Dead Money (17 page)

"What do you want, Alan?"

"I tried to call you."

"I've been busy."

"So I can see."

She huffed and turned towards the kitchen. I followed her.

"Left a couple of messages, too."

"I didn't get them."

"See, that's what I thought, which is why I came round. I thought we could get coffee or something."

"Not today." She filled the kettle and flicked the switch.

"Okay, then whenever you want."

She looked at her nails, then pushed some hair out of her face. "I don't know. I'm busy."

Something exploded in the living room. It was Josh's turn to swear this time.

"How about Friday? I'll take you out."

"I've got something on that night."

"Then I'll take you out to lunch." I'd never intended on taking her out at night. As far as I was concerned, my nights belonged to Cath, at least for the foreseeable future. I had to stay in her good books. It was much easier to get an alibi from your wife if she liked you. "Wherever you want. Just name it."

"Alright then." She lifted her chin. "Abode."

"Sorry?"

"Abode. Look it up. Give me a call when you have reservations. Until then ..." She shooed me out of the kitchen.

"Okay. Abode it is." I left the kitchen and she showed me to the door. As I passed the living room, I peeked in. Josh and Daz were playing some game on the console, but it wasn't the game that'd caught my eye. It was the pile of Warmsafe leaflets that sat on the coffee table. I walked in, picked one off the top. Josh gave me the once-over then went back to his game. The leaflet was dog-eared and dirty and had a three-year-old logo on it. That crappy cartoon of a window with a crown on it. It meant nothing back then, but it meant a hell of a lot now.

"Where'd you get this?"

Josh didn't look away from his game, so Daz had to give me the filthy looks on his behalf. "I told you, we already talked to one of you lot today."

"Today?" I turned to Lucy. "You see him?"

"Just for a second."

"He was a pushy bastard," said Josh. "Kept wanting in."

"What'd he look like?"

"Short, fat." Josh shot a man in the face. "Smelled a bit like he hadn't had a wash in a while."

He must've stank if Captain Boxers here thought he wasn't clean. Which narrowed it right down. "How long did he stay?"

Josh turned from the game long enough to sneer. "I just took some of that shite off him and told him to do one." He punctuated the sentence with a burst of machine gun fire.

"You know him?" asked Lucy.

"Yeah, I do." I went back out into the hall. "I don't know why he came over here."

"Should I be worried?"

She wasn't entirely serious. Maybe she should have been. I didn't know. I was worried, I knew that much. The only reason I could think of Beale using stock to get through the front door was that he was scouting for a look at Lucy. Why he needed a look at her was another question entirely. "No, probably not."

"What is it?"

"I don't know. Probably nothing. I just want to keep any eye on it, that's all. I've not been taking his calls recently, so he might think this is a way to get back at me."

"Alan, what're you doing with friends like that?"

"Bad decisions. I don't know. Look, if he comes round again, give me a ring, okay? And don't let him in. He's not dangerous or anything, but he might be persistent, In the meantime I'll try and sort it out."

"Okay."

"And I'll also get this Adobe—"

"
Abode
."

"Yeah, I'll get that place booked."

She took me to the door. Any hostility she'd had for me when I arrived appeared to have gone. She kissed me on the lips and her hand lingered on my chest. And then I was out of there, already searching for Abode on my phone. It didn't take long, and I guessed immediately which one Lucy meant. Michael Caines' name was all over it and a couple of Michelin stars meant big money that I wasn't sure I had to blow on food. I phoned up and booked it for Friday afternoon as I drove out to the next sit.

The Malloy sit was on the Ordsall estate, so I had to pass the canal on the way over there. Didn't look like there was much around where we'd dumped Stevie, but I wasn't going to go down and check. I barrelled past the Riverside and took a left into a series of grey streets, made greyer by the rain. When I turned off onto Blenheim Street, I knew I'd been shafted again. This place didn't have a pot between them. That was if someone actually had the balls to live here. It was possible. Up the road a gang of lads were banging a football off a burnt-out car.

The house was number thirty, off to my right. The gate hung off its hinges, the windows that weren't opaque with muck were boarded up, and the front door looked as if it was the only thing holding the place up. Must've been a set-up, but I wouldn't know for sure until I checked. I pulled the lead from my pocket and called the number on it. Ringing at the other end.

The football banged against the car and then skewed wild, bouncing down the street towards me.

The phone kept ringing. My stomach growled and turned over.

