Zip Gun Boogie

by Mark Timlin

  ‘Of course not, sir,’ he said, brightening up somewhat. ‘You weren’t to know.’

  ‘No permanent liaison,’ I said. ‘And that’s official. In fact, I think I lost the lady at some point last night. You haven’t seen her anywhere, have you?’

  He looked around as if she might have been stashed in the kitchen cupboard. ‘No, sir, but apparently she and her driver helped you into the hotel about 4 a.m.’

  ‘Is that a fact?’ I said. That bit hadn’t come back to me yet.

  ‘I wouldn’t worry, sir,’ said Wilfred. ‘Worse things happen at sea.’

  ‘Unfortunately I was supposed to be on dry land at the time,’ I said.

  ‘Quite so, sir. I’ll leave you now. As I said, if there’s anything you need, just ring.’

  ‘Thank you, Wilfred.’ And he backed out discreetly, leaving the trolley and the coffee pot with it.

  Five minutes later there was another knock. ‘Come in,’ I said. The door opened and Roger Lomax entered. He was wearing the same style and colour jacket as I’d been wearing the previous night. Now I knew what Ninotchka meant about shopping in hotels. ‘Morning,’ I said.

  ‘Barely.’

  ‘Is that a rebuke?’

  ‘I thought we were going to see Trash this morning.’

  ‘What’s stopping us?’

  ‘The state of you.’

  ‘Yeah, I know, I’m a mess.’

  ‘This is a mess,’ he said, and threw the paper down in front of me. It was the Daily Mail.

  ‘I don’t read shit like that,’ I said.

  ‘Read it this morning as a favour to me.’

  I shrugged and picked it up. It was opened to the diary page and there, six inches deep and two columns wide, was a picture of Ninotchka and me coming out of the Korean restaurant again. I felt as if I had seen the movie. ‘And I wanted discretion,’ he said.

  ‘No, you didn’t,’ I said back, tapping the paper. ‘You wanted this.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Someone noisy, who stomps around and flushes out whoever is lurking in the wood pile. That’s what you wanted. If you’d wanted discretion you’d have called in Pinkerton’s.’

  At least he had the good grace to look a little sheepish. ‘And another thing,’ he said, ‘what was the big idea of leaving her security man here at the hotel? Why do you think we go to the trouble and expense of hiring these guys? So that they can sit here and watch TV and eat fillet steak at sixty bucks a throw?’

  ‘She didn’t want him around,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t give a shit what she didn’t want. It’s what I want that matters. Christ, from what I heard she carried you back here. What good would you have been if someone had been after her last night?’

  There was no answer to that, so I didn’t try.

  ‘Jesus Christ, Sharman,’ he said.

  ‘Are you giving me my cards?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ve only myself to blame. I should have known that anyone McBain recommended was bound to be a flake.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said.

  ‘How long will it take you to get dressed?’

  ‘Should be there by Christmas,’ I replied.

  ‘I’ll meet you in the lobby in twenty minutes. Remember who’s paying your wages.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I said to his back as he left the room.

  7

  I showed up present and correct, dressed in more new clothes, shaved and combed, in the lobby exactly nineteen and a half minutes later. Lomax was sitting in one of the overstuffed armchairs reading the US edition of GQ with one elegantly trousered leg crossed over the other. I was equally as elegant in a greeny-grey Valentino suit, cream shirt, and a silk tie whose pattern mimicked the interior of the succulent house at Kew Gardens.

  ‘Very smart,’ said Lomax.

  ‘Hospital visiting,’ I said. ‘Got to look crisp.’

  We drove to the Cromwell Hospital in another limo. This one was white. I felt like a bride.

  We travelled the short distance in silence. Whether Lomax was deferring to my hangover, or whether he was still miffed and letting me know it, I don’t know. Myself, I had nothing much to say. I sat and wondered what had happened to Ninotchka. I hadn’t had a chance to find out before meeting Lomax. The car pulled up at the main door of the hospital and we both piled out. The entrance hall was as different from the entrance hall of an NHS hospital as it was possible to be while still in the same business. It was nearly as luxurious as the lobby at Jones’.

