The Amulet (10 page)

"Oh, aye. But I've got something your customers seem to lack. An imagination."

"If you've come here to insult me," he said.

I shook my head, suddenly weary-weary of talking to sleazy people in sleazy places, weary of pounding the streets for little reward.

"I'm after the Johnson Amulet," I said.

His eyes went wide.

"What. No wandering around the subject? No verbal fencing to see if I know anything? You're losing your touch, Mr. Adams." He chuckled. I could see that he felt he was ahead of the game on this one. I lobbed him another easy one to see if he would take.

"I'm working for Artie Dunlop," I said.

He didn't flicker.

"I know," he said. "A wee birdie told me."

This was getting me nowhere. Short of physical intimidation-and believe me, I was tempted-I would have to wait and see what he could tell me, if anything. I was building myself up to threaten him when the door behind me opened. I turned, and nearly got a faceful of breasts.

She was statuesque; I'll give her that much. She wore red plastic, thigh-length leather boots, with an eight-inch stiletto. Above that, a black leather mini-skirt that barely protected her modesty, a black leather halter top that just covered her nipples, and nothing else. With the added height of the boots she must have been six-four or six-five.

She wore a long blonde wig that reached almost to her waist. She'd had a boob job, a lip job, a nose job, an eye job and a face-lift-and that was just the bits I could see. She wanted to be Pamela Anderson, but she was never going to make it. The body was nearly there, but the face was wound up so tight it looked like it might split at any minute.

"Mr. Adams," Tommy said. "Meet Mandy. She looks after my specialist ladies line."

"Pleasedtameetcha," she said through her gum. She was trying for Hollywood, but the wee girl from Paisley showed through.

She walked past me, and Tommy gave her bum a squeeze as it was on the way past.

"Like two oranges in a bag," he said, and let out his best lecherous laugh. Mandy never looked back, just sashayed through to the office at the rear. She nearly carried it off, but the effect was spoiled when she went over on her ankle and swore, a loud, definitely Scottish,
"Ya fucking bastard"
.

"Mandy and I have got an 'arrangement', if you know what I mean?" Tommy said, and dropped a long slow wink.

"What, she cooks and you wash up?" I said. I stopped him before he could reply-the details of Tommy MacIntyre's love life were not something I wanted to hear.

"Why don't you just tell me about the amulet?" I asked.

Tommy was enjoying himself.

"You want to know if anybody's tried to fence the ugly thing?" he said to me. "You want to know if I know who's got it, or who wants it?"

"Yep," I said, grinding my teeth. "I've got a fifty waiting nice and warm in my wallet for the right gen."

"Make it a ton, and come back at eight tonight," he said. "I'll have something for you."

I looked him in the eye, but all I saw was the usual animal cunning. Tommy survived on feel and instinct. He reminded me of a hyena.

I left him my card, one of the legit ones. It still said "Adams Detection Corporation" but the phone number was right.

"You'd better not be dicking me around," I said.

"Mr. Adams," he said, full of mock shock, "as if I would, when I've got all my other wonderful customers 'dicking' around all the time."

I left him playing with the leather one-piece and went back out into the clean air outside.

I felt like I needed a wash. Visiting Tommy was like visiting a porn shop and, as a little old lady passed me, I lowered my eyes, suddenly guilty.

That was it. I was out of ideas. Short of visiting every pawnbroker in town-all of whom wouldn't touch an Artie Dunlop piece with a bargepole-I only had Durban, Tommy McIntyre, and Dunlop himself. I resolved to visit Durban again, rattle his cage and see if any feathers flew.

I got back in the car and headed back to the office

* * *

The journey back took nearly an hour. The rain was back, heavier than ever. And some dickhead of a delivery driver thought it would be a great idea to double park in Hyndland Road at noon. Mothers were trying to get kids from school, business people were trying to get to lunch, and I quietly poisoned myself by chain-smoking Camels in a closed box of Japanese tin. I wasn't in the best of humor by the time I got the car back to the garage.

