ten-pound notes.
“Make sure the kid keeps his mouth shut, okay?”
“No problem. Thanks very much.” Davy took the money.
Tony pulled away. As he drove, he put on sunglasses and his cloth cap.
When he emerged into the street, the blue Morris was away to his right.
He put his right elbow on the window ledge, covering his face, and
steered with his left hand.
The second detective, on Tony’s left, had his back to the road so that
he could see the pedestrian exit. The man was pretending to look in the
window of a religious bookshop.
Tony looked in his mirror as he accelerated away.
Neither of them had seen him.
“Easy,” Tony said aloud. He drove south.
The car was quite pleasant, with automatic gears and power-assisted
steering. It had a tape deck.
Tony sorted through the cassettes, found a Beatles album, and put it on.
Then he lit a cigar.
In less thin an hour he would be at the farm, counting the money.
Felix Laski had been well worth cultivating, Tony thought. They had met
in the restaurant of one of Tony’s clubs. The Cox casinos served the
best food in London. They had to. Tony’s motto was: if you serve
peanuts, you get monkeys for customers. He wanted rich people in his
gambling clubs, not yobboes asking for draft bitter and five-penny
chips. He did not like fancy food himself, but on the night he met Laski
he was eating a vast, rare T-bone steak at a table near the financier’s.
The chef was pinched from Prunier’s. Tony did not know what he did to
the steaks, but the result was sensational. The tall, elegant man at the
next table had caught his eye: a fine-looking man for his age. He was
with a young girl whom Tony instantly marked as a tart.
Tony had finished his steak, and was into a mountain of trifle, when the
accident happened. The waiter was serving Laski with canellom and
somehow a half-full bottle of claret got knocked over. The tart squealed
and jumped out of the way, and a few drops of wine spattered Laski’s
brilliant white shirt.
Tony acted immediately. He stood up, dropping his napkin on the table,
and summoned three waiters and the maitre d’hotel. He spoke first to the
waiter who had caused the mess. “Go and get changed. Pick up your cards
on Friday.” He turned to the others. “Bernardo, a cloth.
Giuliani, another bottle of wine. Monsieur Charles, another table and no
bill for this gentleman.” Finally he spoke to the diners. “I’m the
proprietor, Tony Cox. Please have your dinner on the house, with my
apologies, and I hope you’ll have the most expensive dishes on the menu,
beginning with a bottle of Dom Perignon.”
Laski spoke then. “These things can’t be helped.”
His voice was deep and faintly accented. “But it is nice to have such a
generous, old-fashioned apology.” He smiled.
“It missed my dress,” the tart said. Her accent confirmed Tony’s guess
about her profession: she came from the same part of London as he did.
The maitre d’hotel said: “M’sieur Cox, the house is full. There is no
other table.”
Tony pointed to his own table. “What’s wrong with that one? Clear it,
quickly.” “Please don’t,” Laski said. “We wouldn’t like to deprive you.”
“I insist.”
“Then, please join us.”
Tony looked at them both. The tart obviously didn’t like the idea. Was
the gent just being polite, or did he mean it? Well, Tony had almost
finished, so if it didn’t work out he could leave the table quite soon.
“I don’t want to intrude-”
“You won’t be,” Laski said. “And you can tell me how to win at
roulette.” “Right-oh,” Tony said.
He stayed with them all evening. He and Laski got on famously, and it
was made clear early on that what the girl thought did not count. Tony
told stories of villainy in the world of gambling clubs, and Laski
matched him, anecdote for anecdote, with tales of Stock Exchange sharp
practice.
It transpired that Laski was not a gambler, but that he liked to bring
people to the club. When they went into the casino he bought fifty