Laidlaw

37

As the man came into the lounge, the barman looked up from the racing pages of the Daily Record. The interruption was a relief. The card was full of three-legged horses.

‘Yes, sir?’

He was big, padded with good living, a businessman in a lightweight suit. The Ambassador was on the South Side, commercial gentility. The big man was genteelly desperate.

‘Well, let me see. I’ll have a Bell’s. Oh, make it a double. Might as well. Hair of the dog, eh?’

He took it over his throat in one piece, like an oyster. That must have been some dog, say a Borzoi. He closed his eyes and stood, listening to his nerve-ends harmonise.

‘Same again.’

While he took that one and then another one, he talked excuses. The excuses weren’t for the barman, they were for himself. The barman hadn’t seen him before but he recognised him. He was trying to convince himself that what he was doing was still just a masculine convention, not yet a lonely compulsion. The way he took the drinks was too fast, as if he didn’t want to catch himself at it. He was caching them. By the time he left, the barman would have been feeling sorry for him except that his departure revealed again to the barman the small man who had been sitting beyond him.

That was somebody the barman was really sorry for. There was always somebody worse. Minty had asked for water while he was waiting for friends. By the look of him, they could have been pall-bearers. Where he sat, he was surrounded by the box-plants that seemed to have tropical ambitions. The flowers spilled tendrils, encroached on the plastic seating that ran around the alcove.

He was a small man, slight, his head already well on the way to becoming a skull. He looked cold and still as an icicle, thawing occasionally into the soft tapping of his forefinger on the table. The three men who came in went in single file, a little cortege, to the alcove.

The barman followed them. Two of them ordered beer, the other one Glenfiddich. Minty stayed with water. They waited till the barman had brought them and gone back to his paper. Mason sipped his Glenfiddich, enjoying the feeling he got at such times that everybody was on the market and he knew their prices. He was in no hurry to bid. Waiting was good for them. He sneezed, looked at the flowers.

‘You seem to be partial to the flowers, Minty.’

‘No’ really. Ah’m just practisin’.’

‘How are you, anyway?’

‘Dyin’. Apart fae that, Ah’m fine.’

‘It’s cancer, I hear.’

‘That’s whit Ah hear, too.’

‘What kind of cancer is it?’

‘The kind that kills ye.’

‘They give you no hope?’

‘It’s fower-nothin’ wi’ two minutes to go.’

‘Well, it comes to us all. Our turn’s coming.’

‘Ye can have ma turn if ye want. Ah don’t mind waitin’.’

Mason nodded as if Minty was doing well in his interview.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘Eddie would have put you in the picture.’

‘Ah want tae hear it fae you,’ Minty said. ‘Matt Mason himself.’

Mason looked round.

‘What’s he got that fan on for?’

He made to signal to the barman.

‘Ah asked for it,’ Minty said. ‘Ah fever up a lot. Ye know?’

Mason nodded.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a wee problem. A two-legged problem. You know that lassie that was found on Sunday. I know who did it. And I’d like him taken out before the polis get there. That’s it.’

‘Ye know where he is, then?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘An’ ye want me tae kill him.’

‘That’s the idea.’

‘Is he hard?’

Eddie and Lennie laughed. Mason looked towards Lennie.

‘Yer only danger,’ Lennie said, ‘is he might hit ye wi’ his handbag. Or strangle ye wi’ that lassie’s knickers.’

Minty stared at him. Mason explained what Lennie meant.

‘How much?’ Minty said to Mason.

‘Five hundred quid,’ Mason said.

Minty shook his head.

‘It’s no’ much for that kinna work.’

‘How else are you going to make that kind of money, Minty? Take out life insurance?’

‘Two thousand’s nearer the mark for a job like that.’

‘What is it you’ve got, Minty? Cancer of the brain?’

Minty took a sip of water, sat. He looked past the three of them. He seemed completely alone. They just happened to be there.

‘Anyway,’ Mason said. ‘How do I know you can do it? You must be weak.’

Minty looked at Lennie.

‘Put your elba on the table,’ he said.

Lennie glanced at Mason. Mason nodded. Lennie obliged and Minty took his hand and started to press it back towards the table. Lennie resisted but Minty’s stick of a wrist projecting from his jacket seemed charged with electricity. Lennie’s knuckles touched Formica. Mason looked at Lennie and shook his head.

‘Ah wisny ready,’ Lennie said. ‘Hiv anither go.’

‘Nae chance,’ Minty said. ‘Ah canny do it twice. Ah’ve got tae save those up. Ah don’t know how many Ah’ve got left. But Ah only need one mair.’

Mason nodded.

‘A thousand,’ he said. ‘That’s your lot.’

‘Ye must want rid o’ somebody badly if ye’ll pay a thousand tae have him put down.’

‘Badly enough. Are you on?’

‘Ah’m on. But five hundred now. Five hundred efter.’

Mason took out a roll of money with an elastic band around it.

‘That’s five hundred,’ he said.

Minty smiled as he put it in his pocket.

‘Ye’ve been playin’ wi’ me, Mr Mason. Ye knew yer price all along.’

‘Business, Minty, business. It has to be done by the night at the latest. Lennie’ll be back in for you in five minutes. Go easy on that water. I want you sober.’

Mason finished his drink. Eddie and Lennie took what was left of theirs in a oner. They all stood up.

‘You’re not hoping to hide, now, are you, Minty? I mean, you’ll meet your obligations.’

‘Ask around, Mr Mason. Ah’ve never been known to welsh.’

‘No. For if you did, cancer would be the least of your bothers. Your family would be joining you. One headstone would do the lot.’

They left Minty sipping his water, like a temperance meeting of one. In the street, Mason breathed deeply.

‘That wee man makes any room a sick-room,’ he said. ‘You show him the place, Lennie. Tell him I’ll see him before eight o’clock in St Enoch’s car park. With the thing done. No later than. And he gets the rest.’

They left him. Crossing to his car, Mason was stopped by an old man.

‘Ye hivny the price o’ a cuppa tea, sur. Ah hivny had a bite fur two days, son.’

Mason gave him a fifty-pence piece. Going back into the lounge, Lennie saw Minty sitting quiet and still. And deadly, Lennie thought. He remembered the name he’d thought up for Minty last night. The cancer man. The name excited Lennie. Minty went out with him and the barman went across to the alcove to collect what had been left.