Hand for a Hand

by T. Frank Muir

  “She’s gone, Nance,” he whispered.

  Her eyes fired up. “You can’t give up, Andy. Not now.”

  “No,” he said. “I’ve lost her.” The sound of his own voice puzzled him. Had he lost her? Or had she let him go? Was it as simple as that? Daughters fell out with their fathers, held grudges for days, weeks, months, could even hate their fathers.

  Had Maureen hated her father?

  How could she? When he sat her on his knee and pretended they were on a runaway horse together, he remembered how she had giggled and squealed and wrapped her arms around his neck. How could she hate him?

  “Come on, Andy. Sit down.”

  His arm tugged. His feet lifted.

  The bench seat thudded hard against his back.

  The wooden table glistened with spillage, the ashtray grey with burned dust. He pulled out his wallet. “Here,” he said, “get me a whisky. A large one.”

  “You need rest,” Nance said to him.

  “What for, Nance? What the hell for?” He struggled to his feet. Hard hands pulled him down. He slumped back onto the bench seat.

  “Look at you,” she said. “You’re dead on your feet.”

  Dead on your feet. The irony of it brought a grin to his face. You had to be alive to be dead on your feet. “Good one, Nance. Good one.”

  She frowned again, as if not understanding. But what was there not to understand? Maureen was dead. And he had let it happen. Right under his nose, he had let it happen. He had ignored the warning signs, the notes, the cryptic clues, the crystal clear messages from Bully. Christ, how could he—

  “Andy.” She tugged his sleeve. “Look at me. Don’t listen to a word Watt says. He knows nothing, Andy. Nothing. Do you hear? Bootsie doesn’t trust him.”

  “Where’s Bootsie now?”

  “In hiding.”

  “I know that. But where?”

  Nance glanced at Watt as if to make sure he was out of earshot. “It doesn’t matter.”

  Gilchrist could tell from the glitter in her eyes that she no longer trusted him. Is that how it begins? A little bit of distrust? A bit more, until all of a sudden the ground opens up and Hell swallows you whole?

  Trust? Who knew what the fuck trust was any more?

  He stood, the move so sudden that Nance gaped up at him.

  He gave a twisted smirk. “I’m having a drink.”

  “Getting drunk’s not the answer, Andy.”

  “D’you know what, Nance?” He saw uncertainty flicker in her eyes. She had never seen him this unhinged before. He was scaring her. If he wasn’t so fucked up he would be scaring himself. “I’m not looking for any more answers,” he said. “I’ve had it up to here with answers. I’m through with being lied to every minute of every day. So do you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to get drunk. That’s what I’m going to do. If it’s all right with you, that is.”

  Nance lowered her eyes as he brushed past.

  He reached the bar and opened his wallet. He fingered a twenty, was about to remove it when it struck him what Nance had said. Had he misheard?

  He returned to the table and leaned down to her, so close his lips were almost kissing her right ear. “Bootsie doesn’t trust Watt?” he said.

  Without looking at him, Nance smiled.

  “What’s Bootsie holding back?”

  “Topley’s mother.”

  “What about her?”

  “And Wee Kenny’s mother.”

  “Yes?”

  “Were sisters.”

  Gilchrist slumped back into the bench seat. For the life of him he could not figure it out. “And?”

  “Which makes Topley and Wee Kenny cousins.”

  Maybe Nance was right. Maybe he really was dead on his feet. “I’m listening.”

  “And family,” Nance added.

  Gilchrist narrowed his eyes. Family. Now he thought he understood. “And Topley knows Wee Kenny’s dead, but doesn’t know how or who?”

  “He knows how. He suspects who.”

  Now he had it. “Jimmy Reid.”

  Nance tilted her beer to him.

  “Which means …?”

  “Any allegiance Topley had to Jimmy and Bully,” she said, “has just gone out the window.”

  “A new turf war?”

  “And then some.”

  Gilchrist smiled, but only for a moment. Something was missing. “When did Topley find out it was Jimmy?” he asked.

  “Oh …” Nance glanced at her watch. “… I’d say about ten minutes ago.”

