pounds worth of chips and gave them all to the girl The evening ended
when Laski, by now quite drunk said: “I suppose I should take her home
and screw her.”
After that they met several times–never by arrangement-in the club, and
always ended up getting drunk together. After a while Tony let the other
man know that he was gay, and Laski did nothing about it, from which
Tony concluded that the financier was a tolerant heterosexual.
It pleased Tony to know that he could befriend someone of Laski’s class.
The scene in the restaurant was the easiest bit, and it was well
rehearsed: the grand gestures, the posture of command, the heavy
courtesy, and a conscious moderating of his accent. But to maintain the
acquaintance with someone as brainy, as rich, and as used to moving in
near-aristocratic circles as Laski was, seemed quite an achievement.
It was Laski who made the first move toward a deeper relationship. They
had been bragging-drunk in the early hours of a Sunday morning, and
Laski had been talking about the power of money. “Given -enough money,”
he said, “I can find out anything in the City-right down to the
combination of the lock on the vault in the Bank of England.” Tony said:
“Sex is better.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sex is a better weapon. I can find out anything in London, using sex.”
Now that I doubt,” said Laski, whose sexual urges were well under
control.
Tony shrugged. “All right. Challenge me.”
That was when Laski made his move. “The development license for the
Shield oil field. Find out who’s got it-before the government makes the
announcement.”
Tony saw the gleam in the financier’s eye, and guessed that the whole
conversation had been planned. “Why don’t you ask me something
difficult?” he countered. “Politicians and civil servants are much too
easy.” “It will do,” Laski smiled.
“Okay. But I’ve got to challenge you, too.”
Laski’s eyes narrowed. “Go on.”
Tony said the first thing that came into his head. “Find out the
schedule for deliveries of used notes to the currency destruction plant
of the Bank of England.”
“It won’t even cost me money,” Laski said confidently.
And that was how it had started. Tony grinned as he drove the Ford
through South London. He did not know how Laski had managed to keep his
half of the bargain; but Tony’s side had been a doddle. Who has the
information we want? The Minister. What’s he like? The next thing to a
virgin–a faithful husband. Is he getting his oats from the wife? Not
much. Will he fall for the oldest trick in the game? Like a dream.
The tape ended, and he turned it over. He wondered how much money had
been in the currency van–a hundred grand? Maybe even a quarter of a
million. Much more than that, would be embarrassing. You couldn’t walk
into Bardays Bank with sacks full of used fivers without arousing
suspicion. About a hundred and fifty grand would be ideal. Five gees for
each of the boys, a few more for expenses, and about fifty thousand
surreptitiously added to the takings of various legitimate businesses
tonight. Gambling clubs were very useful for concealing illicit income.
The boys knew what to do with five grand. Pay off a few debts, buy a
secondhand car, put a few hundred in each of two or three bank accounts,
give the wife a new coat, lend the mother-in-law a couple of bob, spend
a night in the pub, and bang, it was all gone. But give them twenty
thousand and they started to get silly ideas. When unemployed laborers
and freelance odd-job men were heard to talk about villas in the South
of France, the law began to get suspicious.
Tony grinned at himself. I should worry about having too much money, he
thought. Problems of success are the kind I like. Don’t count your
chicks before you’ve laid them, Jacko sometimes said. The van might be
full of worn out halfpennies for melting down. Now that would be a
chuckle.
He was nearly there. He started to whistle.
Felix Laski sat in his office, watching a television screen and tearing