Bleeding Hearts (22 page)

‘You said you wanted their names.’

‘What did you think I would do with them? Find one I liked and name my first son after it?’ The policeman looked uncomprehending. He couldn’t understand why Hoffer wouldn’t be pleased.

‘This is all hush-hush info. I mean, on the surface these guys are clean. This isn’t the sort of gen you could just get anywhere.’

‘I appreciate that, really I do. I hear what you’re saying. But Jesus, Barney, I expected a little more.’

Barney took the list back and studied it. ‘Well, I could give you some addresses off the top of my head.’

‘That would help. I’d be real grateful.’ Hoffer took the list back and got a pen from his pocket. He looked around in vain for his breakfast. ‘Two more minutes, I swear, then I’m going into that fucking kitchen and cooking it myself.’

A new waitress had appeared at the front of the restaurant and was handing menus to customers who’d come in, and taking the orders from others. Then Hoffer’s waitress appeared with a tray full of food, but took it to another table.

‘That fuck came in after me!’ Hoffer hissed. ‘Hey! Excuse me!’ But the waitress had dived back into the kitchen.

‘These first three are south London,’ Barney was saying, his finger on the list. ‘He lives in Clapham, that one’s Catford, and the third one is Upper Norwood. Actually, Shattuck’s not a dealer so much as a buyer, but he sometimes tries selling stuff on.’ Hoffer was scribbling the information down. ‘Now as for these others ...’

‘Hey, wait, you said addresses.’

So Barney screwed shut his eyes and concentrated like he was the last man left in the quiz show. He came up with three streets, but only one positive house number.

‘They’re not big streets though.’

‘I am duly thankful,’ Hoffer said dubiously. The waitress appeared bearing another tray, this time laying it on Hoffer’s table.

‘I’ve got to tell you, honey,’ he said, ‘the starving in Africa get fed faster than this.’

She was unmoved. ‘We’ve got staff problems.’

‘Right, it takes them longer than other people to fry ham. Tell them to turn the gas on next time.’

‘Very droll.’ She turned away with her empty tray. Hoffer attacked a small fat sausage, dipping it in the gelatinous yellow of his solitary egg.

‘This is one sad-looking breakfast,’ he said. It looked almost as lugubrious as Barney, and had all the charm of the guy in the Gestapo glasses, who was now having a third cup of coffee. The toast felt like they’d lifted it from a pathology lab, where it must have lain not far from the deep-frozen pats of butter.

‘These others,’ Barney was saying, ‘the other London names, they’re north of the river or a bit further out. That one’s Clapton, that one’s Kilburn, he’s Dagenham and the last one’s Watford.’

‘Addresses?’

Barney shrugged. ‘Then there are these ones outside London. One’s near Hull, there are two in Yorkshire, a couple in Newcastle, one in Nottingham, and one in Cardiff.’ He paused. ‘I’m not exactly sure which one’s which though, not off-hand.’ He brightened and stabbed at a name. ‘He’s definitely Bristol though.’

‘Bristol, huh? Well, thanks for your help. Thanks a heap.’ He tried the coffee. By this stage of the meal, it could hold few surprises. Hoffer was suitably laconic. ‘Shit,’ he said. ‘You know, Barney, a lot of people complain about the food in the States. They say it’s beautifully presented, you know, great to look at, but that it doesn’t taste of much. Either that or it’s all fast food, you know, burgers and pizza, and there’s no real cuisine. But I swear, compared to the stuff I’ve eaten in London, a poor boy sandwich from some mosquito-filled shack in the Everglades is as foie gras and caviar.’

He stared at Barney. Barney stared back.

‘You don’t much go for it then?’

Hoffer was still staring. ‘Did you say Yorkshire?’ ‘Pardon?’

‘Two of these guys live in Yorkshire?’

‘Yeah, Yorkshire ... or Lancashire, thereabouts.’

‘This is important, Barney. Yorkshire? Think hard.’

‘I don’t know ... I think so, yes.’

‘Which ones?’

Barney could see this meant a lot to Hoffer. He shook his head like a pet pupil who’s failing his mentor. ‘I don’t know. Wait a minute, Harrison’s in Yorkshire.’