  I hated it. I’d seen the insides of enough hospitals, especially casualty departments, to feel distinctly uneasy at the hush and the clean carpets and the corporate air of the place.

  We checked in with a nurse in a Dior uniform and went to a lift that whisked us straight to the top floor. More carpet, luxuriant plants in terracotta pots, and a private room so full of flowers that I half expected the wholesalers from Covent Garden to come and make a job offer.

  In the bed by the window lay a tiny man with a bush of coal-black curls. He was watching TV tuned in to an Italian soft porn quiz show on a cable channel.

  He looked away from the screen as we entered. ‘Check this fox,’ he said. ‘She’s a housewife. Whoever wins the viewer vote gets ten free minutes in the Italian version of Safeway. Shit, I wish she was my old lady.’ An extremely horny-looking blonde was just stepping out of her skirt. She was wearing a bustier, stockings and suspenders. As she bent down to untangle the hem from her stiletto heel, one pink-tipped breast popped out of her top. The game-show host was going mental, and Italian game-show hosts have got going mental down to the finest of fine arts.

  The audience was cheering and I felt like joining in. Lomax picked up the remote from the bedside cabinet and hit the off button. ‘Shit, Roger!’ said the occupant of the bed. ‘I was watching that.’ I almost added that I was too, but thought better of it.

  ‘Trash, meet Nick Sharman,’ said Lomax.

  ‘Hi,’ said the man in the bed.

  ‘Nick, this is Danny Shapiro – Trash to his friends.’

  ‘How do you do?’ I said.

  ‘How British,’ said Shapiro. ‘You guys kill me.’

  ‘Someone nearly did,’ I said.

  That brought the jollity level in the room down to a manageable level.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Shapiro.

  ‘Who?’ I asked.

  He shrugged in his silk jammies.

  You’re a big help, I thought. ‘Is your doctor about?’ I asked.

  ‘Sure,’ said Lomax. ‘On constant call. The prices we’re paying…’ He was getting tedious.

  ‘Let’s call him then.’

  Lomax shrugged and walked out of the room. ‘No idea?’ I asked Shapiro.

  ‘None, honest to God, man. I know this isn’t the friendliest of businesses in the world, but murder…’ He shuddered at the thought, and for a moment he wasn’t a big, tough rock ‘n’ roller, just a scared geezer looking for justification. ‘A joke or an accident, it had to be.’

  I lifted an eyebrow. I’m quite good at it. ‘Some joke,’ I said. ‘Where exactly did you get the gear?’

  ‘Like I told Dodge and the Doc, I don’t know.’ He looked sincere enough, but somehow it just didn’t ring true.

  ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Do you usually stick any old thing up your nose?’

  ‘No, man, I get good stuff.’

  ‘Usually.’

  He nodded.

  ‘It’s strange that no one else took it,’ I said.

  ‘You know how it is. I stash a little here, a little there. For lean times, you know.’

  I knew.

  ‘So you think it might just have been lying around?’

  ‘Could be.’

  ‘Or did someone give it to you that night?’ I asked. ‘Just you. And wat
ched you take it.’

  ‘Maybe. Christ, I can’t remember! I was so out of it.’

  Terrific, I thought. The geezer’s rotted his brain with drugs, and I’m supposed to get some sense out of him. Unless, of course, he was lying.

  ‘Try and remember, will you?’

  ‘I’ll try. But, man, my mind’s a blank.’

  A not unusual state of affairs, I surmised. But even so, I wasn’t sure that I believed him.

  We were interrupted when Lomax came back with a slight, blond man with clear-rimmed spectacles and a clean white coat.

  ‘Doctor O’Connell, Nick Sharman,’ he introduced us.

  ‘Can we talk, Doctor?’ I asked. ‘In private.’

  The doctor took me out into the hall. ‘Before we start,’ I said, ‘I know the ethics, but this could be attempted murder.’

  ‘Don’t I know it. I told them they should inform the authorities. They refused adamantly.’

