A Traitor to Memory

Robbie, on the other hand, was the one to watch out for. Always had been and always would be. He'd throw Granny from the underground train if he thought he stood to gain by it, and TongueMan knew the last thing he could hope for was consideration, respect, or sympathy from the bloke.

“Street's blocked off.” Robbie cocked his head in the general direction of the bottom of the road. “Something happen?”

“A woman was hit by a car last night.”

“Ah.” But the way Robbie said the word declared that he wasn't learning anything new. “And that's why you're not at work today?”

“I work from home sometimes. I've told you that.”

“Might've, yeah. But it's been a while, ha'n't it?” He didn't go on to mention what hung between them unspoken: the time it had been since he'd last come calling and what he'd gone through to track down this address. Instead, he said, “But your office tol' me you had to cancel a meeting today and you phoned in with flu. Or was it a head cold? You remember, Brent?”

“You talked to my—” TongueMan stopped himself. This, after all, was the reaction Robbie sought. He said, “I thought we'd got that straight. I asked you not to speak to anyone but me when you phone me at work. You've got the private line. There's never any need to talk to my secretary.”

“You ask for a lot,” Robbie said. “‘N't that so, Brent?” This last was obviously meant to remind the other man—possessing the lesser intelligence—which side he was supposed to be on.

Brent said, “Right. You asking us in, or what, Jay? Cold out here.”

Robbie added, as if superfluously, “There's three tabloid blokes down the end of the street. You know that, Jay? Wha's going on?”

TongueMan cursed in silence and stepped back from the door. The two men outside laughed, knocked hands in a clumsy high-five, crossed the flagstones, and came up the steps. “There's a boot scraper. Use it,” TongueMan told them. Last night's rain had made a swamp of the ground beneath the trees that formed the boundary between the houses and the park. Robbie and Brent had tramped right through it like farmers raising pigs. “I've a decent Oriental carpet in here.”

“Take the daisies off, Brent,” Robbie said cooperatively. “How's that, Jay? We leave our mucked-up boots on the step. We know how to be proper guests, me and Brent.”

“Proper guests wait for invitations.”

“Wouldn't want to stand on that sort of ceremony.”

Both men were inside, and they seemed to fill the room. They were enormous, and while they'd never used their size to intimidate him, he knew they wouldn't hesitate to use anything within their power to bend his will to theirs.

“Why's those tabloid blokes hanging about?” Robbie asked. “Far's I know, the only way tabloids get their stuff 's if someone rings them up with something hot.”

“Yeah,” Brent said, bending to peer into the china cabinet, which he used as a mirror to inspect his hair. “Something hot, Jay.” He jiggled the cabinet door.

“That's antique. Have a care, all right?”

“It looked dodgy, those blokes hanging round the barriers at the bottom of the road,” Robbie said. “So we had a word with them, me and Brent did, didn't we?”

“Yeah. A word.” Brent opened the door and took out one of the china cups inside. “Nice, this. Old, is it, Jay?”

“Come on, Brent.”

“He asked a question, Jay.”

“Fine. It's old. It's early nineteenth century. If you're going to break it, just get it over with and spare me the suspense, all right?”

Robbie chuckled. Brent grinned and replaced the cup. He shut the cabinet with the care a neurosurgeon might give to repositioning a section of skull.

Robbie said, “One of the tabloid blokes said the cops're interested in someone on this street. Said a snout at the station tol' him the dead bird was carrying an address with her last night. Wouldn't give us the address, though, me and Brent, if he knew it. Thought we might be competition.”

Small chance of that, TongueMan thought. But he anticipated the direction they were about to take, and he did what he could to brace himself for the inevitable course of the conversation.

“Tabloids,” Robbie said. “Amazing what they c'n dig up 'less someone tries to head them off.”

“Yeah. Amazing,” Brent agreed. And then as if he'd merely been playing the other man's stooge instead of living the r?le, he said, “Rolling Suds, Jay. It needs some bolstering.”

“I ‘bolstered’ it not six months ago.”

“Right. But that was then, in spring. Season's slow now. And there's this matter of … well, you know.” Brent glanced at Robbie.

Which was when the pieces clicked into place. “You've borrowed against the business, haven't you?” TongueMan said. “What is it this time? Horses? Dogs? Cards? I'm not about to—”

“Hey, you listen.” Robbie took a step forward as if to demonstrate the considerable difference in their sizes. “You owe us, mate. Who stood by you? Who gave aggro to every Tom and Willie who even thought 'bout whispering behind your back? Brent got his arm broke because of you, and I—”

“I know the story, Rob.”