For The Death Of Me

16

Dylan had done some more clothes shopping since I’d seen him last. He turned up for our meeting in a pale blue Columbus polo shirt and a pair of light tan slacks, with a pair of French-made Vuarnet sunglasses, the brand I’d advised him to buy, perched back on his head. He’d trimmed the beard until it looked more like designer stubble; for the first time since that day he’d been shot in Amsterdam, he seemed pretty much like the guy I’d known so well in Scotland.

‘Nice get-up,’ I remarked, as we stepped outside to a waiting taxi.

‘Glad you like it,’ he replied. ‘Most of it went on your tab in the hotel. Not the shades, though: couldn’t get them here.’ Christ, he was even sounding like the old Dylan.

‘How did you last so long in the police force?’ I asked him. ‘How come nobody saw through you long before they did?’

‘I was never bent, Oz, not until I got involved with that bloke, and in the kidnap. And they never saw through me then either. It took you, you clever shit, to figure out that I was in on the operation. I was on my way to Bali, and to a pile of money, until you stepped in.’

I looked at him as the taxi drove off, heading for L’Intempo, in Le Meridien. ‘Mike, you’d never have seen any of that money. You’d have wound up buried under a banyan tree or some such.’

He glanced at me slightly scornfully. ‘You think?’

‘I know. There was someone else involved in your plot: they were pulling your string all along. You were expendable, mate, and once you were well away, you’d have been expended. Your function was simply to disappear, and to carry the can, all of it and everything in it.’

‘How do you know all that?’

‘I traced the third person; she told me all about it.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Look me in the eye,’ I challenged, ‘then say that.’ He didn’t need to: he knew me well enough to know that I was telling it as it was, or had been. ‘Who was she?’ he asked quietly.

‘Your pal’s sister.’

‘He never had a sister.’

‘That shows how much you knew. Smart copper, eh?’

I’d knocked some of the rediscovered brashness out of him; that pleased me, quietly.

‘What happened to her?’

‘Much the same as was going to happen to you. She’s no longer with us.’

‘Jesus.’

I smiled. ‘And here you were thinking you’d been a criminal mastermind. Pinocchio, pal, that’s who you were, but now you can go back to being a real boy again. Be careful telling lies, though: your nose couldn’t do with being any longer than it is. I tell you, the Dutchman who shot you, de Witt, he really did save your life.’

‘Maybe I should go to Holland and thank him,’ Dylan murmured, unsmiling, as he rubbed the side of his chest.

‘Best not, Benny,’ I said. ‘Best not.’

We sat in silence until the taxi arrived at the hotel. I paid off the driver and led the way inside: L’Intempo was quiet, since it was still not long after midday, but as I glanced around I saw a tennis player, a French singer and two racing drivers, one of whom I know since he’s a fellow Scot. I gave him a wave as we were shown to a table with a sea view.

‘Let’s get the business over with,’ I said. I opened my document case and took out the contract that Roscoe had supplied and that Audrey had produced. It was drawn up in the name of Elmer Productions, a company I’d set up with a view to getting involved in deals like this one. This was its first venture. The name? That’s a play on Mrs Susie Blackstone’s maiden surname, Gantry, and the 1960 movie that won Burt Lancaster an Oscar.

‘Read that,’ I told him. ‘It sets out the deal we discussed, on the basis of the offer I made, more or less.’

‘More or less?’

‘Just more, actually. I’ve put you in for three per cent of budget and DVD sales, and for two per cent of net profits once the film’s recovered its costs, and is in profit by twenty million dollars.’

‘Who gets the rest?’

‘I do, and Miles, and any investors we bring in. Don’t quibble about it: it’s what Roscoe Brown would have got you if he’d been negotiating for you. I know this because I asked him.’

‘What if I’d had someone better than him?’

‘That person doesn’t exist. . although, come to think of it, neither does Benedict Luker, so maybe that idea isn’t so far-fetched. No, read it, then sign it, Mike. It’s a good deal. That and the added value in book sales will make you a millionaire.’