I thought about going up to the office, but all that was there was a half-empty bottle of whisky and a book I didn't want to read. Instead, I went to the bank and withdrew a hundred pounds. The assistant didn't smile at me this time.

I took the underground down to the city center-the car would have been worse than useless in the rain and the traffic. Anyway, I knew I would have a drink at some point in the afternoon. It was just a matter of how long I could fight off the urge.

It turned out not to be long at all. Wednesday was early closing. It was after one o'clock when I got off the tube. The lights were off in Durban and Lamberts by the time I got there. There was no sign of movement in the shop, no silver Rover outside. I couldn't even slow myself down with a coffee-the cafe was also closed down for the day. I resigned myself to the inevitable, and headed for The Blythswood Bar.

* * *

Glasgow had changed a lot over my drinking years. Banks had become bars, bars had become building societies, and building societies had become trendy cafe-bars where booze is double the price and conversation half as intelligent. The Blythswood was one of my anchors against progress.

I'm sure the place has changed over the years, but if so, the changes have been gradual-a new carpet here, a replaced light fitting there. This wasn't a trendy bar. It didn't have a theme, it didn't allow youngsters to hang around the bar drinking bottled mixtures of spirit and soft drinks, and it didn't have any no-smoking or kids-allowed seating areas. This was a bar where men drank whisky, chased it down with beer, and talked about football, horses, politics and religion. I liked it-buying a beer in here felt like snuggling down in a favorite armchair.

The barman handed me the beer after wiping the excess foam from the sides of the glass.

"I see the Gers have signed another Dutchman," he said. I grunted at him. That was usually enough to show that I wasn't interested in talking about football.

"Fucking Orange bastards," a voice said to my left. Actually, what he said was "Fukin owange batarts", but if I'm going to tell this, I'm going to have to tone down the accents. This was a real Glasgow bar, with real Glasgwegian's talking. It's sometimes incomprehensible, even to those of us who live here. Imagine Billy Connelly, in a manic mood, after more than a few beers, and you're not even getting close.

"Fenian wanker," another voice said to my right.

"Language," the barman said.

"Naw, it isnae, it's abuse," the man on the left said. "But never mind, you're no fae Glesca, so ye cannae be expected to know the difference."

At that the man on my left bought the man on my right a drink, and they started talking about the forthcoming 4:30 race at Kempton Park. I moved away and tuned them out.

On another day, in another part of town, that conversation might have led to more serious abuse then shouting, followed by punching, kicking, biting and, occasionally, the use of a knife. But one of the reasons I liked this pub in particular was that it was one of the places where sectarianism and tribal loyalties were forgotten-the booze was the important thing here. I took my beer over to a table in the corner, cleared my head, and watched the world go by.

This too was part of the case. When a case started to work on me, started to take over all my waking thoughts, I always let it go for a while. And for me, the only way to do that was to get into town and lose myself among people.

It was a habit I'd picked up years ago, even before I got into this business. After Liz, I was at a loss for a long time. I drifted from one part-time job to another, and served beer in too many bars on too many Saturday nights. It was Doug who suggested the journalism correspondence course, and picked up the tab for the fee.

For two years I'd written, swotted, and written some more. I passed the course exam at the end, and got a job on a small provincial newspaper.

It was soul destroying. I was no better than a dogsbody-making coffee, running errands, and only on very few occasions getting to cover a local event. The highlight of my year was the local flower show, where I got to write a ten-line filler on a vegetable shaped like a penis.

That was when I started drinking to escape. I'd almost escaped completely at several times over the years, but Doug had always dragged me back from the brink.

The crisis came on the fifth anniversary of Liz's death. I'd arranged to meet Doug at seven in the evening for a few beers and a curry, but by the time he turned up I was already well to my way to oblivion. He took me home, sobered me up, and told me I'd be dead in a year if I didn't slow down.

"Good," I said, but even then, in my blackest depression, I knew I didn't mean it. Suicide had been big in my mind in the first week after I'd found Liz, but I hadn't done it then, and I knew I never would. Not the quick way, anyway.

"You need to do something, man," Doug had said. "What do you want to do with your life?"

