The Highbinders

Chapter One

The carnation made me feel silly. It was supposed to be red, but the flower shop in the Hilton had only pink ones so I paid fifteen pence for one and let the girl in the shop pin it to my lapel.

“My, don’t we look nice,” she said. “Like to use our mirror?”

“I seem to remember how I look,” I said, smiled my good-bye, and crossed the lobby, heading for the hotel entrance and a taxi. Nobody noticed my carnation and I think I felt a trifle disappointed.

It was 5:35 P.M. and the London traffic rush was on, but for only twenty pence the Hilton doorman whistled me up a taxi, held the door for me, inquired of my destination, and after I told him, repeated it to the driver, “The Black Thistle on New Cavendish Street. Know it, mate?”

“I should hope to,” the driver said, gave the meter flag a twist, and nosed his cab out into the Park Lane traffic.

It wasn’t much of a ride, not more than three-quarters of a mile, if that, but the traffic was thick and stubborn and we didn’t pull up in front of the Black Thistle until nearly six o’clock.

I’ve never much cared for pubs. I suppose it’s because I detest cocktail parties and an English pub, right after five-thirty opening time, reminds me of nothing so much as an American cocktail party that’s about to run out of gin.

The Black Thistle was a Watney pub and it seemed fairly new, or at least its furbishings did, with lots of glittering vinyl and some embarrassingly bad murals on two walls. I made my way through the crowd at the bar, asked for and got a large whisky, poured a little water into it from a pitcher, pocketed the change from a pound, turned, and had the glass knocked from my hand by a gray tweed elbow that was covered with a black suede patch.

The elbow belonged to a man who was holding a pint of beer. His back had been to me and when he turned I saw that he was in his late twenties, a little over six feet tall, and already growing a paunch. He had a smooth plump pink face that was turning red. I think he was blushing.

“Terribly sorry,” he said. “Did I get any on you?”

“It’s all right,” I said.

He bent down to pick up my glass and I got a good view of the top of his head. It was as bald and as pink as his face, except for a thick white scar on his crown that was about two inches long. What hair he had left was light blond and confined to the sides of his head and the nape of his neck. He wore it long and brushed back so that it hung down over the collar of his figured blue shirt.

When he rose he smiled apologetically and said, “What were you drinking, whisky?”

“That’s right.”

“A large one, I’d think. I’ll get you another.”

“Don’t bother.”

He smiled again. His teeth were a bit gray, but it was still a nice enough smile. “If somebody slopped my drink, they could bloody well buy me another. Be back in a second.”

It was more like sixty seconds before he could shoulder his way back through the chattering crowd bearing my drink. It even had an ice cube in it. I noticed then that his eyes were a familiar shade of gray and I couldn’t remember where I had seen that particular shade recently until he smiled again and I saw his teeth. “American, aren’t you?” he said, handing me the drink.

“That’s right.”

“Thought you might like the ice. Most of you chaps do.”

“Thanks.”

“Are you all set now?”

“I’m fine.”

He smiled his gray smile again. “Well, enjoy yourself.”

I nodded and he turned away and moved into the crowd. I moved out of it, edging toward the door where nobody was standing and where anybody who wanted to could admire the carnation in my buttonhole. After I took a swallow of my drink I looked at my watch. It was five past six. I was still ten minutes early.

A large English whisky is about equivalent to a single shot in a fairly honest New York bar so I had quickly finished my drink and was trying to decide whether it was really worth the effort to go for a refill when the cramps hit. They hit just above my belt and it was as if somebody had slammed my stomach with an iron pipe. From the inside.

I doubled over and dropped the empty glass. It rolled a couple of feet. The pain hit again, even worse than before, and this time it was as though iron prongs were digging into my stomach, rusty iron prongs, and I thought wasn’t I lucky that Harley Street was only three blocks away. An appendicitis would be only routine to the men of Harley Street — just as it had been to old Dr. Marland who had cut my appendix out the summer that I was fifteen years old.

The pain gave way to nausea, a wave of it, and I knew I was going to throw up. Because I’m basically a tidy sort I decided that it would be better to throw up outside in the gutter rather than all over the Black Thistle’s pretty purple carpet.

I turned and lurched toward the door. The pain went away almost as quickly as it had come. In its place was the nausea plus a curious sense of well-being that somehow combined the peace of marijuana with the recklessness of three martinis. But it was better than both. The closest I had ever been to it before was for a fleeting moment once when I had counted backwards from ten while a dentist injected sodium pentothal into my left arm just before hacking out an impacted wisdom tooth. You won’t feel a thing, he had said, and I hadn’t, except a supreme sense of confident elation.

I felt the same way as I stumbled outside and made a mess in the New Cavendish street gutter, but not really minding at all because I could cope with that and, if given just a few moments’ rest, could probably even come up with a passkey to the universe.

But I was never to have the chance. My arms were grabbed from behind. In front of me two men and a girl came out of the Black Thistle. They looked at me. The girl made a face and giggled and the two men grinned and then laughed. I decided not to be mugged, not in broad daylight on New Cavendish Street, London W. 1. Not with a small crowd looking on and grinning and giggling about it.

I jerked my right arm free and drove my elbow back hard. It sank into something soft and I heard a most satisfactory whoosh. A voice said, “Here, now!” so I stamped down hard with my left heel on something that felt very much like an instep. “Get him, Bill!” another voice said. I was all set to spin and kick Bill in the balls when hard hands clamped on my left wrist and thrust it up and back until my own hand was between my shoulder blades. Another slight jerk and my left shoulder would go. I decided that it wasn’t worth it and that I should stop struggling and start complaining. “Goddamned bastards,” I said.

“Here, now,” the first voice said again. “That’s no way to talk.”

I turned my head and got a look at the one I had hit in the stomach. He had a hard young face with a mean thin mouth and pale blue eyes as friendly as snakes. He also had a set of long blond sideburns. I couldn’t see the rest of his hair because he had it covered up with the blue pot helmet that London police constables normally wear.