The Long Glasgow Kiss

by Craig Russell

  ‘No …’ I could tell Sneddon was doing the same jigsaw puzzle in his head that I had done in Bridgeton. ‘No, I didn’t. Do you think it’s significant?’

  ‘Well, this hot deal that turned into a fairy story about boxing academies … it could be that Small Change was covering up the detail and not the principals. Maybe it was something to do with Bobby Kirkcaldy. And maybe the deal was brokered through MacFarlane’s old chum Soutar.’

  ‘But MacFarlane was going to broker the deal to me.’ I could tell that Sneddon was laying down the fact to see what I would do with it.

  ‘Let’s not forget Small Change had his skull cracked like an egg,’ I said. ‘My guess is it was all about this deal. He was at the heart of it and was playing for the big money, not for some commission. And I suspect Uncle Bert is involved some way.’

  ‘You think he battered Small Change’s coupon in?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe. But I don’t see why he would, unless something went pear-shaped with the deal, whatever it was. But maybe it was whoever’s been leaving warning messages for Kirkcaldy. One thing I’m sure of is that Kirkcaldy doesn’t appreciate the attention we’ve been giving him. Speaking of which, can I borrow a couple of bodies to take turns watching Kirkcaldy’s place. I’ve just got the one guy and me.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Sneddon. ‘You can have Twinkletoes. You two seem to get on.’

  ‘Yeah …’ I said. ‘Like a house on fire … Thanks. I’ll let you know when I need him.’

  After I hung up I locked the office and took a taxi down to the Pacific Club. Like the last time I had been here they were just starting to get the place ready for the evening’s trade. The manager Jonny Cohen had running the place was a small handsome Jew in his early forties called Larry Franks. I’d never met Franks before but he seemed to recognize me; he came over and introduced himself as soon as I arrived. He had his jacket off and his sleeves rolled up.

  ‘Mr Cohen tells me that you’re looking for Claire Skinner.’ He grinned widely. Franks had an accent, difficult to place but there was a touch of London in it. And a touch of something much farther away. It was something you encountered every now and then. The war still cast a long shadow and, even though all but one of the Displaced Persons camps that had been spread across post-war Europe were now closed, there were still huge numbers of people building new lives in new places. Whatever Franks’s history, it hadn’t seemed to suppress his good nature. ‘Can I get you a drink? On the house?’

  ‘Thanks, but no. And yes, I am looking for Claire. Jonny said you have an address for her?’

  ‘There you go …’ Franks grinned again and handed me a folded note he took from his waistcoat pocket. I noticed something on his forearm and he tugged his shirtsleeve down, casually. ‘But getting into Fort Knox would be easier.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I unfolded the note; it had an address in Craithie Court, Partick, written on it.

  ‘It’s a pussy pound,’ he said, matter-of-factly and without a hint of lasciviousness. ‘A hostel for unmarried women run by Glasgow Corporation. It’s only a couple or so years old. Claire has her digs there. But they’ve got a matron and she’ll have your bollocks if you try to get in. Strictly no gentlemen callers. You’d maybe be better trying to catch her here the next time she’s singing.’

  ‘When would that be?’ I asked.

  ‘To be honest, it might not be for a week or more. I’ve got a new combo booked in for the next two Fridays.’

  ‘No … I need to see her before then.’ I stared at the note for a moment, my mind elsewhere. ‘I’m looking for Sammy Pollock. Or Gainsborough, as he seemed to prefer to be known. Claire’s boyfriend. Have you seen him lately?’

  ‘That wanker?’ Franks grinned. ‘No. Not for a couple of weeks.’

  ‘The last time he was seen was here. There was a bit of a disagreement outside the club, about two weeks ago. Did you see or hear any of that?’

  ‘No …’ Franks pursed his lips pensively. ‘No, can’t say I did. And nobody mentioned it either.’

  ‘Right, I see.’ I pocketed the note. ‘Thanks. And thanks for the offer of a drink. I’ll take you up on that the next time I’m in.’

  ‘Sure.’ His smile was still there but had changed. He was reading my mind and I was reading his. It said: I don’t need your sympathy.

  I walked out of the stuffiness of the Pacific Club and into the stuffiness of the Glasgow evening. The taxi was still waiting for me. I got into the back and told the driver to take me to Blanefield. I sat in silence for the whole journey, thinking about Larry Franks’s cheery manner. And the number I’d seen tattooed on the inside of his forearm.