"Fight bad guys, save the world, get the girl, all that happy shit. I want to be Arnold-fucking-Schwarzenneger," I growled at him.

"No can do," said Doug. "Your head's not big enough. But if that's what you want, why not join the cops?" I shook my head. "Or become a private dick?" he said, and it was as if a light bulb came on over my head-a big one with the word 'IDEA' written on it.

And I had done it. Doug had thought I was joking, but three months later I left the paper and set myself up in the office in Byres Road. My first client was a wee man called Pete Mulville, who had lost his wife. He hadn't lost her, she'd run off with an aerobics instructor from Kelvinside called Marco, but he still paid me, and I was off and running.

Mostly I enjoyed the work. I met a lot of people, my time was mainly my own, and I didn't have anybody to report to other than my clients. But sometimes the cases got too much and, like today, I hit the bars.

I came out of my reverie, brought back to the present by a commotion at a table near the bar. A large woman, eyes red and mascara running down her cheeks, had just slapped her companion, a small weasel-like man with thinning hair and the biggest overbite I'd ever seen.

"You're no gentleman," she shouted at him.

By now the whole bar was watching the little man with interest. My money was on him slapping her back, harder-there was something in his eyes that said he'd done it before.

"And you're no lady," he said to her. The bar was so quiet that even though he had spoken softly, everybody heard.

"Get yourself cleaned up," he said, even softer. "I won't have you making a fool of me in public."

The woman stood. We all saw that she was at least three times his size as she teetered to the washroom on heels that were made for a much thinner woman.

It was only after she was out of earshot that the little man turned to the rest of us.

"She isnae mine," he said. "I'm breaking her in for a friend."

Half the people in the bar laughed, the tension broke, and we all went back to ignoring each other. When the woman returned her mascara was gone and she sat down meekly opposite the man. They spoke in silence for a while before leaving. He led, she followed.

They'd left me thinking about partners. Partners and friends, Liz and Jimmy. It was time to move on.

* * *

The rain had eased slightly. I strolled down to Charing Cross, mentally noting the new buildings, the shiny glass corporate offices that were slowly replacing the old weary Victorian stone.

As I crossed the M8 motorway the rain started to fall heavily again, and gave me just the excuse I needed to pop into the Bon Accord. I stayed there for hours, drinking heavy, strong Scottish ales with names like Skullsplitter and Bitter And Twisted. I talked to nobody, and nobody talked to me. By the time six o'clock came around my legs were a bit less secure than usual, and my head was nicely fuzzy.

A long walk in the rain through Kelvingrove Park and along University Avenue sobered me up a bit, but not enough to let me drive back to Anniesland. I ate fish and chips standing outside my favorite chippie in Byres Road before hailing a taxi to take me to Tommy MacIntyre's shop.

"Tommy McIntyre, eh?" the cab driver said, and leered at me in his rear-view mirror. "Are you going for anything special?"

"Aye," I said. "A diamante stud for the end of my knob, and a titanium column to go through my scrotum."

"Oh, aye," he said, and his gaze slid away from the mirror. "Very nice."

He didn't speak to me for the rest of the journey, which was fine by me. He dropped me off in front of MacIntyre's shop at five-to-eight. He took my fare, didn't even quibble about a tip, and was off and away almost before I'd shut the cab door.

* * *

The shop sat in darkness. That in itself wasn't unusual-it was past dark, on a weekday, and trade would be light, at best. I peered through the main window. The light was on in the office at the back, and I saw movement, as if someone had walked in front of a lamp.

I knocked on the window-I'd been about to shout when I realized how futile it would be; I wasn't operating at top speed. I went round to the door, to knock louder, and was surprised to find the door ajar. I pushed it open and stepped inside.

The streetlights didn't penetrate this far, and I found myself stumbling in semi-darkness. I hit something, a piece of furniture. A loud crash echoed in the room. At the far end I caught a glimpse of movement again, a swift shadow that was quickly gone.

I called out.

"Hey, Tommy. I've got that money I promised you." I realized as I spoke that I had spent a large part of it that afternoon. But Tommy wasn't to know that yet.