  ‘What was it?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ll show you.’ He took me along the corridor and into a small office containing just a desk, two chairs and a filing cabinet. He took a set of keys from his trouser pocket and opened a drawer in the desk. He took a white paper wrapping from the drawer. ‘Heroin,’ he said. ‘His wife found this in the wastepaper basket.’

  ‘Was there enough left to analyse?’

  ‘Yes. Street grade. Maybe a bit better than that. But full of impurities. Caffeine, baby laxative, glucose… not a connoisseur’s choice. In the parlance of the junkie, it’s been stepped on heavily. If some of these people knew what they were taking…’

  ‘If it had been pure?’ I asked.

  ‘Fatal.’

  I nodded. I knew about pure horse.

  ‘Is he a user?’

  ‘No.’ O’Connell shook his head adamantly. ‘We’ve talked. I believe him. If he had been, it wouldn’t have affected him so much.’

  ‘Exactly what did happen?’

  ‘The usual. Nausea, vomiting. He wanted to sleep, but thank God his wife had the presence of mind to keep him awake. If he’d gone into a coma we might not be talking now.’

  ‘Is he all right now?’

  ‘As all right as we can make him.’

  ‘So he can leave?’ I said.

  ‘One more night should do it.’

  ‘Good.’

  I turned to go. ‘Take care of him, Mr Sharman,’ said O’Connell. ‘Next time he might not be so lucky.’

  I nodded and left. At the door I turned and said, ‘Don’t lose that,’ referring to the sample he was still holding. ‘We might need it later for evidence.’

  ‘Trust me,’ he said. ‘I’m a doctor.’

  ‘I’ll do that.’ I raised one hand in salute and went back to the room where Shapiro and Lomax were waiting. The quiz game was on again. Two naked women were rubbing what looked suspiciously like strawberry Fromage Frais into each other’s breasts. ‘The doctor’s cool,’ I said. ‘He’s given you a clean bill of health. You’re leaving tomorrow.’

  ‘That’s right. Time’s awasting and we’ve got lots to do.’

  ‘OK,’ I said, and then to Lomax, ‘You’d better make sure this man of yours is covered with security from the moment he leaves here.’

  ‘Like fleas on a dog,’ said Lomax.

  Shapiro pulled a face.

  8

  Lomax and I left soon after and drove back to the hotel. In the car he said to me, ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Dunno,’ I replied. ‘But I think he knows damn well where the smack came from.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just intuition. I’m used to people telling me lies. I can pick them out of the air.’

  ‘So why’s he not telling?’

  ‘Now that’s the tough part. Have you got that list?’

  ‘What list?’

  ‘The list of everyone who was actually in the hotel the other night, and everyone who was hanging round your man’s suite.’

  ‘No. But Trash’s old lady’ll know. She’s back at the hotel now.’

  ‘What’s she like?’

  He looked towards the roof lining of the limo silently. His look said more than words could.

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘I get the picture. What’s her name?’

  ‘Lindy.’

  ‘Nice.’

  ‘Lindy Hopp with two “p”s. Ex-groupie.’

  ‘Ex?’ I asked.

  ‘Sure. She got lucky. Married a rock star. Got the whole enchilada.’

  ‘Are they OK?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Together,’ I explained.

  ‘Oh, sure. As far as I know. Groupies are like geishas. They’re versed in the art of pleasing men. That’s their job.’

  When we got back to Jones’, we went straight to a suite on the third floor, in the far corner from Ninotchka’s. Of her there was still no sign. We knocked on the door of the Bloomsbury Suite at about 1.15. Yet another security bloke came to the door. This one’s name was Sam. He was big and black. I was beginning to wonder if anyone called Maurice or Oswald ever got into the security game, or if they all changed their names. ‘Mr Lomax,’ said Sam.

  ‘Is Lindy in?’ asked Lomax.

  ‘Sure. Come in.’

  Together we went into the sitting room. It was the same size suite as Ninotchka’s. One door to the corridor, four other doors where mine had only two. I was beginning to feel deprived. There was a long skinny woman with black hair cropped close to the skull sitting on one of the sofas watching TV. She was wearing a green lurex top cut high at the neck and a short black skirt. There were two cocktail glasses on the low table in front of her, empty except for the dregs of some creamy-coloured drink. She looked happy enough about it. ‘Hi, Dodge,’ she said. She had an American accent. A real one as far as I could tell from two words.