  When I got out of the taxi, I could have sworn that Davey Wallace was in exactly the same place, in exactly the same position, as when I’d left him in the morning. We sat together in my Atlantic and he ran through twenty minutes of detailed notes. Twenty minutes of detailed nothing. He was a good kid all right and keen enough to make mustard makers the world over question their calling.

  ‘You free to do the same shift tomorrow?’ I asked. ‘Maybe a bit longer too?’

  ‘Sure, Mr Lennox. Anytime. And you don’t need to bring me up here. I know where it is and I can get the tram.’

  ‘Okay. Meet me up here a bit later. Make it six tomorrow. Nothing’s going to happen during the day, I reckon. How about your work? Will you still be okay for the early shift?’

  ‘No problem, Mr Lennox.’

  ‘Good,’ I said. Of course it wasn’t a problem. Having to cross the Himalayas wouldn’t have been a big enough problem to keep Davey away. I gave him a fiver. ‘You get off home now.’

  ‘Thanks, Mr Lennox,’ said Davey with reverent gratitude.

  This was not a good use of my time. I sat watching Kirkcaldy’s place for three hours without anything happening. Then Bobby Kirkcaldy arrived, presumably after a day at the gym in Maryhill. He turned more than a thousand pounds’ worth of Sunbeam-Talbot Sports, its soft-top folded down, into the drive. Kirkcaldy was a successful professional boxer, but even at that he seemed to be able to stretch his finances impressively. Maybe he had a paper round.

  I leaned back in the driver’s seat, sliding down to get some support for my neck, and tilted my hat over my eyes. No point in being uncomfortable. It still felt clammy and I had the window wound open, but the air outside was clammy and sluggish and there was no breeze to cool me down. I was going to have trouble staying awake. I turned on the radio but all I could get was Frank Sinatra talking his way through another forgettable tune. I decided to keep my brain active by going over where I was with everything.

  There was a tie-in with Small Change’s murder all right. Bobby Kirkcaldy was up to his neck in something that didn’t follow Queensberry rules. There was a connection between Small Change and Kirkcaldy through Soutar. Here I was trying to avoid getting any deeper into dodgy dealing and all the time I was being sucked deeper and deeper into Small Change’s murder.

  In the meantime, my other case – my one-hundred-per-cent legitimate case – was getting nowhere. I decided I would try to get in touch with Claire Skinner the next day, but I knew it wouldn’t get me anywhere. Sammy Pollock had dropped off the face of the earth. It took some doing, and I was beginning to worry that it was the kind of dropping that could only be done professionally. And then there had been Jock Ferguson’s reaction to the name Largo. If it was the same Largo who Paul Costello claimed to know, then it was someone outside the normal gangster circle, yet someone important enough to be instantly recognizable to Glasgow CID.

  I wasn’t given to much deep personal reflection; maybe because I had seen in the war where deep personal reflection got you: mad or dead. But sitting there in a car outside a probably crooked boxer’s house in the countryside outside Glasgow, I suddenly felt homesick.

  Blanefield sat above Glasgow. The sun was lower now in the sky and filtered into tones of gold, bronze and copper through the haze above the city in the valley below. I experienced anot
her of my reminiscent moments: Saint John had similar sunsets. The industrial heart of the US lay in Michigan and the dense, grime-filled air would drift north and west, exploding the Maritime Canadian sun into garnet beams and spilling red into the Bay of Fundy. But the similarity ended there. I thought back to those days before the war. Things had been different. It seemed to me people had been different. I had been different.

  Or maybe I hadn’t.

  A car pulled up behind me. A bottle-green Rover. I didn’t need to turn around to see that the driver was Twinkletoes. Either that or there was an unscheduled eclipse of the sun. He came around to the passenger door of the Atlantic and tapped on the window. I opened the door and he got into the car, causing me to be impressed with the Atlantic’s suspension.

  ‘Hello, Mr Lennox …’ Twinkletoes smiled. ‘Are you well?’

  ‘I’m well, Twinkle. You?’

  ‘In the pink, Mr Lennox. In the pink. Mr Sneddon sent me up here to take over watching Mr Kirkcaldy’s place. Singer’s going to take over from me until morning.’

  ‘It’ll be a long night, Twinkle.’

