The Book of Dave (23 page)

'I don't handle divorce,' the Skip Tracer said, picking his nails with a very sharp penknife. He hadn't even bothered to face
Dave while the potential client was stating his business.

'It isn't divorce,' Dave protested to the close-cropped back of his head; 'we're divorced already, this is about the kid.'

'Whatever.' The Skip Tracer played an absent-minded arpeggio on his computer keyboard. 'Kids, divorce, whatever, I don't do
nosebag neither.'

'What?'

'Sniff-sniff, chop-chop.' The Skip Tracer chopped out imaginary lines of cocaine on the desktop. 'YerknowhatImean, barley,
rows of, nosebag. Don't touch it, never have, never will. Despise it – despise people that do.'

'I didn't say anything about … nosebag.' Dave shifted in his plastic chair and looked uneasily towards the window, where
vertical louvres sliced up the nondescript terrace opposite.

'Didn't say – thought.' The Skip Tracer got up, turned around and jumped up so that he was sitting on his desk, a utilitarian
steel unit that was pressed against a large map of the Dutch Antilles. He brandished the penknife at Dave. 'I'm quick on the
… on the … quick on the uptake, see. Quick – that's me.' He ran his free hand through his thick grey-blond hair, which
was very straight, long at the front and architecturally layered at the back. 'I'm so fast people jump to the conclusion that
I'm doing nosebag. You did – didn't you?'

'No, not especially, you do seem a bit wire – '

'Wired, right, wired. Fucking wired, right. Nosebag, that's what you're thinking, right?'
Fucking mental is more like it, I don't get this
geezer at all. He looks like a toff, with the Gieves and Hawkes whistle,
the braces, the black-bloody-brogues. Chinless as well, gold signet ring,
gold cufflinks, but he talks like a bloody space cadet.
'I don't mind, I can handle it. I don't care what you think.'
Gold said he did mostly
financial stuff, chasing money, so that's good for me. Gold said it's all a
grey area, this sort of work, and this fellow will do a B & E or a wiretap
if he has to – not personal but he has people.
'I've just got a fast metabolism. See this shirt? Fresh on at lunchtime … this morning's' – the Skip Tracer leaped up,
went over to a perforated metal cylinder in the corner and plucked up a limp rag – 'in the fucking bin. My cufflinks rust
if I wear 'em two days running, 'coz the sweat's just lashing offa me, lashing offa me … I'm that fast, see, but it ain't
nosebag. Now, what ya got for me?'

'I thought you didn't do kids?' Dave got up, ready to leave.

'A
man's
kiddies is different, daddies is different. Ya see, divorce business is ninety per cent women, ninety per cent. Why? 'Coz
they're cats, ain't they, cats … curiosity gets 'em every time. Minute hubby's gotta few items on his Mastercard bill
he can't square, they wanna know the colour of the bint's pubes he's tomming around with. Gotta know – haveta know. It's not
about love, it's not about money, it's not about kiddies – it's just bloody curiosity. You're different – it's your kiddie.
Call me sentimental, go on, call me sentimental' – the Skip Tracer skipped over to a grey filing cabinet on top of which were
lined up five full bottles of single-malt whisky and yanked from behind them a silver-framed photograph of a teenage girl
with a mouth full of orthodontistry –'but I love my kiddie, wouldn't want to be parted. No way, no way … Anyway, Gold says
there's a money angle, which is?' He slapped the photograph back down and closed in on Dave, still waggling the penknife.

'This.' Dave handed him the card. 'I had this Brice in the back of my cab; he works for the bank that are handling the buyout
of my ex's new bloke's company. His name is Cal Devenish – '

'Oh him!' The Skip Tracer was delighted. 'I've heard of'im, well, whassthe beef?'

'I heard this bloke on his mobile saying he didn't think Devenish was kosher, thought he was spending more money than he could
possibly have –'

'I like it, I like it – liking it, liking it. You wanna know how much he 'az? I'll tell you!'

The Skip Tracer leaped for his desk, yanked up the receiver of one of the four phones on it and punched a string of digits
without even looking: 'Channel Devenish, that's right, love, D-E-V-E-N-I-S-H. I dunno, Charlotte Street probably, yeah, yeah
… Hello, Channel Devenish? Yeah … Barry Forbes here, City Desk at the
Standard,
we're doing a thing on your buyout, can I have a word with the Financial Director … and that is? Bob Gubby … sure,
thanks … Mr Gubby? Barry Forbes here from the
Standard,
yeah, yeah, just a short item on the buyout, and, well,
you
actually … people are impressed … we all know FDs are the real deal makers, juss wanned to check some facts, no time
to look up the clips … corporate bankers … I see, yes … in the Haymarket, and they're the seniors? Excellent.
One other thing, d'you have a photo? Black and white preferably, bike it over if you could, mark it for my attention and I'll
pass it to the picture desk. Barry Forbes, that's right, F-O-R-B-E-S. Brilliant, brilliant…' He broke the connection and
redialled while hissing at Dave, 'Carrot, see, mug thinks he's gonna be in the evening rag, carrot, give 'em carrot, it's
like nosebag for desk jockeys – hello?' he said, returning to the phone, 'Bob Gubby here at Channel Devenish, could I speak
to our corporate manager? Mr Hurst, that's right… he's at lunch? Well, his secretary will do … Hello, Bob Gubby here
at Channel Devenish, yes, I know he's at lunch, I just need to check something quickly … is that a Barbadian accent? Really,
I love Barbados, I was on holiday there last year, no, near Speightstown …'

