At lunch, my girlfriend Ros popped by the office with some sandwiches and a couple of cans of c.o.ke.
"I have an hour," she said, "before my next cla.s.s."
Ros moved from the U.S. to lecture in post-modern feminist philosophy at the University of Dundee. She still maintained an accent, although there was a hint of Scots creeping into her Southern tw.a.n.g.
We chatted as we ate. She was excited about an upcoming conference: Transcendence and the Self. She talked about things I didn"t understand. They say that opposites attract.
When she left I looked over at the iron safe I kept in one corner of the room. I could almost see the wrapped parcel in there, tempting me with its secret. You don"t fall into my line of work without an inquisitive mind. And where Jimmy was concerned, my instincts acted overtime. I could have opened the package. But I"d felt the lockbox in there, figured someone as paranoid as Jimmy would know if it had been tampered with. He talked like an eejit, but he was smarter than most folks gave him credit for.
Close to ten at night, I was still in the office replying to email when my mobile phone began bleating. I answered in three rings.
"Hey, man."
"Jimmy," I said, genuinely surprised to hear from him. "What"s up?"
"Look, man." He was having trouble starting sentences. He sounded high. At the very least p.i.s.sed out of his ugly wee face. "There"s been a, y"know, like, a wee..." I thought I could hear a car pulling away in the background. "Complication," he said finally.
"Complication?"
"Just get the b.l.o.o.d.y package, awright, and meet me."
"Aye, okay. Where?"
After a moment, he said, "Balgay Park. Up near the cemetery. The wee theatre thing."
"The amphitheatre?"
"Aye, whatever-the-h.e.l.l." He hung up.
I dialled 1471 and the BT woman on the end chimed in with, "We"re sorry, but the last caller withheld their number."
I sighed. Jimmy"s like a stray dog who p.i.s.ses all over the rug. When you take him in you feel a little sorry for him but every time he does his business you have an overwhelming urge to boot him out the door.
I opened the safe and took out the package. Whatever was inside was important to Jimmy. I wanted to know why. Jimmy was going to tell me. He wouldn"t have a choice.
I went out into reception and grabbed a plastic bag from where Babs kept a whole stack beneath her desk.
I tucked the package into a Tesco"s carrier and headed out the office. Locking up as I left, I thought the night was blacker than usual. The close was more confined, and every time I stopped thinking about it the walls in my peripheral vision began closing in. I could have done with a drink, but Jimmy would probably be at the amphitheatre already. He sounded scared enough that he"d want to deal with whatever the situation was as soon as possible.
My car was parked across the street. I slid into the driver"s seat and started up the engine. I placed the package in the pa.s.senger footwell. I was five or ten minutes drive from Balgay Park. I planned on going in the back way, past the Western Necropolis You twist and turn on this road until you get to a large amphitheatre just across from a gra.s.sy expanse that, in the summer months, is filled with families and couples and people walking their dogs. It can be beautiful in the day and darkly eerie at night.
I left the BMW beside the gate at the rear entrance to the park. The gates were locked and bolted. I vaulted them and walked between the Balgay hills, underneath the Hird Bridge.
When I arrived at the amphitheatre, Jimmy was sitting on a stone wall, smoking a cigarette. He trembled as he sat. At first I thought it was the cold night air. As I got closer, I saw the cuts and bruises on his face. His shirt was ripped. His knuckles and the backs of his hands were red raw. Between drags on the cigarette he whistled off-key s.n.a.t.c.hes from an old Frank Sinatra number: My Way.
"What"s going on, Jimmy?"
He looked up and saw me. Grinned, his eyes watering as though just moving the muscles in his face hurt. "Heh, straight down tae business, likes?"
"Tell me."
"Ye brought it, I see."
I sat down on the wall beside him. Laid the package on my far side out of his reach. Then, I reached inside my jacket pocket to bring out a pack of L&B. I sparked up and took a deep drag. I waited for him to say something.
"Do you no want tae know who it was beat me up, then?"
"Aye."
I was nearly done with the cigarette when he said, "Ye might have guessed it"s got something with the wee package I left you."
"Aye."
"Pretty obvious, likes." He patted down his pockets. "s.h.i.te. Got another f.a.g on you?"
I took my cigarettes out again and pa.s.sed him one. He used his own lighter. A cheap, disposable bic with a Saltire printed on the side.
"The package belonged to this wee w.a.n.ker I met in the Fiddler"s Drop."
I knew the place, up in Lochee. The kind of pub you could describe only as a dive. Dirty, smoke-filled and stinking of body odor. The landlord, William McVey or Wee Willie Winkie as he"s better known is a greasy little moron who survives not so much on the drink he sells but on the kickbacks he takes for allowing certain less than legal businesses to operate on his premises.