One of the lads, a stringy youth with hair growing through the minefield of spots on his face, grinned at me and belted the ball my way. It slammed against the front of the car, then up onto the bonnet. I flinched. Couldn't help myself. Wanted to get out, but I didn't have the guts. The lad picked up his ball and kicked it back to the others. Turned back to me and gave me a grin that was missing two teeth on the left side and which made him look like a sick old man.

Still ringing at the other end. I killed the call and took a deep breath. It was a blag, maybe a little payback for the MacReady thing. And that was a good thing, really, because it meant I could get out of here.

My mobile rang.
The Muppet Show
.

I felt like turning it off, but I knew it wouldn't do any good. So I answered.

Beale's voice was cold. "We need to have a word."

"Yes, we do."

"You seen the news?"

I chewed the inside of my cheek. I twisted in my seat, just to see if his banged-up motor was anywhere in sight. The way he was talking to me, it sounded as if he was watching me at the same time.

"Hello?" he said.

"Where are you?"

"Did you hear us?"

"Yes, I heard you. Where are you?"

"They found him."

I stared out through the windscreen, my mouth dry. Up the road, the kids had stopped playing with the football and had taken to jumping backwards off the car. The noise was like static in my head. I hadn't heard the news. And I'd gone by the canal. There was nothing. But then, the other shoe always had to drop, didn't it?

"When?"

"Last night. I've been trying to call you."

I lit a cigarette. Smoke billowed up into my eyes. I waved it away and mopped the tears with the back of my hand. "Alright, so what's the score?"

"We need to have a chat."

"I told you I was out of this."

"You're not out of this until I say you're out."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I can go to the police."

"And do what? Tell them you killed someone?"

"I didn't kill anyone, Alan. I beat someone up."

My head thumped in time to the throb in my stomach. I fumbled for the Rennies and blinked back the irritation in my eyes.

I had to move the mobile away from me as I cleared my throat. "Alright, when and where?"

"How's your afternoon looking?"

"Shitty." And getting worse by the minute.

"Then say the Commercial in an hour."

"I'm in Salford. Let's say fifteen minutes. Get this over with."

"Alright," he said. "Fifteen it is."

I hung up.

19

Go in with a smile and leave with a smile, no matter what the outcome.

Beale told me that back in the day, and he never steered me wrong on that score. Soon as you cross the threshold, the main thing you were selling was that it didn't make a blind bit of difference to you whether you got the sale or not. That way you were less likely to give a shit yourself, and the customer wouldn't be tempted into giving you a pity signature that would blow out the next day. According to Beale, I was a lucky guy. I was working for myself. I didn't have a wife and kid to drain the fun out of life.

"What you want," he said, "is to have a lifestyle that's just out of reach, know what I mean? You want to be living just beyond your means. Then you have to work like a bastard to keep it up. You become a good salesman then, because you
have
to. Sink or fuckin' swim, son. It's the nature of the business. Hunger's what drives a man, Alan. Rich men die old and bored. Working men die younger but happier. Don't you ever forget that."

I didn't. Clearly.

My first ever sit was a ridealong. They were a couple, Mr and Mrs Holland of 72 Hampden Road in Prestwich. They were buyers, because these were the days when Beale used to get the decent leads, back before Jimmy Henderson came on the scene. Beale took me along with him and introduced me as his son-in-law, who'd tagged along to see the family business. It would be a rough customer who decided to make Beale look bad in that situation.

The way Beale worked it, he was most often the sales manager. Sometimes he was even the owner. Either way, it was supposed to be a privilege to have him on a sit. A man of his age, stuck as a salesman, it had a level of desperation to it that some people found unattractive. But everyone liked to be special enough to deserve the boss's pitch, especially if he was the boss of a family business. So of course, with Beale running that schtick, we stepped out of the Holland house with signatures on the whole deal.

Back then, Beale knew people. And Beale taught me everything I knew.

"You're a good-looking lad. Use that. Look successful, but not flashy. You flaunt the fact that you make more money than them, they'll resent you for it and the ink'll run dry."

"Yes, Les."

"Shut up. You say 'Yes, Les', that tells me you're not listening."

"I'm listening."

"You listen with your ears, not with your mouth."

I listened with my ears after that. Listened to him tell me that I was too young for the long pitch, and that my rebuttals needed to come without thought. That I needed to be fast, accurate and focussed on the signature. It wasn't the hard sell, it was the soft sell with balls. A man only hit what he aimed at. Smile, always smile, and make sure it was genuine because even if they didn't know it, most marks could spot a false smile a mile away.

That was the old Beale, though. That was the Beale before the divorce. That was the Beale who had things in his life apart from booze and clubs. That was back when he could be trusted to dispense advice, before he became a booze-sodden shadow.