The Big Man (19 page)

Frankie went out. The streets baffled him and he admitted it to himself. He went back to the hotel. There began a bad time. He wondered whether he should phone Matt Mason or not. But all this might pass without Matt Mason knowing anything about it. Frankie spent some hours with that dilemma, to tell or not. Then something occurred to him. He went into Dan’s room and checked inside the old, scarred wardrobe. Dan’s suit was gone. Frankie thought he began to understand. He phoned Dan’s house in Thornbank. Someone who said she was the baby-sitter answered. Betty, she said, had gone out. Frankie was partly relieved. At least, he felt he understood what was happening. He hadn’t been feeling relieved for very long when he was told he was wanted downstairs on the phone. It was, as he had feared, Matt Mason.

‘Hullo, Frankie?’

‘Yes, Matt!’

‘How are things?’

‘Couldn’t be better. Big man’s havin’ a sleep. Gettin’ fit for Saturday.’

‘That’s good. Any chance I could talk to him?’

‘Well, Matt. He’s sleepin’. Ye know what Ah mean? We don’t want to break his sleep. Now, do we?’

‘Well, Frankie. I think maybe we should.’

‘Matt! Come on. He needs his sleep.’

‘Uh-huh. Get him anyway, Frankie.’

Frankie put his hand over the mouthpiece and cursed Dan Scoular.

‘What it is, Matt,’ Frankie said. ‘I didn’t want to tell you this. The big man’s been nervous, Ah gave him sleeping pills. A regimental band couldn’t waken him. I’m sorry, Matt. But I had to make a decision. Ah thought it was better he had a sleep. Ah hope you don’t mind me giving him those pills.’

‘No, Frankie. I don’t mind. But I think you should make them stronger.’

‘How do you mean, Matt?’

‘I mean, Frankie White, he’s walking in his fucking sleep.’

‘Sorry, Matt?’

‘Not yet you’re not. You don’t know “sorry” yet. You’ve just failed the test. He’s been seen.’

‘He’s been seen?’

Matt Mason said nothing. Frankie’s mind fumbled for a role.

‘Jesus. He must’ve – I’ll go and –’

‘So shut up. Spare us the vaudeville turn. You say another word, I’ll come to the Burleigh and stand on your face. Sh! Just listen now. He’s been seen. The word is he was leaving Glasgow, as well. So here’s what you do. You find him. By hook, crook or any other way you can think of. But you will find that big man. And if you don’t, decide which necropolis you want. So then you bring him to the gym tomorrow. Two o’clock sharp. Be waiting. Now just tell me one thing. Is that understood?’

‘Yes, Matt.’

‘All right. You’ve fucked it up. I hold you responsible. You’re not going to put that right. Remember that. But you might put it less wrong by getting him there tomorrow for two o’clock.’

‘He’ll just be seeing his wife, Matt,’ Frankie almost shouted suddenly. ‘That’s who he was phoning last night.’

The silence was like a noose round Frankie’s throat. He had his hand over the mouthpiece, breathing uneasily.

‘So you knew what was going on tonight? And you still want to talk shite. Worse and worse. I don’t care if it’s the Queen of Sheba. You blew it. Be happy you’re still walking. And wonder how long. Now get your arse into gear.’

The phone went dead. Frankie put the receiver down and stood still, unable to move. For where was there that he could move to? What did Matt Mason expect him to do? Go to
Thornbank and crash in on big Dan, pull him out by the scruff of the neck? Trapped between two forces he was afraid of, Frankie’s only recourse was self-pity. He had gone to all this trouble to find a way for Dan to make money and this was the thanks he got. He had provided Matt Mason with the puncher he needed and now he was being threatened because of it. The injustice induced in Frankie a slight paranoia.

His condition wasn’t helped when he saw the small night porter open the door with the complicated slowness of someone untying a knot and admit a policeman Frankie knew. Standing in the alcove where the phone was, Frankie stepped back into shadow. His teeth were clenched with the reflex guilt that caught him every time he saw a policeman. It was Jack Laidlaw, a detective with the Crime Squad. Had he heard about the fight? Was he coming to check on Frankie?

Frankie was anxiously rehearsing a story in his head when he noticed that Laidlaw looked drunk. He was followed into the hotel by the good-looking woman Frankie had seen on the desk. They spoke briefly with the night porter and started towards the old lift. Watching them, Frankie saw Laidlaw and the woman standing in the lift. He was muttering in a disgruntled, drunken way and she kissed him and said something in a low voice and he laughed. He had his arm round her as the metal grille of the lift closed and they ascended.