  ‘I’ve got the radio,’ he said. ‘I find jazz has a molly-fying effect on my mood.’

  ‘I’m sure it does. Who do you like listening to?’

  ‘Elephants Gerald, mostly,’ he said with a smile.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You know … Elephants Gerald. The jazz singer.’

  ‘Oh …’ I said, trying not to smirk. ‘You mean Ella Fitzgerald.’

  ‘Do I? I thought it was Elephants Gerald. You know, one of them jazz names. Like Duke Wellington.’

  ‘Duke Ellington, Twinkle,’ I said. I noticed the smile had fallen away from his face. It was time to go. ‘But I could be mistaken. Enjoy, anyway. I’ll catch you later.’

  I left Twinkletoes sitting in Sneddon’s Rover, watching the Kirkcaldy house, reassured by his promise that he would be most abb-steamy-uzz in performing his sentry duties. I went straight back to my flat. Again, as I closed the common entrance door behind me, I heard the sound of the television in the Whites’ flat being turned off. I headed straight up the stairs to my rooms and set about making myself some real coffee and ham sandwiches with bread that should have been used at least two days before, unless I had intended to use the slices as building materials.

  I had just sat down to start eating when I heard the downstairs doorbell ring and Fiona White answer it. There was a brief exchange then the sound of heavy footsteps coming up the stairs. It wasn’t that I was inhospitable, but I was not in the habit of receiving callers at the flat. In fact, one of the reasons I had established the Horsehead Bar as my out-of-hours office was because I kept this place pretty much off the radar of everyone I dealt with. So, before I answered the knock on the door, I went to the dresser drawer where I put my sap whenever I hung up my suit jacket and slipped it in my pocket. I opened the door, stepping back as I did so, and found Jock Ferguson framed in the doorway. There was another man behind him. Bigger and heavier. He was stretching a pale grey suit with extremely narrow lapels over huge shoulders and had a straw trilby type thing with a broad blue hatband on his head. He had a big face that was a little too fleshy to be handsome and his skin tone was several summers darker than the locals. The one thing that was missing was a sign around his neck proclaiming God Bless America. Seeing Ferguson at my door and in such strange company took me aback for a moment.

  ‘Jock? What are you doing here?’

  ‘Hello, Lennox. Can we come in?’

  ‘Sorry … sure. Come on in.’

  The big American grinned at me as he entered. He took off his pale straw hat and revealed the most amazing haircut I had ever seen. His salt and pepper hair had been crew-cut, clipped almost to the skin around the back and sides but bristled upwards on top. What made it truly amazing was the skill of his barber in making it perfectly, absolutely flat across the top. The picture of a hairdressing engineer, scissors in one hand, spirit-level in the other, leapt to mind.

  ‘Lennox, this is a colleague of ours from the United States. This is Dexter Devereaux. He’s an investigator, like you.’

  ‘Call me Dex,’ said the grin beneath the flat-top.

  I shook the American’s hand, then turned to Ferguson. ‘You said Mr Devereaux is an investigator like me …’ I asked. ‘Or do you mean an investigator like you?’

  ‘I’m a private eye. Like yourself …’ Devereaux smiled collegially at me. ‘I’m here on a private investigation. Criminal, but private.’

  ‘Okay … so what can I do for you?’ I asked. I realized we were all still standing. ‘Sorry … please sit down, Mr Devereaux.’

  ‘Like I said, call me Dex … Thanks.’ Ferguson and the American sat down on the leather sofa. I took a bottle of Canadian rye and three glasses out of a cupboard.

  ‘I take it you guys aren’t so on duty that you can’t have a drink?’

  ‘Speaking personally, I’m never that much on duty,’ said Devereaux. He took the whisky and sipped it. ‘Mmmm, nice …’ he purred approvingly. ‘I thought you guys only ever drink Scotch.’

  ‘I’m not a Scotch kinda guy,’ I said, and sat in the armchair opposite. Devereaux eyed my apartment, his eyes ranging casually across the furniture, the bottles on the sideboard, the books on the bookshelves. But it was the same apparent casualness of a pro-golfer preparing for a swing.

  ‘You’ve got a lot of books,’ he said turning back to me. ‘You got any Hemingway?’

  ‘Nope,’ I said. ‘No Hemingway. Just like I’ve got no blended Scotch. So what is it I can do for you, Mr Devereaux?’