"Cannae remember his name. But he was drinking pint after pint: getting more and more p.i.s.sed, waiting for someone to arrive. He was gonnae sell them the package, and they were gonnae pay him good money for it. He didnae want tae tell me what was inside. Anyway, his buyer"s late and he"s getting more and more bladdered, so I"m chatting away tae him and telling me all kinds of c.r.a.p. Ken, stuff he shouldn"t be telling the likes of me. f.u.c.king love loose-lipped alchies, eh?"
He paused and blew a long plume of smoke into the night air. He wasn"t shaking so bad now. "Aye, so anyway he needs to go take a leak and he"s so p.i.s.sed he asks me tae look after the package. Leaves it there, and the wee piece of paper with the name of his client on it. Pretty b.l.o.o.d.y stupid, aye?"
I nodded.
"So I figured I could dae the deal myself, make a quick bit of cash. Should have read the wee note first."
"Who was he waiting for?"
Jimmy smiled, somewhat bashfully. "Omar," he said.
I took a deep breath.
"Aye, well, we all make mistakes."
"One h.e.l.l of a mistake crossing Omar," I said.
"Aye, well, I think I may have made matters a wee bit worse than that."
I shook my head. "That who beat you up?"
"Oh, no the man himself. Some big b.u.g.g.e.rs he sent for the package."
"You were holding out for money, weren"t you?"
"Aye."
"Just give him the b.l.o.o.d.y package."
"Can"t." He took a deep drag on the cigarette. "s.h.i.te, it"s like a matter of honour, y"ken?" I didn"t comment about Jimmy using the word, "honour". He believed himself and I couldn"t shake that kind of conviction.
I pa.s.sed him the package. "Just take it, Jimmy. Do what you have to do."
Jimmy took the package. "What I have tae do, Sam, is tae meet Omar in a little under two hours. He"s gonnae give me what I asked for. I"m gonnae give him the package."
"Great," I said, standing up. "Good for you." I made to walk away.
Jimmy grabbed my arm. "Which is why I need ye to do me another wee favour," he said.
"No way."
"Aw, c"moan, man. After aw the c.r.a.p..."
I turned around.
"Just come along, man. Stand aroond a bit. Muscle and aw that."
"Muscle?"
"Omar knows you, right?"
"Aye. He wants to break my face."
"Is there anyone in Dundee who doesn"t? Look, man, he doesnae like you but I think he respects you. Like Sherlock Holmes and Blofeld... Doctor Evil... ahhh, whatever the b.a.s.t.a.r.d"s name was."
I pinched the bridge of my nose. I wanted to go home and climb into bed beside Ros. But Jimmy wasn"t going to let this go easily. Besides, I owed him more than a few favours. It was one of the reasons I didn"t just break into that lockbox in the first place.
"Okay," I said. "Let"s go."
My mobile began to shriek. I took it out and looked at the caller ID. Babs, my secretary, was calling from her mobile.
"Sam, where are you?" Her voice trembled.
"I"m working on something," I said.
"So you have time tae get back tae the office?"
"What is it?"
"Some b.a.s.t.a.r.ds broke in. Wrecked the place!"
It took me a second to digest the information. "How bad is it?"
"It"s gonnae take me days tae get the files back in order. Doesnae look like anything was actually taken. They broke into your safe. The wee one in the office."
"You weren"t there?" Babs is in her mid sixties, and as tough as she is, I couldn"t help being worried about her.
"No. I got the call fae the polis."
"Okay," I said. I had a fair idea of what might have happened. "Who"s dealing with it?"
"Sandy"s come in, said he wanted to oversee it personally when he heard it was your place." Sandy"s a DI with the local CID and my best mate since school. He"s one of the few coppers in Tayside Constabulary who hasn"t branded me a professional pain in the a.r.s.e.
"Sure, that"s great. Could you put him on?"
"It"s a real mess," Sandy said.
"They didn"t take anything?"
"Not like we can tell. The safe seemed to be the main target. Did you have anything important in there?"
"No. Just cash and a few files. Look, I"ve got some work to finish tonight but I"ll come down tomorrow take an inventory, see if anything"s been nicked, okay?"
"Must be something important."
I looked over my shoulder at Jimmy who threw his dying cigarette on the ground and stamped it out.
"Might be," I said, and hung up.
I turned back to Jimmy. "I have to ask you something."
"Whitever."
"Did you tell Omar you gave me the package for safekeeping?"
He laughed. "Naw, man, what do y"think I"m an eejit?"
"What did you tell Omar?"
"Told him I had his s.h.i.te and he would have to give me a wee bit of money if he wanted it delivered."
"What did you tell the lads he sent round to beat the living c.r.a.p out of you?"
"Aww, man, what d"ye think I Y"know, I may hae said one or two things I cannae quite remember right now."
I clenched my fists tight, but kept them down by my sides. "You told them where you put the package. My office was just broken into. They were looking for something, gave the place a real going over. Now unless the world is conspiring for to put together some pretty neat coincidences, I"d say that was Omar looking for whatever"s in that package."
Jimmy held the box close to his chest, like he was afraid I"d come over and try to rip it out of his grasp.
"Are there going to be any more surprises?"
He shook his head.