Butcher Read online

  And now the hand was planted in Latta’s head as well.

  Too many years in Fraud Squad had buckled George Latta’s brain.

  Perlman smoked his cigarette down to the filter. Look on the bright side – maybe he’d helped Latta’s miserable dental situation by realigning a couple of those lopsided teeth with his fist.

  Then the photograph in his coat pocket came back to annoy him.

  16

  He stashed the photograph on the floor behind the passenger seat and drove until he came to a pub. He rarely used pubs. He went in, ordered a Cutty Sark. He’d drink the taste of Latta out of his mouth, gargle, swallow. That fucker, was there no end to his prying, his relentlessness, his twisty mind? The Cutty was neat and sharp and fired his blood but it didn’t cause Latta to evaporate.

  He scanned the clientele around him, mixed crew. Some wore business suits and stood in cheerful huddles. Others, like himself, were solitary, sitting hunched at the bar, reading newspapers or staring into their drinks like fortune-tellers crystal-gazing. He recognized the raucous wee man who sold the Evening Times outside Buchanan Street Station.

  Suddenly ravenous, he surveyed the sandwiches in the display case, and asked the girl behind the bar for egg and tomato on brown bread. He munched it down before it had time to activate his taste buds. Then he sipped the dregs of his Cutty, contemplated a repeat, decided against it. He was a weakling, booze went like an express train to his head.

  He needed some clarity.

  Did Latta often visit the loft on his own? Did he sit on Miriam’s bed, or search her clothes, open her mail, plunder her drawers and cabinets, forever hunting the one significant clue he needed to nail both her and Perlman? Maybe he saw private messages in the canvasses. He was a victim of his own mania. Who knows, maybe on one of his ransackings he’d found that picture of Miriam and Colin and set it beside the bed, guessing Perlman would be drawn inexorably back to the loft and find it. A taunt, an act of malice. See, your wonderful Miriam still yearns for her late husband. Can’t fight a memory, Lou.

  I’m fucking glad I hit him.

  He ate another sandwich. The businessmen roared with laughter at some joke whose punch-line Lou eavesdropped. You ask me if I knew Pancho Villa? I had lunch with him. An old joke, but the preamble to the pay-off eluded him.

  He took out his mobile phone and dialled a number.

  The voice that answered was slurred.

  ‘You been on the piss, Pickler?’

  ‘Mr Perlman? I’ve been on the bevvy aw day, man. Slambam. Ridin that train, ridin that train.’

  ‘You’ll kill yourself.’

  ‘Aye, but what a way to go, eh? Up and up like a fucking kite. Wheeee. That’s the gemme.’

  ‘You sober enough to answer a question?’

  ‘Is it about that beheided clown? Christ, Mr Perlman, you set some toughies. Millerston, fuck me, it’s a graveyard with two pubs. The people out there remind me of The Night of the Living Deid. Nobody’s talking.’ The Pickler laughed uproariously. ‘Sorry, Mr Perlman. A clown with no heid. I find that fucking funny. Ho ho, it’s a riot, so it is.’ And off he went again, laughing like one of those showground sailor dolls in glass cases that rocked with Jack-tar glee if you shoved a penny in a slot. Perlman held the handset away from his ear while The Pickler tired himself out.

  Perlman said, ‘Forget the clown. OK?’

  ‘As you wish, Mr Perlman. Case closed. Ask me anything, The Pickler never lets you down.’

  Untrue. Sometimes his information was worthless and led you into a maze of mistakes. But he came right about fifty per cent of the time, and Perlman had never known any informant to be much more accurate than that. He’d never visited The Pickler’s residence, but he imagined it – a bare mattress in a two-room flat in Ibrox, a squalid box of a place that would make the house in Egypt seem like a pristine parsonage. Empty beer cans and the crusts of old mutton pies and pizzas with mould, which The Pickler probably ate when he was too drunk to notice fungal activity.

  ‘Concentrate. I’m trying to locate a certain Jackie Ace.’

  ‘Jackie Ace …’ The Pickler burped joyfully. ‘Sorry about that.’

  ‘At least I wasn’t forced to smell it.’

  The Pickler guffawed. ‘Jackie Ace, Jackie Ace. There used to be a country singer called Johnny Ace. Remember him? Forever my darlin I love only you … How did the rest of that go?’ The Pickler’s singing voice was like the panicky sound of a toad trapped in a knotted condom.