  ‘Please … Dex. As for what you can do for us … you mentioned John Largo to Detective Ferguson here, I believe.’

  ‘I asked him if he knew him or anything about him.’

  ‘And what do you know about John Largo?’ Devereaux turned his eyes from me while he sipped the whisky.

  ‘All I know about Largo is his first name is John, and I only know that because Jock here inadvertently told me. And now I know that he’s some kind of really big fish, because someone is prepared to fly a twenty-dollar-an-hour private detective across the Atlantic on his account. And that, I’m afraid, is all I know. Other than someone who was a friend of someone who has gone missing knows him. And now he’s gone missing himself.’

  ‘Paul Costello. I told you about his father,’ Jock Ferguson explained to Devereaux, who nodded almost impatiently, but with his smile still in place. There was something about the exchange that told me all about the hierarchy of this relationship. This may have been Ferguson’s town, but Devereaux was calling all the shots on this case. Whoever Largo was, whatever he was into, it was big.

  ‘Who’s the friend of Costello who’s gone missing?’ Devereaux asked, and took another sip of whisky. Again, question and action both done with professional casualness.

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you that, Mr Devereaux,’ I said, returning his smile. ‘Client confidentiality. My client doesn’t want the police involved.’

  ‘You’re Canadian?’ asked Devereaux.

  ‘Yep. New Brunswick. Saint John.’

  ‘That’s practically Maine. I’m from Vermont.’

  ‘Really? That’s practically Quebec.’

  Devereaux laughed. ‘You’re not wrong there. D’yah know we’ve got the highest percentage of French Americans in the States. Higher even than Louisiana. That’s where my name comes from.’ He laughed. ‘Vermont–French, I mean, not Louisiana.’

  ‘Yes. I did know that, as a matter of fact. Like you say, New England’s just over the border from Saint John. And New Brunswick is bi-lingual.’

  ‘Ah, yes …’ Devereaux gave a sigh of exaggerated satisfaction at our exchange. I got the feeling that the hands-across-the-water act was about to come to an abrupt end. ‘You know, Mr Lennox, it really would be a big help to us if you could see your way to telling us who your client is.’

  ‘Can’t do it, Mr Devereaux. As an enquiry agent yourself, you should k
now that. But that’s the only thing I can’t do. I’ll help you in any way I can. Who is John Largo?’

  Devereaux looked into his glass. Jock Ferguson hadn’t touched his whisky. When Devereaux looked up, he was still smiling, but the thermostat had been turned right down.

  ‘You can’t expect us to trust you, Mr Lennox, if you don’t trust us. Let’s be honest, I’ve seen Detective Ferguson’s colleagues at work. The police here seem mighty interested in Mr Largo too. If you were taken in for withholding evidence, then it could be a long and painful process.’

  ‘I don’t give up my clients, Dex. Not for a beating, not for cash, and most definitely not because of threats.’ I stood up. ‘I think you gentlemen should go.’

  Devereaux held up appeasing palms. ‘Okay, okay … take it easy, colleague. Truth is, I can’t tell you too much about Largo. But you’re right, he’s a big fish. And he’s here, somewhere in Glasgow. I’ve heard all about your Three Kings … some half-assed Jock Cosa Nostra crap. Let me tell you … sorry, I can’t keep calling you Mr Lennox – what’s your Christian name?’

  ‘Just call me Lennox. Everybody else does.’

  ‘Let me tell you, Lennox, John Largo could snuff out all Three Kings in the bat of an eye. The difference between Largo and the Three Kings is the difference between shark and pond scum. The shark doesn’t know or care that the pond scum’s there, but he could destroy its universe with a flick of his tail. From what we know about him, John Largo is a step beyond being a criminal. He practically constitutes a threat to the security of the United States. A particularly dangerous, clever and well-resourced threat.’

  ‘So what is he doing in Glasgow?’

  ‘He’s spent the last five years setting up an operation that spans the whole damn world. He’s put together different elements in different countries, like links in a chain, until the chain reaches here.’

  ‘Let me guess … this is only the second last link in the chain? That’s why you’re here.’

  Devereaux’s grin widened. He turned to Ferguson. ‘You know, you were right, Jock. He is a smart cookie.’ He turned back to me. ‘Yeah. Your family came from here, right? I mean, you’re of Scottish descent?’