  DESPITE THE TIREDNESS and the alcohol Gilchrist felt wide awake. As he gunned his Merc through the night, his mind sparked questions like a fired crackerjack.

  Who would launder a coffin-load of drugs?

  Chris Topley. Cleaner of all things dirty, with his legit Topley Company, shuffling money through offshore banks, business ventures, not to mention his own personal cut.

  Why bury the drugs in Topley’s grave? Why not hide them in Bully’s father’s grave?

  Because if the drug cache were ever found, it would be a simple case for Bully to deny it. Topley would be blamed. Was that not the first person Dainty pointed to when the coffin was uncovered?

  Will Bully be free in two years?

  Maybe earlier. With his shite-hot solicitor, Bully could be walking the beaches of Spain next year.

  Had Jimmy killed on Bully’s orders? Would he do that?

  You bet he would.

  Why would Jimmy kill Wee Kenny?

  Because Wee Kenny knew about Jimmy’s involvement in Chloe’s and Maureen’s murders. Maybe even knew he had grassed to Bootsie. And Jimmy trusted no one. Alive, that is.

  Why risk killing three people in the space of a month?

  Because Jimmy’s dying, with six months to live. That’s why he’s buying property in Spain now, why he’s closing shop, why he’s clearing the decks.

  But Bully and Jimmy had made a fatal mistake. They had not known, or had not cared, that Wee Kenny and Chris Topley were cousins, that they were family.

  And family changes everything.

  They reached Glasgow city centre before midnight. Gilchrist slipped off the M8 at Charing Cross, and powered down Sauchiehall Street. The one-way systems had him swearing under his breath, but Nance shouted directions.

  They walked into Babbity Bowster at five to midnight.

  The barman told them Topley had been in earlier, but had left with several others.

  “Where to?”

  The barman looked at them, dumb with confusion.

  “Ask someone,” snapped Gilchrist. “Hey. You.”

  A young girl with dirty-blonde hair in a loose ponytail almost jumped. The barman said something to her, but she shook her head. Without prompting, the barman stepped from the bar and returned a few minutes later. “They were heading for Truffles.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The Truffle Club. In Drury Street.”

  The street name tripped Gilchrist up. But Nance beat him to it. “Opposite the Horseshoe,” she said.

  It cost ten pounds each to enter.

  Gilchrist stepped up a carpeted stairway to an upper level that glowed blue and red from the strip club’s disco lighting. He thought of walking through the place and looking for Topley, but the aroma of the bar was too much for him, and he ordered a half for himself and a gin and tonic for Nance. He passed over a twenty then eyed the open floor.

  Men in dull suits and sharp ties sat at tables in small groups. Some eyed the dancer on the stage, others drooled at bare breasts presented to them table-side. Notes were palmed with the legerdemain of men trained in marital deceit, and by the time their drinks came up Gilchrist had counted eighty pounds being disposed of at the table closest to him.

  “He’s over there,” Nance said, nodding to a table near the stage.

  Topley looked drunk, not happy, and proffered money into girls’ hands with the disinterest of a financial glutton. A glass of something clear was tossed back and
the empty tumbler returned to the table with a smack that Gilchrist heard above the ambient din. They did not have long before Topley would be beyond talking. If he was not there already.

  Gilchrist threw back his whisky. “Let’s go.”

  Topley did not notice them until Gilchrist squeezed his shoulder. A muscled man seated opposite slid a hand inside his suit jacket. Nance whispered in his ear, and the man’s hand slipped to his knee.

  Topley let out a guffaw then threw a pile of twenties onto the table. “A hundred quid for you, darling, if you pop them out for us. Go on. Let’s have a goggle at those lovely tits of yours. What d’you say, Ray?” He nodded to the man opposite. “Fancy pushing your fat cock into that little lot?”

  Topley struggled to pull himself upright then flopped back as if the act was beyond him. He laughed again. “Here,” he said to Nance, and unfolded his wallet. He frowned as he rummaged inside it. “I thought I had a fifty in here.” Then he looked up with a dazed smile. “Only hundreds.” A single note flew from his hand and fluttered to the floor. “Tell you what, darling. I’ll make it two hundred. How’s that?” He raised his hands as if a gun had been placed to his skull. “I won’t even try to touch them. House rules. How fair can a man get?”

