‘Glass,’ said Lenny, ‘Ronnie Glass.’
‘Ronald Glass, like the man says,’ said Wall, grinning at Lenny.
‘That’s ridiculous,’ said Fresco.
‘Well I think we ought to do our duty to an upstanding member of the community, don’t you? Duck in to the morgue will you, make sure – ‘
‘Make sure?’
That the bastard’s still down there – ‘
‘Oh.’
Fresco exited, confused but obedient.
Lenny didn’t understand any of this: but he was past caring. What the hell was it to him anyway? He started to play with his balls through a hole in his left-hand pocket. Wall watched him with disdain.
‘Don’t do that,’ he said. ‘You can play with yourself as much as you like once we’ve got you tucked up in a nice, warm cell.’
Lenny shook his head slowly, and removed his hand from his pocket. Just wasn’t his day.
Fresco was already back from down the hall, a little breathless.
‘He’s there,’ he said, visibly brightened by the simplicity of the task.
‘Of course he is,’ said Wall.
‘Dead as a Dodo,’ said Fresco.
‘What’s a Dodo?’ asked Lenny.
Fresco looked blank.
Turn of phrase,’ he said testily.
Wall of the Yard was back on the line, talking to Maguire. The man at the other end sounded well spooked; and his reassurances seemed to do little good.
‘He’s all present and correct, Micky. You must have been mistaken.’
Maguire’s fear ran back through the phone line like a mild electric charge.
‘I saw him, damn you.’
‘Well, he’s lying down there with a hole in the middle of his head, Micky. So tell me how can you have seen him?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Maguire.
‘Well then.’
‘Listen … if you get the chance, drop by will you? Same arrangement as usual. I could put some nice work your way.’
Wall didn’t like talking business on the phone, it made him uneasy.
‘Later, Micky.’
‘OK. Call by?’
‘I will.’
‘Promise?’
‘Yes.’
Wall put down the receiver and stared at the suspect. Lenny was back to pocket billiards again. Crass little animal; another search was clearly called for.
‘Fresco,’ said Wall in dove-like tones, ‘will you please teach Lenny not to play with himself in front of police officers?’
In his fortress in Richmond, Maguire cried like a baby.
He’d seen Glass, no doubt of it. Whatever Wall believed about the body being at the mortuary, he knew otherwise. Glass was out, on the street, foot-loose and fancy-free, despite the fact that he’d blown a hole in the bastard’s head.
Maguire was a God-fearing man, and he believed in life after death, though until now he’d never questioned how it would come about. This was the answer, this blank-faced son of a whore stinking of ether: this was the way the afterlife would be. It made him weep, fearing to live, and fearing to die.
It was well past dawn now; a peaceful Sunday morning. Nothing would happen to him in the safety of the ‘Ponderosa’, and in full daylight. This was his castle, built with his hard-won thievings. Norton was here, armed to the teeth. There were dogs at every gate. No-one, living or dead, would dare challenge his supremacy in this territory. Here, amongst the portraits of his heroes: Louis B. Mayer, Dillinger, Churchill; amongst his family; amidst his good taste, his money, his objets d’an, here he was his own man. If the mad accountant came for him he’d be blasted in his tracks, ghost or no ghost. Finis.
After all, wasn’t he Michael Roscoe Maguire, an empire builder? Born with nothing, he’d risen by virtue of his stockbroker’s face and his maverick’s heart. Once in a while, maybe, and only under very controlled conditions, he might let his darker appetites show; as at the execution of Glass. He’d taken
genuine pleasure in that little scenario; his the coup de grace, his the infinite compassion of the killing stroke. But his life of violence was all but behind him now. Now he was a bourgeois, secure in his fortress.
Raquel woke at eight, and busied herself with preparing breakfast.
‘You want anything to eat?’ she asked Maguire.
He shook his head. His throat hurt too much.