White Rage (45 page)

‘I have to get out of this shirt.'

‘Let me help.' She took off his overcoat with great care. ‘The shirt's soaked, Lou. Be very still.' She peeled the garment from his body. He looked down at the bandages. Bright red, sodden.

‘I can change the bandages,' she said.

‘Where did you learn that?'

‘There's no great art in applying a bandage.'

He watched her go out of the room. He felt a slight uneasiness while she was gone, a vague fear she'd never come back. He was relieved when he saw her return with a first-aid box. She unwound his bandage and removed the dressing and although it caused him mind-numbing pain he stifled the urge to cry out.

‘It looks bad, Lou.'

‘How bad?'

I'm an amateur. I can only give you temporary help. You need a pro.' She opened the first-aid box, retrieved a strip of gauze dressing, then cut a length of bandage; she applied both dressing and bandage to the region of his upper arm and shoulder, and he was moved by her solicitous manner. In his hypnagogic state, he understood he'd never felt anything like the emotion he experienced now, a love as vast as a great blue sky in which he floated. How close was he to delirium?

‘You need a hospital,' she said.

‘I keep hearing that.'

‘You're sleepy.'

‘I deny it.'

‘Don't lie to me.' She rummaged inside the box again and produced a bottle of capsules. ‘I got these a few months ago for migraine. Take two.'

He opened his mouth. She dropped the capsules on his tongue. She brought a glass of water to his lips. He drank, swallowed the medication. He held her hand and pressed it against his mouth. She smiled at him.

‘I'm taking a holiday,' he said.

‘Do you have a choice?'

‘I doubt it. My heart's telling me.'

‘Where will you go?'

‘Anywhere. Will you come with me?'

She took off his glasses, held them to the light, sighed. ‘How do you see through these things?'

‘Apparently I don't. I miss a lot. Far too much.'

She breathed on the lenses, misting them, then rubbed the surfaces with a scrap of leftover bandage. ‘That's better. A little.' She placed the glasses back on his face. He thought it the most intimate gesture he'd ever experienced, even more than the kiss they'd shared in the Old Toll Bar, more than the few seconds when he'd caressed her breast. The simple act of replacing glasses, and yet it assumed an unearthly beauty. He felt humble and speechless. He lost himself in the deep brown dark of her eyes.

‘I'm a schoolboy again, Miriam. My heart's like a harp that's been silent half a lifetime until you came along and plucked it.'

She pressed a finger to his lips. ‘Lou,' she said.

‘You'll come away with me?'

She closed the lid of the first-aid box. She stood up.

‘You're not answering me, Miriam. Wait, I remember now. You mentioned Latta before. He's bothering you? I can deal with him. He's nothing.'

‘Things have changed, Lou,' she said. ‘I'm scared.'

He couldn't bear to see the look in her eyes; the brightness went, a sorrow replaced it. ‘I'm here, you don't have to be scared, Miriam.'

‘It doesn't have anything to do with you,' she said.

George Latta appeared in the doorway of the kitchen. ‘The things you learn when you eavesdrop. Fucking stunning. So I'm nothing, eh? I like how you hold me in such high regard, Perlman.'

‘What the fuck do you want, Latta?'

‘Ask your girlfriend.'

‘I'm asking you,' Perlman said.

‘It's a matter of money.'

‘It's always money with you.'

‘Don't blame me. It's the world I move in, Perlman. I see them all, the greedy, the conniving, the cunning, the white-collar boys who think they're immune to the law – they pass in a great parade in front of me, and all their crimes come down to greed.'

‘What has this got to do with Miriam?'

‘Leave it, Lou,' Miriam said. ‘Please.'

‘Listen to the lady, Lou,' Latta said. ‘Leave it.'

‘Leave what?'

‘I can clear it up myself,' Miriam said.

‘Clear up what?' Perlman asked.

‘It's a technical thing, it's got to do with currency regulations, Lou. There's been some confusion –'

‘That's one way of putting it,' Latta remarked.