  Nance picked up the money, and for one confusing moment Gilchrist thought she was going to strip off her blouse. But she leaned forward, money held out, and said to Topley’s spinning eyes, “Should you not be giving this to Wee Kenny’s mother?”

  Topley’s face flattened. His eyes died. He lowered his hands, placed them on the table as if to prove he was unarmed.

  Gilchrist readied himself to step in.

  “Or do I get to keep it,” Nance pressed on, “if I tell you where Jimmy Reid’s at?”

  Gilchrist knew she was bluffing. But it was lovely to watch the rationale of her words worm through the drunken fuzz of Topley’s mind. Then Topley raised a hand, and Gilchrist realised with a spurt of surprise that four bouncers stood behind them.

  Chapter 38

  GILCHRIST FROZE. NANCE stood as stiff as a puppet.

  It felt as if the world was waiting for Topley to lower his hand. Even the music seemed silenced, the dancers stilled.

  “Tell the heavies to vanish,” Gilchrist said. He felt his muscles tense and wondered if Nance would take out the man to her side, or if she would expect him to do that. Or maybe both of them would be frog-marched from the Club and deposited into Drury Street.

  Then, as if kick-started, Topley’s head jerked with a drunken nod and the man called Ray pushed himself to his feet. Gilchrist sensed the space behind him clear. A gang of five men in suits as dark as their slicked-back hair trundled to the bar where they eyed Topley’s table like a pack of dogs just itching to crunch their teeth through meat and bone.

  Gilchrist took Ray’s seat. It felt warm.

  Nance pulled up the chair beside him.

  Topley tried a smile, but some part of his nervous system was not working the way it should. On the stage by Topley’s left shoulder a blonde in a thong, with breasts the colour of milked coffee, stretched into a backward crab and rolled onto the floor. A group of men at the table to Gilchrist’s left huddled in conversation, oblivious to the torsioned nudity by their side. Another group seated to his right ordered drinks. The blonde skipped to the middle of the stage, breasts bouncing like water-filled balloons.

  “You’re a persistent bitch,” Topley said to Nance.

  “Nasty’s my middle name.”

  Topley gave a gold-tooth grin then shoved the notes over to her. “Go on, take it,” he said. “You can owe me a blow-job.”

  “You don’t get it, do you?”

  “Not yet.” Topley grinned. “Maybe later?”

  Gilchrist felt his eyebrows lift as Nance picked up the money. Then he smiled as she tapped the notes together like a pack of cards, ripped them in two, then again, and let the pieces flutter from her fingers onto the table.

  Topley chuckled. But Gilchrist worried that some part of the man’s psyche was about to crack and the bouncers would be called with the flicker of an irritated eyebrow. He tried to distract Topley’s annoyance by leaning forward.

  “You never told me your mother was Wee Kenny’s aunt,” Gilchrist said.

  Topley turned dead eyes Gilchrist’s way. In the shifting light, colours danced in time with the music, casting shadows that made Topley’s face look as beaten as a boxer’s. “So?”

  “So you want to get even with Jimmy?” It was Nance.

  “What’s it to you?” Topley snarled.

  “Tell us,” she said.

  “Tell you what, darling?”

  “How to fuck Bully.”

  Topley pulled himself forward, pressed his chest against the table. “You don’t look like you need a lesson in fucking anyone, darling.”

  Like a referee, Gilchrist stepped in. “We know you’re getting ready to take on a big shipment,” he said to Topley.

  Topley turned the full heat of his leaden glare onto Gilchrist. Half-shut eyelids narrowed. Fingers balled into bruised-knuckle fists. If anything was going to happen, it would happen in the next few seconds.

  “What the fuck’re you talking about?”

  “Drugs,” Gilchrist said. “Isn’t that what you do?”

  Topley glanced over Gilchrist’s shoulder. Had he just called his team over? Gilchrist readied himself for the thump of muscled hands.

  “You’re walking on thin ice, Mr. Gilchrist. You’re talking about things that people like you do not talk to people like me about.”