The small scene interested Frankie. He was sure that Laidlaw was married. He was thinking that the information might come in handy when common sense overtook the thought. What could he use it for? Blackmail? Blackmailing Laidlaw would be like trying to catch a bull with a butterfly net. Frankie contented himself with knowing that Laidlaw was in the hotel and, therefore, Frankie could make sure that neither he nor Dan was seen – that is, if Dan came back at all.

Back up in his room, Frankie frayed his already threadbare carpet some more. He had finally decided he had better get to Thornbank somehow, even if it was by taxi, when a sound made him stand very still, listening. He thought he had heard a light switched on next door. Waiting, he heard someone walking in Dan’s room. He hurried out into the corridor and pushed open
the door to Dan’s room. Dan looked up from where he was sitting on the bed. He still had his jacket on. His shirt collar was open, the tie pulled away from it.

‘You bastard!’ Frankie greeted him. ‘You’ve landed me right in it, haven’t you. You’ve been seen, ya bastard. Matt Mason’s been on the phone. They’re probably bookin’ me in at the cremmy right now. Where the fuck were you, anyway?’

‘Leave it, Frankie,’ Dan said.

‘So Ah will. Ah’ll leave it all right. Listen, you. Ma balls are an inch off the ham machine. That’s what you did the night. Ye know who we’re dealin’ with here? This man fucking kills people!’

‘Tomorrow, Frankie. Eh?’

‘Tomorrow my arse! Where the hell
were
you?’

Dan looked up over the hand that had been covering his eyes.

‘A far place. All right?’

‘Don’t play funny fuckers here. This is me. Remember? Ah went to the trouble to get you this fight. Ah put ma reputation on the line for you. Just to try an’ make ye some money. Do ye a favour. An’ this is the thanks Ah get? Listen –’

Dan stood up suddenly. Frankie realised he had been so angry that he hadn’t properly noticed Dan since he came in. He was noticing him now all right. It occurred to Frankie that he hadn’t seen Dan angry before. He was wishing he never had.

‘You think stayin’ in Thornbank cuts off the oxygen to the brain or somethin’? Ye did all this for me? You did it for you, Frankie. I was your pay-poke, that was all. Fair enough. But don’t start tryin’ to put it to music. You got me into this an’ Ah’m workin’ it out as Ah go along. Ah’ll work it out for maself. You’ve done your bit. Promoter. Now take yer money an’ shut yer face. Ah’ll decide what Ah do. Your problems wi’ Matt Mason are your problems wi’ Matt Mason. Ah reckon you’ve earned them. Any problems I have wi’ him, I’ll work out for maself. Your help’s not asked. Because the only person you want to help is you. Fair enough?’

Frankie had always been aware, since he had met him, of the raw force there was in Dan Scoular. But it had been chased with smiles, sheathed in an ease of manner. Frankie felt it bare and honed now, a hard edge he didn’t want to push against. Something
had been happening to big Dan. Perhaps the training was working. The realisation evoked contradictory feelings in Frankie. He felt a kind of thrill in the thought that Dan might have a good chance against Cutty Dawson after all. He felt a certain alarm because the force that was refining itself in Dan Scoular wasn’t going to be easy to control. You couldn’t assume its allegiances. It belonged to Dan. It might turn itself against any of them, and that could be bad news for Frankie.

‘Fair enough, Dan,’ he said. ‘If that’s the way you see it. But Ah’m supposed to take you to the gym tomorrow. All right?’

‘That’s all right.’

Dan sat back down on the bed.

‘Matt Mason says we’ve got to get there before two. If we’re not there for two, Dan, Ah better emigrate. Don’t let me down.’

‘Ah’ll be there.’

‘Oh. There’s another thing. There’s a polisman in the hotel the night. Ah saw him comin’ in. Jack Laidlaw.’

Dan emerged briefly from his preoccupation.

‘Ah know his brother,’ Dan said. ‘Scott. Lives in Graithnock. He’s a teacher. Nice fella.’

‘Maybe, Dan. But Ah don’t think we should have an Ayrshire reunion. Eh? Ah mean, try to make sure ye’re not noticed tomorrow mornin’.’

‘Aye. Ah see what ye mean.’

‘Well.’ Frankie stood at the door. ‘See you tomorrow then. Don’t stay up too late, big man. Sunday’s close.’

‘Sleep nice, Frankie.’

‘Sure. The condemned man had a good night’s sleep. Cheers.’