Hoffer studied the list. ‘Max Harrison?’ he said.

‘Yes, he’s Yorkshire, but I think he’s retired. He got cancer or something. It rotted all his face.’

‘Terrific. I’d still like an address.’ Hoffer was speaking slowly and carefully.

‘I can find out.’

‘Then find out. It’s
very
important.’

‘Why Yorkshire?’

‘Because the Demolition Man has spent some time there, and some money there.’ Hoffer went down the list again, picking between his teeth with one of the tines of his fork. None of the names set any bells ringing. ‘I need to know about the Yorkshire dealers, Barney, I need to know about them soonest,
capisce?’
Barney looked blank. ‘Understood?’ Now Barney nodded. ‘Good man. How soon?’

‘Later today, maybe not till tomorrow.’

Which meant Barney couldn’t get them till tomorrow, but didn’t want to admit it straight out.

‘I mean,’ he went on, ‘I’ve got my real job, you know. I can’t suddenly go off and do other stuff, not without a good reason.’

‘Isn’t my money reason enough?’

‘Well, I won’t say it isn’t welcome.’

‘A hundred if I get them today, otherwise it’s another forty.’

Barney thought about haggling. He was London-born and bred, and Londoners were famed for their street wisdom, their deal-doing. But one look at the New Yorker told Barney he wasn’t going to win.

‘I’ll do what I can,’ he said, getting to his feet.

‘And Barney, typed this time, huh? Bribe a secretary if you have to. Use your old charm.’

‘Okay, Mr Hoffer.’ Barney seemed relieved to be leaving. He sought a form of farewell, and waved one arm. ‘Enjoy your breakfast.’

‘Thank you, Barney,’ said Hoffer, smiling a fixed smile. ‘I’ll certainly try.’

He stuck with the coffee and toast. After all, breakfast was included in the price of his room. The toast put up some resistance to the notion of being gnawed to bits and swallowed, but the coffee seemed to have a fine corrosive quality. So engaged was he in the battle, that Hoffer didn’t notice the Karloff-Bette Davis test-tube baby leave his table and start walking back through the dining area towards the hotel proper. But he noticed when the man stopped at his table and smiled down on him.

‘What am I, a circus act?’ Hoffer said, spitting flecks of bread on to the man’s burgundy jacket. It was one of those English-style jackets that the English seldom wore, but which were much prized by Americans.

‘I couldn’t help hearing you try to ... ah, summon the waitress,’ the stranger said. ‘I’m American myself.’

‘Well,’ Hoffer said expansively, ‘sit down, pardner. It’s good to see another patriotic American.’

The man started to sit.

‘Hey,’ snapped Hoffer, ‘I was being ironic.’

But the man sat down anyway. Close up, he had a thin persistent smile formed from wide, meatless lips. His face was dotted with freckles, his hair short and bleached. But his eyes were almost black, hooded with dark bags under them. He wasn’t tall, but he was wide at the shoulders. Everything he did he did for a specific purpose. Now he planted his hands on the table.

‘So, how’re things going, Mr Hoffer?’

‘I get it, another fan, huh? No autographs today, Bud, okay?’

‘You seem nervous, Mr Hoffer.’

‘As of right now I’m about nervous enough to bust you in the chops.’

‘But you’re also curious. You wonder who I am really. On the surface you affect disdain, but beneath your mind is always working.’

‘And right now it’s telling my fists to do the talking.’

‘That would be unwise.’ There were long regular spaces between the words.

‘Persuade me.’

The man looked at the cold food still left on Hoffer’s plate. ‘The food here is appalling, isn’t it? I was disappointed when you booked into this hotel. I was thinking more the Connaught or the Savoy. Have you ever eaten at the Grill Room?’

‘What are you, a food critic?’

‘My hobby,’ the man said. ‘How’s your mission going?’

‘Mission?’

‘Locating the Demolition Man.’

‘It’s going swell, he’s upstairs in my room watching the Disney Channel. Who are you?’

‘I work for the Company.’