  ‘Lindy.’

  ‘Who’s your friend?’ She looked up at me through her false eyelashes.

  ‘Nick Sharman. He’s a private dick.’

  At the word ‘dick’ she raised her eyebrows. She couldn’t have been more obvious if she’d had ‘horny’ tattooed on her forehead. ‘Hi, Nick.’

  ‘Hi, Lindy.’

  ‘What can I do for you guys?’

  ‘Nick wants to ask you some questions.’

  ‘Sure, I’ve got nothing else to do except put another coat of varnish on my nails.’ And she moved languorously on the cushion of the sofa. The way she said it and the way she moved I suddenly realised I liked her. Few Americans, and as far as I could see even fewer people in the rock business, could appreciate irony. ‘Sit down, do,’ she said. ‘Sam, get my guests some drinks.’

  I was beginning to like her more and more. I sat on the sofa opposite and I could see quite clearly up her skirt and that she was wearing red pants. Very small red pants. She knew I could see, and I knew she knew, and it seemed to suit us both just fine.

  ‘What’ll you have, gents?’ asked Sam. I wondered if the guys from Premiere Security had to go on a bartending course before they qualified for their jobs.

  ‘Gin and tonic,’ I said. Lomax looked daggers at me. I ignored him.

  ‘Beer,’ he said.

  ‘Get me another Brandy Alexander, Sam honey, will you?’ said Lindy.

  He went over to the bar and started rattling bottles.

  ‘We’ve just been to see your husband,’ I said.

  ‘Great,’ she replied without any real show of enthusiasm.

  ‘He’ll be home tomorrow.’

  ‘Great.’ Ditto.

  ‘You’re not pleased?’

  ‘Sure. It’ll be good to have Trash back. Then he’s in the studio for a month, or rehearsing, or on tour. Fine. I see lots of him.’

  ‘You could be with him now.’

  ‘Who the hell are
you to tell me where I can or can’t be?’ she said angrily, and closed her legs and pulled her skirt down. Which did nothing to improve the view.

  Sam brought over the drinks. He gave me a mournful look as he gave me mine. I tasted it. It was fine. ‘Thanks,’ I said to his retreating back. ‘Who was here when your husband snorted the smack?’ I asked Lindy.

  She thought for a moment. ‘Trash, me, Pandora and his two little friends, Chick and Seltza.’

  I lifted my eyebrows again.

  ‘Roadies,’ she said. ‘We were partying.’

  ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘Seltza’s old lady. His English old lady. What’s her name, Dodge?’

  ‘Patty,’ said Lomax.

  ‘And Chick had a chick with him.’ She smiled a ghost of a smile. ‘And Trash’s dealer came by.’

  ‘Does he have a name?’ I asked.

  Lindy looked at Lomax who nodded. ‘Sandy,’ she said. ‘But I’m sure he didn’t…’

  ‘Someone did,’ I said to her. ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘Sweetheart.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Sweetheart. She’s a PR person with On Line.’

  I looked at Lomax. ‘They’re our PR company over here,’ he explained.

  ‘And Turdo dropped by,’ said Lindy.

  ‘Who?’ I said.

  ‘Turdo,’ said Lomax. ‘Another roadie.’

  ‘Sounds delightful,’ I said.

  Lomax and Lindy didn’t comment.

  ‘Was that it?’ I asked.

  ‘I think so,’ said Lindy.

  ‘I’d like to talk to them,’ I said to Lomax.

  ‘Sure. Anytime you like.’

  ‘And this guy Sandy – how do I get hold of him?’

  ‘He’ll be around,’ said Lindy.

  ‘Not if it was him,’ I said. ‘But I’m sure we can find him, if we look really hard. On that night, did you notice anything strange?’ I asked her. ‘You know, before he got sick.’

  ‘No. I was blasted. I didn’t know what the hell he was doing.’

  ‘And he got ill around three?’

  ‘Yeah. I was right next to him in bed when he started thrashing about, you know.’