  ‘Never mind Johnny Ace, I’m looking for Jackie.’

  ‘Try The Triangle Club, Mr Perlman. Ace is a dealer down there.’

  ‘Cadzow Street?’

  ‘You know your Glesca, don’t you?’

  ‘Some days I wonder.’ Perlman severed the connection.

  He left the pub. As he stepped back inside his Ka his stomach growled like a man in a soup kitchen happy to have received his first sustenance in a long time.

  In Cadzow Street he parked close to the entrance to The Triangle Club. The sign outside was made from distended neon letters that changed colour, red to pink to blue and back again. The front door was painted with a big glossy Queen of Clubs. Perlman opened it and entered a bright reception area with a multitude of mirrors and hanging disco balls. A girl in a short red skirt and white blouse greeted him as if he was a welcome regular. Above the right breast of her blouse was a monogram – TriClub surrounded by a small Queen of Clubs.

  ‘Hi, I’m Rhoda,’ she said, wide happy smile.

  No denying it, Perlman enjoyed the smiles of young women. ‘Lou Perlman.’

  ‘Are you a member, Mr Perlman?’

  ‘Of the Strathclyde Police.’ He showed his badge.

  The girl kept the smile going. He wondered if she ever allowed herself a moment of gloomy self-examination. ‘Do you need to check the premises, sir?’

  ‘Check the premises?’

  ‘Make sure we’re complying with the Gaming Laws?’ she said, as if the existence of such ordinances were a joke she shared privately with him.

  ‘Nothing like that, love. I’m here to see Jackie Ace.’

  ‘If you pop through that beaded curtain, you’ll find Jackie at one of our poker tables. Is there anything else I can do? Will you be wanting a complimentary cocktail?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Can’t tempt you with one of our Triangle Troubadours, a shot of vodka, a touch of crème de menthe?’

  ‘I’ll pass, love.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re missing. Take your coat?’

  She already had a hand on his shoulder and was stepping behind him to unburden him of the garment. He liked the touch of her hand and the scent of her perfume and that small happy-to-please face of hers. Take my coat, please.

  ‘I think I’ll keep the coat on.’

  ‘OK-doke. Anything you need, Mr Perlman, remember my name.’

  ‘You’re not the forgettable type.’ He pressed a five pound note into her hand and she took it.

  ‘You don’t have to.’

  ‘There’s a lot of things I don’t have to do,’ he remarked, smiling brightly.

  ‘Enjoy,’ she said.

  She pushed the curtain aside for him, and he entered a huge room beyond. It was glitz and silvery lightstrips and more pert short-skirted girls carrying trays of brightly coloured booze from table to table. The place was crowded, yet hushed with the ecclesiastical atmosphere of serious gambling. Perlman wandered between the tables, listened to the flip of cards, the quiet plastic chink of chips, an occasional exasperated sigh. The dealers were mainly young and good-looking and attentive. A roulette wheel turned, and a couple of slot-machines placed well away from the tables whirred.

  Perlman lit a cigarette and counted ten blackjack tables and six poker, where the games were high-stake and serious. He walked to the back of the room. He watched a glamorous dealer, dressed in shiny blue jacket and ruffled blouse and tight blue pants, shuffle a deck and float cards to each play
er with light-fingered ease of movement.

  Good hands, delicate fingers, long nails perfectly lacquered deep red.

  Perlman moved closer. The dealer glanced at him, then she continued to distribute cards. The punters picked them up, examined them, fidgeted, tapped fingertips on baize. Heavy casino action sometimes put Perlman in mind of a wake where nobody knew how to break the ice. There was some bluff and bluster, and cards were tossed aside until only two players remained. The pot was eventually scooped by a guy in a grey Armani jacket.

  ‘I’m on a nice wee roll,’ the winner said, dragging chips toward his pile.

  The dealer lightly flicked a fallen lock of blonde hair from her eyes. A sexy gesture, Lou thought. ‘Your luck’s in, Stan.’

  ‘Right enough, Jackie,’ the man called Stan said.

  Jackie.