‘That money I transferred –'

‘That money she transferred,' Latta said to Perlman, ‘came from an account that ought to have been listed with the assets of your late brother and impounded by the Inland Revenue as illegal earnings. His widow, seemingly, had other ideas. What she calls a technicality, I call larceny. I love that word, Perlman. Nice how it rolls off the tongue.
Lar-cen-y.'

Perlman stood up. ‘She has no right to the money, you're saying?'

‘Exactly,' Latta said.

Perlman looked at Miriam. How frail she seemed, how much in need of his protection.

‘She's trying to walk away scot-free with £893,000 that belongs to our paternal and all-watchful Government,' Latta said.

‘It's my own damn money,' Miriam said.

‘It didn't have your name on it, my dear.'

Perlman moved towards her. ‘It's something we can clear up. It has to be. Right, Latta?'

‘Not that easy,' Latta said. ‘I think there's going to be some bad publicity, and a sordid little trial, and she's going off for a year or two. If she's lucky, she'll get into one of those prison camps. Good library books, TV. Maybe some tennis practice. Cups of tea in the afternoon. All very jolly, I suppose.'

Perlman took a step towards Latta, his fist clenched.

‘Don't even think about it, Perlman. Don't even let the slightest
prospect
of violence go through your mind. First, you're in no shape. Second, I'm a senior officer. Third, I'd probably smack you back very hard.'

Perlman felt a peculiar helplessness, a man inhibited by his own body; like somebody lame, a polio victim, a motorist dragged from a crash with a broken leg. He looked at Miriam. She didn't meet his eyes. She looked as lost as a small girl on a crowded beach.

‘Your brother put me through hell for years,' she said.

‘I know he did, love. I know –'

‘His women. His whores. He flaunted them, Lou.'

‘I know that.'

‘If he'd been a wife-beater, it would've been easier to take. But he was far more subtle and far more nasty. I saw the money as pay-off, compensation for the way he treated me. It isn't much to ask, is it?'

‘I'll help,' he said. ‘I'll do everything I can, Miriam.'

Latta said, ‘See, my dear? When Perlman offers his help, it's like a new dawn sneaking into the sky. You've got nothing to fear. Rest easy. The hero stirs.'

‘Fuck
you
,' Perlman said. He couldn't stop himself, couldn't resist. He sucked air hard and swung his good arm, backhanding Latta, smacking his knuckles into the man's teeth.

George Latta stumbled back against the wall and laughed. He bled from the lip. ‘Good bloody shot, Perlman. Probably broke something in my mouth.'

‘No great loss,' Perlman said. ‘I'll do it again. Happily.'

‘I'd think twice,' Latta said.

Miriam said, ‘Don't make this hard on yourself, Lou.'

Latta said, ‘I bet this lip swells up nicely. Wait until people at HQ ask me how I got it. I wonder what I'll tell them. Tay's bound to ask. Me and him, we're like that, Perlman. Thick? You wouldn't believe it.'

Perlman ignored George Latta and placed his hand against the side of Miriam's face. He didn't have words for what he wanted to say. His vocabulary was stunted. He'd spent too many years in a world where nobody talked of love and loving; everything was greed and violence, everything buried under the sludge of mean-spirited people, whether criminals or cops.

Latta said, ‘She's leaving with me, Perlman. She's coming down to HQ to answer a few questions. I don't have to explain procedure to you. With any luck she'll be back in the morning. She'll have inky fingers once we've put her through the process. But you know that. Wait for her here. It's comfy. You don't mind Perlman waiting, do you?'

Miriam looked at Perlman, then away.

Latta said, ‘I won't handcuff her.'

‘Generous of you, George.'

‘People don't understand me, Perlman. I get a bad press.'

‘You deserve it.'

‘Tell me. Is this lip swelling?'

‘It's a thing of beauty, Latta.'

