No need to be so formal-I know all about Brendan and that office of yours. No listed telephone numbers or company tax returns.”
“We’re a communications company,” says Chalcott.
“Not the CIA then?”
Chalcott is trying hard to look relaxed and sound perfectly natural. He doesn’t like being embarrassed.
“Perhaps we could talk about this somewhere more private?”
“This is a private dining room.”
“Just you and me.”
“I’m happy if you want to invite Yahya. We can bring Ibrahim along. We can play twenty questions.”
Ruiz slides his hand into his pocket again. This time he produces a small black notebook.
“That bribe was very clumsy. I thought you guys had moved beyond trying to buy people off with beads and trinkets. This is what you wanted: Richard North’s notebook. Is this why you killed Zac Osborne?”
“We were not complicit in the murder of Zac Osborne,” says Sobel.
“Complicit: such an old-fashioned term. What about Richard North and Colin Hackett?”
“Please keep your voice down, Mr. Ruiz.”
“Explain it to me.”
“You are not owed an explanation.”
Ruiz taps the notebook against his cheek. “You have broken into my house, you have gate-crashed my daughter’s wedding, bugged my phones, hounded my friends… I’m owed for that.”
“You must think this is feeding time at the zoo,” says Chalcott, who has folded his serviette and placed it neatly on the side of his plate. “I won’t say that it’s been a pleasure.”
“I thought the CIA might be investigating a money-laundering operation,” says Ruiz. “Or trying to track down a wanted terrorist. But then I saw Mr. Maluk arrive. You’ve known all along about the cash being laundered through Mersey Fidelity. The ghost accounts. Iraqi money. Reconstruction funds. Drug profits… Which begs the question-why would the CIA allow something like that to happen?”
“That is a question too far, Mr. Ruiz, but you are right about one thing-you are jeopardizing a major security operation.”
“Oh, I see. There’s a bigger plan. So what is Mohammed Ibrahim doing in London? Perhaps you organized his release from prison. Is he your monster?”
“Be careful, Mr. Ruiz.”
“You know what they say about lying down with dogs?… You wake up with a career in the movies. No, that’s not it. Fleas. You wake up with fleas.”
Chalcott’s eyes behind rimless glasses seem to be concentrated on burning a hole through Ruiz’s forehead. “You do us a disservice, sir. You come in here, treating us like the Bumstead crowd, making outrageous allegations, getting in my face in a public place-that’s not very intelligent behavior. We can go somewhere now and talk about this, or I can find you later.”
It is a threat. Chalcott doesn’t look like a dangerous man, but an unlined face can hide a myriad of sins. His thick brown hair is ruffled slightly by the currents from the air conditioner. Joe O’Loughlin has taught Ruiz that true narcissists become intensely angry if anyone suggests they are not perfect. They seek to destroy the messenger rather than admit their flawless image might be blemished.
“I thought you were a clever man,” says Chalcott. “Clearly, I was misinformed. You come in here looking like you fell out of a laundry bag, making threats and baseless allegations, thinking you can rattle me. You think I give a fuck what some pissant, washed-up former detective is going to do?”
Ruiz looks at his hands and feet. He was wrong to come here; foolish to think they would tell him anything. By confronting them, by humiliating them publicly, by peeling away the carefully constructed facade of their work, Ruiz has inserted broken glass into the brains of dangerous men.
The manager has arrived. He is standing three feet away, his tongue wetting his lips.
“Perhaps you gentlemen could lower your voices.”
Chalcott’s eyes are filled with a black light. “Why don’t you fuck off?”
The manager takes a step back.
“It’s all right,” says Ruiz. “I’ll be leaving in a moment.”
“Nice to hear it,” says Sobel.
The driver leans down to whisper something in Ruiz’s ear but doesn’t finish the sentence.
In that moment something breaks inside Ruiz-not a clean snap like a bone or a branch splintering, but a moist sound like wet sheets flapping on a windy day. A kaleidoscope of images tumbles through his mind-Zac Osborne’s tortured body, Elizabeth North vomiting in the gutter, Holly Knight without a family, Richard North dragged from the stinking mud.
In the pause between heartbeats, Ruiz swings his elbow back in a short arc, connecting with the driver’s throat, closing his windpipe. In the same motion, he drags him face-first on to the table sending plates and glasses crashing to the floor. The next blow is delivered with a pepper mill inside Ruiz’s fist, hooking the driver under the left eye. He doesn’t want to stop. He can feel the old wheels starting to turn and the cobwebs being blown out. It feels better than it should.