The Skip Tracer's chat-up was like hypnotizing someone with a pendulum: the trick lay in its very obviousness. From the secretary
he elicited Cal Devenish's personal bank details: 'We're worried a payment hasn't gone through and everyone's at lunch at
this end. Yes … a big payment … I thought I might have the account number wrong … it looks like a five, but it
could be an eight … 'Digit by digit he extracted the account number, without the young woman on the end of the line even realizing
that he'd provided her with no accreditation at all except holiday snaps and a false name. 'Carrot, see, big dick Barbadian
one!' he snapped at Dave when he'd broken the connection. Then he called Devenish's bank and pretended to be a manager from
another branch: 'He's applied for a loan here … nothing large, but I felt I ought to check it out …' With each call
he made, the Skip Tracer morphed astonishingly: from City Editor to Financial Director, from FD to Bank Manager. His voice
changed, his accent changed, his wiry body coiled and stretched across the desk. 'I see, really?' He scribbled a number on
a pad and chucked it over to Dave while still on the call. 'Well, that is strange, but very rich men can be, can't they? And
it's all business for us, no?'

Dave was looking at the number, which had six digits. The Skip Tracer hung up. 'Carrot, see, loan, get it, nosebag, banker
nosebag, that is – a loan.'

'He's got over seven hundred grand in his current bloody account!' Dave expostulated.

'£743,485 to be precise,' the Skip Tracer said. 'He's fucking loaded. But I don't do pro bono, my son, no way Jose, I'm not
some fucking ambulance chaser. You'll have to cough up, on the nail, on the nail. And no borrowing to pay me.' He wagged a
finger. 'I know those sharks, I know the vig.'

'Aren't you worried about them tracing all of that?' Dave put in. 'All those dodgy calls?'

'Cummear.' The Skip Tracer pulled Dave to his feet and tucked his arm around the bigger man's neck. Dave smelled sweat and
aftershave – both of them were lashing off him. 'I'm gonna like you, son. I'm gonna enjoy doing stuff fer you, b'lieve me.
B'lieve it. Cummear … see the flex, see the phone wire, lets follow it …' The Skip Tracer three-legged Dave out the
door and in through the open door of the adjoining office. It was empty save for a pile of phone directories and smelled of
new carpet tiling. The phone wire snaked across the chequerboard and disappeared into a wall. 'There it goes into its little
hole. Company that rents this gaff' – he laid a crooked finger against his tip-tilt nose – 'I've never seen 'em. They'll be
one of those nosebag fronts with their name on a plate in an accountant's office on the Isle of Man. Ironically it might be
the same bean counter who fronts up for your man Devenish. Geddit?'

The fare was
a tedious old fucker,
who couldn't forbear from lecturing Dave on London's architecture. Dave hated birds – especially old human ones; he hated
their alien stare, their hollow bones, their greasy feathers, their hard, pointed lips. The fare's thesis was simple: the
city had ceased to evolve after the Great Fire. The last three hundred and fifty years were only a series of recapitulations,
the erection of new-old buildings, tricked out in the styles of lost civilizations. He pointed out the neo-Gothic station
frontage, its triplets of lancet windows complete with quatrefoils, its angled and flying buttresses, its iron pinnacles and
gabled niches. Despite himself Dave craned to look up and piloted Chitty Chitty Bang Bang into the gulch being excavated for
the Channel Tunnel terminal. Luckily, its wings spontaneously unfurled, the huge car swooped back up on to the roadway. The
fare was unfazed. He discoursed on the wooden, barrel-vaulted roof of King's Cross, then directed his attention to the neoclassicism
of the terraced houses lining Royal College Street – their snub facades alluding to the possibility of stately porticos, their
anorexic pilasters referencing temples long since crumbled. 'Vares nuffing nú unnersun, mì sun.' The fare spoke the broadest
of cockney, vowels crushed to death by rumbling lorries on the Mile End Road. 'Doan ask wy ve öl daze wuz bé-er van vese,
coz U aynt gó ve nous fer í. Lemme tellya, no geezer az a fukkin clú abaht iz oan tyme, yeah? Ees juss lyke a fukkin sparrer
– '

'The sparrows are nearly all gone in London,' Dave put in.

'Eggzackerly!' In the rearview mirror Dave saw the old man's bony digit waggle. 'Eggzackerly, lyke a fukkin sparrer aw a bitta bá-erred cod.'

'They're going inall.'

'Rì agen, gawn, cort inna eevul fukkin net, mayt, an eevul fukkin net vat juss cum aht uv ve fukkin sky.'

Coming up Highgate Road, Dave used the steep slope after the railway bridge to take off, and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang unfurled
its wings once more, and soared up over the redbrick, 1930s blocks of Lissenden Gardens. He banked the flying car and came
in on a flat approach to the summit of Parliament Hill, touching down on the path with hardly a bump. They rolled to a halt,
and the fare got out. Dave searched the dash for a meter but couldn't find one. There was hardly any point in trying, for
when he looked again he saw that the old man had done a runner, pelting off down the hill towards the Highgate Ponds, his
long black robe streaming behind him. 'I s'pose I'll just have to wipe my mouth on that one,' Dave muttered to himself.

Dawn was silvering the mirrored buildings of the City – further to the east the bridge at Dartford floated above the riverine
mist. The streetlights were still on, phosphorescent trails in the oily swell of streets and buildings. Dave felt an aqueous
queasiness when he saw the long line of the North Downs to the far south – they were distant islands, uninhabited and uninhabitable.
At his back he sensed the ridges of Barnet and then the Chilterns rising up, wooded shores against which London lapped.

Carl and his mother were sitting on one of the benches that looked out over the city. As Dave drew closer, he saw that they
were both in their nightwear. He sat down, putting his arm around his son. 'Are you going to do the baddest thing in the world,
Dad?' Carl asked, and Dave replied, 'Yes, son, yes, I think I will.'