‘Great. Evidence of your violence on my own kisser.' Latta turned to Miriam. ‘Fetch your coat.'

Perlman sat on the couch. He watched Latta lead Miriam out of the loft. He wanted to go after them, drag Miriam back; he remained very still as the door closed. He concentrated on the cold light that slanted from the kitchen. A fly buzzed in the loft, brushing the skylight now and again.

He lay down on the couch and stared up at the glass. The pills Miriam had given him were dissolving in his bloodstream; he could feel the glaze, the cowl drawn over his senses. He listened to the slow drumming of his heart. Then he was floating, flying as if by sorcery through the solid skylight and out across the electrified city; below him lay the river, and the cranes, and the moving light-show that was traffic crossing bridges or hurrying along motorways. He flew beyond the city and out over the black divots of the surrounding countryside, where occasionally he passed above the scattered lights of a small community, or the mirrored glint of a loch under a half-moon. He saw the sea in the distance, and the island of Arran rising out of the water like a great creature birthing, and he wondered if what he felt was like dying, the spirit unleashing itself from the body; and if it was, it was nothing to be scared of, it was sweet and painless, warm and hospitable, a kind of homecoming.

A thud, a sudden clap from above, made him open his eyes.

He saw a gull strike the reinforced glass of the skylight. Wings bent back in a dying flurry, head bent to one side, the bird folded and slipped down the smooth glassy slope of the skylight's angle.

His throat was dry and he had no idea of how long he'd slept. The sky was suffused with pale sunlight. He sat up. Then he realized that Miriam lay alongside him on the couch, fully dressed, her slender body squeezed into a narrow space. He hadn't heard her come back. He reached down for her hand, which was limp, a sleeper's hand.

He traced the ridge of her knuckles with his fingertips. Her presence elated him. He thought about the gull he'd seen: another omen?

Let it be good. It better be good.

He listened to Miriam's steady breathing and wondered what she was dreaming, or if she dreamed at all.

So much to learn.

Turn the page to continue reading from the Glasgow Novels

1

It was time. He'd watched bosses rise and fall and others emerge to take their places. He'd seen fragile allegiances forged only to disintegrate in squalls of treachery and violence. He was forty-five and primed for advancement and he'd waited years for his moment.

He stepped out of his Jaguar at the top of Hill Street. He wore a full length camel-coloured cashmere overcoat against the cold October night. Beating his gloved hands together, he surveyed the city spread beneath him – the intricate splendour of St George's Mansions lit by red floodlights, the towers of Trinity, the electric clusters of Maryhill, the dark pool that was Kelvingrove Park. Beyond lay Partick, Broomhill, Hyndland. He heard the roaring motorway ferry cars and trucks to Anderston and the Broomielaw, and then across the narrow water of the Clyde to Kingston and Kinning Park, Govan and Pollok, and beyond.

So much buzz, so many lights, so many pockets of darkness.

This city is mine.

Reuben Chuck took his mobile phone from his pocket and punched in a number and said, ‘Start movin.'

Jimmy ‘Bram' Stoker sat in his usual private dining room at the Corinthian, a restaurant and club in an ornate Victorian building that was once the Glasgow Sheriff's Court. His ulcer, that wicked wee cunt in his gut, was acting up. He'd eaten curried bream, and the taste kept coming back at him. Never trust bream. Specially
curried
.

He finished his brandy and rose from the table and looked at his guests, a Texan called Rick Tosh and a local girl, Patsie, who'd been brought along for the American's amusement.

Stoker said, ‘I'll leave you two. Enjoy.' He made an expansive gesture, indicating that he was bestowing on them not only the finest of meals and the best wines, but also any pleasures the rest of the evening held.

‘Jeez, it's only what, ten o'clock?' Rick Tosh, a leathery man with a neck so gnarled the cords were like stretched brown rubber bands, protested mildly. He had one liver-spotted paw on Patsie's compliant knee under the table. He planned to reach the inner thigh as soon as Stoker had split.