  Gilchrist sensed it was now only a matter of time until Topley’s bodyguards threw them out. “I’m not interested in your grubby little empire,” he snarled, “or how you make your money. I only want to find my daughter.”

  Topley’s half-shut eyes almost opened. “Well, Mr. Gilchrist, this may come as a surprise to you and your pretty sidekick with the big tits.” He reached forward, gathered in the torn notes, then held them up. “But I am interested in making money. Lots of it.” He balled his hand, crushed the notes, and deposited them into his pocket.

  Gilchrist waited.

  Topley sat back. “What’s in it for me?”

  “I won’t press charges.”

  Topley guffawed, head back, eyes to the ceiling.

  A waitress arrived, carrying a tray on which stood a bottle of champagne and three crystal flutes. She placed a glass in front of each of them and without a word topped them with fizzing champagne. Topley palmed her a single note as she left the table. Another hundred, Gilchrist thought.

  “Charge me with what?” Topley said.

  “Why don’t you just cough up or shut up?” Nance said. She lifted her crystal glass and took a sip. “Not bad.”

  “Dom Perignon,” Topley purred.

  “I prefer Moët.”

  “I’ll have a crate sent to your home, darling. All I need is your address.”

  “And if I give it to you?”

  “Two crates of Moet would be delivered to your doorstep.” Topley placed his hand to his chest. “With all my love.”

  “Who would do the delivering?”

  “Whoever you want, darling.”

  “And would the delivery boy stay and help me polish off a bottle or two?”

  Topley leaned forward, puzzled by the change in Nance’s attitude. Gilchrist’s ears were perked, too. “Whatever you like, darling, could be arranged.” Topley reached across the table, and Nance took hold of his hand.

  “Someone once told me,” she said, “that men with money make the best lovers, because they can have all the toys they want, but can’t buy a woman’s love.” She squeezed Topley’s hand. “So, tell me, Chris. Just how much money do you have?”

  “More than enough.”

  “More than enough to keep a girl happy?”

  “More than enough to keep a girl very happy.”

  “Even someone who’s difficult to please?”

  “Especially someone who’s difficult t
o please.”

  Nance leaned lower. Her breasts swelled against the table. “I’ll make a deal.”

  Topley seemed to hold his breath. Nance had his full attention. Gilchrist’s too.

  “Do you have a good memory?” she asked.

  “Why?”

  She released his hand, then lifted her champagne to her lips. Over the rim, her eyes seemed to glitter with cheekiness. “I’ll say my address once,” she said, “and it’ll be up to you to remember it.”

  Topley’s lips twisted in a smirk of victory.

  “But first.” She took a sip, then said, “You have to answer some questions.”

  “How can I trust you?”

  This time Nance smirked. “You can’t.”

  Topley frowned and smiled at the same time, and Gilchrist caught the street cruelty of the man. Here was a man who could kick another man to death then hand his widow money at the funeral. Topley downed his champagne with barely a breath, then snapped his fingers over his head. Within seconds a bouncer as large as a lock forward stood at his side.

  “Another bottle of this stuff,” Topley ordered.

  The bouncer retreated.

  “Right, darling. You were saying?” Topley reclined in his chair, as if settling in for the evening. On the stage behind him, a dancer pirouetted like an ice skater, her arms almost clipping his shoulder, her body close enough for Gilchrist to smell her perfume.

  Nance returned her glass to the table. “You spent eighteen months in Barlinnie.”

  “Don’t tell me you hold that against me.”

  “And you shared a cell with Bully.”

  “Had to share with someone, darling. Bully’s better than some. He’s not into plugging holes, if you get my meaning.”

  “Bully mentioned Maureen’s name.”

  Topley paused, as if trying to work out if she was telling or asking, and if giving the wrong answer would blow any chance of being given her address. Gilchrist realised with a spurt of disbelief that the man’s brain was too far gone on drink and drugs to see Nance’s scheming for what it was. He really thought he had a chance to get a leg over. Amazing.

  Topley nodded. “He did.”

  “What did he say about her?” Nance asked.

  “Are you sure you want to hear this?”

  “I want to hear all of it.”