Hoffer laughed. ‘You don’t get any points for subtlety, pal. The
Company?
What makes any of my business the CIA’s business?’

‘You’re looking for an assassin. He has murdered United States citizens. Plus, when he kills, he often kills politicians.’

‘Yeah, scumbags from sweatshop republics.’ Hoffer nodded. ‘Maybe they’re all friends of yours, huh? How come you haven’t introduced yourself before?’

‘Well, let’s say we’re
more
interested now.’

‘You mean now he’s almost started World War Three? Or now he’s killed a journalist? Let’s see some ID, pal.’

‘I don’t have any on me.’

‘Don’t tell me, you left it in your other burgundy jacket? Get out of my face.’

The man didn’t look inclined to leave. ‘I’m very good at reading upside down,’ he said.

Hoffer didn’t understand, then saw that Barney’s sheet of paper was still spread open by the side of his plate. He folded it and put it away.

‘Arms dealers?’ the man guessed. When Hoffer didn’t say anything, his smile widened. ‘We know all about them, we had that information days ago.’

‘Ooh, I’m impressed.’

‘We even know what you told Chief Inspector Broome yesterday.’

‘If you know everything, what do you want with me?’

‘We want to warn you. You’ve managed to get close to the Demolition Man, but you need to be aware that we’re close to him too. If there should come a confrontation ... well, we need to know about you, and you need to know about us. It wouldn’t help if we ended up shooting at one another while the assassin escaped.’

‘If you’re after him, why not just let me tag along?’

‘I don’t think so, Mr Hoffer.’

‘You don’t, huh? Know what I don’t think? I don’t think you’re from the Company. I’ve met Company guys before, they’re not a bit like you. You smell of something worse.’

‘I can produce ID given time.’

‘Yeah, somebody can run you up a fake. There used to be this nifty operator in Tottenham, only he’s not at home.’

‘All I’m trying to do here is be courteous.’

‘Leave courtesy to the Brits. Since when have we ever been courteous?’ Hoffer thought he’d placed the man. ‘You’re armed forces, right?’

‘I was in the armed forces for a while.’

Hoffer didn’t want to think what he was thinking. He was thinking Special Operations Executive. He was thinking National Security Council. The CIA was a law unto itself, but the NSC had political clout, friends in the highest and lowest places, which made it infinitely more dangerous.

‘Maybe we’re beginning to see eye to eye,’ the man said at last.

‘Give me a name, doesn’t matter if it’s made up.’

‘My name’s Don Kline, Mr Hoffer.’

‘Want to hear something funny, Don Kline? When I first saw you I thought, Gestapo-style glasses. Which is strange, because normally I’d think John Lennon. Just shows how prescient you can be sometimes, huh?’

‘This doesn’t get us very far, Mr Hoffer.’ Kline stood up. ‘Maybe you should lay off the narcotics, they seem to be affecting your judgement.’

‘They couldn’t affect my judgement of you.
Ciao,
baby.’

For something to do, Hoffer lit a cigarette. He didn’t watch Kline leave. He couldn’t even hear him make a noise on the tiled floor. Hoffer didn’t know who Kline was exactly, but he knew the species. He’d never had any dealings with the species before, it was alien to him. So how come that species was suddenly interested in the D-Man? Kline hadn’t answered Hoffer’s question about that. Did it have to do with the journalist? What was it she’d been investigating again? Cults? Yes, religious cults. Maybe he better find out what that was all about. Wouldn’t that be what the D-Man was doing? Of course it would.

He foresaw a triangular shoot-out with the D-Man and Kline. Just for a moment, he didn’t know which one of them he’d be aiming at first.

His waitress was back.

‘No smoking in this section.’

‘You’re an angel straight from heaven, do you know that?’ he told her, stubbing out his cigarette underfoot. She stared at him blankly. ‘I mean it, I didn’t think they made them like you any more. You’re gorgeous.’ These words were obviously new to the waitress, who softened her pose a little. The brittle beginning of a smile formed at the corners of her mouth.

‘So what are you doing this evening?’ Hoffer went on, rising to his feet. ‘I mean, apart from scaring small children?’