  Perlman couldn’t take his eyes from her. Conscious of his stare, she gave him a quick look, then dealt a new round. He was transfixed: a stunning woman. When she glanced at him again, he turned his face away a moment before looking back. She continued to deal. The cards floated baizeward, seeming to hang just a second too long in the air. She had the touch, the deft magic.

  When the play was finished, Jackie Ace stepped from the table and approached Perlman. ‘You’re staring at me.’

  ‘I wasn’t aware, sorry,’ Perlman said.

  ‘It becomes a little unsettling.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’

  ‘Is there something you’re looking for?’

  ‘You are Jackie Ace?’ Perlman’s throat was dry. The air in here.

  ‘Got it in one.’

  ‘I need a minute of your time is all.’

  ‘I’m due a five minute cigarette break, even though I don’t smoke.’ She walked away from him, and he followed behind the slots and through a doorway into a dimly lit room where busted machines had been gutted for repair and the air smelled of solvents.

  ‘You’re a cop.’

  ‘It shows?’

  ‘Just a touch. It’s like a whistle only dogs hear. I’m not saying I’m a dog, mind you.’

  ‘Far from it.’ Perlman smiled, drawn into Jackie Ace’s eyes which, surrounded by sparkle and long false eyelashes, were sharp and intelligent.

  ‘Compliments always welcome … OK, I’ve only got five minutes.’

  ‘My name’s Perlman, by the way. Detective Sergeant.’ He reached in his pocket for a smoke. Empty packet. He felt the strong pinch of a nicotine need. He took out the packet and squeezed it. A prisoner of unhealthy needs.

  He cleared his throat and said, ‘This is out of the blue. I was talking to Ben Tartakower, who tells me you’re impressive with a blade.’

  She looked into his eyes, checking him out. ‘I haven’t thought of old Tarty in donkeys. It’s another lifetime—’

  ‘But you remember the abortions, the illegal—’

  ‘Stop there. Are you here to pin any of that on me?’

  ‘Christ no. That’s past and dead as far as I’m concerned.’

  ‘Good. I have absolutely no interest in going back to that period of my life.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ Perlman watched for a sign, some little tell in Ace’s painted features that would suggest a lie, a swerve. But he felt no blip of menace, no sense of anything hidden. Tartakower had said: something wrong, something you sense. Yes. But not the way I understood you, Tarty. I wasn’t expecting a transvestite who emitted glamour and sex appeal in palpable waves – and whose sexuality was revealed only by a certain slight protrusion of brow, and a tiny Adam’s apple barely noticeable.

  ‘You still haven’t told me why you’re here,’ Ace remarked. ‘You’re not just trawling ancient history because you’re at a loose end.’

  ‘I’m working a case at the moment. Looking for somebody who severed a hand.’

  ‘Don’t tell me Tarty suggested I might have done this?’

  ‘No, no, nothing like that.’

  ‘I bet he said I was fast but I had the wrong attitude.’

  ‘That’s the gist.’

  ‘He’s a grumbling old git.’

  ‘Hasn’t changed.’

  ‘He used to think of me as his assistant. He was on amyl a lot of the time.’

  ‘I heard that—’

  ‘So he needed somebody to prop him up. He resented the fact he had to rely on anyone, especially me – with my obvious predilections. I managed to get out before the roof caved in, and I don’t think he was a happy camper when he was the only one who went to jail.’ She laughed quietly. ‘I cut decks for a living, Mr Perlman, not human flesh.’

  Perlman shrugged. This wasn’t the first pointless pursuit of his career, and it wouldn’t be the last. Fuck you, Ben, for the goose-chase. Are you sitting in your hovel smirking?

  Perlman asked, ‘Why give up a surgical career?’

  ‘I got tired of bodies, Sergeant. You know the feeling.’

  ‘I know it all right … If you remember anything you might have forgotten, call me. Anything at all. Names of the other students, whatever, it might be important …’ He took a card out of his wallet and wrote his home phone number on it. ‘Here.’

  Jackie Ace laughed. ‘You know, I can hardly believe those times existed. Sometimes I think I dreamed them. You’ll have to excuse me, work to do, cards to deal. Nice to meet you.’ Ace walked away, stopped, looked round. ‘You saw through me, didn’t you? A lot of the punters don’t. How long did it take?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Perlman said.

  ‘Ah, but you had an unfair advantage. Tartakower gave you my name – but I bet he didn’t tell you what to expect, did he?’