Promoter, Frankie thought as he lay in bed. Having the light on didn’t help. The big, dingy flowers on the wallpaper palpitated before his eyes like a forest that was growing in on him. He was on the last glass from the bottle of whisky he and Sandra had been using. This afternoon seemed already a long way off, had turned into instant nostalgia.

He felt far away from everyone, especially Dan Scoular. There was more than a wall between them. Frankie thought of the force he had felt in Dan’s presence and wondered about where
it came from. It hadn’t been to do with his size. It wasn’t anything Dan had been deliberately projecting. Rather, Frankie thought, it came from the intensity of his preoccupation, the depth of his confusion. From the internal upheaval of such indecision as Frankie had thought he saw, decisions when they emerged were liable to be made of rock.

The threat of Matt Mason had made Frankie prepared to go in any direction to neutralise it. That threat hadn’t even impinged seriously on Dan. To withstand a pressure as great as that meant you must have great pressures on you from inside. Frankie lived by an ability to transplant himself effortlessly from one situation to another but the roots of Dan’s actions, he suspected, went very deep in him.

Frankie was haunted by the thought of Dan lying in the next room like the ghost of his past. Frankie had thought it was effectively buried. But irrelevant memories came back walking through his head of people he wished he felt more worthy of. They weren’t necessarily particularly good people or impressive or noble but they had had a stubborn adherence to earned values that he sensed he lacked.

The image of old Jenny Brannigan bothered him particularly with its persistence. He had known her when she was younger and fond of a drink. But his mother had told him recently how she died. She was in her late seventies and blind and living alone. She had been asleep in her chair when her clothes caught fire. After beating out the flames herself, she had lain for a while. Then she had crawled through to her bedroom and changed every stitch of clothing, putting on fresh, because you didn’t go to hospital unless everything on you was clean. She must have been peeling her skin off with the clothes. Then she had called for help and been taken to hospital, where she died a week later. One part of him could call her a silly old bugger. But the rest of him was awed. Even death she had met on her own terms.

Frankie just wanted Dan away from him. He sipped slowly at the glass, hoping sleep would come before he reached the bottom. Promoter. What worried him about the word was that he had maybe promoted one fight more than he had intended. He dreaded a clash between Matt Mason and Dan Scoular
because he was bound to be somewhere between them when they collided.

But the next day began well enough for Frankie. He had noticed that before. Just when you thought the faceless forces that ran your life were going to foreclose, you found the lease extended and a bright day landed in your lap. Dan was up at his usual time and they did the run in weather sharp as a cold shower and relaxed, if that was the word, in their separate rooms and were at the gym at five to two.

Tommy Brogan let them in and Matt Mason and Eddie Foley were there. Frankie was looking for a clue to where he stood. Matt Mason’s ignoring of him left him uncertain, but at least it might mean sentence was suspended. Matt shook his head at Dan Scoular the way a headmaster might at an unruly pupil he couldn’t quite dislike.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘Did you get it out of your system?’

Dan Scoular said nothing. He crossed and took off his jacket, hung it on a peg.

‘I hope you didn’t leave yourself in the bed.’

Dan turned and looked at him.

‘Last night was personal,’ he said. ‘We won’t talk about that.’

‘It felt a bit personal to me as well,’ Matt Mason said. ‘Pains in the wallet always do. I’m paying you money.’

‘Ah’m here.’

‘Aye, but how much of you’s here? I’m hiring you. All of you. Not what you decide to give me.’

‘Naw,’ Dan said. ‘Maybe ye should get Mr Stewart to check the contract. Ye haven’t understood it.’

‘Either that or you haven’t.’

The other three lounged in the sunlit silence. Eddie Foley examined the fingernails of his left hand. Tommy Brogan was whistling under his breath. Frankie was aware of sunshine seeming intrusive here among the paraphernalia he had always associated with night and smoky halls and unnatural light.

‘Well,’ Matt Mason said. ‘We can talk any time. If there are
things you don’t want to talk about just now, let’s not talk at all. Let’s just see what you can do.’

He nodded to Tommy Brogan.

‘Right, let’s go,’ Tommy Brogan said.

‘Is it all right if Ah change?’ Dan said.

When he came out of the dressing-room with only his track-suit trousers on and his trainer shoes, he stood in a different relationship to the others. Three of them had their street clothes on and the fourth was wearing a polo-neck. Dan looked more vulnerable, the one who must be tested. Matt Mason’s nod had been the beginning of a ceremony the others were witnessing. Everybody in the room knew this wasn’t just a training session but exactly what more it was perhaps varied in the thoughts of each.