He signed it without reading it. I took that as a sign of friendship, and wished that I hadn’t upped the advance to the full hundred thousand, taking a chance that eventually I’d get Miles’s half back. His eyes widened when he looked at the cheque I pushed across the table, and then he did look at the contract. ‘It’s only an advance,’ I reminded him. ‘Mind you, when you tell your publisher that I’ve optioned it, your sales will go up straight away, and you’ll get a UK distribution deal.’

‘You’re beginning to sound like my guardian angel. Blue Star Falling hasn’t even earned out its advance in the US yet.’

‘I know: I checked with the publisher. I know what your advance was, but it’ll be bigger on your next one.’

‘That’s good to hear. You’ve helped me in another way this morning, although you don’t even know it. My next book: it’s a version of another true story; my own, the kidnap, me getting shot and everything. What you said about there being a third person involved, it’s got me thinking. I knew there was something lacking and that. . It’s the missing ingredient, isn’t it? It makes it all hang together. Thanks, Oz.’

I stared at him, and had to make an effort to keep my voice down. ‘Mike, Benny, cool it,’ I hissed at him. ‘Are you seriously saying that you’re going to write a book about you kidnapping Dawn Phillips?’

‘Sure. You’ll be in it too, and Miles. But don’t worry, you’ll all be so heavily disguised that you’ll be undetectable as real people.’

‘But we’ll know, Mike, we’ll know.’

He stared at me dead-pan, and then his face cracked into a smile. ‘Gotcha!’ he exclaimed.

‘You bastard. You’re buying the lunch for that.’

‘It was worth it, just to see your face. Don’t worry, Oz, I’m not that crazy. My next book’s almost finished, in fact. It’s based on some of the stuff I did when I was under cover, and it’s going to be good.’

‘What will the DEA and the like say about that?’

‘They won’t give a shit, as long as it makes them look like the good guys.’

‘Let me see a manuscript when you get it finished.’

He grinned again. ‘Okay, but it’ll cost you more than a hundred thousand.’

We settled down to lunch, a salad, followed by sea bream. I’d given myself a hard workout in the gym that morning, so I’d earned it. As we finished a bottle of El Preludi, I turned to the next item on my agenda.

‘A friend of mine’s in trouble,’ I told him. ‘And I’m going to help him.’

I explained Harvey’s predicament, without naming him, but I could tell early on that Dylan had guessed who he was. It wouldn’t have been like him not to have got himself up to date with my life before our meeting.

‘Sounds like your friend’s in for an embarrassing time,’ he said, when I had finished. ‘The woman’s already dropped a broad hint that she has this time-bomb waiting for him and that she’s waiting to pick her moment. As soon as she gets a whiff that you’re on her trail, she’s going to let it off.’

‘Exactly. So she must never suspect that I’m after her.’

‘Then how are you going to get these negatives off her?’

‘I’m going to buy them. . or, at least, someone is, on my behalf. Maddy, the woman, is going to have a visit from a tabloid journalist, looking to dig the dirt on her ex, who’s about to get a very big appointment. He’s going to offer her money for everything she’s got on him, and if she has photos to back it, so much the better. She’ll produce the goods.’

‘What if she only produces prints?’

‘Then it’s no deal. The tabloid’s paying for an exclusive. It can’t take the chance she’ll flog them somewhere else. The money will be for everything she’s got.’

‘How much?’

‘A hundred thou, sterling.’

‘That should get her attention.’

‘I reckon.’

‘So who’re you going to get to play the part of the journo? If it’s an actor, it can’t be anyone she’s likely to have seen on telly, or in the movies. And if she’s a serial actor shagger, like you say, that makes it even more difficult.’

‘As always, Mike, you get straight to the heart of the problem.’ I leaned across the table. ‘Tell me, since you didn’t make it to Bali, how do you fancy a trip to Singapore?’