  ‘No, he didn’t say.’

  ‘What if you hadn’t known my name?’

  ‘Then I’d never have guessed,’ Perlman said.

  ‘You’re sweet,’ she said.

  She walked out of the room, leaving Perlman alone with the stripped slots and his nicotine cravings. He left the casino the way he came in, through the beaded curtain.

  Rhoda popped up like a sudden rainbow. ‘Leaving so soon?’

  ‘No reflection on your casino, love.’

  ‘We like to think we run the best in the city. The others are all a bit naff, past their sell-by. We like to keep the clientele in a good mood. We Try – that’s our motto.’

  ‘Mission accomplished,’ he said.

  Outside, darkness, street lamps glowing. Cauld. He walked back to where he’d left his car. He unlocked it, got inside, scavenged a cigarette-end from the ashtray and lit it, almost singeing his nose. Two puffs, deid.

  Fag end of a lost day, he thought.

  Tartakower’s joke. You give me the name of a guy who likes to dress as a woman. And you don’t tell me. So egg on my face.

  He rubbed the knuckles of the hand he’d used to fell Latta. They were red, and they ached. Inflict pain, you always get some of it back.

  17

  Because the battery of his mobie was almost flat, Perlman made a call from a public telephone outside a twenty-four-hour petrol station in Alexandra Parade. Madeleine answered. Perlman offered a profuse apology about the unholy hour of his previous call: he was notorious, ha ha, for failing to keep track of time. He told her he was so absentminded he’d probably forget to show for his own funeral.

  She was never annoyed with Perlman for long. She found his stories of clueless criminals and their vainglorious plans intriguing, because they were her only link with her husband’s work. Sandy dumped his professional life outside the house, as if he were removing objectionably muddy wellington boots. She began to tell Lou about her latest discovery on the Internet – she’d found a Porteous McNiven who’d emigrated from Dundee to New Zealand in 1856. Lou listened, tapping fingertips on the coinbox: here she goes. She was genuinely excited by this discovery. She’d been tracking her family name for years.

  ‘And this character’s important?’ Perlman asked. He found the roots business a bore, and hoped Maddie wouldn’t relate the life and times of Por
teous McNiven to him. But she did: long arduous trip and hostile Maoris and a shipwreck, all you could ask for. He was fond of Maddie, and enjoyed her company hugely, but Jesus she could be longwinded when she got on to the subject of her genealogy.

  ‘ … I’ve only tracked him as far as Dunedin,’ she was saying.

  ‘Maddie, my dear, I need to talk to your inferior half if he’s there.’

  ‘He’s slumped in front of the telly. Hang on.’

  Perlman heard Scullion’s voice in the background, then the phone was picked up. ‘In search of updates?’

  ‘I was hoping for some.’

  ‘You saved me a call,’ Scullion said. He was quiet a moment, presumably waiting for Maddie to move out of earshot. Perlman picked at a wart of chewing-gum stuck to the wall of the phone box, then drew his hand away when he considered health threats. ‘It seems the victim was alive when the cut was made, Lou.’

  ‘Sid’s sure?’

  ‘Positive. There was evidence of bruising, and that apparently only happens in the living.’

  Perlman shut his eyes because the neon sign at the edge of the concourse was suddenly too bright. ‘I can only hope this poor fucker was drugged to the moon.’

  ‘Even if he wasn’t unconscious, he’d pass out from the pain.’

  ‘And he wakes up and then what? Bleeds to death? I doubt if the stump was cauterized properly. This isn’t some routine hospital operation – unless its NHS policy to dump amputated limbs in people’s houses. I know they’re in a fuck of a mess, but even so—’

  ‘Sid’s still waiting on the DNA test result to establish gender, which I’ll pass along as soon as I know anything. I can’t push him, because this isn’t my case.’

  ‘Whose case is it?’

  Scullion hesitated. ‘Tigge’s.’

  Perlman had an effervescent burst of rage. ‘How the fuck did that bearded plodder get it?’

  ‘Tigge is Tay’s wife’s cousin.’

  ‘Nepotism,’ Perlman said. He watched a hooker get out of a taxi. She was all spangles and fishnet stockings. She sashayed inside the station. This interest in girls, what was happening to him: resuscitated adolescence, a new influx of randy born-again hormones?